Delighted

More than a year ago Deb spotted a tiny pin hole in the metal exhaust pipe connected to the exhaust manifold. We were far from anywhere repairs could be made, so we wrapped it and clamped it and basically forgot about it. I noticed it again when I started to mount the new heat exchanger and decided this would be the perfect time to do a more permanent repair. The first thought was to replace the 5 inch bit of tube with one that didn't have a hole in it. That thought faded away when it was discovered that the shop didn’t have any such thing in stock. The offer was made to weld a patch over the bad spot, something that would take about an hour and leave me with the possibility of getting the boat done by dinner.

Sold.

Pipe welded, JJ, Christopher, and I set about reassembling the Beast. It went pretty well right up until we filled the new parts with coolant. When bright green liquid starting dripping past the newly installed flange gasket at the base of the exchanger, we set about disassembling the Beast. New new gaskets replaced the old new gaskets, different and more robust hardware in the form a larger washers replaced the original, and a layer of gasket sealer was added to the install. By then Grampy T was well and truly spent. The reassembled unit was left on the bench to be hung on the Beast the following day. My young crew was delighted at the prospect of having another day of “real engine work” to do.

Come morning the Beast was assembled once again. Part of the fun of this install is the four nuts that help support the exhaust manifold. The only way to get the them started on the studs is to uckum sticky them to a long thin screwdriver, hold them against the stud end, and try to get them started using the edge of another long, thin, screwdriver. It is actually a pretty standard technique for working around an engineering wonk, but not exactly “boat mechanics 101.” All was going well until the very last nut to go on got started a little cross ways, buggering up the stud threads. So we had to back up a bit, removing the manifold to reach and dress the stud. Count that as having to do half of a removal.

The boys were delighted.

Stud threads dressed, the manifold was set in place for the third time. The boys insisted that they could handle the screw driver trick and wanted to give it a try. I’m not sure you could call it a true solo flight, but they got most of the way around the pattern; much to my delight.

Engine buttoned up, this time with the coolant system full and not drooling, Deb prodded the Beast to life while the boys and I looked for leaks. Almost immediately water started flowing from a set of clamps at the tube that was welded. A quick shut-down and some additional torque would cure the minor glitch, no problem. On the second start the clamps held tight but, a few moments later, water and mist could be seen seeping enthusiastically out of the weld repair. Problem. We would have to back up and start all over.

The boys were delighted. Grampy T? Not so much.

For the third time on this repair, fluid was drained and hoses undone. For the fourth time on this repair, the exhaust manifold was unbolted and lifted off the Beast. The boys insisted on trying to remove the nuts and washers, employing a magnet to catch all the bits as they came off the stud, thus avoiding having them cascade down the engine and into the engine pan. A pretty standard technique but not exactly “boat mechanics 101.” Nine and five years old, they handled it with little trouble, and were delighted with their prowess.

The heat exchanger / exhaust manifold assembly is at the shop waiting on a new chunk of exhaust tube to be delivered and installed. Since I am no longer an official employee of the yard and it will likely take a blow torch to get the parts apart, I suspect no one’s insurance would be happy with a DIY. Besides, the boys would likely insist that they could handle the torch, so this is an “out” for Grampy T.

When it comes to puttting the thing on for the fourth time though, I may just sit back and let them have at it.

They would be delighted.

Not where we hoped to be

The Kids rowed out to Kintala last evening for the final hugs and good-by. No tears, since we will be meeting up again in a few weeks. This morning dawned perfect for the first run toward the Keys. It felt good being up on deck setting the rigging, pulling off the sail cover, running the sheets. We were cruisers once again, heading back out to where the rest of the tribe lives. It had been a long time since I felt that good getting about my day.

Kintala hasn’t been completely stationary lately, having been out to the anchorage a couple of times as well as making runs to the pump-out. In fact she has been riding to her anchor for the last ten nights while we Dinged in each day to help with the final prep for Blowin' In The Wind to be on her way as well. There was little thought of touching a dock for weeks, and then just for fuel. Everything has been checking out okay, so I gave little thought to Deb doing the engine checks last while I finished up the deck and got ready to pull the hook. 

When she called up from below to ask me to come look at something my good mood vanished. I could tell from the tone of her voice we likely weren’t going very far. In spite of the checks being completely normal for the last couple of weeks, this morning Ye ‘Ol WesterBeast appeared to be adding engine coolant all by itself. It was hard to say for sure. There is no overflow tank, Kintala being an antique when it comes to marine coolant systems. So checking the level means peering down into the actual coolant tank and judging that the fluid is where it normally is. And it certainly appeared to be higher than we are used to seeing. Deb also thought that the color was wrong and I took her word for it. My color sense was never very good and hasn’t gotten any better with the passing of decades. Still, that is some pretty sparse evidence of there being a problem, and the very idea of having to fix yet another thing on the boat was setting firecracker thoughts off in my brain, none of which should ever see the light of day.

After some debate and a call to the shop to see what the engine gurus might suggest, (as if I didn’t already know), we pulled the hook and headed to one of the face docks inside the yard. A pressure test on the coolant system would tell the tale, and the tale it told was the we were definitely not going anywhere. The gauge confirmed that the coolant system is breached somewhere, that somewhere being a place that lets raw water in where raw water shouldn’t be. About the only place that can happen is in the core of the heat exchanger.

The WesterBeast’s heat exchanger was overhauled about 5 years ago because the engine was overheating. Of those five years we have spent nearly 2 tied to the dock here at Snead Island. That seems a pretty limited service life for a unit that isn’t particularly modest in the price department. My joy at being on our way was long forgotten. In its place was my opinion of the mechanical side of the marine world in general, and the WesterBeast in particular, falling to its normally abysmal low. But, what else to do? It has to be fixed. This is a far better place to get that done than somewhere 50 miles from the nearest shop. And Deb caught it on some very thin information; one quarter inch or so of too much fluid, and a slight color change. I don’t think I would have noticed.

