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When I bought my boat, it had worn-out first-generation deck organizers and rope clutches that I replaced. Also, the original owner had installed the organizers so that the lines made a 90-degree turn, which put an unnecessary load on the whole structure.
Replacement deck organizers are Harken 4-sheave small-boat organizers mounted to minimize the halyards' turning angle. The organizers are oriented to bisect the turn angle and are mounted on Starboard (a zero-maintenance rigid white plastic that can be worked with a table saw, router and plane) shaped to conform to the curve of the coach-roof.
Replacement rope clutches are Spinlock doubles. These are wide enough to require shaped Starboard pads under them to conform to the coach-roof curve but are compact. These hold the main, genoa and spinnaker halyards, and vang. Cam cleats hold the outhaul and Cunningham. I'll probably put another Spinlock single on for single-line reefing.
The boat originally had absurd little winches on the coach-roof. I bought new primaries and moved the old primaries up to the coach-roof for halyards and spinnaker sheets. Seems to work.
The one caveat in all this is that you have to keep an eye on the bedding of the rope clutches. The loads on them are high and they're loaded and unloaded fairly frequently - a perfect recipe for breaking the seal. I've had the bedding under one rope clutch break down, causing a mystery leak until we realized the source. Mind you, that's one breakdown in six years - hardly a high-maintenance issue.
David Weatherston
Towser, Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV
It's just automotive hose of between 1 1/2" and 2" inside diameter. Sorry, I can't be more exact because I've not had to replace it. There was a discussion about this earlier - perhaps the fellow who started that will notice your query and give you a more accurate number.
If you do remove your spreader, note that there is (or should be) a ball swaged on the shroud at the spreader. Make sure you replace the spreader on the same side of the ball as it was previously or the spreader will shift to the wrong angle.
David Weatherston
Towser, Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV
The spreader slides into a round receptacle that forms part of a fitting that also holds the lowers and that is fastened to the mast by rivets and a through-bolt. Between the spreader itself and the fitting is a piece of rubber hose that provides some elasticity in the mounting.
It is possible that this piece of hose has eroded or has deteriorated to the point where it no longer provides any support to the spreader. In that case, all you need to do is remove the spreader and replace the hose (I'd do both sides). You can probably do this without unstepping the mast as the lowers and some judiciously applied halyards will keep it in place.
Alternatively, the fasteners holding the spreader base may have failed in some way. If, when you go up, you find that the base is loose, I suggest that you drop the spar and have a good look at it on the ground. Other important parts may also have problems.
Don't be nervous about going up the spar. Just get comfortable in the bo's'un's chair, tape the halyard shackle (or tie on with a bowline) and get someone reliable in the winch. If you have any qualms, tie on a second halyard and get another person to pay that halyard out and in as you're going up and down.
David Weatherston
Towser, Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV
I too have a Mark IV and initially, we sheeted a 155% roller genoa to the toe rail. The club had a white-sails night as well as an anything-goes night and we did alright, even against the full out racers who were slumming on white-sails night (we won a few, we usually placed). We did, however, have to consciously sail so as not to get into boat-to-boat duels, where our pointing ability would be a problem, particularly at low speeds. We stayed away from other boats, and relied on playing angles and a very good VMG.
We now have inboard leads and I think they give us a little bit more pointing ability than we had. That does give us some more flexibility, but I sometimes wonder whether it doesn't just sucker us into doing things we shouldn't (like getting tangled up in boat-to-boat duels when we should be concentrating on more important things).
I suggest that you try sheeting to the toe rail for a season and see how it goes; I don't think that a sailmaker would say you must sheet inboard or he won't sell you a sail. If you're comfortable buying a full-hoist racing genoa plus a furling genoa for cruising, do it. As to the high-cut cruising genoa, don't go overboard. If you give away too much sail area, the boat will be slow in lighter air and you'll be browned off.
David Weatherston
Towser, Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV
South Shore Yachts has the patterns for most cast parts. See the Links page. Phone, don't e-mail.
David Weatherston
Towser, Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV
West Marine sells a "Switch - Off/On, gasket sealed" that is visually and functionally identical to the pull switches on my Mk IV. It's made by Cole-Hersee, who apparently make very reliable gear.
David Weatherston
Towser, Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV
Clare:
Bear in mind that the C&C wood cradle was first and foremost a shipping cradle, designed very much with the intention of containing the boat as it was transported over the road to its destination. Therefore, it needed to be able to "re-centre" the boat constantly as the truck bumped along at highway speeds. A yard cradle doesn't need to do that, so we can trade away some of the support for sanding-&-painting access to the bottom.
David Weatherston
Towser, Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV
>C&C 27's ... on a cradle should not have any appreciable amount of weight supported by the keel...
What - the boat is going to start drooping around the keel like one of Salvador Dali's watches? Or snap like a breadstick? Heaven save us from the kind of yacht club bar-flies who sold you this one.
Now this is just my opinion, but I believe that if you consider the stresses applied during normal sailing (boat heeled to the rail, maximum leverage applied by the keel to the hull structure, etc.), it's plain that just sitting there isn't likely to do much harm.
