Fade to Black

So, in honor of Chairman Meow, Johnny Cash, and Steven Hawking (obscure) we went with black for the boat bottom. That's the first coat going on and a second coat will follow tomorrow. We are scheduled to launch on Thursday if all goes well with the other projects.

STAY TUNED!

Bottoms UP!

Hey all...Well, we now have three coats of barrier coat on the old hull. Starting to look fast Ok not fast but less slow maybe. Tomorrow we start with the first of two bottom coats. If things go well

RIGHT!

we will be back in the water on Wednesday at the earliest and Friday at the latest. Details yet to be accomplished are...

shove the propellar shaft back into the boat
attach propellar
attach dripless gland (one on boat and one on the captain!)
buy beer
install the sail cover - Mack Pack
re-glass and paint the rudder
re-attach the steering
buy beer
get the two missing lifelines installed
change all engine fluids and filters
buy beer
clean boat
reinstall the backstay...almost forgot that one!
connect the few remaining SSB connections
buy beer
comb Gracie
buy beer buy beer
reattach hose clamps on the forward head plumbing

Seems like a lot but we are not in charge of all these projects. Stem to Stern is doing much of this while we

buy beer

Have I mentioned that we are just a tad tired of living in a parking lot in Ft. L.?

WE ARE!

For all you faithfull readers who are also runners you should check out a really cool running blog. .. especially you Chicago runners! It's my daughter's blog and while working on a PhD in physics she is managing to keep up her training for various runs. Good for her!



Here's some pictures of our recent adventures in good old boat maintenance...Stay tuned for dramatic change in hull tomorrow.

The first picture shows the hull down to the bare fiberglass when we washed it every few days to help dry it out. We needed to wash away the salt as it oozed out of the very wet fiberglass.

The next picture (to the right) is when we finally began to apply the barrier coat (looks alot like barium!) and already looks much better.

The 3rd picture (bel0w, below) shows the pink fairing material used to smooth up the jagged areas and fill in any gaps of which there were just a few. Nice job Erik from Stem to Stern!

The fourth picture is of a happy captian who can almost taste the salty sea in his face. The final of 3 (this means 3 days in a row....I mean 3 long days in a row) coats of very important barrier coat.

































What will the final version of Enee look like? What color will her bottom be? How fast will she go? Stay tuned!

Another Ft. Lauderdale Update

The project list is getting visibly shorter and shorter!

Lifelines – We picked up our new lifelines yesterday and 6 out of 8 fit! That’s 75% so I give the rigger a C. The four forward ones were from our measurements. For this we took a string and held it at the forward bearing point and then made another mark at the aft bearing point. We did this four times for the four lifelines. So the string had a common forward bearing point and then 4 colored points for the 4 different lengths of the lifelines (yes all 4 are different…don’t ask.). At the riggers we laid the string out along their long bench which has a ruler glued to it. Now myself and the rigger read off the lengths for the various lines. My point is that this is NOT my mistake…this time! I only made marks. The actual measuring came at the rigging shop. As to the four shorter aft lines (center cockpit boat has many lifelines) we just took the existing lines and said make exact copies. One of THOSE fits nowhere! How does that happen? Anyway they’re going to make it right later today.

SSB – After much research and talking with people we’ve decided that the counterpoise does not have to be connected to the seawater directly via the installation of a Dynaplate. That’s good because that is more expense and another hole in the boat. The backstay is coming down today to be split up so as to make the central hunk the antenna. Stem to Stern is doing this.

Forward Head – We knew the y-valve was broken here as previous owner told us about it. As it was we could only flush the toilet overboard. Upon closer inspection I found the whole system looked like it was plumbed by a blind guy with an insane helper! Pipes everywhere (some which just ended and were open) two y-valves…both broken. Nothing for it but to rip apart the whole thing and start over. I wanted ALL the old pipes out as we have had a bad smell up there for some time. Now it is much simpler. Toilet goes right to a y-valve. One position is overboard and the other is to the tank. From the tank there are two paths. One is standard pumpout and the other is pump to deck via a Guzzler hand pump located down by the holding tank. 99% of the time cruisers flush to the sea no matter where they are. They do. BUT you must be able to set your y-valves to flush to tank before you get boarded by the coastguard but that is extremely rare.

Teak- Thanks to Sue the entire toe rail and rubrail now have three coats of Cetol light and two coats of Cetol gloss. Looks great! Having all the teak done will be a fine thing but then we have to be sure to have a regular maintenance schedule for keeping it looking fine. We don’t want to ever have to do all of it at once again.

Hull- Hull is dry enough and sanding and fairing begins in earnest today. As soon as hull is smooth I can start painting…two coats of barrier and two coats of bottom paint.

Engine – Engine is back together with rebuilt water pump. I have to change oil and filters and replace coolant before we go. Stem to Stern is installing the new dripless shaft packing as I couldn’t get the coupler off by myself.

Sail Cover – On the next calm day Sue and I will take off the mainsail and install the Mack Pack that we purchased so many weeks ago! Instructions are pretty clear but we figure it will be an all day job. Requires climbing the mast. Now that we have mast steps I can’t beg off so Sue may be off of bosun’s chair duty! Damn!

So, we could be underway in another week to 10 days. We hope we remember how to sail!

Ft Luderdale...highs and lows

Yes, we're still here but more and more things are beginning to happen. We've finished putting the copper under nearly every square inch of the teak and holly deck. I find out this morning that according to UPS the new radio has been delivered! That means that it is probably sitting in the locked up office here at Pier 17. Arggggggg. Sue finished the port side teak toe rail and rub rail this week and it looks great. We'll get a coat on the starboard side today and put the newly polished stainless back on the port side.

I worked for Stem to Stern thursday and Friday mostly sanding and painting with the exception of yesterday morning when myself and Ahmed installed a rebuilt transmission on a 50 foot, what Art would call, F*** boat! Twin diesels and, as usual, no room to work. The transmission probaly weight 150 pounds. We got it down into the engine room and stuffed it back behind the engine. Now all we have to do is lift it about 6 inches and shove it forward to engage the crankshaft. No way in hell! We roamed the yard picking up odd pieces of 2x4 and metal rods to use as levers. After about 30 minutes of grunting, swearing and pinched fingers we got it to engage. Whew! And I thought this would be an interesting break from sanding and painting!

