In a genre where a few amateurs and fly-by-nighters seem to thrive, it is comforting to watch your sound engineering and execution Steve. Well done. Judy, your old media skills are being well showcased. Thanks to you both for your efforts.
Watching your expertise over the years with high tech (most of which goes over my head), your abilities to conquer almost any job, your skills at sailing and your excellently produced videos you both never fail to impress massively. I am never going to sail around the World, never going to need to muck around with fibreglass or feel the need to understand electronic wizardry but ho hum it's never too late to learn summat especially when it is produced in such a wonderful and informative fashion. Thank you for all your videos (and I've seen them all) they are a joy.
Great work on the mast support. For any stickers or window tint in the future, a bit a soapy water in a spray bottle into the surface and sticker will avoid bubbles and allow you to slide the decals into place. Awesome channel thank you for sharing
Marvelous, we enjoyed your visit with Adam & Clare. Certainly an engineering marvel and so nice that John your Insurance Adjuster was there for confirmation. Happy Holiday's from the States.
Absolutely amazing what you have accomplished. Great job and done superbly and also very fast. You even managed to change lettering and so many other things you added to the list. Well done. Fair winds and hope to see you some time again.
Wow, what an incredible episode! You tackled a dangerous boat breaking fault head-on and fixed it yourself, bravo! Your perseverance and problem-solving skills are truly remarkable. Thanks for taking us on this journey with you and for sharing your knowledge and experiences. Your ingenuity in finding an ingenious solution is inspiring. Just think of the cost and complications if you had outsourced the repair. You're amazing! Well done on all the hard work! 👏👏👏
What an amazing Chandlers - it looks as if they've got everything you could ever need, and no doubt you have thoroughly enjoyed your daily visits to it!
Kudos for your remarkable engineering ability. Your experience and of so many other sailers make wanting to sail be poignant. I feel I have salt water in my veins but knowing the constant maintenance of even a new boat is daunting. A friend bought a new boat and said he never got to the end of the to-do list. Love your vids.
Loved this episode and congrats on getting the mast back up. Boat looks great. Smart move to get the surveyor to double check your work. Never knew about G10 material until today! Thank you!
Just found this video and saw great job done. The video making with all the explanations shows clearly how hard and precise is this repair. Your chanel is joy and useful to watch. Fair winds and Good luck!
Wow! What a brilliant video documenting, and curing, the mast problem. I thought I was quite clever fitting a new loft ladder recently. What you've just done I found really interesting and I'm sure you really deserve all the positive comments you've received. I think you'll enjoy looking back at your achievement too. Thank you from a very cold Kent.
Hi Steve, Yes, I remember you're from Cranbrook. Maidstone here and down to -3'C tonight@@svfairisle I'm so glad that you've got things fixed and you can both carry on entertaining and educating us all. P.
Fantastic work Steve..always best to do those really important jobs yourself so you're completely sure it's done right especially before making an Atlantic crossing...you'll certainly sleep better.
Well I guess it was lucky that you saw the fault before the crossing. Fixing it would have been difficult in the Caribbean. Great job Steve. The new font looks great as well.
At first I was amazed that a boat with such a reputation as Hans Christian would have a build quality issue this severe. Then I watched you repair it and was amazed again.
I was pretty shocked, but this was an issue that’s come out of a real balls up in Holland I think, not the yard in Thailand. Fair Isle was specified with full length tanks and a system was devised to bridge them with a super strong steel crosspiece. Problem is whoever put the pieces together in Holland had no idea what they were doing and mounted it all completely wrongly.
One of your best episodes. You treated us to a smart fix to a big problem, and then smartly documented corroboration by the surveyor that it was a job well done. I had to laugh and felt a kinship when you admitted making daily visits to the chandlery. I was likewise addicted during seven years of owning (or being owned) by a 40-foot wooden yawl.
Excellent episode. G10 is wonderful stuff, once it warms up in the UK, I have some uses for it - not quite so extreme though! Great to see that you can now move forward and Madiera sounds like a great stop.
How to turn such a mundane process into a really interesting video! Well done Steve. And well done Judy for knowing when to stay out of his way and when to come back and help. Oh, and I notice at 18:25, not using your Coutts credit card there Steve? 😉
I understand why you did what you did, and to be clear, you did a superbly brilliant job, as always. This is an excellent video. I would like to see the real costs. The previous arrangement was clearly a bit of a bodge, but from my not insignificant boat work experience, for the benefit of other owners of this type of vessel, I'd say there was (as is) way way enough strength in the 10 cm deck layup, the utterly massively engineered steel base plate, the bonded, connected bulkheads, and the compression post (even with its bodged lower fitments). If your previous arrangement was engineeringly insufficient, you'd have found deck cracking and the capstays changing tension (going slack), and you seemed to have none of this (after 20 odd years). I don't know where you got that G10, especially abroad as you are. It's rarely stocked (especially outside the USA) by any normal/usual on site marine suppliers, even in the thinner mm sheets, and costs an absolute, OTT shocking fortune in the thicknesses you used (which are even more difficult to find). It would be helpful to many 'newbies', I think, if you shared the realities of the of what I've said (...how DO you get hold of the stuff you use, get around having no delivery address, customs charges and delays, generally, if you do, etc) and, more importantly, the large overall costs of what you did. I'd estimate you'd have at least burnt through a minimum couple of thousands £ removing and refitting the mast, buying all those materials etc (and that's with you having all the tools and labour)? Understanding the REAL technical and other requirements, like - importantly - the huge costs of boat ownership, are important for the uninitiated and might help slow the uber trendy 'let's buy a boat and live on it' tidal wave of new 'how hard can it be' boaters that are appearing everywhere, mostly with their bulging wallets, clogging up marina capacity, and anchorages once empty, driving up marina and service costs for the rest of us 'normal' peeps with thin wallets 😮.
