C&C 27 Association Forum

Ralph Ainslie's photos and description of his rudder replacement work are now available in the Black Arts section of the site. Words and photos on the cause of Ralph's problem are shown in 27 Tales under Halifax Hurricane.
David Weatherston
"Towser", Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV

You could trace the cables and see what they in turn are bonded to. What you're seeing could be lightning protection (in which case, everything is going to lead as directly as possible to the keel) but it's more likely to be protection against electrolysis, in which case, the centre of this circuit will be the engine block, which in turn will have the zinc anode on the prop shaft (you do not need one anywhere else). This shaft anode should protect any immersed metal (shaft, prop, p-bracket, seacocks) from electrolysis (the keel, being lead, is not an issue).

Bonding and lightning protection can become quite complex. Since you seem not to have a zinc anode on your prop shaft, I strongly suggest you invest the $5 or whatever they are and get one on before next season. Launch your boat and enjoy it. Then at haulout next season, have a look at your new anode. If it's eroded or pitted, you have a problem and it's time to read the electrical section of the book I mentioned earlier. I have, however, never heard of anyone having an electrolysis problem on the Lakes, so probably the anode will merely look grungy, which means you have no electrolysis issues, and can move on to dealing with all the other imponderables that boats continually throw in your face.
David Weatherston
"Towser", Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV

I used to use a Cetol-like product called Deks Olje on the exterior of the boat, which gave a nice matte finish. The important quality about Deks Olje that set it apart from Cetol is that Deks didn't have that orange tint, which I don't like. Deks Olje broke down fairly quickly, so you had to put on several coats during the season to keep it looking good. From what I can see, Cetol doesn't break down so quickly, but goes very rapidly from 'needing attention' to 'disaster' much more quickly.

I now use varnish (Epifanes). I put two coats on in the early spring and another in the fall if I get the opportunity (I'm not convinced I need to do this). I also touch up gouges as soon as possible. My varnish doesn't look like the very best, but it shows up the grain of the wood, it does look much more attractive than Deks Olje ever did, and it's miles ahead of Cetol.

As a year-to-year work cycle, I don't think it's really much more work looking after varnish than putting on the Deks Olje, so I'd have to assume that it's about the same hassle level as Cetol. The big difference is that you have to be more careful about the weather (not too hot, not too cool), you have to be more organized, and you have to be more conscious of how you wield a brush.

Recently, Gougeon Brothers has started promoting the idea of epoxying bare trim, then varnishing over the epoxy. The epoxy stabilizes the wood so the varnish lasts much longer. I wouldn't do this unless you had the wood right off the boat and could strip and epoxy the entire piece.

A caveat about Cetol: if you use it, make sure it doesn't get on the gelcoat. Cetol bonds with gelcoat, so if you get a run or a drip on your nice white deck, it won't come off unless you sand it off.

Down below (with the exception of the teak right at the companion), we use lemon oil on all the wood. It makes the wood look good, doesn't get sticky and (very important) kills mould if it touches it. I know people who have varnished their whole interiors, but it's a hell of a lot of work and I can't be bothered.

Sometimes you can remove dark stains with oxalic acid (do test patches first). In your situation, I would have a look through a book like the Fine Woodworking book on wood finishing. A good book is more likely to help you than some of the screwball ideas I've heard from the Mr. Fixits at yacht clubs - and that probably includes any ideas you might get from me.

Good luck.
David Weatherston
"Towser", Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV

> I have never been able to get a mainsail clew outhaul to work on any boat I have owned, including dinghies. There always seems to be too much friction in the system.

The magic word is "Harken".

I have a system of cascading blocks inside the boom leading to an exit box at the gooseneck and a block at the mast base, finishing a cam cleat on the coachroof. The muscle required to move this system is negligible. Shock cord inside the boom makes sure it releases smoothly and also keeps the parts from rattling around. A variety of options are reproduced in the Harken catalogue.