What may be more of an issue is unequal loading. The boat's natural element supports the entire hull equally and evenly. On a cradle, things are different, whether you're supporting it at the bulkheads or not. My own boat changed shape rather significantly when the engine was out one winter, so I can easily believe that unequal loading could do the same (my boat changed back once launched, but I did hear of a 30 that was permanently deformed by bad storage over a couple of years).
For myself, I prefer to support the keel's weight fully on the ground (or to be picky about the description, I prefer to support the cradle's keel beams fully on the ground). I wind the pads up as tight as possible against the hull, but I suspect they are carrying merely a large portion of the hull weight, rather than all of it. The remainder is being supported by the keel, and I've seen no negative effects.
David Weatherston
Towser, Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV
Hyperion, owned by Ralph & Inga Ainslie, is another 27 at your club (see The Fleet). What do they use?
Personally, I don't like jackstands but they're safe enough if you're careful with them. If you continue to use them, you probably should get a fifth one to provide support at the forward end of the keel (as is suggested in the post on cradles). You can deal with the curvature at the bottom of the keel by careful blocking.
David Weatherston
Towser, Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV
There is a master circuit breaker on my Mk IV. No idea when they started putting those in, but my old wooden boat, built in the early sixties, had socking big fuses on the starting circuit and the house circuit. Probably original.
David Weatherston
Towser, Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV
The surveyor condemned all the drain hoses and the gas-fill hose on Towser ('82) in '97 (these are wire-wound exhaust hose, so they're bound to feel hard). They had to be cut in half to remove them, they were so stiff. Also all vent hoses and the fuel line. They all showed surface cracking, which means the rubber is starting to break down. The exhaust hose was condemned two years ago (then replaced when we went to diesel, because we needed a larger diameter). I replaced the head hose when it failed the "wet-rag" test about the same time.
A lot of this stuff isn't available anywhere but from marine shops because it's specialized - the engine hose and below-the-waterline hose has to have that USCG or DoT number on it if you want to retain your insurance. I bought the first group from Eastern Marine on Leslie in Toronto, full retail, because I wanted to get the boat in the water. The head hose, which I've written about before, came from Genco in Toronto (gencomarine.com).
The A4's last hose (which I still have) came from a fellow who operates part-time as "Narrow Margin Marine". He might be your best bet for some sort of price break because he does this stuff regularly and he knows 27's. I can't encode addresses here to beat spammers the way I do elsewhere on the site, so I won't publish his e-mail address and phone. Write to me at the address in The Fleet under Towser and I'll give it to you.
David Weatherston
Towser, Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV
There's no master fuse on any circuit diagram I've looked at. The main switch or the breaker (if you have one) is a reasonable assumption, but MikeM is quite right that there could be a cable fault so I'd test before scampering off to the chandlery (nothing worse than coming back with some expensive new "solution" that isn't).
Get a multimeter or even a simple go/no-go 12 volt tester (basically a 12V light bulb with wires long enough to reach around the engine space). Touch one end to a battery post, one end to a good ground (a bare spot on the engine block, the negative bus bar if you have one). Use that ground from there onward so you're not confusing things by having a bad ground. If the light goes on when you touch the battery and ground, move on to the battery side of your main battery switch. If that's good, touch the switched terminals (with the switch on, obviously). If those are good, touch the battery side of the master breaker. And so on, until you find the dead spot. What lies between the dead spot and the last live one is your culprit.
David Weatherston
Towser, Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV
I'd look at the beam issue first. Hard on the wind with a high angle of heel, a beamy boat lifts her rudder closer to the surface. A fine bow, which makes the stern rise with heel, and which both these boats share, compounds the problem. Get the rudder near the surface in even moderately rough water and there's an excellent chance the rudder will ventilate and lose its grip. If you drop the traveller or reef as you did and thereby reduce the heel angle, there's less chance of ventilation.
I never watched other 34's closely enough to see what happened right before a wipe-out, but as it usually happened on tight spinnaker reaches, rudder ventilation seems the likely culprit.
What I could never figure out was why 34's wiped on dead runs, because there always seemed to be plenty of water under the stern. I remember a run across Lake Ontario in winds in the low to mid twenties with the wind dead square behind when everyone bought it at least once. The only thing every boat agreed on was that weight in the stern helped, so there the crews all stood, crowded on top of the transom and too shell-shocked even to go to the galley for a drink.
David Weatherston
Towser, Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV
"Slugs in low winds" they may be but 34's are also vicious in a blow. I raced on one for three years, another year on another; an attractive and comfortable boat, but not one I'd care to cruise. We used to joke about "tactical broaching" on reachs or runs in 15 kt and up and it wasn't hard to round one up on the wind (C&C's marketing head embarassed himself by rounding up and t-boning another boat during a start for an evening club race).
I thought the later 30 was a bit of an abortion, a marketing-driven rather than design-driven boat; Ball told a friend that he didn't think anyone would ever use the aft cabin (too stuffy), but he had to put it in because all the top-selling French boats had them.
As to the "systems" - I'd rip the lot out. There was a very steep learning curve ahead of the comfort-&-convenience manufacturers - many of those gizmos work reasonably reliably now but the early stuff is like car telematics/electronics today - a never-ending hassle.