Yes all very good questions. We tend not to go through details to quite that level in the videos (because it makes for rather a dull video for most) I know some people want the smallest details, a lot of those guys are patrons and join in with the WhatsApp group / zoom calls etc to go through things. To answer your questions here though we were very lucky to be in one of the best yards in Europe. Sopromar can build and repair anything. They made the G10 themselves for a job on a Lagoon and had some left over which was just enough for the job I needed to do, I was lucky, Costs are a huge issue for us and if I had not done this job myself I think we would now be going back to work for a couple of years! Cost of skilled labour somewhere like this can break you for sure. As it was our total cost was around 3,000 Euros, it was money we had earmarked to buy a Hydrovane, that will now have to wait! The cost break down is not as you would expect either, the major cost we had was not lifting the mast and doing this repair it was getting the fridge and freezer to work well. That accounted for about 1.000 Euros and actually maybe more as there we are just working out that part of the bill at the moment. We had already paid almost a 1,000 euros this summer in various ports trying to fix the issues, so it's been a very expensive thing to have to deal with. At least we now have confidence that the work we've had done here overlooked by Paul has been brilliant.
Well done guys. Blimey that must be the world's toughest tank to bear the weight - more or less - of all the forces being transmitted down through the compression post. You must have had a shudder when you realised the true extent of the situation, remembering all the heavy blows that you've experienced, and the potential for a demasting (or worse). Anyway, now you know the boat even better...always trying to find an up-side. 🙂
I owned a Hansa built 48T for 32 years. Sailed her over 75,000 miles and never had any of the issues you've experienced with Fair Isle. When Herb Gulter, owner of Hansa, quit building the 33T and 48Ts, and the contract went to another yard, the quality suffered. Those of you looking to buy a 33T or 48T on the used market, seek out this built between 1982 and 1987. Those are the Gulter built boats. As to those built in Thailand; stay away from them as they have numerous construction problems.
That's not quite true. There was a dip in quality when HC moved to Thailand under Jeff White in 1986/7 but they got over them quite quickly and by the time Jack Hall took over in the early 90's they were building some of the best boats ever. Certainly the level of craftsmanship in the carpentry was superb. I definitely think the issue we had did not happen in Thailand but after the boat was shipped to Europe for the reasons I stated in the description.
That sure is a job well done Steve! Now get things ready and enjoy the passage to Madeira! And as ever, I wish you both all the best, beam reach winds and following seas!
Wow, you’re brave taking on this project! I’m never sure about my mast, compression post and keel! I tend to think I need to haul out, pull the mast, remove the compression post, inspect, reinforce, upgrade the electronics but this is more than I can visualize (until watching your video) so maybe I’ll go sailing and sleep on it! Subscribing!
Fantastic to get that done. It seems that architect, electrical team and carpenters were not effectively communicating when the boat was assembled. Now all is much more sound.
its nice to see that even high end boats were bodged in the build, having watched 'Sailing Parley' and the issues with the hulls in a poor designed and built catamaran. one would think that somebody would have inspected the work before any load was put on the mast plate. oh well so its not just westerly's then. good luck, I hope your head wound wasn't bodged in the repair and you keep that wound clean.
An excellent looking repair, it's been very interesting to follow what you have done. I've too have been working on a mast step and compression problem, nothing like your scale but it's been a comfort to know that other people on much bigger and better manufactured boats don't escape unscathed. While fixing my boat it's got me to thinking if the problems associated with deck stepped masts don't outweigh the disadvantages of keel stepped ones. For example, if Hans Christian had designed your boat with a keel stepped mast would this really have been much more of an inconvenience than your current compression post? Hans Christian would have been less likely to overlook the design requirement of a keel stepped mast, I doubt they would have mounted it on a water tank! Perhaps part of the problem with the Hans Christian is that the very thickness of the deck layup has driven a sense of complacency in the design of the support for the mast below decks?
Yes there are pluses and minuses with keel v deck stepped, you maybe right that they would have been less like to mess up the lower step if an actual mast was sitting on it though!
Bloody lucky to spot that botched-up job before things went south there Steve! Recent Zingaro episodes ref rescuing a dismasted yacht mid Pacific , spring to mind! I think you did an excellent job there with what you had available. For future reference, there are non-compressible hard plastic shims available in various shapes and thicknesses from 1mm upwards. They would have made installing the last pieces of G10 a lot simpler. I love watching your problem solving routine and really enjoyed this vid! Fair winds, Fair Isle, Madeira awaits!
Lovely solution to your problem and cleanly done! I hate to be an alarmist Steve, but I couldn't not see the red lines on the G-10 and think "Is that not peel ply?" I'm sure you've read the sheet...
Wow! classic situation when you peel back the layers on a boat. I'm rebuilding a deck stepped boat, a bit smaller, but I'm having to rebuild deck and hull structure. My compression post is slightly forward of the keel, and in fact doesn't bear on the keel but on the bulkhead which loads the hull full cross section. It's first the arch of the deck which transmits load to the hull with the compression post adding full depth support. The only caution I see is that the G10 "stack" might transmit be a hard spot on the hull should the deck "arch" not support it's full share.
