May 21, 2013: Engine is warm, the thermosiphon from the hot water heater to the engine was active. This means that the coolant loop to the hot water heater does not have any air in it. Still no moisture on the front of the engine. Before shower the sump under the seat in the aft head was completely dry. After a careful shower there was perhaps a tablespoon of water (half a paper towel). Wiped up. Definitely appears to be comming from either the forward fittings going to the shower head or the hose itself leaks under just the right bend. At least it appears to be a readily fixable problem. Will continue to monitor.

May 20, 2013: Evening check of the engine, no moisture on the paper towels on the front of the engine. Looks like tightening up the hose clamps was sufficient for now to stop the leaks.Turned on the hot water heater to verify that the warming from the hot water heater was not the issue.

May 19, 2013: General in the slip maintenance, there was a asmall amount of antifreeze which has shown up between the generator and the main engine. A paper towel at each end of the rubber connection between the circulating pump and the header tank was found to be damp with antifreeze after several days.

One of the two hose clamps could be tightened a little over one turn, the other only about 1/4 turn. Warming up the engine to allow it to cool down under pressure and see if the seap shows up again.  Definitely one of the only remaining (perhaps the only) original hoses on the engine. I will plan to replace that hose in the fall if it seals up for now. Probably the easiest way to replace the hose is to pull the circulating pump. If it is off the engine, I might as well have it rebuilt.

General cleaning during the week found a bit of water under the forward bunk, port side, can be felt by pulling the drawer under the bunk and reaching over the central stringer. Most likely was the result of the slightly leaking hatch above the bunk and some really rough weather. Will continue to monitor.

Found water under the shower seat is in the aft head. I had taken a shower so it may be related, will continue to monitor.

Replaced the desecant bags all through the boat in lockers. These do seem to make a significant impact without having to run a dehumidifier all of the time.

Engine running with all of the covers off at fast idle to warm up. Engine sounds very good and very smooth. Transmission is very quiet in neutral, thus the noises when out of gear when I bought the boat were not normal contrary to what the engine surveyor (at time of purchase) suggested.

Not running the blowers with the covers off to be able to best hear the sounds of the engine.

Definitely a good look at the hose, the other end is on the circulating pump so the easiest way to replace the hose would be to pull the circulating pump.

Engine HRS: 998.4 (0.5 hrs)

Tightened up alternator belt (has been a bit loose for my taste for some time) needed a 10mm wrench to loosen the arm.

Note that the sticky substance on the fuel lines under the alternator appears to be coming off the bottom of the alternator (near the internal regulator). It might be related and could be an indication of alternator issues.

Ran engine for a few minutes, no apparent issues with either the tightened belt or the tightened hose clamps on the circulating pump hose. Engine is in lock out/tag out until I pull the paper towles off the critical points but otherwise ready to go.

May 6, 2013: Maintenance found about two papertowels of yellow antifreeze in well between main engine and generator. May be the overflow tank hose connection leaking, tightened up connection and inspected closed circuit cooling pump on engine and hoses on front of engine. All appear to be intact.

Definitely antifreeze on hose bundle which has coolant recovery tank and the hot water heater connection off the header tank. Could easily be either. Will monitor to be sure that the connection to the header tank was actually the issue and not the connection to the hot water heater..

Bilge water is tan clear colored. Had added bilge cleaner two weeks ago. May just be some of what the cleaner removed. Could also be part of the water which showed up by the shaft seal. Will empty bilge, flush with fresh water and monitor.

May 5, 2013: Leaving Avalon 1245 pm, heading for home.Motored for 10 min out of harbor and then was able to sail. Arrived back in King Harbor at 1830 (5.25 hr)

Note, sailed significant wing on wing as a test. below about 18 knts the polars are about 10 percent hot. above 22 knts they are about right. Otherwise the 120 to 160 polars look pretty good from 14 knts to 24 knts.

Updated polars to take off 10% of the ddw values for speeds below 18 knts of true wind to reflect what we saw running wing on wing. Perhaps a bit pessamistic but this is the first real data over an extended period trying DDW.

No water under shaft seal upon return home; Engine hr 997.9; Tx oil hr 3.3; gen hr 3184.9 (current oil hr is approx 13).

May 4, 2013: Departed 0900 Avalon, sailing at 7 knts just out of harbor on main and staysail., sailed 2/3 way to r10. Cleared r10 now hard on wind making 180M at 5 knts with tws of 16 knts will have to tack nearing island.

The winds mid channel are pretty significant: bs 6.13; awa 60; tws 19; aws 20; sog 5.8; cog 174; heading 176; set 17 drift 0.4. Working with the main and staysail only.

May 3, 2013: Trip to Avalon with the Grubers, Cameron & Emily. Everyone came aboard on Friday evening for a nice run to the island. Engine hr 994.6; Tx fluid 0hr; generator hr 3184.1 (intermittent generator hour meter) current oil hr is 12.

May 2, 2013: 5.2.2013 Forward head rebuild work underway. The painting is finished, was able to reroute the plumbing to have the sink drain working.

April 30, 2013: Second coat of white bilge cote applied at 1900 on Tuesday. Prior coat was very hard and sanded with a course scotch bright very nicely.

This coat, like the last, I worked the low spot to make sure that paint did not puddle in the corner next to the hull which is the low spot. I used a dry brush to very lightly brush out of the puddle area onto the flat, as long as 3 hours after painting at 50 degrees the paint appears to be flowing out nicely without significantly impacting the finished look.

Data from tank fill in Marina Del Ray (964.5hrs) just after going back into the water:

Note that the bottom of the marks on the dip tube was about 6" of fuel in the tank. There are marks every inch on the stick from there and they agreed well with the Hart Systems guage:

Gallons              2-3 inches remain on stick

Engine run is 30 hours since fill up (12 hr on generator).

Consumption is about 35 gallons, if assume 1/4- 1/2 gal/hr on gen that would be 3 -5 gallons for generator and about 30 gallons for engine or about 1gal/hr but at most 1.1 gal/hr.

April 28, 2013: The weather at breakfast looked so nice that Glen R and I decided to go for a day sail up to Malibu and back. It was a glorious day. We left the dock at 1130, were off Malibu at 1400, put some pizza in the oven for snacks on the way heading back toward Palos Verdes and was back in the slip at 1615. It took about half an hour to clean the boat up.  

Boat information: Engine hours 994.6; 0.75 hr on tx fluid; 28.6 hr on motor oil; no generator time; fuel at 18" at completion of trip

First coat of white bilge cote applied at 2345 on Sunday. Depending on temperature it needs to be overcoated in 2 to 3 days.

Used a course scotch bright to sand surface. Vacuumed with no chemical wipe prior to painting.

April 27, 2012: Ran engine for 15 minutes, took transmission sample, changed transmission oil. Unit fill to ring on dipstick with threads not engaged.

Replaced bilge pads, small dots of fluid on pad one where shift leaver comes out of the transmission, one where the tip of the shift leaver is when in the down position. Perhaps three drips of fluid in 5 hours of runtime. This is somewhat expected with the new/old stock transmission, luckily the output seals are not dry. Not worth the trouble to change, especially with the short run time on the transmission recommended by blackstone.

Total fill on the transmission is 28oz, (i.e. 4 oz left in the bottle. This is consistent with the manual stating that the transmission requires 7/8 quart of fluid.

Plan is to replace fluid about every 25 hours and sample as the transmission wears in and then work toward an extended period of time once the values are stable.

Forward head rebuild in process. Tried to re-gelcoat and surface contamination is a problem in this area also. In the future just go straight to interlux "pre-kote" and then a couple of coats of "bilge coat"

Was able to pull apart seat in head without damage, will re-work with fresh Formica.

Aft shower is back online.

April 22, 2013: Found dirty water in the aft shower under seat. Not clear where it came from, looks like there was some sludge on stringer which got wet and then ended up in the water. All cleaned up, will monitor.

Pulled toilet off base and verified no leaks. Need to add access panel to baseboard to ensure I can get in there to clean up water if cleaning fluid was spilled or the toilet leaked.

April 14, 2013: Heading home after the work party. Emerald Bay is beautiful as is often the case this time of year.

Pre-Sail check: 18.5 inches fuel; 989.9 hrs engine; 3183.9 hrs on generator (no run for the weekend); Engine oil level looks good. Transmission fluid good (note two drops on pad, one for arm, one for piviot). Coolant is good in the engine, needs a cup added to the recovery tank; Batteries are down -88ah on main bank, bank is 440ah or about 20% down.

1250 Main engine up and sounds good. Good water flow.

1255 Time to depart Emerald Bay pulled away from the mooring. Motoring due to lack of wind

bs 6.9 hd 14 sog 7.7 cog 12 set 355 drift 0.79

near R10 Bouy

bs 7.1 hd 14 sog 7.6 cog 13 set 30 drift 0.55

1530 cleared R10 bouy

bs 6.9 hd 20 sog 7.8 cog 22 set 12 drift 1.02

bs 6.9 hd 23 sog 8.0 cog 35 set 66 drift 0.99

Back in slip 1615hrs

dingy and anchor off 1630 hrs

Engine 993.5 hrs (27.5 hrs on oil); Generator 3183.9 (intermittent) (11.5 real hours this oil change); transmission 27.5 hours on tx fluid

Coolant in recovery tank on main engine was slightly low. The recovery tank was empty when I checked it cold, pulled cap and it was full. Added 2 cups of 50/50 antifreeze to the recovery tank. Hopefully will not be too full when hot. System probably burped some air from the running over the weekend. No signs of any leaks.

Usual minor amount of moisture under the shaft seal. Wiped dry, did not dampen a paper towel significantly.

Normal couple of drops of transmission fluid on pad under engine. One for the shifter shaft, the other for the tip of the shift leaver which is pointed downward when in gear. This is probably a couple of drops in a 3 hour run. Probably the concern of these transmissions when they sit on the shelf too long and the seals dry out. No apparent input or output seal issues.

Will order sample kits and it is about time to sample the transmission again and change the oil (it is over 25 hours). Due to the just right sized transmission, changing the transmission fluid (less than a quart) twice as often as the engine probably makes sense until blackstone labs says otherwise.

Fridge and freezer held over from 6pm friday night to sunday 5pm and frost on all three plates still fully frozen. No fridge run over the weekend.

Back at the dock at -66ah. The alternator on the main engine can keep up with the current demands and still put some back in but it is not significant. Once the new inverters and hardware are installed I will have to look at what can be done to install a larger alternator.

April 13, 2013: Work party in the cove. No run of engine or generator.

April 12, 2013: Heading over to Emerald Bay for the first Corsair Yacht Club work party of the season.  Not much wind, motor sailed the entire passage.

Pre-Sail Check: Engine hr 986.3, engine oil good, transmission oil good.; fuel load 19.0 inches

Departed slip 1825hrs

April 11, 2013: Preventative maintenance
PM - running engine 1 hr in gear to verify that the cooling system is in good shape after the rework of early in the week.
Start at 985.3 hrs (0.3 hr on Monday to show no leaks and be sure fill is good). After warming up the engine ran loaded in gear. Cycled open hot water heater circuit for 10 minutes to clear old antifreeze out of that loop and ensure that the valves still work.

April 8, 2013: Took end plate to S&W Diesel in Wilmington CA. Purchased two complete heat exchanger gasket sets, one set for putting back together the current rework and one set for spares aboard. One set of gaskets is about $30.

Perkins Part Numbers:

Note: The line drawing in the manual appears to have the seals reversed with the O-Ring near the oil cooler and the other two at the far end plate near the exhaust mixer. Unfortunately this cannot be the case as the cross piece keeps the inlet and outlet water seperate as it is a back and forth stack set. I will have to take pictures next time I have it apart.

Due to finishing up at work early, I drove back down to S&W to pick up the drilled part. Don was still working on it and invited me to look around the shop. They had a 4.108 on the dyno out back being load tested. Don was able to drill out the old plug and get a tap to chase down the original threads getting this piece as good as new. After a trip through the media blaster it looked like new! The old plug looked like it was a solid plug rather than with treads for a zinc pencil. The old part might have been a brass plug rather than bronze but at any rate suffered de-zincafication with the orange/red color prominant at the failure point. Don recommended replacing with a Zinc Pencil. Others have suggested putting back in a new bronze plug. I will research but I have a zinc pencil in there at the moment:

West Marine: 3/8 x 1 3/4. WM 332155 ($2.84)

April 6, 2013: Using the above swing data I built a spreadsheet which calculates the average correction for the autopilot, main compass and speed correction factor.

The autopilot needed to be 14.65 degrees larger value (so 238 degrees becomes 253 degrees).

The main compass will need to have a larger value by about 11.6 degrees which results in all but one of the adjustments being within 4 degrees with the exception of the one measurement of 7, that was repeated and found to be -1.  This will require physically moving the compass to match the autopilot.

It appears that matching the compass / autopilot on an autopilot course of 0, 11, 38, 187, 338 should be close. Then we can repeat.

I did adjust the autopilot in the slip tied up from 237/238 to 252/253 degrees (i.e. add 14) the system reported that the current swung compass has a maximum deviation of 7 degrees.

Other values in the autopilot configuration:

April 4, 2012: In the evening helped Lance Webb to get the steering shaft out of the CDi system on Princess Sierra sent shaft to Edson for addition of the stub shaft for a gear drive to connect to.

April 2, 2013: Installed Logitech K400 wireless keyboard onto the Lenovo q150 pc to make typing easier when writing log entries and other things which require extensive typing.

This keyboard has significantly more range, it works well in the saloon and forward part of the boat all the way into the forward cabin. The galley is good. The aft cabin is a bit spotty.

Note that the shift key and the up arrow are close together which results in some confusion. That will take a bit of getting used to. However, for what I want it should work quite well. The othe keyboard still works at the same time so I can  pick up either one.

April 1, 2013: Pickled watermaker 0.5 hr of runtime, total runtime on watermaker since new: hr 344.3

March 31, 2013: Easter Bunny at Isthmus

Getting ready to head back ro Redondo Beach. I had left the navigation system and AIS up and running all weekend to see how stable it was. At about 4am AIS stopped reporting on raytech. Powered down VHF radio which provides passive AIS reports... no change  only reports are from 4am. Cycled raytech software and then powered up radio (AIS source)-AIS reports are now fine fine.

Setting waypoint with Raytech software won't hold recycled raytech  software which cleared the issue.

Pre-Sail Checks: engine oil, gen oil, tran oil, antifreeze good. Engine hours: 990.7; Generator hours 3183.9

Had to power cycle rc320 all good.

1155 Startup Engine; oil 50psi

1200 Departed Isthmus heading back to King Harbor, Redondo Beach
bs5.1 sog5.7 cog 12 hd 357

Just beyond isthmus approach

main battery bank charging: -124 charging at 13a when first started charging saw 20a maximum.

Flying main and jib making 86 percent of polar performance, which is the consistent 15-20% loss for not having the staysail up.

1450 Heading back toward home

By 1730 everthing is put away except washing the boat.

Note: during cleanup found 0.25 inch steel ball bearing on port aft deck under outboard. not clear where it came from perhaps not even this boat (wishful thinking), [Later found out that this was from a fellow boater's sling shot, not part of the boat!]

Carefully cleaned engine and giving a good once over. Found slight transmission fluid leak from shift rod. a couple of drops on paper towel. A dark smuge under bell housing. may be valve cover gasket seap. cleaned up side of engine and bottom. too dark to be straight motor oil.

Evening ran gen 0.5 hr

March 29, 2013: Getting ready to head over to Catalina for Easter with the Corsair Yacht Club.

Filled water tanks 20 inches separated tanks

The Raytech system needed one recycle on startup which is it's normal behavior with my odd seatalk bus.

Engine oil at full and golden; gen oil full and black

cleared harbor 1229

1310 Past R10 Bouy off of Palos Verdes

         bs 6.8 sog 7.6 hd 158 cog 172

1345 Mid channel:

near catalina motoring

1550 Arrive Isthmus Approach

Down on C15 Cherry Cove of Isthmus Harbor. A new Oyster 625 on B20 of Isthmus (Bandito).

March 24, 2013: Finished watermaker installation. In addition I made up membrane storage containers using 2" PVC pipe. On one end I welded a cap, on the other end a threaded fitting with a plug in that. Filling these containers with membrane biocide will help try to keep the spare membranes (which were part of a PUR 80 membrane stack which came with the boat but no drive motor). There are two membranes in that filter which are compatable with the PUR 40e. I have not tested them but in an emergency they might work for a period of time.

I did run the watermaker for two hours looking for leaks in the system.

It would be nice to find a replacement for the automatic valve to dump product water which has too much salt automatically over the side instead of going into the tank. Not absolutely necessary but nice to do at some point in time.

March 23, 2013: Day sail with Grubers. 

Pre-Sail Check: Motor oil and Transmission oil good; 976.0 engine hours; fuel load 20.5 inches.

1400 depart

1630 off malibu

1830 back in slip

976.9 hr on engine or about an hour for this trip.

March 3, 2012: Heading home from Cherry Cove

1030 One hour generator operation to charge batteries and pull down down the refrigerator. Generator hours now 3182.5 hrs.; Generator oil change was 3184.3 hours; looks like generator hour meter is intermittent and some digits are not always turning over; will replace hour meter. This intermittent behavior may explain higher than expected oil analysis numbers (not more than desired for an oil change just not consistent with the lower hours on the last oil change).

Total generator hours on this oil change approx 8 hours based upon hand logging of the hours.

1100 prep to head home. fuel 21.0 inches. oil good tx oil added 0.25 cup oil. looks like pink may be seaping braided fuel line between lif pump and secondary filter on engine

1115 Off mooring

Looks like need to add 13 degrees to compass

1200 The wind came up to 12 knts true, sailing! Making 95% polar with just main and jib up.

1230 staysail out speed up 10%: bs 6.3 sog 6.5

1400 Wind died so much for small craft warnings motoring 10 min to R10 then in

1455 in slip

Pre-Sail Check: 968.4 engine hours at startup; 3182.4 hrs on generator; fuel 21.5 inches

0920 Depart for Cherry Cove

No wind; calm seas; motoring at 7 knts

Engine temp 165F, Oil Pressure 44psi

New ultrasonic knotmeter does not work wih second display hooked up directly to sensor. This did work with the older paddle wheel which I was doing just to determine if one of the displays was intermittent rather than the paddle wheel. Disconnnected second display and knotmeter works fine with the CS4500 knotmeter from Airmar!

