Three bolts to go

For the first time in months, the WesterBeast rumbled to life with a purpose, dock lines were tossed, and Kintala eased her way back out of the slip where she has rested for all these long months. It was kind of exciting even if we were only headed to the haulout pit. We weren't really planning on being lifted out, but the rudder stuffing box had started leaking on the way up the west coast of FL, and it lies well below the water line. Lifting the boat just high enough to pull the three bolts that hold the stuff in the stuffing box, without having water flood into the boat, was among the very last things needing to be done in this summer of work.

It has been a while since I drove a boat in the tight confines of a marina, but there was zero wind, shift and throttle worked silky smooth, and we ghosted into the lift straps like we knew what we were doing. Half an hour, hour at most, and we would be back in the slip with the boat closer to 100% than she has ever been.

A few hours later Kintala was sitting on the hard.

I have always been a bit shy about the parts of our drive train that didn't get attention back when the v-drive exploded. I should have been even more concerned after learning of the water spout hit that had done so much damage to the boat including (apparently) shoving it backwards into some shallows that damaged the rudder. With the boat nearly out of the water we could see the shaft and prop, and decided to take a closer look. After careful consideration, a new prop shaft, dripless seal and cutlass bearing will be installed (long overdue and recommended last summer by the folks at Oak Harbor)

Another issue is the shaft support strut mounting itself. Once we really started to look at the shaft / strut /  bearing combo that hangs under the bottom of the boat, I grew convinced that the strut support had, at some time in the past, been repaired; a repair that left much to be desired in such a critical area of the hull. Where the shaft exits the hull also appears to be more than just a bit of a hack job. I just couldn't convince myself that it was going to be okay to keep going with things as they were.

It would be easy to get discouraged. We thought we were so close to being on our way once again, with a fat and happy cruising kitty and a solid boat. There were plans to visit family and have family visit us, travels that are due to start in less than two weeks. The Islands were calling for the winter. All such plans seemed to be at risk with the cruising kitty cringing in fear of the costs heading its way.

But it may not be as bad as we thought for those first hours of Saturday morning. The Snead Island crew is a crew of experts and we are (junior) members of the family. If there is anyplace in the world to get critical glass work done in a high stress area of the hull well below the water line, this is the place. What seems like a Major Big Deal of a boat repair is often, to them, a minor glitch handled as a matter of routine. Chop out, glass, re-align, and remount the shaft support? Sure, no problem. (We just did that exact same thing for the two big engines just installed in the project boat I've been working on all summer.) Source custom bits and parts? The number is in the shop's speed dial list. A new shaft, coupling, seal and bearing will be on the way before the week is out.

Since I like to imagine myself as one of the experts around here, much of the work will fall to me. But our glass slinger has been slinging structure glass for decades. The engine guy has aligned as many marine engines as I have done hot sections on aircraft turbines, or flown instrument approaches right down to minimums. I will not mind having them looking over my shoulders and offering suggestions.

So I am going to put off being discouraged until we see how it goes. A broken boat, even if it is pretty much all one owns in the world, is still just a broken boat. And it may well be that we (once again) uncovered a potential major problem the easy way, in the perfect place to address it with a minimum of fuss and risk. However bad (or not) this hit turns out to be, when done, Kintala will be a better, safer boat, than she was yesterday morning when we eased out of the slip...

...and thought there was only three bolts to go.

Test Flight

Many of the entries in my stack of pilot log books make reference to being a “maintenance check flight”. The vast majority of those were utterly routine. A few involved more exotic procedures, like engine shut-down and restarts at various altitudes and / or speeds. And yes, there was a time or two when the re-start failed, resulting in an “engine inoperative” landing. Though you wouldn't know it from the social and entertainment media of the US of A, such isn't any kind of real emergency so long as a) the inoperative engine isn't the only one installed, and b) the remaining engine(s) don't quit for the same reason as the first. (Think “running out of gas”.)

One of the many Cheyennes I did maintenance test flights on.

Once in a rare while something unexpected would pop up. Test flying a Cheyenne with a window removed for photo work resulted in a blast of air coming from the emergency gear extension access;
unexpected but non-threatening. A different Cheyenne had a pressurization hose come loose right around 18,000 feet resulting in a really rapid decompression. Unexpected, only slightly threatening for the first few seconds, and very loud.

Two “maintenance test flights” fell into a completely different category of threatening. One was a #2 engine failure (starboard to a sailor) on a small, twin engine Baron just as the gear left a narrow, not very long, runway that faced a hill. I did the things pilots need to do in such a situation, scraped over the hill getting a pretty good look at someone mowing their lawn. (They got a good look at me as well). As soon as the hill was cleared the emergency part of the flight was over, and yet another “engine inoperative landing” entry was made in my log.

The second was the test flight of an ultra-light that had already been crashed once.  The cause of the crash was still a mystery. The pilot flying had suffered both a broken shoulder and a concussion during the event and remembered nothing of that whole day, resulting in him being of little help in figuring out what went wrong. The rebuilt craft had been carefully inspected by several people, including me, and nothing seemed amiss. Still, taking it on the maiden voyage after the rebuild might not have been the smartest thing I ever did; that thought flashed through my mind as the machine leaped into the sky in an impossibly steep, near stall attitude that I was unable to correct even with full nose down elevator. Had I been wearing a parachute that day I would have certainly used it to join the caterpillar club. Getting down in one piece involved some scary flying, monkey-bar antics to shift some weight, likely used up at least two of my extra lives, and still makes me wince when I think of it.

Which is the long way around of saying I take test operations very, very seriously. They are never spur of the moment, always well planned, with much thought given to what might go wrong and what to do in response. So when the word came down yesterday that we were going to “sea trial” the boat I have been working on, well, lets just say I was less than enthusiastic about the idea.

The sea trial boat a few weeks ago

The boat isn't near done. There is no floor over the cockpit leaving batteries and other electrical equipment totally exposed. There are no covers over the engines, no hatch in the forward bow, and no windows in the cabin. There is no helm seat or rail, just a foot or so of standing space keeping the person at the helm from falling onto either one of the two exposed engines, or the exposed fuel tank. There is no VHF radio or navigation equipment. My pilot-trained paranoia envisioned a stern-heavy boat shipping water aft, shorting out everything important, with me swimming home with my butt hanging below the frame tubes of an ultra-light trying to shift the center of gravity (cg) forward.

