SHIP'S LOG:
The only major project that needs still to be done is the painting of the bottom but that doesn't mean that thee isn't a whole host of other smaller projects that still need doing.A couple of examples:
- The Deck: Even though I re-caulked the entire deck two summers ago, there are/were still a couple of places where the re-caulking "didn't take." This meant find thing them first. Wen a teak deck gets wet after a rain or if you hose it down, it will dry out but the places where the water is getting through the caulking and under the deck stay wet longer. They stay dark while the est of the deck lightens as it dries out. SO I went around marking the "wet" spots and hit them with "Captain Tolley's Creeping Crack Cure." This is great stuff, wetter than water, you simply drip it on a spot. If the puddles, it is leak-free, if it disappears, you have a leak.With enough applications, it will actually seal the leak but a little 6 oz. bottle is very expensive. If it were cheap, I'd just spray the whole boat but then , if it were cheap, it probably wouldn't work. When the spots were all identified, it was dig out the old caulk, a spritz of Capt. Tolley's, border it with masking tape, forced in the caulking and work it in, scrape off the excess and let it set. Then remove the masking tape and Voila! leak proof decking . . . hopefully!
- Electrical Bus Bars: There are five of these secreted around the boat, all in not easily accessible places, to which all electrical items are connected. They are all subject to corrosion, being on a boat and all, and need to be cleaned of said corrosion as the corrosion will limit, even block the the passage of electrical current and you end up with all sorts of things that don't work or work poorly. So putting yourself into a contorted position in order to reach the bus bar, you carefully remove each connector one at a time, clean it off with bronze wool and/ or sand paper, clean the connection on the bus bar with bronze wool and/ or sandpaper, spray both with an electronic cleaner spray, re-connect and then spray the whole mess with with a corrosion inhibitor. It can take an uncomfortable hour to do each one and a half hour to re-align you spine once you are done with each one. Doing one of the bus bars, the one that "controls all of the wires going up the mainmast, I was faced with a dilemma. Two wires, one brown and one blue, insulated together, where hanging loose. There were five or six free "spots" on the bus bar and so I was unsure which wire should go to what connector. Luckily friend Fred was aboard at the time and was able to figure it out with amazing rapidity. He tried to explain it all to me but electricity is still voodoo as far as I am concerned.
- Hinges: I had to replace the hinges on the fold-out supports for the b\double berth in the salon. The two platforms had originally been attached with piano hinges but in that the platforms were plywood and the hinges had been screwed into the edges with 30 tiny, tiny screws, after years of swinging back and forth they had ripped out and I just could get any bite in the wood any more. So out with the piano hinges and the 30 screws and in with door hinges and more substantial screws which went into the sides. The two platforms fold in on one another and I made a mistake in putting in the bottom one in that I forgot to make sure that there was enough clearance so that it could open and slide out from under the top. I only discovered my error after the entire project was done and is I had to dismantle the whole thing, reposition the bottom and screw everything back in place.
AH! Owning a boat is a true learning experience. You learn about engine mechanics, plumbing, electricity, metallurgy, painting, wood working, and most especially humility, patience and anger management!
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Sunday, April 22, 2012
It's The Little Things
SHIP'S LOG:
Friday was pretty much repeat of Thursday - paint, move the ladder,paint, move the ladder, paint, move the ladder, varnish, move the ladder, varnish, move the ladder - though I did get through the day without stepping on the newly varnished rail. . . a major step forward.
Unfortunately, I have come to realize that I have a gremlin aboard and this one has a thing for paint scrapers. I have, or I should say, had three of them, very necessary tools when doing paint and/or varnish work. I am now down to ONE! I have no idea where the other two got off to. They are not in the tool box. They are not on the table in the salon with the other tools currently being used. They are not in any pockets, or on deck, or in the car. Even doing a total storage of all items in the boat into their proper places failed to turn up the missing paint scrapers. I am sure that they will show up either when I no longer have a need for them or they'll just appear on the table or the desk or back in the tool box. The gremlin's got'em!
Saturday was wood working day. All of the wood work had to be Tung Oil-ed. Rung oil creates a finish and protects the wood and inside of ABISHAG there is a whole lots wood. First it all had to be cleaned which meant scrubbing with Murphy's Oil Soap. Any old varnish had to be sanded away or removed with a paint scraper. Obviously, I was sanding! Then I was required to wedge myself into odd positions in order to be able to apply the Tung Oil for you must apply the oil to all the surfaces of the wood, not just what can be seen. You paint it on and wipe it off, trying to hold onto a cup containing the Tung Oil without spilling it. What makes it challenging is that you can't really set it down anywhere or you will, trying to move or change position, knock it over. In addition, the Tung oil starts of "oily" - slippery if you get it on your hands which really can't be avoided. Strangely though, it eventually becomes sticky and you can't put the brush and/or polishing cloth down. Aside from all that, it is not a bad project with the sole exception of knowing that it takes several coats for the oil to properly do its job.
On the deck through on the inside of ABISHAG, there are wooden hatches that allow you access to the bilge and various important pieces of equipment . . . like the engine. These all had to be poly- urethaned to protect the thin veneer of teak and holly on their surface. Doing this job requires patience and a good sense of direction or one can literally paint oneself into a corner. It requires that you start at either end and work toward the middle, stop begin again at the other end and work toward the middle and paint the last one as you exit the interior. Care must be taken hat you put back into the boat all the stuff you took out and take out all the items, like car keys , you need to get home. I was able to accomplish this successfully, but with the fumes a from the poly-urethane and the Tung Oil, the interior will need an airing when next I return.