Dripless stuffing box throwing a bit of carbon dust as it is wearing in. This is expected.

It is amazing how much the vibration levels are down with the straightend shaft, proper taper on the propeller  matched to the  shaft taper, and new cutless bearings.

Engine Room Check: Tinge of red on absorbant pads. Checked level of transmission fluid. Looks good. must have been in bilge when I put the pads down. Replaced pads. Wiped down transmission. Continue on. Checking bilge pads periodically. Note: Must shut down engine to check transmission oil level. There is a note online that there are rotating gears near the dipstick which hit the dipstick when it is not screwed down.

1200 engine room clean

1215 engine room clean

Checking calibration factor for speed. is 1.09 with new sensor assume more like default. now set to 1.00. speed+trip for 2 seconds. then cal displayed. press speed. use timer-reset to adjust. then speed+trip for 2 seconds.

1245 Engine Room Check: Looks like drip of ATF on end of transmission shift leaver. Wiped off one dot onto the paper towel.

speed 6.45 sog 6.2

1315 Engine Room Check: No drip on transmission shift leaver.

November 29 - Dec 8, 2012: On the hard at Windward Marine in Marina Del Rey. Time for bottom paint, rebuilding the Blake seacocks, install new dripless stuffing box, replace both cutless bearings, replace knotmeter with new ultrasonic version, replace studs for zinc plate, rebuild maxprop, survey, remove - inspect - and reinstall shaft, and general inspection.

Note: Allen setscrews in strut use a 5/32 allen wrench. There are two of them.

November 21 - 25, 2012: Thanksgiving at Catalina. Several Corsair Yacht Club boats have decided to spend a wonderful long weekend at Catalina. We all had a wonderful meal at the Harbor Reef of traditional Thanksgiving turkey! Weather is absolutely spectacular.

November 3 - 21: Winter maintenance has begun in earnest. Recovering the watermaker from "Little Botany Bay" was especially interesting in that it had not been "re-biocided" in about 8 years and so recovery was not obvious. Luckly one treatment with the alki solution and the performance is 95% of original flow rate. Interesting that the unit will have to  be run on a 24V to 12V converter. Tom and I replaced all of the seals in the pump on his kitchen counter.

October xx, 2012: New deck lights from MarineBeam.com. It turns out that  that these fit in the original spreader fixture without modification. In addition the foredeck spotlight is also the same size. The spreader lights could not quite be retained with the original large c-clips but then again, neither could new GE glass bulbs. It might have been a bit of excess paint keeping them from seating completely. The choice is either to drill through the outside of the housing to put in a couple of screws into the heatsink for the LED. The other was to use clear RTV which is how the rigger had re-installed the glass bulbs after rebuilding the mast. I opted for using the RTV to hold them in place. Note that these builbs are a bit heavy due to the heatsink (probably just under a pound), falling on the windows with these black anodized aluminum beauties would have unfortunate consequences. I made sure that the ring terminals for the power were heat shrinked to the wire to provide a safety backup if the RTV was to fail. These bulbs are good for 100,000 hours so I am not too worried about replacement. I did apply RTV over the terminals on the back to make sure I don't get a corrosion problem later. I used two of the 13W 30 degree beams for the spreaders and one of the 13W 60 degree beam bulbs for the foredeck. The result is very nice. With the equivilent of 300W of bulbs the decks are very bright. These are also dimmable and I will be adding a dimmer on the spreaders and a seperate dinner on the foredeck.

The bulb type: SL-PAR-13: 13W, 7-LED, 30° or 60° beam angle, 900 Lumens (100W equivalent)

October xx, 2012: Annapolis Boat Show!!!

October xx - xx, 2012: Bucceneers Day at Isthmus

September xx - xx, 2012: Commodore's Cruise

September 9, 2012: Docking practice in the morning as it was very calm. About an hour and a half getting away from the dock and back.

September 8, 2012: Watered batteries (on gallon of distilled water across 8 golf cart batteries). All plates were fully submerged and everything in the battery compartment looks good.

September 1-3, 2012: Labor day cruise to Emerald Bay. Corsair YC had a great dinner with some really great Chopino! Sailed over early Saturday morning and returned mid afternoon on Monday. Five people aboard for the trip. (Chris & Diane, Cameron, Emily) Afternoon tea on Sunday had almost 45 people aboard!

August 25, 2012: Trimmed the edged of the six remaining boards (a blade pulled down the edges to take off any runs and edge build up). The boards look wonderful, the full strength coat and warmer weather has resulted in a beautiful semigloss which is very impressive. Only a couple of minor imperfections in the boards for the walkway forward in the final coat. I will be starting a once every 12 to 24 month sand one coat off and apply one more coat of varnish to all of the boards to deal with dings and scratches from the sailing season so these will get worked over either this winter or next. First I need to complete the bunk cabin, master cabin, forward gangway, and two head bulkheads. I expect those will be finished up this winter. Almost time to start pulling together the project list for the winter which will hopefully be somewhat shorter than before.

August 19, 2012: Up the rig this morning. There is definitely power at the forward deck light so the bulb has burned out. Tried to removed the spreader lights but they are silicon'ed into place so they will have to be broken out. May try a strong suction cup and see if that helps, I removed all of the silicone I could get out. Time for LEDs

August 18, 2012: All six boards got looked over very carefully and this coat looks pretty good. There are some imperfections but this is a full strength coat. I am probably better off letting it sit for some time and then come back for a final coat or two like the rest of the floorboards.

August 17, 2012: All six boards got a coat of rubbed effect varnish at full strength after sanding with 320 sandpaper. This is the third coat out of a total of 7. Depending on how the coat turns out it might be the last coat. The previous coat was probably good enough but with only two coats of rubbed effect varnish I wanted to make sure I had enough thickness. 

August 13, 2012: Working on the forward holding tank. This is the only tank which the tank tender does not seem to do correctly. Upon inspection it turns out that the tube inside the tank used for measurement was too long and touching the bottom of the tank, I took about an inch and a half off the bottom of the tube to ensure that when the tank is empty the bottom of the tube is clear which will help it to stay clear. This required re-measuring the tank heights to know when it was full vs the number of flushes ("saver" flushes) which is summarized below:

flushes     guage
00           00"
05           00"
10           01"
15           02"
20           03"
25           04"
30           05"
35           06"
40           08"
45           09"
50           09.75"
55           10.5"
60           11.5"

This leaves about 1" of air gap at the top of the tank. In a harbor this would be fine, when at sea anything over 10" would probably be a bad idea.

Then checking the rate at which one of the forward pumps (the one with the vented loop which is the primary) can empty the tank. The result is as follows:

Pump Time       Height
0 Minutes         11.5"
1 Minutes           8.5"
2 Minutes           6.0"
3 Minutes           2.5"
4 Minutes           0.0"

This is definitely consistent with a 6 gallons/min pump and a 25 gallon holding tank.

August 11-12, 2012: A beautiful weekend at Catalina for the last weekend of Cruise Week with the Corsair YC. I had planned to be at the island all week but unfortunately work got in the way. The low desert was in the 104F range which had Emerald Bay just perfect at about 76! The water was up to 71F at the surface. Left the dock at 5:15am and was at the entrance to Emerald Bay at 8:30. Interestingly had some difficulty with the stuffing box which had seemed nicely adjusted the last trip and was running quite hot. Had to cool it down and re-adjust. The return trip leaving at 3pm on Sunday with 26knts of wind on deck at 60 degrees apparent, sailing with full main and staysail resulted in 8.1 knts of boat speed! Had to loosen the backstay to avoid pulling on the mast head too hard with no headsail. The running backstay was set to the forward location and significant tension, probably should have moved the attachment to the furthest back location to provide more mast stability and perhaps run with the mainsail reefed to the second spreader. Overall the boat performed very well. I did quite a bit of work adjusting polars from 16knts true down to 8 knts true in the 90 true to 140 true region as the wind shifted around. The 8knt and below polars are still suspect with the wind aft of the beam as those can result in an uncomfortable ride if there is much sea-state. I will plan to upload the current polars soon.

August 9, 2012: PM: All six boards sanded with 320 and then with a 3M fine sanding sponge. Applied a full strength coat of rubbed effect varnish (1/2 quart), total time was right at 3 hours. This is the 6th coat out of 8 or 9 coats. At least two more coats and probably three. I would only stop at 8 coats if it was a perfect coat. It will be interesting to see if the fine sanding sponge is fine enough. I shifted to 320 for this coat, the previous coat was sanded with 220 grit sandpaper and then the 3M fine sanding sponge. I could just barely tell in the coat that the scratches from the 220 were showing through. So, something like 12 - 18 hours left to go on getting a complete pass on the floors.

August 8, 2012: PM: All six boards sanded with 220 and then with a 3M fine sanding sponge. This coat came out very nice with a nearly completely flat surface. Wiped down the boards with Epifanes brushing thinner and then varnished with the remainder (half a can) of the rubbed effect varnish from the last set. I am not sure if it had been thinned a bit but it did not need any thinning before being applied. Looks like a really nice coat. (2.5 hours total). Talked with Portland Mattress, they have the templates for the topper and understand what I did and received the pictures of the making of the templates. Should have the 2.5" latex topper in two to three weeks. Talked about having a custom 6 pole 63A switch made, turns out that the cost is roughly linear with the number of poles with a list price of something like $110 per pole depending on how many positions. The current thought is to have a six pole switch going into the isolation transformer which would allow using 240V @ 50A 60hz, 230V @ 50A 50hz, 208V @ 50A 60hz, 120V @ 100A 60hz, 104V @ 100A 60hz. (the 230V and 240V are actually the same position, it is close enough). Now I am looking for GFCI circuit breakers for the 50A 240 inlet and 50A 120 inlet which I did find from Carrington. I need to find out what the price is. The 50A isolation transformer would be about $1600, I suspect the circuit breakers will be $50/pole and perhaps $100/GFCI shunt trip. So $400 in breakers. So, installed probably about $3000 to go down this path. 

August 6, 2012: Early AM: All six boards now have 4 coats of gloss varnish. This coat went on full strength and used up almost all of the remaining 7/8 of a quart of varnish. Still some indication of the surface not being completely smooth but getting close. This might be the last coat before going to rubbed effect varnish or it might take one more coat of gloss. I won't be able to get back to varnish until Tuesday evening at the earliest. So at this point one more coat of gloss and perhaps 5 coats of rubbed effect varnish yet to go. (1.5 hours)

August 5, 2012: PM: All six boards are sanded out (1.5 hours), too late to varnish, will get up early in the morning and get a coat on. Probably lets them cure a bit with the surface open anyway which may help in them get more solid before the next coat. Planning on going dancing tomorrow night so would not get a coat on tomorrow night anyway. Bought 30 sanding sponges, 4 quarts of varnish, paint strainers, a gallon of mineral spirits. ($200). AM: All six boards look like they are curing well. This was the third coat, not quite flat yet, will take at least one and perhaps two coats of gloss varnish to get a good base for the rubbed effect varnish. No wrinkling of the surface at this point, not having to use thinner due to it being warmer appears to help the drying also. Planning to pick up some additional 3M fine sanding sponges and a couple of coats of gloss varnish at west marine this morning and then sand/varnish again this evening.

August 4, 2012: PM: Sanded all six boards  (2 hours), they are looking pretty good. All of the varnish from last night cured well. Applied 3rd coat of gloss varnish (full strength), consumed about 3/4 of a quart (1.5 hours). Looks very nice. Planning on a 4th coat and I am down to 1/2 quart of gloss varnish so back to West Marine for a couple more cans! It is likely that 4 coats may get us to a smooth surface but it might take 5.

AM: Boards all look very good. A couple of minor wrinkles at the edges of a couple of pieces (sometimes the varnish is too think on the very edge and is not completely smooth but out in the middle if it is too think it can be difficult to fix). This was using multiple partial cans of gloss varnish which was just a bit on the thick side. Tonight I will start with a fresh can of varnish. The template for the aft bunk topper went in the mail today. 

August 3, 2012: PM: Sanded all six remaining boards after their first coat (2 hours) with 220 grit sandpaper followed by a "fine" 3M sanding sponge. I then wipe down the surface with a dry paper towel followed by a paper towel lightly dampened with Epifanes thinner (while an expensive option it definitely won't react badly with the varnish) followed by a wipe down with a dry paper towel. It took about 1.5 hours to apply a coat of unthinned varnish. So about 3.5 hours to get a coat on 6 floorboards or about half an hour per board/coat which is about normal. So at this point there are two coats of gloss varnish on the forward floorboard set.

August 2, 2012: Scraped down the surface of the last two floorboards and then sanded with 220 sandpaper. Some areas required 150 grit to feather some edges. Applied one coat of 15% thinned gloss varnish to these two boards. The single board from the bunk cabin is a rather large one, about twice the area of the other boards I am working on. Most of these boards are somewhat smaller than average, a little over a half a quart of varnish applied one thinned coat to all six boards over the last few days. The bunk cabin board looks like it may have some fisheye problems at one end which will take some additional effort to work through. The rest of the boards look very good after the first coat.

July 31, 2012: Scraped down the surface of two more of the floorboards this evening and then sanded with 220 sandpaper. Applied one coat of 15% thinned gloss varnish to all four boards (thinned to ensure that varnish gets down into the scratches and dings). This leaves the two largest boards (one of the forward cabin and the huge on in the bunk cabin) to get started. Once this set of six floorboards are finished I will be finished with the floors. Scraping and sanding took 2 hours, varnish took an hour for a total of 3 hours. 

July 30, 2012: Scraped down the surface of two of the floorboards this morning. I use single edged razor blades to scrape off the top coats of old varnish. It is interesting that the color of the scrapings changes once I get down to good, clean varnish. The surface varnish is almost grey, the lower levels are a very light cream to white. I hold the razor blade nearly vertical and pull it across the surface to the edge is getting drug across the surface (not pushed into the surface) and this takes the surface down to a nice very smooth finish very rapidly with far more control than sandpaper where it is difficult to determine how far you have gone. The brush strokes in the varnish become wider and the low spots become narrower giving a nice indication of how far I can continue to go. Approximate time is 1 hour per floorboard to get to a surface ready for cleaning and sanding.

July 29, 2012: Tom and I finished making the templates for the aft bunk latex topper. I will send the templates out this week. We also installed the "Builders Plates" on either side of the cockpit just aft of the salon portlights on either side. They do look very nice. Pulled the last six floorboards needing varnish and retrieved the two large binns which constitute the "Varnish Kit". I only have two quarts of gloss varnish left so I will need to get at least an additional quart. I have been running about 1/8th of a quart per coat per floorboard. Three coats of gloss varnish (the minimum) will be 2.25 quarts (6*3*1/8 = 18 / 8 = 2 1/4). However, I expect it will be closer to 4 coats of gloss on average before I get a clean surface which would be 24 / 8 = 3.

July 26, 2012: Started working on the salt water input for the aft toilet again. Completed putting the locker above where the washer / dryer goes back together and cleaning up. Cleaned out lockers in the aft head. Generally things are coming together nicely!

July 24, 2012: Cleaned the interior floors and succeeded in significant cleaning down below. Cleaned toilets and finished defrosting the fridge, cleaned fridge and freezer. Looks like it pumped down nicely. With both fridge and freezer running after 4 hours they were still pulling down even though at the lowest settings. Interesting. Had to defrost freezer because it appeared to have an ice blockage (at least the best guess) in the expansion valve or the line. This sometimes happens (once a year or so) and if I warm the system up and then restart everything is fine. Happens much more often if the setpoint is below 0F for the freezer holding plates. This time I think it was the result of adding dry ice to the freezer to keep some ice cream really frozen. In this case the compressor sounded a bit odd and so I shut down the system, let it warm up to room temp (took 3 days!) and then pumped back down again.

July 21-22, 2012: Corsair YC New Fish cruise! The first really nice weekend of summer. We sailed over first thing Saturday morning leaving at 5:10am and arriving Emerald Bay at 8:27am! We sailed about half of the way over with 8-9 knts of true wind giving 7.2 - 7.8 knts of boat speed for a very nice ride. I talked with the owners of "Max Grodie" which is a beautiful 1985 vintage Tyanna 55 which they have sailed over much of the pacific. A nice evening of card playing after leaving the cove was enjoyed aboard with five people playing.
Return trip on Sunday left Emerald Bay 1130am and was back in the slip about 4pm after sailing most of the way in light to moderate winds. I did update the polars in the computer for the performance prediction because the seas were very flat and the winds were pretty constant over long periods of time.
Engine Hours: 930
Generator Hours:

July 18, 2012: Took a first cut at building a template for the topper for the aft bunk. It looks pretty good. need to make a final template for the actual matress top, have one for the matress top which matches the cut ins necessary at the top of the bunk.

July 15, 2012: Tom and I took on 50 gallons of diesel fuel from the local fuel dock in King Harbor at a cost of $238 or about $4.78/gallon. I think San Pedro is currently $3.20/gallon for the 600 gallon rate so this is quite a premium to save the three hours each way. The tank tender has been rebuilt and so the levels in the tank vs. remaining fuel need to be looked at, filling gives:
3.5" - start of fill the dipstick shows about 7" total with the hash marks stopping at about 3 inches down and change, so the last hash mark appears to match the 0 point on the meter. I did see the meter go to zero while sailing and heeled over a bit. The Perkins seemed to be just fine at these levels although a bit "clicky" it quieted down considerably with a load of fuel. That might be fresh fuel or just the lift pump not having to work as hard.
5.0" - 10 gallons added
5.5" - 15 gallons added
6.5" - 20 gallons added
7.0" - 25 gallons added
7.5" - 30 gallons added
8.1" - 35 gallons added
9.0" - 40 gallons added
9.5" - 45 gallons added
10.0" - 50 gallons added
Engine Hours: 924

In addition, Tom pulled me up the mast to replace the windex which had it's tail chewed off by the birds. Unfortunately, getting the vane itself out of the post did not work so I had to replace the whole assembly. This required bending the new one with the "Z" bend to move the vane about an inch back to not hit the various antennas at the top of the mast. While I was up the mast I checked everything and other than quite a bit of greasy soot from the power plant it is not too bad. I do need to go up and clean some. Unfortunately I had to come back down the mast to make a new piece using a tubing bender after another trip to West Marine. Then Tom's son in law pulled me back up the mast in the afternoon to finish the job.

I also removed the hydraulic backstay adjuster because it had started to leak to have a new seal installed at SeaTek. 

The aft air conditioner frosted up the entire evaporator again. Need to go in and check pressures. 

