Welcome Aboard!

These pages will cover the restoration and upgrades I have done to a 1979 Choate 40.
I acquired the vessel in poor condition at a reasonable price and so far have put twice that amount into her.
From the evidence I have found, she had been de-masted, run aground several times, slightly flooded, run hard and put away wet.
Fortunately, she had new standing rig with a used mast from a Catalina 40 and a recent head job on the motor.
The rest of the info I'll segregate into pages for detailed information.

Friday, March 2, 2012

The Wind Vane

To ease in single handing the vessel I've installed a Monitor wind vane. I purchased it new from Scanmar.


The instructions recommend backing it into a slip and working from a dock, which worked out great.




To support the unite for alignment I used a reaching strut (short spinnaker pole) stuck into the back of the boom and supported the far end by the main halyard, with the back of the boom sitting and strapped to the bimini arch. And used the topping lift halyard to hold the unite at the right height.

Had to locate center from side to side. The back stay is off center due to the chainplate being clamped to one side of center of the keel wood.


The tubes were cut just the right length so it sat vertical real well for the install. I put some tape on the paddle to get the water depth right, and then marked the foot pads for drilling.

Then pulled the foot pads and transferred the holes thru the transom for mounting.. Since the transom was cored with balsa I recored the holes with epoxy filler and re-drilled after it cured. And I used SS baking plates on the inside. Scanmar  did supply some large fender washers but I wanted more surface area considering. I may, some day, replace the SS backing plates with G-10 material epoxied to the inside.


After it was all mounted I ran the control lines to the corner stanchions using stanchion mounted ball bearing sheaves for less friction.



I installed a third line on the paddle to pull it into the lock. I found if the boat is moving it was impossible to get the paddle to lock in, so the third line helps to get in place.

The lines to the tiller were installed per instruction. The boat has hydraulic wheel steering, so when using the wind vane I open the bypass valve to the hydraulics. When using the wheel I close the bypass valve, disconnect the vane lines and lift the tiller up out of the way.  These picture are before the arch install, so now the mainsheet traveller is head high on the arch and out of the way of the tiller.


I did a couple youtube's located here>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrRBD7hsqoE  and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KfKw313ouA


After the first use I found it to be a bit risky going out to install the vane so I built this platform from teak to stand on. Works greats and safe!

The under side I made u-clamps to fit the 2" tubing using black acetate and a support to go around the backstay cylinder.

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)