Boat Projects and Old Man Winter

This is our  last night on First Light for this trip. Today we finished up the last of the winterizing tasks—the A/C. Getting the engines, genset, and A/C winterized were the "must do" items this time around. (We swore we were never going to have a boat somewhere that required winterizing again, but this is how cruising plans go...) It took several days of effort and multiple trips to cobble together the stuff needed to get it done. First Light now carries a pump for A/C winterization, a gizmo for doing the engines, and a modified plunger / pipe set up for the deck wash.  If we ever have to winterize the boat again, it will take us about two hours. Having a clue as to what you are doing is an amazingly good thing.

A quick-disconnect fitting goes through the  board
for the hose going to the bucket full of
antifreeze. The fitting extends into the sea
strainer. If we were actually going to do
this frequently, we would make a much better
model of this prototype.

The board has a rubber backing and wingnuts that
run down on the screws to hold it in place on the
sea strainer for the engine raw water.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I struggled with the aft cabin doors for the better part of three days. The doors work better than they did,  but are still not right. And there was still the puzzle as to why the doors were so screwed up in the first place. But we think the puzzle has been solved along with a chance to make the doors actually work as they should. Deb, while searching through one of the piles of stuff stashed around the boat, ran across a bag of bits matching some of those we found on the doors.  It turns out the doors have already been fit with an aftermarket kit, likely installed years ago. As the years went by, and wear and tear accumulated, they deteriorated to barely working.

This leaves me with two ways of looking at the last few days. One? We spent the better part of three days' time running around in circles with little to show for hours of effort. Two? We were working our way though a maze, figuring things out and parsing together ancient history with few cues. The better part of three days is just how long it took. I think I'll go with option two. When working on an older piece of equipment that has seen endless upgrades, hacks, replacements, and modifications in an industry where there is no tracking of such things? And on a piece of equipment that is new to you? Time spent wandering around in the dark is inevitable. In many ways, this is like rebuilding a classic motorcycle or antique airplane. When it comes to this kind of work, we have all heard the saying, "You can have it, fast, cheap, or right...pick two." But when it comes to the kind of repairing and rebuilding required on something like an old boat, one that needs to be safe for traveling and comfortable for living on? You can do it done right, but fast and cheap are not options. It will take all the spare time you have and all the money you can spare. 

New door kit parts are on their way, so the next time we tackle the doors we will have a much better idea from where we are starting and the direction we need to go. We got a little cosmetic work done on the inside and I had a chance to get  more comfortable with the engine room. Likely a good thing since I suspect I'll be spending a lot of time in that space. There are exhaust hoses to replace, heat exchangers (3) to pull, have overhauled, and reinstall, and alternator belt covers to reinstall. I'm not sure why they were removed. The idea of working around running engines in a bumpy sea (something that is certainly possible) with those belts exposed does not give me warm fuzzies. 

Most important, we are ever more pleased with the idea of First Light being a part time home and looking forward to having her on the water. There will still be trials and hurdles before we are floating down the ICW somewhere. But we have figured out a bunch of things and have a good idea of the next bunch of things we need to figure out. Meaning this has been a good bunch of days.