My O'Day 22 Sailboat Blog » Ideas

Homemade outboard motor stand

oday22 — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 05:14:54 +0000

Anyone who uses an outboard motor in the ocean knows the hassle of keeping the salt water flushed from the system after each use. Also keeping the top-heavy machine upright during storage is also a must to prevent flooding. One of the easiest ways to do that is to get a outboard stand. You can store your motor on it without much hassle as well as flushing it out with a bucket of water underneath after each use.

As all marine products typically are, outboard stands are way over priced for what you get. It is literally a few pieces of bent metal and a piece of plywood while West Marine would not hesitate to charge you $120 for one.

That is why I decided to make my own little contraption. It’s no work of art but it’s serving me well so far. A couple pieces of wood and some galvanized hardware that costs me just around $12 and a Saturday morning later, I have my own little collapsable outboard mount.

It uses exactly 2 pieces of wood: a 8 foot 2×4 and another 8 foot 2×6. It is made to hinge so you can fold it flat when you are not using it or for easy transport. Straps at the bottom keeps it from doing the splits when the motor is mounted and I am even gonna mount some wheels on them so it can also be used as a dolly. All that for under 20 bucks. Take that West Marine!

Zay’s Mainsheet Mod for his O’Day 22

oday22 — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 22:31:35 +0000

Jose from Santa Barbara whom I mentioned in a previous post has sent me some photos of his mainsheet relocation project. I have been wanting to do this but just have not had time to complete other projects on my priority list. His mod looks pretty nice and apparently works well for him. He agreed to let me repost the email he sent me along with photos of the mod. Here you go:

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I am attaching two photos of the mainsheet relocation to the center of the cockpit. I actually have not yet installed the traveller. I wanted to see how this would work, and also the $160 for the little car and track sort of put me off. as it is I do not think that will make much of a difference speed wise. My design, however, will accommodate the track and eventually I will add it to it. But for now I will spend that money on things more usefull, like the jiffy reefing controls.

I was concerned about structural integrity, so I sort of over built this: TWO 1″square aluminum tubes bolted together. The corners at the end attach with four large bolts on each side and in the back I put a large plywood plate and BIG metal washers. You probably could lift the boat from this thing.

I am very happy with the design and it really works the way it is supposed to do: the mainsheet is in front of your knees. You will notice that I placed it slightly forward of the winches. This is because I tie the jib sheet on the cleat on my side. I mean, on a port tack, instead of tyeing the jib sheet to the cleat on the starboard side, I draw it across the cockpit and tie it on my side. This has two advantages (keep in mind that I single hand this thing all the time)

1. I do not worry about falling in the water while restling with the blasted line in a 20 degree heel. THe water gets mighty close on the lee side!
2. when I am ready to tack, I uncleat the line on my side and let go of it as the boom swings over my head and I sit on the other side. While I do this I take the lazy sheet with me and haul it in from the other side (so that both jib sheets are next to me). This may sound complicated by it all works in one smooth motion and you can tack in a few seconds.

THe two blocks are Gerhauer and I paid $75 for both, on line. I also got a boom bail since I had to move the attach point inboard. I drilled a hole through the boom and put this together with the supplied bolt.

I also got you a picture of my new companionway. Regular plywood, TONS of polyurethane, seems to be holding!

Information about my mast

oday22 — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 02:35:36 +0000

I did some searching online to see about my mast extrusion and I came across a site called RigRite.com. They have the extrusion's specs on their website:

Rig-Rite #5 (3723) Mast Section
Measurements: (OD) 3.75" x 2.25" (95mm x 57mm)
Wall Thickness: .100"
Weight/ft.: 1.3 lbs.
Moments of inertia: Ixx = 1.5", Iyy = .63"
Circumference: 9 5/8"
Alloy: 6063-T6
Sail slides: 1/2" round slugs (A018, A118) or 1/2" boltrope
Standard Mast Lengths: 22'7", 25'4", 30'
Common Mast usage: Bristol Corinthian 19; Cape Dory Typhoon; N&W Fisherman; O'Day 22;

This will help a little in knowing the dimensions of my mast. What I'm going to do with it is still an unknown for now.

The Old Electrical System

oday22 — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 09:49:33 +0000

I went to the boat today to do some work. One of the things I did was to see what was left of the electrical system. The last owner did not have a battery in the boat so he pretty much told me that it had no electrical system to speak of. When I took over ownership, I noticed that there are a few parts that maybe salvageable to build my new electrical system. So today I went and stripped everything that was still on there including all of the wiring so I can start fresh.this is a picture of what I was able to salvage.

1. Breaker Panel
2. Distribution Panel
3. 12-volt Cabin light
4. Toggle Switch
5. 2-way pull switch
6. Misc. wiring

Looks like I will be reusing the breaker panel and the distribution panel. Everything else is either too old, broken or inexpensive to buy new.

This is how the old parts look on the boat before I stripped them out:

Here they are removed and organized in my house:

Here is a close up view of the front of the electrical breaker panel:

And here is the back of it:

Paint scheme for the boat

oday22 — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 08:01:33 +0000

I kinda like this color scheme for the ODay. Found it on the odayowners.com website forum. This is from an ODay 22 in the SF Bay area:

Maybe red with shark teeth at the bow like a WWII fighter plane.

Thinking about converting the trailer to tandem axle

oday22 — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 05:17:29 +0000

This trailer I have for the boat is only a single axle and has no surge brakes. It did alright on the way to Rancho Cucamonga from Highland but I can defintiely see the advantage of having brakes and maybe a more evenly distributed weight on the trailer. As it is right now, the boat is weighted just slightly behind its single axle of th trailer so it tends to want to fall back. It has some to do with the boat not all the way up on the trailer but think adding another axle will also help with the teeter toter problem. I’m going to look into the cost of such an operation and maybe will add that to the list if its reasonable.

Already have a list of things I need done/buy

oday22 — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 12:59:34 +0000

Well, haven’t had possession of this boat for over 6 hours and I am already making a list of things that I need for this boat. I got this boat for a fairly good price knowing that I will need to spend some money to get her in to the shape I’d like her to be. Let’s see:

~~New Shrouds~~
Headsail furler
~~New main sail~~
6 HP Tohatsu 4-stroke long shaft motor
running lights
anchoring light
steaming light
deep cycle battery
New trailer lights (maybe magnetic mount LED)
Cabin lights
Cockpit cushions
outboard bracket
Bottom paint
topside paint
~~Sail slugs~~
topping lift/boomkicker

I think I should stop there. I should probably prioritize or it will blow my budget pretty quickly.