Ahmed will be on our boat all day Monday putting the engine back together and installing the dripless gland. Lots of other stuff will be happening next week as well. . . Backstay is to come down so as to turn it into an antenna for SSB, rudder should come off (may have to lift boat) to reglass, hull sanding could start late in the week depending on the next set of moisture numbers.
Hey, we may make it to the keys afterall!!!!

Laying Copper

Two projects are now proceeding nicely. First of all we have now laid ninety feet of four inch wide copper strap under our deckto form the counterpoise for the SSB radio (see previous post for counterpoise discussion). We think there is room for another ninety feet. That will make about 60 square feet of copper to form our counterpoise. The process went well. The copper strap is easy to work with being thicker than aluminum foil but not so thick that you can’t easily bend it by hand. The picture at the left shows how it is laid in the companionway back to our aft cabin. The hardest part was removing the screws holding the teak and holly decking down to the old parquet. The screws were brass and had been in for awhile. You only get one chance with brass. Once you screw up the Phillips socket…you gotta drill it out! Did that for a number of the screws. So now the copper runs from dead aft under our bed through our aft cabin back and forth a couple of times, back and forth three times in the walkway from the main cabin to our aft cabin and then five or six passes up and down the starboard side of the main cabin. That’s where we ran out of copper. We simply screw the teak and holly flooring back down right through the copper strap if necessary. More strap is on the way.

The two pictures shown here show a nice before and after of the starboard side of the main cabin deck. Looking at the old parquet I can see why the previous owner put down the teak and holly!

So, we shifted gears and got back on the refinishing job. I think that is a job that will always be with us as long as we own this boat. If we always look to do a little bit, though, it should be ok. re-doing all of it at once is a large task though. We’ve sanded the toe rail and rub rail now portside. Tomorrow the first coat of Cetol…as soon as the frost is off the boat.

Have I mentioned that there is a FREEZE warning for Ft. Lauderdale. Sue and I heard on the radio today that the city went around and rounded up homeless people and took them to shelters last night because of the cold. That’s nice and it should be done. I’m just used to hearing those reports when the temps get into the single digits not the forties! I’m not saying Chicago’s homeless are tougher than Florida’s…but they are!

As things tend to go, today we received a book we’ve been waiting for: A gentleman’s Guide to Passages South. I can tell already this is a good book for us although the author seems just a trifle arrogant. The title refers to the old saying that, “Gentleman never sail to weather” - an old saying from the early days of yachting. Of course to get to the Caribbean from Florida you have to sail to weather against the trade winds and also some currents. This is often called the thorny passage. As with all cruising, though, if you are willing to wait for the proper moments and listen carefully to the weather you can make this passage in a number of short hops. As usual these days the question is, “but where will you be during hurricane season”? We’ll see… Anyway I thought it was interesting that the book arrived today as we are beginning in earnest to install our SSB radio because as I read the book I find that the author (Bruce Van Sant) totally assumes that you DO have an SSB radio to retrieve weather information which is crucial to making this passage.

So the boat is getting ready and the crew is getting ready. As tired as we are of Ft. Lauderdale and living in a parking lot this is still our best place to make ready for the next level of adventure.

Progress…real progress!

Yes we've been busy...this long blog is followed by another new one!

Between working for Stem to Stern and making trips to Tampa to visit my dad we’ve been making some progress on our projects while waiting for the hull to dry out but not at a rate that we would like. Now that is beginning to change. I’m working less and things are happening.

First of all the hull IS drying. We have three sets of readings and each is smaller that the former as you’d expect. I’d guess another week or two and we’ll be ready to sand and do the bottom job.

Meanwhile we have finished the refrigerator project. I’ve put an exhaust fan in the door to the cabinet where the compressor lives. By connecting it to the existing fan the two fans come on together. The one on the unit pulls air into the cabinet while the little fan from Radio Shack drives it out. This should help in warmer climes. Refrigerator itself is working fine and is keeping things (beer) plenty cool and not running too much. I mark this project DONE . . . for now.

Upon returning from Tampa last weekend we discovered that we had shipped about 20 -30 gallons of water aboard into the bilge! We’re sitting in a parking lot remember! Somewhere, rainwater is getting into the boat big time. No obvious culprits like hatches or ports which would show a trail of wet if it was them. I squirted the hose into the cockpit which is the biggest and lowest place on the outside the boat but Sue saw no water coming in from that. I tried the same with the mast and mast boot but no water there either. Then I tried the deck area around the flue from the propane cabin heater. STOP!, Sue says. Lots of water was sheeting in from under the deck fitting. Upon closer inspection we could see that this fitting was rotten and not bedded to the deck any longer. A quick trip to West Marine (you should all buy some stock!) and I’m back with a teak winch pad* which is what was used as a spacer between the deck and the little upside down V deal that covers the flue itself. Some 5200 and screws and we are calling this project DONE…until the next big rain.

* When asked, the nice man at West Marine assured me that they had no such item. Later, I showed him where they were. Strangely, they were by the winches.

Now for the biggie…Time to re-bolt the pulpit to the rail! This is where Sue gets to climb into the chain locker. Maybe better in her own words…

Finally we had time to both work on putting the bow pulpit back on. The woodwork and welding was done weeks ago it seems but with Scott working and this and that we didn’t have a full day for reinstallation. Recently we did. The plan was for me to insert the bolts from the inside of the anchor locker up through the holes in the stanchions where Scott would add the lock washer and nut and tighten as I hold onto the 2 foot long screwdriver below. The 2 foot long socket deal didn’t work.

It was a beautiful, sunny, breezy, warm February day in Fort Lauderdale. Great for sailing, as I inserted myself into the anchor locker (an area of about 2 square feet). Scott was on deck with pulpit in position ready with 5200 and lock washers and nuts. Okay the first bolt slipped through easily. I pushed the giant screwdriver with the attached by adhesive tape bolt up. It stayed its course. Yeah. This will be easy. Think again!

