(A lengthy discussion of every aspect of the original state at purchase and all of our refit plans.)
written 4/26/08
Rig
The standing rigging is of indeterminate age, except for the backstay which was replaced in 2005 (rod, with SSB insulators). We intend to replace all the rigging except for the backstay with 316 stainless 1×19 wire, 3/8″ for the forestay and upper shrouds, 5/16″ for the babystay, lower shrouds, and intermediate backstays. We plan on using norseman fittings, top and bottom, and replacing everything from tang to chainplate (including turnbuckles). Eventually, we also intend to add running backstays of 5/16″ amsteel led to a turning block on the rail and to a jib winch. If we get around to that, we may or may not leave the intermediate backstays.
Digression regarding running backstays. There is an ongoing debate in the Valiant community about the value of the intermediate backstays versus running backstays. The intermediates are led aft of the mast just a few feet, so they do little to counter the forward force component of the babystay; at the same time they limit the range of the boom to extend over the boat when running downwind. The alternative are running backstays–synthetic or wire lines running from the tang at the same height as the babystay, aft to a location on the rail near the location of the jib sheet winch. Multiple methods exist for terminating the running backs–some people use a block and tackle to a padeye on the rail; others run the line through a turning block and to the jib winch. Only the upwind running backstay is tightened at any time; when tacking, the upwind running back is released completely, the boat is tacked, then the new upwind running back is tightened. This allows the benefits of having a stay led farther aft to balance the babystay, without impairing the motion of the boom (unless one screws up and tacks without releasing the running back–been there, done that, in a race, in tight circumstances, very stressful, nearly caused a collision, not good very bad). Proponents of the intermediates claim that the Valiant rig is overbuilt as is, and that running backstays are unnecessary. Proponents of the running backstays say that you may as well do away with the intermediate backstays because they don’t do either job very well, and use running backstays when it becomes necessary (when the wind starts blowing).
The forestay has a Profurl furler installed in 1989. It has two slots in the foil and appears solid. We will need to dismantle it when we replace the rigging, so we’ll we lubricate it at that time. The babystay has a stainless ABI quick release fitting which is extremely handy–we will be sailing the boat frequently without the staysail and it will be nice to be able to tack more quickly without the babystay in the way.
The mast is large and strong for a 40ft boat, excellent for crossing an ocean. The masthead has an LED trilight, a windvane, a VHF antenna, and an anemometer. Halfway down the mast is a steaming light/deck light combination fixture. The wiring exits the mast approximately a foot from the base, in the bilge. The hole currently exits on the port side, which is extremely inconvenient because bilge access is from the starboard side. We’re planning on drilling a hole in the starboard side to improve this access. I intend to check all voltage drops of the mast wiring, replacing any that has dropped below 3% due to corrosion (or perhaps simply redo the connections), and add a drip loop to the wiring in the bilge. Additionally, we may move the radar from the radar arch at the stern to a mount on the mast.
Running Rigging
The running rigging is in sorry shape regarding friction. The lines look decent, but everywhere you pull, a frustratingly large amount of force is necessary. I’m used to the condition of impeccable racing boats, and although I know those standards are too high, it just isn’t fun to sail the boat when you can’t even get the mainsail to the top of the mast. We’ll be servicing or replacing all blocks, including masthead sheaves, and replacing all of the running rigging over the next year. We bought a roll (500ft) of 7/16″ Sampson XLS double-braid–it’s the basic stuff and it’s cheap and that’s because in my opinion it’s far better to buy half as expensive line twice as often, because the wear and tear on the line is the largest performance factor.
Lines on the mast.
Five halyards: two spinnaker, a main, jib, and staysail. A topping lift (even though we have a rigid boom vang–we’ll keep it as a spare halyard). Pole lift. Currently, nearly every line is led back to the cockpit. The only exception is the outhaul. Also there are no tack reefing lines led; there is a hook on the gooseneck for the cringles. We are not sure that we like the lines led back to the cockpit. When I race, I work the foredeck and the mast and I am used to doing the real work right at the mast, where you can grab the sail and do everything from one place. Less complex, less friction, better performance. But I recognize the value of not having to leave the cockpit to reef–it will inspire you to do it more often, which means greater safety. So we’re going to sail with it the way it is and think long and hard before we go messing with it all.