Bolted the Granny Bars to the base plates installed yesterday.

July 14, 2012: Tom and I reinstalled the base plates on the coach roof for the granny bars. The bolts needed to be M6x40mm countersunk which we were able to get a Lovelady Hardware along with acorn nuts and washers. I bedded everything in polysulfide.

June 30-July 8, 2012: Fourth of July week at Emerald Bay. Emily came over on the 30th and we picked up F25 which is a very nice mooring, we had to move to R1 on Tuesday afternoon as the mooring owner showed up early. Both are nice moorings, however, I think I like F25 better. Then Rick and Gisella showed up on the 1:30pm boat on Wed July 4th and Linda showed up on Al & Barbara's boat about 4pm and I had a full house of 5 people aboard. I had just gone out and dumped the holding tank when we changed moorings but the forward tank was pretty full after three days of five people aboard, the aft tank was about 1/2 full. The forward tank is full at about 12" of sewage, the aft tank is a different shape and while a similar volume is about 23" of sewage when filled. Rick and Gisella headed back to the mainland for a Wedding which they had come to LA for, Emily and Linda sailed back on Sunday with me. Overall everything worked very well although we ran out of ice when serving high tea and Gin and Titonics. On Friday afternoon a bunch of club members got to sail on Flyer and it was a wonderful time, Thanks Rob for having everyone aboard, I learned alot!

June 24, 2012: The primary waste discharge pump did not work to dump the holding tank, used the backup pump and then took the pump apart and re-assembed, working fine. This is the first time I have had a gulper waste pump stop pumping. Nothing was obviously wrong but this is the pump which has been in service the longest. I also installed the tank level sensor on the forward holding tank. Perhaps pumping less after the tank is empty will help.

June 22-24, 2012: Tom and I headed over for the West Coast YC cruise to Isthmus, we were able to get a mooring in Cherry Cove (E7) which was wonderful and we had a great time. We were able to sail most of the way over and all of the way back. With 12 knts of true wind we were easily in the 8+ knot range. The polars are now proving to be relatively accurate forward of 140 degrees true.

June 20, 2012: Purchased new Honda 2HP motor (4 stroke) and should have it available in time for the 4th of July week in Emerald Bay. At $840 per motor I bought two, one for me and one for a friend!

June 15-17, 2012: Mark and I headed for Catalina for the Corsair YC Ashbridge race and cruise. Randy came along for the race as crew and a great time was had by all.

June 12, 2012: Installed two new blowers, one pulls air out of the engine room through the generator enclosure the other removes vapors from the battery bank and exhausts them over the transom. These are 24V 3" duct flange mount blowers of the "squirrel cage" variety. Jabsco Part number 34739-0020 or West marine part number 269367 at about $190 per blower. One of the blowers was making quite a bit of noise while running (more than the generator), the other recently failed completely.

Applied fourth coat of rubbed effect varnish with about 10% thinner to help the flow for what might be the last coat. The flow looks extremely well, we will see how the finish looks but it should be fine. This is on the upper edge of the range of thinning that I am comfortable with.

June 11, 2012: Applied third coat of rubbed effect varnish. Interesting that with the warmer weather I can apply the rubbed effect varnish very nicely without thinner. The flow is considerably better. On the other hand, it is harder to feather in from one pass down the plank to the next. The last coat will need some thinner to extend the drying time a bit to make up for the faster kick even thought the varnish flows better when first applied. Two more coats to go on these and then I have a total of 6 boards left to complete.

June 10, 2012: Completed installing the raw water pump on the generator, replaced both fuel filters on the generator itself (one on the bottom of the electric lift pump, one on the mechanical lift pump). Replaced antifreeze, replaced heat exchanger zinc, changed oil (3168 hours) only a few hours on the oil but after pulling the raw water pump and replacing I did not want any risk of water in the oil. Replaced oil filter with new. Belt tention on the generator is good. washed down the generator carefully and ran to dry.

On the main engine changed transmission fluid (3 hours of run) to make sure there is nothing from the initial run in which could be a problem. Then spent the rest of the day boxing up projects which have migrated aboard over the winter with a goal of nothing on board which is not either a tool kit for emergency repairs or something I am actively working on. 

Tom and I setup to re-install the line cutters only to discover that the rebuild kit is the wrong size. Going to have to determine the right kit and e-mail the vendor.

Dehumidifier is running.

June 9, 2012: Spent the whole day cleaning out the storage bin, cleaning out boxes and throwing away old hardware. Spent evening installing new raw water pump on the generator. 

June 8, 2012: First coat of rubbed effect varnish on the floorboards. Prep for storage bin cleanout over the weekend.

June 3, 2012: Today was mostly cleaning out the storage bin. I am now confident about my vision for where the boat is going and so I am able to make hard decisions about which things can be thrown away, stored off for reference, or need to be retained until re-installed. I now can see a path toward having the storage bin organized so I can find things quickly and see the value of keeping things in storage. The new GPS system seems to be stable and is coming up consistently which is good. Then about 1.5 hours spent sanding out the floors and the third coat of gloss varnish. The warmer weather is allowing me to not have to thin the varnish significantly, even going on like molassas all of the bubbles pop and it levels beautifully. The temperature is in the low to mid 70's and the weather is dry.

June 2, 2012: Another coat of full strength gloss varnish on the three floorboards. Installed Raymarine GPS 130 with the SeaTalk NG to SeaTalk adapter, I did get the system to work with the existing RC320 chartploter and the SeaTalk to NMEA bridge. I need to go through the wiring as currently the Autopilot has to be up for the system to function correctly. The connections are as follows GPS 130 -> Seatalk NG to SeaTalk Bridge (powered from VHF / GPS circuit in nav) -> SeaTalk / NMEA / RS232 bridge (powered from SeaTalkNG Bridge) No power connection to the SeaTalk Network from Bridge -> Seatalk Network. My guess is that the GPS 130 is on the opposite side the the network with the autopilot in the middle so I will need to go in a re-arrange the SeaTalk network so that the RC320 and the GPS 130 are both on the same side. The only reason to care is that I would like to be able to have the GPS and VHF radio up because the VHF radio needs GPS to perform it's AIS receive function. It is definitely time to create a wiring diagram of the SeaTalk, StaTalk NG, NMEA, AIS networks.  However, for the time being it all seems to be working.

June 1, 2012: Rebuild kit did not show up in UPS today. Expect that the pump parts will show up Monday for both pumps. Also ordered gasket to engine and four oil filters. West Marine called, the Raymarine GPS 130 and the Seatalk NG (N2K) to Seatalk bridge are now in the store.

May 31, 2012: Rebuild kit from the spares which came with the boat did not include one of the seals. Going to have to wait for parts to be available, perhaps tomorrow (Friday) 

May 29, 2012: Verified that the leak is coming from the Westerbeke Generator raw water pump. Pulled the pump and sent down to S & W Diesel for rebuild.

May 25-28, 2012: Memorial day at Emerald Bay! Friday's passage was a bit windy with 7' seas at 7 seconds on the beam, winds of 18 knts true on the beam. With full main and staysail Botany Bay took it in stride with minimal motion. Linda and Emily had a great time aboard for the weekend. Boat speed was in the mid 6's, as the wind speed came up into the low 20's the boat speed came up to 8.5knts! We were a bit under canvased early on but did not want to have to reef for the gusts and was very comfortable. Noted that there was some water in the bilge after running the generator which I traced to the raw water pump on the generator which will have to be rebuilt.
The return trip sailing was even better, sailed at 8.4 - 8.6 knts on flat seas. The boat was running right on the current polars. Very nice.

May 25, 2012: Picked up fuel heading over to Catalina for the Memorial Day weekend. We started with 5" of fuel in the tank, took on 30 gallons and ended up with 8" of fuel in the tank with the newly adjusted tank level sensor.

May 21, 2012: With the transmission replaced, new CV joints on the aquadrive system, new thrust bearing, rebuilt thrust bulkhead, repacked stuffing box everything is back into one piece and the transmission is running very quiet. Even at idle there is no rattle from the transmission. My original thought when surveying the boat was that the transmission sounded noisy in idle and that I had to be motoring at well over 4.5 knts to be out of the rattle zone, It is a easily driven hull but that is a bit odd. Now I can motor at 3.5 knts at dead idle and the transmisison is quiet.

May 20, 2012: Fabricated adapter to put the shift cable into exactly the same position as before but using different bolt holes on the case. The original used the studs around the shift leaver. The new transmission has bolts rather than studs and I would rather not touch that part of the transmission. There were two 8mm threaded holes higher on the transmission which I used, with an aluminum plate and a piece of 5/8" G10 to get the right position. No time to install the line cutters yet. Will have to be very careful the first weekend at the island. 

May 19, 2012: Existing damper plate is now re-installed. Torqued the new transmission to the adapter plate (xx ft lbs) using locktight blue. The torque is low because it is a steel bolt into an aluminum transmission and aluminum adapter plate. Fired up the engine and ran for the first time, transmission is very quiet. However, the method of attaching the shift cable is different requiring fabrication of an adapter. 

May 18, 2012: Took the day off (a Friday) to get a head start installing Aquadrive system and the transmission. After many trips to the store for parts and tools I have the AquaDrive installed. Main nut is torqued to 80 ft lbs. 

April 15, 2012: Reinstalling the damper plate on the flywheel (xx ft lbs) and discovered that one or more of the allen cap screws had heads which were not in good condition and would slip slightly as torque was applied. Ordered new screws from McMaster-Carr, they should arrive Thursday or Friday. 

May 13, 2012: Now that everything is aligned and it is clear that additional glass work will not be required I painted the new epoxy glass work with 404/414 primer and then two coats of Interlux Bilge coat. A ratio of 2 parts grey to one part white is very similar in tone to the original Oyster bilge color 

May 12, 2012: Reinstalling the thrust bearing for the Aquadrive. I had MacBoring ship the unit seperated because the hole through the bulkhead as built would not let the flange to through. This requires a unique socket with a cost of $250! After careful inspection and work I found that I can make the hole through the bulkhead slightly larger than before (about 1/4 inch all the way around) and if the stuffing box was not in the way the unit would come out. The hole is just large enough and on line for the shaft that the flange can go through the bulkhead in place. I will not have the problem of disassembly in the future. Quite a bit of care was required to ensure that the Aquadrive system was installed true to the boat and that I did not disturb any of the alignment. Note: it might have been possible to make the original hole in the bulkhead larger all the way around and have gotten the unit out but only with the stuffing box removed. 

May 11, 2012: Rebuilt AquaDrive system comes in from Mac Boring in CT. Looks great. 

May 10, 2012: New transmission arrives ready for installation

April 24 - May 11, 2012: Travel for work, ordered transmission and stayed in contact with MacBoring with regard to status on rebuild of AquaDrive

April 23, 2012: Shipped AquaDrive unit to MacBoring for rebuild

April XX, 2012: Looks like the right choice is replacing the transmission. Need to pull the AquaDrive system out and rebuild. Had to cut fiberglass to get the unit out as it would not go through the bulkhead and the CV joints are frozen to the flange. The original thought was that the amount of material to remove would be sufficiently minor and allow the unit to be removed but in the end more material was removed and so I rebuilt the bulkhead using 5/8" G10 plate glassed back into place and then reinforced. 

April XX, 2012: Reassembed transmission, CV joints, etc in place, pulled the line cutters, greased the max prop, verified that the cutless bearings are sound. Checked the thrust bearing. For the first few minutes the intermittent noise did not appear but eventually it showed up. It does not appear to be in the drive train.

April XX, 2012: Existing damper plate is an R&D 7F7 and is in good condition. This is not the source of the noise. 

April 1, 2012: Trying to pull the transmission requires pulling the AquaDrive system CV joints which are frozen to the flanges. Nothing I tried would seperate them so disconnected flange from transmission and then removed the balls from the CV joint to get room to remove transmission.

March 31, 2012: Botany Bay is about to be ready for sea again, at least until I was changing oil and while running the engine in gear looking for leaks after the oil change I heard a noise from the transmission which sounded like marbles rattling around inside the transmission. My original thought was that the damper plate between the engine and the transmission had lost a spring and the result would have been this kind of rattling.

March 26, 2012: First coat of varnish on the three floorboards aft, thinned.

March 25, 2012: It's Raining again!!! Ick!!! Reinstalled the 7 completed floorboards, carefully trimming the edges. All looks great until I dropped a screwdriver in the process of trying to be careful not to drop a screwdriver. Just a little nick which I immediately patched up, it is just irritating. Freezer at warmest setting is running 5F at the bottom and 15F at the top. At the coldest setting it is running -8F at the bottom and +2F at the top. Bottom of fridge is about +25F but not freezing water so the temperature guage may be a bit suspect. No freezer or fridge sweating on the countertops observed. The inside of the locker over the freezer is still cool. Pulled the remaining 3 floorboards (one under the stove, two beside the aft bunk) aft of the mast for varnish and started scraping the smallest one.

March 24, 2012: Installed the new pump for the fridge. Looks like it is running well. The pump has a new base footprint. Still need to bolt it down and need to put the cover back on the electrical cover for the March pump. 

March 18, 2012: More Rain!!! Double Ick!!!  Spent the day cleaning the bilges

March 17, 2012: Rain!!! Ick!!! Well, no better time than the present for cleaning up things inside the boat.

March 16, 2012: Purchased some additional silicone gaskets for the fridge door seals.

March 14, 2012: New March LC-2CP-MD 230V pump ordered from West Marine. Luckily West Marine now has March pumps in the catalog which makes it easier for them to get the pump. It should be here on March 22nd so I can get it installed next weekend.

March 13, 2012: PM: Worked on new door seals for the fridge and some cleanup of the inside of the fridge and freezer. I used some flexible sealing foam to seal up the copper tubing penetrations into the box. The size of these holes and the hole for the drain into the bilge explains the amount of frost which would build up in the freezer. Hopefully I will have less trouble with that this season. Finally time to fire up the compressor on the fridge and see how things work. The holding plates started getting cold but something was not quite right. After a few minutes of looking around I found the problem, the raw water cooling pump for the refrigeration compressor had locked up. It is a March LC-2CP-MD 230V pump which I had replaced about three years ago when I bought the boat. Unfortunately it appears that these pumps don't like not being run after they have been used for a long time. I had not run the pump since before Christmas and the result is that the pump motor locked up. I called March pumps and the engineer noted that the expected life of these pumps in continuous operation is something between 3 and 5 years. Obviously a consumable which one should probably carry a spare. In addition I started thinking about the implications of the pump failing and not being noticed. I will have to determine if the compressor will self protect in the case of an overheat condition.

March 10-11, 2012: The last coat of varnish on the two galley floorboards looks pretty good. As always there are some ridges from the overlapping brushing on the holly which will most likely shrink considerably as the varnish cures. These two seem to have a bit more than normal if you run your hand over the board across the planks but it is still not really visible. Let them cure for a few months and then see what they look like.
The fridge is now almost finished. All of the edges of the Formica have been sealed up with a mixture of Gflex epoxy, white pigment, and collodial silica to keep it from running. Once this has cured for a few days I will seal up the penetrations into the boxes for the refrigerant with a bit of spray foam and call it a day. I still need to make new door seals but the chemistry work is basically done.
The pumps in the aft head for the shower sump and sink drain are now mounted. Discovered an interesting "feature" of the Whale IC pumps. Since I only had one circuit for manual triggering of the pumps (one push button by the sink and one in the shower) which I use for drying out the lines I tied both of the pumps together. Basically if I pushed the button in either the head or shower I would expect both pumps to run. Well, it turns out that when either pump is triggered by its sensor it drives this line such that both pumps will turn on. This is probably for some applications a "feature" as you could have two pumps pulling on the same drain and have them trigger together. But it is not quite what I intended. It will be easy enough to pull an additional wire to one of the switches so that they are independent.
I am leaving the engine room door open to the aft shower as I have the dehumidifier running there which is drying out the engine room. I did see more corrosion around the aluminum heat exchanger on the side of the transmission than I would like, I will have to look into that.

March 9, 2012: PM: Fifth coat of Epifanes rubbed effect varnish on the two galley floorboards. This coat was thinned just a bit more and worked each board in fairly small patches just dipping the tip of the brush and working an area about 4-5 inches long and one board wide. Prior coats were done with a somewhat larger load of varnish on the brush and able to work 6-8 inches of board per brush load. The result is using about 1/4 less varnish per board i.e. 3oz of varnish rather than 4oz of varnish per board. This coat took about an hour to sand out and about 1 hour per board to apply varnish which is about twice the time required for a build coat. The result is very nice! Hopefully this coat will dry nicely without being harmed and I can be done for a time.

March 8, 2012: PM: Fourth coat of Epifanes rubbed effect varnish on the two galley floorboards. Took about 4oz of varnish per board which has been pretty much the number for all of the coats. This coat looks pretty good. There is a good chance for the fifth coat being the last one. Total time was about 1.5 hours to complete two boards.

March 7, 2012: PM: Third coat of Epifanes rubbed effect varnish on the two galley floorboards. This brings the total build on these boards to seven coats. I expect that two more coats will be sufficient assuming no issues show up. The time for this coat is about 1.5 hours for two boards. Plan for the weekend is getting the remaining seams in the fridge sealed up and completing the remaining work on the freezer. Hopefully I can get the board made for the two gulpers to sit on done also. 

March 4, 2012: AM: Continued working on the fridge / freezer. The Gflex epoxy resulted in a very nice seam which should be very easily cleahnable. Did the four vertical seams with Gflex, white pigment, and a bit of the 406 colodial silica in the fridge, the three seams away from the holding plate had just about the right amount of thickener. The one right beside the plate may have been a bit too thick. We will see how Gflex holds up in this application. It is a rubbery epoxy but the thickener will tend to make normal epoxy more brittle. Should be an interesting experiement. But it definitely looks good. Still struggling with how to complete the top of the freezer. There are many bits of plumbing and bits running around the underside of the cabinet. There is a temptation to glue a piece of formica to a piece of foam, put it where I want it and fill the rest with a can of foam. However, if I have to work on it later it would be a mess.  PM: Second coat of rubbed effect varnish on the two galley floorboards. This coat is coming out very nicely. Definitely starting to achieve boat maintenance saturation! When I finish this set of projects it will be time for sailing season and I will probably focus on varnish work during the season.

