Wow, David and Chris moved the bowsprit up to the deck and also lugged the housing of the windlass up there. The motor and bronze parts of the windlass are still sitting in a bin in the boat shed. That bin is so heavy that one person can hardly carry it.

When John and David planked Mahdee, they left “extra” planking closing in the area where the bowsprit goes so that it wouldn’t be too “open” when the time came to install the ‘sprit. This week, David fitted the ‘sprit and cut away the extra so that the fit was close but not so tight as to scrape paint off the ‘sprit as it is raised and lowered. We’re modifying the bowsprit and associated hardware so that the fixed forestay comes to the stem rather than the end of the bowsprit. Thus, the jibstay will be there just for that headsail, the bobstay will only hold that load and the whole bowsprit can be hinged up (shipped) so that the boat will be 10′ shorter. That 10′ equates to quite a dollar savings when fitting into a slip. At anywhere between $7 and $25/ ft / month slip fee, the cost of the mod is paid for very quickly! Not to mention that Mahdee’s sparred length is reduced from 67′ to 57′ with that and many more slips are available for a boat under 60’ than one over it.

When we considered this mod, we realized that we would also be adding a bit of safety to the rig. Originally, if the bobstay broke, the forestay slack would risk the entire rig coming down. Now, the risk is minimized as we intend double forestays–one on each side of the stem.

David working on the stem with the bowsprit balanced on the caprail and boat scaffold:

Carrying the windlass from the boatshed top to the deck requires “walking the plank” , see the narrow plank?:

In this pic, you can see the bowsprit in place, too:

The windlass case is sitting next to the spot it will be installed. It goes between the foot of the bowsprit and the scuttle housing.

Yesterday, my special-order 7″ moat deck iron came in the mail! Amazingly fast from Lunenburg foundry in Canada. I ordered it about 10 days ago. It seems than no foundry or supplier here in the US has moat deck irons larger than 5″. Andrew at Navigator Stove Works suggested I try Lunenburg since he couldn’t provide the large deck iron. We could have used a 6″ one, but took the advice of Andrew Craig-Bennett of the online Wooden Boat Forum to go with a larger deck iron so that we could further insulate the wood deck from the hot stove pipe. This requires us to take the 6″ pipe up through the iron to a point about 8″ above deck, pack with stove string and seal it with a bit of cement. Then, the exterior chimney is fit over the top of the “stub.”

The deck iron (bottom view):

Here’s the full installation of the moat deck fitting:

We used a wood block above the deck. The moat actually doesn’t even end up being down in the deck–it is suspended above it just a bit. We did use a jig saw to do the curved cuts on the blocking and separately through the deck. The Bosch 1590EVS jig saw was used and it is a good saw for keeping the blade straight but if you don’t hold it just so…you’ll end up with a cone rather than a straight cut.

The vertical/angles are all a bit tricky. The center point of the hole thru the deck was measured from the inside and a pilot hole put through the deck from the inside; the actual hole thru the deck was traced onto the deck from the outside and cut from the top down. The hole was cut a little small as the angle of that cut is more perpendicular to the deck which, of course, has camber so isn’t quite right. David tried to make that cut vertical, but was eyeballing it as he went. We then used a rotary sanding “tube” thing on the drill to sand the sides to the correct “vertical” state which is actually an angle thru the deck.

The thick mahogany blocking on top the deck had the shape cut out with the jig saw–both inside and out. However, these cuts were made through the top of the blocking (while it was NOT on the deck) and then the correct camber was traced onto the side of the blocking and the blocking bottom was cut and sanded to the proper camber and bedded onto the deck.

We made our blocking a couple inches larger diameter than needed but we thought we might end up putting a framework over the smoke head to keep lines from fouling on it and we’d attach that metal framework to the blocking rather than the deck. Thus the whole thing ends up being very large.

Pic of David checking out the line (on the overhead below deck) before cutting the entire hole:

The deck iron sitting in the too-small hole (before the hole was sanded out) so we could check the level and figure out how we’d cut the wood blocking for the camber.

In this pic below, the wood block has been mostly cambered and now we’re looking at cutting the hole in the middle and the curve on the outide edge. Along the left side you can see 4 of the sanding things I was talking about using with the drill–there’s one on the drill–to make sure the hole thru the deck is “vertical” too.

Here, below, the curves have been cut and edges sanded to be vertical. The wood block is already bedded so there’s tape over the wet bedding material and more taping done so that the deck iron can be bedded and fastened into place.

Finally, the deck iron is bedded in place, tape removed and David cleaning up the edge of the bedding material.

The masts have been sort of “crammed” into the small space that lies alongside Mahdee. There is about 5′ between Mahdee and the neighboring boat and a storage container. We built heavy stands to store the spars on in this location and they’ve been covered by tarps.

Here, you can see the main mast which is looking quite pretty with a couple coats of varnish. Its deep reddish purple tone is the natural color of the Douglas Fir. We will be painting the masts as the maintenance on them will be easier than keeping them varnished. The varnish is simply added to seal the wood before painting.

In the pic, I am measuring the location of rigging fittings on the foremast so we’ll have the info after the mast is painted and most “evidence” of the numerous fittings gone.