We moved the boat to a more permanent pier, one less exposed to the wakes coming in off the river. It is a good bet that we will be here a week or more. It was at least a week the last time the heat exchanger came off the boat. Though it was late in the afternoon, my mood grim (to put it mildly) and my head filled with thoughts of meeting my daily limit of alcohol intake as quickly as possible, it would be best to pull the heat exchanger with the hope of having it in a shop before the weekend. Cruising clothes were shed, work clothes were dug out of the locker, tools located, and boat parts removed.

I remember the last time taking off the heat exchanger as being nearly 8 hours of continuous hurt and frustration. Whomever it was that decided pulling the exhaust manifold was a perfectly acceptable first step to reaching the heat exchanger should be flogged repeatedly with hot coolant lines. He should also be forced to pay for the $100 exhaust gasket required as part of the job. Practice makes a difference though, and this time the heat exchanger/exhaust manifold landed on the work bench barely two hours after the engine covers were pulled. Ten minutes later the heat exchanger was free and ready for the shop.

Ten minutes after that I was well on my way to meeting that daily limit of alcohol intake.

Trying to get going

So there we were, within 36 hours or so of pulling the hook out of the Manatee River and heading off. There was a last day to be spent getting the mast lights on Blowing In The Wind squared away, and getting some play time in with the grand kids. I had long dreaded that last day of play, knowing the heart break that would come with those final hugs before we took the Ding out to Kintala. Best guess was that it would be three days of tears and at least another week of shaking off a grey cloud of wondering just why we needed to be away. After that there would still be intermittent bouts of the grey, bouts that would fade as the months wore on, though never going completely away. But, as it turned out, they were not thrilled at the idea of seeing us sail off over the horizon while they stayed tied to a dock, and so decided to leap in the cruising life themselves and come along.

How cool is that?

Because Kintala can’t fit through the Okeechobee, and Blowing In The Wind’s Captain and Admiral wanted to have a little easer “first go” than running through the Gulf of Mexico to the Keys, the two boats will be taking different paths for the first few weeks. After meeting again in Stuart our little family flotilla will head north.

Kintala was due to leave first with the plan of spending a few days hanging out in places we like to hang out, and meeting some people we would like to meet. So there we were, within 36 hours of pulling the hook out of the Manatee River and heading off.

Right up until we did the morning’s routine battery check. The check doesn’t amount to much, just running through the monitor menu to verify each battery’s voltage. The fancy Xantrex monitor does a whole bunch of other stuff as well, all of which I review, and none of which is very useful. Individual battery voltage displayed on a digital read-out to the hundredth off a volt will tell you everything you need to know about battery health. In the five years these batteries have been in Kintala the morning voltage checks have always been within a couple of hundredths of a volt of each other. This morning…

Battery 1 =12.16v.

Battery 2 =13.23 v.

Rats.



The first step in troubleshooting is to verify what one thinks is wrong actually is wrong. In this case that would mean opening up the battery box and putting a volt meter on each battery. Alas, since we had been working on BIGW’s mast lights yesterday and left the tools on that boat for today’s efforts, my volt meter was back on the dock and not with Kintala out here in the anchorage. A quick run in to say “good morning” and grab the meter ensued. Sure enough, checking with an independent meeter confirmed, battery 1 was down an entire volt from battery 2.

Five year old batteries on a full time cruising boat. One really can’t complain. We started making plans to replace the batteries, figuring we could get back on the dock for a couple of days. Better to do it now than face the music somewhere along the East Coast. But…

Deb kept asking, “Why?” Why this sudden drop. Why today? And I kept answering, “Everything works right up until it breaks.” We are trying to get going. This is a boat. Of course it is broken. Boats are always broken. It is just a matter of how broken.

The second rule of troubleshooting, after verifying the problem actually exists, is to figure out the most likely cause of the problem. And, when it comes to the most likely cause, one might as well start with the last thing someone touched that might have something to do with the system wonk now messing up the day.

Since I wasn’t aware of anything being done that would jostle the electrical system into a wonk, and since the batteries are five years old, and since we trying to be on our way; I just fell into the conclusion that the batteries had decided this was the perfect day to file for retirement. But clearly Deb wasn’t convinced. Even while using the internet to check the prices and availability of various batteries she kept asking, “Why now? Why today?” After a bit she disappeared in the aft cabin and started poking around.

“Found it.”

Found it? Found what?

Working on BITW’s electrical system had her rummaging through all of the various bins and cubby holes on Kintala yesterday. Places where we stash all kinds of do-dads, like wire and connections and tools not often used. Stuff needed to fix BITW’s lights. It is a bit of a pain. Actually, it is a major pain, not being able to just reach into a tool box or easily accessed storage cabinet to get something. I often claim that, should I ever loose my mind and move back on shore, it will be to avoid having to spend 20 minutes digging though cubby holes for the stuff needed to do a five minute job.

Kintala’s battery master switch is located in one of those cubby holes. We rarely touch it. In fact, it probably hasn’t been moved in a couple of years. In the process of searching for stuff Deb had bumped the battery master select switch with a box full of cable, moving in from “BOTH” to “ONE”.  It was late. It had been a long day. She was tired. And the cubby hole was dark and stuffed. As a result last night’s entire electrical load had been sucked out of just one battery.

Of course it was low. We had selected it to be low. We just didn’t know that we had selected it to be low come morning.

So, here we are, within 36 hours of being on our way.

At last...

After way too many days, weeks really…well, to be honest, months, Kintala is riding to her anchor rode once again. We got off the dock a couple of days ago, went out into Tampa Bay flying the jib, tacked up toward the bridge then back to the mouth of the Manatee River. Once there, it was a sail change and an easy, 4 knot deep run on just the staysail up the river and to the anchorage not too far off the boatyard. The kids can wave at us from the shore which is really kind of fun. Setting the hook must be one of those things that you don’t forget since the Mantus went down and dug in with little ado.