March 3, 2012: AM: This weekend is focused on getting the fridge and freezer boxes moved forward as much as possible. The fridge now has 2.5 inches of foam up under the counter top, about 2" brown board foam in 1/2 inch sheets all bedded in poured in foam. I am using white pigmented Gflex epoxy with to seal the corners. The bottom of both fridge and freezer were sealed with pigmented only Gflex, the difficulty of keeping it where it needed to be without running suggests using a bit of colodial silica thickener to help the vertical seams stay in place correctly. Cleaned up the gasket area on the freezer, it is ready for new gasket material. The aft shower stall got a thin bead of "liquid life calk" around the edge to make sure that any voids around the edge are filled. All I need now is a fixture to go through the seat area in the shower for the shower to hook to.  I will be working on a nice shower curtian system and other modifications to the aft head during the season. I also need to secure the dehumidifier for sailing. It is currently in the place for the washer/dryer. PM: First coat of rubbed effect varnish on the two galley floorboards.

March 2, 2012: PM: Fourth coat of gloss varnish on the galley floorboards

March 1, 2012: PM: Third coat of gloss varnish on the galley floorboards.

February 26, 2012: AM: Second coat of gloss varnish on the galley floorboards 1.5 hours for two floorboards. The rest of the day was spent working on the fridge/freezer and removing tools and equipment from the boat into the storage bin. A couple of new places were also delaminated and I started repairs there. The one which will require some additional work is the top of the fridge.

February 25, 2012: Primary focus was finishing up the construction work on the fridge and freezer. The freezer ended up with an additional 1.5 inches of foam in the bottom with 1/2 inch of plywood and formica epoxied to the plywood, there is no longer a 1" drain which should help considerably. I still need to put some foam into the hole where the refrigerant pipe comes out of the box and then seal all of the corners. The fridge had less difficulty with even temperatures and so I did not add any foam to the bottom but I did remove the 1" drain and applied a new piece of formica over the old formica using west systems epoxy and a bit of 103 laminating additive. In both cases I was able to catch the epoxy at the green stage and trim the excess epoxy without having to resort to sanding. While waiting for the epoxy to cure I started serious cleanup of the boat.

February 24, 2012: PM: Finished initial sanding out of the clear epoxy on the large dings and got first coat of gloss varnish down on both of the galley boards. 6 hours total epoxy fill, sanding, prep, and varnish to get two boards finished (over the last few days). So much for my averages! With these two all of the traffic areas aft of the mast are finished. There are two more boards in the aft end of the master stateroom on either side of the bed and one in front of the stove which still need to be done. These are all in pretty good shape and should not require significant prep other than initial sanding.

February 23, 2012: PM: Reworked edge of freezer box by the stove (forward end) and inserted an additional inch of foam in the floor of the fridge. Aft cabin floorboards set aside for long cure prior to re-installation. Started the kitchen floorboards, these two have probably taken the worst beating over the years. There are a couple of dings which I am filling with clear west systems epoxy and then will start the gloss varnish. Continuing to dry out the piece of wood in the base of the fridge which had some additional moisture in it, a couple of bags of desicant have been pulling moisture out of the box, foam, and wood to get everything very dry prior to sealing it up again. Hopefully this weekend will make significant progress toward being ready for the Easter cruise to Isthmus with Corsair.

February 22, 2012: AM: Cleaned up green but cured epoxy in fridge. Unfortunately the area by the forward holding plate did not get enough to get a good connection so I will have to go and backfill that area. Another couple of oz of putty back there would have made all the difference. Oh well. I think it will work as a medium term fix until I replace the refrigeration system at which point I will take the whole thing apart, re-insulate, put a new counter top and doors on and the like. The bottom of the fridge and freezer will get 1/2" plywood to provide additional impact resistance on top of an extra 1.5 to 2.0 inches of foam which should help keep the fridge from having as much heat come in from below. Filled the screw holes for the hinges in the counter top with west epoxy and then inserted the screws. Should help to keep the moisture out and strengthen the screws ability to hold, a couple of them were starting to strip out.

February 21, 2012: AM: Sixth coat on the large aft floorboards. It took almost two hours to carefully sand and varnish this large board. Went down each board independently with thinned varnish. 
PM: Cleaned equipment out of aft head, installed dehumidifier in aft head to drain into show sump. Worked on Freezer, epoxied formica to foam with low density filler. 

February 20, 2012: AM: Fifth coat on the large aft cabin floorboard. Sanded out very nicely. I am not sure I like the flow of this coat as much as some of the others. Somewhat luck of the draw. We will have to see what it looks like tomorrow morning. Sometimes a coat will flatten out quite a bit as it dries.
PM: Sanded out the two smaller pieces and then applied the fifth thinned coat of varnish. In this case I very carefully followed far side of each holly strip and went all the way across the board rather than trying to work quickly enough to get a good flow going across the whole board. The effect is much more pleasing with very indication of brushing back into the varnish. This method produces a nice result but the time per board is just over an hour or about twice as long as going quickly. I suspect this may be a final coat for these boards but we will see tomorrow evening.

February 19, 2012: AM: Fourth coat on the aft cabin floorboards. Sand out was very clean requiring only a few places to have additional attention. Total time was about 1hr and 15 minutes including cleaning brushes. It is definitely not as efficient doing one board but working either one very large board or a couple of smaller at the same time results in being able to take some additional care in the appliation. Too much and I get in a hurry.
I finished trimming all of the teak bungs back in the aft shower area, sanded and cleaned up the area. All that is left in the shower stall is to have some liquid life calk that I will use to make sure that the edge around the shower is well sealed.
The freezer is coming along nicely. I finished foaming in the inboard edge with half in brown foam held in with expanding foam. I then trimmed it with a rasp like making a surf board. The result is a very smooth surface. The plan is then to apply a layer of fiberglass matt and low density filler and a piece of formica to make the surface. The formica is trimmed but I want to wait until I can be there for the entire cure cycle so I can trim the green epoxy as early as possible.
I am starting to make the support for the two pumps under the head floorboard (the shower sump and head sink pumps). I purchased a piece of 1/2" starboard which will be mounted on the support for the old pump and a couple of extra feet to keep the board from sagging.
PM: Applied the fourth coat of rubbed effect varnish to the two smaller floorboards. These are coming along very nicely. If tomorrow's coat is good that will finish up these three boards and I can set them aside for a couple of weeks to cure completely.

February 18, 2012: AM: Back to the large board in the aft cabin. It took about an hour to sand it out completely but it is much better, the look of coat three of the rubbed effect varnish is getting very nice. Probably not perfect but I would not expect this coat to be. Hopefully the next coat will be an easy sand and apply varnish. Definitely having to thin the varnish slightly to have the bubbles pop right behind the brush and flow into the wet edge. Only just a bit though, for 8 oz of varnish it is probably well less than 1/4 oz or 1/64th thinned which would be a bit less than 2%. Plan to spend the rest of the day working on the fridge and the aft shower stall. Hopefully I can get around to building a pump mounting board for under the head floorboards.
It went back into the original space without any significant issue, kinked one of the lines putting it back into the panel and had to pull it back out, cut the line and reinstall. Now all of the tanks are reading fine (except the forward holding tank which needs the sensor tube installed, perhaps tomorrow, the hose is already run).
Worked on finishing up the aft shower stall, installed teak bungs in the trim using West Systems 105/207 clear epoxy.
Worked on the fridge, carved out the excess foam and started cutting new foam pieces for extra insulation. Plan is to put about 1.5 inches of additional foam in the bottom of the freezer and similar in the fridge to improve insulation as frozen ice cream at the bottom of the freezer is not as hard as stuff in the middle.
PM: The smaller two floors sanded out very nicely this evening and their third coat of rubbed effect varnish was applied. Total time to do two floorboards was about an hour including clean up. Started working on the Galley floorboards, I filled the large ding in the one beside the engine room with West Systems 105/207 clear epoxy. There is a little gap at the bottom where the laminate top did not stretch but with 8 or 9 coats of varnish on top and being in a darker location I don't think anyone but I will even know it is there. Tomorrow I will start working on the ding in front of the stove which has a piece missing, plan to use some companionway laminate to fill in the hole and match the color as best I can.

February 17, 2012: AM: Very carefully sanded out the first layer of rubbed effect varnish on the largest of the three floorboards with 320 sandpaper and applied the second coat of rubbed effect varnish. I went across board by board and very carefully sanded out every fish-eye to try and remove the contamination. The number is down dramatically and now it is possible to spot sand each one. Two hours of sanding and 30 min to apply varnish and clean up for one board. I will plan on working the other two this evening, they are smaller and having fewer difficulties. 
The problem with floors is that any time someone spills something, especially with silicone it becomes a surface contamination problem. These boards are actually better than most and I expect that I will be into clean coats (which take about 15 min to sand out) soon.
PM: The other two boards were actually in pretty good shape, an hour of sanding and 30 min to apply varnish and clean up was pretty easy. Now all three boards have two coats of rubbed effect varnish on top of four coats of gloss varnish. We will see what it looks like in the morning and I will sand out the large piece and see how it looks.
The tank monitor (Tank Tender by Hart) came back from rebuilding. They were able to reset the guage to not have an offset, added two additional valves so I can not monitor 5 tanks and added the "purge" valve to be able to blow crud out of the holding tank lines if they become plugged. The panel looks great! It is a 20 year old piece of equipment which works beautifully. I am really looking forward to being able to monitor both of the holding tanks accurately.

February 16, 2012: AM: Sanded out the gloss varnish with 220 trying to sand out as many of the fish eyes as possible on each board. The sanding took longer than usual at about 2 hours for 3 boards and then applied the first coat of rubbed effect varnish which skins more quickly and often is more tolerant of surface imperfections. Total time 2 hours 45 minutes to get this coat on. Needed about 9 oz of varnish.

February 15, 2012: AM: Sanded out the gloss varnish on the three floorboards from the aft stateroom and applied a forth coat of gloss varnish. Still fighting some fish eyes but much better. Hopefully this will be the last coat of gloss and I can move on to rubbed effect varnish. Required 90 minutes to sand, varnish, and clean brushes on three boards or about 30 min per board-coat.

February 12, 2012: AM: Carefully looked at the fifth coat of Epifanes Rubbed Effect Varnish and it is very good but there were a couple of minor holidays (dry spots) and so I sanded out this coat for one more coat of varnish. I had forgotten how nice it is to sand an almost perfect coat. The result was an extremely smooth surface, that coupled with using a very nice brush and a freshly opened can of varnish, unthinned should result in a very nice top coat. The coat of gloss varnish I applied last night came out very nice, however, there are still a significant number of dents and dings still showing so one or two more coats of gloss varnish will be needed to fill everything to something close to a level coat.
Today's focus will be having a way to dry out the area under the fridge/freezer. I think I have the problem on the run but it will take a bit of work to make sure I have a good solution.
PM: Finished foaming in the bottom of the fridge and freezer. Had a minor "got out of hand" with the pour in foam and had to chip a bunch out and start over but in the end everything worked out very nicely. I will carve out the excess during the week and build up an additional two inches of foam in the bottom of the fridge and freezer for more insulation. Currently the base is about 4" of foam which explains why things in the bottom of the freezer don't stay quite as solid as things near the middle.
The two pieces of floorboards which I varnished this morning look great, definitely the final coat on those, I will set them aside for a couple of weeks and keep working on the next three boards. Plan is to start on the two in the galley next. This will require some experiments with the 207 hardener from West Systems which is a "crystal clear" hardener for pours and fills. There is one ding where it looks like an alternator was dropped. Luckily someone applied a bit of varnish to seal it up and so there is no discoloration, so, I will fill and varnish over. I will know it is there but most people will never notice.
The aft shower is coming along nicely. Pulled the tape and did the original clean up. After I let it cure for a week I will trim it carefully and then fill any remaining gaps with "liquid life calk" prior to putting in a fillet. Should be very well sealed up. All that is left in the aft head is to make a board for the pumps to be screwed into. Plan is to make it up out of white "starboard" screwed to the original pump plate under the floor. Then there will be some varnish work and the like but that can wait until summer.

February 11, 2012: AM: Applied the fifth coat of Epifanes Rubbed Effect Varnish to the aft head floorboards. It appeared that the "crinkled" areas were hard and sanded freely, it may have just been brushing back into them after they were partially cured. Today's coat is the first potential final coat for these boards and I shifted back to the high end brushes for this coat. It is always wonderful to work with the really nice brushes but it takes 20+ minutes and a significant amount of solvent to clean them up just right. This coat took about 90 minutes for the varnish and then another 25 minutes for cleanup for a total of 115 min or just under 1 hour per board. For the base coats on days before going to work a reasonably good chip brush seems to do almost as well but for top coating there is nothing like a really nice brush. I also thinned this coat just a bit, the varnish was getting thicker (into the second half of the can) and so added perhaps 3% thinner, enough to be awash on top of the varnish but not a significant layer. It is a grey day out and cool (for southern california). For the rest of the day I am planning on working on the fridge and aft bathroom shower pan and hope to finish that up (the shower pan) today.

PM: Used white lifecalk polysulfide to put the trim pieces of the shower pan back into place. I will wait for a couple of days for the polysulfide to cure before trimming and cleanup. Then a bead around the top edge to keep the moisture out and epoxy to glue bungs back into the holes. There is still the question of if I should use anything to dress the teak grate or if I should leave it natural. It has been natural for 20 years and so that is probably the best in the end.
The fridge/freezer project is coming along, the area under the fridge/freezer has been cleaned up and I have two options for putting in tubes to allow drying out the area underneath if there is additional moisture problems. However, with the drains removed and careful sealing I don't expect any more moisture here. One of the options is a small hole through the bulkhead from the aft hanging locker for a piece of small tubing, the other option is to do the same coming in from under the sink.
The fifth coat of rubbed effect varnish is not showing "crinkling" which is good but the coat went on a bit thin and so I can see the brush strokes lightly. I will see what it looks like in the morning and decide if I need another coat.
Late PM: Got back from dance and was overcome by the urge to put on another coat of gloss varnish. Took about two hours to do three boards including the 20 min to clean the nice brush after I got done. Initial look says coat is doing well, I am having some trouble with varnish setting up in the can after being opened. Perhaps I am keeping the can open too long while I am getting ready. Carefully thinned remaining vanish to the right consistency. Used the last of a large can of Epifanes thinner, need to order another one.

February 10, 2012: AM: Applied a fourth coat of Epifanes Rubbed Effect Varnish to the two aft head floorboards. The minor fish eye contamination seems to be getting better coat to coat. Sanding and applying varnish took approximately 1 hour so the estimate of 0.5 hours per board per coat is about right.

PM: Installed new shower head in the forward cabin. The new shower head has a timer built in and the ability to hit "pause", it has batteries so it is almost a computer. Very nice, need to change out the support so it will stay in the right place.
On the floorboards, it appears that this coat was a bit too thick or not thinned quite enough, there are a couple of places on each board which are "krinkled". If they don't appear completely cured in the morning I will give them a few days to dry before applying more top coats.
Purchased long drill bits for the fridge project. Once I have good permanent access under the fridge I can then start the repairs and have the fridge and freezer up and running.
Late PM: 2 hours later I have another coat of gloss varnish on the aft stateroom floors (three of them but one is huge) This is coat number 2. There are some significant dings which will take several coats to fill, I expect to have to apply more than the minimum of three I use everywhere.

February 9, 2012: AM: Applied a third coat of Epifanes Rubbed Effect Varnish to the two aft head floorboards. Still fighting minor issues from the contaminated coat back at the first layer of rubbed effect varnish but not nearly as bad. May be nearly completely covered in this coat. The troubles may drive one additional coat beyond the 5 coats of Rubbed effect varnish planned. It took about 75 minutes to sand and apply this coat. Started a new can of varnish.

PM: Started the next three floorboards, these are the three which get significant wear in the forward end of the aft stateroom. The pattern of prep seems to result in consistently good results: Use a single edge razor blade as a scraper to pull down the surface until the surface is nearly flat. There are brush strokes in the varnish and the goal is to just almost get to the point where the ridges have been taken down to the bottom of the vallies. About half way through this careful scraping the color of the removed varnish changes from a dirty tan color to almost white and starts coming off cleanly. I am pulling the blade across the surface rather than pushing it into the surface. With this method there is not much risk of digging in. The result is very little dust and much of the surface contamination seems to get removed. I do not wipe down with solvent prior to this step as we need the varnish very hard and the use of solvents seems to make it more difficult. With care this results in pulling down the surface very evenly and with a couple of passes of 220 grit sandpaper I have a pretty nice surface to work with. I have found that deep gouges are best not sanded out but just use the edge of folded sandpaper to rough up and widen the sharp  scrape. Often with 8 coats of varnish they are not terribly visible and taking the area around down to bare wood results in a color shift which is more obvious than the scratch. Areas which are black (like near the screw cups in some cases) are taken down to bare wood with 150 grit after the scraping is complete. The first coat of varnish is then a thinned coat of gloss varnish (about 2 oz of thinner in 14 oz of varnish) This is not as thin as a first coat on bare wood but will get into the scratches and any issues in the thin remaining varnish. It took 2.5 hours to get these three boards prepped and varnished

So, now I have five floorboards in production at the same time. They are currently out of phase and the first two are nearly complete. There are still a few issues with the surface which will need worked but probably four more coats will get them completed. 

After these the remaining sets of boards:
- two more in aft cabin
- two large and one small in galley
- two medium in forward hall
- three medium in forward cabin
- one large in bunk cabin

The total number of floors is 30, if on average it is 0.5 hours per coat per board and we are applying 8 coats, that is 4 hours per board or about 120 hours of time. It is taking about 1/8 of a quart of varnish per coat per board so that is about one quart of varnish per board or 30 quarts. So at yard labor rates ($80/hr) that would be $9,600 in labor and $1,500 in varnish, double that for all of the brushes, cleaners, sand paper, etc. So it will cost me about $3K in materials and it would have cost about $10K in labor.

February 8, 2012: Applied a second coat of Epifanes Rubbed Effect Varnish to the two pieces of floorboard for the aft head. There was definitely some form of contamination in the previous coat which resulted in significantly more fish eyes than normal for a first coat of rubbed effect. I sanded out the first coat with 320 paper and then came back and worked each of the fish eyes individually. The next coat of rubbed effect varnish looked much better going on. By the third coat we should be free sanding and be able to quickly apply additional coats. Working the fish eyes probably doubles the amount of time to prep and apply varnish. This took about 90 minutes to do both boards with most of the time in the prep.

