Category Archives: Boat Work Projects

Love the One You’re With

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Yesterday Michael and I had what I lovingly call a “Mexico Experience”. This is defined as a field trip to some sort of marine related workshop; a trip that doesn’t go as planned, requiring us to pivot to a different timeline where things work out better than expected. Yesterday was Michael’s birthday and he gave himself the gift of a day off from work so we could toodle up to Seattle to fulfill his greatest birthday wish: to get Hiram’s exhaust riser inspected and buy Hiram a new flexible coupling.

Not pretty, but damned useful.

New readers won’t know that Hiram is our red Beta Marine engine, the heartbeat of Galapagos when she isn’t sailing or sitting at the dock. We love Hiram and take good care of him. The story of Hiram’s exhaust riser is long and filled with ‘events’, a word which, used here, means failures of the cracking and leaking nature during critical passages. Hiram’s exhaust riser has seen action in such far-flung locations as Astoria, Oregon and Bellingham, Washington. Fortunately for us, that’s as exotic as it got. The story begins here, if you have some time, but the short version is that when we bought this boat, we needed to have a new, much taller,  exhaust riser created to keep water from back flowing into our beloved Hiram. This back-flowing water would cause Michael to lose all the blood in his face and come close to passing out from sheer traumatic stress, and also all kinds of other engine-related hoopla.

Hiram, sans exhaust elbow. Don’t worry, there is plenty of clearance for those wire covers you are seeing in the photo.

Part of what eventually solved our troubles with vibration and cracking of metals  was a cheap stainless exhaust flex connector we got at O’Reilly Auto Parts. That’s right. It was cheap. It was probably Chinese stainless. It was most definitely NOT made for marine use. And it worked brilliantly since 2014: all the way to Mexico, Hawaii, and then home. We carried an extra on board; in fact we could have replaced the entire exhaust with pieces we have on board. But only now are we finally getting to that project because it has held up well. The secret shame of marine exhaust systems: cheap auto parts. But the O’Reilly has recently developed a tiny leak, so we know that underneath all the protective tape, it’s probably rotten to the core.

Sooty exhaust riser in hand, we trundled up to Seattle on a field trip to visit Broomfield’s Marine Exhaust. We like to drive to Seattle together because it means we can use the HOV lanes and we might get lucky and be able to get there and back without being stuck in wall to wall traffic on I-5. We like Seattle, but we hate driving up there, so we go together to be sure our suffering is mutual.

Anyway, we should have known we were on the wrong timeline when, enroute,  I tried to call the phone number listed for Broomfield’s, just to be sure they were open during lunch,  and it was a number that was out of service. Hmmm. Then Michael’s Google Maps showed the location in a completely different place than my Google did. These indicators are sure signs that you are not in the correct universe for your plans to go smoothly. Having arrived at the wrong location we pulled into a parking lot to park; a lot that turned out to be reserved Monday-Friday for a business we had no interest visiting.  Sighing deeply, I got out of the car and just walked the short distance to what I was sure at this point was the wrong place. At least the sun was shining.

Hiram is named after this man behind the counter in a 1930’s Chicago eatery. That’s Mike’s grandfather, Hiram, otherwise known as Red.

There I found two workmen behind a fence having what sounded like a good natured convo so I decided to throw myself on their mercy. An earthy-looking man with many tattoos but few teeth greeted me warmly. Did he know of a place called Broomfields? He did. And it had gone out of business. Ahhhh. That ‘splained the phone number and the weird address.  He used to be a welder for Broomfields and based on his apparently considerable experience he recommended Ballard Marine Fabricators, just up the road a couple of blocks.  We didn’t know any better, so we trusted the colorful toothless man and sashayed up the road a couple of blocks, exhaust elbow rattling in the back of our Mexico van, plastic dashboard Jesus swaying to the rhythm of the potholes. We were loving the vibe. Our van really blended in with the whole aesthetic down in the marine area of Ballard.

You know you are in the right place for marine exhaust when you see this sign in the window.

Yaaasss! See that accordion looking part? That’s what we’re looking for. Exactly.

A young man waited on us pretty quickly (I mean, they are alllll young these days) and he  immediately understood what we were after. Giving a critical eye to the business end of the riser where it attaches to the engine, he decided he would give us two bids: one to just have an entire new riser made, in case there is enough corrosion to warrant that, and one to replace our O’Reilly flexible coupling with a nice marine grade one like the one on the sign. He said that will last longer than 8 years and I believe him.

 

As we talked, I had seen him eyeing that black tape, pushing a fingernail underneath to try to peel back the heavy secret it contained. I didn’t think Michael had mentioned what was underneath the obscuring tape and I could stand it no longer. My internal pressure was building due to extreme fear of being judged unworthy,  and in a moment of explosive confession, I found myself telling him about the O’Reilly part, hidden discretely underneath the black protective tape he could not seem to remove easily. Would this man think we were going to be happy with O’Reilly quality? Would he think we should not be touching things like engines and exhaust systems? Would he think we were not worth his considerable experience and expertise and didn’t take our exhaust system seriously? Would he even feel sorry for Hiram?

