Disaster Averted

We are just a few days from our scheduled splash. The good news is we are making good progress. But it does come with a price. Most of our work days stretch out to nearly nine hours with very few breaks. A work schedule that is a little harder to pull off these days than it was a couple of dozen years ago.

Deb and I have literally decades of practice working together on projects. She has learned to put up with my (sometimes) impatient responses to projects not going well. I have learned to listen to her suggestions as to how to make a project go better. (Whenever possible work with someone who is smarter than you!) The jobs that are the most fun, for me anyway, are the ones where we have to make stuff up as we go. Replacing the engine room (it really is more like a hole) cameras with ones that will (hopefully) work this time around was just such a project. The system we used was designed to go on trucks, making it easier for the driver to put the rig wherever he or she needs it to be. Making it work in a trawler engine room took a bit of creativity. We had to cut a notch into one of the camera fixtures to make the wiring work. Running electrical cables through any kind of boat always seems to need some creative thinking, particularly when it comes to making it “happy” wiring. And, given that no boat I have ever owned or worked on came with any kind of wiring diagram, figuring out the best and easiest way to get power to the system is always an adventure. In this case we decided to power the camera system off of the same breaker that powers the lower helm chart plotter.

Here's a photo of the display screen at night with the infrared feature.  Cam #1 and Cam #4 are the

dripless seals and shafts, Cam #3 is the engine room forward end to monitor the belts, and Cam #2

is the forward facing camera for the forward deck and view off the bow.

One nice thing about many modern systems is just how little power they need. Even with three cameras, a screen, and the small chart plotter powered up, there is no chance of overloading the breaker other than a short in a wire. But, even saying that, each of the systems is fused separately after the breaker. Sometimes the belt and suspenders approach is just the comfortable way to go. (Update: after getting everything working we decided to remove the old chart plotter since it has been replaced with iPads. Should have done that before wiring in the cameras.)

Jobs that are not so much fun are just those that require grinding, seemingly endless, and near mindless work. Prepping and painting the bottom and running gear are good examples. Buffing and waxing the hull is another. I've got enough miles on me now that jobs like those are just an endless marathon grind. But they have to be done, so grind on. Another type of job is one where the access is so bad that there is no avoiding contortions, strained joints, and complaining muscles. On First Light changing the filtered water faucet in the galley is just such a job. It may be a few days before my wrist and shoulders recover from that effort.

The left image shows looking up behind the sink, a space of about 4". The arrow points to the fitting for the drinking water faucet that had to be replaced. the right image shows the space from the cupboard door, a space about 10" across. It requires removing the filter assy and laying on your right side and doing all the work with one hand.

The task for today was going over the engine room with a fine-toothed comb, changing engine zincs, checking fluid levels, general cleaning and poking around looking for potential problems. With that done, all the necessary items needing done to splash would be complete. All we got when pulling the zinc on the port engine was the brass mounting part. The zinc part had broken off in the heat exchanger. Pop the cover off the end of the exchanger and there was the missing part. Problem solved. The starboard side behaved itself. The zincs were barely used, making me kind of happy. Not sure what the average life time for those zincs might be, something we will have to figure out as we go.

Then I moved on to the generator. The first thing I noticed when removing the sound deadening panels was the smell of fuel. Lots and lots of fuel. The entire catch basin under the generator was awash in the stuff. It is a shallow basin but we still squeezed about a gallon of fuel into the bucket. Had we splashed, motored out to the anchorage, and tried to start the genset...boom.

After cleaning out the mess, I started looking for the leak. It had to be on the non-pressure side of the fuel pump. And, as it turned out, it was right at the inlet to the fuel pump. Both clamps were loose. But why? Well, the clamps were loose because the water hose from the thru-hull to the water pump was too long. With the front sound dampening panel installed that hose was smashed hard against the fuel pump inlet hose right at the pump, kinking the hose and putting pressure on the clamps. I'm not exactly sure why the generator ran at all. It was also the kind of potential flaw that isn't readily apparent. I know I had that panel off at least once to replace the generator alternator during last year's attempt to get to St. Louis. I didn't notice anything amiss when putting the panel back on. But while sitting there trying to figure out the leak? The problem was painfully and embarrassingly obvious.

The too long hose is highlighted. Remove, cut shorter, reinstall. Fixed.

The original reason for uncovering the generator was to change its zinc. That one turned out to be nearly completely gone. It was last changed when the engine zincs were, so it clearly has a much shorter service life. When I first put a wrench on the zinc the entire heat exchanger moved. That certainly didn't seem right. The parts manual shows three clamp mounts holding the exchanger in place. Ours had one secured on the inboard end. The middle one appears to be completely unreachable with the generator mounted the way it is in the boat. The outboard one is barely accessible. I know the mechanic who last installed the exchanger and he is way too good to have only mounted the thing with a clamp at one end. But getting to the outboard end bolt, while not impossible, is really, really, (really) tough. My guess is he didn't get quite enough torque on that one and it simply shook loose. Putting in a new bolt and lock nut and getting as much torque on it as I could took two socket wrenches, two different length extensions, one half inch six point socket, one half inch crow's foot socket, a sharp corner of the generator gouging a hole in my side, and an angle on my right wrist that I will be paying for for the next couple of days. But the heat exchanger is secure, the zinc is new, the fuel leak is fixed, and we avoided a BOOM. Which all makes for a pretty good day. Still, time spent on the generator meant some of the other routine stuff remains to be done down in the engine hole.

Then, just because it is a boat, at the very end of the day the water pump (which has been working just fine since we put some water on the boat a couple of days ago) just stopped working. So, tomorrow's first job is to get the water system going again. Just days to splash and we are still adding things to the bottom of the list.