Monthly Archives: December 2013

Life on the Hard

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Here’s the word to describe the experience of having Andromeda towed around the corner to the Port of Astoria boatyard: anti-climactic. And this is just what we were hoping for. After what felt like weeks of tension and worry about accomplishing this, I have learned a valuable lesson when it comes to this boat: let Mike handle it. Indeed, he had no trouble making contact with Captain Bill, and the good Captain showed up at the appointed hour of 10 AM on foggy Friday morning, tied on to Andromeda, and about 15 minutes later we were at the haul out facility. No muss, no fuss and it didn’t break the bank, either. In all, completely worth having a professional do this little job for us. Plus, it wasn’t raining.

Capt. Bill sidles up to Andromeda.

The guys at the port were waiting for us and were already familiar with Andromeda since her last owner hauled her out every year at this yard. They knew exactly how to get her centered in the slings, even without an engine in the boat. There was a touch of excitement when I realized that we were expected to handle the lines aboard her as they handled them from the docks, meaning that we were still aboard Andromeda when the slings were finally in place and the travel lift began its work.

Wait! What? Are we going for a ride?

Andromeda nudged up to the dock and we climbed over the bow pulpit. It was literally the hardest part of the entire affair.

This was the hardest part.

So now we’re on the hard and the scales are falling off of our eyes as we come face to face with the project that is our boat. To be sure, this boat has been well kept, She’s in really good shape for her age and all of that. The good news is that her hull looks excellent. There isn’t an osmotic blister anywhere on that boat, a testament to the care previous owners lavished on her, as well as her excellent pedigree.

The other good news is that we just love that swim step. Mike took the unsightly huge and heavy dingy off the back and it’s not going back on. The platform makes a very convenient way of getting on and off the boat. So much better than a wiggly ladder; the part of being on the hard that I loathe. Secure and stable; just the way I like it.

Now you can see her shapely stern.

So by now you are wondering what the bad news could possibly be? Nothing earth shattering. Only the thing that happens when anyone starts working on a boat, or a house, or a car, or anything that was built in 1975. Reality sinks in as the project list continues to grow. Projects like servicing all the seacocks. There are at least 20 of them and I began learning all about how to service them because I hate it when things leak and there are at least two that seep water. We’ve pulled three of them, and that job’s ‘to be continued’. I will get as many as possible done before putting her back in the water.

One of the worst offenders. Time to order some lapping compound and seacock grease.

And speaking of through hulls, the first thing on Mike’s list of tasks for me during this haul out period was to troubleshoot the clogged water intake in the forward head. It worked fine when we bought the boat, then one day it just… didn’t. As in no water flowing at all.

Fortunately being at this boatyard is a little like being at a junk dealer where all the junk you want is free for the using, if not the taking. I needed a roto rooter for boats and I found what I needed in a length of old wire rigging someone left laying on the ground. Perfect! I removed the water intake hose from the head and poked the wire down, hitting something that felt solid. Then I climbed down the ladder and did the same thing from the other end. Nothing would move. Yes, the seacock was wide open, in case you were wondering. After a couple more climbs into and out of the boat (thank you gluteus maximus) I felt like the wire was going a little further. I gave it the old Fonzi approach a few times, then I called Mike away from his prop-pulling entertainment, stationing him in the forward head to let me know if the wire made it all the way to the boat interior. Shortly thereafter I heard him yell and I felt the wire give. Apparently you don’t have to live in the tropics to have fish try to take up residence in your fresh water intake. I had two thoughts: thank God we didn’t have to replace that hose, and this is going to happen again.

Poor little guy. What was he thinking?

Oh, and Mike’s project du jour was to pull off the propeller since we’re having the shaft replaced. He though we could save a little money by doing this ourselves. Remember the transmission issue; the one whereby it took three weekends, Kroil penetrating oil, a blowtorch, and superhuman leverage to make the beast let go of the boat? We have a repeat here. This is looking like a trend… Andromeda 1. Mike 0. Insert sad face here.

This is not a happy face. What you see here is a ‘puller’ attached to the propeller, and a long iron pipe meant to give superhuman leverage to the wrench.

So the propeller is a little bad news, but it will eventually give way to Mike’s persistence. Or, we’ll pay the mechanic to do it. (I’m voting for that one.) The more long term issue is the leaking in the aft cabin. I knew the hatch leaked and did a temporary fix until warmer weather when I can really get to it. But the rain this weekend gave me an unparalleled opportunity to find all the little leaks that are going to drive me just a little crazy until I can get them fixed.

And, of course, one thing always leads to the other. When I noticed the little puddle of water on the floor in the aft head, I began poking around with my trusty little flashlight and, well, let’s just say there is a large project waiting to happen in the aft cabin. This will involve removing a lot of nicely done wood trim and hopefully it will NOT involve removing a wall.

And this is where the lesson of the weekend, “Let Mike handle it”, came in really handy. As I flashed my little light in all the nooks and crannies of Andromeda’s aft area, getting more and more annoyed at what I was finding, his cooler head prevailed. “It’s cold and nasty outside. Let’s go home. We can’t do it all in one weekend.”