Though friends up north will laugh at this, a brisk north wind and temperatures in the low 50’s made it a chilly evening of sitting in the cockpit. Hot buttered rum was the perfect celebration of being out on the water once again. Though it isn’t the usual practice around here, Kintala’s conch horn echoed across the wavelets as the sun touched the horizon.

Though the water was pretty calm, stutter steps and grasping at hand holds was clear evidence that legs can forget what it means to live on open water. I kept bumping into things that were suddenly in my way, door jams, walls, and cabinet bits. And, truth to tell, I think my inner ear might have forgotten some things as well, like how to ignore being in a moving, swinging, bouncing house. Settling into the v-berth came with a slight sigh of relief though, within minutes it was clear that another thing that had been forgotten was the symphony of noises that a boat at anchor makes bow into winds gusting to twenty plus knots.

Which I am going to use as the excuse for doing absolutely nothing since the hook went down. Some stuff gets read, other stuff gets written, music fills the headsets and naps appear out of nowhere.. And yes, that is our new hammock strung between the mast and stay. 

Another delight has been the appearance of wildlife. Even though we live closer to the natural world than most even when in the marina, just a few hundred feet off shore it feels like the cosmos ignores the fact that humans are around. Yesterday evening a gaggle of a dozen or more pelicans went into a feeding frenzy just off the starboard side. It was a parade of the big birds all but hovering 10 to 20 feet off the water, then twisting and bending their wings for a kind of feathered cannon ball crash into the water. Some kind of tern were also in on the action, landing on the heads and backs of the pelicans hoping (apparently) to make off with a meal. I haven’t seen that happen before; it seemed kind of a bold move to me. The pelicans didn't seem to mind, which didn't surprise me. Pelicans are the stoics of the Aves family of animals; unruffled, capable, content, and completely at home in their environment.

In the next day or two we will be heading back to the dock for one more short stint. There is nothing major needing done to the boat, but we are going to help with the little ones as Son-in-Law needs to be away for a couple of days. 

Back to cruising. At last.

Mutually Exclusive Muses

                                            - - random political muse - -

It always seemed likely that it would be the women of the nation that would save us from ourselves. Wasn't it inevitable that, at some point, they would rebel at the assaults on their civil rights, on restricting their access to health care, to discrimination in the areas of equal pay and insurance coverage, and to the constant threats to the health and welfare of their kids? But it is starting to look like it will be the kids themselves who save us from ourselves. Or, more accurately, the kids are moving to save themselves from us while dragging society to a better place, one we should have found a couple of generations ago.

Works for me.

                        - - don’t really care what goes on in the world / boat muse - - 


The last batch of teak is finished. The first batch was the dorade boxes cockpit seats, floor grate, and entryway pad, ten individual bits plus the keyboard of slats that make up the seat at the helm. Slats screwed and sealed directly to the fiberglass…not the best idea anyone ever had. The next batch included the port, starboard, and aft toe rail, just three bits but a lot of area. Another batch was cockpit table, drink holder, and cabin top hand rails. The last batch was the companionway / hatch bits, six that came off the boat plus the one at the top of the companionway, and three more odd bits at the storage shelves and engine panel at the back of the cockpit.


That is a lot of bits. 

Each of those bits was sanded clean of old varnish using 80 grit, repaired as required, and then smoothed in steps of 120, 220, and 320 grit. About half also got the 400 grit wet-sand treatment. Then there was a coat of prime, eight coats of clear with at least one session of 320 or 400 wet-sanding in there somewhere, one last session of 320 or 400 wet-sanding, and a final clear coat to finish it off.

(Note to self - if there is "another boat" in the future, pick one with a little less wood, maybe a lot less. Or maybe no wood at all. One must admit it sure looks pretty but even some rich people can't afford to keep it looking at that way by paying someone else. Hundreds of hours at a hundred dollars - or more - per hour?  Two slips away from Kintala lies one of the biggest and certainly the  prettiest boat in the yard. It is owned by a friend who has oodles of "resources" beyond anything most people can imagine, and he has been working on his teak for several weeks now. The next time a big, teak-glowing-in-the-sunset sailing yacht appears in an anchorage, remember there is a good chance the owner's hands show the callouses of making that happen.)


While doing the companionway, there was a gelcoat repair needed where the hatch slides on the house top. Thirty plus years of sliding back and forth had ground through to raw fiberglass on both hatch and cabin top. It opens much easier now.


The day when the last of the big projects is done and Kintala becomes a cruising boat once again is tantalizingly close. A young friend from the yard went to the top of the mast to fix the topping lift / back stay woogle. As it turned out having the topping lift crossing the back stay wasn’t much of a deal. Apparently there is little motion up there, the topping lift line wasn’t damaged at all. What was an eye opener was that the pin holding the bracket that holds both the back stay and topping lift to the mast head was missing the cotter key that stops the pin from falling out. Nearly five years since the mast went up, thousands of miles covered, with some of those miles in rough, pitching seas that made the rig shudder. It is anyone’s guess as to why that pin stayed put.

A missing pin

There is still reconfiguring the holding tank system to finish. Getting it done requires moving Kintala to a pump out since modifying a full holding tank system is a thought too ugly to consider. There are two options. One is a few miles away at a place called Regatta Point. It is a tight fit for a 42 foot boat. Well, tight for a 42 foot wayward wondering modified full keel boat without a bow thruster and driven by the likes of yours truly. Depending on the tide it is also a bit thin for a five foot draft.

The other option is a day’s sail to the north-north-east away. Then, of course, it is another day’s sail to the south-south-west back. There is a three day window before the next front comes through. Sure enough the wind is going to back half way through, which will put it directly on the bow going both directions; and blowing 20 knots.

It looks like Regatta Point, tight fit an all, will get the nod.

