Pretty Progress Photos

I had a few folks ask for progress photos as I got the finish on the floor. I now have the 5 bilge hatches done so I thought I'd post the photos of them. The first batch are how they look outside in the sun as the were curing, the last one is how they look in the dark boat. Where we're sitting, the sun goes behind a building about 3:00 in the afternoon so it's pretty dark inside the boat. Again, we're using the Circa 1850 from Jamestown Distributors in a satin finish, 7 coats. Enjoy!

I can fix that for you... Brian Jansing / Matt Borden

It was a slow start to the day. The Sailrite machine was suffering a case of the blues and, as a result, so was I. Once in a while a person just gets tired of rowing against the tide. Trying to get this summer's work finished so we could get back to our cruising life was starting to to feel a bit like rowing against a very strong and persistent tide. Though we really have been making progress, it wasn't feeling that way.

With my morning coffee mostly downed, and with no good excuse not to get with the program, I called the help line at Sailrite to try and get a handle on this latest set-back. A Mr. Brian Jansing had sent us yesterday's email on possible fixes, and the young lady who answered the phone connected us right up. After a short conversation Brian suggested I had already gone further into the machine than he could follow, wrote up a report, and sent in on to the tech department with our contact information. Normally I would consider that the dead end of doom when dealing with a customer service department, the internet equivalent of “the check is in the mail.” It didn't do much to cure my blues.

However, in just a couple of minutes an email landed in the inbox from a Mr. Matt Borden. Matt has helped Deb before, and has been a big help to our friend Nancy, another seamstress who works her machine pretty hard. Matt included links to two Sailrite training videos that he felt would address our problems. One of them was spot-on in fixing the walking foot / feed problem. The other got me 90% of the way to getting the upper thread tension problem solved. A second round of emails, again answered within minutes, helped me clear that last 10%. A touch of super glue in just the right spot, reassembly, and all is now well in the Sailrite world aboard Kintala. The only disappointment is that we didn't figure this stuff out a week ago. It turns out we have been struggling with a badly misbehaving machine, one that compromised the work on the new Bimini top more than we realized. It also didn't make my learning curve any easier. None of this was Sailrite's fault.  We didn't contact them until yesterday afternoon when the machine quit working altogether.

All told, from the first conversation this morning to having the machine singing along, was less than two hours.  It is sewing big wads of canvas together with an easy shrug, all the frustrations of the last couple of days have simply melted away. 

Perfect stitches through 8 layers of fabric. Yay!

In our experience Sailrite stands as the example the rest of the Marine Industry should use as a standard. Not only for support and customer service, but as the measure of building a good piece of equipment in the first place. If sailboat manufacturers were half as good, all of us would spend and lot more time cruising and a lot less time fixing.

And that would fix my blues for well and for good.

Foreplay

It's supposed to rain the next two days, so it seemed like a good idea to get the patterning done for the bimini re-skin project so we'd have something to do while we couldn't work outside. After finishing a very good cup of coffee (some things simply must come first),  I dug out the Dura-Skrim patterning plastic that's been occupying the aft berth for the last year, and rounded up the Sharpie, double-faced tape, scissors, measuring tape and hand tools. It was a bit hot to be working out in the sun all day, but we needed a windless day to work so the plastic would stay put. And sorry, I somehow forgot to take any pictures today so you'll just have to wait for the finished project.

The simple frame before the solar panel mounts

Making a bimini is very little about the sewing and very much about the preparation. You can't take enough time with this step. You place some strapping tape along the edges of your bimini bows where the finished fabric will lay. You place double-faced tape on the strapping tape. You lay out your plastic on the double-faced tape and stretch and pull and rearrange until you have a good, wrinkle-free facsimile of the finished bimini. Then you grab your Sharpie and begin to make copious notes about placements of zippers, zipper pockets, facings, tails, and backstay access. After you think you're all done, you walk away. You go pick up your favorite book or video game and think of something completely different for awhile so that when you come back an hour later, the thing you missed will slap you in the face. Or, if you're lucky like me, you have a really terrific work partner.

The solar panel mounts we have to work around with the fabric. We want the skin to be easily removable.

Tim and I have known each other for over 43 years now and we've worked on more projects together than I could possibly count. We had jobs in the same company for 5 years where we worked together all day. He taught me how to fly. We did a major landscaping project in the back yard of our condo. We rock climbed together, each of us on the other's belay. Sure we've had our terse moments, though they are rare. Most of the time it's an intricately choreographed dance, a complex interplay and fascinating to watch, even though I am a participant.

While our thinking processes in regards to work projects are quite similar (think orderly and OCD and you'll get it), we each bring something different to the table. When we start a project we take little steps toward our goal and there's a lot of, "What if we.." and "Could I make a suggestion?", and "Do you think we should try to..." being bandied about. We sit and talk about the possibilities a great bit before the first tool is picked up.

In light of the complexity of the bimini project (due to the solar panel frames), we weren't exactly sure what the final design of the skin would be. We agreed on a starting point and, as we proceeded, the methods and procedures adapted to better solutions. We got to where we thought it was pretty right, drank a beer, talked to some neighbors, read awhile, sat under the plastic bimini, and then discovered some better ways to handle the attach points. After some changes the pattern came down, the tape was removed, and we're ready to start the cutting.