There are three small winches on the cabintop just forward of the cockpit, port of the companionway (which is offcentered to starboard). There are two large jib winches. There is a small winch on the boom for the outhaul. As of now, that’s all we have. I feel like we need another set of winches on the cockpit coaming, aft of the jib winches, for flying either the staysail or the spinnaker at the same time as the jib. Again, we’ll sail the boat extensively and then decide.
There is a massively long whisker/spinnaker pole that lives in front of the mast. My intuition is that this is a terribly unseaworthy place for it and that we should move it to the deck, but we’ll see. One problem with that is that we cannot seem to free the release–stainless hardware in an aluminum pole and it is completely seized. Nothing more to say about that now. There is a padeye on the foredeck to use in attaching a spinnaker downhaul, and there is a fairlead on the very forward edge of the cabintop that I assume is for the same. I haven’t thought about where the downhaul is to be led. Also, there are no padeyes on the rail for attaching spinnaker turning blocks for sheets or guys, so I’m not sure how they ever flew the spinnaker (maybe they didn’t).
Deck
The deck is cored with plywood (hull is solid). The condition of the gelcoat and fiberglass is excellent for a 1978 boat, only fair in absolute terms. As far as I can tell, nothing has ever been touched. The nonskid is pretty worn off, and there are various chips all over. Small amounts of stress cracking/crazing around a few hatches. There are two small areas of non-serious delamination on the cabintop–non-serious because they did not occur as a result of water penetration but rather flexing of the deck in an area where it wants to bow up. There is one area of delamination around the rudder post that occurred from water saturation, and will need prompt attention. I intend to fix the cabintop delamination by drilling holes and injecting epoxy, and the cockpit delamination by cutting out the core and replacing the whole section. I want to fill the dings and scratches with whatever most closely matches the gelcoat–either a putty or a filler or more gelcoat, whatever looks decent, then I want to paint on large patches of Ultratuff nonskid. I think it will make the deck look approximately 85-87 times better, and it will be a gratifying job (which is important, because that ultratuff isn’t cheap). When we pulled the mast down in mexico, I resolved to use Spartite chocking when we put it back in the boat. I think we’ll get the generic version from McmasterCarr.
Dodger
There is a hard dodger, mounted by California Custom Canvas in 1998, with plastic zip-off front windows, and canvas covers. There is also a bimini, which we haven’t even tried to assemble yet, and an awning that goes from mast to bimini, also untested.
Hull
The keel is bolted on with a ton of keelbolts, which still look shiny and uncorroded from what little you can see in the bilge. The keel is half lead, half foam. The first stage of Valiant keel design, of which ours is one, had a front half of lead and aft half of foam, with a vertical join between the two. In the second incarnation, the bottom half was lead and top half was foam–stronger, and not prone to the problems that we are experiencing. The aft, foam half is called “deadwood”, because it just fills space. If (when) water gets in there, it can’t get in the boat–the keel is still a separate attachment bolted onto the bottom of the boat. The “deadwood” isn’t structural–it just fills space and presents a shape to the water. It may as well be a hollow fiberglass form. The strength is in the fiberglass, not the foam. Problem is, the lead half and the foam half don’t like to stay connected. Whether it is differing expansion rates, the flex of the keel, or the yard resting the boat on the foam half and crushing the fiberglass, I cannot say. But ours has developed a nice little crack down the middle between the two, then we put it back in the water, then the foam half filled with water, and now it’s a task for me to deal with when the boat arrives. I already drilled holes and ground down the crack, to drain it of water and give it time to dry out. When it arrives I’m going to inject the gap between lead and foam half (which is something a little over a 1/4″) with either 5200 or colloidal silica epoxy–I can’t decide which so maybe I’ll just flip a coin. Then I’m going to glass over the whole crack with many layers of fiberglass and hope that gives it some strength to stay together. I’m going to do the same thing to the upper front end of the keel where it joins the hull, because the fairing compound cracked and started admitting water to that crucial space between keel and boat where the bolts live. Sitting in the mexican desert all year round (some serious temperature differences) also caused the rudder to very slightly delaminate–I know this was the cause because before we owned it the yard repaired it twice without it ever going in the water (sounds hollow, grind, repair, sounds good. wait. sounds hollow again, grind again, repair again, sounds good . . .). The danger is if the spot where the rudder shaft enters the rudder admits water into the rudder, which then corrodes the metal structure inside the rudder, which then eventually breaks off and you have no rudder control–probably during storm forces when you most need it. I drilled some exploratory holes and found about a 1/16″ gap between the glass and foam. When I drilled the bottom of the rudder, I got a tiny amount of water to drip out, nothing to get crazy about. So I’m going to force in as much thinned epoxy as I can, between the glass and foam, then fill the holes with thickened epoxy, fair it, prime it with Interlux Interprotect 2000, then after the rudder and keel work is all done we’ll do the whole bottom job. I think that’s more than adequate treatment.