February 6, 2012: The third coat of gloss varnish came out very nicely on the floors in the aft stateroom bathroom. Moving on to rubbed effect varnish and applied first coat. I sanded out the gloss varnish with 220 paper and then had to go to work, I applied the varnish in the evening having stood the boards up with the faces pointed down and when I returned used a tack cloth to wipe the surfaces. The result was more significant fish eyes than I would have expected for the first coat of rubbed effect varnish. At this point they look like the "soft" variety of fish eye which are easy to sand out and generally go away within a couple of coats but dissapointing. Not sure if it was a problem of an older can of rubbed effect varnish, contamination of the sanded surface due to waiting 12 hours, contaminated tack cloth, or (hummm) a contaminated brush... I am using relatively good throw away brushes for the lower coats and the plastic cover was already off the brush when I started cleaning it up (pulling out the loose bristles and fanning out the dust). At any rate, less than one more coat of varnish in the old can and four coats to go. I am sure these will work out fine. Next are the three boards in the aft stateroom.

February 4-5, 2012: The floorboards in the aft head had their third coat of gloss varnish applied. This coat looks good enough to convert to rubbed effect varnish. Continued to work on finishing the aft shower stall, re-installing the teak trim, sealing the edges, routing and planning the shower head installation. It looks like there may be a nice way to recess a flat shower head like a home into the ceiling and provide a very nice vertical shower with less spray and provide a wand for low water use. While working on the fridge drain I discovered standing water in an unaccessable area under the fridge. Luckily this is an Oyster, the fridge was designed so that if there were leaks it would not remain in the foam and that if there were leaks an area under the fridge would catch the water and eventually evaporate. However, there was no easy way to install a limber hole. I am going to provide access from the aft stateroom hanging locker under the teak floor. Probably use 1" thin wall PVC pipe so that I can insert a piece of flexible half in tubing into the hole and vacuum out any accumulated moisture. Should not happen if the fridge is working correctly but like the area under the toilet it is important to be able to check from time to time.

January 29, 2012: The sink drain and shower drains are now fully operational, the toilet inlet line has been re-routed to be in it's final configuration with a shut off valve in the line. Completed removing the damp wood in the freezer freezer. The bottom and inboard face have had the wood completely removed. Also removed the drain from the bottom. I prefer to not have a drain in the bottom of the fridge or freezer, too much heat is lost down the tube and if you dump over milk in the fridge/freezer the mess in the bilge is HORRIBLE. The fridge still has a drain but being that I have access I may go ahead and remove it and plug up the hole. Then I am going to add an extra two inches of foam insulation to the base of the fridge and freezer. They currently have about 4" of brown foam. Luckily, unlike LBB, the foam was basically dry. I am hanging four desicant bags in the freezer and two in the fridge to make sure everything is dry before I start the repair. This is somewhat temporary as I will eventually replace the holding plate system with a constant cycling evaporator system and will most likely do this when I replace the countertops so I can start from scratch. So, this is a band-aid for a few years until I get around to that upgrade.

January 28, 2012: Both of the pumps for the aft head were able to fit under the floorboards in the head. The plumbing got a bit complicated down there to have it all fit and still be able to close the seacock either rotation direction. I guess I could have given up on one rotation or the other but the dark of the night I would really not have to think to hard about which way to turn the valve. The Whale Grey IC appears to have a different profile on the intelegent control, it tends to tun on and stay on for longer rather than cycling on and like the manifold pumps tend to do. Might just be my imagination too. I now have four of these pumps installed, I will probably end up with one near the mast to deal with rainwater coming down the mast and pick up the condensate water from the forward air conditioner, another one for the aft air conditioner condensate and perhaps the dehumidifier I will put where the washer/dryer was originally installed, then one or two of the bilge pump models. So perhaps four more of these pumps for a total of 8. By design these pumps all use the same pump head with different manifolds and so the ones for the air conditioners are spares in case one of the other pumps fails. 

January 26, 2012: And now both floorboards are ready for their second coat of gloss varnish. At minimum I will apply three coats of gloss varnish and five coats of rubbed effect varnish like the other floorboards. The important decision is how many coats of gloss varnish, I keep applying coats until I get very clean sanding without any fish eyes and then apply at least one more coat of gloss varnish. Then the rubbed effect varnish goes on very easily and is easy to sand. (1.5hr)

January 25, 2012: Now the second of the two floorboards was prepped and a first coat of gloss varnish (2hr)

January 24, 2012: Carefully prepped the first of two floorboards in the aft head. These will be exposed to wet feet after the shower is functioning and I don't want any dings in the wood resulting in water intrusion and discoloration. The first coat of gloss varnish went on very nicely. I am currently using single edge razor blades as scrapers to take down the old varnish. The level of dust is almost nothing and the result is a very smooth surface which is pulled down very evenly if the number of passes scraping is kept very even across the surface. (2hr)

January 23, 2012: It rained very hard all day today. In the evening I looked everywhere for indications of deck leaks and could not find any. 

January 21-22, 2012: The aft head is up and working! The new installation looks beautiful. The salt water feed side is not yet installed but otherwise the computer controlled toilet is performing as desired and the run to the holding tank seems to not be an issue (about 30 feet horizontally). The sink and shower drains are both being upgraded with Whale IC series pumps. The shower stall is getting a Whale Gully IC which screwed nicely onto the bottom of the existing fitting of the shower drain. A Whale Grey IC is being installed in the drain for the sink and the vent side of the manifold will be installed such that either a pan under the washer/dryer or a dehumidifier will also be drained by the same pump.   

January 14-15, 2012: Worked on installation of the aft head, platform for head to sit on is complete, the backstop for the toilet is installed, teak trim pieces have been cut and installed. Toilet now bolts down cleanly, the connection to the fresh water system has been created, replacement shut off valves have be installed in the lines running back to the washing machine. A good solid weekend of boat maintenance. 

January 8, 2012: Back from French Polynesia, pushed large update to web site with updates for the recent things I have been working on during 2011.

December 16, 2011: Trying a different kind of cruising, boarded the Regatta (Oceana Line) for a repositioning cruise from Los Angeles to Papette via Hawaii and Christmas. I definitely need a bit of time at sea and the price was right so why not! The first day out we are definitely getting a bit of motion. It is hard to guess the sea state from higher up than I am used to but I would guess 8 foot seas with about 15 second period. Winds look to be in the 14 - 18 knot range. The second day at sea was glassy flat with a mild swell. Saw a whale spout from the aft dining deck at breakfast.

October/November 2011: The remodel of the aft head compartment has been the largest part of the work although a distraction of pulling the battery bank out to get access to the aft holding tank under the salon floor proved to take about 4 weekends! What started out as a simple task of replacing all of the hose to the holding tank (which is under 400lbs of golf cart batteries) turned into quite the project when I dropped a hose clamp into the bilge under the tank and could not retrieve it. In the end the tabbing holding the support holding the tank down had to be cut to remove the tank. In the end it was a good thing as the removal allowed cleaning the bilges completely and correcting some compromises of maintenance performed over the years.

Reinstallation of the battery bank allowed some time for re-wiring of the main battery bank. Dedicated 100 amp fuses were used in each of the two 24V strings. The size of the fuses were determined by the 1/0 wire from the batteries up to the main cutoff switch about 18" away. The fuses are internal to the battery box like those of the main engine and generator starting batteries.

The intention is to eventually enlarge the size of the wire on the main bank to to a large inverter which will need much larger cables and fuses.

While working on the installation of the new aft toilet I took to aggressively looking for the source of a small amount of water which shows up in the aft bilges from time to time. In the end it turned out to be a combination of a fresh water system leak and two areas which do not have limber holes and also are not easily accessable. The first of these was under the platform that the toilet is installed on. I was not sure if I could get into the area without damaging anything and so drilled into the compartment from under the shower seat to ensure the hoses could be routed. In the end I found that the moisture accumulated under the toilet had caused some deterioration of the mahogany plywood which the toilet sits and so after removing the Formica was able to remove the 6 screws which hold the plywood in place and remove it. The area was dry but had a significant amount of dried cleaning products (a couple of hand fulls). I have remade the sub floor and provided better support to avoid flexure. Additionally the toilet can now sit further back against the bulkhead which makes for a better installation. Fortunately, all of the permanant structure was well sealed with gelcoat and no other deterioration was found. I have not decided if I am going to cut air vents from the front to provide fresh air or provide a small tube for drainage perhaps using a vacuum cleaner,

The other area which did not have a limber hole and had no access was under the aft shower pan. The hose for the shower drain had come loose and was leaking so I tried taking as much fo the teak trim off as possible in hopes of pulling the pan up. Unfortunately I later determined that the pan is sealed into place and was not easily removed. After drilling a couple of small pilot holes I found that there was support structure under the edges and the corners which would have had structural implications I decided to use a hole saw to install an access port in the sloping part of the shower pan. This provided access to the underside of the pan and inspection in the future. There was definitely an accumulation of water under the shower stall most likely from the shower stall drain leak and the occasional fresh water leaks into the sump behind the shower stall. Like the other areas, use of teak structures, high quality plywood, and coating everything with gelcoat has avoided deterioration of the permanant structures. 

The plan is to install a new gulper Gully IC shower pump for the shower and a gulper IC two port manifold for the sink drain.

September 23: The second Raritan Marine Elegance Toilet ( Model #220HS024 ) arrived at my local West Marine store. Planning on getting it bolted down this weekend even if not hooked up to start building the new cabinetry and installing the electronics, pumps, and other parts required.

I also need to finish pulling up the shower pan to get access to the drain and either use the gulper for shower drains or use the same type as in the forward head and galley.

September 17 - September 18, 2011: Commodores Cruise! The trip over was mostly a motor sail with light winds on the nose. The return trip was almost all sailing. Hoped to see blue whales but none were to be found. Dinner at the cove was spectacular with fish and chicken grilled to perfection.

Tom and I managed to get the washer / dryer out of it's locker and out of the aft head. It will come out of the head without too much trouble if the head door is removed and all of the towel racks. Once the washer / dryer was on the aft bunk I setup a lifting harness using the boom to lift it out of the boat. The installed unit is 230V and 50 cycle. Thus far I have not found any washer / dryer which is not frequency sensitive. Most likely I will be shifting the generator to 60 cycles and replace the two sensitive pieces of electronics (i.e. the washer / dryer and the microwave). Removing the washer / dryer gives access to all of the head plumbing and so I am now working on replacing and replumbing the aft head.

Pulling the aft head and the removeable cabinetry shows that there should be room for an identical toilet to the forward head (Raritan Marine Elegance with Smartflush). By using an identical toilet in the forward and aft heads will aliviate most of the concerns of only having electric toilets. The first installation has been running well for about 6 months without any problems at all. Having two identical units results in having a second unit to cobble parts from if both were to have independent failures and the ability to carry some specific parts.

The the forward head installation the 26 gallon holding tank can handle 23 "full" flush cycles or 43 "saver" flush cycles before being relatively full (still probably 10% room).

Started removing the teak bungs in the aft shower sump to get access to the shower drain which I can't get access to any other way and is leaking (i.e. the source of the water I have been hunting ). About half of the bungs are out at this point.

September 2 - September 5, 2011: Labor Day Cruise! Had a nice ride over to the island and even saw a blue whale pass close behind Botany Bay!

Coming home from Cruise week I noticed that the extrusion in the mast for the in mast furler did not look right and on closer inspection was offset by about 30 degrees from what it should have been. This most likely explains why the furling gear has not been operating as smoothly as it has before. Troy hauled me up the rig with the mainsail off the furler when I got back to the slip and determined that the extrusion was not twisted, however, something did not feel right.I found that a screw had come out at the bottom of the extrusion where it goes into the mandrel which results in the extrusion being held down only by the clamping action of the other 4 screws. Over time the extrusion had lifted and then settled  back in the wrong position. By losening the turnbuckle below the extrusion I was able to get everything back into place. However, the system did not feel quite right so I loosened the turnbuckle until the hardware was flopping around a bit, then with a good shake the bearing set at the top of the mast settled back correctly (I think), and the system turned completely smoothly again. The missing screw is 1/4 x 20, countersunk, 1/2 inch long. Don't use too long of a screw or risk hitting the piece of rod rigging inside of the extrusion.

August 12 - August 14, 2011: End of Cruise Week!

July 1 - July 4, 2011: 4th of July at the Cove!

Two more small pieces of cabin sole needed to be varnished quickly. The two pieces which make up the steps down to the galley get more wear than much of the other pieces due to how you turn going down. The varnish was becoming very thin and I was concerned about moisture getting into the wood. These currently have 3 coats of gloss varnish and 3 coats of rubbed effect varnish. These two pieces need at least two more coats of rubbed effect varnish when I have time. 

Much of the rest of the sole will need to be completed this winter to prevent damage caused by the varnish getting too thin. There are 6 floorboards forward of the saloon to do, all of these are pretty good size. There are 10 floorboards aft of the saloon to do of which one is very small but the rest are all pretty good size.

In the saloon there is one remaining floorboard to finish, the one under the saloon table. This will require taking the table off and the pedistal to make sure the part which goes under the table gets a good coat.

June 18 - June 19, 2011: Ashbridge Cruise 

The varnish on the saloon table is starting to get thin enough that I am concerned about moisture getting into the teak. Learning to get an almost perfect finish on such a large surface required some additional work on my technique. Generally when varnishing floors I have applied varnish sectioning the floor at a convient strips of holly (the light wood). However, the table is basically square and trying to keep a wet edge across the table proved to be very difficult. In the end I found that short sections which brush into the previous varnish slightly resulted in a better final surface. After 5 coats of gloss varnish I applied the first coat of rubbed effect and it came out so well that I stopped for the time being as I expect there will be minor scratches by the end of the season. The rubbed effect varnish is harder and so the desire is to build up 4 to 5 coats of rubed effect this winter. The edge of the table is hardwood and so I am not as concerned about moisture getting in as I am on the veneer and so I am putting off the edges of the table until I have more time.

May 28 - May 30, 2011: Corsair Yacht Club Opening Day! 

The nav station is starting to come together, I installed the 19" Samsung flat panel TV along with a Lenovo dual core atom PC. Two USB to serial converters and Raymarine's Raytech software. The Lenovo PC consumes about 20 watts at full load which is very impressive and appears to have sufficient capability to run the Raytech software without any difficulty. I also installed a 350 watt 24V -> 110V sine wave inverter which has worked very nicely. It easily runs the Lenovo PC, two flat panels (the 22 inch and the 19 inch) which are being used as a two screen desktop, the network switch and the Netgear ReadyNAS with 6 2TB hard drives without any issues.

Integration of the Standard Horizon Matrix 2150 with the rest of the system has been very good. The Raytech software does import the AIS targets and displays them as an overlay on the chartplotter display. 

Overall the integration of an original Autohelm 1990 vintage autopilot (2 7000 series controller, very early autopilot brain), knot log, and wind point, 2007 wireless Raymarine Remote, 2010 vintage depth sounder (ST40 series), a 2011 AIS data source, the RC320 chart plotter I bought before leaving Kwajalien in 2001, and several repeaters are all working together quite well even with two different versions of the seatalk physical layer.

There have been a few quirks which I continue to sort out.
1) it appears that the order in which hardware comes up has an impact on which chartplotter thinks it "owns" the buss. The only thing which is impacted is from which device (the RC320 or the Raytech) can set waypoints to the autopilot. 
2) The RC320 occasionally spontaniously reboots. This behavior appears to be related to the GPS engine because when I disable the internal GPS the problem goes away. The plan to fix this is to provide an external GPS source to the SeaTalk bus and not us the internal GPS
3) When the Matrix 2150 looses the GPS signal it becomes very annoyed and sets off  a very loud alarm which the volume cannot be adjusted. Thus, forgetting to turn off the radio can result in a rude awakening when the GPS portion of the RC320 causes the unit to lock up.

The knotmeter appears to be somewhat intermittent, unfortunately I have not yet been able to find a mechanism for failing over to the GPS for speed for the various calculations.

April 30 - May 2, 2011: It is time for the first Corsair Yacht Club work party and I will be bringing a crew of 5 for the voyage (this is the largest overnight crew I have attempted). Being that I have room for a couple in the forward cabin, two bunk beds in the midship cabin and one more bunk in the saloon and a couple in the master stateroom aft the boat can accomodate a crew of 7 without significant inconvience and a crew of 6 without having to bed anyone down in the saloon. 

April 22-24, 2011: Easter cruise with the Corsair Yacht Club, the Easter Bunny was well received at Isthmus and many children collected over 1000 candy filled eggs which had been hidden! The trip over to Catalina was definitely "interesting" on the way over to the Island the entire boat went dark! I immediately started chasing DC electrical system problems and found that the battery system was fine as the bilge pumps worked just fine (Directly connected to batteries via a fuse) but the rest of the electrical system was not working. After a couple of minutes the problem went away and the boat rebooted. After happening twice more during the passage and tightening connections it appeared to be corrected. Then on Saturday evening I pressed the button for the forward electric head and the entire boat went dark AGAIN!!! With the boat stationary I was able to carefully work through the electrical system with a volt meter across each of the connections and rapidly determined that the primary battery disconnect switch had about 1.8V of drop with nominal amperate running through it. Later testing showed the switch to have about 10 ohms of resistance. Luckily I had a spare switch and heavy guage wire and was able to bypass the switch for the passage home. Even better I found a spare switch which fit perfectly when I got back home! The replacement does not look exactly the same on the backside but looks identical where exposed and is a "Hella Marine On/Off Switch P/N 002843011" switch, Interestingly this switch is rated at 50A continuous and 500A for 10 seconds at 24V. I would definitely not want to run serious current through this switch. It is fine for the main power panel but not for inverters and the like. The three additional switchs are used for the winches (intermittent), engine start (intermittent and 24V), and generator start (intermittent an 12V which has twice the surge capacity). I wonder what the rating of the original switches are but it is something to pay attention to. The diameter of the shaft going through the woodwork is the same size and is a snug fit which perfectly replaces the old switch! Since there are 3 more of these switches I will buy several spares to have around.

The sailing to and from Catalina Island was wonderful and we were able to sail the whole trip both ways. With the borrowed UK tape drive #1 the ability of the vessel to move in light air is positively amazing.

The first real use of the Standard Horizion Matrix AIS 2150 receive only AIS and VHF radio was very impressive. Comming back from Catalina there was a convergence of 3 container ships at high speed and two other sailboats. After a call from one of the container ships to talk to a sailboat which I thought was Botany Bay I was able to sort out that that he was referring to a different sailboat, contact the container ship to inform them that they had not talked to the vessel in question and then contact one of the other container ships to confirm if he desired I go in front or behind him. The result was a rapid response from a container ship in broken english but we were able quickly make a decision and keep going (he wanted me to maintain course and speed as he needed to make a turn in a couple of minutes. Overall AIS looks to be a very good system and I will be installing a transmit system shortly.