Tomorrow it's off to the Sailrite machine, but the real work was done today.

Its alive II...

Not the Beast. It is still slumbering away in its cave waiting on the new raw water pump. The last bit of solar panel wiring was stalled as well, waiting for the post man to show and drop some fancy Renogy solar panel connectors into my hands. Deb was working on taking the front end of the boat apart to check on the holding tank sensor. It has lost its little mind, unable to decide if the tank is full, empty, or somewhere in between. Which kind of defeats the purpose of having a holding tank sensor in the first place.

All of which left me poking around, looking for something useful to contribute to the day. Once we get away from this dock the hope is to not be near another for quite a while, making the Dink and its Merc vital pieces of equipment. The Dink has been collapsed, rolled up, stashed in its cover, and nestled in front of the mast. The Merc has been hanging on the rail. Both have been completely ignored since we got to Oak Harbor. It was time to get them back in the game.

The Dink is, of course, just a kind of chubby balloon one fills with air. Except for an occasional cleaning, so long as the air stays in and the water stays out the Dink is basically good to go. On the other hand the Merc has a bit of a history of being, shall we say, temperamental. I used to regard it as down right mental, even a bit evil, but over the last year it had proved itself to be a reliable bit of kit. The only ongoing hassle was trying to keep the idle speed happy. Warm and with the choke off, shifting into neutral would either have it revving like mad or muttering to a stop. The sweet spot in the idle adjustment eluded all efforts to dial it in. Mostly I learned to time the approach so as to coast the last few yards to the dock or boat with the Merc in neutral, either fading away or screaming to announce our arrival.

But our little Dink pusher has been idle for lo these many months now, and experience has taught us that it doesn't like to be idle any more than it likes idling. The better part of a day just hanging around waiting for something to fill it up seemed a good fit for bringing the Merc out of its hibernation.

I replaced the zinc before dropping the motor from rail to transom. After two years there was still some of it left, always a good thing. With just a little effort the dregs popped out of the counter bore making room for a shiny new sacrificial bit that Sister Sea can gnaw at for a while. On the transom the locking pin for holding the motor up out of the water was found to be pretty much stuck in place. A little WD40 and some gentle tapping with a mallet put it back in service. There was still some old fuel in the tank which wasn't likely to help encourage the little motor to wake up, but there was no good place to dump it out. Turning on the fuel, setting the choke, and checking the ignition safety was mostly to see if it all still moved as it should, given that the lift pin had been stuck. It all appeared workable so, almost without thinking I gave the rope a gentle pull, mostly to see if the motor would still turn over.

The little wanker actually popped a little. Are you kidding me? A second pull and it fired up, puffed some smoke, and settled into a very nice idle.

Are you kidding me? I had most of a day to kill and the Merc came to life in less than an hour. I swear I heard the thing giggle at me.

Fortunately, the mail man showed up shortly thereafter. The rest of the day was filled bringing the third solar panel on line. Kintala is almost a magic boat, sucking electricity directly out of the air. Now all she needs is an engine that runs.

And a Bimini cover.

The Beast would appreciate some fresh oil and a new filter.

And some fresh fuel filters.

There are new lights to install in the cockpit.  

But we are getting there.

Really.

Its Alive!

The Beast rumbled to life mid-afternoon. On one side the alternator hummed content in its remounted bracket, belt running true and quiet. On the other a shiny, new raw water pump spun happily it its bracket. Water spewed out the side of the boat. No water leaked into the boat. There is something about shiny new parts doing what they should do that helps one forget about the price paid for the privilege.

Since an oil and filter change are also due we let the Beast mumble along for a bit. Sucking even moderately thick oil up through the oil stick tube takes a while. Thinning it out by heating it up is the only way to go. Forty years as a mechanic, I never knew any machine with such poor maintenance access that one had to suck the oil up through the stick hole to change it. That is a tiny little hole. There is a gallon of thick, gooey oil in there. What kind of idiot would design a thing like that?

Then I got tangled up in boats.

About four minutes into the run I was out in the cockpit chatting with Deb and watching the water spurt out the water spurt out the port side. “Screech”. It wasn't a full screech, more like a chirp, but my countenance fell right through the cockpit floor, through the hull, and to the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay. The noise faded but, in my heart of hearts, I knew it would be right back. I also knew what it meant.

In less than five minutes of run time our shiny, new raw water pump had reached the end of its service life. Unfortunately I am but a lowly aircraft mechanic / inspector. Therefore I have no standing in the boat maintenance world. The pump couldn't really be bad, not right out of the box. I must have done something wrong.

Boat guru # 1 was nearby and came to take a listen. The noise had faded a bit by the time he climbed aboard. “Bearings setting in,” he said. I demurred. “That doesn't sound like bearings to me.” About then the screech came back at full song and guru #1 allowed that it didn't really sound right. I should call the people we bought the pump from, see what they say. So I did.

It turns out they just sell pumps, they don't really know anything about them. They gave me a second number to call. So I did.

Whoever answered that second number said, “Oh Jabsco? You need to call this (third) number.” So I did. The person who answered that phone then transferred me to that of The Jabsco tech rep. The one and only Jabsco tech rep they had in house, was busy. I should leave a message. So I did.