Through-hulls and Seacocks
This is one of the issues where I feel like a newbie, and still can’t figure out the right path. Our through-hulls and seacocks are all high quality bronze ball valves, mostly Groco brand, supposedly replaced in 1996. On one or two of the through hulls there are backing nuts then ball valves, rather than proper seacocks with a base. None of the through hulls have impressive backing plates, and the hull is not thickened in the areas of the seacocks. I consider Calder an authority on every aspect of boats that he decides to discuss, and on through-hulls he insists on the importance of seacocks being mounted on an adequately thick and wide pad of either wood or fiberglass. I look at the seacock and wonder why we need to bother. Is that ever going to break off or leak? Doesn’t seem possible to me, even with a large backing plate. But Calder is the man, and my respect for Calder exceeds my trust of my own feelings on this matter. So we’re planning of adding adequate backing plates, built up out of fiberglass, to all of our below-waterline through-hulls. There are 8 below waterline holes in the boat, and 19 holes in the hull total (not counting the bolts that mount the zinc grounding plate, the bolts that mount the keel, the rudder post, or the propeller shaft. I made a diagram of the 8 special one’s location inside the boat, and a separate diagram of the 19 total as viewed from the exterior.
Bilgepumps
The boat comes stock with two manual bilge pumps and an auto bilge pump. This is a perfect number for a serious offshore boat, now we just have to fix it all. The auto bilge pump shorted out sometime while it was sitting in a manky pool of water in the sump while on the hard before we bought it, so we’re going to replace that with a Rule 4000. There are two manual bilge pumps, one below the cabin sole and one in the cockpit. All of the hoses however are shot. Neither manual pump works because it sucks air from either deteriorated connections or cracked hoses. So we bought all new hose to replace it and that’s going to be a hell of a job.
Sails
We seem to have been dealt an excellent suite of sails. Our main is by Port Townsend in 1990, modified for full battens in 2002. It is in excellent condition–looks nearly new to me–and can’t have been used much. There’s a 110 furling jib (with sunbrella luff and foot) by Port Townsend in 1990, in the same excellent condition. The hank-on staysail looks original and well-used, maybe 66% finished but perfectly usable. There is also a storm trysail and a storm staysail that have never been used, which I haven’t unfolded to look at yet. Finally a 1.5oz symmetrical spinnaker with a sock, which is exactly what I would have chosen given the opportunity. I don’t yet know about the condition, or how pretty the colors are. For some reason I feel that it was used by the previous owners very little, but that it was already used a fair amount when purchased. To go with the sails we have a teflon mainsail track which seems to work very well (slippery) and a separate trysail track installed on the mast, which I’m stoked about.
Engine Is a Westerbeke 40, which is really just a Perkins 4-108 assembled by Westerbeke for marine purposes. It seems to run well, although I have scant evidence and unfounded suspicion that troubles loom on the horizon. We had to bleed the fuel lines when we came back to it over Christmas, after a month of sitting, which is not unusual (although extremely demoralizing at the time, since I didn’t know how to do it and we ended up getting towed to our slip by a dinghy). Other noticeable issues to deal with: there is a slight weeping from the coolant hose that exits the header tank from underneath the forward side; the forward starboard motor mount appears to be corroding at a prodigious rate–the heat exchanger is directly above it and may be leaking, and the engine ground is attached to it and may be causing galvanic corrosion. A more immediate concern is the discover on our most recent trip that some amount of diesel fuel is leaking from somewhere (god I hope the tank hasn’t sprung a leak). And also by the fact that it appeared to head towards overheating when we were motoring into some headwind (engine rpms at 2,000, temperature crept up to 240 when I noticed, idled it down, then shut it down). These things could have extremely simple causes, or extremely annoying causes. The diesel fuel may have leaked out of the vent, or else the vent may be clogged and rising temperatures forced the diesel out elsewhere (this is more plausible since we filled the tank up in december, so the tank is full). The overheating may be simply from low coolant, or a clogged sea strainer. Or these things could be more serious.
