April 28, 2016

This was the week of the windlass and the wind. On Friday I drove a couple of hundred miles to bring the windlass from Ventura to Lighthouse Manufacturing in Riverside, stopping at Minney's Yacht Surplus on the way back to L.A. The traffic was horrendous most of the time, but the side trip to Minney's was worth it because I was able to find a pair of massive chainplates for securing the series drogue to the stern. And the price was a steal. Monday I reversed the trip, less the side trip to Orange County. I picked up the windlass with its new “gate,” new bearings, new seals as well as new paint and polish. $194. Also met and chatted with the 80-year-old owner of the company. In the process of remounting the windlass I noticed that the chain stripper had been rubbing against the gypsy, and it still was. While there was a little play available to adjust the stipper's position, it wasn't nearly enough. I ended up having to grind away quite a bit of material on the chainstripper. Unfortunately, it required a pretty tedious and time-consuming cycle of grinding and checking to get it right. The end result was good, though. The modification won't hurt its functionality and it's still plenty strong enough. It's also pretty much invisible, so it won't hurt aesthetics either.

On the weather front, (Did I really say that?!) two full gales hit the area this week. Trees were toppled, nesting herons killed, and boats and cars coated with sticky brown grit, inside and out. We even had to dig our canoes out of the sand and clean the sand out of them out before we could use them tonight. Yuck!

  

April 21, 2016

It was a very busy and productive week. The new solar panel and controller arrived and have been installed. My friend Bruce, who is a master mechanic, adjusted the valves on the diesel for me. He didn't want to charge me, but I paid him anyway.  (Sometimes he's just too generous for his own good.)  I also removed the windlass so I can bring it to the manufacturer in Riverside in order to fix the grease leak. My friend Gary sold my old, non-op outboard for me for $60, and I was able to successfully receive a weatherfax using the SSB and OpenCPN on my laptop  And yes, I'm tired! It didn't help that I had a couple of days of intestinal distress, either. And with multiple projects going, the boat is a mess! Enjoyed the beautiful weather though!  

April 14, 2016

It was a better week for me, but not for some fishermen who ran into the entrance jetty and lost their boat. At least no one lost their life. 

The mounting bracket assemblies for a new solar panel that will be mounted on the dinghy davits are almost done and I ran two-conductor marine wire from the davits, through the deck and into the engine room where the solar controller will be located. The spare motor/pump assembly for the WH Autopillot is back together and ready for stowing. (I found a replacement pully for it at Oxnard Equipment Surplus for less than half what it would have cost to get online.) I didn't get around to testing the SSB/computer weatherfax reception, although I did familiarize myself a bit with the software. The bad news: I will need to remove the grease-leaking windlass and bring it to the manufacturer in Riverside next Friday so they can examine it. If it's just a bad o-ring, they can probably fix it the same day. Wish me luck!

Photo:  Bruce Thompson

April 7, 2016

I spent a lot of time this week spinning my wheels, literally and figuratively. Unfortuneately, a couple of “little” projects turned out to prove once again that the only reliable way to estimate how long a boat project will take is to start with your best estimate and then double the number and go to the next longer unit of time. For example, these projects should have taken no more than an hour and a half each. Instead it was almost four days. All I wanted to do was repickle the watermaker and paint an old spare motor/hydraulic pump for the autopilot. Well, it seemed no sea water was flowing through the watermaker, so a full day of troubleshooting ensued. I finally got it working, but I'm not sure why. Most likely it was fine all along, but I failed to look carefully at the outflow initially. The water was stealthily running down the hull side instead of splashing into the water, which I didn't notice until AFTER all the troubleshooting. Sigh. At least each time I go through something like this it helps me to better understand the system and more easily diagnose future problems.  The other issue was the difficulty of disassembling an old autopilot motor/pump module for clean-up and painting. I eventually got that done too, but not before breaking one of the pulleys. Sigh. On top of all that, I happened to notice grease seeping out from the base of my expensive windlass. Had possibly the same problem five years ago. Had to remove it, pack it up (a BIG job) and send it off the maker. That time they fixed it free; I doubt I'll be so lucky this time. Sigh. When I wasn't wrestling with projects, I was futilely driving around trying to find the right cable to connect the computer to the SSB radio to get weatherfaxes. Had to order it online. It just arrived, so by next week I should know if I can successfully receive and display them. Hopefully it will be a better week, although it could be a rainy one!