It has been a while since daily tasks included making nice with Mother Earth before attempting something as simple as finding a pump out. It has been a while since the daily life included anticipating when the water would run out, when the batteries might need a little generator support, how much range remained in the fuel tank, and where would be a good place to toss a hook with regard to tide, wind, and incoming weather. All part and parcel of living the life of a boat gypsy.

A life that doesn’t really care about what goes on on land.

Another go

Kintala went back in the water the other day, drawing many a comment on how good she looks as the travel lift rumbled along. She does look pretty good. Even better is that the good is more than just skin deep. Her hull is buffed and polished. (Pay no attention to the battle scares on her starboard side, they are just cosmetic.) Her bottom is blemish free, barrier coated, and sporting new paint. A noticeable leak and weak point on the starboard toe rail is repaired. Cockpit wood and toe rails are protected with layers of hard finish. We know the rig is solid and some new running rigging is in place. (Replacing running rigging is an ongoing kind of thing. A traveler line here or running back blocks there. Wherever lines go on sale we tend to pick the oldest “something” and replace it.)

There are only two areas where the boat still lacks a bit. One is the WesterBeast. It runs okay but is old, tired, dirty, noisy and drips. To a mechanic an engine is like a bank account. There is only so much power saved up in those blocks, pistons, rods and bearings. Every time it runs some of that power is withdrawn and, one of these days, that 36 year old account will be empty. We try and stretch it out with meticulous maintenance and sailing as much as we can, even when it means going really slow rather than the sailboat normal slow. It helps that we really like sailing and don’t usually mind going slow.

Kintala’s other weak point is the auto-pilot. This old airplane driver longs for a fully integrated system with multiple modes and programable way-points. The wind vane is cool in a touchy feely “look at how natural and Mother Earth friendly we are” kind of way.

It is also a major pain in the ass even when it is working

The rest of the boat's "navigation suite" is modest, to say the least. We navigate on I-pads with an old Garmin 4 inch screen GPS at the helm for cross checking and reference. Which is the way we like it. I am a big fan of modern navigation insofar as it means instant knowledge of exact position, speed, and current track. But having that information shouldn't interfere with looking out and around for general position, changing weather, traffic conflicts, and channel information. Visibility from the the cockpit of a sailboat is poor enough without having some big screen chart plotter nesting in an obtuse instrument pod mounted over the helm, dominating an already compromised scan. 

Kintala and I have never had the kind of relationship that some people seem to have with their boats. For the most part I describe our time together as "dysfunctional". But I have to admit that, watching her settle into the water, the old girl is growing on me a little. She is a great sailing boat, but sailing is sailing. Pretty much any sailing boat will do for our purposes and this one is still soft in the bilges, too narrow aft, and lacking in storage space. But she is paid for, ours, and almost ready to go.

And that makes her pretty near to perfect.

The family in their sailing dinghy

We have been here a long time. It has been a good time with family nearby. (This will likely be the hardest of all the hard good-bys that are part and parcel of this life.) We have had the chance to get the boat up to speed once again. I have logged another year of boat tech work, expanding my own skill level to the point where I am pretty comfortable with the hardware/mechanical side of this world. 

On the operations side Deb and I will both be licensed Captains as soon as the paperwork works its way though the paperwork mill. Now, if I could just figure out how to make the boat go backwards with any kind of grace…

It has been10 years since we first started looking at living on a boat. Eight since we bought Ye ‘ol Tartan. Going on five since we first left Oak Harbor. So far our cruising life hasn’t had a lot of the “fair winds and following seas ” everyone wishes on you when you head out. But at this point it is hard to imagine living any other way. 

And it is near time to toss off the dock lines and give it another go.

Strange kind of day

Work on Kintala continues. The cockpit is looking good with teak gleaming.  The bottom of the hull is also looking good, the last coat of black going on today. The bottom took a bit longer because, when it comes to being a customer rather than an employee, I can  be a real pain. The first coat of red was done and my friend doing the bottom paint started opening up the rest can of black. I asked, “How much red is left in the can?”

“About half a gallon.”

“Half a gallon? I live on the boat. Where IN the boat am I going to put a half gallon of paint, and what do you think I’m going to do with it? I’ve already paid for it, put it ON the boat where it will do me some good. I don’t want to take this thing out of the water again for at least two years.”

He laughed, put the black away, and started to spread the left over red on the keel and waterline. The same will happen with the black. It is likely to cost a bit more but, as usual, this job lurched out of control a couple of weeks ago. There is no use worrying about digging out of a hole until you know how deep the hole is going to be.

But that isn’t what made it a strange kind of day. While the bottom paint was going on I was sanding on the board we use to secure jugs at the rail. It takes a real beating hanging out on the edge of the deck as it does. Not only was it looking bad, there were some cracks and small chunks missing that needed attention. As I was sanding away on the first coats of primer another friend, who was working on the boat on the hard next to us, walked over to see what I was doing.

Apropos to nothing, the boat he is working on is a one of those go fast powerboats with a forward leaning arch over the cockpit. Though that arch is only a couple of feet taller than someone sitting at the helm, the owner/driver still managed to smack a bridge with it…at some kind of serious speed no less. He didn’t manage to tear the thing completely off, but the damage was pretty extensive. The name of the boat? “Sudden Impact.” It just doesn’t pay to tempt fate.

Anyway, when he asked how it was going, I told him I was just sanding down the primer coat. He will be doing the same on a gel coat repair soon so he smiled and went back to work. Just then, out of nowhere, a memory from more than 50 years ago overwhelmed my workbench and nearly took my breath away. It was of my Grandfather. We were down in the wood shop in the basement of his house in Rockford where he was showing me how to run a sander and explaining that it wasn’t unusual to sand most of the first coat of primer off of a project. “Take your time” he told me. “Do it right, because the finished work can’t look any better than the base coat.