Waiting as I was, it was suggested that I go talk to Guru #2 here on site. So I did. He wanted to know if maybe it was the alternator or belt making the ruckus, since Jabsco pumps don't ever make any kind of noise when they run. He also suggested that I loosen up the water pump belt to make sure that wasn't the noise, and run the engine with the belt completely removed to make sure it wasn't the alternator.

About this time I had a first class ticket on the train to Total Frustration City, and it was about to jump the tracks. The alternator is on the other side of the engine from the noise. I know how to tension a belt, and I know a failing pump when I hear one. But I am only a aircraft mechanic /inspector, and apparently we don't know anything about water pumps, belts, or the noises they are not supposed to make.

With my head about to explode Deb took over the phone / tech search and finally got a Jabsco pump guru on the line for me to talk to. I explained exactly what I heard and what I had done to isolate the noise to the pulley end of the pump.

He, bless his little pump guru soul, stated that such a noise could only mean that the pump was bad. We should contact the people who sold it to us, tell them is was a warranty claim, and get a shiny, new raw water pump to hang on the side of the Beast.

So we did. A new pump is on the way. They will even include a shipping label so we can send the bad pump back with the shipping pre-paid.

But I think I figured out the scam. I was so utterly cranked up about knowing this pump was bad, but not being able to convince anyone that I knew of what I spoke, that when the Jabsco pump guy agreed with me it made me HAPPY that the pump was bad. I was a dancing little kid who finally got someone to believe him. So what it that means I am changing the pump, fittings, hoses, pulley, and mount, again? We have figured out what is wrong with the Beast. Except …

I figured out what was wrong with the Beast about a week ago. It needs a shiny, new raw water pump. One that doesn't SCREECH.

The next person who suggests that I really don't know too much about this kind of stuff is going swimming.

Short takes

Deb spent the day hassling with our mortgage company. We don't really have a mortgage company anymore, but that didn't stop them from taking a month's payment out of our account on a house for which they had already received a wire transfer closing out the mortgage. That, in my mind, is just plain old thievery. They will send our money back to us, after Deb called them AND sent the required email, but we bounced some checks in the mean time. Should the revolution ever come to these shores I think we should start with the bankers. I'll give the politicians, Wall Street Insiders, and Corporate Honchos a day or two head start in running for the hills in exchange for some Banker Bounty. On the other hand, should the revolution come when I am miles and miles away, I think I'll let the young folks have at it. Chasing bankers is for the fleet of foot and young of heart, neither of which describes me these days.

That being said; Edward Jones gets a pass. They were instrumental in helping us have a alternate plan to keep from living under a bridge when Corporate America threw both Deb's and my job away. They have also gone several extra miles to help straighten things out when mortgage companies (and other ne'er-do-wells) play the system to their advantage and our disadvantage. Kudos to Craig and Linda for helping watch out for the little people on the planet!

I keep rotating a picture of one of the grand kids as my background on this computer. Every time I turn it on I see one of them, think of all of them and their Moms (and Dads) and say, “Never forget that Grampy T loves you.” It isn't much, but it helps.

The solar panel install is going surprisingly well so far. Not sure what glitches might lie in wait but the Bimini frame rebuild is nearly done and looking good. Rains forced an early halt to the day, with work stopping at around 1800. I love living on a boat (good thing since it is the only home I have) but I don't remember ever working this hard, this long, or having to bull through this kind of heat. It isn't quite as bad as last summer's slog in Florida, but it's close. Then again it will probably lead to me getting that “Old Salt” look of tanned leather, even though I'm not one.

I spent the day drilling holes in stainless steel tubing. My wrists are going to demand payment before the night is out.

Much as Oak Harbor has been good to us, getting off the dock after more than three months will make my heart sing. Making such good headway on the solar panel install has that day getting closer and closer. Soon we will be back to cruising, working on the boat in exotic locations. More exotic than a boat yard on the Chesapeake anyway.

Time for a beer and a shower...

“Here's another nice mess...”

With parts for the Beast and the solar panel install in transit from places hither and yon, we left Kintala to her own devices this weekend, rented a car, and drove to PA for a visit with family. It is about a four hour run from here to where my parents live. We got there in time to join them for lunch. While in the dining room word came that the closing on the condo was complete! For well and true everything we own now floats with us on our old Tartan.

Road Trip!

I have to admit to a moment of thinking, “Well, here's another nice mess you have gotten me into”. (Which is the proper quote from Professors Laurel and Hardy.) We are, by some reckoning anyway, homeless. And, just for the record, I was talking to myself. I have a long history of backing myself into a corner and then having to invent a way to escape. Some were harmless. Some less so. A few could have been down right serious and required some quick thinking, fast action, and a huge dash of luck to escape unscathed. (Or, occasionally, with a slight case of scathe.)

But the reality is that we were in a bit of a mess but are now in much less of one. The constant drain of resources: financial, emotional, and in relentless hassle and effort that having a place on land entailed, is gone. Though we be “homeless” in the normal sense of the world according to the American Dream we do, in fact, enjoy a very nice home. (Even if we do share it with a Beast.)

In fact we have many homes now or, perhaps, a really big home with many, many rooms. Biscayne Bay is a room in our home, as is the Chesapeake. The Abaco Islands are a different room, along with several places in the Eleuthera Islands. Once we find a place, set the hook, and hang around for a while, it becomes another room in our home.