Looking a little more closely at the business end of the elbow.

We received zero judgment for our use of a cheap auto part. Not even an eyeroll. Just a smile and low chuckle of forgiveness.  This welding man said he had seen much worse than our exhaust riser that, after all, had not failed us for several years, including three seasons in the Sea of Cortez and two ocean crossings.  He smiled and said he worked on a lot of fishing boats and fishermen will do anything to keep their boat running. I asked him if he’d met many sailors. I felt absolved.

We left Hiram’s exhaust elbow in what we believe will be capable hands (crossing all the fingers). I wished Michael a very happy birthday and we left the parking spot that had appeared directly in front of the shop, in their own parking lot. In Seattle.

Our next stop on today’s birthday field trip was Fisheries Supply and the Marine Sanitation store next door, where we wanted to look at marine lighting and marine heads. Recently we replaced our old Skipper II head with a sleek and wonderful fresh water flush electric Dometic Master Flush 8100 marine head. Woooo hoo that’s a mouthful. This new head is so beautiful and shiny and so easy to use that even our daughter, who has kind of a love hate relationship with the boat (she loves the boat but hates the toilets) said she could see herself spending more time aboard now. High praise, indeed.

It’s…..beautiful.

Aside from the electric part and the internal macerator part (yes, we do flush toilet paper, thank you very much), what I like about this toilet is that it’s a fresh water flush. We learned salt water is just too corrosive and also leaves too much calcification behind. This means higher amounts of maintenance for our old Skipper II, which is the unit we have in the forward head.  It’s getting long in the tooth, as are we all, and we were hoping to replace it with a manual fresh water flush unit. We are kind of into replacing parts lately: body parts, boat parts, it’s all the same to us. We think it’s important to keep one manual toilet just in case the fancy new one gives us trouble far away from the dock.

It’s not nearly as pretty as the new one. But it works.

So we looked, but we didn’t buy. (We do that a lot at Fisheries $upply.) Putting a different style toilet in that space is going to be harder than it looks, which means more of a project than we want to take on right now. The fresh water flush manual toilets are all pretty low profile, which means we would either have to build a platform for one to sit on or begin referring to the forward head as the ‘squatty potty’. Honestly, at this point we will just love the one we’re with and not pump sea water into it. We will fill it with fresh water from the sink and then flush away. Unfortunately we cannot plumb it for fresh water because it’s not intended to be used that way.

It was a good day, ending with our first cockpit gathering since we landed in Olympia two years ago, almost. I got the cockpit ready for partying and all the kids and their significant others came over to celebrate both Michael’s birthday and the joy we have in stepping back into our boat lives. It feels like it’s been about 5 years, but it has not even been two yet since we docked here in Swantown Marina. We are glad to be back to doing boat projects, glad to be getting the old girl spiffed up for the next trip.

Two years ago we celebrated Michael’s birthday on Kauai. I’d say that birthday was maybe the best one he ever had, even if he is thrilled at the prospects of Hiram’s new exhaust elbow. We took the dinghy around the corner of Hanalei Bay and anchored it in a tiny rocky cove. We saw our first ever Monk Seal as we donned snorkeling gear. He slid into the water without even giving us the time of day. Once we had faces in the water, we discovered we were surrounded by sea turtles. There were maybe 30 of them just hanging around, grazing and doing turtle things. Unlike Mexico where the turtles are shy and fearful of people, Hawaii’s turtles don’t seem to care that they share the ocean with us. They just go about their business.  It was a delightful day and one that stands out as a talisman for things to come.

Just a tiny alcove, just big enough to anchor our dinghy safely.

S/V Galapagos. Standing by.

 

Cheap Boat Tricks: Interior Teak

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We are here in Bahia Chamela on the Pacific Coast of Mexico and we are not feeling the love here. One of the dark little secrets of the cruising life is that not all anchorages are worthy of your time and attention. Many times it depends on when you are there and what the weather is like, what the surf is like.  Now Bahia Chamela has a very pretty beach, but the water is too murky for snorkeling and the swell and waves are pretty intense right now due to the wind out there. We took the paddle boards out but it was just too rough to be fun. There’s a restaurant on shore, but frankly this is so common in Mexico that it’s just not tempting enough to take the trouble going to shore. Lots of folks love this anchorage; we just aren’t feeling it. We don’t need to keep eating in restaurants.  We’ll be moving on pretty quickly, always in search of a good snorkel adventure.