Friday was pretty much repeat of Thursday - paint, move the ladder,paint, move the ladder, paint, move the ladder, varnish, move the ladder, varnish, move the ladder - though I did get through the day without stepping on the newly varnished rail. . . a major step forward.
Unfortunately, I have come to realize that I have a gremlin aboard and this one has a thing for paint scrapers. I have, or I should say, had three of them, very necessary tools when doing paint and/or varnish work. I am now down to ONE! I have no idea where the other two got off to. They are not in the tool box. They are not on the table in the salon with the other tools currently being used. They are not in any pockets, or on deck, or in the car. Even doing a total storage of all items in the boat into their proper places failed to turn up the missing paint scrapers. I am sure that they will show up either when I no longer have a need for them or they'll just appear on the table or the desk or back in the tool box. The gremlin's got'em!
Saturday was wood working day. All of the wood work had to be Tung Oil-ed. Rung oil creates a finish and protects the wood and inside of ABISHAG there is a whole lots wood. First it all had to be cleaned which meant scrubbing with Murphy's Oil Soap. Any old varnish had to be sanded away or removed with a paint scraper. Obviously, I was sanding! Then I was required to wedge myself into odd positions in order to be able to apply the Tung Oil for you must apply the oil to all the surfaces of the wood, not just what can be seen. You paint it on and wipe it off, trying to hold onto a cup containing the Tung Oil without spilling it. What makes it challenging is that you can't really set it down anywhere or you will, trying to move or change position, knock it over. In addition, the Tung oil starts of "oily" - slippery if you get it on your hands which really can't be avoided. Strangely though, it eventually becomes sticky and you can't put the brush and/or polishing cloth down. Aside from all that, it is not a bad project with the sole exception of knowing that it takes several coats for the oil to properly do its job.
On the deck through on the inside of ABISHAG, there are wooden hatches that allow you access to the bilge and various important pieces of equipment . . . like the engine. These all had to be poly- urethaned to protect the thin veneer of teak and holly on their surface. Doing this job requires patience and a good sense of direction or one can literally paint oneself into a corner. It requires that you start at either end and work toward the middle, stop begin again at the other end and work toward the middle and paint the last one as you exit the interior. Care must be taken hat you put back into the boat all the stuff you took out and take out all the items, like car keys , you need to get home. I was able to accomplish this successfully, but with the fumes a from the poly-urethane and the Tung Oil, the interior will need an airing when next I return.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
It's Shuch A Simple Task . . . .
SHIP'S LOG:
The cap rail/toe rail, which runs around edge of the deck, need some repairs. There were any number of gouges and splits in the wood , which after 34 years, was beginning to show its age. Then again, it hasn't received a lot of care and its deterioration was to be expected. Thus it was that I traversed the cap rail, digging out rot and split wood and filling in with wood fiber filler. One whole 6 inch section had to be removed and replaced with a new piece of teak I got from friend Skip. I had to glue two 6 inch pieces together to make one piece wide enough from the toe rail and then "scarf" it in place. Then the whole rail had to be sanded after the repairs were stained and then covered with three coats of varnish. It has taken 5 days!
5 Days? Yup! all of the work had to be done from a ladder and the largest space I could tackle at a time was about 4 feet. This meant that I had to go up the ladder, do the needed repairs, descend the ladder, move the ladder 4 feet, go up the ladder, do the necessary repairs, descend the ladder, move the ladder 4 feet and repeat until I had gone around the entire circumference of the 39foot ABISHAG, approximately 40 times. Then do it again for the sanding. Then Do it again for the first coat of varnish, and again for the second and again for the third.
The whole process had to be repeated for the painting of the cove stripe, the contrasting color that tops the hull just below the toe rail. On ABISHAG it is a white stripe atop the dark blue hull. This stripe had to be sanded and then wiped down with thinner and then painted. The paint used has the consistency of honey and, while you can thin it if you are careful, drips of white on a dark hull are to be most seriously avoided. Again it was the up the ladder, do the prep, descend the ladder, move it 4 feet and repeat. The up the ladder, paint, descend the ladder, move the ladder and repeat. The process yesterday took 5 hours to complete. To make it even more fun, the hull is not flat and some times it has more than a bit of a curve to it. So it is that at times, the ladder doesn't lay flush to the hull and square to the ground and one has to go up and down and stand and work on a ladder that wobbly. No a lot of fun with an open can of very expensive paint in one had and a brush in another.
When you look at spring maintenance in that light you can understand why most boaters scrimp on the maintenance and others, aside from the bottom painting, say "The hell with it" and just launch. But as the old FRAM oil filter commercial use to say, "You can pay me now, or pay me later," you either do the work now, out of the water where it is much easier, or you will end up doing some of it on the water where it is definitely harder, or going to a shipyard to have a pro do it which is definitely more expensive. AH, The Fun Of Boat Ownership!
The cap rail/toe rail, which runs around edge of the deck, need some repairs. There were any number of gouges and splits in the wood , which after 34 years, was beginning to show its age. Then again, it hasn't received a lot of care and its deterioration was to be expected. Thus it was that I traversed the cap rail, digging out rot and split wood and filling in with wood fiber filler. One whole 6 inch section had to be removed and replaced with a new piece of teak I got from friend Skip. I had to glue two 6 inch pieces together to make one piece wide enough from the toe rail and then "scarf" it in place. Then the whole rail had to be sanded after the repairs were stained and then covered with three coats of varnish. It has taken 5 days!