This home is so big that we don't really own it. It owns us. It rocks us to sleep and sometimes rocks us awake. It teaches, frightens, soothes, admonishes, and rewards as it sees fit. Sometimes, for days on end, we stay in the same room. Sometimes, for days on end, we use a different room nearly every day. But regardless, in a way I am still learning to understand, we are always at home.

The condo is history. Kintala is in the water. There are only a few projects left to finish before we go explore some more rooms in our home. It really is a very nice mess we find ourselves in.

Subtle shoves

Yesterday's first look at the impeller gave rise to the thought of just leaving it alone. It looked new. Even as good as Oak Harbor has been to us we have been in this place for far too many weeks. The boat is in the water. The summer is rushing by. There are other tasks that need finished before we can go. Why waste a day doing something that doesn't need done? But changing the impeller is routine maintenance, this one was at least a couple of years old, and the cover was already off. So I grabbed it with the recommended pliers and pulled, which is when I discovered it was stuck. After rejecting the first thought of just letting it be, I pulled the pump out, set it on the bench, and let it soak in PB Blaster over night. (Not the whole pump, just where the impeller goes on the shaft.)

This morning Deb scrounged up the recommended JABSCO impeller puller which only managed to rip the rubber blade assembly off of its bronze insert. After some very esoteric attempts at making the puller work, then disassembling the pump from the wrong end backwards (I'm not sure how else to describe it) with the aid of a 12 ton press, the offending impeller insert was finally freed from the exposed shaft with the adroit ministrations of a disk grinder. None of this falls under the heading of “routine maintenance” and the disassembled parts now cover my work bench.

The 5320-0011 guts with which we are becoming all to familiar

Along the way I also discovered that the seals were dry and cracking and the wear plate is badly worn. As it the cover plate. We are looking for a parts kit to rebuild the pump, though it may be that getting a new one will be the better choice. The price is a bit scary though, so we will see.

The odd thing is I almost just let it be, and am not entirely sure why I didn't. The pump was working fine. The Beast, ever since the heat exchanger overhaul, runs at a content 178 degrees and spits plenty of water. There was no evidence that the pump was leaking and no compelling reason to do anything with it, particularly with the other tasks that are still hanging. But a subtle shove had me tripping over the impeller, and the rest unfolded like it was scripted. Had the impeller not been frozen I would never have noticed the other, impending, failures. It is hard to say how before they would have happened, but this time around we hope to be in the water for nearly three years without a major maintenance stop. We hope to be in some places where a pump failure could be a very big deal indeed. There is very little chance it would have gone that long, and a reasonable chance that it would have failed in one of those places. I don't know why I got tangled up with this pump, but I'm glad I did.

Maybe its left over from my aviation days. The best mechanics I worked with always wanted to know the “why” of a failure. Why did this wheel bearing fail inspection while the other nine passed? Why this crack in this place? What is that noise, that odd color, that strange odor? Needing to understand was a habit, nearly an obsession. They didn't miss much and I always felt comfortable flying the airplanes they maintained.

It appears to be a good habit to practice around boats as well.

The impeller was stuck. It isn't a particularly good design and looks susceptible to just such a failure. As it turns out (long story) the impeller puller would never work as advertised on this particular unit. If the impeller gets jammed, there is no getting it free short of taking the pump apart wrong way backwards. But I understand the “why” of it now, and learned that the pump was deep into its service life.  When we leave here that will not be the case.

I'll take that kind of shove any day.

Days off?

The solar panel install is off to a slow start with much of yesterday's efforts going into picking out parts and suppliers. Most of that burden falls on Deb with her decades of parts buying and selling experience. I was busy enough talking things over with her and then helping to secure the forestay on a friend's boat that I barely laid a hand on Kintala. So today, needing to accomplish something to feel like progress is still being made, Deb took to starting a sewing project and I turned my attention to the WesterBeast.

Like most gear heads I have changed more than my share of engine belts. Some are easy and some are less so. The Beast, no surprise here, falls into the “less so” bracket. There has always been some wonk surrounding the alternator belt. The Beast's manual shows a list of standard and optional alternators, a list that does not include the Balmar 75 that is actually jammed into the little space available. Part of that jamming included cutting away part of the engine box next to the fridge to make room for the slotted bracket used for setting the belt tension. Every time I have changed that belt it was clear that, someday, whatever it was that was wonked up in there would have to be unwonked. Today was “someday”.

Looking over the top of the alternator at the cutout in the fiberglass for the bracket

Exorcising the wonk included doing a better job of cutting the engine box so that the bracket really did fit in there. The alternator was on and off more than a few times while things were fit, cut, lined up, tweaked, twisted, tightened, loosened, cussed at, and bled over. A life-long mechanic, I don't really enjoy doing mechanical work anymore. I would much rather play with wood, finish decks, or paint interior bits. And I really don't enjoy figuring out ways to patch up the hack-jobs someone else left behind. It is bad enough when I have to patch up my own.

But one must do what one must do so, with much ado, I beat the alternator belt into submission. It is a little tighter than I like. The spare / next belt will be just a little bit longer. At least it shouldn't leave black marks on the case any more.

The water pump belt, on the other hand, is still missing in action. It turns out all of the spares we had on board were spares for the generator that disappeared long ago. As were the impeller spares. Its a bit embarrassing to admit that I allowed us to go wandering around so ill equipped, but there you have it. We got away with it and will not be taunting King Neptune in like manor when we depart this time.