Anyhow I was in a mood.  I needed a small, easy to complete project and this one filled the bill and is high on the ‘wow’ satisfaction factor. Galapagos has a lot of interior teak, including the ladder down into the salon that gets used about 50 times a day. I noticed that the finish was looking pretty ratty and the handholds were filthy because they were getting hard to clean, again, because the finish on the wood was worn away.

The guy who remodeled our galley way back before we left the dock is a wooden boat builder from way back and he shared this trick with me for making interior teak on these old 1970’s boats look good again without having to do an entire refinish.

The trick is using real shellac. Not polyurethane, not varnish. Shellac. Shellac is easy to work with, dries quickly (unless it’s old, in which case it needs replacing), and can be cleaned up and thinned with alcohol. We keep a can on board the boat. This brand comes in clear or amber. Our woodwork has the traditional honey colored wood. The amber matches it perfectly. 

The process is dead simple. Lightly sand the areas where the finish has worn away. I used first an 80 grit, then followed behind with a 220 grit. You are just looking to remove the old finish in the worn area so definitely use a light touch. Remember, as Mike says, “We aren’t building the Parthenon here.”. Don’t let perfection be the enemy of ‘good enough’. You are not refinishing fine furniture at this point. Just repairing a worn finish so you can put off refinishing the whole thing, which is more work.

Once you’ve sanded, go over the area with a tack cloth. Get a load of this tack cloth that probably came from our garage. It’s an old one. But unopened, it’s still good.

This store has been gone for decades.

Now just use a cheap tip brush or a sponge brush and brush the shellac on the exposed wood, taking care to tip the new finish into the old. You’re supposed to let shellac dry before sanding with 220 grit and then recoating, but I’m too impatient for that. I let it get tacky and then go over it again. Works just fine. I’ll let the photos do the rest of the talking about this project, which took all of 30 minutes to complete. My work for today is done. Time to read a book. Maybe see if there are any animals around that need looking at.

Each step was worn on the edge where our feet hit it many, many times per day.

It was this area that grabbed my attention. These handles had pretty much no finish left. We also need to replace the non-skid, but we don’t have the material on hand. I’ve put it on the list of stuff for our expedition back to the states.

The sun makes this look orange. But it’s not.

Standing back, the steps are looking much better.

Maybe some day Galapagos will have all this interior wood refinished. Probably right before we sell her to the next cruiser. Don’t hold your breath. We’ve got some cruising yet to do.

S/V Galapagos, standing by on channel 22a.

We’re in Hot Water!

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When we first took over Galapagos, Melissa and I felt as if we had just bought the Queen Mary. Stepping up from our sweet Cal 34, Moonrise to big ‘ol Galapagos was intimidating and exciting all at once. To paraphrase Bernadette Peters in The Jerk, It isn’t just about the waterline, its all the stuff.

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Of all the stuff that came with Galapagos, nothing could seem as luxurious as a hot water heater. Hot water from the tap? Just like home? What a time to be alive!

It wasn’t hard to slide into such decadence and when I began to re-plumb the whole boat with PEX tubing and new faucets, I knew that I wanted to update the old water heater and get it out of the engine room. So in January of 2017 after much perseverating, measuring and no doubt boring Melissa to tears with technical minutia, I bought an IsoTemp SPA 15 Marine water heater.

For the uninitiated, marine water heaters have an electric heating element, just like the units you have at home. But they also have a small heat exchanger that connects to the cooling system on the boat’s engine. That means you can have hot water just by running the engine for half an hour. The SPA 15 is tiny, only 4 gallons, but that is more than enough for Melissa and I to enjoy showers, wash dishes, and do all the usual domestic chores that can make living aboard a sailboat seem almost normal.

The main reason I chose this particular water heater was that it could fit, just, beneath the sole of the aft cabin. Getting the water heater off a shelf in the engine room not only freed up space for storage there, it placed a fairly heavy container down low, where heavy things should be on a boat.  This allowed me to secure it in place; confident that it would stay there in the event of rough weather or, heaven forfend, a rollover. It also simplifies the design and use of the the engine’s cooling system with the heat exchanger since no external header tank for coolant is required.

 

DSCN3847

This area beneath the aft cabin sole made sense as the center of our water system. There was room to locate the water heater, water pump and a simple manifold for the hot and cold water. The PEX tubing and fittings have proven to be quite reliable and really easy to use and modify.

For almost two years we have enjoyed what would have been an unheard of luxury when we first started sailing. In fact we may have grown a little complacent about having hot water and I suspect that Galapagos, like most boats, can sense when her owners are taking her, and her stuff, for granted.

In hindsight I shouldn’t have been too surprised when one night, lying in my bunk, I heard the water pump come on for half a second. Three minutes later, the pump bumped on again. Checking the faucets on the boat yielded nothing. Finally, pulling up the sole in our aft cabin, I could see a small trickle of water. Just an innocent little trickle. It could be anything. A loose PEX fitting, probably. In two years of cruising with lots of bumpy weather, things are bound to jar loose. I would have this fixed in no time I thought.

