Hello all,
Well Sunshine gets hauled out of the
water tomorrow to be fitted with new 40HP
Yanmar motors and SD60 sail drives. When we originally purchased the
boat we budgeted for new motors, now 18 months later the old motors were going well but had in excess of 8500 hours when we were offered a deal that was just to good to pass up on the
purchase and
installation of new motors.
We bought the
boat from Lake Macquarie up to Port Stephens (36NM north of us) to be hauled out at a cat friendly yard which will also allow us to stay on board. Our plan is to antifoul the boat while its out as well as tidy up the
engine bay and re-sound proof it.
Sue and I have spent the last day and a half preparing the rear
engine access hatches adjacent the
cockpit for
removal. I am so glad we decided to do this early as it took longer than expected. For those of you not familiar with the layout,
Lagoon in an excellent design decision allowed for a removable ceiling and
cockpit panel above the engines in the aft cabins to make it reasonably straight forward to remove the engines should the need arise.
Removing the ceiling cover is very straight forward, only requiring the
removal of several
wood screws in the lined panel ensuring that you have some one holding the panel in place when the last couple of screws are taken out to stop it falling and being damaged or broken.
Removing the fibreglass cockpit panel takes a lot more
work and a lot of patience. This panel is held in place by self tapping screws every 6 inches accessed from the aft
cabin. Once these screws are taken out it is a case of cutting away as much of the Sikaflex that is used to
bed this panel in place from the outside. I used a knife, to cut through the majority of the external sika. A box
cutter knife is really required to be able to cut right through the sika to the base of the supporting fibreglass frame.
Having done this then then need to go back into the
cabin berth and with a metal scraper start in one corner and very gently tap into the sika till you touch the outside edge of the cockpit lip. It appears that when this was first put in place they filled the void with ski then screwed the panel down as tight as possible. This leaves really no room to get a knife in to break the sika seal and you need to force the metal scraper between the removable cockpit cover and the room fibreglass panel. Its then a case of doing this an inch at a time to break the ski seal. Don't rush as you will end up breaking the fibreglass lip. Using this process I was able to start at the narrowest end and slowly break the sika seal till I could get a thin wedge under one edge. Once I was able to get a thin wedge under an edge it became easier as the wedge put slight pressure on the cockpit panel which made it easier to tap the metal scraper along the edge of the panel. At times you want rush but this needs to be resisted at all costs as you will damage something.
.
Lagoon must use at least a whole large tube of Sika sticking these
panels in place so it takes a fair effort to get them out. There are two timber
panels that will have to be cut that are used to support the internal roof but with careful cutting they should be able to be used again.
One of the annoying things I did find that on one of the panels Lagoon had covered up three of the securing screws with the timber supports. I did not notice this till I was tapping the
paint scraper down the Sika line and came to a stop. Rather than cut the timber I was able to estimate with some accuracy where the screws were located and drilled large enough holes through the timber for me to use a screwdriver through the hole and undo the screws.
I have taken photos of what I got up and will post some as soon as I remember where I put the
camera .
Greg, Sue and Bella the sea dog
SV Sunshine Lagoon 410 S2
Lake Macquarie
New South Wales
Oz