The lift straps went limp and the boat settled into the water nearly perfectly on its lines; no evidence of being stern heavy at all. There was the slightest list to starboard which, given that nearly all of the 4/0 cable in the boat runs up the starboard side of the bilge, wasn't a surprise. We let it sit there for a half hour or so making sure the bilge stayed dry, which it did. With nothing stopping the show the Yard Owner, the Engine Guy, and yours truly stepped aboard. Start and house batteries came on line without sparks or smoke and the big Cummings engines rumbled to life with little coaxing; loud though, without covers. All communications from then on was done by shouting. The bow thruster churned massive amounts of water and, in the cabin, could be heard growling even over the engine din. I think, if we had put that dude in the center of the hull, it would just shove the whole boat one way or the other without much effort. (Wouldn't that make docking easy?)

We eased out of the lift pit and into the Manatee river. A few minutes later we were howling along at near full song, spray flying past the windows with (to a sail boat guy anyway) a massive wake chasing along behind us. The boat leaned port and starboard as the trim tabs got tested, another new thing to a sail boat guy. Sweeping turns didn't seem to upset the hull any and no spray came through the open windows. Even though the new props are not yet installed, robbing the boat of 150 RPM or so, top speed on a phone GPS app came in at 34 miles per hour. The engines ran smooth and sweet. (Still loud though.) The electrical system worked as planned. Engine Guy was happy. Yard Owner was happy.

I was glad my butt was dry.

Hopefully, soon, the wiring work will wind down. The bulk of the heavy wiring is done; bow thruster, windlass, inverter / charger, batteries and sundry switches, DC and AC breaker panel main power distribution panel, and a secondary distribution panel at the helm. There are still some lights, LPG gas control, and electronics to go. The stove isn't installed yet, nor is the refrigerator. The air conditioning has power but, for reasons yet to be determined, isn't running the fan at full speed or closing the compressor relay. The engine fire bottle lights are about half wired and I need to change the trickle charger line. (For some reason the paperwork calls for a 10 gauge wire on a 5 amp circuit, a puzzle yet to be solved.)

Still, it was fun to see much of the summer's work tested, and log my first real “sea trial”.

Rebuilding a Forespar Whisker Pole

Kintala came with a whisker pole mounted to two brackets on the deck. It took us quite a while of sailing the boat before we dared try the pole and we almost dumped Tim into the drink trying it. We weren't impressed.

Along came a good friend of ours, Barry, who showed us how to use the pole. I'm embarrassed to say how easily he did it, and he's considerably lighter built than either Tim or I. We began, tentatively, to use the pole. After two years of using the pole while cruising, we weren't sure how we had ever sailed without it. We spend a considerable amount of time sailing on just the genoa, and an even greater percentage of that time sailing in light wind. If you try to do this without the pole, you end up slatting the genoa and greatly decreasing its lifespan.

Back a few months ago while we were heading down the east coast of Florida to Snead Island for this job, we put up the whisker pole with a new rigging design we had read about in an article. I doubt that it was the rigging design, but the inner tube of the pole bent and broke after we had it fully extended. We tied up the pieces and anchored them to the mounting bracket the best we could and added it to the summer project list.

Early in the summer, I contacted the wonderful tech support at Forespar. They were kind enough to tell me that it wasn't entirely our fault that it broke, since it was two (not one, yes two) sizes too small for our boat. Go figure. Unfortunately, a new pole properly sized for our boat was just under two grand. Definitely not in the summer budget.

We began to look on Craigslist and eBay. We did find one that was the right size, but the description included the fact that one end didn't come with it. That end would have set us back nearly $500 so, with the price of the pole, it was also out of our budget. After a while I started looking at the possibility of repairing ours. Yes, it was two sizes too small for our boat, but it had lasted us almost 5 years and who knows how long it was used before that. As long as we were careful about the load we put on it, it might be worth exploring. After a few days of research, we surprisingly found that West Marine had the pole precut in the proper length and at the best price. Who knew? I ordered one from the parts department here on sight and waited the three weeks for delivery. As a side note, Rig Rite does also have most of the parts, but we were able to get a better price through the boat yard here from West Marine.

It appears that Forespar doesn't really want you to rebuild your poles, though. Finding information on parts and reassembly was difficult at best. I did happen on the basic drawing on their tech support site that I used throughout the rebuild that you see below.  It's part of an interesting article about whisker poles so read it when you get a chance. After removing the pole ends, which were all riveted on, you end up with four basic pieces - the outer tube, the inner tube, the inboard end fitting with the attached stinger tube, and the outboard end fitting. There are also two bushings that enable the inner pole to slide in and out. Every rivet had to be drilled out, and every screw was completely corroded in place and had to be drilled out and retapped.

New control line and jaw control line

While I was waiting for the new inner tube, I removed the old control line and replaced it with a shiny new one. I also removed all the smaller lines on the outboard end that are used to pull open and lock the jaw as well as provide loops to hook guy lines. One of our sheaves was completely locked up from corrosion and had to be drilled out and replaced. Fortunately, we had one just the right size from a block that we removed from The Floating Bear fiasco. Score!

The broken 90° tube. You can see the missing outer nut
where it's supposed to be in the photo above

There is also a 90° bent piece of aluminum tubing that guides the short piece of line on the outboard end that pulls open the jaw. It has a threaded end on it that comes up through a hole in the side of the tube and then a nut screws down on it. The whisker pole is aluminum, that tube is aluminum, and the nuts are stainless. Can you say corrosion? The little tube cracked and the nut fell off. I was unable to find a replacement online so I called Forespar and they were able to get me one.

A new jaw control cable. You can also see the new sheave where the
control line exits the end fitting. Please ignore the dirty deck :(

The hardest part of the rebuild was figuring out how to reassemble the pieces. It's like doing a jigsaw puzzle. You have to slide the inner tube into the outer tube until it's completely inside, install the stop bushing on the end of the outer tube, slide the inner tube back through that bushing, and then put the end on the inner tube. I confess it took me two tries to get it right. Some of it I riveted, some other pieces lent themselves better to being assembled with screws and nuts.

