October 3, 2011

I just can't seem to get off the house prep treadmill.  Every time I think I'm done, it's something else.  I finished rebuilding the basement steps, but now I'm told that I might need to cut away some of the roof above them because of low clearance.  Of course if I do that, then the basement will get water in it because the rain water will flow right down the steps.  I might also need to do some plumbing for the hot water heater.  Pest inspection showed the house was basically fine, but the work that a contractor had done on the eaves wasn't done properly, so now I have to fix it.  FHA appraisal is tomorrow, so there may be more.  Sigh.

Between house work, I still managed to do a few things for the boat.  I coated the laminated curved transom for the dinghy with epoxy, which for some unknown reason did not seem to cure properly and left a sticky residue.  After removing the residue with acetone and sanding, I applied a coat of varnish to protect the epoxy from UV.  A couple of more coats and it will be ready for the dinghy.

Last week I took a series of measurements from the crossbar over the rudder shaft to the floor of the aft lazarette to develop a table of offsets so I could cut a sheet of plywood to use as a raised floor to keep stowed gear from fowling the rudder arm or the rudder angle transmitter for the autopilot.  Back in the shop, I reversed the process to transfer the measurements to the sheet of plywood and made the cut.  I brought the rough cut plywood to the boat to trial fit and mark the cutout for the exhaust hose.  Turned out I only needed to make one trim cut in addition to the hose cut for a perfect fit.  While admiring my work, I realized I also need to make a guard to protect the hydraulic hoses and the autopilot motor, belt and pump.  Sigh.

Back in the shop, I had also cut and varnished a piece of molding to hide the edge of the mahogony plywood from which I had made the new glass rack.  It fit perfectly and finished off the rack nicely.

Because the first rainstorm of the season was forecast for this week, I had to get to the boat to close up everything before the rain hit.  While there, I performed some tests on the autopilot that Wil Hamm had suggested in the extensive phone conversation that we had a few days earlier.  I found that while 13 volts was getting to the motor controller, only six or seven was getting to the motor.  That would certainly explain why the lock-to-lock time was twice what it should be!  I'll talk with Wil again to confirm that voltage drop indicates a fault in the motor controller and not just a wiring error on my part before sending it back for repair under warranty.

The next item I wanted to tackle was the attachment of the lifelines to the pulpit and stanchions.  The P.O.  had "secured" them with lashings covered with duct tape and after a couple of years the duct tape had dried into a mess and the line was brittle and untrustworthy.  There's a reason they're called "lifelines," and I certainly wouldn't trust my life to parachute cord and duct tape.  It took quite a while to cut away all the shrunken, dried line and petrified duct tape so I could properly secure the lines with shackles.  Because the lengths of some of the cables were a bit off, some ends required more than one shackle to bridge the gap.  With eight ends to deal with, I seriously depleted my stock of spare shackles.  At least there was no cash out of pocket.  Although the photo shows the end of the pin facing inward, that error was corrected and all the shackles have the pins moused with stainless wire and the protruding end facing outboard.

Next, I set up a second anchor on the foredeck.  Although its storage location may be modified a bit as things get tuned up, at least it is now fully connected and ready to deploy.  With anchoring gear as large and heavy as Circadian's, even when anchoring  bow and stern, I'll want to be able to raise and lower both anchors using the bow roller and windlass.  I still need to put tennis balls on the ends of the stock of the Danforth to protect the hull when raising and lowering it, and I want to try using a length of floating line from the crown to pull it aboard crown-up when raising it.

I had brought the tablecloths that Carol made last week for the folding deck table, and decided to see if they might work on the saloon table.  Luck was with me, and purely by chance they work fine.

By the time I had cleaned up my mess and buttoned up, it was getting late in the day. The clouds presaging the incoming storm had rolled in and it was time hit the road.