So wise.

Some of the cool junk laying around the boatyard. The steering mechanism was made in Tacoma. (No, that’s not one of our seacocks, fortunately.)

Want to see her being lifted out of the water? Go Here until I figure out how to use the You Tube application.

 

 

 

 

Diesel Socks

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Diesel Socks. An excellent name for a rock band? Agreed, but stay with me.

I tootled on down to Astoria this past Friday, full of turkey and ambitions to knock out about twenty projects that realistically will take a month to complete. I’m okay with failing utterly on most of my goals and I did get some good work done. But life kept happening, distracting me from my noble intentions. Stupid life.

First on the agenda was to completely remove the last of the hardware from our increasingly blank equipment panel in the engine room. All that was left were  the fuel filters and the raw water strainer. Once those were off, I applied BligeKote to those last areas and let that dry over night.

Tabula Rasa

While the BilgeKote fumes worked their magic on my little grey cells, I disassembled the Racor 120 fuel filters and cleaned them up as best I could. These filters are perfectly serviceable and with new A1 fuel line would protect our new engine well. But I really like the drop in cartridge style filters like the Racor 500s. They are much easier to replace and visually inspect. It has also been pointed out that the cartridges are much cheaper.

My first world problem. Keep these perfectly fine filters or replace them with even better ones.

Now doubt is creeping in. Should I reinstall these now and make do or buy the new ones and be done with it? Of course, until I can make that decision, I can’t put the existing units back on my pretty white wall.

Okay, let’s forget the fuel filters. I’ll just put the raw water strainer back on after the paint dries. At least one thing will be reinstalled before I leave. But… What if the raw water inlet is further forward than the strainer outlet? Then the hose will make a tortuous bend and my life will be ruined! I can’t possibly make so momentous a decision as the location of the raw water strainer without investigating the Beta Marine drawings and researching optimal height above/below the waterline,  plus leering over current engine installations. Before you know it, it’s one in the morning and all I’ve done is paint about two square feet of a wall.

Diesel Socks? Oh, right. One of the things Melissa and I have really enjoyed on Andromeda is the Sig Marine Diesel Heater. It is mounted on the forward bulkhead in the saloon and just makes the whole boat a warm, dry oasis in the midst of a howling, rainy Astoria winter.

So, while pouring over filters, strainers and engine data, the little diesel heater kept me company. When I went to bed, I turned down the heat and drifted off to sleep knowing that a storm was blowing in from the Pacific and already feeling, and hearing the wind singing in our rigging. I have installed a brand new CO detector right by the heater so that danger is mitigated but I did not anticipate what would happen next.

As the wind increased through the night (a max speed of 44 knots at 3:00 AM), a down draft blew out the fire in the heater. That isn’t too big of a deal except that in the morning it was rather cold and the burner had half a cup of unburned fuel standing in it. Now my to-do list suddenly includes clearing the fuel from the system and trying to re-light the heater. And making coffee.

For the uninitiated, diesel heaters are pretty safe and simple, but they can be messy. When you try to drain half a cup of oil from the heater, four ounces go into the container, four ounces go under the container and the rest goes onto your hands, hair, underpants and the tip of your nose. After changing underpants, I tried to restart the fire with a now relatively empty burner. Alas, the continued high winds kept blowing the feeble flame out before it could heat the chamber sufficiently for proper combustion.

The culprit.

Looking inside, I could see that there was a lot of carbon build up in there. Since a warm fire seemed to be off the table, I elected to remove the burner and take it home for a good cleaning. That will surely fix this problem in the future and I will once again be productively working on the boat.

After removing a few screws and then re-installing those screws so that I could remove the right screws, the burner came away from the heater. Immediately the remaining four ounces of fuel left inside began to leak on to me, my fresh underpants and the sole of the boat. I quickly placed a plastic trash bag under the burner to gain time and figure out how to get this mess out of my boat. Hopping up into the cockpit, I grabbed a five gallon bucket and put the burner inside and placed it back in the cockpit.

Now turning my attention to the carnage I had wrought, I noticed little shiny dabs of oily spots all over the sole of the salon and galley. I had managed to step in a nice puddle of fuel and then track it through the middle third of the boat thereby distributing the last four ounces of fuel from the burner. That was my last pair of socks.

I will say that diesel does impart a lustrous shine on old teak and holly soles. But it just doesn’t feel safe to have a slippery, combustible oil on our sole. So I cleaned that mess up and tried to salvage my day by installing a new ABYC compliant 30 amp shore power breaker.

I shall end this post by showing you that I did clean the burner and it was way over due. I now suspect that the extraordinary carbon buildup inside the burner was largely responsible for its inability to efficiently burn. I am looking forward to re-installing everything and once again enjoying our cozy little fireplace.

The black pile of rock is most of the carbon build up that I chipped and ground from inside the now clean burner.

Next weekend I will start anew. Fresh socks? Check. Fresh underpants? Check. 2 projects down, 18 to go.