The Anatomy of a Summer Refit

In case you're new to the blog or actually have a life, you may not have gathered that coming here to Snead Island Boat Works for the summer meant a lot of hard, uncomfortable work for Tim. But it also meant he didn't have to deal with The List. He hates The List so deeply that he turned it over to me a couple years ago. He hates it so deeply that when I showed it to him yesterday with all the check marks beside everything, he almost fainted. This summer, The List became my project. It's been a long summer of very hard work, but it's been a great summer for me because I've learned to do so many things that I didn't know how to do before, and I've become intimate with Kintala like never before.

I thought that any of you who are actually considering doing such a thing as full time cruising might like to see what happens after you've cruised for three years. So without further adieu, here's the summer refit. some of them have been linked to the post that talked about the project.

1. Refinish hatch screens. The original finish was four years old and was getting grungy from all of the humidity. Humidity is your enemy in every way.
2. Make jerry can covers. We have them for the fuel cans, but the water cans needed them.
3. Make chafe guards. I found that Sailrite's boat blanket makes terrific chafe guards and they have the side benefit of being able to install after the lines are set. You just wrap them around and velcro them. They have held up well through some pretty tough winds this summer.
4. Make shelf support for electronics shelf. After using the shelf for a year, it became apparent that it needed a bit more support in the middle of the span since we were putting so much stuff on it.
5. Install iPad mounts on binnacle and dodger hand rail. We wanted mounts in both places so that we had options.
6. Install new sump box and repurpose old sump box. Kintala had a large, deep fiberglass box that the shower and head sink drained into that was attached to a sump pump. The sump pump quit, and rather than replace it, we opted for one of those self-contained shower sump plastic boxes with the pump built in. I installed it under where the old box was. Then I cut the old box in about half depth-wise and built a wooden bottom for it. We now use that box to store soda and beer.
7. Move fridge drain to drain into sump box. In the attempt to have as dry a bilge as possible, I moved the fridge drain hose so that it drains into the sump box.
8. Install 12v plug in cockpit for iPads. I installed this close to the iPad mount on the binnacle.
9. Repair stern nav light. Turns out that installing the 12V socket allowed me to find a loose wire that fixed the stern light. Things rarely turn out that easy.
10. Install LED light strip in forward engine area.
11. Install LED light strip in aft engine area.
12. Install Mantus anchor swivel.
13. Send headsets in for evaluation and/or repair if financially feasable. It was, and we're back in the headset business for anchoring and docking.
14. Make windlass cover. Our windlass leaks a lot of water into the chain locker through the chain tube and we are trying to limit the amount of water that ends up in the bilge.
15. Rebed all salon ports and repair teak. Long, long, involved project. The teak under the port frames had rotted and rather than scrape all the teak off the fiberglass (it was glued) and replace it, I elected to dig out the rotted teak, and fill it with fiberglass body putty then prime and paint it white. This lightened up the interior substantially.
16. Replace headliner. A job that actually turned out to be easier than I thought, and that rarely happens. Took about a week total. A link to another post. And one more.
17. Locate and repair water leak above port settee. After removing the headliner it was easy to see that it was the block on the deck that the main halyard would travel through if it was fed to the cockpit. Removed, rebed, and replaced.
18. Make flag sleeve. We needed a sleeve to cover the flag when we aren't flying it. The flag gets filthy and there was no reason to have it deployed all summer.
19. Replace galley faucet. We had a leak at the faucet head where it had cracked. While replacing it, I also added a water saver that I absolutely love.
20. Mount battery bus bar. We had too many power wires coming off the battery terminals so I added a heavy duty bus bar to clean up the installation..
21. Install remote oil filter and change oil. The summer refit items were mostly to add to either comfort, beauty, or ease of living. As a result, the remote oil filter was top of the list. Changing the oil always meant shedding blood and now it's super easy to do.
22. Add new bilge pump and move existing one.  We wanted a bit more redundancy in bilge pumps. I added one of the new low-profile pumps and then moved the existing one. I also added one of the three-way bilge pump switches on the new pump. Our existing one was just a breaker so there was no test function.
23. Change heat exchanger zinc.
24. Change fuel filters / add electric bleed pump. Another one of those projects that you cringe at on a Tartan 42 with a Westerbeast is bleeding the fuel system. I wired in a small electric bleed pump that bleeds the system up to the high pressure injector pump. You do still have to bleed that injector pump and crack one of the injector lines, but it's a whole lot easier than it was and much less human bleeding while fuel bleeding.
25. Remove alternator, send out for overhaul, reinstall. We have a Balmar 75 alternator that costs a fortune to replace. One of the benefits of working at a boat yard is that they know all kinds of places to get things serviced. Our alternator came back from the shop looking almost completely new for a fraction of the cost.
