I'll Flip Ya!

Wow, I have such great friends. I had Terry, Chantel, Badass, Karyn, and Hutch show up last night to help me flip the boat over with Adrienne and I (it's so much easier with more hands!). I had finally finshed the bottom, and she looks great!

Today was a holiday here in Canada so I spent the time doing boat work (Adrienne and Karyn went to the beach...I guaranteed I had more fun!).

Today, did some minor epoxy work where the old chain plates were and where the new rudder post is. I sanded them smooth and got a few coats of paint on them. I also painted around where the new spin launcher bar is. I added the Black Sheep insignia, as well as the forward spin halyard block.

As for what's left to do before finally sailing her this weekend, I've got the following to do:

1) Finish painting

2) Re-install rudder gugions.

3) Install hydro turf

4) Install spin launcher sock

5) Install hiking straps

6) Make new lines for Gnav and cunningham.

7) Add Jib halyard fine tune

It's getting close!

Nick Rack/Nice Bottom

It's been a while since my last update. I don't want all my followers (currently only 1) to think I'm getting lazy with my Viper restoration. So here's what I've done since I flipped the boat over and removed the old delman and the old drain plug.

1) Filled in old drain plug area.

2) Faired out bottom around keel trunk

3) Filled in hole in keel trunk

4) Sanded bottom around keel trunk and old drain plug

5) Painted area/sand/paint/sand

The bottom is looking pretty good, but it might require one more sand and paint and light sand.

I've also added the GNAV hardware to the boom. It's a pretty awesome looking piece of hardware!

And finally I've added the new trailer racks to make the viper nice and comfy while on the hard.

So I hope you enjoy the pics. I'm extremely happy with how it's coming. Just over a week now and I'll be racing her in Sarnia!

Some more shots from yesterday

Flipped Over/Flipped Off

First off, I have to start this post by thanking Badass, Hyde, Matt and Adrienne. If it wasn't for them I couldn't make this happen.

So yesterday I was finally able to get enough people together to get the viper flipped over. I'd like to say it went really smoothly, but it wasn't as easy as I though. The biggest boat to date that I've flipped is probably a laser 2, and it's not even comparable to this adventure.

In case anyone is interested in doing this in the future, I've got some step by step instructions.

Material needed:

- At leaset 4 people. 5 is better, and 6 is probably ideal.

- 4 used tires

- 2 pool noodles cut length wise.

- case of beer

- bags of munchies

Steps:

1) Position boat (on trailer) into area that is easy to flip a boat. On the grass is better than cement. Make sure you have at least 8 feet of vertical clearance to flip.

2) Position the used tires to the boat will sit right side up on them on the grass.

3) Lift boat off trailer and onto tires. It's easies to set the stern on first and then lift the bow, and have someone move the trailer out from under the boat.

4) Take a rest and drink a beer.

5) Put pool noodles on one side of the gunwhale (side that will be the low side when flipping).

6) Lift the new high side, low side will go down, and put two tires under the low side so there's clearance for the chain plates to clear.

7) have 2 guys on pushing the boat over, and two bracing it as it comes over. Once the boat gets to verticle, move one more guy to the low side. Once boat gets past verticle, move 4th guy to low side.

8) lower boat down onto the tires completely upside down.

9) Take a rest and drink a beer.

10) 4 guys lift boat up (upside down) and cary to where you want the boat to be to work on. the 5th person collects the tires and positions them to where the boat will finally sit.

11) put boat down in final position on the tires.

12) Drink beer 2-4 beers and eat some munchies.

13) Done.

After all my buddies left, I was able to start working on the bottom. I wanted to remove the old drain plug, and to remove the delaminated gelcoat. Attached are some pictures of how that went.

Hi Everyone, sorry I haven't posted in the last few days. Work has been very busy and I haven't been thinking about blogging much.

You're probably wonding if I've done anything lately eh? Well you're in for a treat. I decided to take the old chain plates off the boat. This was something that wasn't originally planned, but I had some extra time (since I ran out of sand paper), so I thought I would give it a shot. What I did was took my dremel too and cut out about a inch of deck around the old chain plate. Once that was done, I had enough space to cut off the chain plate with the dremel using the cutting tool. From there I cleaned out the whole area and filled it back in with thickened epoxy. Then got some more sand paper and sanded it down flush to the deck. I still have to paint but I think it will look really good when done. Check out the pictures so far!

Spin launcher Bar

So just a few updated shots of the spin launcher bar. I sanded down all the excess epoxy and now it's ready for paint.

