Toerail repair

I came pretty close to getting the toerails ready to caulk, but when I got to the bad splice on the port side, which is about midships, just forward of the jib traveler, I decided to go ahead and try to fix it again first. I'd tried to glue it last month, but it didn't hold. I might have removed the clamps too soon, but at the time, we were getting a lot of rain, and I didn't have much of a choice.

This time, I used epoxy and small teak dowels, and will leave the clamps on as long as it takes, which should be less than 24 hours. I have the extra epoxy in a cup, so I can test it to see when it cures. I hope it holds this time. My toerails are essentially teak 2x4's shaped as an upside down U, with the longer leg on the outboard edge and the shorter leg on inboard edge. Since you can't get teak long enough to do the entire 33' boat, it's made up of sections that are about 8' long and joined together. The joints are made on an angle, which is top to bottom, so the thin, bottom, outside edge of the U is what tends to give way -- there's really not much holding it together.

There's obviously got to be a better way of doing this, but without taking them completely off, I can't do much more than try to glue and clamp. And I can't caulk the edge if the split edge is kicked out half an inch. If it had been in the cockpit area, I wouldn't have worried about it, but it's in the center of the main cabin, about 6' forward of the companionway. I can't afford a major water leak in that area, even for a short cruise, so I need to fix it now. Better to burn another day here than several days later drying out all my gear.

Cover watch:

We might get rain tonight, so I secured the cover all around -- I'd had it pulled up all day to work on the toerails. It's held out pretty well, but I did have to fix the door zipper a couple days ago. The rafter feet are sitting on the deck now, but when I had them on the toerail, it made the frame larger and stretched the cover, which caused some of the seams to give way. The seams on the door zipper started pulling out a few weeks ago. I tried to ignore them, but once the rip grew to over 2', and started letting the rain in, I had to sew it up. I guess it's good practice.

Injury watch:

My right foot and ankle are still swollen and sore today. I spent most of the day on a ladder, so I'm sure that has a lot to do with it. Hopefully, the swelling will go down this week. At this point, it feels like I twisted my ankle, but I didn't.

I didn't have these problems when I was 20, but neither did I have a boat -- nor Zoe of course.