5 Days? Yup! all of the work had to be done from a ladder and the largest space I could tackle at a time was about 4 feet. This meant that I had to go up the ladder, do the needed repairs, descend the ladder, move the ladder 4 feet, go up the ladder, do the necessary repairs, descend the ladder, move the ladder 4 feet and repeat until I had gone around the entire circumference of the 39foot ABISHAG, approximately 40 times. Then do it again for the sanding. Then Do it again for the first coat of varnish, and again for the second and again for the third.
The whole process had to be repeated for the painting of the cove stripe, the contrasting color that tops the hull just below the toe rail. On ABISHAG it is a white stripe atop the dark blue hull. This stripe had to be sanded and then wiped down with thinner and then painted. The paint used has the consistency of honey and, while you can thin it if you are careful, drips of white on a dark hull are to be most seriously avoided. Again it was the up the ladder, do the prep, descend the ladder, move it 4 feet and repeat. The up the ladder, paint, descend the ladder, move the ladder and repeat. The process yesterday took 5 hours to complete. To make it even more fun, the hull is not flat and some times it has more than a bit of a curve to it. So it is that at times, the ladder doesn't lay flush to the hull and square to the ground and one has to go up and down and stand and work on a ladder that wobbly. No a lot of fun with an open can of very expensive paint in one had and a brush in another.
When you look at spring maintenance in that light you can understand why most boaters scrimp on the maintenance and others, aside from the bottom painting, say "The hell with it" and just launch. But as the old FRAM oil filter commercial use to say, "You can pay me now, or pay me later," you either do the work now, out of the water where it is much easier, or you will end up doing some of it on the water where it is definitely harder, or going to a shipyard to have a pro do it which is definitely more expensive. AH, The Fun Of Boat Ownership!
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
I Am Alive . . . Really!
SHIP'S LOG:
When last I wrote, I was beginning to get really into the work of getting ABISHAG ready for the season. But as I said before, every time you begin a project, you always uncover more that has to be done and have to do a couple of extra projects just to get to the one you wanted to get to in the first place. Take spot painting.
The bottom of a boat must be painted every year to keep the sea creatures from taking up residence on it and so slowing the speed at which the boat will travel. To this end, bottom pains that make the bottom of the boat in hospitable to the creatures have been developed. The paints come in two basic formulas: hard and ablative. The hard paints create a hard finish that constantly leaches out a biocide keeping the little sea creatures at bay. The down side is that this type of paint has to be sanded off and re-applied each year. Lots of messy, miserable work. The second type, the ablative, is a soft paint which "wears away" a little bit at a time to release the biocide. This means that you only have to replace the paint at those places where it has worn all the way down to the barrier coat. Np sanding, no mess, no real fuss . . . sort of.
I use an ablative paint as have spent too many years lying on on my back with a sander in my hand trying to get at spots of hard paint that needed to be sanded. Age and arthritis and lots of common sense dictated the move. And so it is that I have been going around the boat each day, painting and repainting spots where the bottom paint had been worn down to the barrier coat. Most of it actually came from the fact that ABISHAG had been in the water for almost three years and needed to be repainted. And then there was the ICW and those groundings. All the sand and clay and mud that she plowed through did a fine job of sanding off the paint on the bottom of the keel. In addition, there were dozens of spots where water had gotten behind the paint and broke its adhesion tot he hull and so it had to be scraped off and repaint. So I went around and around the hull and touched up every place where the barrier coat was exposed, covering it and building up, or at least trying to, the bottom coating so that it will be, when the whole hull is painted, the same depth.
It seems a simple and rather innocuous task but nothing on a boat is that simple or that innocuous. Checking the hull after the first spot painting show up a wet spot on the rudder. It was clear when I was doing the painting that this spot had been repaired. Unfortunately, it was a bad repair and water got in which was made clear in that it bled through the paint. So it was that a simple spot painting job turned into a rudder repair job . . . . sand off the paint to expose the repair, gouge out the old repair, flush the old repair to get out the salt water & the acid it produces when it mixes with fiberglass resin, mix up some epoxy filler and fill the site, wait for the epoxy to dry and harden, sand and repaint, then wait 24 hours to see if the site "weeped" again. ( It didn't!) All that from just "spot painting!"
Doing a major clean of the boat, the first of three, did turn up some treasure. I found a submersible bilge pump which, if it works - a real question - will solve the forepeak water problem All I need to do is wire it to a float switch so that it will turn on and off appropriately and then wire it to a bus bar to get it juice. And then run a hose from the pump to the bilge. Like I said simple.
The area under the engine underwent a major, MAJOR cleaning. Over the last couple of years, I have cleaned out the sump but really haven't been able to give this area more than a like and a promise. Now, with ABISHAG on land and not moving, I could dam up this area and fill it with bilge cleaner, Joy dish washing liquid, degreaser and a host of other concoctions designed to deal with the dropping of a diesel engine. Thirty-four years of such dropping, along with the odd spill during a fuel filter change or an engine oil change, plus the heat of the engine right above this pool, created a substance close to tar. Mix into it sand and dirt(how they got there I have no clue) and you had a fine sludge that could be loosened up but could only be removed by the handful.I t required either draping myself over the engine or lying along side of it thrusting my arm underneath, to pull the foul-smelling sludge out by the handful. It took almost a full day to get it down and still, with all the effort and chemical assistance, there were certain areas on the far side of the engine I couldn't get to. They got the chemical bath but their cleaning will have to await the launching and sailing of ABISHAG when the action of the "bilge cleaners" will slowly loosen the and slosh that unreachable sludge into the sump. The clean up produced to large bolts and a 2" diameter copper washer from the depths of the sludge. I can't even begin to figure out where they went but I hope that they were accidentally dropped into the bilge during some repair and the former owner decided against try to retrieve them. There were also several quarters in the sludge though I doubt that anyone but a bank would take them. Being partially copper these days, they don't fair well in such sludge and look rather "suspicious!".