From Scott’s perspective it was a relatively straight forward job. After he aligned 3 of the pulpit stanchions and made the 4^th fit by drilling new holes, in theory attaching the bolts should be a breeze.

Sue's tools of torture

From my perspective the mission was clear and a system was in place. It even was a successful system for the most part. Tape the phillips headed bolt to the 2 foot long screwdriver with blue masking tape. Insert self and tool into anchor locker. Position flashlight so stanchion holes are visible. Push bolt through designated hole. Hold screwdriver so it doesn’t turn while Scott secures the nut.

Ah, but no one expected the menopausal moment. I begin to feel like I’m trapped inside an anchor locker (oh wait, I am!) The next bolt doesn’t quite match up.

Sue: Scott could you put a bolt through from the top.

Scott: You want me to put a bolt in so I can take it out again? (Now who is having the menopausal moment?)

Sue: So I can see where the hole is.

(As clear as the holes are on the top deck, there is much smudge and crevices on the underside.)
Sue: Ok, I see it. Oh wait, the bolt came off the screwdriver. Shit! Ok, now I have it. Go ahead, tighten it.

Scott: I can’t quite get the nut on. Push it up a little more.

Sue: I’m pushing as hard as I can . It won’t go any further.

Scott: I’ll loosen the other one. Try it now.

Sue: Yeah, that helps. Now it’s going. Do you have it tight yet? (as her knuckles are scrapping against the fiberglass hull gripping the screwdriver).

Scott: Yes, that one is tight. Now do the forward outer.

Sue: (Thinking – forward outer, that must be the one over my head furthest against the hull – as I am looking upside down from below) Okay. (I pull myself out of the anchor locker, tape another bolt to the giant screwdriver and gently ease myself and the tool back through the 2 foot hole.) Okay, now which hole?

I went in and out of the locker 16 times (once for each bolt-4 stanchions with 4 bolts each) plus about a dozen more times when I slid out because I felt like I was suffocating or when I dropped the bolt or when I couldn’t see where the next hole was or when I was cursing so much that I sweated up my glasses or when I bumped my head again on a hose clamp and it really pissed me off or when it got so hot in there (was it the heat of the flashlight or a hot flash?) that I needed to come out for air. Each time I entered the chamber I wrestled with the anchor chain, rubbed against the rough fiberglass walls and could really only see with one eye because even my head was too big to fully fit in the space where the pulpit fittings were. Each time I exited the space I gulped for air as I quickly slid my back over the cushion I placed on the wooden frame and bent my legs in a way that most 54 year old women wouldn’t choose to do, for free anyway.

I like working on the boat. I often learn many things about the boat and myself and my sailing partner. However, I think my menopausal moments during the anchor locker incident brought a new level of understanding to the phrase, 'swear like a sailor'. My emotions were so extreme, something I’m not used to. I was swearing so loud and often that I think most of the other workers in the boatyard were scared away. Thankfully I was hidden in the underbelly and so they couldn’t see me. Although the admiral of the fleet did give Scott a flower to give to me after the whole ordeal. Hmmm…..

So this project is DONE…for EVER!

Meanwhile back in the bilge…The bilge and area under the engine is still dirty with oil from our oil leak which has been fixed by the Stem to Stern guys. While messing with this the other day I noticed that the bilge pump itself was acting up. Running but not pumping. That ain’t good! Also noticed that neither pump nor float switch were even connected to the bottom of the bilge and that REALLY ain’t right! Today I discovered why they weren’t connected. The bottom of the bilge is actually a shelf of the big fresh water tank. Don’t really want to drill holes in that so I made a mounting board out of a chunk of Starboard that we had. Both switch and new working pump are mounted on this board. I’ll then 5200 the starboard to the bottom of the bilge. I took this opportunity to wire the pump into its circuit with quick disconnects. I’ll have a second pump at the ready with these same connectors. This should make it a shorter job to switch out pumps if necessary…like if the sea comes in! Project is stamped nearly done.

Sue’s big discovery

In an effort to freshen up our fresh water tanks, Sue removed the large (about 8” in diameter) inspection plates from the tops of our two water tanks. To her shock and surprise there is stuff in there! Not good stuff either. This would be what my friend Gary would call smoudge. The aft tank was the worst and the smoudge had a rotten egg smell. The sides of the tanks have scaly stuff stuck to them as well. We decided that this boat had shipped sea water into the tanks at some point and was never cleaned out. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find a sting ray swimming around in there! I think this can happen if you bury the port rail which is where the vents are for the tanks. Who knows? The good news is that we have been drinking out of these tanks and other than a little cloudiness in the water we seem to be fine other than some normal forgetfulness. The good news is that we have been drinking out of these tanks and other than a little cloudiness in the water we seem to be fine other than some normal forgetfulness. So, we borrowed a big shop vac (Suc-o-Lux) from our friends at Stem to Stern (Yes it is a good idea to become friends with people who have ALL the marine repair equipment!) and Sue cleaned out that aft tank. Tough job because this tank is a full 3 -1/2 feet deep and Sue has 2 ½ foot short arms! Now both tanks are clean and have had new gaskets put under those inspection plates so this job is DONE…stay tuned!

Yesterday we made measurements for replacing all of our lifelines. We did this by using some nice stiff nylon cord (from guess who!). After threading the cord through the stanchions I put the cord around the forward loop on the pulpit and then Sue marked where the cord met the aft connection point. We used the same piece of cord and just made different colored marks for the different aft connections for our 4 long, forward lifelines. I know, you’re thinking, “Why not just take the old lifelines to the rigger?” No, because these old lines were jerryrigged in a number of ways due to broken stanchions and broken pulpit so this measurement would be better than the lifelines themselves. Now the four little lines for the aft deck are ok as to their length but still need to be replaced so we did take those to the rigger to copy. So, Paul, the rigger is making our new lifelines and we should have them within a week.

