S2E24 repairing my stern tube, building the standing rigging, fairing the hull (Dominican Republic)

This video features another jumping-around-episodes where I have Brock help me do some major projects on Artha in the Dominican Republic. These projects include repairing my stern tube and installing a cutless bearing, doing some fairing work on the hull, and then helping me build out most of my standing rigging.

I know how to build the standing rigging myself, but I needed that extra strength for tightening it all down as well as help for some other more important projects like making sure that cutless bearing was installed properly and aligned. The alignment of the cutless bearing was very important to me as I wanted the expertise on that as well.

Repairing Stern Tube and Installing Cutless Bearing

In this segment of the video, we begin with looking at the base of the mast while organizing our standing rigging. I am measuring off of the old rigging that Martin helped me cut in a previous episode, and then Brock and I end up adding an extra 2 feet to each measurement just to account for what couple inches we had already cut off um that were already in there.

Building the Standing Rigging

A majority of the standing rigging is 7/8 inches, with the lower ratline being 3/8 inch. It’s all 1×19 wire.

We’re only building the upper part of the rigging for now, and then when the boat is back in the water I can more accurately make the final cut to fine tune my rigging because the hole will change shape a little bit when it’s back in the water.

Fairing Work on Hull

For this final portion, I was doing some fairing work. I’m working on the rest of the portside of the hole, and before starting to fair it up, we use a bit of Total Boats dewaxer and surface prep. If you want any discount on any Total Boats product, make sure to use the link in the description below.

Unluckily for me, I had misplaced all of my epoxy stir sticks, so I am going to have to use this plastic knife. For fairing, we’ve used 407 West System, and the consistency we’re looking for is a peanut butter consistency.

Sailing Artha Shoutouts

I am also in the mountains at the moment, so I’m going to be putting out a video from here. Additionally, I just did a yoga practice and some of my first Artayoga subscriptions will be those videos that you’ll see.

So again, shout-out to all my patrons, all the YouTube commenters who are liking and sending gifts – thank you so much for watching the channel. Support has been great as I’m really excited to be able to paint the boat now.