It was my first schooling in the art of finishing wood, floating up from the distant past. I think my Grandfather would find the work being done on Ye Ol Tartan acceptable, though I have no doubt that, in his day, he would have gotten it done both better and faster. When we were not working in his shop or garden, he had a classic wooden power boat that we would use to go fishing. It was pretty much my only exposure to boats when I was young. I suspect he would be surprised to know that I live on a boat now, as I doubt a liveaboard lifestyle was one that ever occurred to him. Rockford, IL is a long, long way from big salt water and I can’t say for sure that my Grandfather ever got further away from that town than Pittsburgh, when he traveled to visit us.

My grandfather, grandmother, and four of the five of us kids
in front of their house in Rockford, IL

From that memory flowed another, that of attending my Grandmother’s funeral now many decades ago. I don’t remember just how old I was then, late teens maybe early twenties. Nor do I remember many of the details. What I do remember is thinking that I had never seen a man as deeply hurt as was my Grandfather that day. He clung to my Dad like a person completely lost, and he never recovered. It was barely a year later when his broken heart gave up trying to heal. Up to then I had never suspected how deep love could go.

Oddly, right up until today I never thought about how important I might have been in his life. I can’t say for sure that I was. I can’t say for sure that I wasn’t. He lived a long way away and we didn’t see each other more than a few days a year. But I have my own grand kids now, ones that I only see a few times a year, Not a day goes by that I don’t think of each of them, wonder what they are doing, how well they are growing up. Was it the same for him?

An echo from his life has been hanging around all day. It is a good echo, even tinged as it is with a bit of sadness that the memories are so few and faded.

Maybe he would have liked big water after all.

All day, every day, working on the boat…

That isn’t literally true of course. We don’t work on the boat 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It just feels that way sometimes.

We have been told that people follow along with us on this blog to see how our cruising life is working out. I hope they aren’t too disappointed. So far our “cruising life” has come is short spurts. Between those limited months of moving, exploring, and getting to know many new faces, have been far more months of sitting and working. For the first couple of years the sitting and working always involved family boats. Even before dropping the dock lines to go cruising we had to deal with the initial problems with the V-drive / transmission failure. When the jobs went away and we decided to call it quits on the “American way of life” there were more months of work. Even before Kintala went on the truck for the trip east; the wind vane install and a repair on the bottom faring chewed through many weeks of near constant labor.

Once in Oak Harbor we thought we were close, but then came the labor needed to get Ye Old Tartan in big water without taking on said water. Labor that included hauling the boat out of the water, dropping the rudder, and taking on a pretty ugly fiberglass repair in the tiny space under the cockpit. We threw in a rudder repair while at it, just because it seemed like a good time to fix a rudder that was split all the way across its bottom.

Our first trip south saw us holed in Oriental for a few weeks struggling with the failing fuel injection pump. We got some cruising in after that, including our first trip to the Islands with our friend John.

The summer working on the Bear came next. Months went by, working through the Florida heat. Little did I know that was a precursor of life soon to be. We did make it back to the Chesapeake, where Kintala went up on the hard and, yes, we spent many a week working on her once again. It was good work, bottom paint and some interior changes that made living on her much, much more comfortable. But it was still seemingly endless days of gazing out at the anchorage wondering when we would find our way out there again.

We did, eventually, making it to the Islands for many glorious weeks. But that cruise was followed by the first stint of being a professional boat mechanic. It was good experience, and helped revive a nearly exhausted cruising kitty. Plan all you like for “retirement,” but don’t bet on it working out that way. Issues can and will pop up, and one is left to deal with them as best as possible.

We got another stint good of cruising in after that, visiting our beloved Abaco Islands and, this time, sailing all the way around them and back to the States. Then it was back around the Keys for a second season of fixing other people’s boats. That season ended a couple of weeks ago but we are far from being on our way again. I suspect it will be at least another month before we can sail off, and I will not be surprised if that estimate proves too optimistic.

Cruising, at least in our case, is just doing the best you can to get by while living on a boat. In some ways it is a lot easier than living on land simply because it is far easier to “get by” when one isn’t burdened with cars, houses, insurances, and an endless array of “stuff” rarely used but still taking up space.  But boats are labor intensive devices. The older they get the more labor intensive they become. As a life long mechanic and tinkerer my way of making peace with that reality has been to regard Kintala as a hobby as much as she is a home. So what if it takes a few more weeks to make the teak pretty and the bottom smooth? Why fret over changing pumps and plumbing, adding accumulators and inverters if, in the long run, it makes our daily living a bit more enjoyable? I spent endless hours tweaking the GXSR, working on projects out in the shop, keeping little airplanes flying, and working on houses. It helps to think of boat work as more of the same.

If our history is to repeat itself we will get “out there” again before too long. It may take a bit of effort to scrape the rust off of our sailing skills, rust acquired after months of sitting in one place. The good news is we have all of Tampa Bay to warm up in, and can take all the time we like. Until then it is...

All day, every day, working on the boat.

Anchorage Sim

Kintala is out of the water once again, this time for a real bottom job. What looked to be about eight layers of old paint was sanded off down to the gel coat. There are some minor blemishes and a nick or two that need attention. Three barrier coats will go on, followed by a couple of coats of bottom paint. Given that the boat is some 35 years old, we are pretty happy with what we have found. This is the perfect place to get such work done. People I have worked with for nearly two years are attending to our hull. Friends. People I trust. People who make a living doing exactly this kind of work.

Other projects are underway as as well. Our little Merc outboard, a unit that has never been my favorite, came a bit of a cropper. The shift lever locked up in its housing leading to the wimpy plastic handle shedding its insides, stripping itself bare of any grip. We pulled the power unit off to gain access to the shift mechanism thus verifying that the interconnecting rod was frozen solid in the housing. Torque supplied by my largest pair of vice grips simply sheared the shaft, even after heating, liberal applications of penetrating oil, and light tapping with a ball peen hammer.