The next BIG project is to lay out a counterpoise for our SSB radio. Ah, sure a counterpoise. Here’s how I understand it. If one antenna is good two is better. Our antenna will be our backstay which will have to be split to have insulators installed. Now if the whole boat was metal and connected to the antenna the signal would bounce off of the metal hull and from far away it would be like there were two antennas and their signals would reinforce each other. Any physicists out there will recognize this as Llyod’s mirror from optics. Of course we have a fiberglass boat so we have to lay out a bunch of metal to form this counterpoise. Luckily, our previous owner laid down a teak and holly sole over the original parquet. We can lift that teak and holly and lay down a long, continuous, 6” strip of copper back and forth and thereby form a nice big sheet of metal for the signal to bounce off of. They say you want 100 square feet but we won’t get that much. More like 50 square feet for us but we hope that will do it. It’s not that the SSB won’t work unless you have 100 square feet its just that more area means more range for your radio. This radio business is not a realm of physics with which I am real familiar so I’m excited to learn more about this region of the electromagnetic spectrum.

A month and chump change

So where are we here? Many things have happened in one month and change yet we’re still living in a parking lot. Hmmmmm. Let’s look at the positives. Scott is gaining some boat repair experience although most of his time lately has been spent sanding the topsides of a 45 foot fishing boat. We think his finger prints have been removed in the process. Enee’s hull is actually drying out. After 10 days most areas of the hull are significantly less moist. This could mean that the bottom will be ready for sealing and painting in a couple of weeks. Sue did the readings this time as Scott was busy at work. The question about how does this little box (moisture reader) really work came up. She put the meter against her hand and sure enough it went off the scale. Of course since we are made of 90% water give or take a few. So is this proof that the meter actually does measure moisture in the hull of a boat. Then the idea of testing other boats occurred. Here are the interesting results. The steel hulled boat was also off the scale and the aluminum boat also off the scale. Does this mean that these impenetrable boats have moisture in them? No! It means that the meter is calibrated to measure moisture on fiberglass boats. When other substances come into play, the meter goes way off.

Now think about this. ( I had to and am still thinking.) These wonderful meters that we use in our everyday lives such as thermometers to take our temperature, barometers to measure the barometric pressure, they don’t ‘know’ about hotness or coldness or highs or lows and such. They only know what the human programmed them to do. Measure some level of something and when the conditions are such the meter reads low, medium, or high. What a concept. Of course the machine doesn’t know there is water in our hull and frankly doesn’t care. Because it can’t care! This was a revelation to Sue.

To reiterate the positives so far, Scott is working and learning and deducting the amount of some of our bill for our boat. Sue is learning about physics (she actually did an experiment on her own) in a meaningful way. Gracie is still alive although she may argue whether or not this is a positive. And it’s usually 70 or 80 degrees during the day and a comfortable 60 or 50 degrees at night.





Other positives:

We’ve met up with several friends and family while staying in Ft. L. including recently with Sue’s cousins Mike and Sharon who drove up from the Keys for dinner. What fun to get together, catch up with family, and find out about living in the Keys and fishing tips as well. The Keys will be our next stop once we get back in the water.

The brakes went out on the Mazda that we drove down from Chicago, but Art helped us get them fixed without going to a Car X or Midas or other expensive shop. Friday morning Sue got two used tires to put on because Lammert (the brake fixer) discovered a split in one and both are very worn. Lammert suggested a tire place near by and sure enough they replaced our tires for only $50 bucks.

The guy who lives near the boat yard and walks up and down inspecting everything that’s going on (we call him the admiral since he is always inspecting the fleet) said hello to Sue the other morning as usual and then talked about his beautiful flowers blooming in his yard and gave her one for all the hard work she was doing on the boat. Apparently he has seen Sue sanding, scrubbing, carrying buckets of bilge water down the ladder, etc.

So you see there are many good things that are happening as we sit here ‘on the hard.’ And what about the negatives, you ask? Well of course, the down side is that we aren’t sailing. We’re not even floating. But that time will come and we still have several projects to complete before then anyway.

If You Can't Pay 'em...Join 'em!

Hello to all. The long delay between posts is due to Scott getting a JOB! As long as we're in Fort Lauderdale for awhile I thought I might as well try to make back at least my yard fees ($28/day) by working. Yes, that's me in my official Stem to Stern team t-shirt. I've been taken on by the Stem to Stern guys who are doing the work on our boat! This works out great as not only do I get to make some cash I'm also learning a ton about boat mainenance by some true experts. (As you all know I only PRETEND to know what I'm doing after reading about it somewhere!) Art of Stem to Stern is trying to figure out how to bill me for me working on my own boat but I think I'm a little too sharp for that....maybe.

So far I've helped to pull wire on a 65 foot luxury yacht, sanded the decks of an old 45 foot fishing boat, polished the stainless (miles of it) on another luxury yacht, and helped to install the antenae on a 50 foot trawler. At first my body, although lithe and wirey, was complaining about doing physical labor but now all the parts seem to be working together more or less.

While I"ve been working in various boat yards on various boats, Sue has been slaving away on Enee Marie. She got the yard to set up some scafolding so she could sand down the wide toe rail and refinish with Cetol. It looks great and is now ready for us to re-install the bow pulpit which has been re-welded for us. Hopefully that will happen today along with beginning to string the new lifelines.

In a continuing effort to 'embrace the technology' I've hooked up with Vimeo so that I can embed video clips in this blog. Sorry, in the first one I didn't smile ...I was really concentrating. The second one is one of our attempts to digitally capture dolphins. Anyway, if interested, check out Vimeo. Really easy to get started!


