Join us on the SV HideAway as we explore Florida's West Coast seeking enlightenment on a course towards wisdom aboard a 23' Com-Pac sailboat.
While we love sailing, we also like to travel. See how we travel from a sailor's
prospective. Should be interesting....
.#sailinghideaway #svhideaway
#compacsailboats #compac23
Watch Sailing HideAway Videos
Our Sailing Hideaway Blog and YouTube videos will remain active.
Join the HideAways as we tell, through blog stories and videos, what life really is like on a small, 23' Com Pac sailboat. We'll show the joys, thrills and chills of the sailing life, but also what it takes to maintain a boat, trailer and truck. You are just as likely to learn how not to do something correctly as to do it right. That's important too!
New! The Hideaways take to the road!
Follow Traveling Hideaway: Winds of Wanderlust Transitioning from Sailing Hideaway to Traveling Hideaways as sailors learn to travel without heeling, well, not much, anyway.
The Paint Wasters Society unlocks the art of paint squandering with sheer delight, free from the shackles of remorse or guilt. Trust me, a century down the line, nobody's going to bat an eyelash, so why not indulge in some paint splattering shenanigans today? Let's turn those pricey pigments into a canvas of laughter and joy.
Commonly known as a NRRS; New Rub Rail Snake, came coiled
in an innocent looking cardboard box from Com Pac Yachts of Clearwater Fl.
New improved rub rail from Com Pac Yachts
The old rub rail succumbed to a fuel dock near Johns Pass. The incident involving
a large commercial fishing boat wake
propelled by an excited tide racing for the Gulf of Mexico heaved the HideAways’
against the dock with far more enthusiasm than prudence permits.
The New Rub Rail Is Of Much Improved Quality
The very thing that made installing it a most challenging affair.
Replacement rub rail on left is larger than OEM on right
Bow Plate does not fit new rub rail
The radius of the metal connector is too small to accommodate the new rub rail.
The only viable solution involved surgery and language unsuited for gentile ears.
New Rub Rail - Right - is larger and thicker
I removed the interior lower flanges on the new rub rail (right) and narrowed the distance from the hull by trimming the upper flanges.
I also trimmed the two "legs" to let the rub rail move closer to the hull and allow for clamping.
Clamp and Awl
The trimmed end is best held in place by a good C clamp until you can find the correct alignment to slip the bolt through. Good luck with that. The awl worked well but it does take patience.
By the way, I used a leather hole punch to install the holes in the rub rail.
“Jist leave it in the sun for a piece –
It’ll stretch real easy”
Clamps Clamps and More Clamps Are Needed
Thus a simple two bolt project turned into two days of sweltering fun under a summer sun so hot that only a few moments’ exposure made metal tools too hot to handle without protection, not to mention the HideAways.
Loading the last of the tools from a just finished project
into the truck, a glob of rust on the trailer caught my eye. The rust glob appeared just where the shiny tongue
extender pin should be. A rust glob is never a welcome sight on a sailboat trailer, or anyplace
else for that matter. A couple of taps
with a hammer broke the pin free, leaving a small pile of rusted tongue
extender pin bits on the ground.
Tongue Extender Pin or Hitch Pin?
History was made when my friend, Mr. Google, could not find
a “6 inch trailer tongue extender pin”. After learning about a variety of trailer accessories I’ll
never need, I concluded no such device exists in the digital universe. I eventually discovered a trailer hitch pin with a strong
family resemblance to my tongue extender pin, sans the red stuff, available for
a big pile of the green stuff.
After some deliberation I realized that something made for a
trailer hitch located well up under the truck is an unlikely candidate for salt
water immersion. After all, if you’ve
got your truck in that deep, you have more problems than a rusted tongue
extender pin.
Something Galvanized Preferably Hot Dipped
A 5/8 x 6 inch hot dipped galvanized bolt and nut shall likely
replace the shiny orange handled creation of yore. Yes inches, I haven’t a care to know how many
millimeters the rest of the world envisions.
Besides, a millimeter sounds like a name for nasty bug with lots of legs
and sharp teeth.
A Wiggle – A Shake –
and A Break
Given that we hadn’t planned to launch the boat without a
pin in our extended tongue, the polite thing to do would be to retract the
tongue extender to prevent injury to patrons and or vehicles of guests coming
in hordes to our sailing club annual open house the next weekend.
A Jammin Tongue Extender - What Next?
This good deed left
the tongue extender jammed in its carrier.
Of course no sailor can possibly resist the temptation to
pull and jerk a bit on the tongue in some vain hope of an easy fix. A crash and a bang and another project was
born.
One Good Jerk Did This
In less than five
minutes a simple project became a triple threat
A jack and stand wrestled out of my over crowded garage
along with a box of anticipated useful tools to complement the ship board collection
and a found trailer jack, slightly bent, made up the kit for part one of the
project.
Floor Jack Placed Directly Under Tongue Support
I never trust just a jack to keep anything up in the air for long. A sturdy jack stand(s) are a must. In this case I had to carefully place the jack and the stand beneath the tongue extender supports.
I use an automotive floor jack for jobs such as
this. My only complaint is that the jack
wheels allow the jack to move as the jack is activated. Sometimes several attempts must be made to
center the piece properly on the stand. Once set, I leave the jack under some pressure with most of
the weight supported by the stand.
Finally, all jacked and stable, I moved on to removing the
broken trailer jack to find the bolts holding it on the trailer tongue were METRIC.
Why can’t the rest of the world adopt good ole SAE
measurements?
Of course not one of my few metric wrenches or sockets came along
for the trip. According to my Garmin GPS MAP640 my dwelling is seven miles as the GPS flies from HideAways bow. In Florida
time, this is about 47 minutes of joy filled driving on crowded, tourist-infested
roads.
I knew the trip would be futile exercise in bad traffic
manners so a side trip was in order to look for the pin and also price trailer
fenders – Always have another project-You never know when you will need one. Yes, my venerable tape measure came up short
a couple of inches and no, I did not procure any fenders, long or short. Yet.
Relaxed from all the
slow driving and lost tourists;
I discovered NONE of my small collection of metric
tools fit the bolts
A Jim-Dandy Universal Bolt Removal Tool
Using Come-A-Long Winch
To Remove Tongue Extender
After finishing these repairs, I gave a fearful tug or two on
the frozen tongue extender before resorting to the almighty Come-Along Winch and
a pick up truck to effect its removal.
You can see how well that idea worked out in this video.
