Trucking my sailboat

[Mary Mac]

Since I moved to Manhattan Beach, its been very difficult to go up to Alameda to work on my boat to prepare her to sail South. The transmission is still stuck.. I have tried very many things, and it won't budge. Even if I do manage to get it removed, I don't know if it can be repaired. I've decided to look into trucking the boat to LA so that I can work on her more conveniently near where I live. Has anyone here done this?

I'd want to prepare the mast myself to save money. How difficult is it to remove the aluminum spreaders?

Anyone (Randy?) know of a dry storage place that would let me work on it?

Does anyone know a trucking company they'd recommend?

[rcvesselstyn]

Hey Mary, I feel your pain. Its late and the mates already asleep but I wanted to dash off a quick note. The dry storage that we used on and off is gone. With the soaring real estate market any space that can be developed is being or already developed. I could get a funky 1 bedroom condo for 850000 where our dry storage once stood. I will look around and talk to those few contacts of mine that are still alive. but most of the locations are not in safe or protected areas, you would have to get some heavy insurance and strip the boat of anything irreplaceable. As far as trucking... at least around here the cost for a semi and a driver has skyrocketed. The demand at the port seems to have snatched up every truck in southern California. As far as the transmission you should check with Raleigh up in Seattle. if he is replacing his engine maybe you could snag the old transmission. if he is keeping his old transmission that means the beta engine matches up . which would mean beta would have a transmission that would match up to your engine. I'm so sorry about the situation and I wish I could have a solution. I will start flexing what is left of our network if I get a break from work tomorrow. hopefully I can post a happier bit of info.

[rcvesselstyn]

Not a whole lot of info yet. Three of the informal small yards said that was too much boat for them. One of the Long Beach yards said they might have the space but unless they were doing the work it was a by the foot by the day charge. I found one truck that could handle that weight but you would have to provide a trailer and the insurance and the fuel. You might be able to piggyback on one of the barges coming down from San Francisco to LA but you'd be on the hook for the cradle and the insurance. One of my marine surplus guys got back to me and said he'd prepare a list of reliable mechanics who have access to salvage parts that are up in San Francisco. He said he'd have that tomorrow but it's Saturday. I'll send it to you or post it when I get it. I'm still waiting for my expert in licensed captains to get back to me. With a broken transmission you won't be able to go that route but he has a lot of knowledge and connections in boat transport. Unfortunately they might not be the most reasonable but you could be pretty sure they would be the most honorable. Only had my lunch break to work on this but at least I got the ball rolling. Hopefully some of our group will have some better ideas.

[GBR3068]

Can we help you with searching, researching, at all? I'm also not too far from your boat so please let me know if that can be of any help.

1. Did you give up on a compatible replacement, like a Borg Warner?
2. Have you gone through finding and calling everyone who might have worked on your Paragon model?
3. I'm guessing you have done all the above since you are so thorough but let us know if we can help at all maybe just by pounding the Internet for useful resources... I did for example just now find Harpur's Marine Engines in LA and this recent review:

"9/8/2021
Harpur's repaired my 1978 Paragon SAOV transmission off my Cal 34. It has been flawless ever since. Great service, great knowledge and the repair time was very quick. I highly recommend, as they are the authority on marine transmissions. Thanks Harpur's for the service.

You asked about stepping your mast and pulling the spreaders. I'm at Spaulding in Sausalito right now and am just finishing up with Tom Relyea at South Beach Riggers. All great guys. I know you wanted to do everything yourself but I can't see how you could do what it took to get my mast down and worked on without a crane or picker. I'm sure it could be done, but I wouldn't want to do it the first time. I will take pictures of my spreaders but it will only be to replay to you what Tom said "Never seen such huge spreaders on that size boat, they look fine and it will be wasted work to get them off anyway..." So they could have come off but I have no idea if they are original. You can compare them with yours. It was quiet in Sausalito (at Spaulding and KKMI) over Xmas and New Year but now all the riggers are getting really busy. I think I remember you didn't have a great experience at Berkeley, but the guys at Spaulding and Tom and his crew are especially good and could probably help get you ready.

[Mary Mac]

Thanks for doing all that research, Randy. I did find someone in Seattle who can rebuild the transmission, but I'd still have to get it out of the boat! My original plan was to have it rebuilt.

