I posted this to my yahoogroup log list just now - I thought there
might be a few here who'd have an interest in it - and the announcement
at the beginning refers to all here, too...


Well, I'm cranky lately. We'll get to that in a minute. However,
there's
an important announcement, first:

We will be seatrialing at some point in the not-too distant future.
Seatrialing will include some longer jaunts, but for the most part
we'll be
trying to break stuff which might show itself as insufficient right
here in
the Tampa area, one day at a time.

We will welcome all comers to the event(s), which is to say that if you
want
to go sailing and are available to the the Salt Creek Marina area in
St.
Petersburg, we'll be happy to have you aboard. We can comfortably
seat, in
the event of inclemency, a dozen or so in the cockpit with the windows
down
for warmth or dryth or both, so given realities of folks who want to go
for
a daysail but might not be able to meet the schedule, you are unlikely
to be
"one too many" should you want to go on any given day we're heading
out.

Therefore, if you'd like to be aboard, I solicit your response
separately,
to (DON'T REPLY to this log posting, instead,
click
or cut/paste the link) to provide me an email address for a separate
list
I'll develop for those who'd like to go on one (or all) of our sea
trials.
We'll not only announce the event (it will be huge, in the scheme of
things,
for us; it's taken over 2 years of work to get to that point) but send
out
notes the day before on each of the days we're going out. Unless I'm
greatly surprised, I expect that any and all who've spoken up will
easily be
accommodated when the time(s) comes.

We now return you to our regular programming:

The standing joke in the yard (as we passed our second year aground,
nearly
9 months ago) was that we were never going to get in the water. Having
done
so, now over two months ago (closing in on 10 weeks from the splashing
ceremony), the standing joke is that we'll be in this slip until we
have to
come out for another bottom job! We don't think so, but since they owe
us a
hoist because they screwed up some of the bottom paint we put on in
such
profusion, so we can fix it, I suppose that's technically correct!

Cranky...

The good news is that the fuel system is complete, as is the raw water
input
to the engine previously without either (see "What goes around" in the
archives). The fuel polisher has been cleaning our fuel diligently,
both
before and currently, at a great rate. All reports suggest that our
next
line of filtration (a dual filter system allowing changeover without
opening
the lines in rough water or other unpleasantness) will be next to
unused due
to the very clean nature of the fuel. The "cranky" part is that the
engine
cranked right up, and started immediately and smoothly, despite the
nearly-3-years-old fuel. We changed all the fluids, tested both
filters'
delivery systems, as well as proving the ease of bleeding the system by
starving it of fuel in the process. So, all is well with the engine.
The
transmission, having undergone a gender reversal (forward is now
reverse),
shifts and engages and the automatic feathering prop pushes and pulls
in the
right direction(s). All is well there.

So, we'll soon stock the engine room. Lydia has just finished
refinishing
some salvaged teak fiddles for the shelving; the teak really sets off
the
otherwise white-paint environment in there. We're laying in a large
store of
spares so that we can address nearly any foreseeable engine-related
difficulty ourselves.

That's important as we'll soon (well, in relative terms!) be out of
reach of
mechanics, chandleries, and even airplanes which might assist us in
resolution of the problems which can occur. Ya can't call Triple A -
and
not even SeaTow or TowboatUS - or the friendly mechanic or repairman
out
there in the nether reaches of the Bahamas, our initial cruising
grounds.

On the other hand...

Cranky... It seems like one step forward, two steps back, lately.

The first was getting the engine ready to go. The wiring in the
pedestal
(the thing from which we steer, and which holds the various engine
gauges)
was a real mess, very much in the way of getting to the instruments.
Worse,
there was no apparent power there, seemingly having several items
hooked to
things they shouldn't be, junction blocks hanging out in the open, and
the
like. After many hours of work by the engine guy, and my attempting to
trace why it was that the tachometer (the thing which tells how fast
the
engine's turning) wasn't working, I discovered that one of the
electrical
guys had removed a fuse from the line which provided power to the
pedestal.
Replacing it fixed all the inoperative stuff up there - but cost
several
very expensive hours to discover. Cranky, I was...

On the heels of that, I've settled down a bit, but about a week ago, I
could
have done some felonious behaviour, I was so upset. I'll spare you the
gory
details, but the initial trigger was discovering that our prior owner
had
left a defective (very expensive) instrument in place, with a label on
it
"to recalibrate" and the notation of different adjustments to make it
read
correctly. It was connected to a cable which had been cut off 14 feet
away
at the end of a conduit. Of course, we didn't know that when we took
the
instrument out to send off for review, discovering it only when we went
to
reinstall it...

Adding insult to injury, having discovered that I had an instrument in
my
hand with nothing to send it data aboard, and further irritated by
having
been misled by what the new replacement (the reason for replacement
rather
than abandonment of the old instrument) would do in comparison to the
original, I discovered that to return the now-useless gauge would cost
a 25%
restocking charge (plus, of course, the shipping both ways) - or, I
could
spend another half of the instrument cost to get another sending unit -
which really couldn't coexist with other sending units already aboard.

While I mulled what to do about that, we set about improving our
visibility
at night. The lights halfway up the mast were burned out; it turns out
that
the bulbs aren't commonly available, and several trips up the mast with
the
wrong sized bulb ensued before finally succeeding in replacing them. I
was
cranky for all the trips both up the mast and off to the automotive
stores,
and Lydia was cranky for having to crank me up there (I'm in a harness
attached to a line which goes around a winch - which she's operating -
and
pulls me up). The very good news is that, having finally succeeded, it
REALLY lights up the deck, now.