After a sigh of relief that it actually worked the way it was supposed to, I strode confidently to the foredeck to mount it in the brackets. Ummmm...when you order the inner pole it comes pre-cut at nine feet four inches, the exact measurement that it's supposed to be for that model pole. Unfortunately, some previous owner cut two inches off the end of the pole so this pole won't fit. After looking at it with Tim, we realized that the aft bracket had been installed backwards and so, rather than remove the bracket, rebed it, and reinstall it, they decided just to cut two inches off the pole. Go figure.

The whole project took about three weeks including the waiting, but we  have our original pole restored for a little less than $250 instead of $2K. Yes, it's too small for Kintala, but cruising budgets sometimes demand some compromises and this is one of those for us.

Longing to return...

Leonardo da Vinci once said...

“For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return.”

Leonardo da Vinci died 384 years before the Write Brothers' first flight, so one wonders how he gained such a clear understanding of a pilot's heart. Somehow the modern world has turned flying into such a chore that most people cringe at the idea of having to go to the airport. But for many of us who made a living in the sky and those whose life defining hobby is flying, Mr. da Vinci was spot on. Still, things change. For many who do (or did) make a living dancing with clouds the constant scrutiny of drug tests, medical exams, recurrent training, TSA requirements, check points, and bag searches, coupled with deteriorating schedules, pay, and benefits (a reality not exclusive to the aviation industry) make it a good job from which to be retired.

Many "retired" pilots keep a pathway to the sky open with small, sport type, airplanes lovingly kept in a hanger at a nearby airport. For true “pelicans” those are often sailplanes, tail-draggers, acro-birds, bi-planes, or antiques. But tin can Cessna, Piper, or Beech products will do just as well, and Sunday mornings will find a gaggle of them doing touch-n-goes at the local airport or heading off for the $100 hamburger, content airplane drivers at the helm, returning to the sky that forms so much of their self-image.

I miss that realm. No low flying machine will pass near Kintala without me taking note. Most of the time I can still tell make and model at a glance. Sometimes the sound of the engine is all the identification needed. It has been a long time since I slipped a Cub to a perfect three-point on grass, or rode the ILS right down to minimums on a dark and stormy night, but I will always be a pilot.

I am also, now, a sailor. We are approaching the start of our fourth year of living on Kintala with plans (as much as a cruiser can plan) of where we will go stretching out well into the future. But the hard fact is we have been living at a dock for many months now. The other place I long to return to lies “out there”, beyond the break water, where land is a distant shadow. It has been hard to find a path, harder than I had hoped when we first tied up here. Yesterday the long drought came to an end.

We went sailing!

It wasn't on Kintala. She is in the midst of yet another multi-day project and one must step carefully around the open holes in her sole. A cumbersome air conditioning unit / duct work array fouls her deck. The sails are down, and the inner forestay is missing. Many days of effort will be necessary before we can go sailing on our own boat again, and we are not there yet.

Panacea is a mid-30s length Island Packet new to Tom and Lesa. They had it shipped here for work (yes, I did some of it) and are getting ready to move it to a new home somewhere not far from here. But they are new to sailing with most of their experience being classes taken. Deb has spent some time getting to know them, and the invitation to join them for a day of learning the way around a new ride could not be refused.

I guess it was a typical day for Florida sailing in the late summer. Hot, with intermittent winds and the chance of thunderstorms. We spent part of the day drifting until some distant afternoon rain showers stirred up enough of a breeze to see a solid five knots. Shore was still just a few miles away, but Kintala has been sitting within inches of a pier for so long that it seemed like big open water. We heeled, tacked, jibed, played the wind, and generally had nothing short of a great day. The only down side was not being able to anchor out for the night.

Late in the afternoon Tom coasted us into the pier like a pro, though there was a bit of a struggle getting the lines run and snugged at the right length. Tying a boat midst pilings is more art than science, and it can be a black art until the same boat has been parked in the same place many a time. With Panacea resting secure we headed back to dock-bound Kintala.

But being out for the day made it seem like Kintala was a little less bound than she was. Summer is fading. The work on the boat is going well. The cruising kitty is looking better every week.

We will return soon.

Boat Hopscotch

My recent descent into blog silence has been due in part to an injury brought on by sheer stupidity, not something you really like to announce to the whole blogosphere. Due to some moving around of cover straps to stabilize our shade cover during the last tropical storm, I ended up catching my foot on a strap that wasn't where I was used to it being, and dumped myself onto the side deck. In addition to injuring my right arm and shoulder in the process, I think I may have shaved off a few days of Tim's life expectancy as he was down below when I fell. For nearly two weeks, all boat projects came to a screeching halt while I tried to rest the offending appendage. Telling a Type-A workaholic personality with a project list and shrinking time frame to lay still for two weeks is difficult at best. I found a good series of books and settled in for the duration. While it still makes its presence known on a regular basis, the injury is healing slowly and boat projects have once again commenced.

The blog silence has also been partly due to the fact that the particular project I'm tackling right now is a long-term one. I'm refinishing the very old, discolored, dented, and completely disgusting floor inside Kintala. We had debated off and on about doing it at all, afraid that the veneer might be too thin to sand and not wanting to try to tackle the job of replacing the teak and holly plywood entirely while we were also living on the boat full time. One day that I was waiting on parts I decided to sand the worst section, the small  piece at the head of the V-berth which had been damaged by a previous owner's neglect in repairing the head which then leaked into the V-berth (ewww). It was an isolated piece, one separated from the rest of the salon floor by a ledge, so if it didn't turn out well it would not be staring us in the face. Anything had to be better than the stained, peeling stuff that was there. Using my cheap old Black and Decker mouse sander I went to work and was pleasantly surprised. Most of the stains and dents came up, leaving just a few places that were too badly stained to sand off. I got some Oxalic acid and treated the black mold stains that were left, but the damage had been too long standing to treat. The Oxalic acid did a nice job of lightening the teak overall and I suspect it would do well on newer stains, but this had been there over 10 years. Nonetheless, the floor took a finish nicely and encouraged me to proceed with the rest.