David Weatherston
Towser, Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV
C&C 30's are tubs, Fred. Go for a C&C 32 - they're very nicely laid out below and they sail well.
David Weatherston
Towser, Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV
I'm glad that you enjoy the site and feel that it justifies its cost.
Our membership year is basically the calendar year. Renewals have always been done informally in the spring, mostly by members strong-arming friends to cough up.
This year is the first in which we've run a membership drive, basically because our costs have been more manageable in the past. For instance, Gord Timmis, brother of our noble and long-suffering Membership Secretary, hosted our web site at no charge. A series of outages convinced us that we had to move to a commercial hosting service; we get a lot of traffic, so it's not cheap. Our class flags have gotten expensive -- small stuff, but it adds up if there's only a small pool of members.
Next year, we will probably repeat the mass mailing to people who have registered on the Forum (this will be a one-shot deal, so it is not a reason for not registering). In addition, we will almost certainly send a reminder to current members to renew. Can't tell you just when, but thanks for bringing it up.
...But in the meantime, when are you going to send me a picture of Dawn Breaker to put in The Fleet?
David Weatherston
Towser, Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV
Our noble and long-suffering Membership Secretary will send you a membership card and a flag. Ordinarily, I'd say this would happen ASAP, but the NALSMS (noble and long-suffering Membership Secretary) is in the throes (perhaps even the throws, depending on how even her temper is, given the present heat in the city) of moving, so this event will probably happen ASAHP (As Soon As Humanely Possible).
David Weatherston
Towser, Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV
I've never seen teak around the windows of any C&C. This sounds like an owner addition. There is a boat with varnished teak window frames at our club (a fix for leaks in a glued frame), but I find their appearance rather heavy for a modern style of boat. I'd touch up the white so it blends in if I were you.
David Weatherston
Towser, Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV
> I use a 12 lb. kellet attached to the rode.
Where did you get the kellet and how do you attach it?
Aside from its obvious improvement in holding power, I'm interested in a kellet as an aid to anchoring during fireworks displays, air shows, etc. People pack in really tightly during these events, but there's always some half-wit who wants to wander through the pack.
We were at the Canada/Dominion Day display in Humber Bay several years ago on a friend's boat and had our rode cut by a moron in an i/o cruiser. If we'd had a kellet on the rode, we probably would have been alright.
BTW - I wouldn't want to leave an anchor on the bow while racing, weight or no weight - it's a guaranteed snarler/ripper during chute dowses.
David Weatherston
Towser, Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV
As this seems to be an area of interest, I'd appreciate copies of your photos plus descriptions of any aspect that is not obvious from the picture. I'll make a traveller page in Black Arts. As ever, I prefer photos direct from the camera, not resized, sharpened or colour-manipulated. Please use [email]davwillca@yahoo.ca">this address</a>.
David Weatherston
Towser, Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV
Go buy yourself a 99 or one of the new 115's. That may get their attention. Or trailer up to the C&C Owners' Regatta. You'll get enough stuff that says "C&C" on it to last a lifetime.
David Weatherston
Towser, Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV
See what happens when you start tinkering with one element of a complex system? You've replaced blissful ignorance with fretful concern.
First, you stopped your dripping shaft seal, now you realize that the water is coming from somewhere else. It's almost as bad as replacing one element of your sound system - buy new speakers and they scream, "Where'd you get that amp, loser? Out of a '56 Plymouth?" Replace that and the hiss forms itself into the words, "That's not a bad source for a 45 rpm Seabreeze Portable. Too bad it's disguised as a CD player."
There's no more slippery a slope than a boat.
David Weatherston
Towser, Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV
The ladder was made by Metal Masters Marine, now gone some 20 years or more. The top step is part of the ladder. There are teak pads on every step. It's a bit high in the water - you have to fold yourself double to get on the bottom step, but otherwise it's a very good ladder.
David Weatherston
Towser, Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV
I used to worry about that. I thought of fastening some of that orange polypropylene construction fence to the removable boards so that the pressure of lazarette junk would push the fencing tight against the cockpit sides. This little project got forestalled by circumstance and in the interim, I got everyone to be more careful in arranging the fenders in the locker. Subsequently, I found that the fenders never moved from where they were placed. Since it was the fenders and their lines that really concerned me, I ditched the whole idea (and found other things to worry about).
I asked our mechanic about heat buildup in the engine space. He said that these Yanmars are built to run in the tropics; their cooling systems are barely ticking over at our water temperatures. The huge demand for combustion-air with a diesel virtually ensures adequate air flow around the engine. If your engine is not getting enough air, it will quickly let you know by blowing black smoke rings at you. He did say that if I was ever concerned about the heat - because it would make the interior hot, for instance - it would be sufficient to run the blower for a short while.
David Weatherston
Towser, Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV
Thus far I'm very happy with our little Yanmar. I'll probably be lot happier when the prop is balanced. As to the little beast moving around - it's like a caged beast in its first frenzied hope of escaping captivity.
David Weatherston
Towser, Toronto
C&C 27 Mk IV