Re: [Cal_Boats] Project "what else can I stress about" [1 Attachment]

Alex - Unfortunately the designer does not usually have any control over how the boat actually gets built. My '80 Cal 39 has a number of minor but irritating construction issues. I discovered that one of my stanchion bases never had any nuts on it and as a result, kept leaking into the cabinet just behind of the aft bulkhead of the head and rotted out the plywood. There was probably a the equivalent of 2 tubes of 4200 puddled up behind the lathework where someone had attempted to stop the leak at some point but never did a complete job of it. A friend of mine is good friends with Bob Perry and he laments about this frequently to him. Paul In a message dated 3/12/2013 2:31:11 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, kr… [at] gmail.com writes: [_Attachment(s)_ (mip://0bdbe7b8/default.html#TopText) from Alex Kunadze included below] Hi, Ok, mystery solved. That moving chainplate? Turns out it was caused by the improper size bolts. The holes in the plate are larger than 3/8" (probably 10mm), but the bolts are only 1/4". I must admit I'm disappointed to see that. The whole thing looks like original equipment and I didn't expect shoddy work like that from the manufacturer... Anyway, the wood seems to be fine, so I'll just get proper bolts, drill and pot the holes to the proper size and everything should be fine. While I was at it (famous last words), I've removed some trim pieces to look at the bulkhead under the mast and found that it's been messed with before. There's about an inch of epoxy between it and the roof, glass tape is missing on the head side in the middle, and a small area underneath the mast seems to be epoxied as well. I've attached a picture of it. Does that look fine, or should I stress about it? Cheers, Alex.

It's funny how my wife and I (in the middle of tearing out water tanks), were wondering how this boat got such a great build quality reputation. I think ours must have been one of those Friday afternoon completion jobs. Greg From: "pw… [at] aol.com" <pw… [at] aol.com> To: Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, March 12, 2013 11:40 AM Subject: Re: [Cal_Boats] Project "what else can I stress about" Alex - Unfortunately the designer does not usually have any control over how the boat actually gets built. My '80 Cal 39 has a number of minor but irritating construction issues. I discovered that one of my stanchion bases never had any nuts on it and as a result, kept leaking into the cabinet just behind of the aft bulkhead of the head and rotted out the plywood. There was probably a the equivalent of 2 tubes of 4200 puddled up behind the lathework where someone had attempted to stop the leak at some point but never did a complete job of it. A friend of mine is good friends with Bob Perry and he laments about this frequently to him. Paul In a message dated 3/12/2013 2:31:11 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, kr… [at] gmail.com writes: >Hi, > >Ok, mystery solved. That moving chainplate? Turns out it was caused by the improper size bolts. The holes in the plate are larger than 3/8" (probably 10mm), but the bolts are only 1/4". I must admit I'm disappointed to see that. The whole thing looks like original equipment and I didn't expect shoddy work like that from the manufacturer... Anyway, the wood seems to be fine, so I'll just get proper bolts, drill and pot the holes to the proper size and everything should be fine. > >While I was at it (famous last words), I've removed some trim pieces to look at the bulkhead under the mast and found that it's been messed with before. There's about an inch of epoxy between it and the roof, glass tape is missing on the head side in the middle, and a small area underneath the mast seems to be epoxied as well. I've attached a picture of it. Does that look fine, or should I stress about it? > >Cheers, >Alex. >

On 3/12/2013 3:04 PM, Greg vanDalen wrote: > > > It's funny how my wife and I (in the middle of tearing out water > tanks), were wondering how this boat got such a great build quality > reputation. I think ours must have been one of those Friday afternoon > completion jobs. > If you think Cals had some quality control issues, you should see how they built _cheap_ boats back in the earlier days. If we expect perfection from Jensen marine, we're bound to be disappointed but if we expect good design & engineering with a few build defects, we won't be. Last fall our local maritime historical group, the one that operates the schooner replica, an 18th century armed sloop replica, and a few other boats, did a Sawzall & dumpster job on an old Chris-Craft powerboat. By the time I got there the superstructure was gone, so I don't know how bad that was, but the hull was basically sound. It was a very sad event, looking at all the wooden components that went into the hull and thinking about the guys who had carefully fitted them all. Chris-Craft wasn't up htere with the custom builders but they were a pretty good production builder. It seemed to me that the hull deserved more reverence than it got from our crew. Chris Campbell