However, the other part was to replace what turned out to be a burned
out
bulb in the anchor light (only) with a new, energy efficient, combined
unit
of an anchor light with a photocell to turn it off at daylight and back
on
at dark and a navigation light which allows anyone within two miles to
see
which way we're headed so we don't meet by accident. It's electronic,
so it
uses next to no power, a very good thing on a boat which has to make
its
own. That's a very nice upgrade to the boat, at not a great
investment.
However...

It requires running new wires in order to support the dual function
(prior
was just a bulb for anchoring). Our mast is 62' over the water, and
the
view from the top is great. Unfortunately, we can't see down the mast,
nor
direct our various items we've tried to either put up or bring down
inside
it. That's REALLY made me cranky ...

.... because first, the heavy duty wire fish line I'd carefully sent
down to
the bottom and to which we attached our electrical lines got only part
way
up. Worse, because it snagged on the way back up after the wires we
tried
to lift with it caught, we sent them back down, took them off, and
resolved
to start over. We got perhaps 5 feet removed, and there it stuck,
hard. No
amount of thrashing from the top of the mast would cause it to budge.
There
was some possibility that either we'd have to cut the line and leave 60
or
so feet of rust-inducing steel inside the mast, or, in the course of
pulling
it out by brute force, tearing up existing wiring.

Talk about cranky! However, I was able to do some surgery on other
parts of
the mast, fetch out the middle of the steel fish line, and force it
out,
with no apparent damage. I was even able to drop a cord from there to
the
bottom, and attach another line to the end of the steel line, and pull
it
out the top. It looked like we had it solved.

Unfortunately, again sparing you the gory details, despite doing
several
things to assure success, fishing attempts so far have resulted in
losing
other gear inside the mast, and no success on getting even the string
lines
up - so we've not attempted the electrical lines again, yet. As those
lines
will allow us to continue to communicate (the wifi connection is
another
line) as well as provide the only light at the top of the mast, we have
to
solve this one. Cranky...

As more proof of the "what goes around" concept, we were given a
chartplotter (allows displaying a "map" underway, showing where the
boat is
in relation to the rest of the world) which was being replaced by a
fellow
cruiser. Lydia's been lusting after a chartplotter after talking to
many
cruisers who said, to a unison chorus, "We don't know why we didn't do
it
long ago; we'd never again be without one." So, this was a really big
deal
for her. There was hope that it could interface with our radar, which
was a
big deal for me, based on the prior owner's setup. No such luck. What
we
already have is from the dark ages, and current gear, since this gift
was
old enough, won't interface even if we were to buy a new radar sender.
Cranky...

Our refrigeration works really well. Too, well, actually - the freezer
went
right on down to zero degrees, very nicely. Unfortunately, the
refrigerator
kept right on going down with it, freezing the contents. Even warming
up
the freezer (from where the refrigerator gets its cold) temperature
didn't
help - or, at least, we'd have to keep the freezer not very cold in
order to
avoid freezing the refrigerator.

Thinking I had too little insulation between the sections (a major
construction project to remedy) I tested that concept by putting in
some
construction insulation, just to see what would happen. That seemed to
help, but it would be a real project to change the basic nature of the
boxes. Cranky, I was...

However, a call to the vendor of the cold gear yielded some new
information;
the short story is that we can make it work without any surgery, and
the
freezer is keeping the ice cream at perfect eating temperature, and the
refrigerator at perfect milk, OJ and other comestibles temperature.
And the
smart controller for the system cranks right along at a loafing 1/2 amp
after it's stabilized (such as loading a lot of warm stuff, which
causes it
to go into overdrive), a very lovely low-draw electrical cost to
maintain.
Ah, the conveniences we don't appreciate, until they're not there!
Having
resolved that problem, I'm cranked (not cranky) :{))

Meanwhile, as I put it to someone yesterday, other work continues with
many
opportunities to be creative. (I used to do management seminars, and
taught
that problems are merely opportunities to be creative - we've had a lot
of
opportunities, lately!)

We'll soon have wrapped up the basic electrical stuff left open. We'll
soon
have the master bath reinstalled, having fully flushed the bilge (the
place
where the inevitable water which comes into the boat lands), having
resolved
all the fuel supply delivery issues (bad pipe). Shortly we'll have all
the
places on the floor which were soft/squishy/rotted firm and secure.
We've
redone the entrance to the boat, and I'll have the fasteners to the
entry
installed in the next few days. Lydia continues to varnish anything
which
doesn't move, and the interior of the boat continues to get more
appearance
touches along the way. She and Chuck, our primary contractor, are
sprinting
through the last of his list, so that he can, in less than a week, go
visit
his kids in Michigan over the holidays - and we, maybe, can go sailing
in
the same time!

So, stowage of the many spares as well as the remainder of my tools,
resolution of gauges and other electronics, and installation of some
new
electrical or electronic stuff is all that remains before we can begin
our
seatrials. We still have to pick up our new life raft and emergency
beacon,
and do the storage stuff associated with those, integrate and register
all
our electronics with the feds so we're legal to talk to others out
there,
and a few other niggling details. But, we're getting close...

So, if you want to sail with us on any of our sea trials, don't forget
to
send me a separate note so I have the right email to send you notice of
same...

Epilogue...

Since I started writing this, we've solved the problem with the mast.
Very
carefully, we got the wires up up the mast, one at a time, and will
soon
have our WiFi internet mounted up there along with the new anchor and
sailing light, not to mention a newly repaired VHF radio antenna mount.

We also have an appointment with a local installation company later
this
morning to discuss what appears to be the ability, after all, to
integrate
various current and other new functions to the chartplotter we were
given.

The tachometer is now working, and in a visit to the local bargain
outlet at
the marine supply store, we found the sending unit to our previously
useless
new gauge - at about 15% of what the other company wanted for it.

We're cranked :{))

L8R

Skip

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
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"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail
away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore.
Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain