SO WHAT DID YOU DO WITH OR ON YOUR C-DORY TODAY??

Yep. 3/4 is too robust. 1/2" would work fine for the frame and some 1/4" ply for the bottom. Wood glue and brads to hold it until the glue sets. Won't be as strong as dove tailing would be, but you gotto do what you gotto do and it will be plenty strong enough. You can buy under drawer slides. They work OK. I used some at an old house I had in Hawai'i that had hand-made cabinets.
 
Signs of Spring on the Chesapeake. Went down to Urbanna on Saturday just to check on Skimmer. It was sunny and nice, and temp rising to 60, so I started her up - good old Honda fired right up after sitting idle for more than two months.

Still lots of winter ducks on the creeks and lower Rappahannock, but also the first osprey of the season on pilings by the Urbanna Creek bridge. And on a sun warmed creek bank a bit up stream - daffodils in bloom! Let the boating season begin!
 
OK, so, I bought the Fulton T3205 trailer winch with included strap to replace the non-powered Power Winch with the cable that always kinks and balls up. Only trouble was, the Fulton instructions say "For cable only" - see the third page of this thread.

So yesterday I bit the bullet, pulled the drum off the Fulton, drilled the missing hole, bought a long bolt and nylock nut, installed the strap, removed the Power Winch from the trailer and installed the new Fulton.

And viola (that's a joke, folks), here's the result:

New_Fulton_T3205_Winch_Installed_3_12_11.sized.jpg

Now I hope retrieving will be a little easier with this two speed heavy duty winch with a non-kinking non-balling 20' strap. It can't possibly be any worse than struggling with a non-powered Power Winch cranked by hand...

And believe it or not, this was actually easier than removing a lug nut!
 
Pat,

Have no fears. That is "perzactly" the same winch as we have on the RF246 and I have gone back to it from a power driven cable winch for exactly the same reasons as you. I got fed up with balls, kinks and meat hooks (and that is not the name of some bad movie!!!). It will work fine.

Plus, it has a positive anti-reverse unlike the power winch.

Merv
 
Tom,

The power "wench" in this house is also the Admiral and I don't think she is into the strap thingy. :twisted:

As for the power winch, I will see if I can find all the pieces which are in my garage (where the car should be). I was in the process of putting (yet another) new cable on it when Winter came, and stayed.

Assuming Its all there, then the only remaining task would be getting under the truck and removing the wiring. At the moment that would mean lying in 4 inches of mud.

I will have to check with the Admiral since she bought it for me after swearing I was going to have a heart attack while winching the boat up from 1/2 mile away on that wonderful flat ramp in Oak Harbor.

I was not joking about it not having a positive latch. On any reasonably steep ramp, the weight of the boat (Roller trailer) is quite enough to pull line off and run the gears and motor in reverse which means you have to develop quite a technique of holding the boat with a bow line and a couple of turns around something more solid than your leg while you disconnect the safety chain and winch line.

If you let it pull cable off while launching, you will rewind it loose (and wet) and when you put tension on it to retrieve the boat you will jam turns and it all gets kinky thereafter which produces even more "meat hooks".

Yes I did think of putting a strap on it. That would get rid of the fun of lacerations to my fingers but it doesn't get over the ballet dance of launching nor does it give you that nice solid attaching point that your get with a pawl winch. ie. it won't stop the boat coming off the trailer :oops:

I think there is even one version of it that comes with a strap. To convert this one to the faith you would have to strip it completely and drill holes etc. I think I started to look at that process and decided against it.

At one point I went so far as to look at the winches the ATV guys use and bolting one to the bed of the truck :shock: :shock:

In the end I found that by improving my technique for retrieving I was quite happy with the two speed manual strap winch without even having to emulate Les who simply drives it on up to the stop, leaves the engines running and goes to attach the safety strap.

I can usually get it to within a foot or so and even an old fart like me can manage that in less than an hour :lol:

I will go look in a bit when I can get past all the animals lining up in pairs beside my boat.

Cheers,

M
 
At the risk of turning this into a winch discussion, the other thing that you can do is to replace the wire rope on a winch with AmSteel Blue rope (Samson) which is a low diameter, low stretch, high strength synthetic rope. I know of one owner of an RF-246 that has done exactly that and I intend to do the same. I don't know how that will work with a power winch. Here is a link to a guy that sells it and will custom splice it. The videos on his web site are pretty spectacular.

http://www.midwestwinchrope.com/

I ordered a tow rope for the truck and his service was great. If I get stuck on a ramp, there are generally trucks around but I did not want to bet that the ones present would have a chain or tow rope.
 