Yes I know what you mean, it was my first thought. But the hull is super thick and I’ve now extended into the longitudinal beams the the two pads are about the size of a small iPad, if you consider the starboard side had a point load across a 5mm strip onto the hull as the only support & it didn’t give the hull any issues in 23 years so I think we’re good
Great video. Learnt about G10, any supplier(s), pricing, lead time and delivery issues or secret and by favors only? New name logo looks good, some small bubbles. Crazy things happen when each trade takes a bite size piece out or an owner makes a significant design change or both. Good for years now. Rigging readjustment.
It's amazing how many problems one finds in hidden areas, fingers crossed it works out. Is there a best time to be heading west out of the Med? I hope to be following in your footsteps next year.
Best time is probably Sept-Oct weather wise if you’re doing the trade wind route down to the Canary’s so we’re a bit late but hopefully will still pick up the Northerly trades to go down, just have to watch out for incoming storms from the West. Plus side is the ARC madness has gone so anchorages should not be so busy.
Curious if you considered welding tab extensions to both ends of the metal i-beam to add more stability? Will you be able to easily check for settling and movement? Having worked on many house restorations, head scratching and wtfs come with the territory as one peels back the layers. 😊
I thought about it but it would only have been a cm or so on either side and on the whole not necessary. I have a piece of plastic conduit that just fits under the cross beam, so if it moves by even a mm it will get stuck between the beam and the tank top.
What a project! Well done! Q: in fact a part of the carrying is done by the epoxy as it is between and on top of the G10, is that as strong as the G10? No risk of epoxy breaking?
What’s important is the filler you use to thicken the epoxy, that’s what’s making up the bulk of the space and the epoxy itself is pretty hard. West Systems have a chart on their site explaining which ones are best in compression.
Oh Steve, what a fantastic job you tackled. Well done. Do you have any evidence that the single tank you inherited on purchase was put in place during the initial build or was it a subsequent renovation post-production? Your "sister-ship" was on the market some 18-months ago. Wonder if she is/was suffering from the same defect? remainder of your voyage.
I'm 100% certain the installation is as built, Fair Isle had only one previous owner, a German who was fastidious on details, I'm sure he knew nothing of this. Fair isle sister ship is currently sitting in Sopromar too! i went aboard and checked the build for the owner and I'm happy to say all is fine with that boat, a direct connection to the lead. Sadly that boat has suffered some damage in an incident with a travel lift in Lisbon however and may soon be coming on the market again.
Not that I know much about this stuff but I was thinking you might have had to shorten the compression post. Also wondering about the compressibility of thickened epoxy, especially as you had multiple layers in the sandwich. Safe sailing. Have some Madeira m'dear!
The bridge was back up to it's correct height so although it would have made the job of getting the compression post back in easier to have shortened it, it wouldn't have been a good idea as the coach roof would have sagged and it better lifting back up to it's intended height. Luckily fiberglass has some measure of ductility and I could jack the coach roof back up the 8-10mm it had dropped without damage.
That looks bomb proof now, good job. Was the steel cross beam galvanised originally or painted, it seems to have held up very well. How about the Schengen Shuffle how is that working out. Thanks from a new subscriber I’ve enjoyed getting up to date with your adventures. Great channel. 👍
It's just painted, but only ever gets an odd drip of freshwater thats made its way down the cables in the mast so just a tiny bit of surface rust. Schengen shuffle has been absolutely fine this year as most countries seem to be happy to just stamp your crew list now not your passport so we've had no issues this year at all, you'll see in this seasons videos.
Wow guys what a job to have to do. A question, is a plumb line going to be accurate to have the compression post vertical? As the boat would have to be level port to starboard and fore and aft. 😢 Just a thought, a laser level held against the flat section on the underside of the deck may be better
Well there's an element of guess work in all of this to be honest. We dont have any flat surfaces on this boat, everything is curved, better to shed water. But the guys in the yard did a very good job of sitting Fair Isle straight in the cradle (it's good that they have proper cradles here not props) I was with the lift guy at at the time they were putting it down and he turned to me to ask if I was happy she was straight. When I knew we would be doing this job I took the precaution of hanging a light line on the main halyard on a windless morning in the same way I do for rig tuning and it confirmed they had the boat vertical. A 17 meter long mast will show up a fraction of a degree out with the plumb at the bottom so i knew we were good with the plumb line inside.
I find modern boats are not made to last or be repaired . You are lucky yours is not too bad . Ask the guys on Parley Revival about the mast support breaking . Took a year to repair .
Bit strange that the G10 still had the peel ply (the layer with the thin red stripes) stuck to one side. That should have been removed prior to laminating it up. Luckily your in compression so it shouldn't be to problematic but the bond between the plates is heavily compromised. Bit late now to worry about it.
@@svfairisle Hello Fairisle, really hate to bring it up again, but as a former boatbuilder the only cloth that has the indicating red stripe is peel ply; for the very reason that it's easily identifiable that it needs to be removed.
@@ItreboR63I There was nothing removable from the plate we had. This was made in the yard locally here, it's not something you can buy in Portugal usually I think. No idea why it had the stripe but i tried to see if it was something that could be pulled off and it couldn't. Anyhow as you say for a block in compression with no lateral forces it really wasn't an issue to be concerned about, the only reason I was adding a thin skim of epoxy between the plates was to insure they had full contact with each other and no voids, not to stick them together. The teak blocks that were there before weren't bonded to the floor at all, i just lifted them off after removing the cross beam
Mystery solved!... just found the extra small bit I had and it had much bolder red lines, peel it off and you're left with the thin lines you see on the bit we used. So the peel ply had already been taken off on that section, just left some faint red lines
Total cost if you add up all the parts an extras was just over €6,000. The yard costs for the actual lift and storage of the boat, getting the crane to lift the mast etc were very reasonable., the biggest cost was not the mast repair it was the fridge! That’s because of the man hours for skilled labour. If I had contracted out the mast repair job you could probably have added a zero to that figure and if you saw in the previous episodes I also spent a week on the topsides, That cost me about €800 in tools and materials, but would have been an extra €5,000 in labour.