There are options for putting in a different transmission, but none of them are simple nor cost effective. It seems crazy to spend $5k-$6k on a replacement, old transmission conversion, but that may be the best/only option. I'm still pondering the electric motor option, too.

I've gotten some trucking quotes. Its about $3000 for the transport and then around $800 for the haul-out and crane to un-step the mast.. then have to re-step and splash in So Cal, plus when I have the rig down, I should really replace the standing rigging.

Mike: thank you for your help, also. I haven't given up on any options yet, but the prices for a replacement are very high. I found someone who can rebuild it in Seattle. I called Harpur back in September and they said they could not do it.

I would have the yard pull the mast with their crane and then I'd get to work taking everything apart and wrapping for transport so that I don't have to pay ~$150/hr each for multiple guys to do it.. sounds like it could take all day.

Good to know about Spaulding, I'll give them a call. I called KKMI in Point Richmond and they sounded good, too.

[rcvesselstyn]

Hi Mary. I just got a call back from a guy who has his boat up in Sausalito. His transmission went south and he took it to List Marine. He was extremely happy with the professionalism and the quality of the work and recommended it highly. Their number is 415-332-5478

[GBR3068]

Mary: You are right about labor. I chose to pull the rig "hands off" which meant there was no "I thought you had the gooseneck pin" when everything went back. It takes the best part of a morning or afternoon to do everything: crane, check and prepare wiring, label and photograph everything, disconnect everything, pull mast ... From my experience $800 for crane + haul-out + step mast is hard to beat.

I now see you meant your transmission is literally "stuck" to the engine. Maybe you could get over to Spaulding and have them check it out. Their dock is part of the yard so it is possible to pull up, have them stop whatever they are doing on the dock for 10 minutes and take a look. I see the logistics problem with a bad transmission. You have to get to someone somehow who can "un-stuck" the transmission, then get back to Alameda and pull it, ship it, fix it and then reverse the process. I got into Spaulding solo without using reverse if that helps.

Spaulding has been real good on my project. Both the "main" guys there are Cal guys. James has a Cal 29 and Chris has a Cal 39. I don't know what transmissions they have, I can ask on Monday. They are definitely used to working on old boats like ours. I have seen them work on some pretty gnarly bent and rusted mechanical problems while I have been there. My next door neighbor took her Catalina in for paint and wanted a custom stripe. They said "You don't want to pay us to do that, you should be able to do it yourself, let us show you how." I thought that was a good way to run a boatyard.

If you can get your rigging done here, I can highly recommend Tom and crew at South Beach Riggers next to Spaulding. Tom is a racer (won the infamous 1979 Fastnet with Turner) but is used to working with boats like ours. You would like his approach: very detailed and precise but able to work with you on budget. I have two friends (including previous owner) who have and are going to use Tom for new rigs and are very happy. Tom and his team have done inner forestay, running backstays, trysail track, drogue mounts, mast steps, mast reinforcement, compression post, new standing and running rigging, lights, radar, mast wiring, masthead wind instruments etc. for my Cal 2-34 and that included a lot of back and forward on planning, changes, decisions, budgeting and Tom has been great throughout.

[GBR3068]

>> How difficult is it to remove the aluminum spreaders?

Here are my 2-34 spreaders. No idea if they are original. Two bolts to remove on each side, look like 3/8". You are looking at them here and the Schaefer shroud tangs plus the through-mast dowel with its 1+" nut is below. I checked and there is clear space between spreader and mast so they come straight out. I honestly don't think these spreaders would take very long to remove because even if one is wedged in, you can use the tough spreader as a long lever arm to get it out.

IMG_7987.JPG (2.27 MiB) Viewed 5748 times

[GBR3068]

List Marine is on one side of Spaulding and South Beach Riggers is on the other side. Spaulding is very used to having a boat in their yard while either or both of these other businesses work on it. Definitely worth thinking about... Let me know if I can help in any way. I'm up there all this week before I go back to Brisbane, but its not that far out of my way to go up there.

[GBR3068]

Mary>> How difficult is it to remove the aluminum spreaders?