Jim,
Thanks. I was just giving Tom a bit of a hard time. That Amsteel stuff is very impressive and I might use it to replace my "strapping wench". Course, if Tom prefers his wenches strapless.....

M
 
Tom - you can have the Power Winch but keepa you hands off the Power Wench! Between the parts from my Power Winch and Merv's Power Winch, I have no doubt you can come out with one fully functional one...deal?
 
After the dead fish debacle of last week, we needed to escape the stench and go diving this morning. The Harbor Patrol was only allowing boats at least 26 feet long to go in or out of King Harbor. The outboards on our Tomcat 225 qualified us. :)
We drove around for more than thirty miles and found nothing but dirty water. We sadly made our way back to our slip, observing the only real tsunami damage in southern California. One boat was pushed up on its dock, smashing the wooden planks.

Dock_damage2.jpg

Dock_damage3.jpg
 
I spent part of the last two days building and installing the drawers for the galley and jerry rigging the plumbing. The plumbing is made for both hot and cold water so I had to figure a way to close off one side. the new style contections will not take just a end cap. I had to buy extentions and then cap it on one side. the other side I plumbed into the water tank line. I will not be able to test it until I fill the tank.

I got the drawer in and placed the slides under the drawers. its not the best but I will see how it holds up and if it does not I will make new drawers and use side slides. one drawer is a little tight but it works. I still have to make fronts for the drawers and then a drawer for the garbage can under the sink. that is going to be hard but Iam working on it.
2011_03_13_15_35_47_002.sized.jpg
2011_03_13_15_35_23.sized.jpg
2011_03_13_19_03_17_001.sized.jpg
 
starcrafttom":3f0bsf3f said:
The plumbing is made for both hot and cold water so I had to figure a way to close off one side. the new style contections will not take just a end cap. I had to buy extentions and then cap it on one side. the other side I plumbed into the water tank line. I will not be able to test it until I fill the tank.

2011_03_13_19_03_17_001.sized.jpg
Tom- What abut the danger of freezing the faucet and the lines attached to it?
Will you just open the value with the pressure off and allow the water to expand back out the spigot?

Joe. :teeth :thup
 
Picked up the boat at EQ on friday. launched at Cornet Bay with the idea of spending a couple days on it. Tried to go south to Coupeville but with five footers it was just too miserable so turned around and tried to go west to Friday Harbor, but again after about three miles out it was just too miserable so loaded up and came home. But at least now I have a radar arch for a place to pile unwanted cash, and also have the Blue Seas relay system and a 3rd house battery. I seemed to be the only boat out on friday, shouldn't have been much of a surprise.
 
Joe, I always drain the water system in the winter. run the pump dry and remove the filter. With the quick disconnect I can drain the unused side of the fauset by pullin the clip and unattaching the line.
 
I spent an interesting 6 hours today cruising the Snohomish River Delta. Spent some time talking to the owner of El Primero ( a vessel built in 1893 that has had as guests on board in the past U.S. Presidents Taft, Harding, Teddy Roosevelt and Hoover). Also spoke with the owner of the SV Pipe Dream which was the 3rd registered vessel in the State of Oregon. Both of these vessels are currently moored in the delta. Previously, I'd seen these vessels but had never had the opportunity to speak with their owners.
 
I had a delightful afternoon with my friend Ross Ballard on his Venture 23 Pacific Wanderer. We cruised the harbour off Nanaimo for a while then tied up and had lunch at the Bistro and then went for a nice walk on Newcastle Island. Ross has his boat set up for long range remote cruising and what a sweet boat and nice man too. We had a great time enjoying a very early spring day with sun, rain, wind, calm and more rain. Comfy boat comfy friend, thanks Ross! George
 
starcrafttom":36zhys6o said:
I have to learn not to trust spell check. yes my wench has all the power in this house too. and not only do I like them strapless but topless is always good.

The problem with spell check is that it is not a "usage checker". Winch and wench are both properly spelled words but the usage is quite different. This reminds me of a presentation I attended in which the presenter was extolling the value of putting one's data in public databases. Unfortunately, he left out the "L" in public. The spell checker didn't catch that either as it's a perfectly valid word. :lol:
 
ghone":1kjiqee4 said:
I had a delightful afternoon with my friend Ross Ballard on his Venture 23 Pacific Wanderer. We cruised the harbour off Nanaimo for a while then tied up and had lunch at the Bistro and then went for a nice walk on Newcastle Island. Ross has his boat set up for long range remote cruising and what a sweet boat and nice man too. We had a great time enjoying a very early spring day with sun, rain, wind, calm and more rain. Comfy boat comfy friend, thanks Ross! George

George, I would be interested in hearing more about the boat, too!

Warren
 
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