The problem with refinishing a boat floor while you're living in the boat is that you can't walk on the piece you did for 24 hours. This means that I'm having to do one small section at a time so we can hop over it while it's curing. Fortunately, the floor in Kintala is divided up into sections that make this possible with a minimal amount of hopscotch. After a lot of research I decided to use Jamestown Distributor's Circa 1850 finish. It's a very hard, very fast-drying polyurethane, the kind they use on bowling alleys. You can recoat in 3 hours if the temp and humidity are ideal. Since I'm doing five coats, a quick-curing finish was essential.

One of the major challenges with this project has been a large fuel stain right in front of the port side settee that was caused when a fuel tank leaked two owners before us. It completely saturated the marine plywood subfloor as well as the teak and holly plywood. It had turned the wood dark, especially the light holly strips. In this photo you can see the stain in the bottom left corner. The top of the section is where I had begun sanding. Since I was less than pleased with the results of the Oxalic acid treatment of the V-berth section, I started researching online to see if I could find something to remove oil-based stains from teak. A couple of the forums kept mentioning a product called K2R, a dry-cleaning solvent that removes stains from fabric as well as concrete and wood. I remembered using the stuff when I was young and decided to try it. It was emphasized that multiple applications would be necessary on tough stains so I anticipated using a bunch of it, but I ordered only one can to try it. There is a household 5-oz size, but there is a 12-oz can packaged for marine use that is surprisingly cheapest at West Marine. This stuff is amazing.

The second photo here on the right is after sanding, showing the stain. This photo is taken from the opposite direction so the stain is in the top right corner. The photo below is after 6 applications of the K2R. You spray it on, let it sit for 10 minutes until it completely dries into a white powder, sweep it off, then rinse it with water and let dry.


























The only problem with long-term fuel stains is that they continue to seep up from the sub floor and into the teak and holly again. I was surprised just how much it continues to seep, even though the leak was years ago. Each application leaves a little less seep, but it will take 3 or 4 cans of K2R to get it done. When I rinsed it with the water I was able to gauge the color it would look like with the finish and, while I'm satisfied with the evenness of the color, I'm still a little concerned about the fuel seeping up under the finish and damaging it, so I'm going to continue with the K2R for a few more applications to see if I can get the seepage down to a minimum. Here's a photo of the way it looked when I rinsed it with water and it was still wet. Considering how damaged the floor was, I think it's going to look great.


Here's a detail of just how damaged the floor was, with the top part of the photo the freshly sanded and the bottom unsanded and damaged.























I was able to take all the hatch boards out of the boat and sand and refinish them outside which helped to minimize the interior mayhem quite a bit. Once I start with the finish inside the boat, though, it will take quite a few weeks to complete so that each section cures enough to walk on before I start the next section. In the mean time we'll practice up on our hopscotch.

What are you going to do?

We are where the little turquoise dot is.

For more than a week we kept a close eye on “tropical depression nine” as it worked its way – slowly – out of the Caribbean, into the Florida Straights, and out into the Gulf of Mexico south and west of were Kintala sits. Right up until a couple of days ago I wasn't too concerned. At first it was on the wrong side of the State, aimed more at Miami. Even if it turned into something over there, by the time it bashed its way across the peninsula to us it couldn't amount to much.

Then it moved south of the Keys. I still wasn't too concerned, all but one of the “spaghetti tracks” of past storms that moved that way went off further to the west. Most of the discussion on NOAA was all about how poorly organized the depression was, though a lot of rain could be expected. Ah, but then one of the forecasters made a statement; “There is no scenario that leads to the depression becoming a hurricane before landfall.”

That concerned me. But what are you going to do? It is Florida. It is the hurricane season. Given enough warning Kintala could be hauled, blocked, and strapped down in a matter of hours. So we watched and debated and planned, wondering just how much warning we could get on a storm that was already hanging out in our neck of the woods.

And then hurricane Hermine was born this very afternoon. As I type, it is hammering the coast just 162 miles to our north-north west. This morning the forecast for our spot in the world was for rain, thunderstorms, and winds in the 15 to 25 knot range, there was no “tropical discussion” at all. Just after noon the winds cranked up well into the 40s, ripping the driving rain off the roofs of buildings in a blinding spray, trees bent and stuff flew...just like it looks on the Weather Channel videos. A few miles from here a big schooner used as a party boat was sunk at its dock. The Skyway Bridge closed. Fortunately the assault was short lived, but as the day wore on bands of heavy weather blasted the boat yard with tropical force winds and more driving rain. A tornado watch was issued that doesn't expire for another hour and a half. We are currently riding out yet another weather band being spun off of the main storm, if a tornado does come our way we wouldn't hear it over the wind noise; the first clue we will get is the building next to us exploding into shrapnel. The Skyway bridge is still closed.  The fruit basket in the galley is hanging noticeably askew while Kintala jerks against her lines and bounces off her fender board. It is low tide now, but the walkway at our pier is already under water, something that doesn't usually happen at high tide. Sleep will be noticeably lacking this night.

It is likely that all will be well with Kintala in the morning, though there is no guarantee. By morning some people are going to be hurt, others will have lost homes and businesses. Throw the dice, draw a straw, most will be lucky, a few will not.

But what are you going to do?

It's a secret

So...work on the rebuild progresses. The inverter is fixed in place and all of the 4/0 cable is routed; that would be just shy of 200 feet worth. The batteries are in place, sharing electrons through 22 cables hooking the house bank together and leading to the remote battery switches. No big red twist switches on this boat, just two little push buttons to bring the batteries on line. (Very much like the master switch in an aircraft electrical system.) There are two because the hot and ground circuits from the batteries to the inverter each consist of two runs of 4/0 cable connected in parallel; part of the reason there is nearly 200 feet worth. It isn't that there is that much current being carried, though with the air conditioning running the inverter will be pulling around 180 amps out of the batteries. No, the issue is that current has to run slightly more than 40 feet, the system couldn't take the current loss of a smaller cable. (Also, too much smaller and those puppies would glow like toaster wires under a full load.)