There is a trick to affixing decals - you can mix a solution of dishwashing liquid and water, apply that before the decal, it gives you an ability to shift it a bit after application - then when it dries it is fixed fast
Really, I thought that would affect the adhesion, I actually wipe down with meths before sticking them on to get the polish off then re polish after. Perhaps that’s not necessary?
@@svfairisle my yacht had a number of bits and pieces, including lines all the way down each side (36’) - I also cleaned first just soap and water, then when dry meths. Then I’d put a weak mixture of sunlight and water in a spray bottle, and spray on the hull just before placing each piece, it doesn’t give infinite adjustability, but enough to make sure each section of the line meets up, and that no part of the name/registration is skew
Steve, is there a possibility that you could share the source of the Hans Christian structural drawings. I looking at a HC 38 Mk ll that has similar compression damage, except the post is incorporated into a bulkhead wall. Resulting in more than just lifting the sole of cabin.. Thanks, Joachim.
I got the drawings from Rik who was the guy in charge of the HC that came into Europe. I met him when we bought Fair Isle in Holland I will ask him if he has drawings for a 38
I wonder if your coach roof hadn't been so inherently strong would this have been a different story. You may for a while have had a partial deck stepped mast. I too had never heard of G10, strong stuff.
Steve: why does the compression post have such a considerable interference fit? The hull and deck are oversize so aren't going to get distorted by the rig loads perhaps seen on lighter builds, so why introduce such a load into the compression post itself? The post has no option but to either push the deckhead up or the floor down (or both). With the rig loads on and the over strength deck making the former unlikely, it seems to me you have unnecessary pressure on the floor structure. Could this have caused the problem in the first place (and could do again?)?
No it really doesn’t work like that Philip. The coach roof can’t possibly take the forces the mast is putting it under on it own, not even close. We’re talking upwards of 10 tons being exerted on a roof that has to span out almost horizontally for several feet before curving down in a direction that will give it useful resistance to that downward pressure. The lower crossbeam had sunk by about 12mm on the starboard side so the middle would have dropped by around 6mm and of course the compression post, coach roof and mast with it. Luckily laminated panels of glass fibre are reasonably malleable so can deform by small amounts without damage (we had some hairline cracks in a couple of places but that was all) the compression post was hard to get in and out, but that’s mainly because there’s a lip on the cross beam that means you can’t slide it in there vertically, you have to tilt it. That means the thick heavy cast bronze plate on the top digs in, so we were actually having to jack the roof up a bit more that the length of the compression post in order to get it in, if that makes sense? Once in the coach roof drops down a fraction, still quite tight against the compression post but that’s okay, the pressure is just a tiny fraction of what it will have once the mast is on and screwed down hard by many wires!
That was a beautiful structural engineering analysis and repair, Steve. You taught me something I didn’t know about the properties of G10. 👍😎
In a genre where a few amateurs and fly-by-nighters seem to thrive, it is comforting to watch your sound engineering and execution Steve. Well done. Judy, your old media skills are being well showcased. Thanks to you both for your efforts.
Absolutely amazing. Didn’t understand what the heck was going on but you could tell this was a master at work. Bravo
Watching your expertise over the years with high tech (most of which goes over my head), your abilities to conquer almost any job, your skills at sailing and your excellently produced videos you both never fail to impress massively.
I am never going to sail around the World, never going to need to muck around with fibreglass or feel the need to understand electronic wizardry but ho hum it's never too late to learn summat especially when it is produced in such a wonderful and informative fashion. Thank you for all your videos (and I've seen them all) they are a joy.
Thank you so much for your comment. Steve is in his element but we are also looking forward to going sailing again!
Great work on the mast support. For any stickers or window tint in the future, a bit a soapy water in a spray bottle into the surface and sticker will avoid bubbles and allow you to slide the decals into place. Awesome channel thank you for sharing
Marvelous, we enjoyed your visit with Adam & Clare. Certainly an engineering marvel and so nice that John your Insurance Adjuster was there for confirmation. Happy Holiday's from the States.
You're amazing to have done that work yourself! Bravo and congrats! Thanks for taking us on the journey with you.
Looks like a solid repair. I admire you for having a survey done of the work. Happy sailing.
Absolutely amazing what you have accomplished. Great job and done superbly and also very fast. You even managed to change lettering and so many other things you added to the list. Well done. Fair winds and hope to see you some time again.
Wow, what an incredible episode! You tackled a dangerous boat breaking fault head-on and fixed it yourself, bravo! Your perseverance and problem-solving skills are truly remarkable. Thanks for taking us on this journey with you and for sharing your knowledge and experiences. Your ingenuity in finding an ingenious solution is inspiring. Just think of the cost and complications if you had outsourced the repair. You're amazing! Well done on all the hard work! 👏👏👏
What an amazing Chandlers - it looks as if they've got everything you could ever need, and no doubt you have thoroughly enjoyed your daily visits to it!
Excellent work! Keep the technical details coming, they are invaluable 😊
Excellent video. It shows the reality of sailing, it's not just nice beaches and cocktails with friends.
Incredible work and characteristically impressive filming in such awkward positions. Thanks for allowing us to share.
Kudos for your remarkable engineering ability. Your experience and of so many other sailers make wanting to sail be poignant. I feel I have salt water in my veins but knowing the constant maintenance of even a new boat is daunting. A friend bought a new boat and said he never got to the end of the to-do list. Love your vids.