About our particular 4108: it is freshwater cooled, and has both an engine oil cooler and a transmission oil cooler. The primary fuel filter is a Racor. The fuel tank is 75 gallons and aluminum. We were told that the v-drive was rebuilt in 1992 and the transmission in 1994 (clearly I have more to learn, because I though both of those terms referred to the same piece of equipment). The engine room is enormous and has excellent access. So enormous that I’m trying to figure out how to reclaim some of that space to use as storage. When we did the seatrial down in mexico, a mechanic named Omar stopped by to do our bidding. He changed the impeller on the seawater pump, cleaned and inspected the injectors, and changed the oil. On the immediate list still remain: change fuel filters, clean the air filter, in addition to solving the leaking diesel and overheating issues.
Ground Tackle
The anchor platform on the Valiant is adequate: there are two large bow rollers and large cheek plates. There is no chain guard, or whatever those things are called that protect the deck from the rattling chain, but I think we’ll deal with that by being careful. We have a Maxwell two-speed manual windlass with both rope and chain gypsies. Somewhere there’s a spare handle also. The windlass definitely needs to be serviced–hopefully it’s as simple as cleaning and re-greasing. We have four anchors: a 44lb bruce, 45lb cqr, 20lb danforth, and 70lb luke storm anchor. The main anchor rode is 250ft of 5/16″ high-test chain. The anchor locker is at the very bow, access is via a small door at the front of the v-berth. The chain rests at the same level as the v-berth, so not particularly low in the boat. Drainage of the anchor locker is through a hole that leads down to the bilge (passing underneath the holding tank).
Electrical
I am eager to organize and improve the electrical system, but it’s a daunting task. When I first went to look at the boat, I unscrewed the electrical panel, looked behind it at the spaghetti tangle of hundreds of unlabelled, unorganized wires, and closed the panel back up with a mild case of cold-sweat anxiety. It will take a week of effort just for me to decipher and diagram the existing electrical system, before I am even able to brainstorm what changes to make. While it isn’t completely run-down, there are a number of items in clear disrepair: the solar panels are wired with common house lamp wire, the auto bilge pump shorted when we first turned on the power, the steamer light doesn’t work, the anchor light doesn’t work, the radio ground looks like a mess, the engine ground point on the motor mount is corroding at an alarming rate, any electrical contact I come across is corroded all to hell, and when we left it in the water for less than three months the brand new shaft zinc nearly disappeared. The electrical equipment list is extensive.
Batteries: it has two banks of Rolls 262Ah with hydrocaps, installed in 2002 & 2004. I haven’t capacity tested them (Calder explains a good method) yet, but I will. I give it a 50/50 shot that they’re still ok. We’re planning on combining these two banks in one large house bank, and adding a separate cranking battery, connected to the main bank via a series regulator made by xantrex. Alternator: a “Silver Bullet” 165amp installed in 1990. Never heard of Silver Bullet. Supposedly it broke the bracket which holds it to the engine, twice, before they realized that once it really started working it was just too much for the small Perkins. So somehow they limited it to 110amps or so, to prevent it from happening again. I had thought that a Balmar 160amp would work fine on our engine without modification, so I wonder if the Silver Bullet draws more horsepower to put out its 165 amps than do other high-output models. I’ll probably never have a chance to explore this hypothesis–and if I do it’s probably because we need to replace something. Reputedly there is a quad cycle regulator installed 1990 for this alternator, which I intend to test.
Inverter/charger: Xantrex 2000 watt Freedom Marine series with remote, installed 2003. I wish I knew how to rewire the inside of this thing to act as an isolation transformer. I want the isolation transformer to protect us from stray-current corrosion via the third prong grounding wire of shore power. Given the heinous state of our zinc (and we weren’t even connected to shore power) I have concerns about our boats propensity for galvanic corrosion.