View this clip on Vimeo


View this clip on Vimeo

One week in Ft. Lauderdale

Progress each day with our re-fitting. Three hatches, the port and starboard main hatches and the aft-berth hatch have all had their plexiglass replaced and have been re-bedded to the deck with tons of 5200! Yuk - quite a job. Most of the time involved in this process is in the removal of ALL the old material of which there is quite a bit. The place where the frames bed to the deck is a half inch thick trim of teak. Nice except over the years owners have sanded this teak down to refinish it. When I took off the frames then you find that where they were it is about a 32^nd to a 16^th higher than the wood outside this. For us that meant lots of sanding with 60 grit paper until all was brought down to the same level. Others taking on this work should make sure you have plenty of time and that you can adequately cover the open hatches while you work. They look great and, as luck would have it, we had a little rain last night with no leaks! Didn’t rain that hard though so not a real test. The real test will be when we take green water over the deck at sea…not that I look for that!
Thanks to Art (Stem to Stern) for his time and patience in teaching us how to re-do our hatches. We love learning such usefull skills.

The refrigeration has been installed…finally! In the process of installation everything has to come apart. Luckily it all goes back, somewhere. This type of refrigerator is the Adler Barbour Cold machine. I had to make a little structure inside the icebox to hold the evaporator box and then lead the copper tubing along the inside of the box, out a hole on the port side, behind the galley drawers, behind the stove and into the cabinet under the sink where the compressor now lives. (Thus, the mess!) In retrospect I suppose I should have paid a little more and gotten the compressor that has the option for water cooling but I just hate putting more holes in a boat and that rig requires two more and a pump and tubing and so forth. The trade-off is that I now have to exchange heat with the air rather than with sea water. Even though the sea water may be quite warm where we are going, it is a better conductor of heat so the unit can work more efficiently. So, knowing that I’ll try to not ask too much from the unit. Also, the more air I can move through the cabinet the better. Right now the compressor will be drawing air from behind and beside the stove. I plan to install an exhaust fan in the cabinet door that will be wired in parallel with the compressor so that when the compressor comes on so will the fan. This should provide a constant stream of fresh air for the compressor. You can’t keep exchanging heat with the same air! Won’t work. Since in our opinion most refrigerated items only need to be cool and not ice cold I will also build a partition for the icebox to that it can have a cold section containing the evaporator and a cool section on the other side. By experimentation I hope that I can find a proper place for this partition so that I don’t eat up too much electrical energy. The unit needs to be recharged with refrigerant before starting her up as I heard the constant hiss of it as I connected the couplings. Oh well…

We hope the hull is drying out. The only evidence of this so far is that salt crystals will magically appear on the hull and you can feel them when you run your hand over the surface. This is the salt water leaching out and evaporating to the air leaving the salt behind. We put the moisture meter on the hull a few days ago but no real change was showing. Eventually we’ll take readings in various location and write the numbers right on the hull so that we can track the changes. An option to try would be to shroud the hull in plastic and place a dehumidifier or two within. Some say this speeds the process while others say it is a waste of time. We’ll see.

Living on the hard is, well, hard. We have to climb up a ladder about 10 or 12 feet to get to the deck. The land head is about 200 yards from here. There are no lifelines on the boat right now so that working on deck is a little scary and we have to be real careful. Refitting the lifelines and the pulpit is probably the next big project for us to tackle and that will remove this danger.

We also realize that life isn’t all work and projects and are finding time have some fun as well. (Not that working on boats isn’t fun. But it is work!) It especially helps when friends visit. Jim and Judy were in Florida for a family wedding and stayed in Ft. L for a few days. We had dinner together, great conversations, and lots of laughs.

We also had a great dinner at John, Debbie, and Rachel's - high school friends who live in Hollywood just south of Ft. Lauderdale. What fun to catch up on the past 25 years.

What will happen next week?

I’m calling Friday ‘day one’ in Ft. Lauderdale. Our first full day “on the hard” which means the boat is up in a boat yard and NOT floating. The guys at ‘Stem to Stern’ finished stripping everything off of the hull today taking it down to raw fiberglass. Now the hull can weep away and we’ll keep her clean so that can continue. While they were doing that Sue and I went to Stem to Stern’s workshop to work on our hatches.

The hatches have had the old plexi removed but now ALL the old silicone has to be removed so that new stuff will bond. This takes awhile. Art helped us get started and made a couple of custom tools (torture devices) for us to work with. We worked on these from about 9:30 to 3:30 with a short lunch break. Whew! Not used to real work! They are coming along. We have a little more to do tomorrow and then we can learn how to bond in the new plexi and then they can be re-bedded to the deck. That will be good for our ventilation while we’re living here! Right now we have plastic and duct tape covering our hatches. Since it will take a month or more for the hull to dry out we are in no big hurry and want to enjoy a dry boat in a heavy rainstorm at some point in the future so it is worth it to get it right.

Saturday we returned to Art’s sweat shop. We finished cleaning the frames and then put on the masking tape so that the goo used to re-bed the new plexi doesn’t get everywhere. Art is a good teacher and showed us how to do one.

In the ‘by-the-way’ department …

We got the new name on the boat …well the old name but new for this boat!

Our new dodger has been installed. What a difference. We can SEE again! There will be a zip on bimini to go with this and new binnacle cover. New sail cover coming soon will be of the same color.

Grinding the hull...and then!!!

So the large project of removing all the paint AND the gelcoat from the hull is in progress. Here's Erik grinding away. Once this is done we can let the hull weep and wash it as it does. The washing removes the goo coming out which if left alone can actually re-seal that area and not allow any more of the water out. As to how the water gets in, well, that is a problem with older boats. The gelcoat under the bottom paint is not waterproof forever and bit by bit water gets by. The fiberglass itself can then absorb the water. If not attended to you will get ugly blisters...well, actually the boat will and then layers of fiberglass begin to delaminate from the boat. We don't have any of this so once the drying process is completed an epoxy barrier coat will go on and then the bottom paint.

We may be held up for quite awhile though because as we were watching the water and goo bleed out of the hull whose image should we see but, yes you guessed it, The weeping Enee Marie Madonna! I would say this is at least as impressive as her last appearance at a Chicago overpass.


Now we will have to wait for the parade of patrons to pay homage to the old girl. Well, maybe we can defray some of our costs with a brisk candle business on the side.

Stay tuned. This is sure to make the 10 o'clock news.

cruising...oh, you know!