The old impeller looks, looked, almost brand new. Unfortunately it is jammed solid on its shaft and now looks much less new after attempts to pry it loose failed. Come the morrow we will be looking for the special tool it takes to extract a reluctant impeller, and hopefully some reassembly will be accomplished since the whole pump assembly is currently sitting on the work bench. But the Beast may have additional ugly surprises to spring, so no promises on the amount of progress to be made. There is oil and filters yet to be replaced so the Beast may be out of commission until next week, just when the solar panel support bits are due to arrive.

My weekend off already feels like a long time ago.

Ahead of the crest

Yesterday was the two year anniversary of Kintala leaving Boulder Marina. It was also my 60^th birthday. So it seemed like there should be something special to say about the day, some profundity, some wisdom. But...I got 'nutten.

That isn't to say it wasn't a good day. I got birthday calls from Daughters Three and various grand kids, which will always make my day. Also, I really did take a full day off from working on the boat. Not a tool was touched. Not a screw turned. We had a nice Mexican Dinner with a small group of friends and family then returned to our floating tiny house. I think it safe to say I had a day much, much better than many people in the world ever have. Sixty years in and the biggest mystery in my life is why am I one of the luckiest of people? Lets face it, I am white, male, and living in the early dying stages of the most powerful empire the planet has ever known. Cracks are showing in the foundation and the next generation is going to know a completely different America, and a completely different world, than the one I have lived in. But I am riding the most exhilarating part of a monster wave before the crest breaks and washing machines the world. Most lottery winners don't have it that good.

So today started the push to get done and get gone once again. With tape measure in hand we started looking at mounting one additional solar panel. A job which, almost immediately, morphed into a major rebuild of the Bimini frame and cover. I get to rebuild the frame. Deb gets to make a new Bimini though I'm hoping to scam a little pilot-in-command time on the Sailrite machine. I'm guessing a minimum of two weeks before this job gets done. That puts us gone in the middle of August, plenty of time to do a little Chesapeake Bay exploring before the weather urges us south.

And then, who knows? Just stay ahead of the crest.

173 steps to paradise

If it was a choice between full time living on a boat on the hard or living in a well-constructed cardboard box under a bridge I would, of course, choose the boat. But it would be a close call. If the choice was between the boat and a “tiny house” located halfway up a pretty mountain, the tiny house would win hands down. Living in a boat on the hard is hard living that gets old fast. Kintala was in the stands for 70 nights, plus one night in the sling. The good news is that we were visiting family and friends in PA, IN, and MO for 36 of those days. I'm not sure what little sanity I have left to work with would have made it the whole 70 days otherwise.

Like most cruisers, while we are living hard on the hard we are also working hard on the boat. That many “hards” all lined up and added together are enough to suck all the fun out of a day. But at the moment Kintala is stern-to and secure between the pilings. It is an easy step from dock to deck, which is 173 steps from where bottom of the ladder touched the ground less than 24 hours ago. That doesn't seem like a long enough walk to get to paradise, but there is enough of a breeze to move the boat gently from slack to tight on her lines and we can hear the ducks splashing down just a few feet away. Light dancing with the water reflects on the Bimini and cabin tops and there are no cars crunching by throwing a cloud of dust into the cockpit. The 9,000-pound lead keel is now a heat sink bathed in cool water rather than a radiator slow roasting the boat. Pleasing as those physical changes might be, though, the most important change touches the heart.

We are not on land anymore. There is no physical barrier between Kintala's hull and Mother Ocean. We are free to move about the planet at our discretion.

It doesn't even matter that we will not be moving about the planet for a couple of weeks yet. There is a new solar panel to install and Deb has many magic canvas ideas waiting to flow off her sewing machine to make our lives easier. There is engine maintenance to do and one deck repair to finish. All of which could be done swinging off the anchor if we so choose.

I think we will sleep well tonight.

Full tilt boogie

Monday morning Deb and I discussed a work schedule that would work with a tentative August 16 splash day. Within a hour of that discussion we were informed that Kintala needs to be back in the water as quickly as feasible. Not really ASAP, but close. The reasons have to do with being on the hard, some Maryland state regulations, and $10,000 fines. I'm not sure I understand it all but Ken, marina owner and trusted friend, wants it that way. And that is really all we needed to know to initiate the mad scramble.

Monday late morning we started painting the bottom. Midway through, the temperature was in the mid 90's.  With the paint nearly setting up in the pans, a relentless pace was the only option.  By evening it was done though we were totally knackered.  I nearly fell asleep in the shower.

Tuesday, first thing, we went looking for parts. Then we unloaded the lazarette so I could spend the rest of the day under the cockpit replacing the scupper hoses. Tight space, terrible access even with parts of the cockpit taken apart, hot temps, and enough sharp bits to draw blood. When that was done we re-assembled the cockpit and reloaded the lazarette, taking some time to discard stuff that has been living in there for a couple of years now.  Stuff we have never used. Lines mostly, some of which came with the boat already well past their prime. I'm not sure why, but it seems a near universal sailor's trait to shudder at the thought of throwing away a line. We even debated throwing away a rock-climbing rope – which is about totally useless on a boat – because, well, it was a line. (Long boring story as to how it got on the boat in the first place.)