When last I wrote, I was beginning to get really into the work of getting ABISHAG ready for the season. But as I said before, every time you begin a project, you always uncover more that has to be done and have to do a couple of extra projects just to get to the one you wanted to get to in the first place. Take spot painting.
The bottom of a boat must be painted every year to keep the sea creatures from taking up residence on it and so slowing the speed at which the boat will travel. To this end, bottom pains that make the bottom of the boat in hospitable to the creatures have been developed. The paints come in two basic formulas: hard and ablative. The hard paints create a hard finish that constantly leaches out a biocide keeping the little sea creatures at bay. The down side is that this type of paint has to be sanded off and re-applied each year. Lots of messy, miserable work. The second type, the ablative, is a soft paint which "wears away" a little bit at a time to release the biocide. This means that you only have to replace the paint at those places where it has worn all the way down to the barrier coat. Np sanding, no mess, no real fuss . . . sort of.
I use an ablative paint as have spent too many years lying on on my back with a sander in my hand trying to get at spots of hard paint that needed to be sanded. Age and arthritis and lots of common sense dictated the move. And so it is that I have been going around the boat each day, painting and repainting spots where the bottom paint had been worn down to the barrier coat. Most of it actually came from the fact that ABISHAG had been in the water for almost three years and needed to be repainted. And then there was the ICW and those groundings. All the sand and clay and mud that she plowed through did a fine job of sanding off the paint on the bottom of the keel. In addition, there were dozens of spots where water had gotten behind the paint and broke its adhesion tot he hull and so it had to be scraped off and repaint. So I went around and around the hull and touched up every place where the barrier coat was exposed, covering it and building up, or at least trying to, the bottom coating so that it will be, when the whole hull is painted, the same depth.
It seems a simple and rather innocuous task but nothing on a boat is that simple or that innocuous. Checking the hull after the first spot painting show up a wet spot on the rudder. It was clear when I was doing the painting that this spot had been repaired. Unfortunately, it was a bad repair and water got in which was made clear in that it bled through the paint. So it was that a simple spot painting job turned into a rudder repair job . . . . sand off the paint to expose the repair, gouge out the old repair, flush the old repair to get out the salt water & the acid it produces when it mixes with fiberglass resin, mix up some epoxy filler and fill the site, wait for the epoxy to dry and harden, sand and repaint, then wait 24 hours to see if the site "weeped" again. ( It didn't!) All that from just "spot painting!"
Doing a major clean of the boat, the first of three, did turn up some treasure. I found a submersible bilge pump which, if it works - a real question - will solve the forepeak water problem All I need to do is wire it to a float switch so that it will turn on and off appropriately and then wire it to a bus bar to get it juice. And then run a hose from the pump to the bilge. Like I said simple.
The area under the engine underwent a major, MAJOR cleaning. Over the last couple of years, I have cleaned out the sump but really haven't been able to give this area more than a like and a promise. Now, with ABISHAG on land and not moving, I could dam up this area and fill it with bilge cleaner, Joy dish washing liquid, degreaser and a host of other concoctions designed to deal with the dropping of a diesel engine. Thirty-four years of such dropping, along with the odd spill during a fuel filter change or an engine oil change, plus the heat of the engine right above this pool, created a substance close to tar. Mix into it sand and dirt(how they got there I have no clue) and you had a fine sludge that could be loosened up but could only be removed by the handful.I t required either draping myself over the engine or lying along side of it thrusting my arm underneath, to pull the foul-smelling sludge out by the handful. It took almost a full day to get it down and still, with all the effort and chemical assistance, there were certain areas on the far side of the engine I couldn't get to. They got the chemical bath but their cleaning will have to await the launching and sailing of ABISHAG when the action of the "bilge cleaners" will slowly loosen the and slosh that unreachable sludge into the sump. The clean up produced to large bolts and a 2" diameter copper washer from the depths of the sludge. I can't even begin to figure out where they went but I hope that they were accidentally dropped into the bilge during some repair and the former owner decided against try to retrieve them. There were also several quarters in the sludge though I doubt that anyone but a bank would take them. Being partially copper these days, they don't fair well in such sludge and look rather "suspicious!".
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Work Is Fun! Work Is Fun! Work Is Fun!
SHIP'S LOG:
It was not supposed to get cold again!, but it did. True, it wasn't cold, COLD, but it was cold enough. And with the wind honking at 40mph, it was no fun to be working outside. and when working on a boat, it was not much fun working inside either. Boy, it gets cold and damp inside a boat at times . . . one of which was yesterday. For most of the morning, I had to go up on deck every once in a while just to get the feeling back in my fingers. That's cold!
