[Public-List] A Mighty Relief

[daniel joseph walker]

I need a nap after reading this. Wore me out
Dan

Gordon Laco <mainstay at csolve.net> wrote:

>Hello friends,
>
>If any of you heard cursing coming from 44.7N 79.8W yesterday, that was me
>tackling the replacement of SURPRISE¹s broken steering cable.  Last season
>while racing I had to dive under a boat crossing us on starboard tack and
>felt the wheel give a tug before catching again.  What ho, thought I, wire
>cables can¹t stretch, I wonder what that was.... I tried not to think about
>it, fearing bad news.  Later I gathered my courage and climbed down into the
>cockpit locker to look at the cables...sure Œnuff, one had Œstranded¹.  The
>7x19 wire had turned into 1 of 7x19; the other six having broken.  We became
>a tiller steered boat for the rest of last season.
>
>I patiently waited all winter hoping the steering cable would repair itself,
>but when I and Sailor-Girl Caroline arrived yesterday morning with a trunk
>load of tools, the damned thing had NOT repaired itself.  I figured that
>we¹d delayed launching long enough so I gave up and decided to fix it
>myself.
>
>The geography under the cockpit of our apres-400 Alberg with her
>factory-installed Edson wheel steering is set up with demonic genius.  One
>can see things but can¹t reach them, other things that really must be
>reached cannot be seen at all.  The longitudinal bulkheads under the cockpit
>have two access squares cut, supposedly I suppose to facilitate getting at
>the steering, but in reality only large enough to squint through, and two
>smaller ones a bit forward.     How were we going to get the three hands
>we¹d need to replace and secure the cable in there?
>
>We started the job by cutting the access holes a little larger.  I used the
>vertical zip tool we¹d used to cut  the cockpit sole open a few years ago
>when doing the deck job.  Naturally the first set of bits I bought for it
>were too large so we had to go back to the hardware store to exchange them
>between the two return trips, standing in line, and doing the transactions,
>we used up an hour.
>
>Back at SURPRISE, we emptied the lockers and after carefully feeling around
>to make sure I wasn¹t going to cut some wire or whatever along with the
>wood, I enlarged the holes.  I could now reach an arm in each hole, with
>enough room in the after one to look in at the same time.  However I
>realized that there was no way I was going to be able to reach the cable
>with cutters to finish the seperation of the bad cable.  At that point Bob,
>who owns the marina, strolled by.  Trying to keep panic out of my voice I
>said good morning then went right into asking if he¹d consider doing the job
>for us if we failed.  Never ruffled, Bob said he would, but encouraged us to
>keep at it and let him know how we did.
>
>Something made me walk over to the car where  I bumped into our friend Rod
>and after a brief conversation walked away with his dremel cutter kit.
>Literally seconds after climbing back under the cockpit the cable was
>cleanly cut.  FANTASTIC, thank you Rod!
>
>The Girl and I climbed back up into the cockpit and now addressed the issue
>of pulling the cable out of the binnacle.  For those who haven¹t seen the
>insides of one of these, the binnacle has a sprocket inside which is driven
>by the steering wheel.  Over the sprocket is draped a motorcycle chain which
>is nicropressed to the 7x19 wire steering cables.  We locked the brake on
>the wheel to hold the sprocket, and put a screw driver through a link of
>chain with a vice grip clamped on it to keep top dead centre. (very clever,
>I told myself).  We used the dremel again to cut off the bad cable.  We
>nicro pressed on the new cable after measuring it out against the old one.
>Yes, I know, we should have replaced both cables, but at this point I didn¹t
>yet know if we would be successful in fixing a termination to the quadrant
>end of the cable we were doing, so I didn¹t have the courage to cut the
>Œgood¹ one too.   At this point, hours into the job, we still didn¹t know if
>it was all going to turn out well.
>
>I should add that a howling 25-30 knot wind was blowing ­ it was screaming
>in the rigs of the boats around us and raising clouds of gritty dust.
>Halyards were frantically slapping, the tarp of a boat nearby was flogging,
>any rags or paper towels we set down instantly blew away.  We had to raise
>our voices to be heard.  There was a feeling of tension and impending
>disaster in the air.
>
>Back to the job.   We then pushed the cut end of the new cable down the
>binnacle while Caroline lay on top of the engine to catch the end and guide
>it through the sheaves at the fwd end of the system.  We then moved back
>into the cockpit lockers and rove the wire through the after sheaves and
>across the quadrant.    With moderate difficulty we hauled the wire taut and
>fitted a three bulldog wire clamps on and snugged them very tight.  We
>tensioned up the bolt, and the job was done.
>
>This is a longish email, and took you about three minutes to read it.... But
>to do what this message described took from 9am till 3pm to complete.  I was
>ready to give up several times during the day ­ however Caroline was of
>sterner stuff and provided steady encouragement, good advice (she¹s an
>engineer¹s daughter), a quick hand passing tools and reaching into places my
>arm wouldn¹t fit.  Thank you Caroline!
>
>However, the wire is replaced.  The wheel retained the same top-dead-centre
>orientation it had.  The rudder turns the correct way when the wheel is
>turned.  Done, Done, Done.  Well not quite, I still have to grease the new
>cable but after what we¹ve been through, that¹s nothin¹....
>
>What a relief.
>
>Gord #426 SURPRISE
>
>
>
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