An additional issue is the lack of space in the bow of the boat for a battery to drive the bow thruster, so it is wired to the ship's batteries with its own run of 4/0 cable; the rest of the reason there is nearly 200 feet worth. All this wire running required adding 5 different conduits below the floor and through the starboard engine compartment. One of the runs, the only one needing room for all 6 4/0 cables, two 2 gauge cables for the windlass, and some 120 volt AC lines, is 4 inches in diameter. It is the biggest conduit I have ever seen in a boat, let alone installed myself.

Included in all this wiring is a network that lets the inverter / charger, information center, and two shunt / power sources to chat with each and give out information on every unit in the system. Since it will eventually be hooked up to a laptop for programming, it might also remind you of your anniversary, start the coffee in the morning, and plot a course to the moon. But, while routing all of this networking wiring, a problem popped up. The wiring , which is all pre-fabricated and supplied with the various units, simply would not plug into the inverter / charger. Weird, since that thing is the heart and soul of the entire system. Searching through the piles of boxes didn't unearth some missing patch cord, nor did a careful review of the manuals, installation instructions, and diagrams, (all of which are now very familiar territory) shed any light on the problem. The manuals specifically state that all of the networking is done through through standard, and identical, cables. Various diagrams showed the inverter / charger daisy chained in just like every other unit, all of which accepted the standard cables just fine.

After nearly and hour of puzzling through various attempts to figure out what I was doing wrong it seemed prudent to throw in the towel and call in some help. Which, in this case, meant calling in outside help since no one in the yard has any more experience with this system than I do. It is relatively new to the market, and I feared that the appropriate level of product support would prove difficult to unearth. Fortunately, it only took two phone calls to have an honest-to-goodness system tech on the other end of the line, one who instantly went to the heart of my problem.

“Do you have the inverter combi interface?”

“Sure,” I replied. “Well, we should since we ordered it as a complete system though, I don't recall seeing anything called an “inverter combi interface” or putting any such a thing into the boat. In fact, I don't recall seeing any reference to an inverter combi interface in any of the paperwork I have, nor does it appear in any of the diagrams.”

“I know,” came the reply. “It isn't referenced in the paperwork anywhere. You need to get one though, otherwise you can't wire the inverter combi into the network.”

Okay then...

Apparently the need for an inverter combi interface unit is a closely held secret, one shared only with the initiated who have the special decoder ring which leads to the proper phone number. Once connected to the inner circle one then has to invoke the proper spell by asking the right question. Only then one will be blessed with the knowledge of the “inverter combi interface unit” and thus reach the Nineveh of a functioning system that will remind one of anniversaries, start the coffee, and plot a course to the moon. Of course someone also has to write a check for just less than $300...not including shipping.

So, don't tell anyone that I told you.

Out of Control

(Note: this is an impossibly long and technical post. I promise I will reward you with pretty pictures later. If you have the task of changing the control cables in your boat, please read on.)

Item # 17 on Tim's list: Throttle cable needs replaced.

Item # 18 on Tim's list: Shifter cable needs replaced.

One of the problems with projects like that on a list are that those eight words represent three and a half weeks of calendar time (rainy days and other things like errands and waiting on parts get in the way), and 9 actual days of working time. That's a long time to go without checking anything off The List.

Now if you think that any monkey ought to be able to change out three control cables on a sailboat in less than 9 days, be sure you never purchase a sailboat with a V-drive, at least one that Tartan made. Westerbeke was kind enough to place all the common service items on one side of the engine - oil filter, fuel filters, fuel pump, injectors, control cables - and then Tartan promptly turned the engine around backwards, installed a V-drive, and jammed all those nicely accessible service items right up against the refrigerator with a whopping 1" of space between, and that includes the 1" thick sound insulation.

It took every ounce of willpower this perfectionist could drum
up not to rip everything out here and start over. Who installs
things this way?? Those are my pink messenger lines.

Next, you take that same engine and add 29 years of previous owners and their desire to have all the latest electronic gadgets that require wire to be run hither and yon, and the adequately sized cutout in the bulkheads that the control cables were fed through all the sudden become horribly, inadequately, completely jammed full. Then there's the string of tie-wraps attaching all of that rat nest of wires to the control cables that have to be cut, some of them (of course) in the cubby at the foot of the aft berth under everything stored there, and it's full.

As if all of that wasn't enough, add the fact that some genius designer around the time of Noah decided that both the throttle and the shifter cables should be clamped in the same clamp, and that the clamp should reside 10 inches down inside the binnacle which has a diameter roughly the size of a grapefruit, and into which is stuffed a shaft, a shaft brake, steering chain, wire rope and lighting wiring. Of course, to do this one has to remove the shifter housing which is held on by four very long machine screws which have likely never been removed in 30 years and have frozen solid (3 hours, chisel, vice grips). No less, the genius (read: sadist) decided that to remove the cables (one of which comes up on either side of the wheel shaft), one has to disconnect the cable clamp, tie a line onto the cable ends, push the cable ends down into the binnacle, work the throttle cable under the shaft and then pull them both up on the port (shifter) side. Unfortunately, the genius failed to consider the fact that the clamp is larger than the space left between the shaft and the steering chain so it requires lifting the chain off the sprocket to provide the extra half inch missing.

Rudder post and steering wire rope in the background

The difficulty there lies in the fact that the chain is held in place by the wire rope attached to it, which is in turn held in place by the nuts fastening it onto the rudder quadrant. In order to lift the chain off in the binnacle, one has to empty the lazarette, climb down inside, unhook the wire rope from the rudder quadrant, climb back out, lift the chain off the sprocket. Oh, and then remember to reattach the nuts so you can lock the rudder down so the oh-so-kind sport fishermen in the marina don't break your rudder during their 5-knot approach to their slip next to yours. Hopefully, you remember this before you have put everything back into the lazarette (ask me how I know this.)

Three of my favorite tools. Two different lengths of bronze rod
and a ball of butyl tape. Combined, they are life savers for
maneuvering and retrieving all sorts of things.