I removed to old counterpoise and the "old "new"counterpoise as well. The really, really old counterpoise was in a lot of little pieces and had obviously be replaced "sometime" by the "New" old counterpoise. A counterpoise is a 50 foot by 3inch ribbon of copper that runs from the Single Sideband antenna tuner, through the boat to a grounding point. It is necessary to produce a good radio signal. But even the "new" old counterpoise had fallen victim to corrosion and was in several pieces so it had to be removed. It had laid in the bilge for so long that it was coated with "distilled essence of engine droppings," a greasy tar that coated the copper and as so as I touched it , coated me. According to those in the know, the counterpoise is supposed to be kept "clean" to facilitate its function, this one was not. All my previous efforts to clean years of oil drips from the bilge evidently never quite impressed the counterpoise which kept hold of its oily covering despite all efforts previous to remove it. Out it came and into a trash can I was using to collect copper for later sale.
One annoying problem on ABISHAG is that the salon table is very unstable. It rocks side to side and even the slightest bump sets it in motion. I decided that this had to be fixed. The table is set on a pedestal which is bolted through a large piece of teak to the floor. It was held in place by four bolts with a decorative ball-top. Probably viewed at one time as a "nautical accent," they now merely made tightening or removing said bolts impossible. Looking at the base of the pedestal, I saw that one bolt was missing and that that was probably the reason for the wobble, that and the former owners attempt at a quick fix, shoving what appeared to be the corner of a magazine under one end to stabilize it. That it didn't work at all is to damn it with faint praise. Reaching under the floor I found a couple of things. One, there were no nuts on the undersides of any of the bolts. And two, the one bolt that was missing, well it wasn't actually missing. The rounded head had been sheared off. The bolts had to go. Attempting to unscrew them merely sheared off the remaining heads which allowed for easy removal of the table. The it was a "simple" matter to drill out the shafts of the bolts from their resting places in the floor, being careful not to drill too far and puncture the water tank. It didn't take long and only cost one drill bit. The bolts themselves were actually "marine bronze" which 30+ years ago was the metal of choice for all marine fittings. I discovered that the reason there were no nuts was that when the pedestal was set in place and the orignal holes drilled for the bolts, the holes were lined with a sleave of some metal which, when the bolts were set in place, held them tight. It was something like one of those plastic inserts you use to set a screw into plaster board when you are hanging something heavy. Anyway, it evidently worked fine until one of the ball heads sheared and set the table to rocking. It will be a simple fix. Fill the holes, drill them to size, insert new stainless steel bolts, washers, locking nuts and bingo, a stable table.
I also spent sometime in the fore-peak and under the shower pan in the forward head. New discoveries every inch of the way. One major discovery was the wash down plumbing system. A system to draw raw water to an outlet in the anchor locker to facilitate the cleaning of mud from anchors and rodes ( really could have used that in the Carolinas last year) was installed sometime in the misty past. There was a thru-hull with a hose that led to a pump that sent the water through another hose to an outlet in the anchor locker in the bow. Simple but effective and completely non-functioning. The real problem was the pump which while of marine grade was not intended to rest in water. It had simply been placed in the bilge where it was subjects to the ravages of the sea . . . .so to speak. In addition, since it wasn't fix in place, the movement of the boat eventually ripped the electrical connections away so that it wouldn't function any way. Disconnecting the plumbing and setting all the pieces out, it is clear that, if the pimp works, or replaced, the system will work . . . provided I get a new outlet for the anchor locker, as the one there I discovered was cheap and corroded and broke when I tried to move it.
This area in the fore-peak is prone to retaining water which is not a good thing. It doesn't drain and I was trying to come up with a solution, everything from raising the sub-floor to installing a pump.I thing I will go with the pump, less work and less expense. This area was also filled with miscellaneous wires connected to nothing, pieces of hose that went nowhere, and what important wires and hoses there were, were all twisted around each other in a real tangle. So the unneeded, unwanted and useless was removed and the rest was laid appropriately and neatly back in place. One other point: as with the drain in the aft head, the shower drain in the fore-peak, had no drain hose. Actually it did but it had been cut off short and led merely to the area under the shower pan. I presume that as with the aft head shower, the former owner decided to let gravity do the job of drain the water as it was too difficult to do it right.It would have meant cleaning the bilge and removing extraneous and unnecessary items so that you could place the appropriate hoses. That always seems to be the problems with boats, successive owners simply add more stuff, more wire, more hose, rater than first removing the old items you are replacing.It makes upgrading and repair a real pain in the butt!
It was not supposed to get cold again!, but it did. True, it wasn't cold, COLD, but it was cold enough. And with the wind honking at 40mph, it was no fun to be working outside. and when working on a boat, it was not much fun working inside either. Boy, it gets cold and damp inside a boat at times . . . one of which was yesterday. For most of the morning, I had to go up on deck every once in a while just to get the feeling back in my fingers. That's cold!
I removed to old counterpoise and the "old "new"counterpoise as well. The really, really old counterpoise was in a lot of little pieces and had obviously be replaced "sometime" by the "New" old counterpoise. A counterpoise is a 50 foot by 3inch ribbon of copper that runs from the Single Sideband antenna tuner, through the boat to a grounding point. It is necessary to produce a good radio signal. But even the "new" old counterpoise had fallen victim to corrosion and was in several pieces so it had to be removed. It had laid in the bilge for so long that it was coated with "distilled essence of engine droppings," a greasy tar that coated the copper and as so as I touched it , coated me. According to those in the know, the counterpoise is supposed to be kept "clean" to facilitate its function, this one was not. All my previous efforts to clean years of oil drips from the bilge evidently never quite impressed the counterpoise which kept hold of its oily covering despite all efforts previous to remove it. Out it came and into a trash can I was using to collect copper for later sale.