"Cruising is repairing your boat in exotic ports all over the world."
-Popular definition of cruising

"There's nothing better than messing with boats"
-Some Winnie the Pooh character

As Stem to Stern began the process of stripping the old bottom paint off of Enee they found that we have water intrusion withing the fiberglass hull. Not too much blistering and no delamination yet so that's good. The bad news is that it will take a month for the drying out process to be completed. Well, in that time we will be able to stay on board in the yard and give the hull a daily scrubbing as well as finishing up ALL of our other projects. So, be prepared for this blog to be all about boat repair for a month and little about sailing!

Refit in Ft. Lauderdale

Enee is now up on the hard in Ft. Lauderdale at the Pier 17 Marina with many projects taking place simultaneously. What a surprise when she came out of the water! I wonder where I picked up that rope on the prop shaft? Never noticed any loss of power or anything. Guess I should dive under the boat on occasion to see what's going on down there!






Here's the short list of boat projects taking place.

*Take off old bottom paint (about 200 coats) and re-do bottom the Micron CSX
*Pulpit is off and has been re-welded. Sue and I will re-install...Yes, Sue, back into the chain locker you go!
*Re-do lifelines
*Fixing the dripping rear seal on the engine.
* Replace the plexi on the 4 deck hatches and rebedding hatches to deck
*Finish installation of the 12 volt refrigeration
*New dodger, bimini, and pedestal cover being built
*New dripless packing nut for prop shaft. While there was nothing inherently wrong with the traditional packing we had, there is a design flaw with these Endeavours. When the packing drips as it should when underway the water runs forward to the bilge but that path takes it right over the top of the fuel tank! Ultimately this will lead to serious corrosion of the tank and then water in the fuel. This dripless packing nut will take away that problem.

Final possible project for the boat is the installation of SSB radio. I think we'll probably go with this. It is a one time expense that will allow us many possibilities for weather info, email, and communication with other cruisers in the future. The move from there to a Ham license is not that big a step and e-mail is totally free if you are a Ham.

Whew! Much of the work is being done by Stem to Stern and they are doing a great job. At this time we are actually back in Chicago and will return first to Tampa where Scott's dad has a nice wood shop. There are some minor projects that can be built there and then on to Ft. Lauderdale. It looks like the boat will go back in the water on Thursday. We'll move back aboard then and sail out a couple of days later. Have to at least get the lifelines and pulpit back on before we leave. We're excited about these jobs! After sailing this boat about a thousand miles we have a pretty good idea of what needs to be done and Ft Lauderdale is a great place to get projects done.
Longer range plans have us continuing on to the Keys and then spending about a year exploring the Bahamas. The Bahamas charge $300 for a one year cruising permit so we intend to get our money's worth! Art from Stem to Stern has showed us some good hurricane holes in the Bahamas as well as noting that Ft. Lauderdale itself is a pretty good hurricane hole if you get far up the New River.

More pics to follow after we return to Tampa and Ft. Lauderdale.

Merry New Year

Our last entry had us making it to Vero Beach Fl. Since then much has happened!

From Vero Beach we used the ICW to make our way to Jensen Beach. A little strange there as there is a nice big anchorage area with hardly any boats in it. Red flag? Especially since we just came from the Vero Beach mooring field with boats rafted up two and three deep. We sounded our way in in about 8 feet of water and dropped the hook. Good holding. We hailed a guy getting away from his boat in his dingy and asked where to dock our dingy and he pointed out the pier next to the public launch ramp. A little later we took our dingy in and explored the small town of Jensen Beach. This doesn’t take long. Good news is that they had a Publix (large grocery store) there and a friendly little bar (Conch Charlies) for lunch. Jensen Beach seems like an ok stop for cruisers to me but hardly anybody there. And, who knew, there was a piano waiting to be played right on the street. Snappy couldn't walk by without playing some Joplin.

The next day we were off to knock down another hunk of the ICW. This hunk featured 10 draw bridges all with a different opening schedule. This really gets annoying and by the end of the day we have really had it with the ICW. Good news though…this brought us to Palm Beach anchored in Lake Worth just south of the large class A inlet to the Atlantic. We’ll use that to make an outside run to Ft. Lauderdale when the weather permits. The wind has been blowing 15-20 knots from the due north for days now and has stirred up the ocean pretty good. We’d like that to simmer down a bit before we make our run. Ideally we are to be in Ft. Lauderdale by Friday and this is only Wednesday. This anchorage is ok but a little wide open and far from anything. A good number of other cruising boats here but it looks like about a 1-2 mile dingy ride to get to anywhere. We spend the rest of this day aboard and listen to the weather radio.

On Thursday we worked on the boat all day. My major accomplishment was to finally fix the y-valve in the aft head. It was frozen in the ‘flush overboard’ position (sorry Earth). I had a new one ready to install but I couldn’t get the hoses off the old one. For you sailors I think you know the hose I’m talking about…that white stuff that is very tacky and hard to work with. Add to this that I am stuffing myself under the sink in the head trying to muscle off these hoses. Now matter how hard I swore I couldn’t get a hose to budge even a millilmeter (like a 1/16 only smaller!). I decided that I was being too careful. This y-valve already didn’t work so why not just start cutting it to pieces with my Dremel. I had the Dremel plugged in and revved up when Sue said, “Would it do any good to take off those other three screws on the y-valve?” I thought not and said as much but didn’t want that to have been the clever solution after I was ripping away with my Dremel. Sure enough, by removing those screws I can take the guts out of the y-valve and guess what…they are the same guts as are in the new one! Way to go Sue! Now the hoses can stay in place and I can just do a one for one switch. I did and this now works as it is supposed to!

