Could my boat be twisted?

[SPembleton]

I live in Michigan, so i am on the hard.  I just started cleaning up in hopes of launching May 3.  I noticed i could not close my head door.  It is off by about 1/2 inch. Hinges are fine. All of the trim boards around the door are fine. Everything looks evenly spaced. Nothing looks cocked.  Aft cabin door is fine.  Could this be because it is on the hard? Door was fine last fall. I have had the boat for 3 years now, and never noticed this before. I have a custom metal cradle, but it does have one bent strut.  Has anyone else had this happen.  Hopefully it straightens out in the water!

[KWKloeber]

Steve,  more info.

When you say 1/2".  At top full width?  Side to side?  Skewed (e.g., OK at top hinge corner, but 1/2" overlap at the opposite lower corner? 

That is a problem on 30s because the mast support was (get this...) WOOD IN THE BILGE  -- but of course it isn't a design flaw CTY should stand behind (sorry couldn't resist.)  When the wooden block rots, the deck drops and the head door doesn't fit (which is obviously only a symptom, not the critical issue of the deck collapsing.) 

Unless there was some issue with your deck near the head I don't see that as the cause on a 34 (but that's just from what I remember of the construction.)   Some pics of the result might help.  How "bent" is the strut?  Which one?

Ken

[Noah]

Ken- i believe he has a keel stepped mast. No load on deck.

[Jim Hardesty]

Steve,
I think most boats flex some on the hard.  Just think, in the water the keel is hanging, on the hard its supporting most of the boats weight.  The important thing is adjusting the support pads.  They should be just snug.  I've seen many boat yards just set the boat on a cradle without adjusting the pads. Another consideration is if the mast is up and the tension on the rig.  A half inch does seem like a lot, but I think a couple of days floating and everything will come back.
Hope your launch goes well.
Jim

[KWKloeber]

Ken- i believe he has a keel stepped mast. No load on deck.

I hope that no one else infered that, but I see how it could be.  No, the mast is too far away regardless of the stepping. 
That's why I said 'Unless there was some issue with your deck near the head.... (id est, mast isn't near the head.)  as usual, pics are the key.

kk

[SPembleton]

The half inch is at the handset. The door cannot close because the door is too wide at that point. Probably too wide elsewhere, but that is where it hits first. Everything else looks good.  I am hoping that the pads were not adjusted properly.  I will find out when i splash. I will send picture when i go to the boat next.

[Jack Hutteball]

Steve, You don't say if you have a MKll.  I am in the water all year hear in Anacortes Washington.  My cabin doors get tight just due to additional moisture in the winter.  Never not able to close them however.  Look to see if the cabin walls are spreading apart at the motor enclosure.  With a MKll you can see the gaps on both sides of the top engine hatch getting wider than normal.  I would bet it is how the boat is blocked and it will come out when back in the water.

Jack

[Footloose]

Steve,

In the 13 or so years that I have owned our boat I had this happen one or two times.  It has always been the door to the head that has the issues also.  The first time I was ready to do some carpentry but decided to wait until after  launch.  As soon as it hit the water everything was fine and realigned.  I have not been able to figure out why sometimes and not others.  Same cradle and blocking.  It probably takes about 24 hours or so for the boat to settle out after launch. 

Only five weeks until the boat club opens.

[kh3412]

My boat has the same problem. Just bought it and it has problem been sitting for 4 years. Was hoping it cleared up after launch.

[tonywright]

It happened the first time I had mine on the hard. You may find as I did that you (or the haul-out crew) cranked up the aft right pad too much, possibly before the boat had settled on its keel in the cradle. You may see a slight depression in the hull around that pad.  (I still find that the doors under the galley sink bind a little on the hard, despite all precautions.)

Best to wind those pads all the way down before resting the wing keel in the cradle, and then not overtighten. Let the boat settle on the keel, and then just snug the pads up against the hull. As a test, you should be able to slack them off slightly while the boat rests on the keel. When resting on the wing keel, the boat will settle further at the aft than at the front. Some owners like to place a two by four under the aft section of the wing keel just as the boat settles on the cradle, in order to reduce this bow-up attitude.

If the yard did this for you, they may have not expected this effect. Make sure that the cradle is raised off the ground on sturdy wooden blocks all round, in order to keep the rudder from making contact with the ground.

Oh, and once it is in the water, all is back to normal!

Tony

[Ron Hill]

Steve : I sure that your hull is flexed so the doors won't close properly - that's somewhat normal for a boat on jackstands vrs. a boat in its shipping cradle.

I'd worry only if you have the same door problem when the boat is in the water. 
Most instructions on tuning the mast will tell you never do a final tuning on land and only fine tune the mast after the boat has been in the water for 48 hours (so the hull goes back to its normal shape)

Your door problem may be exacerbated if the yard didn't locate and set the jackstands on the outside of a bulkhead. 

A few thoughts

[SPembleton]

Thanks everyone.  I will let you all know what happens after i launch. I am glad to hear that it will probably be fine.  I will talk to yard about pad adjustment. Such a small boat, so much to learn. Thanks everyone.

[Stu Jackson]

Steve, you've received good advice here.  We keep our boat in the water all the time, but I recently had to be hauled out for a week or two.  When I started to use the boat again a month or so ago, the aft cabin door keep getting stuck.  I used the hardware from the head door (by disassembling the stuff) and used the handle to open the aft cabin door from the galley side.  It turns out that just the strike hardware had moved just a tad so it interfered with being able to open the door.  Until I get to charging my Dremel tool (a battery powered simple one), I simply took the strike hardware off and the door works just fine.  "Settling" happens, and that's what it sounds like in your case.  Good luck.

[SPembleton]

Launched my boat yesterday.  Head door came back almost into alignment.  Boatyard said it should be ok in another day or two.  They say this is common. Amazing that this happens! Always learning something new.

[Pgutierrez]

Great prior advice - Just one more suggestion:  tighten the screws on both sides of ALL hinges.