Leaving Isthmus we had over 20 knts true with mid 20's on deck under main and staysail. The boat was very comfortable and scooting along at between 7.8 and 8.1 knts going upwind! I was able to keep the boatspeed in the high 5's to low 6's as the winds lightened up and when the wind on deck got under 12 knts we rolled out the UK tape drive #1 and and the boat speed went from 5.5 knts up to 7.5 knts with both headsails up. We sailed all the way until just off the breakwater in Redondo Beach very much enjoying the sail and no further issues with the electrical system. 

Once home I immediately replaced the main DC power switch. The extra resistance is most likely caused by years of "hot switching" this switch. Basically there are DC to DC converters which were always connected to the bus as well as some other items and so the switch has probably been "hot switched" many times over the years resulting in contact problems.

April 2011: Completed installation of Whale IC based pump for the forward head to service both the sink and the shower drain. The result is really spectacular. All of the benefits of having a sump for the sink and shower to drain into but with the advantage of an integrated non-contact switch as well as a water-tight interconnection harness. I did wire up the existing manual switch for the old grey water pump to allow turning on the pump if  only a little bit of water is put down the drain.

Completed initial installation of the new Matrix AIS 2150 VHF radio, this is a receive only AIS system which is dependent on an external GPS signal being provided. I have hooked this up to the NMEA 183 output of the old Raymarine RC230 chartplotter which I moved over from Little Botany Bay.  I am still trying to determine why the chartplotter shuts down occasionally. It might be an electrical connection right where the cable connects to the chartplotter but it always comes back when I turn the unit back on. It might be worth trying to reflash the programming.

Completed initial installation of a Samsung UN22D5000 HD TV where the old weather fax machine was at the  back of the saloon above the Nav Station. This will be an ideal place for a "rear view mirror" which will use a camera looking out the aft transom. This will allow me to see when guests come knocking on the back of the hull. Also this will make it easier to keep an eye on things comming up from behind while down below checking the radar or the like.

Started initial rewiring of the nav station. I started trying to add in the Matrix AIS VHF radio and found that the electrical system was more of a mess than I thought. It took a couple of weekends to sort out all of the wiring behind the nav panel and then make a new panel out of plywood to mock up the new installation. I made two panels at the same time slightly oversized and then using a microplane to get it to fit correctly. The current plan is to install a new UN19D4000 HD TV as a computer monitor, using a Kill-A-Watt meter the TV consumes about 12 watts in "eco" mode and about 25 watts in full power mode. Interestingly the TV has a power factor of 0.6 which means that the inverter needs 12/0.6 = 20 VA when the TV is running in "eco" mode, when in full power mode the number is more like 45VA to keep the TV running. This is when running off of a nice sine wave source (like shore power), when running on an old "statpower" modified sine wave (read square wave) inverter the power factor is about .35 making running the TV off of a 50 VA inverter a bit marginal even on eco mode. The larger 22" HDTV uses about 18 watts in ECO mode and about 35 watts in full power mode. The power factor is about 0.6 when running off of shore power. I have run some tests of the larger Samsung HDTV systems at a friends house and found that the new UN55D6000 consumes about 103 watts and about 106 VA with a power factor of 0.99. It would appear that Samsung did not do as much to keep a reasonable power factor on the smaller monitors. Also interesting is that a Samsung 23" computer monitor (also LED) consumes about 45 watts and this appears to be relatively consistent, the HDTVs appear to have spent more time trying to make the units efficient.

As part of the re-wiring I added one of the new Blue Sea "SafetyHub 150" Fuse Blocks behind the master circuit breaker panel. This unit has 4 high power fuses and 6 ATO fuses. While I was rewiring the nav station I found that other than the master cutoff switch there were no fuses between the master power cutoff and the circuit breaker panels. Unfortunately, circuits need to be fused to the smallest unprotected wire in the circuit and this is not the case for this installation. So, Now there is a MIDI fuse which services each of the portions of the circuit breaker panel as well as seperate fuses for running the 24V DC -> 12V DC converters which were previously wired directly to the primary power bus. The result is a much safer installation. I will also be adding an additional distribution panel or two down by the primary power switch (most likely one directly connected to the battery for bilge pumps and the like and then a second for just after the master power switch)

So, the Nav station looks like it will have a 19" HDTV (which has lots of inputs for remote cameras, computers, USB, etc) and then a tablet like an iPAD or Android Tablet and the remaining space will be used for dedicated instruments. Currently I will reuse the existing instruments knowing that I will probably rework much of that over the next few months. There is in fact room for two of the 19" displays or two of the largest Raymarine E-Touch series display (15"?) or one display and one E-Touch display. I expect to run a low power PC in the nav station and I have ordered a 350VA - (300 watt) Victron 24V -> 110V 60hz since wave inverter which will be dedicated to running the nav station and basic computer infrastructure. The cost was about $148 and comes highly rated. Hopefully it will be ready to install after the first Corsair YC work party.

March 2011: Installed new propane system. An upgraded stove (Force 10 Three Burner with Thermostat Oven), Trident propane sensor and control, new 30' propane hose, two stage dual tank regulator, control solenoid, and fiberglass propane tank in the aft locker. The existing copper line was quite corroded (I never hooked it up because it looked bad) and had several compression fittings in the lines which made me nervous. The new system has the propane line run outside the cable chase and the control solenoid line running inside the cable chase.  

Completed the varnish of the saloon floors, in the end I applied three coats of gloss varnish and then 5 coats of rubbed effect varnish. The result appears to be very tough although I have continued to only walk on it barefoot or in socks (grin). The result is beautiful, I will have to complete the rest of the floors as soon as possible as there are definitely some thin spots in the rest of the boat.

I finally got around to installing new Non-Skid material on the companionway stairs. The result is beautiful!

I finally got the new Aqua Signal Series 34 LED Based Navigation lights installed on the bow. I still need to install the new stern light (I have the light it just will be a bit harder than the others to install as the existing mount is welded on!!! Rather than bolted)

Started looking into the problems with the existing 110V inverter from Trace. It is a 1500DR series from 1997 and unless it can be completely debugged I would not want to continue using it. After spending some time degugging the unit with an oscilloscope it is probably not worth trying to reuse. Time to consider at least a small inverter for the nav station.

February 2011: Varnishing saloon floors has begun! After all of the mast work and getting the new head installed it is time to get the floors sealed up before the sailing season to make sure that I end up with moisture in the floors. Based upon the recommendation from Epifanes I am applying 3 coats of gloss varnish and then at least 5 coats of rubbed effect varnish over the existing varnish. The goal is to sand the existing varnish enough to get to a clean surface but not sand all the way down to the underlying teak so that the color remains the same. 

January 2011: Finished installing the new Raritan Marine Elegance head. This version has the "smart flush" control and the salt/fresh water option. The "water saver" flush is approximately 1/2 gallon and the "normal flush" is about 1 gallon.

December 23-24, 2010: Headed down to Long Beach to have the mast re-stepped at "The Boatyard". Allan and his team from SeaTek arrived right on time and we got started. By early afternoon the rig was back up and the spartight was poured. Because I was not on a tight schedule we decided to wait until the next day to remove the lines holding the mast in the right place and clean up the last details. This gave the SparTight lots of time to fully cure. The result is absolutely spectacular. Everyone has been saying that the rebuilt rig really makes the boat into a Yacht! I could not be happier with the job the guys performed, they did a great job, on time, on budget, and very professionally performed. There is a link to a review of SeaTek's work down in the "links" section as well as here. The full discussion of the overall mast rebuilding, decisions, etc is this link.

November 2, 2010: Time to visit my mast and see how the project is progressing! The condition of the mast after media blasting (walnut shells) is very nice. I am very impressed by the condition of the surface which is the result, it is obvious that the texture will result in excellent adhesion of the first coat of zinc chromate primer!  Current plan is to have the rig back in the boat by the end of November! I have decided on using Sta-Lok fittings as I have rerigged three vessesls with them (including Little Botany Bay, Amadon Light, and one other) and that all Oysters 575 and smaller are currently rigged with Sta-Lok fittings. My thought is that by going with Sta-Lok this will make it easier for Oyster Aftersales to help me whenever I might need support, especially during the Ralleys. Definitely decided to go with the Lopalight masthead light. 

October 24-25, 2010: Time for the much anticipated refurbishment of the standing rig for Botany Bay! Tom and I sailed Botany Bay down around Palos Verdes into Long Beach to have the rig pulled for complete tear down and rebuilding. The rig was pulled at "The Boatyard" across from the Long Beach Yacht Club under the watchful eye of Allan and Mike from SeaTek Marine of Wilmington. The plan is to dissassemble the mast as much as possible, strip the paint and coatings off and then rebuild completely. This is expected to take about 5 weeks so I should expect the mast to go back into the boat around the first week in December.

Appear to have a very small weep of oil at the connection between the oil cooler and the engine block. Not enough to be more than making your finger a bit shiny after 10 hours of running. Other than that, the engine cooling system rebuild has ben completely successful. 

So, the winter refit projects are in full swing at this point!

October 2-3, 2010: Cat Harbor is always a treat in October for Buckaneer Day at Isthmus. Last year was a bit more interesting that anyone wanted with a couple of boats up on the rocks coming back home in a large storm. The result was finding all of the leaks in the boat. This was the reason for spending so much time getting the boat into as good of shape as possible because the weather can be rather unsettled at times this late in the season. Having just rebuild the cooling system on the engine I was definitely on edge checking the engine every 5 to 10 minutes. However, the amount of heat in the engine room was WAY down even though the engine temperature was running at the recommended level of about 170F.

September 20-October 1, 2010: Took apart the cooling system for the engine looking for the restriction. At first I thought I had found the worst of it when I found many impeller blades plugging up the front of the raw water to antifreeze cooler. By this time I had both of the coolers off the engine (antifreeze and oil coolers) but the cooling stacks looked very good even though  they had never been off the engine! Thinking that there might be hidden plugged up areas I sent them off to my friends at S&W Diesel in Wilmington, CA who took them apart and rebuilt the units. Then over the weekend I found that the little box on the side of the transmission (Hurth HWB 250) was made of aluminum and had corroded to the point where when I wiggled the hose going from the box to the raw water pump it came apart in my hands. The hole through which the water was having to get through was about 1/4 inch! In fact, the back of the box (pressed against the transmission) was so badly corroded that a screwdriver could be pushed clear through it with minimal effort! So, off to Wilmington to get more parts. In the end it all came together Friday evening and after tugging on the dock lines for about an hour without issue we were off to see the pirates! The installation of the oil cooler appears to be a bit twitchy, when I first installed it there was a significant oil leak which dumped a couple of quarts of oil into the bilge in about 5 minutes! There are three bolts which are not quite in line making the torque pattern difficult to determine. In the end I torqued the bolts on either side of the oil passages and then the last one.

September 17-19, 2010: Emerald bay for Comodore's cruise! Based upon the fog coming in late in the evening and forcast into the late morning I motorsailed over in the late afternoon/early evening. Talk about a quick passage, left the harbor at 5:10pm and arrived in Emerald Bay at 7:50pm or about 2 hours 40 minutes! Boat speed was in the high 8's after getting wind in the sails off the R10 bouy. Without sails up the same throttle setting was getting 7 knts. I will be very interested in how the fuel consumption numbers look for high speed motor sailing. The engine seemed to be running without a huge amount of load. 

The return trip was a bit more interesting. Sailing back as far as the traffic separation scheme was a wonderful sail at 7+ knts, however, when a large ship showed up on the radar at about 8 miles and was holding a fairly constant bearing at 6 miles (looking like it would go behind us but not with a huge amount of margin) and the wind became somewhat lighter causing a reduction in boat speed I cranked up the engine to make sure I had a couple of miles of room between us and the ship. The engine overheat alarm came on about 15 min later (it is set for about 200F and so nothing serious) and rapidly came back down to 185 with the load off. At this point we are well clear of the ship. So figuring I had picked up a back or just ran at higher load than I thought did not worry too much about it.

Then trying to sail around Palos Verdes I needed to motorsail for a few minutes to make the point without tacking and the engine almost immediately show signs of overheating (195F and climbing when significantly above idle and significant steam in the exhaust). I checked the inlet strainer and the flow rate was quite low. 

So, I sailed the rest of the way to Redondo at very low speeds (got some nice polar data) and then entered the harbor just off idle doing about 4knts.

I expected that the heat exchanger was plugged up as the raw water flow rate has always been lower than I thought correct but I had no proof. When I got everything apart I found a pile of impeller blades in the intake side of the heat exchanger! I am always careful to collect all of these if an impeller died, obviously some Previous Owner (PO) had not been so careful. Ah well, with the primary heat exchanger and oil cooler off the engine (they had never been removed before, I had to break through original paint!) I sent them off to S&W Diesel in Wilmington, CA for a careful going through and rebuilding.

September 4-6, 2010: Labor day weekend at Emerald Bay! Probably the first warm weekend of the summer! A wonderful event with the Corsair YC. Coming over from Redondo Beach the Boom Vang started acting up. I managed to get everything together enough in route to avoid any issues while putting the sails away. Over the weekend I managed to get the blocks jammed inside the vang apart without damaging anything and then find enough parts onboard to provide a good fix until the mast is pulled this fall.

August 12-15, 2010: Back to Emerald Bay again! Collected a considerable amount of polar data on the way over in the 10knt of true wind range.which has been included in the current spreadsheet. The Corsair YC had an "Emerald Idol" competition which was alot of fun which the crew of Botany Bay participated in by performing "Jammin Hambo". Amusingly we did not have the right music aboard but got a friend to e-mail the right music at the last minute!

July 23-25, 2010: Over at Emerald Bay with the Corsair YC. I collected useful measured polar data on the way over and back. On the way back I paused north of the R10 bouy to try many points of sail as the winds were very steady and the seas were quite flat. Hopefully these will make developing a set of polars relatively painless.

July 10-11, 2010: Portofino Round up at Isthmus, moored in Cherry cove, as usual my efforts with horse shoes were pretty bad. Oh well, another good excuse to Catalina! The weather was still pretty grey!

July 2-5, 2010: July 4th holiday weekend at Emerald Bay! The weather was overcast and drizzily all weekend. The only exception was part of Sunday. However, much fun was had playing cards in the evening and I spent some of the weekend installing new hull to deck / toerail bolts. There are a total of 210 countersunk bolts which go through the toerail, deck, and hull flange. Of these I have replaced approximately 120 of them. The key being to replace the bolts which are local to a given cabin while all of the cabinetry is apart for varnish.

June 19-27, 2010: The forward cabin varnish has gone much quicker than I had expected. Two weekends and the evenings in between managed to get this portion done! The hand rail around the forward berth could use a few more coats of varnish but it will probably get some minor scratches in it while I am installing the new holding tank system 

April 30-2, 2010: Took Friday off to sand varnish... This is a huge chunk of varnish to be doing at the same time. Currently I have the nav station forward of the saloon bulkhead and all of the galley sanded out. It has taken 3 evenings and all of Friday to get it ready for a first coat of varnish. The first coat of Epifanes gloss went on thinned 50/50, while the nav station went pretty well, the galley was a nightmare of wood grain which did not fill and "fish eyes". Even after two rounds of sanding and applying TSP several times first (actually a new substitute) the result was rather disheartening. Sunday morning some of the varnish was still slightly sticky even though the heater had been on all night, a classic case of the oils in the wood grain slowing down the cure. But eventually it sanded well enough to get a 75% Varnish/25% thinner coat applied. I probably used a bit too much alcohol to clean the surface and ended up with what looked like dust but this coat did appear to cure reasonably. I will be out of town until Wed evening so hopefully by Thursday evening it will be hard and I can start sanding this coat out. From the looks of things it is getting better but I suspect it will take at least two more coats of gloss to get the grain to fill and have a good base for a total of 4 coats of gloss. Then two coats of rubbed effect should get to the final coat. This bit of varnish will get everything in the saloon/galley/nav station complete except for the grab rail around the saloon and the locker doors. Those should be able to be completed in one remaining chunk.  Well, the 7th coat of gloss varnish on the companionway hatch is very smooth but has dust!!! Arggg. The agony of the varnish! I think it is time to put off the last coat of varnish on that piece until later. Hopefully Thursday evening I can sand out the worst parts and get an additional coat on in an attempt to fill the wood grain and fish eyes completely on the first coat of the weekend. It would be nice to get a first coat of rubbed effect varnish on the whole area next weekend.

April 30, 2010: Finally ordered the 24V version of the Raritan Marine Elegance toilet with Smart Fresh. The price ended up being $949 with $30 shipping. I also ordered two spare joker valves and a spare electronic solonoid at the recommendation of Raritan. It will take a couple of days for them to build the head and then about a week to ship across the country.

April 24-25, 2010: The only exterior teak (three pieces around the companionway) now have 6 coats of gloss varnish and look very nice. I am definitely going to have to replace the hatch boards with smoked Lexan to have a consistent look. The first couple of coats had significant color variation as the exposed teak after much sanding had dark and light colors. After a couple of weeks of exposure to the sun the color is definitely becomming more uniform. The piece of teak on the hatch cover has some brush strokes which are showing so at least one more coat. The ladder came out beautifully with rubbed effect varnish and we decided to do all of the interior woodwork around the companionway in the same coating. Absolutely stunning. The base for the second electric 66 winch went back down.  I have been cleaning winch parts in the evenings during the week. It is currently taking me about  6 hours to pull a 66 series winch apart, clean it, make sure all of the screws are not frozen, check pall springs, etc. The newer Lewmar 54's only take about 2 hours to go through the same process.

April 17-18, 2010: The aft bulkhead now has four coats of gloss varnish and the grain has finally filled! It really looked bad above the galley originally, I was not sure if it would ever fill in completely. A couple of coats of rubbed effect varnish and it should look very nice. Three of the eight removed cockpit winches have been reinstalled (the two newer 54's, one of the electric 66's).  

April 9-11, 2010: The cabinetry in the saloon on the port side is now mostly assembled with only minor sanding here and there to get things to fit again after adding 5 coats of varnish on all of the surfaces.  The aft bulkhead of the saloon, the companionway frame and the companionway ladder have been sanded and the first couple of coats of gloss varnish have been applied. We had rain over the weekend and the forward edge of the mast partners was leaking a bit. Going to have to chase that down and work it some more. 