Foot Chalks and Spin Launcher Bar

So my second full day of renos was very productive. I was able to install the forward foot chalks that Ben Steinberg made for me (Excellent work BTW!). They were very easy to install. I just followed Ben's instructions which he wrote on the inside of the chalks with a sharpie. Have a look at the picture to see my handy work.

From there I decided to try to tackle the spin launcher bar. Now keep in mind my boat work skills could be described as "intermediate at best", so I was a little scared to start the install. Anyway, with the instructions that Jeff Jones wrote on the Viper forums, the intstall wasn't too bad. The hardest part was trimming the bar to the right length to fit. I didn't want to trim too much off and ruin the part, but if I didn't trim enough it wouldn't fit. I just took my time and would trim a little, then test fit, then trim a little more, and test fit, and so on until finally I was able to rubber mallet it into place. From there I started with some thickened epoxy to hold it in place. That's where she stands now until tomorrow after work when I can fill the rest in and fair it out.

So she's really coming together after good weekend worth of work. I'm just about ready to get the boat flipped over to start working on the bottom. That should be fun!

I hope you enjoy the pictures of the work so far.

Darren

Radical Restructuring

For those of you who don't know, I got the title of this post from the movie Ski School...if you haven't seen it, you haven't lived!

Anyway, so today I thought I'd try to tackle adding the new rudder post to #29. Something that took some serious courage because I was ripping the old rudder post off, and once I started, there was no going back!

It was the perfect day to do the work on the boat too. Adrienne was away at her wedding shower, there was a nice breeze in the air which kept the dust flying down the driveway and away from me.

So anyway, here's some pictures of the Radical restructuring. I'll be doing more work on it tomorrow, and hopefully installing the spin launcher bar as well...and if I'm really lucky, the forward foot chalks.

A special thanks to Ben Steinberg for making me the rudder post. You do great work!

Enjoy the pics, and check back tomorrow to see the rest of the progress.

Just a few more pictures

Making some more progress

So a few weeks ago, I took the viper to Sarnia to get some work done with Lee and Kelly. Brad Boston was nice enough to let us use his garage to work in as the weather wasn't cooperating with us.

A list of things we got done:

1) New chain plates installed

2) New Guy installed

3) Removed old hiking strap hardware and filled holes

4) Removed old jib cheek blocks and filled holes

5) Added new inspection ports

Since then I've been working away on the boat. Here's a list of things I've done since:

1) Sanded down filled holes for Hiking strap pad eyes.

2) Added pad eyes back onto cockpit

3) Sanded down filled holes for jib cheek blocks.

4) Added new jib cheek blocks

5) Added Gnav hardware at base of mast, forward cockpit, and back at the helm position

6) Added two 4" inspection ports at the back of the cockpit to get at the Gnav hardware

7) Filled in the area where the old spin launcher roller bar was and sanded it down smooth

8) Got the carbon rig (no standing rigging yet)

9) Got hydroturf. but not installed yet.

10) Took keel to T&M Marine to get weight added.

So looking forward, the next steps are to install the forward foot chalks, the new spin launcher bar, and the new rudder post. Once that's done I've got the top of the boat complete and then it's onto removing the old drain plug in the bottom of the boat, filling in that area, and sanding it smooth. From there the boat is ready to race! It's coming along very well now!

More viper work

Today Adrienne took off to Burlington with here Mom and Sisters to visit her Nana, and I took advantage of the alone time to work on the Viper.

Today I added the new spinnaker blocks, took the old blocks off and reinstalled the pad eyes with some silicon, added a new inspection port between the keel trunk and the main sheet block, and I removed the old roller bar at the end of the spin launcher shoot.

Here's some pictures of the progress today. Enjoy!

Darren

Viper #29 Restoration Day 1 (April 30/11)

Today was the start of the work on Viper #29.

The day started off with a drive to Adrienne's Uncle's farm to pick the boat up from storage. No doubt the tires were flat. Thankfully it was just a slow leak, so I was able to tow it home.

Once I got the boat home I started on the work. Here's a list of what I was able to get done today.

- Removed Old Hiking Straps

- Removed locker hatches

- Removed cockpit floor inspection port

- Added 2 new 4" inspection ports to the forward end of the lockers

- Re-installed locker hatches (you're suppose to re-install them upside down so you don't snap the hinges)

- Attempted to install a new 6" inspection port to the cockpit floor but it was the wrong size

- Installed 4 pad eyes and safety lines.

Here's some pictures of the work.

Cheers!

Darren