Amazing Work….keep smiling. We wish beautiful Fair Isle fair winds following seas ❤
Glad to see How you fixed the issue and that is now all done. The location and Weather helped a lot too.
Yes working on boats is SO much easier in a nice climate!
As a very experienced keyboard boat builder must say: Very nice job indeed!
The chandlery is Aladin's cave!
Loved this episode and congrats on getting the mast back up. Boat looks great. Smart move to get the surveyor to double check your work. Never knew about G10 material until today! Thank you!
Just found this video and saw great job done. The video making with all the explanations shows clearly how hard and precise is this repair.
Your chanel is joy and useful to watch.
Fair winds and
Good luck!
Great fix to a problem that shouldn't've been a problem. Wow. That G10 stuff is marvellous
You do an excellent job drawing out the couple from the UK. You’re able to relate so well. Good View
Great repair job and good to see Fairisle back in fine sailing form, now to check out your stormy passage!
Good work Steve, we particularly enjoyed "Spicy Steve" some great colourful metaphors!!!
Very impressive. Your knowledge and ability to deal with and solve problems that arise with equanimity is remarkable. Well done.
Amazing video guys. Steve - your knowledge, skills and insane determination are so incredibly impressive. A true inspiration for all sailors
Excellent repair with a lot of forethought beforehand! Thanks for sharing
Wow! What a brilliant video documenting, and curing, the mast problem. I thought I was quite clever fitting a new loft ladder recently. What you've just done I found really interesting and I'm sure you really deserve all the positive comments you've received. I think you'll enjoy looking back at your achievement too. Thank you from a very cold Kent.
Ha! thanks Peter and as a Kent lad I'm glad I was doing this job in the warm here not back there! (we lived in Cranbrook)
Hi Steve, Yes, I remember you're from Cranbrook. Maidstone here and down to -3'C tonight@@svfairisle I'm so glad that you've got things fixed and you can both carry on entertaining and educating us all. P.
Amazing save guys. No fun to find that issue but what a great sense of relief it must be now. Looks bullet proof. Very well done.
Brilliant episode. Well done on all the work 👏👏👏
Fascinating video Guys. What a lot of work. Its a credit to you .Safe sailing
Hi, a great programme,and a result for the mast.I think the new name transfers look very impressive therefore suitable.Cheers Roly 🇬🇧.
Geez well done Steve excellent work -much kudos to you..
Fantastic work Steve..always best to do those really important jobs yourself so you're completely sure it's done right especially before making an Atlantic crossing...you'll certainly sleep better.
Well I guess it was lucky that you saw the fault before the crossing. Fixing it would have been difficult in the Caribbean. Great job Steve. The new font looks great as well.
Good work Steve - very impressed!
A neat, aesthetic and very well done job. 👌
What a job well done both. Respect. AWB has it's advantages.
A fabulous job well done. I would have freaked out for sure 😮
Oh I freaked out a bit!
Quite an amazing job! Congratulations!
At first I was amazed that a boat with such a reputation as Hans Christian would have a build quality issue this severe. Then I watched you repair it and was amazed again.
I was pretty shocked, but this was an issue that’s come out of a real balls up in Holland I think, not the yard in Thailand. Fair Isle was specified with full length tanks and a system was devised to bridge them with a super strong steel crosspiece. Problem is whoever put the pieces together in Holland had no idea what they were doing and mounted it all completely wrongly.
Great repair, I am amazed it hadn’t caused more issues in all the years it was like that, lucky it is an HC and not a more lightly built boat. Andy UK
Remainder of your voyage safe, trouble free and enjoyable!!!!
Love a well stocked chandlery!!
One of your best episodes. You treated us to a smart fix to a big problem, and then smartly documented corroboration by the surveyor that it was a job well done. I had to laugh and felt a kinship when you admitted making daily visits to the chandlery. I was likewise addicted during seven years of owning (or being owned) by a 40-foot wooden yawl.
A wooden Yawl, very nice, did you see Episode 7 when we talked to Tim about his wooded yawl in Cartagena?
Excellent episode. G10 is wonderful stuff, once it warms up in the UK, I have some uses for it - not quite so extreme though! Great to see that you can now move forward and Madiera sounds like a great stop.
Well done, guys, on an excellent job 👍👏👏👏 you could do a side line on boat maintenance 😂😂
Excellent work, better that the factory!
How to turn such a mundane process into a really interesting video! Well done Steve. And well done Judy for knowing when to stay out of his way and when to come back and help. Oh, and I notice at 18:25, not using your Coutts credit card there Steve? 😉
No I’m sure they took Farage’s away so they could give it to us though, just waiting for it in post ;)
Amazing job, congrats, well done! It should hold for the next 2300 years !!!!!
I understand why you did what you did, and to be clear, you did a superbly brilliant job, as always. This is an excellent video. I would like to see the real costs. The previous arrangement was clearly a bit of a bodge, but from my not insignificant boat work experience, for the benefit of other owners of this type of vessel, I'd say there was (as is) way way enough strength in the 10 cm deck layup, the utterly massively engineered steel base plate, the bonded, connected bulkheads, and the compression post (even with its bodged lower fitments). If your previous arrangement was engineeringly insufficient, you'd have found deck cracking and the capstays changing tension (going slack), and you seemed to have none of this (after 20 odd years). I don't know where you got that G10, especially abroad as you are. It's rarely stocked (especially outside the USA) by any normal/usual on site marine suppliers, even in the thinner mm sheets, and costs an absolute, OTT shocking fortune in the thicknesses you used (which are even more difficult to find). It would be helpful to many 'newbies', I think, if you shared the realities of the of what I've said (...how DO you get hold of the stuff you use, get around having no delivery address, customs charges and delays, generally, if you do, etc) and, more importantly, the large overall costs of what you did. I'd estimate you'd have at least burnt through a minimum couple of thousands £ removing and refitting the mast, buying all those materials etc (and that's with you having all the tools and labour)? Understanding the REAL technical and other requirements, like - importantly - the huge costs of boat ownership, are important for the uninitiated and might help slow the uber trendy 'let's buy a boat and live on it' tidal wave of new 'how hard can it be' boaters that are appearing everywhere, mostly with their bulging wallets, clogging up marina capacity, and anchorages once empty, driving up marina and service costs for the rest of us 'normal' peeps with thin wallets 😮.
