J/30 Class Association Forums J/30 Forum The Boat, Sails and Equipment Window Replacement

good info Jason...
and i guess i need to ask
is there any reason to not allow opening ports under the one design rules....

also....

and i certainally see pros and cons

the silly wood toe rail ...
$$ to maintain, tough on the crew hiking....
any thoughts on a proposal to allow?
maybe no attachments during 1 design racing...

Harley - Class Rule excerpts for reference:

5.4 Deck Gear. No additions, relocations, or modifications are permitted except as herein provided.

5.4.1 Permitted Alterations or Additions:
.....
5.4.1.4 Deck prisms and/or ventilators which must be watertight when sealed shut.
.....
5.4.1.10 Substitution of plastic for wood toe rails.

So it appears that your opening ports are class legal if they are watertight when closed, but the metal toe rail is not class legal. If you want to discuss this as a potential rule change, please post it in the One Design Class Rules forum.

My understanding, and I would be glad to be wrong, is that the opening ports were not class legal because they required modification to the cabin side in order to install them.

Given the very limited scope of such a modification, I'll say that I'm not in favor of that as a rule.

I think there was a thread about this awhile back with that determination, but it's very, very possible that I'm "misremembering."

Here's the thread I was only partly remembering.

It looks like the determination was that opening ports are fine for the reasons Bill mentions above.

So OK -- as the windows on #505 are starting to pop out I am in the middle of replacing them

1. The original was polycarbonate ... and has turned a nice frosted glass surface. no need for curtains. Probably could have just rebed them, but because of the work to rebed them i went to the local plastic guy and got 8 windows cut ... all the same pattern for a package price ... [planning on doing 526 in June]

Promo data on Palsun

The Polycarbonate available was Palram's Palsun 2UV ... uv coated both sides. which means i can use either side out.

I have seen arcylic crack and glass delaminate and crack ... but then 25-30 year old stuff does seem to have issues no matter what was used.

2. Caulk however has changed radically over the last 25 years so i went with Sikaflex 295UV ... which is designed for polycarbonate. Anything labeled UV is nice down here.
Jamestown distributors How to for 295UV

I elected not to do the expensive cleaner and activator ... will let you know if that was a mistake 5 years from now. But from what I see this stuff really sticks to anything it touches.

QUESTION 1 -- on the original panels they seem to have run the outside edge across a grinder to give it a sloppy bevel.
I am doing the same ... but wonder what the logic is behind that?


Question 2 -- on the original panels they seem to have done nothing to the glossy inside bonding edge ... the current advice seems to be to slightly abrade it, which is what we are doing.

Vic - next time I do this, I'm doing what Mark did on Nemesis. He had tinted auto safety glass cut to shape for a very reasonable price. They hold up much better than the polycarbonate.

if it were on a vertical dog house side ... i think glass would be ok but the angle on a heel almost makes these deck like.

There is a hinckley yawl a couple of slips from me who is replacing his "glass" with 2 out of 8 cracked and a couple of others delaminating [those are in frames]. but then again stuff from those days all seem to have issues.

Nemesis is an up bay boat ... protected water 90% of the time ...

I am wondering if he beveled the edge?
And just what kind of bonding really takes place on polished glass?

some of our crew down here is amazed that we just stick these windows in without screws or frames.

I used auto safety glass ($200 for 4), bedded with marine silicone. Neat, scratch resitant and no leaks. So far, so good after a year.

I think this was the original window glazing engineering.



It included a beveled outer edge and an outside bead that helped hold the window in place?

Comments????

Quick 1 min video on removal of windows after 27 years.

background ... 505 did get a lot of pounding hull stresses over the years off Beavertail. making us think that the hull stresses were fatiguing enough to destroy bonds ... am interested to see if others were able to simply push and pop the polycarbonate windows out.

NOTE that none of the old caulk remained bonded to the polycarbonate