April 3-4, 2010: The two aft chainplates are back from the machine shop having had the scratches buffed out and a deep shine applied. At the same time I had the frozen screws pulled out of the toerail fittings for the dock lines. Now three of the four primary chainplates have been completely worked through and now have no leaks. I also tried to plug up the leak around the mast. of the 13 bolts holding the fitting on the deck I can only get 10 of them out without pulling the mast. So, I pulled all of those bolts and rebedded them with polysulfide. However, the next rain confirmed one leak remaining. All of the leaks from the 10 bolts pulled and rebedded have been sealed up, however, there is a small leak on the starboard side of the mast forward which drips between the mast and the deck where the mast wedges are found. It is not clear if it is the one remaining bolt forward of the mast (unlikely) which is in the cabin just forward of the Saloon (the bunk cabin) or if it is the mast boot which I replaced last year (does not look likely) or is between the plate on the deck and the deck itself. Some research will be required to see what is going on.

March, 2010: The saloon windows took three weekends of hard work to get them re-installed! A total of 21 tubes of ArboSil sealant were used up! The comments from the peanut gallery noted that I would apply 3 or 4 tubes of sealant at $15/tube, push the window in, scrape off 2/3 of the sealant applied using $5 worth of paper towles! Probably true, but no leaks yet!  

January 16-17, 2010: The varnish project is now underway! The first coat of Epifanes high gloss varnish has been applied to the teak paneling around the large windows in the saloon. After much discussion and sole searching I have decided on the following buildup: 2 coats of high gloss traditional varnish then 2 coats of rubbed effect traditional varnish. Any areas which sand to the bare wood get one coat of high gloss traditional varnish thinned 50/50 prior to building up the remainder of the layers. 

September ??-??, 2009: The Cat Harbor cruise with Corsair YC was an eventful voyage to the backside of Catalina. This cruise is traditionally the same weekend as the "Pirate Festival" at Two Harbors and is always fun! The sail over on Friday evening was uneventful getting in just after dark and a wonderful lazy saturday was had by all. Sunday was a bit boisterous for the run home which took 9 hours from the mooring to anchored inside of the breakwater at King Harbor (we waited a couple of hours for the wind to die down prior to trying to get back into the slip). The maximum true wind was about 38knts near westend with 8 - 12 ft seas and 5 second period! The close reach home saw average true winds of 35knts and continued to have large seas on the beam. Other than a couple of significant deck leaks and a few leaking hatches the boat did very well. Not that I would go out of my way to find those conditions again!

September ??-??, 2009: Botany Bay visits the Long Beach YC with the West Coast YC for my first attempt at "Med Mooring" a 55' sailboat which does not like to back up in a straight line. We dropped the hook and backed in very nicely. Tom and I sailed down from King Harbor on Friday afternoon and we had a wonderful weekend enjoying the hospitality of the Long Beach YC. For the return voyage Tom, Emily, Chris, Dianne, and Cameron sailed back to King Harbor after a quick stop to pick up 140 gallons of diesel fuel (the single tank was down to about 10" of fuel, we measured the amount of fuel for each inch of fuel added and found that after getting away from the bottom of the tank, each inch of fuel is about 10 gallons, close to full tanks is about 28" of fuel). 

September ??-??, 2009: Another fun filled weekend at Emerald Bay with the Corsair YC for the "Commodore's Cruise".

May ??-??, 2009:  My first trip to Emerald Bay with the Oyster, getting onto a mooring is going to take a bit of time to get comfortable but with reasonable winds and current and the help of my fellow Corsair's we got onto the mooring without issue. In fact on Saturday we had an "open boat" party and something like 30 corsairs came to visit during the day. At about 3pm 14 of us went "day sailing" off the mooring and had a great time, Botany Bay did take a nibble out of Jauque when he pinched a finger in one of the rope stoppers but a good time was had by all. When we got back to the mooring it was blowing with a 12 knot cross wind and so many fenders went out an as we went by "Bandwagon" we discovered they had setup a used dingy lot complete with a "no reasonable offer refused sign"! Our trip home was uneventful. Roger of "S/V Jolly Rodger" which significantly improved getting the in mast furling mainsail in and out. 

April 15, 2009: Today I took possession of Oyster 55 #19 in San Diego, California. So ends the search over large portions of the planet looking for a somewhat larger vessel to call home. Since October of 2005 when I started actively searching for a new vessel I have visited many places, met many interesting people, and crawled through the bilges of many beautiful vessels all over the world. Now, the search is over and it is time to focus on getting her home. 

 April ??, 2009: Sea Trials for the Oyster! Bill and Emily were along for moral support. We had both very light winds and very heavy winds. I was pleasantly surprised with the light air performance and that the in mast furling system seems to work reasonably well in light air. The only unfortunate surprise was the gally sink drain will overflow when the vessel is healed significantly and the seacocks are frozen. Emily and the brokers were both trying to find a way to stop up the galley sinks. The engine seems to run well, the autopilot was definitely intermittent and will need some attention along with the rest of the electronics.

Much Older News! All with regard to "Little Botany Bay" (LB^2)

May 1-16, 2005: The machinery spaces aft of the engine room have gotten a major facelift. Almost everything is painted bright white, the wiring has been cleaned up, the refrigeration compressor is cleaned up and looks nice, the autopilot course computer has a much more easily maintained home. There are still a list of projects to complete before leaving the machinery spaces but it is manageable. 

February 5-6, 2005: The new fire extinguisher is installed, applied white Formica to the outside of the engine room enclosures. Soundproofing project proceeding. Installed Murphy Gauge for the engine water temperature which will allow for an adjustable engine alarm level. Will also get a low oil pressure Murphy Gauge to give a mechanical oil pressure gauge in the engine room. Additionally I replaced all of the oil pressure sensors due to minor leaks (low oil pressure switch, electronic oil pressure monitor)

January 29-30, 2005: Botany Bay's engine finally gets completely enclosed for the first time ever. The engine room blower was moved from the transom to inside the engine room and plywood forms were placed around the engine room. Determined that the engine room fire extinguisher has possibly lost it's overcharge (later determined it may have been a bad pressure gauge as it discharged by accident later and rather violently) The original unit (a Kiddie FM200 system) is no longer supported by the original manufacturer and in fact the support line was not terribly polite in telling me to go away. So I am now the proud owner of a new FireBoy system which is rechargeable.

January 22-23, 2004: Botany Bay's engine runs again for the first time in many months. She seems to be running just fine although a little rough at idle. Probably just needs run in a bit

January 15-16, 2005: Botany Bay's engine room is nearly complete, Tom and I spent the weekend cutting sound proofing foam for the engine room.

December 16, 2004 - January 10, 2005: Not much got done on Botany Bay's projects as I had to have my left knee rebuilt. Dr. Feder did an amazing job cleaning out the joint and following up the post operative recuperation.

November 12-15, 2004: Botany Bay's engine is coming through the refit with only a few problems. I had to replace the dipstick tube (the bottom end broke off, luckily I could retrieve the broken piece off), got the exhaust manifold resurfaced, obtained a honest to goodness Perkin's return spring for the kill solenoid. I readjusted the injection pump because of clearance with the kill switch leaver. It is was offset about a pencil line width to one side, it is probably half as much to the other side. I have the raw water pump off for rebuild. I have removed the fuel lift pump as it is almost 35 years old and probably should be replaced. It turns out it is a 4-108 pump (4 bolts) instead of a 4-107 pump (2 bolts). Probably a cross over year in the production cycle. I also ordered a gear pump for transferring fuel and polishing the fuel. Tom and I will be installing nearly identical systems on Botany Bay and Alegria this weekend!

October 23-24, 2004: The battle is now well joined! It appears that the first winter project will be giving the old Perkins diesel engine a careful once over. The last careful tear down and refit was back in the fall of 1999 before heading out to Kwajalein so she is well due. I have removed the exhaust riser and salt water injection point (I was seeing the start of corrosion around the water injection point), the exhaust manifold (the exhaust manifold to head connection nearest to the transmission was leaking), the header tank (to replace the 5 year old thermostat and make sure that the aluminum tank can be removed from the steel bolts), the injectors (last rebuilt in 1998 with the injector pump) and pipes, raw water heat exchanger (last cleaned of calcium deposits late 2000 while at Kwajalein), swap out the original starter (which has quite a bit of corrosion) with the spare one purchased for the trip home from Kwajalein to LA, the forward/starboard motor mount bracket (under the heat exchanger) will be cleaned up and repainted. The injector rebuild and having the exhaust manifold flange to the cylinder head will be sent out for work and should be back in a week or so. I will also take this opportunity to get the engine controls correct for the new Edson steering system.

October 10, 2004: Well, winter is coming and the fall project season is upon Botany Bay and Alegria. It appears that Alegria has fouled an injector and so we will be delving into removing injectors for service while also doing valve lash adjustments and the like. Botany Bay has quite a few little projects remaining after finishing the big refit of 2003. There is a link below to last years project list and completions as well as the new list for this year. There are quite a few things but unlike last years projects these can be taken into in small chunks and not drive Tom and I to distraction!

October 1-3, 2004: Arrrrrrh! Tis time for a pirates booty to be found at Cat Harbor with the Corsairs of Emerald Bay! In fact it was quite the adventure with Botany Bay and Alegria sailing together for the first time in a while as Tom and I have 

September 18-19, 2004: Corsair Yacht Club's Labor Day cruise was wonderful, the sail over was one of the best of the season, the sail home was the roughest, I was single handing back from the island with a single reef in the main and a bit of the Genoa out and was still a bit overpowered sometimes. The mid channel was 26-28 knts with short periods above 30knts! The seas were about 8 feet with an additional wave train coming in about 30 degrees offset from the first at about 6 feet. A real washing machine!

September 3-6: Labor day at the cove! A wonderful time was had by all, one of my Kwajalein beach towels disappeared from the cockpit rail where it was drying! Luckily Al Kim noticed a blue splotch on the bottom 20+ feet down and retrieved it for me! His free diving skills are amazing, I would not have had a prayer of getting it without diving gear! 

August 20-22, 2004: The second weekend of cruise week! While I had missed the intervening week of festivities (including champagne bingo!) I did make it back for the second weekend of Cruise week! Another day over at the Boy Scout camp seeing the amazing salt water aquarium setup which they maintain to teach salt water biology to the Boy Scouts who cycle through the facility for a week at a time. Quite an amazing operation!

August 13-15, 2004: It is time for the Ashbridge cruise! A race up to West end, around eagle rock and back, staggered start so I bring my crack crew of Kent Nelson and Mike Fuchs to help in my assault on the trophy. We departed King Harbor in the early afternoon on Friday the 13th (sounds ominous to me as you Never sail on Friday much less the 13th) and were ready for the racing on Saturday. We did pretty well, holding our own but as I (yes the captain did choose and thus must be held responsible) chose to take the outward passage and the racing boats took the inward passage I lost some significant distance to the old timers but did reasonably well. We were 4th out of a field of 6 but the top 2 were hard core lightweight racers so I would say second out of a field of four "real vessels of merit"! Dinner and the punch bowl were wonderful and we had a wonderful sail home with a crew of four as we picked up Lance who needed to work like the rest of us instead of spending the rest of the week over at the cove! 

July 17-19, 2004: One fish, Two fish, Red fish, New Fish! It is new fish in the cove weekend as as there are not many new fish for 2004 I was drafted although I won't be a full member until the August Dinner Meeting. The fire was HOT, the coals were ready and the Luau was planned by the new fish in the cove (i.e. new members) of Corsair YC! We cooked and we cooked and made a huge mess of ourselves, our aprons, and the like! I think everyone would agree that is was one of the most memorable dinners in the cove for the year. Those of us who helped with the decorations will always remember the "folded fish" which drove grown men to tears!!! 

July 27-29, 2004: Refurbishing the house battery bank, take a look at the "house bank" section under "equipment", after four equalization cycles the bank has evened out and has 625 amp-hours of capacity after 4.5 years. The original capacity of the bank was approximately 645 amp-hours originally and the specified capacity is 660 amp-hours. I have also added some links about battery capacity.

July 26, 2004: Repaired the fan on the inverter with plastic super glue! Total cost to repair $2.95! See the inverter section for an update and pictures. This will allow me to refurbish the house bank with the equalization cycle and high rates of charge.

July 19-25, 2004:Replaced the water pump on the diesel, see the section on the main engine for a discussion of the trade offs of changing to a different belt system. In the end, with the help of dear old dad, I realized that the current system has worked very well for the last 8 years and it is probably best to just do the same!

July 17-18, 2004: Corsair Yacht Club new fish in the cove weekend. While I am not yet a full member of Corsair YC I helped out with the new fish in the cove dinner where I learned all of the tricks of running a dinner for 150-200 people at the Emerald Bay facility. It turns out that the water pump on the engine (fresh water pump) is failing and starting to leak so I will have to replace it.

July 9-11: Another beautiful weekend over at Catalina for the weekend with Tom and Alicia on Alegria

July 2-5, 2004: What a wonderful weekend at the Corsair Yacht Club facility at Emerald Bay! The first trip to the Island after the refit, there are a few systems which are still a bit our of whack but she sails well.

June 17, 2004: LP stayed shiny overnight and the decks were dry, sanded with 220 and then applied 1/2 quart of paint. Looks like complete color coverage, all that is left is to apply non skid paint. Will spend the weekend bolting down the cockpit hardware and then paint the non-skid and let cure! Almost done!!!

June 16, 2004: First coat of LP in the cockpit after yard work. It covered most things but not all, will need one more coat. It takes 1/2 of a quart to do all of the cockpit except for the sole and one of the bridge deck non-skid areas. Just using the excess in the roller to build up layers for color on the non-skid areas.

June 15, 2004: Continued to sand out the cockpit, it is taking a bit to get everything just the way it should be

June 14, 2004: Spent the morning getting the last of the yard grunge out of the cockpit and get it mostly sanded down for painting.

June 13, 2004: And we bolted down even more parts and pieces, everything forward of the cockpit is bolted down except for the bow roller, the dorade boxes, hatch in head, and the deck vent for the hot water heater. The bolts are down for the hatch, however, the hatch and sea hood need to be painted. Now onward to the cockpit

June 12, 2004: Tom and I spent the day bolting down hardware on the decks, we made a lot of progress, now with lifelines and the like she is starting to look like a boat again

June 10, 2004: Applied second coat of non-skid to the side decks, the previous layer stayed glossy even with using pure brushing thinner instead of my normal 50/50 mix with brushing thinner (2333N) and spraying thinner (2316). The gloss of that layer was somewhat higher than the other portions of the non-skid done with the 50/50 mix. This coat went down with the 50/50 mix. The side decks need approximately 8oz of unthinned paint with 2oz of 2333N, 2oz of 2316, and 2oz (by volume) of non-skid beads. This is equivalent to 8oz of beads per quart of unthinned paint. Two coats seems to result in a very even surface. Yesterday's weather had temperature when painting of approximately 64 degrees at 65% humidity, the high was 70 degrees at 53% humidity, the nighttime low was 61 with a dewpoint of 56 degrees and a humidity of 85%. The decks were wet this morning, the low was about 3am and the sky was clear. Tonight should be similar with some additional overcast to help keep the decks warmer. 

June 9, 2004: Applied first coat of non-skid to the side decks, this is a bit of tricky business as the portlights were installed with a silicone based sealant which tends to cause significant fisheye problems with paint. So, first I scrubbed the decks with simple green, then scraped any suspicious areas with a nice sharp razor blade, then scrubbed the decks again with simple green. Then I wiped the decks down with Interlux 202 dewaxer/degreaser, sanded with 220 grit, and finally re-wiped the decks down with Interlux 2333N. Amazing that I ended up with no fisheye problems at all! Tomorrow morning I will apply the second and final coat of non-skid on the side decks which will make way for installing all of the stanchions, chainplates, deck fills, sail tracks, and other related hardware.

June 8, 2004: Finished hatch slide installation with ability to remove without having to pull headliner, reinstalled headliner.

June 7, 2004: Installed bolts in coach roof for the sea hood

June 6, 2004: Installed insert in rub rail, drilled hatch slides and developed T-nut based solution to allow removal of the hatch slides without removing the headliner. 

June 5, 2004: Pulled headliner down, installed rebuilt hatches on coach roof, installed hand rails.

June 4, 2004: Tom and I installed the new bow pulpit! We also installed the top works of the Lighthouse Windlass!

June 3, 2004: The new bow and stern pulpits arrived! I have cockpit seats! The new bow pulpit is wonderful. Tom and I test fit them last night and only a couple of mounting holes needed drilled out and none nicked the core so no epoxy work! The new gate stanchions, cockpit seat tops, and companionway hatch guards should be ready on Monday!  

June 2, 2004: The hatch slides and the spacer to raise the traveler up 3/8" are made of UHMW plastic and the UV of the tropics was pretty hard on them. I took the originals over to Plastics Depot and they are making replacements. Total cost was about $50, what a deal! 

June 1, 2004: Tom and I installed the remaining three portlights and then I spent the evening cleaning up the excess sealant. It is amazing to have crystal clear windows again! 

May 31, 2004: Tom and I test fit all of the new portlights except the one in the cockpit (the painting is not finished there). We also masked and papered any part of the deck which might get a hand print of silicone sealant! The side decks still need a couple of coats of nonskid paint and I don't want to be fighting fish eyes! We managed to get the three forward portlights installed, I installed another three after dinner with some help from my dock mates and finished up about 3am! Three more portlights to install, they really look wonderful!

May 30, 2004: Tom and I finished the installation of the new rub rail, we used a total of 15 tubes of 3M 5200 with almost no wastage, that thing will never leak again! It was a long day though! We also worked on Alegria's batten pockets which seem to not reliably hold onto the battens.

May 29, 2004: Tom and I started final installation of the new rub rail. It became apparent that I had not purchased nearly enough 5200! Off to Home Depot for 12 more tubes! We finished about half of the rub rail this morning then I spent the afternoon getting the portlights ready to be installed. I also reinstalled the rebuilt foredeck hatch!

May 28, 2004: I picked up the hatches and portlight frames today. The powder coat process is beautiful, the guys at Marine Windshield in Costa Mesa are truly remarkable! The SilPruf sealant for the portlights arrived today, 24 tubes of goo! Then I went to West Marine for 4 tubes of 5200 and 4 tubes of white lifecalc and some other odds and ends.