One annoying problem on ABISHAG is that the salon table is very unstable. It rocks side to side and even the slightest bump sets it in motion. I decided that this had to be fixed. The table is set on a pedestal which is bolted through a large piece of teak to the floor. It was held in place by four bolts with a decorative ball-top. Probably viewed at one time as a "nautical accent," they now merely made tightening or removing said bolts impossible. Looking at the base of the pedestal, I saw that one bolt was missing and that that was probably the reason for the wobble, that and the former owners attempt at a quick fix, shoving what appeared to be the corner of a magazine under one end to stabilize it. That it didn't work at all is to damn it with faint praise. Reaching under the floor I found a couple of things. One, there were no nuts on the undersides of any of the bolts. And two, the one bolt that was missing, well it wasn't actually missing. The rounded head had been sheared off. The bolts had to go. Attempting to unscrew them merely sheared off the remaining heads which allowed for easy removal of the table. The it was a "simple" matter to drill out the shafts of the bolts from their resting places in the floor, being careful not to drill too far and puncture the water tank. It didn't take long and only cost one drill bit. The bolts themselves were actually "marine bronze" which 30+ years ago was the metal of choice for all marine fittings. I discovered that the reason there were no nuts was that when the pedestal was set in place and the orignal holes drilled for the bolts, the holes were lined with a sleave of some metal which, when the bolts were set in place, held them tight. It was something like one of those plastic inserts you use to set a screw into plaster board when you are hanging something heavy. Anyway, it evidently worked fine until one of the ball heads sheared and set the table to rocking. It will be a simple fix. Fill the holes, drill them to size, insert new stainless steel bolts, washers, locking nuts and bingo, a stable table.
I also spent sometime in the fore-peak and under the shower pan in the forward head. New discoveries every inch of the way. One major discovery was the wash down plumbing system. A system to draw raw water to an outlet in the anchor locker to facilitate the cleaning of mud from anchors and rodes ( really could have used that in the Carolinas last year) was installed sometime in the misty past. There was a thru-hull with a hose that led to a pump that sent the water through another hose to an outlet in the anchor locker in the bow. Simple but effective and completely non-functioning. The real problem was the pump which while of marine grade was not intended to rest in water. It had simply been placed in the bilge where it was subjects to the ravages of the sea . . . .so to speak. In addition, since it wasn't fix in place, the movement of the boat eventually ripped the electrical connections away so that it wouldn't function any way. Disconnecting the plumbing and setting all the pieces out, it is clear that, if the pimp works, or replaced, the system will work . . . provided I get a new outlet for the anchor locker, as the one there I discovered was cheap and corroded and broke when I tried to move it.
This area in the fore-peak is prone to retaining water which is not a good thing. It doesn't drain and I was trying to come up with a solution, everything from raising the sub-floor to installing a pump.I thing I will go with the pump, less work and less expense. This area was also filled with miscellaneous wires connected to nothing, pieces of hose that went nowhere, and what important wires and hoses there were, were all twisted around each other in a real tangle. So the unneeded, unwanted and useless was removed and the rest was laid appropriately and neatly back in place. One other point: as with the drain in the aft head, the shower drain in the fore-peak, had no drain hose. Actually it did but it had been cut off short and led merely to the area under the shower pan. I presume that as with the aft head shower, the former owner decided to let gravity do the job of drain the water as it was too difficult to do it right.It would have meant cleaning the bilge and removing extraneous and unnecessary items so that you could place the appropriate hoses. That always seems to be the problems with boats, successive owners simply add more stuff, more wire, more hose, rater than first removing the old items you are replacing.It makes upgrading and repair a real pain in the butt!
Thursday, March 22, 2012
From Nowhere To Nowhere And Back Again!
SHIP'S LOG:
It may not sound like all that much but today highlighted by getting a hose out of the bilge. The trail of the hose began in the aft cabin, in the bilge which formerly held the refrigeration & auto-pilot units. It was a rather small(1/4" diameter) hose but it went everywhere and the thing was I couldn't tell if it was important or not. Actually it turned out that there were two hoses, both he same size, both wandering hither and yon through the bilge. And I couldn't just yank them out either as I had no idea around what they might be wrapped and to what they might be connected. Though I couldn't think of anytime that they had played any part in anything since I have owned ABISHAG, there was always the possibility that they did. Thus it was that care had to be taken to slowly, carefully, gently pull them one at a time through the successive floor hatches that cover the bilge. Just to make things more interesting, they were run through limber holes wire race ways increasing the likelihood of pulling on the wrong piece of equipment. Then too, for some probably-at-one-time very serious reason, both had three way valve right in the middle of the hose. This meant that once I un-snaked the hose from one end as far as the valve, I had to stop and locate the other end before I could go any farther. Once I found it and determined that it was not "doing anything". I could then un-snaked that portion of the hose back to the three-way valve and then remove the entire mess from the bilge. I ended up having to do this twice and in both cases the hoses were not attached to anything at either end. I have no idea what purpose they served in the past but now they were "just hanging in the breeze" and so out they came.
I was able to snake the wire for the auto-pilot unit from the stern and across the engine. At that point, it split with the ground attached to the engine and the "hot" attached to a buss bar somewhere in the "IN-Law" Apartment. I want to check with someone first before I disconnect them though it does seem a simple procedure with no real complexities..