Then we scrounged up enough hardware to bed the anchor chain lock plate back on the fore deck. Deb is not fond of tight, small places; which is a good description of any sailboat's anchor locker. But she climbed in there anyway, so that job got done. With that finished I hoisted 200 feet of rode, 125 feet of chain, and our 65-pound Mantus back on board. It was evening by the time the anchor was locked into its normal place on the bow.  Totally knackered times two, and I might have faded for a minute or two while the cool water flowed over my neck and shoulders.  

Today (Wednesday) Deb spent the day getting the interior ready to float again. It is hard to explain to those whose homes never move just how different is life is on the water than is life on the land. Nothing can really be left just laying about, things can't be stacked too high, and cabinets need arranged so stuff doesn't come spilling out at the slightest provocation. Disciplines that are routine on the water, quickly go by the wayside when on the hard. We have been out of the water for nearly 70 days and in full project mode. One might say our living space was pretty much out of control.

I spent the day waxing the hull. Though the boat shows a few battle scars from full time cruising, she looks pretty good all shiny up top and painted on the bottom. Fitting the wind vane steering rudder with new bungees, and then re-installing same, finished off the day. 

Deb, in addition to working as hard as I am, is also nursing a damaged foot. (That seems to happen a lot on boats.)  Knackered times three I may be, but my full tilt boogie has been easier than hers.  I kept the shower water cold enough to prevent falling asleep.

Tomorrow we are scheduled to go into the lift at 1400. The prop still needs painted and the bottom paint finished. We need to take enough stuff off the boat to spend a night sleeping…somewhere. Sleeping on a boat in the slings is strictly forbidden.  That seems a bit silly to me. Sleeping on a boat in a sling can't possibly be any more hazardous than sleeping on one over a weekend, anchored out where the power boats and jet skies play.  I'm pretty sure some drunk can't run me down in the lift... unless he is in his car.  In which case the car would likely cushion our fall and all would be well with the world.  But rules is rules.

Friday morning at 0900 Kintala gets wet once again.  I expect to be in zombie land, not sure where I am or what I am doing, but getting it done nonetheless.  Once safely tied into a slip we may take the rest of the day off.

Chock full of tales

The port side salon rebuild is in the bag moving the bow repair to the head of the line. There are actually several individual items needing a look: bow cleats, anchor roller, anchor chain lock, and the starboard side line chock. The chock garnered the most concern since it appeared to have been damaged in the storm we rode out off Fox Town. Such a thing doesn't come loose unless something is squished, crushed, stripped, or otherwise rendered not up to factory spec. Kintala's bow chocks are very far forward, just inches behind the bow peak. Access to the underside is anything but pleasant.
Any serious repair to that area would rank as a first class pain in the patute.

The chocks are held down by two 5/16 inch screws that go through a plate and into the deck right at the hull / deck joint. The aft one was loose and came out with just a bit of twisting and pulling. It was too easy for what should have been a damaged fastener. It came free with some kind of dried sealant (4200 maybe) all the way down the threads.  That generally indicates that the threads were never in any kind of a nut or insert; not what I expected to see.

The front screw offered a bit more resistance, expected since it appeared to be the only one actually threaded into something. However, when it came free it too had dried sealant all the way from head to tail. With my mechanic's sense in full puzzle mode further investigation ensued. There was some serious wonk going on with Kintala's starboard bow. It seemed likely that marine industry human wanker wonk was lurking just out of sight.

And so it turned out to be.

Close examination showed that the starboard side chock was 3/8s of an inch narrower than the port side. Though close, the two parts were obviously not a match. Worse, the mounting holes on the port side chock, port side hull, and starboard side hull, are on 6 and  ½ inch centers. The odd ball starboard side chock has 6 and 5/8 inch centers. In other words it doesn't fit.

It is close though, only 1/8 inch off. It was far enough off to keep the screws from lining up with the inserts bedded in the hull. But it was close enough to allow the “installer” to slightly oversize the holes in the deck plate and fiberglass, then drive short screws into place coated with sealant. With the bonding of the additional sealant under the block itself, there was no way to tell that the chock was not actually attached to the bow in any way. It was, quite literally, just stuck on there and held in alignment with a couple of pins masquerading as 5/16s mounting screws.

The sealant, as it turned out, was pretty good stuff. Under normal docking and anchoring loads it held fine. It even handled the storms in Oriental and Charleston, though in both places it shared the load with other chocks and lines. Since those storms we have taken to running the anchor snubbing lines off just one side of the bow. Kintala seems to ride to her anchor better that way, particularly when the wind and waves pick up.

So in Fox Town the starboard chock was on its own. With a Mantus 65 hung off one end, a 23,000 pound Tartan hung off the other, and 50 knot winds driving green water over the fore deck, the sealant holding the aft screw had met its match. Fortunately for us the pitching loads were trying to drive the front screw through the deck rather than pulling it out. The next morning we sailed serenely away unaware of just how lucky we had been.

The best repair for the wonk will be finding the correct part to put on the bow. Since these chocks seem to come in sets of two we will probably end up changing both. This also leads me to believe that the wanker who installed the wonk did so because he just happened to have a chock lying around that was close enough. Why buy a new part when you can put an old part on the boat, and then charge the owner for new? Win – win, right? The boat gets a part.  The installer makes a few extra pennies.