After the chain is lifted off the sprocket, you need a long screwdriver or my favorite tool, a two-foot piece of bronze rod with hooks bent on each end, to work the clamp out of the binnacle so you can remove the control cables. Why in the world somebody designed it that way I have absolutely no idea. The logical way would have been to have single cable clamps on each side of the binnacle but, hey, I'm just a grunt mechanic so what do I know? Doing all of this necessitates unhooking the control cables from the engine end as well to give you the play needed. Ahhh...the plot thickens.

Remember the V-drive? To unhook the shifter cable from the engine end, you have to remove a cable clamp (one of the most accessible in the whole job), and then remove the cotter key holding the pin that runs through the clevis which attaches to the shifter arm. This was the easiest thing in the whole job and it took me two hours.

One of the screws for the clamp deep inside the engine

Since I was going to be doing the other two cables, I decided to replace the fuel cutoff cable as well. To remove the engine end attachments for the throttle and fuel cutoff, you have to remove the cables from the cable clamps and remove a nut from a ball fitting on the throttle and a set screw from the fuel cutoff. Each of those two attach points took over four hours. For two screws. Most of that time was spent laying on the engine with my arm nearly up to my elbow jammed between the fuel manifold and the exhaust anti-siphon hose. Working with one hand. Blind. The screws were standard, not phillips, and were less than an inch from the fridge side wall which meant using an offset screwdriver attached to my wrist with my handy 3-cent tool keeper, and getting about 1/32 of the full turn between each time I dropped the screwdriver. Easily retrieved by my tool keeper, wash, rinse, repeat...and repeat...and repeat...

Once you're ready to remove the cables, you have to attach messenger lines to them (I used Gorilla duct tape) and attach the bitter end of those lines to something on the engine. My messenger lines did get tangled on more than one occasion because I used standard weight messenger line. Notes on messenger lines: use a little heavier line like paracord  that you can really tug on, and color code them if you're doing more than one cable at a time. When you're reinstalling them, you'll be glad you did as you're often working in different cubbies where you can't see the whole line.

Three days to remove three cables. The first delay was waiting on the cables. Our shifter cable was a 6400 model Teleflex, and the really good parts guru here at Snead Island couldn't find one. Turns out, the only reason we had a 6400 was because the boat was originally outfitted with a Paragon transmission which requires one. Now we have a Hurth transmission which can function on a 3300 model. Cheaper, more readily available and half the thickness. Score! Easier to run back through the stuffed bulkhead cutouts. Ahhh, but the plot thickens again.

Converting from the 6400 to the 3300 also requires changing out the shifter handle shaft on the binnacle. The shaft we had was too thick to accept the clevis that fits on the 3300 cable. Lots of chit-chatting with Edson's very capable and kind technical staff and we had the parts on order. Ordering was the easy part. Installing was another thing altogether. Another half day (and half a can of PB Blaster) down the drain. It turns out that the set screw in the end of the shifter handle wasn't what was holding it. 34 years of corrosion did just fine, thank you.

Running the new cables turned out to be much less of an issue than removing them. The new cables were much more flexible and slippery. It took me less than 6 hours to run all three new cables. Keep in mind that it would take considerably less time to do all of this with a helper. Part of the reason it took me so long was I was climbing in and out of the boat constantly and the companionway stairs were removed to access the engine. It also involved going from access panel to access panel from cubbie to cubbie, each time moving the cable just a few inches. Color coding the messenger lines is extremely helpful in this process.

Installing the binnacle fittings and getting the cables anchored in the binnacle was next. This involves figuring out a way to hang a flashlight in such a way that it can shine past your head which is squeezed between the cup holder and the binnacle while holding a very long piece of bronze rod with a hook on the end. Why you say? Because the bronze rod will be used to try to prod the cable clamp bolt down into the binnacle in such a way as it lines up with the teeny little hole, push on the clamp to push the bolt through the hole, and then hold it there while you feed the nut on the outside of the binnacle. Oh joy.

Edson binnacle cable clamp

Last, but not least, you have the fun of attaching the engine ends of the cables. Shifter cable was the easiest, done in  just a couple hours. The throttle and fuel cutoff cables go through the cable clamps with those screws that are right by the fridge wall - one full day to get those screws in and get the ends attached. Part of that time was spent cutting the utility cable for the fuel cutoff. In spite of the fact that it was measured against the old one, it was about two feet too long. Not a difficult job, just time consuming. (I loves me some Dremel.) This was the  most difficult day of the job. In fact, it's the most difficult job I've ever tackled on Kintala and I have the cuts and bruises to attest to that.

I finished the cable install on Friday, and wrote this post that evening, fully intending to get to publish it Saturday morning after Tim helped me do the engine run-up to test all the cable functions. Saturday morning came, the engine started, water poured nicely out of the exhaust thru-hull, the oil pressure came up and...the engine died. Somewhere during the contortions of getting my arms into the areas needed to remove and replace clamp screws, I must have pushed too hard on the many fuel lines and worked something loose and the engine got a little air in it. It doesn't take much on a diesel, like I said in a post not too long ago. Rats-n-frackin. The weekend passed with a bit of a gray cloud overhead. I really really wanted to check the project off my list before the weekend but it was not to be.

This morning I dug up all my enthusiasm and all my Westerbeast bleeding tools and set to work. An hour and a half later the engine roared to life and all my newly installed cables functioned as should be. A few lessons were learned here, which I thought I would recap:

1. I should have just taken off the fuel manifold to give me access to the space where the clamp screws were. I thought of this, but since bleeding a Westerbeast is NOT FUN, and I had just done it a few weeks before, I didn't go that route. In the end it probably cost me two days. I confess to being worried about damaging a fuel line trying to take off the manifold which would have cost many, many more days so that's my main reasoning for not removing it
2. Use good color-coded messenger lines.
3. Double check the cable placement in the binnacle clamp before you go to all the trouble of installing the clamp. The cotter key has to be firmly in the groove in the cable. Ask me how I know.
4. Disassemble your compass and binnacle pieces periodically and lube them with Tef-gel. You or some other future owner will greatly appreciate it some day
5. Take the time to do things right. A previous owner had done a real hatchet  job on repairing the block base on the fuel cutoff handle in the cockpit. It took me most of a day to fix.
6. Make use of good techinical service when it's available. The guys on the Edson tech line are top-notch.
7. If you're going to be working way back in the bowels of a 34-year old Westerbeke, be sure to take off your rings. This one I actually did think of before I started.