Yes all very good questions. We tend not to go through details to quite that level in the videos (because it makes for rather a dull video for most) I know some people want the smallest details, a lot of those guys are patrons and join in with the WhatsApp group / zoom calls etc to go through things.
To answer your questions here though we were very lucky to be in one of the best yards in Europe. Sopromar can build and repair anything. They made the G10 themselves for a job on a Lagoon and had some left over which was just enough for the job I needed to do, I was lucky,
Costs are a huge issue for us and if I had not done this job myself I think we would now be going back to work for a couple of years! Cost of skilled labour somewhere like this can break you for sure. As it was our total cost was around 3,000 Euros, it was money we had earmarked to buy a Hydrovane, that will now have to wait!
The cost break down is not as you would expect either, the major cost we had was not lifting the mast and doing this repair it was getting the fridge and freezer to work well. That accounted for about 1.000 Euros and actually maybe more as there we are just working out that part of the bill at the moment. We had already paid almost a 1,000 euros this summer in various ports trying to fix the issues, so it's been a very expensive thing to have to deal with. At least we now have confidence that the work we've had done here overlooked by Paul has been brilliant.
Incredible . Congratulations for yours chanel. Saludos desde España.
Great work!
Well done guys. Blimey that must be the world's toughest tank to bear the weight - more or less - of all the forces being transmitted down through the compression post. You must have had a shudder when you realised the true extent of the situation, remembering all the heavy blows that you've experienced, and the potential for a demasting (or worse). Anyway, now you know the boat even better...always trying to find an up-side. 🙂
I owned a Hansa built 48T for 32 years. Sailed her over 75,000 miles and never had any of the issues you've experienced with Fair Isle. When Herb Gulter, owner of Hansa, quit building the 33T and 48Ts, and the contract went to another yard, the quality suffered. Those of you looking to buy a 33T or 48T on the used market, seek out this built between 1982 and 1987. Those are the Gulter built boats. As to those built in Thailand; stay away from them as they have numerous construction problems.
That's not quite true. There was a dip in quality when HC moved to Thailand under Jeff White in 1986/7 but they got over them quite quickly and by the time Jack Hall took over in the early 90's they were building some of the best boats ever. Certainly the level of craftsmanship in the carpentry was superb. I definitely think the issue we had did not happen in Thailand but after the boat was shipped to Europe for the reasons I stated in the description.
Well done on the mast refit!
That sure is a job well done Steve! Now get things ready and enjoy the passage to Madeira! And as ever, I wish you both all the best, beam reach winds and following seas!
You might want to blur your credit card
Nice engineering. Well done.
Great looking repair 👍
Well done!
Wow, you’re brave taking on this project! I’m never sure about my mast, compression post and keel! I tend to think I need to haul out, pull the mast, remove the compression post, inspect, reinforce, upgrade the electronics but this is more than I can visualize (until watching your video) so maybe I’ll go sailing and sleep on it! Subscribing!
Fantastic to get that done. It seems that architect, electrical team and carpenters were not effectively communicating when the boat was assembled. Now all is much more sound.
Nice work!!
Wow. Very impressive!
its nice to see that even high end boats were bodged in the build, having watched 'Sailing Parley' and the issues with the hulls in a poor designed and built catamaran. one would think that somebody would have inspected the work before any load was put on the mast plate. oh well so its not just westerly's then. good luck, I hope your head wound wasn't bodged in the repair and you keep that wound clean.
An excellent looking repair, it's been very interesting to follow what you have done. I've too have been working on a mast step and compression problem, nothing like your scale but it's been a comfort to know that other people on much bigger and better manufactured boats don't escape unscathed. While fixing my boat it's got me to thinking if the problems associated with deck stepped masts don't outweigh the disadvantages of keel stepped ones. For example, if Hans Christian had designed your boat with a keel stepped mast would this really have been much more of an inconvenience than your current compression post? Hans Christian would have been less likely to overlook the design requirement of a keel stepped mast, I doubt they would have mounted it on a water tank! Perhaps part of the problem with the Hans Christian is that the very thickness of the deck layup has driven a sense of complacency in the design of the support for the mast below decks?
Yes there are pluses and minuses with keel v deck stepped, you maybe right that they would have been less like to mess up the lower step if an actual mast was sitting on it though!
Bloody lucky to spot that botched-up job before things went south there Steve! Recent Zingaro episodes ref rescuing a dismasted yacht mid Pacific , spring to mind!
I think you did an excellent job there with what you had available. For future reference, there are non-compressible hard plastic shims available in various shapes and thicknesses from 1mm upwards. They would have made installing the last pieces of G10 a lot simpler.
I love watching your problem solving routine and really enjoyed this vid!