Weather reports are for the winds and seas to lay down for tomorrow and we plan an early start as we want to make sure we get to the marina in Ft. Lauderdale while they are still open. I get up at 3 and check the weather and the wind is still blowing hard out of the north. I hate NOAA weather. They are so wrong so often. I had the feeling that this wind and the waves that go with was NOT settling down on this day so I went back to bed. Later as the day wore on the wind actually built up. Glad I trusted my instincts on that one but now it’s going to be another day in Palm Beach. The cruising guide showed a marina not too far away from us so we called to see if they had a dingy dock. They did and for the docking fee you could also use their showers. Sounds good and then we can go exploring. This marina is about 4 miles north of the town of West Palm Beach. I don’t know why, but I always figure that if there is water and marinas there will also be restaurants and other stores. WRONG! We walked north first of all. Just shabby neighborhood and run down businesses. We walked south…and then more south…and then more. All service businesses like upholstery, tires, walker tune ups, brain x-rays…that sort of thing. Being stubborn we ended up walking all the way down town…the entire 4+ miles. Finally there are a couple of restaurants, library, and book store but of course no groceries. We took a cab back!

Now maybe the weather will cooperate. Saturday looks to be the day they promised for Friday. The wind is supposed to be SE at 5 knots. We’d rather motor sail into this wind than negotiate the 23 bridges (I’m not kidding) between Palm Beach and Ft. Lauderdale. We decide to go at first light. It’s 40 nm to Ft Lauderdale inlet (actually called Port Everglades) so if we can average 5 knots that’s 8 hours we should be there by 2 or 3 in the afternoon.

Up anchor at dawn and off we go. Well, NOAA got it partly right. The wind is SE but more like 15 knots. That’s ok. We are under full sail, on course and making 6+ knots. Later in the morning the wind turned to be more south (of course). We were able to keep the main up and motor sail the rest of the way. The ride got a little bumpy as we were barging into the seas but it was so great to back out on the ocean and out of the little ditch. As we made our way into the inlet for Ft. Lauderdale we counted 5 huge cruise ships moored there. Glad none of them was on the move! From this inlet we needed to make our way up the New River about 3 miles to the marina where the boat will stay for awhile to get some work done.

The cruise up the New River was surprisingly wonderful. The river is very narrow and lined with beautiful homes (yes, that's a house in the pic!) most of which have huge boats moored out front –both power and sail. There are three little draw bridges but we were following a boat being towed so the captain of the tow boat did all the calling to the bridges and we just tagged along. After the third bridge we found Pier 17 Marina. We knew nobody was working today but they told us previously to just tie up by the travel lift if we get in and nobody is there. That’s just what we did!

This is more of a boat yard than a Marina but that’s ok because this is where we are going to have the boat hauled out for new bottom job and some other minor projects. Also at 70 cents a foot it is a real deal! A brief walk around the area showed us that once again – no provisioning anywhere nearby. Yikes we are out of ice and most fresh food. Lots of canned stuff though and ‘envelope’ dinners so we won’t starve. My daughter and husband will be down with a car on Wednesday and we’ll survive until then. In the meantime we have our own list of boat maintenance projects that we need to do.

Christmas morning! Beautiful weather. We sit out in the cockpit having our morning coffee. There’s nobody here but us. Suddenly, Sue says, “What’s that floating down the river?” We both look and sure enough there is an entire hunk of pier, about 10 feet long floating down the river. But wait now it’s going up river…and now it makes a circle and what the…it’s got a bow wave! This thing is under power and that means something under the water is towing it. Yes, we see a line going under the water getting tight and then slack. On a close pass to our boat we see the brown shadow of a manatee. Poor girl has gotten herself tangled up in this thing somehow and can’t get loose.

So we had to shoot her.

Just kidding!

Being a man of action I called the coast guard. They laughed until they stopped and then said a manatee rescue man would call me on the cell. Manatee Rescue Man called a few moments later and asked more details about where this thing was and said it would take him 30 -40 minutes to get there. (I suspect that much of this time was taken up by climbing into his Manatee Rescue Man Superhero costume.) Well that’s no good but I said ok and then Sue and I launched the dingy to go after the manatee ourselves. I had my knife in my teeth and a fearless gleam in my eye. Sue said I looked silly. As we rowed over toward the pier which was now bumping and crashing against pilings across the river another boat came out by us. It was the tow boat guys from yesterday. They had heard my call to the coast guard. Before either of us could get there a man across the river had figured out what was going on and managed to cut the manatee loose from the pier. So, just another standard Christmas morning!

One of my main projects is to finally have the time to install the 12 volt refrigeration on this boat. It came with engine driven cold plate refrigeration. I don’t care for this as it means you HAVE to run your engine probably twice a day to re-freeze the cold plates. But this boat has a 100 amp alternator and a wind driven generator. This is a better set up for 12 volt refrigeration then. Of course there are issues though….Where to put the compressor. It needs air flow to be able to do its job so you can’t stick it in a tiny locker. The instructions say that the engine room is ok but will need ductwork to bring outside air to the compressor. I have ductwork already in place and a nice shelf in the engine room where the old refrigerator business was so I decide that that’s where I’ll install the new compressor. The problem now is there are pipes and tubes running all over this boat and no diagram or labels. The previous owner said the system needed charging but that probably doesn’t mean there is no refrigerant in the system. Furthermore, as I trace down the copper tubing that carries the refrigerant I find that it seems to get tangled up with the copper tubing for the aft air conditioner! Could those two things be sharing the same refrigerant supply? I wouldn’t install air conditioning on a boat but since it is here I want the option to use it. I’m imagining a time when we are living at a marina for awhile while working somewhere. When you live on the anchor you usually get a nice breeze and air conditioning is silly. When you are stuck back in a marina and no breeze it can be a welcome relief. That’s where you’ll have the 110 to run it anyway. So, after hours of climbing all over the boat I managed to make some diagrams of how things are hooked together to a point but was not willing to begin cutting tubing just yet.

Now it was nearly time for the Bears game! Maybe if we travel back down river toward town we can find a place that is open where we can get some food and watch the game. The dingy ride back down river was fun as I didn’t really get a good look at things on the way up being a little nervous following the boat ahead and being in new waters. I’ve never seen so many HUGE boats in one place. Ft. Lauderdale is like a boater candy store! After about 30 minutes we came to a place where there were some boats tied up and people about and some obviously open establishments with TVs! Sue went ashore and found the dockmaster and found it was ok for us to tie up the dingy as long as we wanted. Perfect. We got some good seats right by the TV with the Bears game and had Christmas dinner (cheeseburger for me), some beers, and enjoyed watching the Bears pound the Packers! Now THAT’S a merry Christmas!