So before my English major daughter states the obvious that this post is almost one long run-on sentence, it was written that way on purpose because this project was the project from hell that just wouldn't end. And now, I believe, it's time for a project that's easier and a bit more fun. Stay tuned...

The Beauty of the Florida Sky

It's summer in Florida. Every day there are afternoon and evening thunderstorms that yield some of the most amazing sky vistas. For those of you who might be land locked in a city where you can't see the breadth of horizon that we can here, these are for your enjoyment.

Mother Nature Rules the List

We've been on the dock now at Snead Island Boat Works for 132 days. When we arrived I had 45 items on my to-do list and Tim had 27. After adding a few since we got here, I now have 57 but 38 of them are checked off. Tim has one of those Magic Lists - you know the kind that you go off to work and when you come home something has been checked off. He has 15 left on his list.

I can't complain. Progress has been swift and I'm very pleased with the results. A lot of the reason for the progress is due to the excellent parts department they have on site here. Very nearly everything I need to get a job done is either in stock or can be here the same or next day. I haven't had to wait much for parts to complete a job. The one exception was waiting all last week for some Edson parts to arrive that weren't in stock so I can run the new throttle, shifter and fuel shutoff cables. They all finally arrived late yesterday - you know, the day the heavy rain arrived as well.

Since most of the indoor projects are done already, I'm sort of at a standstill until this giant low pressure that tried to be a hurricane decides to bless Georgia with its presence. So now I wait and try to busy myself with research and planning the remaining project needs as well as cleaning and sorting and throwing away a year's worth of accumulated stuff that somehow - even in 400 square feet - seems to migrate into the cabinets. Worker Man's Magic List will have to wait on Mother Nature.

Working it out

When we first started thinking about cruising as a way to retire early, we knew we didn't have the money to retire on land with the associated housing expenses and transportation expenses that come with the lifestyle. Our careers in aviation had provided a satisfactory upbringing for our three girls, but it hadn't left us with a huge retirement fund. If you've read thebook, then you know the whole story - how we started thinking about retiring onto a houseboat on the river because we could keep the motorcycles, how our middle daughter moved to Cape Cod, how we started looking at power boats to make that trip from St. Louis, and how we quickly began thinking about sailboats as an alternative that fit our travel budget. That was 2007. By 2011 we realized it was a thing we really wanted to make happen and we bought Kintala. Shortly after, I lost my job followed by the loss of Tim's job in 2013. We had a decision to make, and quickly. Our options were to:

1. Find other jobs which would not likely be in our present location and would require a 2 year commitment and the mothballing / sale / or move of Kintala (Think big $$$$)
2. Leave early, even though neither Kintala nor the cruising kitty were ready.

At that point, Tim was 58 and I was 57, both of us a long way from collecting Social Security even early at 62. We had some cash savings, we knew we could sell the car, the bike, and the house and come up with a couple years of cruising, but we also knew after owning Kintala for 2 years that unexpected expenses were likely. (Oh...if only we knew how many of them...)

It was about that time that I read a post by Mike on Zero to Cruising where he talked about their departure. They also had some funds to begin cruising, acrued from the sale of their business, but realized that the money they had wasn't going to last forever. I can't remember the exact words he used, but he made the statement that they decided to go and figure it out along the way because they had always managed to work things out through their lives together and they were confident they could find a way to make it happen. It resonated with me because Tim and I are pretty much the same. We've been thrown a lot of curve balls in our 44 years together but we've always managed to work it out.We decided to leave early, fully realizing that we would probably have to stop and work at some point along the way.

People cruise for all sorts of reasons. Some are trying to escape, some are out for the adventure, others are challenging themselves. Some cruise for the closeness to nature, others for the closeness of the cruising community. Some venture far, across wide oceans and to foreign lands. Others cruise the Great Lakes or the US coastline, the Chesapeake and the Bahamas. Some find a place they like along the way and settle for a while. Some are better off and travel in mega yachts, others are cobbling together small production boats with duct tape and wire. Some work, some don't. There are as many ways to cruise as there are people doing it. I said it in the book and it's worth repeating here: There is no right way to cruise, only your way.

I had a blog follower tell me recently that it seemed we were doing more working than cruising. Unless you're independently wealthy, were fortunate enough to save up a (pardon the pun) boatload of money, or even more fortunate enough to have a large inheritance coming your way, you will probably have to stop and work at some point in your cruising years. It's part of the life for a large percentage of the cruising community. Some are lucky enough to supplement their cruising kitty with writing, others have part or full time jobs in IT that they do from their boats, some make and sell jewelery, others are rated captains and charter their boats or do deliveries. Some cruise for a year or two, put the boat on the hard, go back to their professions for a year or two, then rinse and repeat. While neither of us had any desire to return to aviation, we did have a need for cash.

Just as the need for cash was becoming apparent, a friend of ours mentioned that he was in need of a mechanic. We checked the place out, decided it would be a good fit, and Tim started working for Snead Island Boat Works in April of this year. It's a good place to work, a company that does quality work and stands behind it. The people are hard-working, kind, and generous. So when they asked if Tim would return next spring after our winter tour of the Bahamas, he said absolutely. The extra summer will give us a financial cushion, allow us to wait a year to collect Social Security, give us a chance to learn quite a bit more about boats, and give us a home base to which our eldest daughter and family can visit for a prolonged period.

Yes, at the moment we are doing more working that sailing, but we're in this for the long term and we want to do it comfortably. Soon the working/sailing balance will tip the other way, and we will be the better for having been here. So, if you're planning your cruising life in retirement, don't be afraid of the prospect of working along the way. You just might find something interesting that captures your attention, something new to learn, some new coworkers to get to know. It's all part of working it out.