Fortunately, the shaft is aluminum so drilling it out only cost one broken bit. Still, with most of the core gone, what was left of the shaft still refused to budge. By then the sun was setting and it was time to call it a day. The next morning had us moving Kintala into the lifting well so we didn’t get back to the Merc until later in the afternoon. Maybe it was the chilly temperatures reached overnight. Maybe it was being soaked in penetrating oil. Whatever the cause, a punch and some gentle persuasion caused the trashed out bit of shaft to actually move a little. Persuasion of a less gentle nature was applied, and the trashed out bit moved a bit more. Yeah! A few more taps and we were home, the part free and, even better, the housing itself undamaged.

It is better to be lucky than good.

Primer coat curing

The new parts arrived and were installed. Added to the $100+ worth of fuel parts Deb installed earlier, the miserable little Merc should be about as good as it is going to get. Which isn't to say I expect it start on the first pull. My guess is it will take a few hours of nursing, cursing, and cleaning to get it chugging away once again. We are also doing all the bright work on the boat, a task that is at least a full year overdue. The good folks here at the yard have agreed to let us sit in the stands to put the finish on the toe rail.  Scaffolding is a lot easier and quicker to work from, easier than trying to wield a finishing brush while in the Ding. Sitting up here we also discovered an elusive fresh water system leak that has been lurking around the boat for a good while. It turned out the pump itself would drool water depending on just where the shaft stopped spinning. A new, and much (much) quieter pump was installed. An accumulator was added to the system as well, something we should have done long ago. (One could barely talk over the noise the old pump would make while running.)

Though it is all good stuff and Kintala will be in the best shape of her life when splashed, it feels like we are going backwards. Indeed, sitting on the hard, the boat in the usual state of disrepair that comes with sitting on the keel, the "to do" list far from being completed? Escaping the shore looks further away, not closer.

One nice thing is that being on the hard, at least around here, comes with a really excellent view. In the slip most of what we see are other boats really, really close, a wall, and a bit of water off the stern. On the hard we have an elevated view of the Manatee River all the way to Tampa Bay and out to the horizon. Sitting in the cockpit on a cool morning, sipping coffee?  It feels pretty good after nearly a year of working in the boat yard.

We are still working pretty hard, but at least we can pretend the scene is near that of riding to the anchor.

It helps.

Lucky man

Several years ago two of my grandsons sat alongside me under one of the picnic pavilions at the marina in Middle River, Ft Lauderdale. We were hand sanding a new part for Kintala’s interior, they being way too young for power tools. It remains one of my favorite “I am a grandpa” memories. Time rolls on, grandsons grow, and boats like Kintala always seem to have something that needs sanded and refinished. It is a kind of cosmic regenerating circle work, like the grass growing in the yard. Between that time and now they moved to Indiana, then Missouri, and now live on a boat just a few slips away from us. They have also grown up enough to tangle with palm sanders.

And they loved it.

Sanding in 2014

Fortunately we have three aboard. Yeah, I know. We have also moved all of my tools off of the work golf cart and back into our the aft cabin’s work bench area. Ye Old Tartan now lists about 3 degrees to starboard even in dead calm winds. We really should go through and “down size” the tool collection again.  We thought about it, then just found cubbies and holes to stash the ones we don’t use that often; like 3 or four of the 7 3/8’s drive ratchets we have aboard. There is the short one, the normal length one, the long one, the one with a swivel head, the one with a 3/8s on one side and 1/4 on the other side, the main one that is a Snap-on unit I have had since my days in tech school, and a cheap-assed one that serves mostly as a hammer. There is actually an eighth one that is part of a metric 3/8s set that rests in its own box. It stays with the set. (Along with the 3 and 8 inch extensions, of which we also have several floating around.) Going to sea with a retired mechanic has its challenges.

So the dock box at the end of the pier was turned into a work table for Grampy T and two sheets of wood were laid on the ground for the kids.  Extension cords were run and the five teak parts taken off the cockpit seats and companionway were parsed out to my “worker men.” There was a little trepidation to go along with their excitement since they hear constant warnings about how easy it is to get hurt with a power tool. Palm sanders are likely the least dangerous power tool of all, but still…these boys are nine and five respectively. A sanded finger would make me very unpopular with Mom.

Proper technique was reviewed. Sand the piece, don’t scrub at it. Keep the sander moving when it is touching on the wood. Go with the grain. And sand old varnish not newly exposed wood. They fired up, their little faces scrunched up in that particular way kids have when they are concentrating, and the dust started to fly.

It was pure magic for Grandpa.

I was an instructor for the first hour or so, watching carefully as they got to know the work. At times I would put my hand over theirs on the sander, adjusting the cadence and length of their stroke or letting them know that they didn’t need to lean so hard on the tool. They are quick learners and were soon flying solo.

It was a popular show for some of the other crews hanging around the boat yard, doing their own projects in preparation for heading out. One passer by made the comment, “You are a lucky man.”

I suspect he doesn't know just how right he is.

Third time's a charm...

Soon...

A common comment around many a maintenance shop, be it planes, bikes, or boats, is “Practice makes permanent”. The gist is the person who manages some odd ball or unpleasant task will, most likely, get to do it again the next time that one comes through the shop door. It makes for a bit of a conundrum. On the one hand, any good technician wants the reputation of being able to fix about anything, figuring it out, coming up with a solution, making it work. After all, someone built or installed the thing in the first place. Who wants to admit to not being at least that capable or smart?

On the other hand, does one really want to be the “go to” expert when it comes to pulling holding tanks or rebuilding heads? How about being the person who can climb down into any ugly, dirty, tiny, sharp-edged filled hole toting tools and grinders? Even tasks that are normally kind of fun, like climbing a mast, are much less fun when it is the third one of the day or the wind is blowing and the waves are rocking the boat. (We use a climbing rig around here as moving the crane in place for a simple light repair chews up too much labor time. And no, this old guy wasn’t one of the “permanent” mast guys - though I did use the harness a couple of times on easy jobs just because I could.)