It was too nice to spend all the day inside the boat so I took the opportunity to "polish the brass." Actually, it as "polishing" the bronze - the prop and the thru-hulls. A wire brush on the drill made rather quick work of getting the paint and the scale off, along with the remains of the sea-creatures from last year.
The counterpoise for the SSB is shot. To get the 50' worth laid out, it has to be folded around corners and unfortunately, since it is in the bilge and there is often water in the bilge, it tends to corrode and in places it has done so with a vengeance. It is broken is several places and will have to be replaced. And as Will Shakespeare was wont to say, "Aye, There's the rub." There has got to be a better way to lay it out if I am going to go with the copper ribbon again. there has got to be some way to lay it out so that it is out of the way, out of the water, and still able to do it's job. What that way is I haven't a clue but I'll find it. And by the way, following that ribbon around and through the bilge may the hose thing seem like child's play. Another part of the grounding/counterpoise system is called a "Dyna Plate" and is affixed on the outside of the hull, with connection through the hull into the interior to which the counterpoise is attached. I can put an eyeball on the plate on the outside, but I can't seem to find where it makes its entrance on the inside. I have a funny feeling that it is somewhere under the water heater.
The backs of my hands look like I took a blast from a fowling piece. All these little holes that scab over at night and get re-opened whenever I have to fish around in the bilge. It is the same every year, right down to the places where the cuts show up. All part of the fun of boating!
It may not sound like all that much but today highlighted by getting a hose out of the bilge. The trail of the hose began in the aft cabin, in the bilge which formerly held the refrigeration & auto-pilot units. It was a rather small(1/4" diameter) hose but it went everywhere and the thing was I couldn't tell if it was important or not. Actually it turned out that there were two hoses, both he same size, both wandering hither and yon through the bilge. And I couldn't just yank them out either as I had no idea around what they might be wrapped and to what they might be connected. Though I couldn't think of anytime that they had played any part in anything since I have owned ABISHAG, there was always the possibility that they did. Thus it was that care had to be taken to slowly, carefully, gently pull them one at a time through the successive floor hatches that cover the bilge. Just to make things more interesting, they were run through limber holes wire race ways increasing the likelihood of pulling on the wrong piece of equipment. Then too, for some probably-at-one-time very serious reason, both had three way valve right in the middle of the hose. This meant that once I un-snaked the hose from one end as far as the valve, I had to stop and locate the other end before I could go any farther. Once I found it and determined that it was not "doing anything". I could then un-snaked that portion of the hose back to the three-way valve and then remove the entire mess from the bilge. I ended up having to do this twice and in both cases the hoses were not attached to anything at either end. I have no idea what purpose they served in the past but now they were "just hanging in the breeze" and so out they came.
I was able to snake the wire for the auto-pilot unit from the stern and across the engine. At that point, it split with the ground attached to the engine and the "hot" attached to a buss bar somewhere in the "IN-Law" Apartment. I want to check with someone first before I disconnect them though it does seem a simple procedure with no real complexities..
It was too nice to spend all the day inside the boat so I took the opportunity to "polish the brass." Actually, it as "polishing" the bronze - the prop and the thru-hulls. A wire brush on the drill made rather quick work of getting the paint and the scale off, along with the remains of the sea-creatures from last year.
The counterpoise for the SSB is shot. To get the 50' worth laid out, it has to be folded around corners and unfortunately, since it is in the bilge and there is often water in the bilge, it tends to corrode and in places it has done so with a vengeance. It is broken is several places and will have to be replaced. And as Will Shakespeare was wont to say, "Aye, There's the rub." There has got to be a better way to lay it out if I am going to go with the copper ribbon again. there has got to be some way to lay it out so that it is out of the way, out of the water, and still able to do it's job. What that way is I haven't a clue but I'll find it. And by the way, following that ribbon around and through the bilge may the hose thing seem like child's play. Another part of the grounding/counterpoise system is called a "Dyna Plate" and is affixed on the outside of the hull, with connection through the hull into the interior to which the counterpoise is attached. I can put an eyeball on the plate on the outside, but I can't seem to find where it makes its entrance on the inside. I have a funny feeling that it is somewhere under the water heater.
The backs of my hands look like I took a blast from a fowling piece. All these little holes that scab over at night and get re-opened whenever I have to fish around in the bilge. It is the same every year, right down to the places where the cuts show up. All part of the fun of boating!
Monday, March 19, 2012
Work! Work! Work!
SHIP'S LOG:
73! You've got to be kidding! But I'll take it! Makes it a "little warm" working inside the ABISHAG but then I wasn't prepared for doing anything on the outside.
Truth be told, I spend a good part of the day just cleaning. I still can't answer that question of where the "dust rhinoceros" come from. Then and the just plain dirt gets aboard somehow and I just wish I could figure out how and "fill the breech" as it were.
