Phantom NY Pilot Boat
March 25, 2016
Shrouds were finished off…pin rails installed. Backstays put in. On to the main boom!
Construction of the main boom went well. About 5-6 hours of work. Tying knots for the foot ropes was a pain, and took a couple tries. Got everything done and started the rigging, then hit a major setback.
Rigging the main boom requires some work with the single block installed waaaaay back when we built the traveller (before any deck buildings were installed). As I was hooking all that up, I pulled the eyebolt under the traveller loose. To fix this *properly*, i’d need to remove some deck buildings, the traveller, and maybe more. Given that the eyebolt is hidden under the traveller, I decided to go for a faster fix. I drilled the hole larger (passing the bit through the hole in the traveller) – maybe 2x the size of the eyebolt’s stem. I then carefully filled it with gap-filling CA glue, and lowered the eyebolt into the hole. It was ugly, but it worked. If this thing were 20% larger scale, I could have gotten tools in there to fix it properly (guide the eyebolt back into a proper hole). But at this size (and with the rear deck finished out), there was no room to maneuver.
I am now at about 6 months into my build (with about a 2 month break – so really I’ve been working for 4 months).
Tomorrow I start the main gaff!