December 20. 2010

It was a very wet and windy week at Hidden Harbor, but only one boat sank. And that was entirely the owner's fault. He'd disconnected the exhaust hoses from the holes in the transom that were virtually at the waterline and didn't plug them. (No seacocks on the thru-hulls apparently.) When the wind blew off the tarp covering the large open cockpit and the rain poured down, the pumps could no longer keep up and you can guess the rest. And even though he lived in one of the rental units on the property not more than 100 yards from his boat, he didn't bother to check on it during the storms.

Of course a week of rain had a lot of less-serious consequences. The river was pretty high for one thing. It also provided a very serious test of the watertight integrity of my hatches and ports.

While at home during the week of rain, I got the brass ship's clock running again, and once I knew it still worked, polished up and lacquered the brass case that had become blotched with tarnish. I also put another coat or two of varnish on the remaining extension leaf for the saloon table. I did a further test on the non-op old GPS unit and determined that it wasn't just the power cord: the unit did not power up. The verdict: terminal.

I spent the bulk of Saturday doing some regrettable, but necessary, household repairs and chores. I did manage to rub out the finish on the remaining table leaf so I could bring it to Circadian and finish off that project. I also cut some moulding to replace pieces of the trim missing from some of the head locker doors.

My mission at Hidden Harbor on Sunday included cleaning up the mess I had left the week before, installing the new oil pressure sender in the hope it would solve my instrumentation problem, mounting the remaining table leaf and assessing the effectiveness of all my previous efforts at staunching cabin and deck leaks.

I accomplished all aspects of the mission, but it was not all good news. The doghouse skylight still leaked...even worse if anything, and the teak hatches had minor slow leaks. But with all the water drenching everything, it was easier to diagnose. I believe that by tightening down the skylight bolts a couple of weeks back, the frame was forced into more of a curve to follow the contour of the doghouse roof, and as a consequence, the seal between the plexiglass and the frame was broken. As for the teak hatches, it became clear that although the original seal between the plexiglass and the teak frame looked intact, it was imperfect. I was also able to easily solve the mystery of how water was finding its way into the engine room from around the cockpit lockers. The short answer is truly stupid design and/or modifications. More details when I tackle the repair. The rebuilt forward hatch and new ports above the v-berth remained absolutely watertight.

The other good news was that the new oil pressure sender solved the instrumentation problem that had thrown me for a loop on December 3rd (despite the fact that I had been assured by the Beta expert that they seldom fail).

Unfortunately, the weird intermittent failure of the engine hour meter reappeared. It was working fine when I restarted the engine with the new sender to let it run for a while. When I rechecked 20 minutes later, the meter was still illuminated but the numbers had disappeared. It could be an internal component that fails when it warms up, or a marginal connection that fails from vibration. In any case, I think it will be cheaper and easier to wire in a new Hobbs meter than to try to solve that one.


My reward for all this slogging up hill was to to install the remaining table leaf and call that project done. As you can see from the photos, I still need to fill the screw holes on the mast post with bungs. During the week I put the final coat of varnish on the wood strip that will be the source for the bungs and just need to rub it out and cut the bungs so I can finish the post project.Next weekend I'll be in Des Moines with Carol's family for the holidays, but may have a few days before the new year to make a bit more progress.

Happy holidays all!