But being a boat tech was never on my list of "things I want to do for the rest of my life." And so it came to pass that Friday was my last official day of punching a time clock. My first “last day” was when we moved the boat to Oak Harbor, moved aboard, and headed south. Unexpected expenses made it necessary to refill the the cruising kitty and “retirement” was put on hold for a summer season. It went well, we retired again and headed off to the islands. Life lined up to have us back here and on the clock for a second stint of “filling the kitty”. That has worked out really well in ways completely unexpected. Still, we always knew that the time would come to work on throwing the dock lines once again.

This makes the third attempt at being retired and, in this case, “practice makes permanent” would be okay with me. Not sure how much confidence I have that it will work out that way, but we have managed pretty well so far. No reason not to keep giving it a try.

It will still be a while before Kintala rides to an anchor or mooring ball as she requires a bit of tender loving care of her own. Care that wasn’t as forthcoming this past summer as we had hoped, mostly because a whole tribe of grand kids were around to fill up the days. A real bottom job, all the way down to the gel coat for a barrier coat, is on the schedule. There are some plumbing mods to make (yes in the head system), a few rigging issues, brightwork, and an assortment of odds and ends we want to address. Estimated time of completion and departure sometime near the end of January.

I’m sure the enthusiasm for working on my own boat will return after the first few minutes of working on the first project. That will likely be replacing some of the running rigging, a low key way to get up and running on personal boat projects. Later we will have to work on the habits of living off the grid once again, conserving water and battery power, planning ahead for making stops to add fuel and stores, keeping an even closer eye on the weather.

But for now, just having the time clock out of my life feels pretty good.

Odd Days

When you first think about going cruising, your focus is intense.  You have a goal, a plan, and a list of things to make it all happen. If you're fortunate, like us, you're rewarded with a couple years of intensely beautiful experiences - sunsets, new friends, dolphins, manatees, and an occasional moonlit passage.

After a few years, you might find yourself stuck on a dock working to replenish the cruising kitty like we are, and things are suddenly different. You're not cruising, but you're not really landlubbers either. You're stuck in this odd, fuzzy time of endlessly hot days, feeling a bit like the floating experience when coming out of general anesthesia - one foot in each world but not fully in either one.

The past six months on the dock have been odd days like this - floating - but not focused. Days meander by, but no thought is given to where we go next. No boat projects are being done because the need to have them completed is just too far away to think about.

The last week or so, though, the weather has made a decided shift toward Fall. For the first time in months we dipped below the 90° mark for a high. The breezes have picked up, announcing the approaching cold fronts. Something smells different in the air, a hint of dry leaves (although there aren't many trees that shed them here), and an occasional sniff of a wood fire somewhere takes me back to my days in Pennsylvania where the first fire in the fireplace signaled the change of seasons. It was just enough to break me out of the fog and start me thinking about what needed to be done to Kintala before we could leave the dock.

As I sat at the nav station working on a list, I could no longer ignore the weather station that resides just under the switch panel that has been inop since Spring. A new set of batteries, a spray of contact cleaner and a few wipes with emery cloth, and the weather station sprang to life once again. It took about 30 minutes, including the removal and reinstallation, a piece of our normal cruising life reinstated. While it might seem like a ridiculously small thing, that one little thing did much to lift my mood and put a smile on my face.

If you find yourself having to stop cruising for a while to replenish the cruising kitty (and most cruisers do at some point unless they are independently wealthy), there are a few things that I've learned these past two summers and I thought I'd pass them along.

• Nurture your dream while you're dock bound. Remember why you wanted to go cruising in the first place and find fellow cruisers to spend time with who can encourage you.
• Enjoy the little things. For me this past summer, it's been time spent getting to know three of our nine grandchildren. In the past few years we've only visited occasionally and there is no substitute for the day-in, day-out contact we've experienced the last few months.
• Find something to be thankful for every day. Your health, your friends, your supportive spouse, your home.
• Take care of yourself. Walk, ride a bike, eat well, read a good book.
• Connect with old friends and distant family members.
• Get lots of sleep.

Although I'm working part time now at a sail loft in town, I'm finding a few hours here and there to start on our project list which is mercifully short this year. All of our exterior teak needs refinished, our wind instrument needs repaired or replaced, our head plumbing needs the addition of a system to empty the holding tank at sea, and an errant leak needs chased down that dared to mar my new headliner from last summer's project list. These projects will be tackled while we await grandchild #10, due in mid-December, after which we'll start creating the possible routes to wherever we end up going this cruising season, a lot of which will be dependent on the condition of marinas along the way.

For now, here's a hodge podge of photos from the last few weeks, glimpses of sunlight through the fog.

A sail I'm restitching at my part time job with Sunrise Sails Plus. It's off a 65 foot ketch rig.

There's always time to climb a tree around here.

He was pretty happy with this coconut which he rescued from the water just outside the marina.

About half of the toe rail is now sanded. Next boat has metal toe rails...

The Coast Guard and Florida Fish and Wildlife have been raising these sunken boats to be hauled out and trucked away in a combined effort to clean up the local waterways. Some of them have been sunken for years, others fell prey to Irma

This was somebody's awesome power boat at some point

Cockpit time

One of the real joys of living on a boat, at least for me, is time spent sitting in the cockpit. The best cockpit time is evening and night while riding to the hook in a quiet anchorage. Mornings are good too, though I am not normally much of a morning person. The boat moves gently, pitching and rolling easy, swinging slow to light winds and changing currents. With a bit of luck dolphins or manatees will wander near while pelicans wheel by in close formation, wingtips just off the surface. If the water is clear enough to see the bottom, one has the feeling of floating above the earth and resting off the shore at the same time. After a few minutes the boat itself gets absorbed into and becomes part of the scene, then the cockpit, then its occupant. My guess is that land dwellers spend a lot of money on pharmaceuticals and counseling, or a lot of time sitting in bars or cathedrals, or all of the above, seeking just a hint of what one can find sitting in a cockpit of a sailboat, resting easily in the world.

