Hi, Wilbur, and readers worldwide,

The last couple of days I've been sanding stainless steel, taking either
rusty, dinged, material which is still on the boat, or new, to replace
it, mill finish, tube and plate, for the bow roller cage and assembly, to
brilliant.

Good grief. What you're saying is you let your stainless steel go
neglected for so long that you have to sand off the rust? Holy Cow! All
it takes is a going over about once a month with some Never Dull and it
stays looking like new. Mine is 40 years old and still looks and shines
like new. Have you ever heard the old saying, "A stitch in time saves
nine?" Wake up, Skippy.

Heh. Getting to it is nearly impossible. However, more significantly, the
surface rust (which came right off) was a product of the makeshift (in the
end - this repair will end all that for the lifetime of our ownership at
minimum, and likely get much more than the 30 years which brought us to this
point) repairs in St. Augustine, which were never passivated, let alone
polished, along with some of the "rotting" other steel we've removed and are
replacing. You'd know that if you ever went to my gallery to snoop on the
refits we've done, or just paid attention to my logs, rather than only
sniping at them :{)) BTW, this/these of late aren't logs, they're just
day-to-day activities in the boatyard.

(about our cockpit table dissatisfactions)

Forget the wood. Nowadays there is a plastic called "Star Board" It comes
in brown that looks like teak and it will last a lifetime and it never
needs varnish. Get rid of the wood and replace it with Star Board and kiss
your wood-slave days goodbye!

Heh. Talk about heavy, especially in the size needed to construct the
table. Not to mention ugly as dirt. OTOH, if it is hard enough to drill
and tap, perhaps that would do for a makeshift until we got the actual teak.

Unlike others, we have SOME teak accents aboard - but a lot of white paint.
When we were first looking at boats, Lydia was totally turned off by white
interiors. Now that she's lived with mostly-white (lots of teak
accents/trim), as I was showing her the newer models of our type, with wider
and longer pulpit center teak, she complained about how dark most of them
were inside - a product of all that teak she was so sure she wanted :{))


snippage

The most recent "Peril of Pauline" is our refrigeration/freezer seeming
to be taking a dump. Long story which I'll not encumber you with,
especially as it's not over yet, but various fixes I've done in the past
when this symptom (no cool, compressor's running, or Smart Speed Control
doesn't seem to be acting right) showed up occasionally have had no
effect. Thus, going from perfect function (8° and 32° in freezer and
reefer boxes, even in 90+ heat) to having NO heat removal since sometime
last night, this has a heightened sense of urgency. Even if I get it to
work again, we're going to have to do something "final" about it before
we cast off, as, if it's not resolved, it will only get worse in the
wilds of wherever we are. As the techs I've spoken with can't tell from
the symptoms what it is, we're about to get expensive, likely, as we
track down what's really happening so we can address it. Cool! (well,
it would be nice for it to be cooling, but not yet...)

Hee Hee. You jinxed yourself, Skippy!

Heh. The thought occurred to me :{/)

It's been less than a month now since you were bragging about how well
your fridge was working even with the keel out of water. I bet it sprung
a leak and all the refrigerant leaked out.

I don't know about "springing" a leak, but in my forays into the engine room
for diagnosis, I touched the lines to the keel cooler. They should be hot
and hotter. Instead, despite the compressor running, they're both cool.

However, on the yellow line (I'd have to see if that's inbound or outbound,
cuz I don't remember), under the silver connector, the brass nut and a very
slight portion of the tube were wet. Thin enough not to be oil, but thick
enough to possibly be.

So, you may be right about the freon (oops - R134A) situation. I have a set
of gauges, but need to get the adapter which will allow me to put the can on
the schrader valve cap before I start messing around in it.

In the meantime, I'm taking advantage of the forced defrost to clean out the
freezer, and repair a small ding in one part of the fiberglass/gelcoat on
part of the freezer door lid. While I'm at it, I'll add extra gasketing to
the reefer door, as it isn't entirely tight on the outside (inner and outer
gaskets).


My electrical-taped condenser is still staying nice and cold and the
pressures remain the same so no leaks. My solar panels are really doing a
good job since I bought all new batteries a couple weeks ago. Four new 12v
deep cycles (group 24) to replace the old ones that were four years old
and not charging too well anymore. Lots of bubbling away of electrolyte
and getting warm but not much charge retention. So, they're history. New
ones don't bubble and they seem to accept all the charge going into them.
My beer is outstandlingly cold and my batteries are at about 13.0 volts
even after all night with a Hela fan running to keep me cool in the
v-berth.

If you only got 4 years out of your batteries, you were abusing them, or
they were junk. A properly set up solar system would keep your batteries
fully charged during the day. Indeed, despite our original, blem, batteries
(4x L16H) having been woefully abused by the defective charger I had all the
time in the initial refit, we got more than 5 years out of them before I
replaced them, mostly on a preventive (we were leaving the country) basis.
I rarely discharge more than 20%, which will make for a much longer battery
life...

L8R

Skip


--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
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"And then again, when you sit at the helm of your little ship on a
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are quite alone on a wide, wide sea, it is apt to occur to you that in the
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surface of the ocean; and are not nearly so important or as self-sufficient
as you thought you were. Which is an exceedingly wholesome thought, and one
that may effect a permanent change in your deportment that will be greatly
appreciated by your friends."- James S. Pitkin