I don't think I can over-emphasize how pleasant it is (as well as being a safety factor) that just about anyone can handle the lines on our boat. On boats with high line loads, many women and most children feel like they're on the margins because they can't do things. I can tell my daughter (14) or son (13) to max out the outhaul and know they can do it.
David Weatherston
"Towser", Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV

To answer your specific question first, I think roller furling is a good idea for cruising. If you sail alone at all, it's great. If you sail with novices, it's great. 'Nuff said.

I agree with Frank that a boom vang is important if you have any interest in sail shape.

On a more general note, I like the idea of having everything run back to the cockpit, whether you race or cruise. You are fortunate that no one has done it before, so you can fit contemporary gear without having to fill up holes left by worn-out junk.

One of my goals in refitting Towser was to keep the line loads low wherever possible to make it as easy as possible for my children to participate in sailing the boat. Therefore I fitted a 6:1 outhaul, 8:1 cunningham, 8:1 vang, 5:1 mainsheet and 2:1 crosshauls on the traveller. All blocks are now ball-bearing. In addition, I recently moved the 2-speed sheet winches to the coachroof as halyard winches, replacing them with self-tailing 2-speed winches (you do not need a mainsheet winch).

Are all these changes necessary? Perhaps not all, but in addition to realizing the goal of allowing the children to take part, they mean that my wife and I can handle the boat with complete ease. The new blocks are a big part of it. Those old Schaeffer blocks may _look_ like they've got years of life in them, but when you load them up, the friction jumps dramatically, so I assume their axles and bearings are tired at best, shot at worst.

David Weatherston
"Towser", Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV

Okay - here's the story so far on the Mk III rudder...

I went down to my old club to measure rudders and came across a former 27 owner who said that he had fitted a Mk III rudder on his Mk II (I knew there had to be someone out there who had done it).

He did it because in a blow he found the scimitar rudder too hard to handle on the wind. Off the wind, he commented that half the rudder would come out of the water and the other half would ventilate, so you'd find yourself at times thinking that your tiller had broken, there was so little connection to the water. Once you lost grip, it was gone, versus the Mk III rudder, which you could "get back" (ie, restore flow on) by pumping a couple of times. (Ok - that's enough hyperbole for now - the guy's a really good, perhaps even fantastic helmsman, but he does lay it on when he gets going). He also noted that the scimitar is unreasonably heavy.

He said he was really happy with the performance improvement, but also commented that the Mk III shape does not rectify one vulnerability in the old rudder - as the Mk I and Mk II are slightly shorter than the later boat, the Mk III rudder still extends beyond the stern. A caveat but not a deal-breaker.

I have measurements, etc, which I will turn into a legible sketch backed up by photos. If you are agreeable to this, I'd like to add a page to the site that records the outcome of the two rudder replacement projects along with the Autocad file and photos of the finished rudders. This will serve as a resource for anyone else with a Mk I or Mk II who wants to make the same upgrade.

The sketch and photos will turn up here as a revision to this post, later this week.

My Flex-o-Fold was machined and was commendably snug in the fit of the gears, with no lash discernible by hand. Plus the prop walk is reasonable and it's got enough reverse thrust to suck the engine right out through the transom.

David Weatherston
"Towser", Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV

Your question about fitting a Mk III style rudder to a I or II has been asked here before without being satisfactorily answered, but I see no reason for it not to work - there's no skeg or anything else to get in the way and anything would be better than the earlier rudder.

I don't have a drawing, but once my boat comes out in November, I'll be glad to give you dimensions and a photo. Any competent foil maker should be capable of building something from that.

Incidentally, according to a former editor of Canadian Yachting, this rudder came out of Stevens Institute research that was contaminated by a poor understanding of the scale effects. C&C wasn't the only group to get suckered by it. Cal and Ericson also built scimitar-style rudders.
David Weatherston
"Towser", Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV

This sounds like club-bar naval architecture to me (and third-beer theorizing at that).

We have a Mk IV and if a III rounds on our hip, we have no problem squeezing it off (sometimes to our cost, as in one memorable incident where we sent a boat into what should have been never-never land, but which turned into incredibly-beneficial-shift land).

Your sails will make far more difference, as will (and I know some will argue) your preference for a wheel.
David Weatherston
"Towser", Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV

Greetings Frank

Most of the chainplate problems on Canadian boats stem from water entry down the chainplate from the deck. The entering water gets into the balsa core in the deck opening and into the ply bulkhead, both of which then degrade.

If people's chainplate bolts on Trappers are not horizontal, it suggests two problems, both serious enough to take the boat out of service immediately. First, the chainplate holes are too large, either because they were drilled that way or because they have become worn (a scary thought that suggests prolonged neglect). Second, the bulkhead holes are enlarging, either because the chainplate is moving (v. scary) or because the bulkhead ply is rotting. Both of these problems are fixable, but Job #1 is to stop the water getting past the deck cover plate.

If you are concerned about your boat or just want to do an inspection (good idea), I suggest that you have a look at the thread titled 'Chain Plates' (presently on page 2), and see if the various ideas there answer your questions. If not, get back to us.

Incidentally, the chain plates on my boat are anodized aluminum of about 1/4" thick and are very snug to their bolts. I cannot imagine that laser cutting would deliver a better fit than what was accomplished with a drill twenty years ago.
David Weatherston
"Towser", Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV

Manufacturers: I have a Harken rig, but my information from several sources (a boatbuilder, sailmaker and retailer) is that they are now all very good. Whether you will or will not race is a consideration. Will you race with chute or just white sails? If with chute, get a rig that adapts. If without, you probably will be racing against other boats with furling, so don't worry about it.

One caveat: I was warned repeatedly that roller furling would expose any deficiencies in my forestay, so it was important to replace it when installing the new toy. That was an additional $90, but it was 20 years old.

Sails: I have a 150% #1 that is cut higher off the deck so it will furl. When rolled up to a #2 or #3, it has a very dirty luff, but works reasonably well. If you adapt your storm jib, you will be grossly underpowered in lighter air. As regards finding a "decent" and "used" #2, you might have more luck with lottery tickets.

Retailers: I got my sails from Triton in Toronto and I'm _very_ happy with them. I would suggest buying the furling gear, forestay and the sail as a package in the fall. That will probably give you your best deal, because the sailmaker will have more to work with and while you'll have to provide a deposit up front, you probably will have until spring to come up with the balance.
David Weatherston
"Towser", Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV

A friend who used to rebuild Austin Healeys for amusement (which makes him rather suspect as a source of useful information but never mind...) said that whenever you change something, that changed something should automatically go to the top of the list whenever a mysterious problem arises. That makes your hoses suspect no. 1 and I suspect that you have used a hose that is not odour-proof enough for use in a head.

As a check, you might try the damp-rag test. Wrap rags dampened with hot water around the lowest points of your head output hose and holding tank output hose (it's unlikely to be the input hose) and leave them until cool. Remove each one and smell it. No smell, good; smell, the hose is not as proof against odours as it should be and you ought to replace it (or take up smoking a really heavy shag tobacco to mask the smell).

I replaced my head hoses with a recently introduced white plastic hose from Australia called Sealand Technology Odoursafe (Genco (www.gencomarine.com/) in Toronto sells it and will ship it - probably others have it too). There is now absolutely no odour from my head.
David Weatherston
"Towser", Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV

I wouldn't use them to build a rudder, but they give an accurate _impression_ of the different styles.

The important thing is that the newer rudder is deeper and of a constant chord that is aligned with the rudder stock. A very small part of the area provides balance. I confess I have never measured this, but it _appears_ that there is less aft rake to the stock.
David Weatherston
"Towser", Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV