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Jiggety Jig

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We’ll certainly be dancing a jig when these drives to Astoria are over. I almost named this post ‘New Lamps for Old’, but in that story, the old lamp holds a powerful genie. As far as we can tell, we might have an old boat, but there is no genie inside because so far we’ve been unsuccessful in using magic to make headway on all the projects. No, the only thing we’re trading so far is one problem for another, some big, some small, some easy, some hard, some cheap…no, that’s a lie. None of them are cheap. But we knew that going in, so whatever. We can’t really complain about that.

Still, there is progress. Our exhaust guy, Caleb, finished the new exhaust elbow and a fine piece of metal art it is. It fit perfectly and he even machined a brace for it. Take a look:

You can’t really see the brace, but it’s on the right toward the bottom of the insulation wrap. Simple, effective.

He installed the piece, Mike happily wrote him a check for his work, and then Mike completed the installation of the hoses and the insulation wrap. He used one roll of the wrap, and there is another in reserve if it’s necessary. The stuff does take up some space, though, so if we can get away with using only the one, we’ll be glad. No modification of the shelf or rearranging of the hoses for the hot water tank proved necessary. Two fewer small tasks to accomplish. We’ll take that. The good news is that this project is finished (knocking firmly on wood), ready for Shawn to come down to the boat and address the shaft/engine alignment once more. We are keeping fingers crossed that he can do that this week, as since he started on our job, Shawn has received a huge contract for on-going work for his business. He’s a very busy guy. We might be small potatoes to him, but we know he wants this off his plate.

The other good news is that it looks like our tweaking of the transmission cables is going to work out. We won’t know for certain until the prop is engaged, but it’s looking good. It would be terrific if we didn’t have to mess with that anymore. Let’s all knock on more wood, throw salt over our shoulders, and spit three times while spinning, okay? We may not have any genies, but who knows what other kinds of gods are watching?

The problem ‘de la semaine’, as it were, is the Airmar 744VL transducer that is supposed to be talking to our new Garmin 820XS chartplotter. Mike bought a special cable to connect the two so they would speak the same language. Yet it remains silent, which means we have no depth showing up on the GPS. Curses! Foiled again! Mike spent several hours tweaking and problem solving, to no avail. I am encouraging him to call Garmin and discuss this issue, as we are hoping their reputation for good customer service (which was one reason we chose to stick with that brand of chartplotter) will bear fruit. If any readers have knowledge of this problem, please do comment.

While Mike and Caleb played with their tools in the man cave, I began a very important task that has waited long enough. Cleaning the cockpit. With all the engine work, moving of stuff onto and off the boat, grit from being near a bridge, and the fact that winter is barely over, the cockpit was a pit of filth, not to mention the ubiquitous green algae that marks a boat from the Pacific Northwest. I got to work with scrub brushes and a mild bleach cleaner. Nothing kills algae like bleach. Of course, once I began cleaning, I had a hard time knowing where to stop, as the deck needs a scrub, too. Several hours later I could barely move, but by God my cockpit was lovely to behold. Remind me to buy a Costco bottle of aspirin for the boat. The rest of the deck awaits my attention.  I got out the bottom siders and the cushion covers, et voila. Gracious living, sailboat style. Stunts performed by Skipperdee. 

While I was cleaning, two new sailboats came in and docked at the guest moorage. And both of them had trouble docking because of the current. I looked up just as this guy hit the boat next to him in the slip.

A beautiful aluminum Frers design.

No harm done as the boat is aluminum, and the boat he nudged is steel with a lot of tires hanging like fenders on the side.  I ran down and he threw his stern line to me and soon he was snugged to the dock. He was single handing and I don’t know how he would have docked the thing in that current without help since he was almost sideways in the slip by the time I got to him. The other boat that came in was a Nauticat motor sailor and they looked like they had good control until they slowed down to make the turn into their slip. Then they started drifting quickly away from the dock. Mike and I ran to grab their lines as well.

All that’s to say that we cannot wait to get out of this marina. It has served its purpose and we’ve enjoyed the area, but we are ready to bring this boat home as soon as possible. Being right in the midst of that current is not my idea of where I want to be when trying to learn to dock this boat. I can see why there are so many steel boats in this marina, since apparently it’s not unusual for there to be games of bumper tag at the dock. But our boat isn’t made of steel, or even aluminum. And I don’t want to hurt it. We’re not even docked in a proper slip, because the piling fell over months ago and it still isn’t fixed.

When these things come to town, the marina parking lot and bathrooms are turned over to the tourists. It's quite a show.

When these things come to town, the marina parking lot and bathrooms are turned over to the tourists. It’s quite a show.