I filled the shop-vac just sucking up stuff from the now empty stern lockers. I don't think this part of the boat has seen daylight since she slipped down the ways. This cleaning did reveal why the SSB reception signal has been so bad. The counterpoise is shot. The counterpoise is a 3'' x 50' strip of copper that the radio and antenna tuner some how use to bounce the radio signal of the SSB. Short-waveRadio waves and their control are right up there with the voodoo of electricity and are high up on my list of things that I have little or know understanding of and which I fear will bite my on the but some day. The counterpoise evidently has to be "draped around the ship" for it to do its thing. The one on ABISHAG snakes its way from the antenna tuner in the stern up the starboard side of the engine compartment, across to the port side and up under the port settee. I have not quite followed it to the end yet. I can say that it is not neatly done but then trying to lay out 50 feet of 3 inch wide copper ribbon in such a way that it lays flat and stays completely out of the way is a task that whoever installed he SSB radio didn't bother with. Or perhaps, they just got frustrated with the process and in the end just stuffed it wherever it fit . . . sort of. Well in any event, the counterpoise has " corroded through in a couple of places so it is basically worthless for its intended use and will have to be replaced. So I will get the job of carefully laying and snaking the new counterpoise ribbon in the "proper" way . . . that is after I get the old one out. Did I mention that it has edges like razor blades? No, well it has edges like razor blades and I've got the cuts already to prove it.
After the stern cabin was cleaned, all of the stuff that had been taken out had to be replaced. It is not as easy as it sounds for all the components that were removed had to be taken out first and some place for that found where they could sit out of the way. The hatches to the lockers had to be set back in place slightly askewed so that they would admit the air flow. Then the "Hypo-vent Condensation Preventers" laid down. They lay between the deck and the mattress cushions to allow air to flow underneath and so prevent condensation. It is sort of a cross between a pot scrubber on steroids and a heavy - duty brush for the floor. It can be nasty stuff and seems to find any unguarded pore in which to insert a stray end. Once they are in place, then the two "mattresses"which are anything but a standard shape and which, while only 2 inches thick, have all the bend of plate steel, had to be "coaxed" from the salon , down the galley corridor, through the aft head, make two 90 degree turns and then get turned flat and set in place in a cabin with less vertical clearance that the width of either mattress. This should have been one of those labors Hercules got stuck with!
Basically, the stern half of the stern half of the boat is set and cleaned. At least it has had its initial cleaning, removing whatever need to be removed and 99% of the dust and dirt and detritus. Once the rest of the boat has undergone a similar cleaning, and the boat yard turns on the water, the insides will be washed down.
So I have begun to make a start. I'll just have to keep at it though the 73 degrees make it tough. It is hard to sit in the cockpit and do much more than think about sailing. Then again, if I don't do the work, I won't be doing much of that.
73! You've got to be kidding! But I'll take it! Makes it a "little warm" working inside the ABISHAG but then I wasn't prepared for doing anything on the outside.
Truth be told, I spend a good part of the day just cleaning. I still can't answer that question of where the "dust rhinoceros" come from. Then and the just plain dirt gets aboard somehow and I just wish I could figure out how and "fill the breech" as it were.
I filled the shop-vac just sucking up stuff from the now empty stern lockers. I don't think this part of the boat has seen daylight since she slipped down the ways. This cleaning did reveal why the SSB reception signal has been so bad. The counterpoise is shot. The counterpoise is a 3'' x 50' strip of copper that the radio and antenna tuner some how use to bounce the radio signal of the SSB. Short-waveRadio waves and their control are right up there with the voodoo of electricity and are high up on my list of things that I have little or know understanding of and which I fear will bite my on the but some day. The counterpoise evidently has to be "draped around the ship" for it to do its thing. The one on ABISHAG snakes its way from the antenna tuner in the stern up the starboard side of the engine compartment, across to the port side and up under the port settee. I have not quite followed it to the end yet. I can say that it is not neatly done but then trying to lay out 50 feet of 3 inch wide copper ribbon in such a way that it lays flat and stays completely out of the way is a task that whoever installed he SSB radio didn't bother with. Or perhaps, they just got frustrated with the process and in the end just stuffed it wherever it fit . . . sort of. Well in any event, the counterpoise has " corroded through in a couple of places so it is basically worthless for its intended use and will have to be replaced. So I will get the job of carefully laying and snaking the new counterpoise ribbon in the "proper" way . . . that is after I get the old one out. Did I mention that it has edges like razor blades? No, well it has edges like razor blades and I've got the cuts already to prove it.
After the stern cabin was cleaned, all of the stuff that had been taken out had to be replaced. It is not as easy as it sounds for all the components that were removed had to be taken out first and some place for that found where they could sit out of the way. The hatches to the lockers had to be set back in place slightly askewed so that they would admit the air flow. Then the "Hypo-vent Condensation Preventers" laid down. They lay between the deck and the mattress cushions to allow air to flow underneath and so prevent condensation. It is sort of a cross between a pot scrubber on steroids and a heavy - duty brush for the floor. It can be nasty stuff and seems to find any unguarded pore in which to insert a stray end. Once they are in place, then the two "mattresses"which are anything but a standard shape and which, while only 2 inches thick, have all the bend of plate steel, had to be "coaxed" from the salon , down the galley corridor, through the aft head, make two 90 degree turns and then get turned flat and set in place in a cabin with less vertical clearance that the width of either mattress. This should have been one of those labors Hercules got stuck with!
Basically, the stern half of the stern half of the boat is set and cleaned. At least it has had its initial cleaning, removing whatever need to be removed and 99% of the dust and dirt and detritus. Once the rest of the boat has undergone a similar cleaning, and the boat yard turns on the water, the insides will be washed down.
So I have begun to make a start. I'll just have to keep at it though the 73 degrees make it tough. It is hard to sit in the cockpit and do much more than think about sailing. Then again, if I don't do the work, I won't be doing much of that.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
