[alberg30] Re: atomic 4 & stuff

[FINNUS505 at aol.com]

From: <FINNUS505 at aol.com>

Hi Frank!

Glad to know someone is as busy as I am!

Didn't know that A30's HAVE  a tiller stuffing box! I've been back there, and
didn't see one on my boat!  My Dad had an Islander 32 once, and when he
changed from tiller to Edson wheel steering, he had to have a rudder post
stuffing box put in so the quadrant could fit beneath the cockpit sole. One of
the few jobs he did not do himself, the 'installer' did not attach the bronze
stuffing box to the stub of the rudder tube well enough, and the boat nearly
sank when launched, when the seam between the stuffing box and rudder tube let
go!

As for your access through the cockpit locker to get to the area beneath the
cockpit sole, you might consider what I have done.

I bought a 14x 16" Bomar plastic access hatch, and installed it in the cockpit
sole, just aft of the scuppers. Gives EXCELLENT access to stuffing box,
seacocks and hoses for scuppers, and for my volvo, the water pump, which was
just about inaccesible from the cabin.

There were two problems I discovered, though. One is that with the vibration
of cutting out the hole for the panel with a Milwaukee Sawzall, I got a small
amount of delamination between the masonite core and one of the glass layers.
I countered that by infusing thinnned epoxy (Git Rot) into the split, and
bolting a beam athwartships beneath the cockpit sole, just aft of the panel.
The second problem is that the Bomar hatch gives a little underfoot, and while
I do not think it would break under normal body weight, I was worried that if
someone (foolishly) jumped into the cockpit and landed right on the panel,
there might be a problem. I was going to make a teak cockpit grating for the
boat anyway, so I'll just make it a little stronger, so that it will bear any
weight that might be put on it.

Even given these two problems, I would still do the project. Getting such easy
access to the stuffing box and the back of my engine is worth it.

Good Luck, Frank. Keep me posted!

Lee Trachtenberg

Stargazer #255, 1967

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