And what does it matter if the thing isn't actually attached.

No one will ever know.

Right?

Living easy, living large

For a couple of retired people living easy and large on a sailing yacht, we have occasional days that spin completely out of control. All in a good way, of course. Yesterday was such a day.

It started simply enough with finishing up the inverter install being the only thing on the menu. Before that really got started Deb accepted an invitation to crew in the Wednesday night race, with a 1730 departure-from-the-dock time. No problem. Even I couldn't stretch finishing up the install to take up a whole day. And it didn't.

What took up the whole day was discovering that one of the parts we bought for that finish wasn't in the box they sent us. A different, though similar, part had been put in the box at the factory. As a result the really important part, a 200 amp ANL fuse, didn't fit in the part that came out of the box, which was supposed to be an ANL fuse holder...but wasn't.

Rats-n-fratsen-brain-fused-parts-packing-no-good-low-life-wankers...

After spinning of wheels searching for some traction to get the job going again, the best option seemed to be making the run to Annapolis to get the right part that should have been in the box in the first place. So off we went. It is a bit of a hike from here to Annapolis so, since we were there already and to save Deb the trouble of having to drive back a second time, some provisioning shopping was in order. Such shopping included a visit to the beer store. In order? Indeed. (It is amazing how difficult a job just finding beer can be depending on the liquor laws from state to state.)

Which is the excuse for not getting started on the inverter install until 1400 in the afternoon. It went as expected. Undo much of what had been already done, do some of it over, than redo the do-over until the bits fit the parts and the inverter hummed a happy tune of turning DC into AC. (No panties in wads please, I'm talking electricity.)

The last screw went into place at EXACTLY 1730. A quick change of work clothes to crew clothes and a dash to the dock. Let the sailing begin.

Begin it did, and it was grand.

Though Deb and I are not of the racing clan in the sailing world, Derek (he of power boat tour fame) is an amicable Captain with a long history of racing these waters. The fleet was of a good size, the course well laid out, and the winds hovered in the mid 20s for the entire evening. We had rails in the water, laid in close to other racers, passed a few, got passed by a few, and played tag with a car-carrier-ship at one of the marks. They race around shipping lanes in these parts and everyone seems to get along just fine while doing so.

In two laps of a 2.5 mile course we probably tacked more times than we did during the entire last trip to the Islands. Of course tacking a Person 303 is a fair bit easier than tacking Kintala with her full cutter rig flying, but it was still a pretty good workout. After a few, we had the routine down, giving every appearance of being a well-oiled racing machine.

The only down side to the evening was that the vigorous heeling scattered everything we had brought on throughout the interior. Oops. No damage. No foul. But we haven't done anything like that for too many months.

It was nearly 2200 before we climbed the ladder onto Kintala's deck, making for a very long day. One that veered from the frustration of the wrong part in the right box, to the sublime of tacking side-by-side another boat in 20+ knots worth of wind,  a car-carrier as the backdrop.

I guess we are living easy and living large well on a sailing yacht after all.

Six inches of mayhem

A couple of weeks ago I installed a propane sniffer under the stove. Then I punched a 2 ½ inch hole in the wall in the galley to mount the alarm / control panel. The sensor is exactly 57 inches from that panel. It took roughly 14 feet of cable to go from the sensor, forward into the area under the sink, across and down into the bilge, aft through the bilge and up into the engine compartment, more up across the front of the engine compartment, into the storage area under the companionway ladder, and to the back of the the control panel. But I only had to drill two holes.

Fortunately the harness that came with the unit was 25 feet long. All that was left to do was power up the unit from the USB power plug mounted just inches away. The day was getting on at that point and I am determined not to hurt myself this summer by working endless 10 and 12 hour days with too much heat and not enough drink. (Truth to tell it isn't clear that I ever recovered from last summer in FL. Those kinds of long days are simply not something I can do right now.) So the plan was to finish the propane sniffer install the next day.

The next day dawned sunny and not too hot, perfect for starting the minor repair at the keel joint. (Apparently an old Tartan will smile just like a Catalina.) There was some additional sanding to do below the water line and around the keel, so a couple of days went by. There was every intention of wiring up the sniffer after that, but somehow the LED lights intervened, which morphed into the cabin mod, which led to wiring the LEDs into both sides of the salon, and also got us started on adding the inverter we have been carrying around for the better part of a year.

We took a day off to go help some new friends on their 38 foot Leopard. There was a minor crack in the edge of the aft arch. An easy fix but Tom had no experience slinging glass. His career was spent slinging the things one slings when accumulating more than 1700 jumps as a special forces guy. His wife was special forces as well, also a JAG. I pried as many stories out of them as I could but, like most combat vets, they were reluctant to talk much about where they had been and what they had seen. Still, I got some insight into HALO jumps, something that I would have loved to have tried had I ever had the chance. And I count it an honor to have such people as friends. Anyway...

The next day they sailed off to places north and we went back to work on Kintala. The last of the sniffer install waited a bit more as other work was also half done. That other half work was supposed to get done this morning, with the sniffer install being completed in the afternoon. Alas, that got waylaid by the need to defrost the fridge and thus discovering the teak grids at the bottom of the fridge were accumulating a certain...well...ambiance. Chasing away said ambiance required the efforts of the the pressure washer. With the grates smelling sweet and the pressure washer still all powered up and everything, it seemed a good idea to blast the accumulated dirt off the deck and out of the cockpit. By the time that was done, enough of the day was gone that the inverter would have to wait. But it wasn't really happy hour yet either. Two wires on the sniffer seemed the perfect filler job to finish out the day.