26. Overhaul raw water pump. I originally was going to just change the impeller, but once I got inside I discovered that the whole pump was pretty shot. We ended up getting a new one. I still may overhaul the old one just to have a spare on board.
27. Sew new cushion slip covers. We have white salon cushions and one of the ways we've found to deal with that is to make slip covers out of fleece blankets. The back cushions we leave the white, and use the slip covers only on the bottom cushions. I had made one set last year along with some new striped throw pillow covers, and this summer I made a second set with one of the other colors in the pillow stripes. This way we get a chance to change the look of the salon just by changing the slip covers.
28. Replace head sliding mirror doors. We have a cabinet behind the sink that has two sliding doors that are mirrors. When it gets hot, the boat swells in just the right way to make the mirrors catch on the shelves. It made it almost impossible to open the doors and the silver was getting rubbed off the back. They looked tacky. I was able to get some thinner acrylic mirror so now the doors slide easily.
29. Replace salon fan.
30. Send compass out for overhaul.
31. Replace compass light.
32. Replace throttle, shifter, and fuel cutoff cables.Without any doubt the hardest job I have ever tackled on this boat.
33. Run new control line for wind vane.
34. Replace plexiglass engine instrument cover.
35. Replace below decks down stay for inner forestay. We found that one of the strands was broken on the stay when we were looking at something totally unrelated. Good lesson to always be observant.
36. Replace or repair whisker pole. After looking unsuccessfully for a newer one that was the right size for our boat, I decided to repair ours. We couldn't afford a new one. It was a bit of a job that took most of a week in addition to waiting for parts.
37. Find a spare anchor. Our old Danforth spare that lived in the anchor locker literally rusted away. We discarded it and have been on the lookout for one at used boat part stores but finally caved and bought a new one.
38. Repair crack in bowsprit. We had a very small crack in one of the welds in the bowsprit. As it turned out, a boat next to us was getting a welding job done and so we were able to have him haul the welding hose about 10 feet over to Kintala and do ours for $20. Better lucky than good.
39. Repair bimini aft support. One of the rivets had worked loose and, while it was no structural issue, the rattling noise was driving  me crazy. I ended up drilling it out and using a screw and nut.
40. Wire new galley A/C plug to inverter. We have a power strip on our electronics shelf that connects to the inverter, but I wanted a plug in the galley so that I could use my mixer and Magic Bullet.
41. Replace topping lift. Ours is getting frayed at the top.
42. Replace the staysail furler. Our staysail furler was one that came off the kids' disaster boat and, while we were incredibly glad to have it the last two years, it needed replaced. Friends of ours gifted us a newer Furlex furler when they replaced theirs so we had to install it.
43. Replace staysail halyard. The old furler had a different kind of halyard that attached directly to the furling unit so with the new furler we needed a new halyard.
44. Replace masthead wind transducer. Thanks to a very fat osprey in St. Lucie, ours was broken. 
45. Refinish salon floor. Many previous posts about this. You can search by the floor refinishing tag. The decision was made to refinish rather than replace because replacing a boat floor while living on it full time is nearly impossible. Refinishing it while living on it was just barely tolerable. Worth mentioning the stain remover again here. And another post link.
46. Make screen cockpit enclosure. We don't need the plastic enclosure at the moment because we're not going north into colder weather, but we wanted a screened in cockpit so we could sit outside in the evening.
47. Sew new shade cover. 
48. Replace holding tank vent filter.
49. Replace exhaust hose and clamps.
50. Service rudder stuffing box.
51. Tons of logistical items. We had a whole list of things like doctor's appointments, dental work, renewing the Coast Guard documentation, renewing the Customs sticker, canceling and then renewing the Delorme InReach, getting Florida drivers licences, replacing expired fire extinguishers, checking and updating flares, registering to vote in Florida, registering and recertifying an EPIRB that was gifted to us, and tons and tons of research for parts and instructions on all of the above projects.

The things we didn't get to cross off the list that will either get done in the islands or next year:

1. Modify lazy jacks. Ours hang up on the sail battens and need to be adjusted to minimize that.
2. Refinish exterior teak.
3. Polish stainless.
4. Paint deck nonskid.
5. Paint bilge (easier to do when hauled out so maybe next year).
6. Replace aft cabin and v-berth fans (may yet get done before we leave).
7. Repaint aft hatch by wind vane.

To be fair, it's been longer than a summer refit. Tim started working here April 1st and, with the exception of the departure prep list, I'm just now finishing up my project list. Eight months of pretty much four or five full days a week. So if you think that retiring onto a boat means you actually get to sit around and do nothing, this post might disabuse you of that notion. It's a bit like childbirth though - once you're sitting in the cockpit looking at the beautiful Bahamian waters, you tend to forget about all the pain of the refit. And I'm soooo going to enjoy sitting in my bug-free cockpit!

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.