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MayDay!
Just kidding it's May Day
Anyone who thinks owning an old boat is relaxing better like maintenance. This is my life. I drive stuff and I fix stuff. Cars, Trucks, Limo's, Helicopters, Planes, Boats... and I fix anything from a clogged sink to a grandfather clock. I always liked wooden ship models now I have a full size one! I do love this boat.
Date: Mon, 2 May 2022 01:24:00 GMT
Oiled the deck
Steve and Sam working on the deck
Today was another teak day we finished cleaning the decks and tomorrow we will work on the cockpit perhaps depending on the rain. Then in the evening we oiled the deck painting it on with a large brush. I think they look beautiful. At the bow where I tested the teak oil 2 days ago it is now a slightly different color than the rest of the deck!! GRRRR. I'm not sure why but we will see if it lightens up a little after a couple days. It was pretty dark on the bow at first as well. We cleaned the eyebrows on the cabin and cleaned up the deck boxes. I found that is best to paint the oil on one board at a time as then if you do want to add more later it will just look like a slightly different board and there are plenty of those but this line across the bow is really disturbing.
Tonight Hannah is making noodles and white sauce and Sam is working on his computer learning to edit videos.
Date: Wed, 04 May 2022 01:47:00 GMT
This is the teak that never ends...
Steve and Sam working on the deck and the cockpit
Today was spent sanding, cleaning, oiling, and varnishing. But we got the entire cockpit cleaned. I have 1/2 the deckboxes and both hatches varnished. I am really pleased about how things are turning out. The teak is really beautiful. A lot of work? yes. But to me worth it. There was an area forward where I tested my method and it was a slightly different color than the rest of the deck and I had to sand out the line between the two sections, re-clean it, and oil it. The transition is softer now and not noticable. Right now we have used 1 1/2 gallons of teak oil and we have two coats on the starboard side and 1 coat on the port side. I think we're going to go through another gallon before we are through and we have not done the cockpit yet.
We also rebedded one stantion on the starboard side over the aft cabin. One of the stainless bolts simply rusted and broke in half. I ordered 20 more bolts to keep on hand as others are bad as well and none of the ones in my bolt boxes are long enough.
I moved the roller furling line to the port side instead of starboard and used the old fair leads along the deck. I think it will be better over there.
I am not sure what to do about the spinnaker poles and equipment. Do I take it off the mast and dump the poles? Or when I finally sell the boat will someone ask me where the spinnaker is? Personally I'll never use them and if I do fly a spinnaker it will be an asymetric and won't require a pole. I would like a whisker pole for the Genoa...
Well, time for bed soon. I need a shower and a break. Hannah will be home soon and then it'll all start again.
Date: Sat, 07 May 2022 03:30:00 GMT
Decks Done!
Steve and Sam continue working on the deck and the cockpit
For Sam and I the last couple days have been spent sanding cleaning oiling and varnishing everything that doesn't move... For Hannah it is working on taxes...but in the middle of all that we had home made chili, tres leche cake, home made bread, Sam made omlettes for breakfast and Lilah sleeps on the floor of the cabin all day trying to stay cool.
Sam had a cough and gave it to Wanda, I blistered my back in the sun and now am itchy and peeling, and we found a much needed chiropracter!
Here is the final product for the decks. We cleaned them with soft brushes and scotch guard pads cross grain with just water. We gave up on the teak brightener as it just didn't do that much after we scrubbed off the grey and green. Then we used teak oil. The first coat was sucked up like it wasn't even there. I let it dry for 48 hours and then put on the second coat today. We also sanded and varnished the eyebrows and deck boxes with Epifane. The Epifane I mixed with thinner about 10 to 1 so it was super thin for the first coat which was sucked up deep into the wood, then in just about 10 minutes later I followed with epifane at about 1:1 with thinner. Thin even coats soaking in. I don't want it breaking free and peeling off because it was not bonded to the wood well. We did find that cleaning sanding dust off the deck is harder than it looks as it fills all the little grooves in the teak. Even after the oil was dry if you get a little dust on it just a hose will not take it off. It takes a brush. The sand dust is sooo tiny it gets into EVERYTHING!. Even my dustless sander gets a little dust in the wind and it of course lands everywhere.
In the end however I was very pleased with the results. From here on we work on the cockpit. I am going to use a different technique there to see if Deks Olje 1 and 2 work better than varnish. We're off to bed after a nice evening in the cockpit eating chilli and having a ginger ale. It's very nice out with a strong breeze.
Nite Nite!
Date: Sun, 08 May 2022 22:15:00 GMT
Mother's Day
A Much needed breakWell, Hannah is home from work and we are eating 15 bean soup and vannilla wafers. This morning I attacked two more seacocks. I was unsuccessful at freeing them up. I will try again tomorrow. I need to get at these two because they have non marine pipe associated with them and I need to replace it. I can't do that till I can close the valve. But it's raining today and chilly, even the cat is staying inside. I did do more research online about dinghy's and seacocks as well as custom traveller arches. We have some new neighbors who are here to repair their mast gear after hitting a bridge and knocking off antenna and windvane etc.