DA BEARS!

Monday is an exciting day as we meet with our two main contractors for work we want done. First to come is John and Linda from our canvas company. We have a nice discussion about exactly what we want in our new dodger and they make the necessary measurements to get the job rolling. I can’t wait to get rid of this pontoon boat awning! While we were still talking with John and Linda Art showed up from Stem to Stern Boat maintenance. He is going to take care of engine and bottom work and maybe some other projects. He sees that we are still discussing canvas and says, “So, do you need to go to the store?” This guy is a former cruiser and as all cruisers know, a car is a valuable commodity. “YES, take Sue to the store and thank you.”

When they returned we had a nice long talk with Art from Stem to Stern Boat Maintenance. He is very knowledgable about boats (he built his own and went cruising for 5 years) and we put together a prioritized list of things that he and I need to do. He doesn’t care how much of any project I do myself. Some contractors won’t let the owner do any of a job as they want all the hours for themselves. Top of the list is why the engine is dripping oil and where is it coming from. Next is removing the entire pulpit so it can be re-welded and put back. We are also going to replace all the lifelines at this time. Once the boat is hauled Art will have all the old bottom paint sanded off and we’ll go with a hard paint like Micron something or other. Other smaller jobs include fixing the knot meter, checking out the rudder bearing, replacing the through hull for the air conditioning (it’s frozen), checking on engine running temperature (I think 180 is a little high) and so forth. This is a great place to re-fit a boat. Every possible boat type of worker is in this town. We like Art and are glad he is on the job.

Finally we had our first visitors from back home! Rich P. and Mary Beth. Rich is a guidance counselor from Maine East and they were on vacation near Palm Beach. What fun to reminince and get caught up with old friends. We went out to eat at a fun place called Shooters (usually I stay away from a place with this name down south) with good food.

A busy day but things we have only been talking about over the last 1000 miles are now beginning to happen.

On Tuesday I started the official engine investigation. First job was to clean up the oil that was already there and wipe down the engine so we could detect exactly where the drip is coming from. This is not fun but I managed and then laid out fresh oil absorbing pads so we could look at them after about 24 hours. Now for removing the pulpit. Yikes, the pulpit meets the toe rail in four places each with four bolts that are through bolted. To get at the nuts we had to drag most of the chain out of the chain locker and remove the door to the chain locker in the v-berth. I could just about stuff upper half in there but I couldn’t turn or look up to find the bolts. SUE? Sue just fit! What a great crew. I stuffed her in there with a socket and extension so she could hold the nuts while I turned the heads from top sides. Took us about and hour to get all 16 bolts out but we did it! The tricky part now is that the wires to the running lights are run through the tubing of the pulpit. I cut the wires up by the light where there is plenty of extra to repair later. I tied a line then to the end of the wire and began pulling it through the piping. No way. Way at the top the wire makes a nearly 90 degree bend. This is the two strand coated wire and very rubbery which makes it impossible to pull it around a tight bend like this. No solution was jumping up at us so we decided to leave that puzzle for Art tomorrow.

We finished off the evening with wrapping presents for daughter and son-in-law who will be arriving tomorrow. Fun!

Rafting in Vero Beach

"On the Road Again down the ICW from Titusville"
We left Titusville (I think there's an old joke lurking in that town name by the way. Something about buying two tickets to Pittsburg...) at 7:30 am on Sunday. Looking to make an anchorage near Melbourne FL just around the corner from Dragon Point. This is the far southern tip of Merritt Island near Satellite Beach We were nicely tucked away with several other boats. Some of these boats were forced out by the marine police and later we found out why. There was a Christmas boat parade with power boats (who else would do this?) decorated with christmas lights with many festive drunks...I mean festive holiday people on board. There was actually plenty of room but as long as you're paying three really large marine policeman, you might as well give them someone to harass.
Stiff north wind is still blowing and keeping us off of the ocean which is frustrating and we rocked and rolled pretty good all night.


On Monday we pulled our anchor at 7:00 AM again and headed more south. Now this north wind is being our friend and we rolled out our Genny and blew right down this ditch at about 6 kts. Small turns here and there required us to jibe but only cost a minimum of swearing. Good thing because we needed all are swearing skills when we got to Vero Beach.




Along the way there were several dolfins, really. We quickly get the camera and take movies but none yet have captured the essence. However we were able to capture the essence of this scene! This is what you don't want to do on the ICW:










We had called the marina earlier and, as promised in the cruising guide, there is no anchoring in Vero Beach but the marina maintains many mooring balls. The bad news is that they are very busy so you can expect to have to 'raft up' to an already moored boat. This means pulling up parallel to the other boat and tying the two of them together with fenders inbetween. When we came in we got the location and name of our rafting partner - Mooney. Now usually, when two boats raft up there are crewmembers on both boats that throw each other lines and gently reel in the boat to be rafted to the already moored boat. No such luck for us. Mooney had left fenders out on her starboard side and gone ashore. That's brave! If they had ever seen me dock this boat or knew the I would be coming in I bet they would have never left!

More fun-there was plenty of wind and current. Both against our motion so that's good. So I brought Enee in close for Sue to leap (ok Sue does not leap) or step off on to Mooney but the wind/current pushed me off before she could go. We drove around and made another pass. This time Sue got aboard.
Now I have to stay at the helm to continue to drive the boat forward to compensate for the currernt. The only way I could help Sue was to holler impossible directions about every 15 seconds and in the inbetween time complain about how slowly she was accomplishing her tasks.

Good news - after about a half and hour and no damage to either boat we are secure to Mooney. I think we'll go ashore too before Mooney owners get back and tell me how I did it all wrong. I also notice that they are flying a German flag and our boat is bigger than theirs so I hope they are not looking for more liebensraum! More good news...Sue and I are still married!

We may have a chance to get out on the ocean from Palm Beach later in the week and do the last leg to Ft. Lauderdale on the ocean.