One would think, by now, I would know better.

Doing that job took dikes, crimper, soldering iron, heat gun, drill motor, 7/8 inch wood bore (to counter bore the fuse holder since it was too short for the wall thickness) ½ inch drill for the holder itself, round files, heat shrink, assorted screwdrivers, butt splices, zip ties, and a volt meter. (Kintala has no wire color code in her. The only way to know if a wire is hot is to check it with a meter...or just grab hold. If you dance, it's hot.) The little screw for hooking the power wire in the control box was so tight I nearly broke the thing trying to get it loose. (Thank you, factory twit.)  Afterwards was the normal clean up of wood dust, wire strippings, zip tie ends, and general mayhem.

Two wires.

About six inches long.

For the best

It is no secret that I am a skeptic of all things woo, but that doesn't mean I am impervious to the strange goings-on in the cosmos. For months Deb and I talked about rebuilding the port-side pilot berth into something more usable. As is common with such musings, the mind's eye comes up with a vague sort of vision of what the area will look like after it's done. In that vision are the types of materials one imagines would be right for the job.

For many of us living on the edge of society, how much money will be needed to make the vision a reality is an integral part of any such discussions. (It is a part of such discussions for most of those living in the middle of society as well, which says something about the society.) When the LED light project morphed into the interior rebuild, it was time to come up with the materials.

That same day we heard the wood working shop here at the marina was closing down.  When we arrived and the yard didn't have anywhere to put our boat, we took a slip next to Hugh and his wife. Within a couple of days neighbors became friends. You guessed it. During the winter, Hugh went cruising. In the summer, he ran the wood shop. But the time has come for them to make a final move south. He, like all good craftsmen, had a collection of stuff from other projects that didn't need to go along. We were welcome to go through it and see if we could find the material we needed for out interior build. And at a very attractive price.

Visions of the completed project were quickly abandoned.  We would make do with whatever we could find.

At its most basic, the job required two shelves. One would replace the deck under the berth with something more attractive than rough-hewn plywood. A second would be mounted about 2/3 the way up to the cabin top, just deep enough to hold electronics. Two fiddles were needed as well. One to replace the rather massive looking rail that lurked at the edge of the berth to keep people from falling out of bed. It was so thick and beefy that it seemed to fill that side of the cabin all of its own. A second fiddle was needed to keep the electronics from spilling off the top shelf and cascading across the cabin. It would be visually attractive if both were less massive than the original, but still matched. Then there was the odd bit of this and that to trim it in and make it look like it belonged there.

As Deb worked her way through the pile, setting first this aside and then that, I was more than a little skeptical. Though my vision of the completed job was never very detailed, none of the stuff she had in the pile looked right to me.

One would think, by now, I would know better.

She found a teak and holly bit of plywood that would make the lower shelf. A piece of left-over marine grade plywood would make a light colored top shelf. She picked out two long pieces of spindle rail to serve as matching fiddles. Admittedly they were lighter – both in mass and color – than that overbearing lower berth rail. But somehow, leaned up against the wall, all I could think of was an old lady's house. There was a very classy looking wood handle that would make lifting the lower shelf out to access the storage space underneath easy. I was pretty sure that would be okay.  In any case, with the price and the fact the stuff was already in the place where the work was being done, I would just have to do the best I could and live with the aesthetics.

The project came together like magic. Within a day the bottom shelf was cut and rough fit. Two days later the top shelf fit in at an angle completely un-imagined at first, but one that works perfectly for what we need. The two parallel fiddles / spindle rails change the whole cabin interior into something special while almost hiding their functionality. End trim cut from the old berth fiddle, now used on the top shelf and matching that of the lower shelf, complete the illusion. All built from fire-sale stuff left over from who knows how many other projects, sitting around for who knows how many years. Yet it was perfect. It was like the cosmos was deliberately compensating for my modest woodworking skills while still steering us toward the look and functionality that best fit Kintala's interior needs.

Chain plate access on the port side, always a sore spot with me, is now a matter of removing a dozen screws and lifting out a panel. The two compartments under the bottom shelf are easier to open. The whole thing is so much better than a mattress no one ever used, piled high with stuff, filling up space.

Since the whole project got started as "a little light project" it wouldn't be finished until there really were new lights mounted somewhere in the area.  We had, in fact, taped some lights up here and there on that very first day, before any bits of wood went flying .  Nothing looked right.  The decision of exactly where the lights should go was put aside.  Sometimes it happens that the sub-conscience chews on a problem while the conscience mind measures. trims, cuts, and brushes on clear coat; a bit of internal woo, if you will.

Kintala now boasts a strip of lights, port and starboard, embedded in the trim that covers the mounting hardware for the staysail sheet tracks.  In this case the woo (and our little hand router) worked wonders.

There is, of course, no serious woo involved with a wood shop closing down and selling off some old stock at a good price. There is no woo to us being here when that happened since we do, after all, have to be someplace.  And the internal woo that came up with a good idea isn't really that wooish. It happens to people all the time.

Still, it never hurts to be grateful when things work out for the best.