No, reasons to leave are stacking up. Between the three hour drive, the increasing traffic due to summer approaching, the lack of security, the closing of the marina parking lots to accommodate the cruise ships, the lack of a secure slip, and the constant wind and current, we’re pretty much done.  We’ll miss Astoria, but we’re ready to go. We’re ready to have this boat in our home waters, waters we know well after 10 years of sailing them. Home again, home again, jiggety jig.

Engine Exhaust(ing) Episode 254 and Counting

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In case you noticed, I skipped posting last week. File this one under ‘be careful what you wish for, especially if you put it in writing on the interwebs’. If you’ll recall, at the end of our last post, I said that we ‘seriously need a break from this 3 hour drive to Astoria every weekend’. I had in mind that we would get that break because Mike’s sister, Molly, was coming to visit and we would be spending a week showing her the finer points of the Pacific Northwest. The gods, however, had other plans for us.

Mike had a fever and chills by the time we left Astoria two weeks ago, and then on Tuesday of that week, the very day Molly landed at Sea Tac Airport, I came down with the fever and what we’ve come to term ‘the sleeping sickness’.  With this particular virus, from which we are both still recovering, sleeping for a good 12 hours per night seems to be the order of things. That and, in my case, maintaining a nice ‘fever on my head’. Just enough to keep my mind in a muddle and make me a really super hostess. So yeah, we got our break. And I was too busy sleeping to post to the blog. Thanks, gods of illness. We’ll be more careful with our invocations next time.

Babies have come to Astoria.

Babies have come to Astoria. We also have a sparrow nest on top of the radar reflector. Hope they fledge before we leave the dock.

Still, we did manage one trip down to Astoria last Monday to meet with our new exhaust man, Caleb Michalsky. Caleb understood the situation and we talked exhaust elbow heights and all that jazz. What really helped me sleep more soundly for those 12 hours per night, however, was that I was able to measure the exact height differential from the sole of the boat to the exhaust going out of the boat and Caleb was able to translate this measurement in the engine room  at the water line and use this calculation to design the new elbow. I felt better already, and so did Mike. If the boat were in Tacoma where we could just run down there and fit and refit things easily, we’d maybe have been more likely to take on this project ourselves. But as it is, with a three hour drive just to see if something fits, it just doesn’t make sense for us to try to do this ourselves. So we want Caleb to do it for us.

Caleb and Mike discuss the finer points of exhaust pipes.

This weekend he came down to the boat and showed us what he has so far and it all makes sense and looks like good work. He was able to use the flange part of the elbow we bought from Beta Marine so that the new piece fits exactly the way the factory piece fit. He should be able to complete this job fairly quickly and then we’ll get Shawn back down to get the engine back in alignment. It can’t happen fast enough for us. Not being satisfied with only one good mechanic, we now have two.

Checking the fit. There will be a few other minor adjustments of things like the hose to the water heater, etc.

You’ll remember that we were having a bit of trouble fitting the steering pedestal, with its new throttle and transmission cables and new levers, back together. This whole project has created an opportunity for serious contemplation of the meaning of life and what it must be like to be the great Creator of all. I mean, have you ever tried to finagle something this complicated, where each piece is machined with the precision of a southern marching band and one small detail overlooked simply destroys the entire design? It’s flipping ridiculous. We’ve put this thing together at least 12 times and it’s still not right. I need to be able to literally stand in the center of this whole thing and see how each piece interacts with each other piece, and how those pieces interact with all the pieces that surround them both inside and outside the pedestal. It’s taken us this many tries, we still have it wrong, and they tell me that the Creator made the heavens and earth and all His minions in SEVEN days? I think not, people. I seriously think not. Not without a crap ton of mistakes.

We were so close to victory we could smell it. We had the compass back in place, we had adjusted the cables to within millimeters of their lives, we had removed everything one more time because we realized that the stainless steel pedestal guard would not clear the hard dodger unless we installed it into the top plate BEFORE we screwed everything down again.

Curses. Foiled again.

We had rewired the electronics through the holes Mike had drilled. It all went together like a dream and our hearts began to beat in time with one another, the sweet taste of success just that close to our very lips. Then we played with the new shiny levers, so smooth, so perfect. So. Completely. Wrong.

That’s right. So wrong. Because when you put the beast into forward gear, the lever hits the pedestal guard. You can’t get the thing out of neutral. When you rev the engine on the other side, you can get the lever to go only a little better than halfway before it hits the binnacle. Curses all around, folks. Many, many curses.

Oopsey.