I forgot to add:

Mine are aluminum. Welded. Somewhere you also asked if they were hollow and mine are. They have a small, about 3/16", hole drilled near the bracket on the underside to drain, though they look pretty much sealed. Somewhere you also asked about pitting and corrosion. Mine are painted. A bit better paint and different from my mast. Looks like typical pale yellow zinc-based barrier and then several coats of what feels like 2-part brilliant white epoxy finish because it's really tough, much tougher than my mast paint. There is some wear at the spreader ends. There is wear at one end, the tips, due to shrouds. There is wear at the other end as the "bars" that end the spreaders bears against the brackets under load. But nothing to worry about. Not much corrosion and nothing that rises to the level of pitting. The spreaders, brackets, definitely the tangs and hardware look way newer than the mast and its other fittings (like the rivets for the mast wiring conduit for example) and it could be that a lot of mast hardware, possibly including the spreaders, was replaced at some point. If I look at the level of wear on the "new" mast parts it is about the same as on all the boom fittings on the mast (gooseneck etc), so my guess would be it was all replaced at the time the boom was fitted around 2015 or so. I didn't worry at all about looks, I wasn't going to strip and re-paint the mast, that would have cost a fortune not least because of the environmental and OSHA stuff. My mast now looks like what Tom calls camouflage, mostly white with some yellow and some bare aluminum. My guess in a few years it will be mostly bare aluminum !

and while I am at it ...

I'm guessing you are thinking about what might need to be done on mast and spreaders when you pull the mast. We went over everything on my mast. There were some spots on some of the massive dowels for the tangs that Tom's guys recommended an added weld, so we did that. They also added an extra protective weld to the spreader underside too. I have added an inner forestay for staysail but mostly storm jib. With that came backstays which also help to stop the mast twitching under high load conditions. Since I was doing all this work we had Jim Antrim (marine architect that Tom uses, great guy - read his stuff on offshore sailing) look at things. There was a part of the mast below the spreaders that where Jim recommended adding "doublers" (an extra aluminum pad). My PO aircraft mechanic friend told me this is just like the doubler pads they used to add around the nose wheel compartment of a 747 since that area takes such incredible pounding on landing. We measured the mast vertical column and trued up the mast base very slightly. Could be that the cabin roof had shifted a bit, or the mast shoe was not exactly true, don't know. We checked the whole area around the mast step and of course the cabin roof, doors, compression post, bulkheads, beam, tabbing, everything you want to check on these Cal designs, but all was OK. This Cal has a steel roll cage inside so its pretty solid. We reinforced the crazy Cal 34 steel mast beam design with 2" thick G10 sheet anyway. There were some welded tangs for inner forestay that we weren't sure would be up to once-in-a-lifetime loads but they checked out OK. There was an antenna fitting (there were two antennas on the mast) that had been added, but one without insulation between bracket and the 1/4" aluminum at the mast head. That metal interface had corroded and needed to be cleaned up. The masthead combo Lopo light and bracket just needed cleaning up but the Forespar combo steaming light needed replacing. Could never get a straight answer on whether the new Forespar design was an exact replacement for the old, but it did fit. Bought a light guard for it, and that was a complete waste of money. One thing I would highly recommend is running a borescope up the entire length inside the mast. Also run a straight edge over the entire mast. This all takes a lot of labor time, so best if you do that. We caught a few things: a couple of backing plates where the screws could have gone through a little further and we replaced those. I had wire halyards and changed to rope. That meant new sheaves that had to be machined with custom bearings as they were over-sized originally. I over-sized the rigging again, going from 1/4 to 9/32 to now 5/16. One problem here is you now have the ability to destroy things if you are not careful, so I did buy my own Loos gauge. I then discovered another problem, when you go up to 5/16 you are now in a different class and everything including the wire gauge for example, costs way, way more. Don't know why I did that upgrade to 5/16, I don't think it was necessary, but I did it. I put Lunar Marine steps on, and they are really nice with the magnetic closure and everything, but probably shouldn't have done that either as it cost a fortune. I made a stupid mistake on my radar mount. Scanstrut is hopeless, they don't even know what brackets and guard sizes work together, so I ended up giving the Scanstrut mount away and having a much more solid design built by Kato Marine, so I can step on it as I climb up. As a re-fit rookie I made a lot of other mistakes too, so let me know if you decide to re-rig and I can tell you a lot of stuff not to do.