The Cape Dory Board

My 1982 CD 36 had a wet engine compartment that the previous owner did not fix. I did find the leaks, but the engine mounts were a worry to me. They were a little rusty and I worried what was under the fiberglass. In 2015 the oil leaks finally irritated me enough to go for a rebuild. After the engin...

You can replace the rear seal with the engine in place. You need to support the aft end of the engine and remove the transmission, aft engine mounts, bell housing, and flywheel, but it is doable. The thing is that removing the engine is not a trivial matter, but you might find that it is worth it. W...

If you shut off all air flow, mold and mildew can easily become an issue. It would be really nice to have seals when in a storm, but open the rest of the time.

I have hull 79 also from 1982. About 6 years ago I noticed pitting in my rudder shaft. I used a dremel to trace the pits to their end cavity. I tried to passiviate the shaft, but it was really too cold to achieve that. I worried that the area under the fiberglass could be worse so I made a new rudde...

Comfortable headroom makes life aboard so much more pleasant. With my bimini, I requested the height be my height + about 4 inches so that I could see over the dodger and not have a perpetual stiff neck. I then re-cut the foot of the sail so that the boom clears the bimini when the sail is fully she...

The 'mixing elbow' on my boat is about 38 years old. It is a bronze pipe nipple brazed into a piece of what I believe is black iron pipe. I changed out a few pieces of the exhaust riser a few years ago when I rebuilt my engine mount to acommodate the new placement of the muffler. The attached pictur...

Some more information on age and model might help. For instance on the 36 of early 80s vintage there was nothing above that could drip down that was made of ferrous material. I pulled my rudder several years ago with the intention of removing the glass and 'foam' around the top of the shaft and givi...

Take a look at the second picture posted by Zieda. There is very significant crevice corrosion happening in that rudder shaft. Crevice corrosion is problematic due to the way that it may only be visible as a tiny dot or what appears to be a small black line on the surface. what is underneath can be ...

I had my engine pulled last year. While it was out I decided to grind away a little of the fiberglass that was holding down the engine mounting frame. On one side of the engine the longitudnal tube that was glassed into the hull was.....gone. That is right, the vertical webs that stuck through the f...

I had my engine pulled last year. While it was out I decided to grind away a little of the fiberglass that was holding down the engine mounting frame. On one side of the engine the longitudnal tube that was glassed into the hull was.....gone. That is right, the vertical webs that stuck through the f...

Mitch, You probably have this figured out by now, but there should be no reason that the stuffing box refuses to slide up the rudder shaft. It may be due to old tallow hardening on the shaft above the packing and holding it in place. At any rate you should probably be replacing the rubber stuffing b...

What I am still perplexed by is the fact that our original rudder shaft showed no signs of corrosion, yet the replacement in 2007 developed extensive pitting (starting almost immediately). Both shafts were made of 304 stainless which is what Cape Dory normally used. The correct processing is really...

I retired after 38 1/2 years at Pratt & Whitney. We used lots of fairly exotic materials like Inconel, Waspalloy, and Titanium in the aerospace industry. I'm surprised you went through the expense and trouble of dealing with Inconel. It is not user friendly. Jim, I may be sailing on this boat i...

Wow Matt. Bending that was no small task. I am sure it will last a long time. Why did you rule out bronze? I'd be interested to know your thought process so I have that info when it comes time to replace the rudder on the Far Reach. John, Bronze can be fine provided that you are certain that it doe...

Matt: What material are you using for the shaft? Philip, I settled on Inconel 625. It is 10 times the cost of a stainless shaft, but the stainless shaft would have needed to be passivated, and that would have made the ratio no more than 4 to one. Even if passivated, a scratch in the installation or...