Oopsie

Mike went below to think about this. I stayed in the cockpit cursing Edson for making things that look like they will fit together, but don’t. Maybe the new top plates (remember the thing we saved 100$ by recycling) extend the pedestal guard out further from the pedestal. But then, of course, that would mean the pedestal guard we have wouldn’t fit, and we’d have to drill additional holes in the floor of the cockpit. Oy vey. Maybe, I think, we could have pieces welded onto the top plate that would push the guard forward a bit. We’d still have to drill new holes but that would be one solution. Or maybe it’s a simple fix by changing the cables somehow. Hope springs ever eternally.

At the end of the day, Mike read in the Edson manual under ‘troubleshooting’ (ya think?) that adjusting the cables could solve this problem. So we took the beast apart again and did all the adjusting we could possibly do. We are not at all sure that it’s enough, and we won’t know until the engine is ready to fire up again. Mike was thinking Edson would, perhaps, make extensions to bring the handles out a couple of inches. Nope. Nada.  (That would just make way too much sense, wouldn’t it?) Then he read that others have had this problem and they have put the things in a vice and taken the bend out of them. But you have to be careful not to break them. So that’s where we’re at. Not a total loss by any means, but not the sweet, sweet victory we had anticipated. That will teach us humility.

Two inches more would be terrific.

In other news, being sick and tired of paying a dog sitter, we took the Skippy dog with us this weekend and he rocked it! Getting him down into the boat is an issue, as he doesn’t care to be lifted. It scares him a bit looking down into the salon from the cockpit. But he has already discovered he can jump off the boat onto the dock (not necessarily a good thing but he’s such an anxious sort that we were heartened by this) and he has found his way around the deck and had some good cockpit sleeps already. Maybe he’ll turn into an okay boat dog on this bigger boat. He slept in our cabin on the floor and was really a good boy.

Finally feeling a little relaxed.

We are seriously looking forward to having S/V Nameless in Tacoma where we can be closer to her and learn her in the protected and well-known waters of Puget Sound. Yes, she remains nameless, although we think perhaps we’ll name her after our first Australian Shepherd. Still, I’m not completely satisfied with that. It feels a bit like a ‘default’ name. We’ve knocked around some names I like better but I guess there is no hurry. Except that I think she is waiting.

Here’s Skippy’s story in photos  because he has a very expressive face offering a number of decent photo ops and some good comic relief:

WWWHHHATTT is happening?

Mike does a little ‘splaining to Skippy about how this is going to work. He’s having none of it.

Nope. Not liking this yet.

Why? Why must he be tormented so?

The anxious Aussie.

Becoming braver. But no way can he climb that ladder.

Finally has it all figured out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flies in the Ointment

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We trundled down to Astoria again this weekend with big plans to accomplish ‘stuff’. Seems like we always have big plans. I think the problem is that in our heads, things are very simple. Just do this, then this, and then THAT will happen and voila! Finis! Probably it’s a good thing that we have the simple minds of children in this way. We’ve accomplished a lot in our lives by being either ignorant or innocent or both.

In theory we should have been able to pick up the special piece of exhaust pipe we are allegedly having made and we should have been able, then, to install said piece, after which our mechanic could come back and get the engine aligned again. In addition, lest you forget, we’d left the top plate the compass rests on soaking in Kroil Penetrating Oil all week, hoping to get it to let go its death grip on the stainless steel pedestal guard.

That’s how much movement we needed to get out of that metal piece.

When we walked down to the boat, we noticed a very cute little wooden sailboat in the first guest slip. Adorable! And there was a nice looking Hunter docked just across from us. Usually we are the only sailboat on our dock.  We got to visit with the owners of both boats, sitting in the cockpit of our S/V Nameless One. It was a first for us, and reminded us why we are going to like being aboard more often once we are further along with the refit. Our cockpit is big enough for visitors, and that hard dodger protects everyone from the rain. Lovely! I admit to being just a wee bit envious of Tom and Mary on their big 1990’s Hunter, though. They spent their time relaxing in their cockpit while we worked on our growing list of projects. Oh well, we chose our poison. So be it.

This boat can be stored inside because the mast is hinged. It’s a really sweet boat!

Our best laid plans began to unravel when we went below and noticed that the special piece of wire, the one the exhaust system artiste was supposed to pick up so there could be a custom piece machined, was still on the table. Okay. So the person never followed through this week, in spite of Mike’s two phone calls. I could have been irritated by that, but I chose instead to be relieved.