Fair winds, Fair Isle, Madeira awaits!
yes some smaller shims would have been good, but I was just counting my lucky stars we managed to rustle up some G10
Good work
Job very well done. Should bring you miles away without worries!😊
Well done good job
Lovely solution to your problem and cleanly done! I hate to be an alarmist Steve, but I couldn't not see the red lines on the G-10 and think "Is that not peel ply?" I'm sure you've read the sheet...
It a sheet that Sopromar boat yard made themselves
I was thinking the same.
Wow! classic situation when you peel back the layers on a boat. I'm rebuilding a deck stepped boat, a bit smaller, but I'm having to rebuild deck and hull structure. My compression post is slightly forward of the keel, and in fact doesn't bear on the keel but on the bulkhead which loads the hull full cross section. It's first the arch of the deck which transmits load to the hull with the compression post adding full depth support. The only caution I see is that the G10 "stack" might transmit be a hard spot on the hull should the deck "arch" not support it's full share.
Yes I know what you mean, it was my first thought. But the hull is super thick and I’ve now extended into the longitudinal beams the the two pads are about the size of a small iPad, if you consider the starboard side had a point load across a 5mm strip onto the hull as the only support & it didn’t give the hull any issues in 23 years so I think we’re good
Super well done, amazing skills. I better check mine, I think our boats were build in the same year…
I guessing this was just some complete f&(k up not an actual plan as no one in their right mind would build this. But yes do check!
Great video. Learnt about G10, any supplier(s), pricing, lead time and delivery issues or secret and by favors only? New name logo looks good, some small bubbles. Crazy things happen when each trade takes a bite size piece out or an owner makes a significant design change or both.
Good for years now. Rigging readjustment.
I hope the laminate sheet (G10) you used, just looked like the peel ply hadn’t been removed.
All the best
Yes don’t worry!
It's amazing how many problems one finds in hidden areas, fingers crossed it works out. Is there a best time to be heading west out of the Med? I hope to be following in your footsteps next year.
Best time is probably Sept-Oct weather wise if you’re doing the trade wind route down to the Canary’s so we’re a bit late but hopefully will still pick up the Northerly trades to go down, just have to watch out for incoming storms from the West. Plus side is the ARC madness has gone so anchorages should not be so busy.
Great job, could not have done that better myself.
Have seen some smaller boats that had no compression post at all, just strong arch/ bulkhead structure in that center section.
Curious if you considered welding tab extensions to both ends of the metal i-beam to add more stability? Will you be able to easily check for settling and movement?
Having worked on many house restorations, head scratching and wtfs come with the territory as one peels back the layers. 😊
I thought about it but it would only have been a cm or so on either side and on the whole not necessary. I have a piece of plastic conduit that just fits under the cross beam, so if it moves by even a mm it will get stuck between the beam and the tank top.
What a project! Well done! Q: in fact a part of the carrying is done by the epoxy as it is between and on top of the G10, is that as strong as the G10? No risk of epoxy breaking?
What’s important is the filler you use to thicken the epoxy, that’s what’s making up the bulk of the space and the epoxy itself is pretty hard. West Systems have a chart on their site explaining which ones are best in compression.
V clever lad, well done.
Good job... Might be 23 more years till somebody has to repair it correctly.
Hope you take the peel ply off, nice tidy job
Just watching you with those plumb lines Steve, and thinking is the yacht itself level ?
Yes we sited it well putting her in the cradle as I dropped a line from the top of the mast before we had it off and it was dead upright
Oh Steve, what a fantastic job you tackled. Well done. Do you have any evidence that the single tank you inherited on purchase was put in place during the initial build or was it a subsequent renovation post-production? Your "sister-ship" was on the market some 18-months ago. Wonder if she is/was suffering from the same defect? remainder of your voyage.
I'm 100% certain the installation is as built, Fair Isle had only one previous owner, a German who was fastidious on details, I'm sure he knew nothing of this.
Fair isle sister ship is currently sitting in Sopromar too! i went aboard and checked the build for the owner and I'm happy to say all is fine with that boat, a direct connection to the lead. Sadly that boat has suffered some damage in an incident with a travel lift in Lisbon however and may soon be coming on the market again.
Not that I know much about this stuff but I was thinking you might have had to shorten the compression post. Also wondering about the compressibility of thickened epoxy, especially as you had multiple layers in the sandwich. Safe sailing. Have some Madeira m'dear!
The bridge was back up to it's correct height so although it would have made the job of getting the compression post back in easier to have shortened it, it wouldn't have been a good idea as the coach roof would have sagged and it better lifting back up to it's intended height. Luckily fiberglass has some measure of ductility and I could jack the coach roof back up the 8-10mm it had dropped without damage.
That looks bomb proof now, good job. Was the steel cross beam galvanised originally or painted, it seems to have held up very well. How about the Schengen Shuffle how is that working out. Thanks from a new subscriber I’ve enjoyed getting up to date with your adventures. Great channel. 👍
It's just painted, but only ever gets an odd drip of freshwater thats made its way down the cables in the mast so just a tiny bit of surface rust.
Schengen shuffle has been absolutely fine this year as most countries seem to be happy to just stamp your crew list now not your passport so we've had no issues this year at all, you'll see in this seasons videos.
Wow guys what a job to have to do.
A question, is a plumb line going to be accurate to have the compression post vertical? As the boat would have to be level port to starboard and fore and aft. 😢
Just a thought, a laser level held against the flat section on the underside of the deck may be better
Well there's an element of guess work in all of this to be honest. We dont have any flat surfaces on this boat, everything is curved, better to shed water. But the guys in the yard did a very good job of sitting Fair Isle straight in the cradle (it's good that they have proper cradles here not props) I was with the lift guy at at the time they were putting it down and he turned to me to ask if I was happy she was straight. When I knew we would be doing this job I took the precaution of hanging a light line on the main halyard on a windless morning in the same way I do for rig tuning and it confirmed they had the boat vertical. A 17 meter long mast will show up a fraction of a degree out with the plumb at the bottom so i knew we were good with the plumb line inside.
