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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 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 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. 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: 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. 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: 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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: 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.
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