Yes, that is correct. I was very relieved. Why? Because I’m still not convinced that the piece is going to solve the problem.  I’m not convinced that the loop is actually high enough for our boat. I could just see us getting the piece made, and then having the same issue because it wasn’t tall enough. Talk about nightmares. An anonymous reader commented on our post when we first found out that it was the exhaust loop that looked to be the problem and we took his/her comment seriously. The comment echoed my own concern that if the problem was that the loop was too low, then the higher the better and we do have plenty of room in the engine room. Thanks, anonymous, for giving voice to my worry that we still didn’t have it right and why.

So I emailed the owners of a sister ship to ours, S/V Black Swan, on the east coast. I asked them to email me a photo of their exhaust loop and low and behold theirs is mighty tall. It goes almost all the way to the ceiling of the engine room.  I know they have a different engine than ours, but their boat is the same, the cooling water exits their boat the same place ours does,  and their exhaust loop is much higher than the one we were supposed to be getting (not to mention it’s about 5 times higher than the ‘tall’ loop we bought from Beta Marine).

I’ve learned over the years that even though I don’t know as much about boat systems as Mike does, when I have a gut feeling about things, I should speak up. Sometimes I am wrong and I just need more information to understand correctly. But sometimes I am right and it’s better to know this before something goes wrong than for me to be saying, ‘Damn! I should have said something.’ after the fact. I hate when that happens.  I’m pretty sure that I’m in good company with many women who sail with men who know more than they do about boats. It’s pretty easy for us to keep our mouths shut. In fact, it’s much easier that way sometimes. But we have to learn to speak up, even if our questions might sometimes feel foolish.

See the gray shelf with the water heater on it? The piece would come up to that shelf. But you can see that we have plenty of room for it to be even taller. Is it possible for it to be too tall?

So I was relieved that this piece of wire was still on the counter and Mike and I talked about my concerns. Turns out he wasn’t so sure about it either after reading the helpful comments and after seeing the photo of Black Swan’s set up. So we’re thinking we will get someone who specializes in exhaust systems to consult with us about this. We just want a fourth pair of eyeballs to look at this thing because we love this engine with all of our wallet and want it to be right. If they look at it and agree that the piece of wire represents a shape and size that should solve the problem, then groovy. But if not, we will be glad we had another opinion before spending the money on this custom part.

So I’m not sure if this is a good thing, (because I don’t really need anything else that can keep me up at night), but last night I had trouble falling asleep because I was going over that exhaust system in my head and asking myself why we needed to pay someone to make something that it sounded like we might be able to make ourselves. That, my friends, is a slippery slope I’m not sure I want to go down yet. When I mentioned it to Mike this morning turns out he was thinking the same thing. It’s probably good to think that way, but it’s also good to know when your money is better spent paying someone to make something for you because it’s what they do all the time. I’m pretty sure this is one of those times. But we shall see.

So Mike turned his attention to that piece of seized up metal. After a lot of this:

Using heat in his little manly workshop. 

A ton of this:

This makes an ungodly noise.

Then more fire until it was almost red hot, then dashing cold water on it, then more whanging, he finally got this:

Free at last.

That’s 100$ saved. I love it. Really, all other seized metal on this boat should be on notice. Mike WILL have his way with you. He will not give up. You WILL do as he says. He beat the transmission into submission, he wheedled the propeller into letting go, and he will beat the pants off of you, too, so you may as well put your hands up now.

He cleaned the piece up with the dremel, then I had the easy job of painting it to look new. He used Flitz to clean up the stainless steel guard and I was surprised as how well it looked. We’ll do a photo when everything is put back together.

By the time the metal gave up the ghost, Mike was looking pretty green around the gills and, feeling his forehead with my medically accurate mother’s hand, I noticed he had a fever. He was feeling pretty awful and took to his bunk early.

Today, he felt no better and, in addition, it was pouring cold rain and the occasional hail; not exactly the kind of weather a sick person needs to be working in. Or anyone, really.  Just say ‘no’ to working in hail.  We puttered around inside the boat doing nothing, then decided to call it a weekend and hit the road so he could get home and to bed. Sometimes you just have to listen to the body and give it what it wants.

We seriously need a break from this 3 hour drive to Astoria every weekend and this week we’ll get one. Mike’s sister is coming for a visit, Andrew is coming home for the weekend, and we are going to step away from the boat issues for a few days and catch our breath. We are more than ready to have this boat up in Foss Harbor Marina where we can work on her more often, and just hang out on her more often. But she has to be able to safely make the trip up the Washington Coast for that to happen. So onward to Astoria until this engine and transmission refit is finished.

Mike used this stuff to clean up the stainless steel pedestal guard and it worked really nicely.

Mike used this stuff to clean up the stainless steel pedestal guard and it worked really nicely.