Solar panels: two siemens 50W installed 1992. Dinky little things that didn’t appear to be working properly when we were on the boat. Probably just the poor connections. We want to add two 85W panels which will also necessitate the addition of a dedicated solar regulator, mppt version if I have my way. We also want to add a wind generator–debating between the air-x and the four-winds, currently. Despite my physics background and extensive research, I still have questions about exactly how multiple charging sources interact. The answer will factor into what sort of regulation we use on each power source. Also, somewhere on the boat there is a tow generator that is attached to a padeye on the toerail, which I am eager to experiment with. We are pretty committed to an energy setup that doesn’t require any engine run time. There is a Furuno 1720 radar–old but still operational and not worth considering replacing. As mentioned above, we may attempt to move the transceiver from the radar arch in the back onto the mast, to clear out the stern area some. There is a Standard Horizon VHF. And a Kenwood SSB with an automatic antenna tuner; the backstay is the antenna. There is a modem that I cannot identify–looks like it used an older pactor protocol than is in usage today, which means that we’ll probably need to buy a PactorIII modem to be able to do email from the high seas. There is an ancient Magellan gps that still manages to return coordinates–we’ll probably be scrapping this in favor of smaller and fuller featured. I own two handheld gps, and my plan is to use a small bluetooth gps that feeds NMEA to the MacENC program running on a mac laptop. This can be a sweet setup for navigation, although we probably won’t want to run the laptop constantly. Yet to be explored. At this moment there is still an incandescent tricolor on top of the mast; we have purchased an LED trilight bulb to replace it. I also need to address the steaming light (not currently functioning). The nav lights on deck are in disrepair and we intend to replace them. The cabin lights down below are beautiful, expensive Alpine fluorescent jobbies with the red night light option also. There are also the old, original incandescent fixtures. An overabundance of electrical lighting. There are five hella fans mounted in various locations.
Stove Is a four burner propane with an oven. Works flawlessly to date. There are two 20lb propane tanks in an aft lazarette propane locker; the installation looks totally ABYC approved.
Plumbing There is a manual foot pump under both the galley and head sinks. There is a pressurized freshwater system, and a hot water heater with an option to run the engine coolant water through the water heater as a heating element. There is a saltwater intake under the galley sink; currently this runs to the watermaker, but we intend to plumb in an additional manual pump so we’ll have manual fresh and saltwater in the galley. There is a beautiful watermaker installation in the small cabinet just across from the nav station.
Watertanks
The previous owners reported that the stainless steel watertanks leaked (75 gallons total tankage). Originally we wanted to sail the boat up from mexico, and decided that we should tackle this job before doing so. In what I consider to be our biggest mistake to date, we elected to cut up the old tanks to remove them from the boat, and fabricate our own tanks using West System plywood, fiberglass, epoxy. We should have left them in the boat until we had it trucked up to the bay, then attached Scott’s compressor to it to compression test it to find the leaks, then hired a welder to do the welding right down in the cabin of the boat. It would have sucked, a lot, but probably not as much as building these tanks from scratch will. Mistakes will be made, and I can handle this one just fine.
Head
The hoses were skanky, cracked in spots, and the y-valve setup didn’t make sense. So we yanked it all (except for the nearly new holding tank under the front of the v-berth) and we’re installing all new, including a Lavac head and some pricey Trident hose. The Lavac head is super simple and everyone says good things about it. About six months ago I spent a lot of time brainstorming the best head plumbing setup for our situation, then I modified it to fit into the physical space available to us, so I have blueprints ready to go (which will undoubtedly change as soon as we start).
Cushions
We already had the cushions redone down in mexico–the quarterberth and v-berth ones were entirely redone, with new 5″ foam and fabric. The settee cushions were reupholstered, using the old foam which was still in good condition.
Heater
There is an ardic forced air diesel heater located in the engine room. The ductwork rusted away at some point so the old owners pulled the ductwork out and haven’t used it in more than a decade. We intend to replace the ductwork and get the heater running.
Storage
It doesn’t feel as if there is sufficient storage in the boat, to me, although that could be because I’m trying to imagine four people living on the boat. There is a large space outboard of the port settee which is underutilized–we intend to build cabinets or shelves or drawers in there. Also, the head has a lot of unused space to commandeer.
Portlights
The portlights need to be replaced. They are the original plastic ones and they’re falling apart–I have no doubt that serious heavy weather could bust them. My grand idea is to enlarge the existing portlights and also add a few more. I want to use the Trimatrix ones from Newfound Metals–$120 apiece and through-bolted. Looks bomber. This is one of the jobs about which I am most excited.
Bilge
The Valiant bilge has great access for its full length. I have heard a number of people report this: someone (maybe even the factory) filled the bilge with resin, probably in a well-intentioned attempt to make it smooth and level for drainage. Well the resin cracked in numerous places, and now it’s just poor form–admitting water and holding it right where we don’t want it–at the keelbolts. So I think we’re going to chip all that resin out and paint the bilge with white BilgeKote.