In these parts though, there hasn’t been much cockpit time the last few months.

Except for the occasional passing hurricane / tropical storm / tornado, this summer has passed as still, hot, and humid. There was a day or two where it was just barely comfortable enough to sit in the cockpit at the end of the work day and down a cold beer. But even on those days a cool shower called and, soon enough, the insects would go looking for their evening meal. Florida can be a tough place to live in the summer when one is living this close to nature and filling the cruising kitty by working outside. Except for the time spent riding out Irma on the hard, Kintala has spent the last many months hemmed in, surrounded by pilings, with a boat tied close to her starboard side and a dull gray metal shed inches from her port side. There isn’t much to see, looking out of her ports.

This morning dawned just a bit cooler, with a breeze blowing hard enough to keep the insects grounded. Our neighbor to starboard left for a sail down to Key West, where they plan to spend a couple of days. No one has moved the shed, but it does help block the afternoon sun. If I hold my head just right, looking aft and slightly to starboard, the binnacle blocks the view of the nearest piling, it is a good several hundred feet across the basin, and the occasional pelican soars past. The local family of manatees poke their noses out of the water, blow and snort, and drift back down to the bottom to do whatever it is that manatees do to pass the time. There is no seeing the bottom and the boat moves gently right up until one of the mooring lines checks her up but, hey, I’ll take what I can get.

Though future plans are still vague, next week we will be heading out for a couple of weeks of visiting in St. Louis. The hope is that, once we return, the Florida summer will have broken enough that the air conditioning can be removed from our deck. It will be November after all. Friends north are already talking about freezing temperatures at night and daytime highs in the 50s. With the last of the hurricane season fading away (hopefully), we can bend on the sails as well. Kintala will be a sailboat once again, and Tampa Bay is just a around the corner. There is no reason we can’t spend a few weekends out there. Maybe more than a few, depending on how long we end up staying on this side of the state.

Find a little quality cockpit time.

And rest a little easier in the world.

Magic dust

Sometimes boats and tools feels a bit like Santa and the Magic Dust. First some tools for the project are carried onto the boat. Then a few more tools get carried onto the boat, then a few more tools… (and if you get that reference you are giving away your age.) A spark chaser’s tool bag has strippers, crimpers, and cutters, with a couple of screw drivers and nut drivers. (Listed that way, it sounds a lot more interesting than it really is.) Other things in the bag, slip joint pliers, vice grips, measuring stick (rule to the lay person) and some other odds and ends get toted along but not often used.

A magic dust of a morning at Snead Island Boat Works

Then the job gets going and, what’s this - a hot wire wrapped a time or two around a fuel line? What fool did that?  Though one must admit, finding a wiring harness zip tied to fuel lines is pretty standard fare. So it's back to the golf cart for a flare nut wrench, maybe two; it being easier to undo the fuel line than splitting open a slimy harness (slime being what is left of electrical tape after a few decades deep in the damp parts of a boat). Later some holes need poked and some screws need set, so the boat gets a little more in the tool department, sniffing up drills, bits, and countersinks. Eventually, of course, the wiring harness needs split open anyway, so the valve cover bolts holding the clamps that hold the harness have to come out. This takes a ratchet, a short extension, and a socket. Hard to tell which socket though, since my calibrated eyeballs aren’t as accurate as they used to be, particularly in the dim recesses of an engine box. The bolts look to have 7/16 heads, so grab the 3/8 and 1/2 inch sockets as well and tote them to the boat. Later, the bracket holding some electrical gizmos that make timed sparks for the spark plugs needs to come off. It has bigger bolts. Maybe 9/16. The 1/2 is already laying around somewhere, but better grab the 5/8 as well. Oh, and a longer extension might save a bruised knuckle.

This goes on for a couple of days, tools rarely making it back off the boat since whatever was needed to get something off will clearly be needed to put it back on. Come the time when the job is finished or the powers-that-be need efforts focused on some other project, it will be amazing just how much magic dust the boat needed to sniff up to get all the goodies working as they should. Usually, right about this time, my old life making a living in airplane hangers launches a bit of paranoia my way. If there is one thing that chills the bones of an aircraft tech, it is the thought of some accident investigator pulling one of his or her tools out of the smoking wreckage of an airplane that just left the hanger. It is the main reason aircraft hangars are filled with orderly, carefully maintained rolling tool boxes filled with racks and slots.

Boat yards don’t have any such things. A wooden box on the back of the golf cart is considered rather plush. Mine has attracted comments because it has a couple of racks for sockets. Wrench sets are sequestered in custom made holders. Zippered bags hold punches, chisels and picks. It isn’t as professional as my old Snap-On roll-around, a style known as the “Taco Stand". Still, when it comes time to move on, making sure everything that got toted up on the boat is toted off is easier than just hoping that the pile of tools on the cart looks tall enough.

Truth to tell though, I’m not really sure it matters that much, except for the cost of replacing tools. In a boat, all kinds of things are left lying around in all kinds of scary places. Engine compartments are stuffed with loose jugs of oil and coolant, spare parts and loose junk stashed on pretty much any flat surface. Want to look at the batteries or generator? Move stuff out of the way first. When the flat surfaces are full up, plastic milk cartons, open-topped and unsecured, are a popular option for additional storage. I have found deck chairs lying on top of engines and boxes of parts sliding around on top of fuel tanks. And batteries…apparently battery boxes have some kind of attracting power for pressurized cans of things that can go “boom” in the dark.

Cockpit lockers are often even more scary. Life jackets, coils of line, boat hooks, and fishing nets get jammed into the same holes that provide access to rudder posts, steering cables, and autopilot rams. How it is that things keep working while being tossed around in a rambunctious sea is beyond me, but a forgotten wrench or screw drivers isn’t much of an additional threat.

Then again, maybe a touch of the magic dust helps?