May 27, 2004: Tom and I lightly bolted the rubrail to the hull deck joint. Now I can mask it off to put 3M 5200 under the joint.

May 26, 2004: One more coat of nonskid LP on the foredeck and coach roof.  

May 25, 2004: Cleaned decks and part of below from the time in the yard. 

May 24, 2004: Botany Bay splashed this afternoon (about 1pm) and I spent the afternoon watching for leaks and cleaning up. The engine is not hooked up to the coupling and the steering system is not installed so she was towed back to her slip. The only leak appears to be the P.S.S. shaft seal which may have gotten a bit of oil on the face and had to be cleaned to stop a minor drip. 

The work performed at King Harbor Marine Center was wonderful, I have nothing but good things to say about them! 

May 20, 2004: I installed the transducer for the new ST60 depth sounder this morning, luckily it is the same diameter (2") as the previous standard horizon unit. Extracting the old unit from the hull proved rather difficult though, in the end, I used the hole saw trick (drill it out with a 1 7/8" hole saw and then pick out the bits left behind). I have to go to West Marine and get some water based bottom paint for the transducer as it can't handle solvents.

I also applied another coat of bottom paint to the jack stand pad areas and the rudder. One more coat of bottom paint and then I let the whole thing cure until Monday.

May 19, 2004: The third coat of LP was applied to the transom after sanding the second coat very lightly with 220 grit. An additional coat of Micron Extra was applied to the rudder. This coat seems to have achieved full coverage. Called West Marine about the boot strip tape (three colors, 2" total width, black, gray, and silver), they only have one 50' roll and I need two so they are ordering it and should have it by tomorrow evening. Good thing I called!

May 18, 2004: The second coat of LP was applied to the transom after sanding the first coat very lightly with 220 and wiping the surface with 2333N. An extra coat of Micron Extra was applied to the leading edge of the rudder.

In the evening a third coat of bottom paint was applied to the exposed blocking pad locations. 

Thus far luck has been with me, there has not been any significant dew on the hull since May 15th! The LP on the hull is hardening up very nicely with no damage from moisture getting to the paint too soon. 

The current plan is to splash the boat on Monday so I will be spending some time this weekend installing hardware required to make Botany Bay watertight. Actually, most of the holes are well above the waterline but it would be nice to get them sealed up anyway.

The hatches and window frames are ready at Marine Windshield. I will pick them up next week after Botany Bay is in the water and ready for them to be installed.

The new depth sounder has been tested and functions correctly, now it is just a matter of extracting the old transducer. It is in there pretty tight, spent a couple of hours destroying the old transducer and trying to get it out of the hull. I have the backing nut and backing plate off, the flange outside the hull has been removed so now all that is holding it in place is the 3M 5200 between the threads and the hull. The new ST60 depth transducer is exactly the same diameter but uses a completely different connector. The original unit uses an RCA style connector while the Ray Marine hardware uses three spade connectors. The next step in removing the old transducer is to get the right size hole saw and re-bore the hole.

May 17, 2004: The first coat of LP was applied to the transom after sanding the primer with 220 and then wiping the transom down with 2333N. The result is some of the best painting I have done.

In the evening a second coat of bottom paint was applied to the exposed blocking pad locations. The bottom paint damaged by the travel lift slings was sanded and a coat of Micron Extra was applied.

May 16, 2004: Sanded out the transom and applied two coats of Interlux 404/414 primer thinned 25% with Interlux 2333N. The normal wipe with 202 dewaxer, sand heavily with 80 grit, wipe with 202, apply primer, sand with 220 grit, wipe with 2333N, apply primer and sand with 220 grit was followed. The HIN was protected with blue tape through these steps. 

The exposed blocking pad locations were sanded, some minor osmotic damage was found and repaired with 3M vinalyster putty and a coat of Interlux 2001 barrier coat applied, 5 hours later the first coat of Micron Extra was applied.

May 15, 2004: Sanded out hull for last coat of LP, ready to paint by 9:45am, a nice, dry, hot day. For some reason the paint simply would not flow out. Specifically there were millions of bubbles in the paint after application which normally all pop about an inch behind the roller and it simply was not working, tried all the tricks, changed thinner ratios, worked in the sun, worked in the shade, etc. Finally sat down, had a coke, and tried one last time, PERFECT. No change in the thinner, worked in sun, in shade, almost could not go wrong. Slight change in the weather, more overcast and the humidity came UP! In the end, a spectacular last coat of pain, no runs, no sags, no voids, no bubbles, probably one of the best coats I have put on.

May 14, 2004: Today I helped Tom do final installation of his new 18" maxprop. It is turned by a 56HP Yanmar diesel and has an SD40 Saildrive. The recommended initial setting for the prop is 18 degrees of pitch which is equivalent to 11 inches of pitch. Then we took Alegria out for a quick spin. With the two bladed Martec folding propeller the vessel would run at 2900rpm and achieve 7.3 knts of boat speed on flat water, above 3000rpm we would have significant vibration. With the Maxprop at these settings the maximum in gear rpm was 3800 (not to be run at for any length of time!) and achieves 7.3-7.5knts of boat speed at 3000-3050rpm. We need to determine from Yanmar what the preferred rpm is for this engine. From some web resources it appears that the preferred operating RPM for this engine is 3200rpm but I need to verify that.

Botany Bay was reblocked late in the day and although there was some marring of the bottom paint (it was still soft), the topsides LP held up with minimal scratches. If I can get the final coat of LP on tomorrow it will have 9 days to cure and should be hard enough to be put in the water with the travel lift.

May 13, 2004: This evening I will make a decision about applying one more coat of LP. Hopefully Botany Bay has the full 6 coats of bottom paint applied and is ready for re-blocking. It will probably take me a day to get the support stand locations prepped for bottom paint. So, probably out of the water all next week and then splash the following Monday. Assuming Tom's 18" Maxprop arrives today Alegria will be coming out of the water this afternoon and Tom and I will install the new prop to replace the folding prop which lost a blade on his last trip to Avalon. 

Alegria is out of the water now, the new MaxProp is ready to install, however, the SD40 saildrive needed a new zinc and no one seems to have one, Diver Joe is going to get Tom one first thing in the morning and help me to install his MaxProp a second time. 

Tomorrow I will have Botany Bay reblocked so I can get started with the areas under the jackstand pads. Tom and I also removed Hans the self steering vane off the back of Botany Bay and tomorrow I will prep the transom for LP!

May 9, 2004: Applied what may be the last coat of LP, I had to patch a little spot where I missed painting the sanded spot and hopefully it will blend in, if not, one more coat. Reinstalled the rudder, applied second coat of bottom paint. 

May 8, 2004: Tom and I worked hard on the boat, installed the 5/8" bolts plugging the old holes for the kelp guards, installed a new cutless bearing, dropped rudder, sanded it out, applied barrier coat and first coat of bottom paint. Installed new bellows on the PSS dripless packing.

May 6, 2004: Applied first coat of LP to the hull. It looks wonderful, two more coats of LP to go! Still need to drop the rudder and finish sanding and primer. I have to pull the propeller shaft also.

May 5, 2004: Applied second coat of Micron Extra, this coat is green. Pulled the V drive out to get access to the coupling. Worked on plugging the old kelp guard holes. Went to Lovelady hardware and found 5/8" Silicon Bronze bolts, I will install four electrically disconnected bolts into the existing holes and then bed them in 3M 5200. Sanded out aft end of hull which I could not reach in the water. Applied last coat of primer to hull.

May 4, 2004: Overcoated patches with interprotect barrier coat 2002e and then applied the first coat of Micron Extra. This coat is red. 

May 3, 2004: Sanded out the blister patches. Pulled the bolts which fill the kelp guard holes. These had caused a significant leak on the return trip from Kwaj. I replaced the bolts when I returned while in the water, the bolts had significant crevice corrosion again. I will have to come up with a better way to plug these holes.

May 2, 2004: Washed hull carefully with water and then patched the ground out blisters with 3M high strength vinaylester putty

May 1, 2004: Ground out blisters in the barrier coat, there were only a couple of blisters which were not just in the boundary between the interprotect barrier coat applied in 1994 and the hull. The deeper two  were only one layer of fiberglass into the hull. All ground out blisters were cleaned carefully with water

April 30, 2004: Botany Bay is out of the water, currently preparing the bottom for painting.  

April 28, 2004: Ordered replacement bellows, setscrews, and o-rings for shaft seal. PYI recommends that if water injection is used that it be at their fitting instead of on stern tube. Additionally ordered two tubes of lubriplate grease and the grease kit (including one tube of grease, a zirc fitting, and a grease gun). I also ordered a complete replacement screw set for a 70mm hub maxprop. Botany Bay will soon be ready to haul out and get serious about the underwater refit!

April 27, 2004: Up at 6am this morning and finished sanding out the aft end of the port topsides. So, now the decks are painted with LP but need some non-skid here and there, the starboard topsides have two coats of 404/414 primer and one coat of LP the port topsides have a single complete coat of 404/414 primer with an additional coat on areas where the white gelcoat was sufficiently crazed that the underlying black gelcoat started to come through. Hopefully tomorrow morning I can sand out the primer and apply a second coat for coverage. Friday is coming soon with haul out, I need to determine which cutless bearing is required (1 3/8" shaft but is the stern tube a 1 7/8" ID or 2" ID, I think it is 2"), the outside diameter of the shaft log inside the boat is needed to determine which bellows to get to replace the one which has been on the boat since Feb, 1997 (PYI says life expectancy is 12 years, recommends replacement at about 6 years), still working steering gear issues, found local welding shop to do the work, will have to pull transmission to access bolts through hull for old kelp guards so will take down to the local Borg Warner shop for a quick once over.

April 23-25, 2004: Took an extra Friday off to work through painting issues and the steering system. Three days of difficult work but half of the hull has its first coat of LP and the other half has its first coat of primer. Started working steering gear issues. Looks like the new pedestal will need to move forward a couple of inches to leave room for the 6" idler sheaves but otherwise I think it will all work out. Keep an eye out for "in progress" pictures of Botany Bay coming soon! 

April 19, 2004: The Edson steering gear arrives! Those 6" sheaves are huge! Assembled the system from its components and it all looks very good, there a couple of quirks which will have to be worked out and there will be some welding below decks to get everything working correctly. The biggest issue will be reversing the direction of the engine throttle control as pulling on the control cable increases the RPM instead of decreasing it.

April 12, 2004: The Ritchie compass has arrived! It is beautiful, a new powerdamp compass card, all new stainless covers, absolutely wonderful, best money spent this far!

April 7, 2004: Edson has not yet shipped the steering gear, should ship Friday the 9th. Should get here late next week or early the following week. Hopefully I will have the cockpit completed by that time. Currently targeting haul out for bottom paint the following week. Planning on 5 coats of Micron CSC Extra, at 16hours between coats it will be 4 days for the 5 coats and then move the stands and do it again for the jack stands and any hull repairs.

April 6, 2004: Tried throwing a tarp over the boat in the evening, I was a bit later than I should have been but the decks stayed shiny! Will experiment with the spraying thinner this weekend while working on the cockpit and will try covering portions of the deck after painting. Should manage to get the whole decks one color this weekend and get started with the topsides (waterline to the rub rail), hopefully I can get primer on some of that. 

April 3-4, 2004: The decks are white back to the forward edge of the cockpit! I seem to be having a bit of trouble keeping the paint from going dull in the evening dew. Painted first thing in the morning and still had dew problems. Talked to Interlux and they recommend trying a 50/50 mixture of the brushing thinner and the spraying thinner. Otherwise, try throwing a light tarp over the boat as late in the evening as possible without dew under it.

March 24, 2004: Ordered new steering system from Edson, see the equipment list for a detailed description of the choices.

March 23, 2004: Major sanding of primed decks, everything back to the forward end of the cockpit is ready for two final primer coats, then I get to move to the cockpit and finish up there.

March 22, 2004: Old D-515 Ritchie compass arrived at manufacturer for repair and a new housing. Total cost to rebuild compass and replace the chromed brass housing with a new stainless one was $495. Work should be completed April 8th and shipped back to me.

March 16, 2004: Sanded out the 410 Microlight filler and applied the first coat of Interlux 404/414 filler to the decks. Everything forward of the cockpit has one coat now, about half of the cockpit has a coat also as does the sea hood and companionway hatch. Hopefully I will get a day with good sunshine soon and I can get some pictures. The decks appear quite smooth and even.

March 15, 2004: Various gouges and imperfections in the nonskid were filled with West Systems epoxy and 410 Microlight Filler. Note that using this filler precludes painting the decks a dark color as this filler cannot handle extreme heat. These areas are very small and should not be any problem at all with white decks. 

March 13-14, 2004: Two 12 hour days of sanding the nonskid off the decks. New nonskid will be created from Interlux polymeric beads. I used a Porter Cable 6" random orbital sander with a vacuum attachment to contain the dust. The only remaining portion to sand is the cockpit sole.  

March 7, 2004: Final decisions about replacement steering gear from Edson, ready for ordering. Sent compass back to Ritchie for rebuilding and a new housing. 

March 6, 2004: The decks are finally stripped, getting quotes from the various local yards to determine how much of the work to do myself and how much to hand off.  

February 28, 2004: The windlass is back from Lighthouse, looks like new and the additional equipment for reversing direction and counting the amount of chain let out looks wonderful. All of the hatches and frames are off to Marine Windshield in Costa Mesa for rebuilding and powder coating. Using original equipment blanks from Bomar and powder coating bright white. 

February 3-12, 2004: Contra dancing in St. Croix! What a beautiful place! The sailing was wonderful, the diving spectacular, and the dancing sublime! 

January 19, 2004: New lenses are back from Plastic Depot and over in storage waiting for the decks to be painted. Lighthouse windlass is off at the manufacturer for preventative maintenance. Preparing to send all of the ports off to Marine Windshield in Costa Mesa to be rebuilt and powder coated, also having all of the frames for the big port lights powder coated with the same process. New hatch has been installed in the head. Remaining projects before starting to paint: Rebed upper shroud chain plates, remove lower shroud chain plates, install propane locker, remove rub rail, remove second dorade box, remove two foot switches for windlass on foredeck and install a third for reversing.

January 1, 2004: The beginning of a new year! Most of the major deck glass work is done. The foredeck heater stack hole is plugged up, the old windlass holes are reglassed, the old Yacht Specialties pedestal holes are complete, all of the random holes in the cockpit have been glassed up and sanded smooth. The remaining glass work: Install new hatch in head, remove the electronic instruments and glass up the holes, build propane regulator locker, and patch the mounting holes for the removed Deck mounted 406Mhz EPIRB. Assuming nice weather for Southern California I should be able to complete those projects this weekend and prepare to move forward on painting. I still need to rebed the cap shroud chain plates and remove the lower chain plates to make painting easier and I need to remove the new rub rail.

December 25, 2003: Rain comes to southern CA. I found a couple of places I did not get all of the leaks plugged from removing hardware. Nothing serious but mostly annoying. I have managed to get all of the outer rings removed from the Lexan Pilot house windows with Tom's help (Thanks Tom!) In fact we managed to pull all of them without bending any frames. Now I am carefully breaking the lens loose from the inside frame. Hopefully I can leave the inner frame in place and not have to risk repainting the inner frames or the inside of the coach house. I have three out of the ten lenses removed and have a technique which seems to result in a lens coming free every 30 - 45 minutes. The next three days are forecast to be dry which will let me get them all out and then something covering the large holes this leaves in the deck. It is rough not having a digital camera around (it is in the shop) and so I can't take pictures of the process. The wind is blowing very hard, making the process of keeping a tarp over the boat difficult. Hopefully I can have Botany Bay sealed back up before the next big rainstorm hits early next week.

December 14, 2003: The project work is coming along nicely. All of the hardware on the coach roof and main deck have been pulled and the holes filled with polysulfide to keep the rain out. I found a source of 1/2" MR-10 Lexan to replace the main cabin port lights. Thus far the only significant concern is the condition of the Bomar cast aluminum hatches. The coatings have failed pretty badly and many of the fasteners for hatch dogs and openers are frozen to the hatch. 

October 18-??, 2003: Time for repairs and maintenance, starting to strip the decks of all hardware for rebedding and painting. Take a look at the list of projects for the winter of 2003! In the meantime take a look at www.dancegypsies.com which I put together for my folk dancing friends.

October 11-12, 2003: I am single handing Botany Bay over to Catalina while buddy boating with Tom and Alicia of Algeria. The winds are perfect for a close reach with the asymmetric spinnaker and I decide to try flying it alone for the first time! The purple monster is out of the bag for the first time in over two years and it is a glorious sail to Isthmus! Even better I get to fly the purple monster again for half of the sail home! Too bad Algeria was too far away to get pictures.

September 12-14, 2003: Kayaks to port and starboard! 

September 11, 2003: As I prepare Botany Bay for sea, escorting 10 kayaks to Catalina, I reflect on the events of two years ago as I was preparing Botany Bay for the passage from Kwajalein to Los Angeles via Midway Island. The memorial at Midway was where I came to terms with the events of two weeks before. 

August 29, 2003: Labor Day weekend with the Corsair Yacht Club at Emerald Bay, Catalina Island. As has been the case most of this summer, all of the moorings at Catalina are full. However, it is an excuse to practice single handed bow and stern anchoring. I have just about got the system down.

August 2003: Botany Bay gets a new rub rail extrusion. It has taken me years to find an extrusion which looks good and covers the hull to deck joint on a Cruising CAL 35, it protrudes outward about a half inch from the hull and deck.

July 28, 2003: Pushed the images of Kwajalein Departure, Likiep Atoll, and the Midway to Los Angeles Passages onto the web site.

July 25-27,  2003: West Coast Yacht Club cruise to Newport with a raft up. I got my first "sawhorse" due to a frayed line on a fender which floated away. I did not get the sawhorse for the fender floating away but rather for the truly ratty line which was on it. I pleaded my rebuttal based upon sentimental  value of that piece of line which I applied to that fender shortly after purchasing Botany Bay. The club felt that the line had "parted ways" with me and that I still deserved the sawhorse.

July 4, 2003: I spent five glorious days anchored behind the big rock at Emerald Bay. The Fireworks were wonderful, the comradely of the Corsair Yacht Club was spectacular!

July 1, 2003: Finally, a potential new rub rail for Botany Bay. There is a part from Morse Industries which looks like it may fit perfectly, look good, and be easy to install. Samples should be here in a few days.

November 9, 2001: Rick and I made it from Midway to Los Angeles after 5 weeks at sea.