An amazing storm rolling into the basin at Snead Island Boat Works

Hanging out

So there I was, lying butt deep in an anchor locker with only my legs below the knee out on the v-berth. Scattered around were the various tools of the spark chaser's trade; side cutters, wire strippers, crimping tool, drills, screwdrivers, splices and connectors. Hanging from under the foredeck was the freshly installed windlass motor, a task that took days longer than anticipated. Unanticipated was the need to hack away part of the under-deck to make the motor drive fit, the need to fill multiple holes left over from the old windless, and the need to repair other holes just left over from who knows when for who knows why. That work required suiting up in the full tyvek rig, hood, gloves, mask, glasses; then grinding fiberglass, laying new glass, filling, smoothing, rough sanding (it is the inside of an anchor locker after all) and painting. Stuff normally found in the glass slinging manual, not the spark chaser's guide to happiness.

With the windlass motor finally hanging in place, the tyvek suit could be laid aside. Making sense of the typically amateurish wiring diagram that is the marine industry's idea of information, and getting the wiring straight became the next task. Required in that wiring mass was a 5 amp fuse to protect the control circuit. (The motor / windlass itself runs on a 150 amp circuit carried by #2 wire; stuff that is about ½ inch in diameter. Fun to work with lying in a tiny anchor locker and working over your head.)

And, right then, the strangest thought crosses my mind, “Why is the fuse holder and its wiring black?”

Every fuse I have ever installed goes in the hot side of a DC circuit. The hot side is red, red wire, red rubber boots on the connection studs...red. Black is ground. (Or yellow if one is working on a boat.) Fuse holders and the wiring should be red.

Stupid thing to think about stuffed in an anchor locker wiring up a windlass. Then I thought, “Well, if one doesn't know that a fuse is in the hot side of the circuit, regardless of what color it is, one probably shouldn't be in an anchor locker wiring up a windlass in the first place.”

Two stupid thoughts in less than a minute. Not even close to a record for me, but I'm going to claim that the heat may play a part in sparking such fruitless musing. By 0900 temps in the areas we are working hover in the mid 90s. Stuffed in small holes or working on a boat in the sun will see triple digits for most of the working day. It is enough to fuzz up anyone's thinking.

I puzzled over such silliness for a few more moments, then got back to chasing sparks. There are a lot of things needing wired in this boat. There are 1200 amp hours of house batteries, two start batteries, dual shore power plugs, a 4000 watt inverter / charging system, bow thruster, water heater, five pumps, two entertainment systems (one audio, one TV), two engine harnesses, lights (salon, v-berth, cockpit, helm, navigation, head, spot, and underwater), trim tabs, autopilot, and navigation systems. (I still call them “avionics”, which amuses Boss New.) There is a big cooling fan in the locker holding the inverter so said inverter doesn't cook itself to death turning DC into AC, a few connections to make the stove work, and the head uses electricity to flush.

There is no real good idea how long this is going to take. Wiring up a new boat with new stuff is one thing, and I am sure it chews up months of the build time. Wiring up an old boat with new stuff is another thing. For various reasons, wiring runs for the old stuff will not work for the new stuff, assuming they exist at all. Bow thruster, inverter / charger, and underwater lights are new systems never before seen on this boat. Getting all of this wire to where it needs to go often means installing new conduit runs, some of which need to be glassed in place. Don't dump the tyvek suit just yet. (For the initiated...bow thruster and inverter will require roughly 140 feet of 4/0 wire be run somewhere. Yee Haw!) All things considered, my guess is wiring up an old boat like this takes about half again as long as it would take in a new boat.

All listed out like that it gets a bit overwhelming. (One of the reasons I don't like lists.) But each day is just another day's work. It is the kind of work that (usually) makes a day go by at a good pace. I rarely find myself wondering if the day is ever going to end though, sometimes, looking back on a day that is just ending it feels like it went on forever. The heat again.

It would be a lot more fun to write about anchoring in the Islands or exploring parts of the Keys we haven't seen yet. But that isn't what we are doing right now, Deb is turning Kintala into a very well-founded boat.

And I hang out in anchor lockers.

S.A.

When I was learning how to fly, the one concept that my flight instructor impressed on me, probably more than any other, was situational awareness. Wikipedia has a pretty interesting definition of it:

Situational awareness or situation awareness (SA) is the perception of environmental elements with respect to time or space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their status after some variable has changed, such as time, or some other variable, such as a predetermined event.

In flying, the concept is applied regarding the temptation to fixate on a single point. When you're landing, you tend to get fixated on the numbers at the end of the runway instead of keeping the entire runway environment in your field of concentration, making it possible to literally not see a plane you're about to crash into. When you're in the air, it's easy to fixate on the instruments, ignoring the approaching weather or traffic. To be situationally aware is to stay alive.

Situational awareness is one of those acquired skills that transferred well to sailing. When you're sailing, it's easy to fixate on the interior of the cockpit - the instruments, the sail trim, the tangle of sheets, the conversations on the radio. Fixating on this small area can lead you to interfere dangerously in traffic flow or, like flying, to miss the signs of approaching weather. It can also lead you to miss a sign that something is wrong.

The cutter rig down stay with the broken strand

Not too long after we got to Snead Island Boat Works, I was in the chain locker at the foot of the V-berth doing a little research on an upcoming project. It's pretty dark in the chain locker so I was using  my flashlight. I was aiming the light toward the forward most part of the bow, but in the process something just caught the edge of my peripheral vision. A small thing, a tiny strand of the wire in the cutter rig downstay had worked loose. Not a huge issue, but the downstay needed replaced and the consequences of missing it would have been highly unpleasant.

On a boat, especially a sailboat, situational awareness is paramount. Always being aware of the condition of the rig, ever looking for weak points in the sail stitching, checking for missing cotter keys, looking for the first signs of approaching weather, listening for irregularities in sounds, all play into your safety and, as a result, your enjoyment of the lifestyle. While we have scheduled inspections on Kintala (Tim walks the deck before every sail - preflight, if you will), it's that constant situational awareness that will catch most things before they become big things.

Situational awareness is a learned skill, a practiced art. It involves relaxing, because the more tense you are the less situationally aware you are. It involves not being preoccupied with meaningless chatter like your Facebook feed. If you're thinking about something else, that missing nut won't catch your attention. So the next time you have that niggling feeling that you missed something, you probably did. Retrace your steps and try to figure it out. You just might save yourself a disaster later.