Sadly, all the easy things were ruled out and I could now see that the water was coming from under the water heater. If I wanted to learn anything more or have any hope of fixing this leak I would have to remove the tank from my super snug location under the cabin sole. I began to question the wisdom of locating the water heater there and was dreading the process of disassembling the bracing and fittings.

But bitching and moaning wasn’t going to stop the leak. And if I didn’t stop the leak we would lose precious water and,  quelle horreur!, Melissa wouldn’t be able to have a hot shower. That was a future too smelly to contemplate for long. Onto my belly I slithered and an hour or so later, I had the tank out. It got a lot easier after I had reinstalled and removed the tank a few times as I tried and failed to understand where the water was actually coming from.

IMG 3575

The water tank removed and in the shop. In trying to locate the leak, I had thought something obvious might reveal itself without too much effort. I filled the tank with water and looked for air bubbles. No such luck.

 

DSCN3846

This is the heating element and the associated controls that I removed while trying to locate the leak. The electric heater element is mounted through a plate that has a rubber gasket that acts as a seal on the tank. In conferring with the manufacturer, the gasket was mentioned as a point of failure and replacement gaskets are sold on the IsoTemp site.

After disassembling the tank’s electrics and eliminating the rubber gasket, a failure point suggested by the manufacturer, I had nothing left but the stainless steel tank itself. As you can see in the photos, the SPA tanks are encased in a hard plastic case with a foam insulation. Since I really had nothing to lose, I carefully cut the outer plastic casing and started cutting away the foam insulation so that I could see the steel tank.

IMG 3587

Here you can see that I am well and truly committed to finding this leak. By removing a hard plastic band from the middle of the tank, I could remove the bottom half of the cover. I then had to cut away the foam insulation that covered the steel tank. At the bottom, you can see the pin hole leak.

But even with the steel exposed and the tank full of water, I couldn’t find the leak. No, the tank had to be under pressure. Fortunately I was able to pressurize the tank without having to put it back under the sole by using some spare PEX tubing, fittings and a hose bib in the engine room. Voila! the leak finally revealed itself. I had suspected that the weld had somehow failed but as the photos show, the pinhole leak is actually a little above the weld. It is troubling that the tank failed after almost exactly two years and we are wondering if another leak will develop at some point in the future.

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Finally!

In researching how best to repair the tank, a few of options were presented. Some people have had good luck with JB Weld and if we were far away from services, we would have taken the epoxy repair approach. Melissa has never seen a problem that couldn’t be solved with epoxy and was ready to go that route.

But since we were only a short dinghy ride and walk from several welders, I thought it might be a more durable repair to just have the pinhole spot welded. Walking down the streets of La Paz, carrying my leaky, disassembled water heater, I knew that I had arrived as a cruiser. I also felt a bit like a local; no self respecting Mexican would throw away a perfectly good water heater just because it had a leak. Everything can be repaired and made useful again.

A short walk from Marina de la Paz I approached the men at Taller de Soladura el Chicote (Chicote’s Welding shop) and pointed to my little leak. One of the men took my tank and soon a few other guys were gathered round including a very old man that did not do or say much but seemed to have some position of authority in the business. Was he the elder Chicote? One of the guys did a bit of grinding, selected a welding rod and took my tank over to the welding station. The welding machine ran for all of five seconds and my pinhole leak was no more. Total cost: 150 pesos. About 7.50 USD. The shop seemed pretty busy but I think my job was so small they just took care of it while I waited. It took all of ten minutes and I was schlepping my tank back down to the dinghy.

CHICOTE

The guys at Taller de Soladura el Chicote look over the tank. It was a quick, easy repair for them.

Once back on the boat, I filled the tank and put it under pressure again to see that the weld was holding. Huzzah! No leak.  I reassembled the plastic case as best I could and sprayed expanding foam inside to provide a bit of insulation and to give the bracing and mounting hardware something to work against. It was a glorious site seeing the tank installed and holding water pressure. Let’s hope we get many more hot showers out of this tank.

A phrase that seems to pop up in our conversations chez Galapagos is “In for a penny, in for a pound”. There were moments in this project that made me question how much further down the rabbit hole I really wanted to go. Many of our adventures keeping our boat in good repair seem to involve a decision to push on, despite the evidence that we are in over our heads. But one of the luxuries of this lifestyle is an abundance of time. Time to read, enjoy the beauty of the world around us and time to expend ridiculous efforts where normal people would have just pulled out a credit card and bought a new water heater.

Once again, Melissa and I have proven to be abnormal.  What’s the most ridiculous repair you’ve done on your boat?