I find modern boats are not made to last or be repaired . You are lucky yours is not too bad . Ask the guys on Parley Revival about the mast support breaking . Took a year to repair .
Do they tap your balance every time you swipe the card?
Or do they require you to re-enter your pin?
Very good, I didn’t get it until Judy explained the joke, bit slow!
Looks like there's still peel ply on those chunks of glass 😮
No don’t worry, it may look a bit different, it was made in the yard.
Bit strange that the G10 still had the peel ply (the layer with the thin red stripes) stuck to one side. That should have been removed prior to laminating it up. Luckily your in compression so it shouldn't be to problematic but the bond between the plates is heavily compromised. Bit late now to worry about it.
It’s plate made up in the yard here, no peel ply on it
@@svfairisle Hello Fairisle, really hate to bring it up again, but as a former boatbuilder the only cloth that has the indicating red stripe is peel ply; for the very reason that it's easily identifiable that it needs to be removed.
@@ItreboR63I There was nothing removable from the plate we had. This was made in the yard locally here, it's not something you can buy in Portugal usually I think. No idea why it had the stripe but i tried to see if it was something that could be pulled off and it couldn't. Anyhow as you say for a block in compression with no lateral forces it really wasn't an issue to be concerned about, the only reason I was adding a thin skim of epoxy between the plates was to insure they had full contact with each other and no voids, not to stick them together. The teak blocks that were there before weren't bonded to the floor at all, i just lifted them off after removing the cross beam
Mystery solved!... just found the extra small bit I had and it had much bolder red lines, peel it off and you're left with the thin lines you see on the bit we used. So the peel ply had already been taken off on that section, just left some faint red lines
May I ask...how much did this repair cost?
From the lift out, time on the hard... back in the water?
Total cost if you add up all the parts an extras was just over €6,000. The yard costs for the actual lift and storage of the boat, getting the crane to lift the mast etc were very reasonable., the biggest cost was not the mast repair it was the fridge! That’s because of the man hours for skilled labour. If I had contracted out the mast repair job you could probably have added a zero to that figure and if you saw in the previous episodes I also spent a week on the topsides, That cost me about €800 in tools and materials, but would have been an extra €5,000 in labour.
There is a trick to affixing decals - you can mix a solution of dishwashing liquid and water, apply that before the decal, it gives you an ability to shift it a bit after application - then when it dries it is fixed fast
Really, I thought that would affect the adhesion, I actually wipe down with meths before sticking them on to get the polish off then re polish after. Perhaps that’s not necessary?
@@svfairisle my yacht had a number of bits and pieces, including lines all the way down each side (36’) - I also cleaned first just soap and water, then when dry meths. Then I’d put a weak mixture of sunlight and water in a spray bottle, and spray on the hull just before placing each piece, it doesn’t give infinite adjustability, but enough to make sure each section of the line meets up, and that no part of the name/registration is skew
I was wondering if you can share the plans of the boat. I bought HC48T for refit and looking for any available info on the boat.
yes send us an email sailingfairisle@ gmail.com and i'll attach some scans of plans we have
Steve, is there a possibility that you could share the source of the Hans Christian structural drawings. I looking at a HC 38 Mk ll that has similar compression damage, except the post is incorporated into a bulkhead wall. Resulting in more than just lifting the sole of cabin.. Thanks, Joachim.
I got the drawings from Rik who was the guy in charge of the HC that came into Europe. I met him when we bought Fair Isle in Holland I will ask him if he has drawings for a 38
I wonder if your coach roof hadn't been so inherently strong would this have been a different story. You may for a while have had a partial deck stepped mast.
I too had never heard of G10, strong stuff.
Yes I think the strength of the coach roof helped a lot
Very impressive detail, and brave to take it on yourself.
Well done 👍
Ps may be an idea not to video your Credit Card 😊
It an account that doesn't exist any more
Blimey 🤦♂️ how did the guy feel late at night in a storm off shore knowing how he stepped the mast 😳
Steve: why does the compression post have such a considerable interference fit? The hull and deck are oversize so aren't going to get distorted by the rig loads perhaps seen on lighter builds, so why introduce such a load into the compression post itself? The post has no option but to either push the deckhead up or the floor down (or both). With the rig loads on and the over strength deck making the former unlikely, it seems to me you have unnecessary pressure on the floor structure. Could this have caused the problem in the first place (and could do again?)?
No it really doesn’t work like that Philip. The coach roof can’t possibly take the forces the mast is putting it under on it own, not even close. We’re talking upwards of 10 tons being exerted on a roof that has to span out almost horizontally for several feet before curving down in a direction that will give it useful resistance to that downward pressure. The lower crossbeam had sunk by about 12mm on the starboard side so the middle would have dropped by around 6mm and of course the compression post, coach roof and mast with it. Luckily laminated panels of glass fibre are reasonably malleable so can deform by small amounts without damage (we had some hairline cracks in a couple of places but that was all) the compression post was hard to get in and out, but that’s mainly because there’s a lip on the cross beam that means you can’t slide it in there vertically, you have to tilt it. That means the thick heavy cast bronze plate on the top digs in, so we were actually having to jack the roof up a bit more that the length of the compression post in order to get it in, if that makes sense? Once in the coach roof drops down a fraction, still quite tight against the compression post but that’s okay, the pressure is just a tiny fraction of what it will have once the mast is on and screwed down hard by many wires!