Tanzer 16--Painting--hardware removed

Tanzer 16--Painting -- hardware removed -- October 12, 2015 -- Before painting, all the hardware has to come off the boat.  Mostly one limber person can do this by themselves, but it takes a helper to reach the fittings deep in the corners.  Tony came by Saturday to help with the spinnaker sheet turning blocks and other little pieces in the far aft corners.  He turned the screws from top side while I crawled into the lazarette with a flashlight and collection of small wrenches.  All that's left to come out is the centerboard. We won't be messing with the chain plates or the stemhead fitting.

It shouldn't be surprising--but it is.  Once you remove the thwart and centerboard cap, you are left with really fragile centerboard trunk.  If we were doing this again, I would leave it till last.  It's been kind of fun to see how the boat was put together.  The hull was laid up.  Then they glassed in the seats and forward air tank.  The deck was attached with pop rivets.  The builders made extensive use of mahogany plywood between layers of glass.  Nowadays I suppose they would use some kind of Airex foam.  My only complaint is that the seats flex a bit too much, and our starboard seat is cracked inside so we will have figure out a repair before we can proceed with painting.

The top of the centerboard trunk is one thin sheet of chopper glass.  Don't
lean on it.

The boat looks a lot bigger with all the deck fittings removed.  Maybe more so on this boat! Because of the gin pole mast raising system, a few extra mooring cleats, and a lot of spinnaker fittings, the deck sprouted like mushrooms on a spring lawn.  To keep track of all that stuff we made pictures of the deck and cockpit.  The fittings went in plastic bags with numbers keyed to the pictures.

You could probably figure out where everything went without the little "map"
but this should make it easier.  

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Since we had to take everything out anyway, we are doing a few improvements to deck brace for the king post--rounding the edges, painting, adding nylon sleeves to the holes for halyards.

The whole gin pole mast raising system has worked really well.  Now when
the crew gets to the marina, the mast is up, the boat is rigged and ready to go
into the water.  The next morning, I take the mast down by myself.  It takes
about 45 minutes, but it is easy and the mast is never out of control for even
a second.  Running the halyards down through the deck and back to the
centerboard has made it easy to single hand.

Next steps:  Remove the centerboard, take off the stickers, and start the deck and hull repair. Probably time to start thinking about colors.