And On the Seventh Day…

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Even God took a break. So I guess we shouldn’t feel too awkward about taking one this weekend. Truly, Mike has trundled down to Astoria every weekend since Christmas to work on getting that new engine installed. It’s the better part of wisdom to take a break before burnout hits rather than waiting for the inevitable crash. This weekend Astoria is having winds of better than 40 knots, we’re waiting for the prop and the shaft to be delivered, and we’ve decided a weekend of hunkering down would not go amiss.

Still, I’ll bet even God, resting on His laurels as He observed all of creation, fidgeted Mightily on that seventh day. I wonder how must actual ‘resting’ He did? I’ll bet His mind was busy working on all the projects left undone. We know how He must have felt. Yesterday Mike came home with this in the back of the truck:

More work.

This is engine room insulation from Sound Down. It’s heavy, it’s expensive, and it’s beautiful. He was going to install it this weekend but somehow he didn’t get the wall fasteners he wanted to use. Because this stuff is so pricey, we want to do it right, including how it’s fastened to the wall. And it’s going to be a two person job, so I need to go down there, too.

I know you’ve all been wondering why I haven’t been going to Astoria, right? I know you lie awake at night perseverating on just how Melissa is getting out of making those long drives and why she doesn’t have to work in freezing temperatures. Two reasons. First, there is nothing I can do to move the engine process along. I mean, I can stand there and cheerlead, but I’m not very good at waving pompoms and my days of jumping high in the air are way over.  I could throw up, which I likely would have felt like doing when this happened:

Nauseated just looking at the photo.

Nope. No thanks. While I did begin to quietly shed a tear or two when Mike texted me the photo of the engine going into the boat, that little pity party was short lived. The fact is that things are going to go better if Mike doesn’t have to stop and explain things to me along the way during this process. This is called ‘trusting my husband to get it right’. It is also called denial. It’s just better if I don’t know some things.

But the real reason why I’ve been reprieved from duty is this:

Guilty of making mom stay home.

Our dog sitter, who is also our daughter, has gone to Scotland. We have a professional dog sitter, too, but she has been booked solid, and we’ve had little luck so far finding a new one. Dog sitters and diesel mechanics. They are both in high demand, I guess. We’ll work it out, but meanwhile, Skippy needs someone at home. He’s not allowed in the boat yard per their rules, and with the boat on the hard, it would be pretty hard to have him there anyway. So it’s been the path of least resistance for me to stay with him.

Ready to take Scotland and the world by storm!

So resting and relaxing it is! Although those 40 knot winds they predicted? They are here. At our house. Moving our big trees around and making things fly through the air. With wind like this, I feel safer on a boat. Better get this posted before we lose power.  [vsw id=”oE1zr88_YX4″ source=”youtube” width=”425″ height=”344″ autoplay=”no”]

 

 

 

The Beta has Landed

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The dirty little secret among sailors is that while all we talk about is sailing, what we all long for is an engine that can reliably get us into and out of marinas, anchorages and dicey situations. An engine helps us work our way around the crunchy bits of the watery world we want to explore.

Today we have that engine.

This is where having someone experienced in the art of lifting heavy objects comes in handy. Shawn had many tricks to make fitting the 49 inch tall engine and boom fit into the 39 inch tall opening under the dodger. He also sacrificed a shirt to keep the shiny red paint looking good.

The morning broke in Astoria clear, cold and with a wind blowing fierce out of the east. Shawn the diesel mechanic showed up with our engine for the second time in seven days but we were both determined to drop this puppy into Andromeda before the day was out.

The Port of Astoria has turned out to be a terrific place for the repower project. On a Sunday, the forklift had the key in the ignition and the boom was well built and ready for use.

The effort was not without its challenges. Shawn did the math and quickly concluded that the engine and boom height combined would not go between the top of the dodger and the cockpit coaming. His solution? Take off the oil pan and sump pickup. That gave us about eight additional inches of clearance, which was about a quarter of an inch more than we needed.

The Tricky Part

Our engine sans oil pan.

Once the engine was  under the dodger, we removed the cockpit sole and placed some blocking to allow us to set down the engine and set up our chain hoist.

An engine room with a view. The two by twelves above me were used to set the engine down while we got the chain hoist in place.

I love field engineering solutions to problems like this and it was great to work with a guy like Shawn who won’t be deterred by something trivial like no brakes on the forklift.

Once the engine was in the hole, Shawn re-installed the oil pan. That is a brand new, one ton chain hoist that Shawn is depending on.

The new rails required some modification. Shawn had to drill new holes to match the existing threaded inserts installed into the boat’s engine beds. Once that task was completed we were able to bolt down the new rails and lower the engine onto the rails.

Shawn tweaks the feet on the back of the engine. Until we get the new cutless bearing and prop shaft, this is all roughed in.

I think the engine is a little further back than either of us thought it would be, but the transmission dipstick and filler are pretty easy to access. The electrical control cable is just long enough to reach and connect to the engine without an extension and both the raw water and fuel lines are just a short jump from the starboard wall where the raw water strainer and fuel filters are located. There is also plenty of room in front of the engine to work tension belts or replace the raw water impeller. All in all we have great access to every part of the engine.

Shawn putting the finishing touches on the engine rail bolts. The old threads were pretty grungy and needed a little love from the impact driver.

We had Shawn’s tools packed and in his truck just as the sun was setting. He was happy to not be lugging a 600 pound engine up and down the Columbia river for another week. It had been a long day but finally, we have a new engine in Andromeda. We will disregard for a moment that it has no fuel, water, oil or battery. Those will come later.

It may seem trite to some that a big hunk of steel could be so important to the success of our cunning plan, but it is true. We are products of a culture that is in love with the power to just get up and go. Whether it is a 67 Mustang or 60 horse Beta, being able move under our own terms, on our own schedule, is important to us. Knowing that our new beta engine will be there for us around the crunchy bits will give us the false sense of security we need to really get in trouble.

Good bye to our Avian Allies

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This photo was taken in the middle of the day. There still wasn't enough light to get a good, sharp image.

This photo was taken early in our care taking careers.  You can count six chickens here.

A short post to say good bye to the remaining two chickens left in our care by our young nephew, Reid while he and his family spent a year in the wilds of Oregon. Faithful readers will recall that we were chicken sitting and can revisit our post here:Playing Farmville.

Cue ominous banjo music here

Our record for keeping our six charges safe is disappointing. We lost one chicken to the neighbor’s dog, one chicken just disappeared without a trace, and just recently we lost two to a marauding gang of raccoons. We really enjoyed having the chickens in many ways; they were beautiful, gave us yummy eggs and made the yard more amusing. Melissa will miss their help keeping the weed and bug populations down. And we will miss the way they clucked contentedly whenever we fed them scraps. On the other hand, we won’t miss the mess, the worry about their safety and the difficulty finding a qualified chicken sitter for our trips to Astoria.

Our last Australorp lays an egg before leaving

Have Chickens, Will Travel. Two chickens and all their appurtenances are neatly loaded into Darin and Amy’s truck.

After our sailing days are over we will have a place that can accommodate another small flock of chickens. Maybe some bantam breeds would be nice. Melissa and I love the beautiful colors and grace they bring to the property. We enjoy their little noises and antics as they weed the garden and worry the dog. Just a few chickens. No more than a dozen.