Date:Tue, 10 May 2022 13:21:00 GMT
Monday Monday
Sea CocksYesterday we spent a lot of the day working on Seacocks. The 50 year old seacocks are frozen. They are beautiful bronze cone, barral type seacocks. And this boat has a BUNCH of them. (14 I think) This particular one supposedly was free in 2014 but of course there was no way to get a hammer in there to pound on it and barely room for a wrench. Taking the jam nuts off was turning 1 flat at a time. I had to dissemble the drawer system in the forward head just to get an arm in behind the wall to do it. The entire process took a couple hours but I did get it free! YEA! There was a second one under the sink that is capped off and one under the v-berth that is for the raw water pump. Equally difficult to get in to. For that one it was two hands through a drawer sized hole about 1 foot wide. But both came free. I used a pully puller to press out the cone and it works great but boy when they release they are under a lot of pressure and they make a satisfying and terrifying POP! when they come loose. Much better than trying to use a hammer on bronze. I have a total of 4 loose and greased and 10 to go. The next two are under the storage locker behind the sink in the galley. I'm not sure I can even get in there. Perhaps I will stand sam on his head and stuff him into the locker to work on it...
It's cooler today and yesterday, in the 50's, and windy. There is a gale warning but I haven't seen winds over 20 knots yet. The water is up 2 feet over yesterday and rain is coming at the end of this week.
Date:Sat, 14 May 2022 00:37:00 GMT
Teak and Water
Calibrating waterThe last couple days have been spent cleaning teak or staying out of the rain. I used the opportunity to get taxes to the accountant and clean up the repair database of what I fixed when.
Today we finally ran out of water and I ran the last 5 gallons out of the tanks to zero our new vinyl sight/level meter. The old one was caked with old water marks and sludge from decades of dis-use. So we couldn't see the level unless it was in certain clean areas. A few days ago we put in a new tube and had been waiting for the water to run out before re-calibrating and marking the tube. So, I started with 20 gallons and it was just 1/2 inch above the cabin sole. We marked it in 25 gallon increments till 175 then did 5 gallon increments to 196 where it hit the vent overflow. Every time it does that it dumps water in the bilge that sits on top of the gray water tank. I have to use a wet dry vac to get it off the tank and dumped into the bilge where I can pump it out. The last 18 inches or so of the level gauge is only 1 gallon. I think it's just what is in the fill tube. But now we know how much water is in the tanks at any point in time :)
Then while pumping out things I found that once again the gray water pump is not working right. I'm sure it's a piece of sludge in the valve again. But there I am again head first into the starboard lazzerette. There must be a better type of pump that doesn't clog as easily.
After that I started cleaning the teak in the cockpit again. This took the rest of the day. But while waiting for it to dry I started planning the arch again. There is a boat next to us that has a traveler configuration that is less than 10 inches. I have 20 inches between the boom and the top of the dodger. If I can raise the dodger 10 inches it will be the same height as the Bimini. But that only leaves 10 inches for the traveler. Hank also had an idea about how to reduce the height of the traveler and blocks. So perhaps it is still possible. There's the rain again... time to put up the dodger before everything get's wet... ciao!
Date:Sun, 15 May 2022 02:51:00 GMT
Clean the Pump
Cleaning out the pump... AGAIN...Well Sam got down in the lazzerette again, his favorite place and pulled the pump so we could clean out the crap from the valves. This time it was some plastic, and some hair. How it got in the grey water, I do not know.
Then tonight Sam took this picture after dinner. We had fried burritos and for lunch we had grilled chicken salad and cheese on sourdough. We love being on the boat and it's nights like tonight that make it all worth it.
I dove into the locker by the sink to look at 2 more through hulls and to my dismay there is no way for me to free them up. They are up against a bulkhead and I can't get the puller in there nore a hammer. They were put in before the galley was built in... I'm not sure what to do. I had to nearly stand on my head with my feet sticking out of the counter top head first in the hole...
Date:Mon, 16 May 2022 04:49:00 GMT
Blood Moon
And the Moon shall be turned to blood...Today I oiled the cockpit and the toe rail. It was hot and took all day. We have used 2 gallons of teak oil so far and I'll need a third
In the evening we had icecream and chicken salad and brie with rye bread. Sitting out in the cockpit in the cool of the evening was wonderful. And then to top it off we saw this around midnight
Date:Thur, 19 May 2022 01:23:00 GMT
Sun Covers
Canvas and more CanvasSo for the last couple days we have tested some of the Sun covers that came with the boat. We have canvas forever. We took down the bimini and put up the sun tent, mediterranean covers, whatever. We got it up about 5 minutes before an evening thunderstorm and it worked great! Over the last couple days it has shielded us from the sun and the boat is much cooler! It's going to be a god send this summer. We're almost ready to start the re-rigging in the next couple days. I also talked with an electronics guy about upgrading and unifying the navigation and sailing instrumentation. I'm going to the store tomorrow to look at what to buy. I am afraid we are going to have to start fresh with everything. It is going to be expensive.
Date:Thurs, 27 May 2022 01:50:00 GMT
Sextant
We found a nice sextantToday we were looking at sextants and were about to spend a bunch of money on a new one but Hannah said to check "Town Dock" online here in Oriental. So I put out a wanted add. In about 20 minutes I received a text from a wonderful man in the area who was selling three of them. I love amazing stories and interesting people! I'll post more about our conversations later but we have a Sextant now.
I'm not sure why we trust modern tech to the degree that we do. If there is a power failure on your boat, if you get struck by lightning how are you going to navigate without electronices? A sextant and paper maps. I for one believe in having a backup plan. We used sliderules, maps and sextants for hundreds of years and we toss them out in 10 years because we have electronics. This is not wise.
Date:Sun, 29 May 2022 02:52:00 GMT
Waiting and Working
Work on the Nav Station is beginningThe last week has been busy taking apart the nav station and trying to integrate all the navigation and sailing systems or replacing them.
We have an old Hydra 2000 system with analog inputs from depth, wind etc and it's working fine but we're having troubles interfacing it with our newer B&G system. So We have the autopilot, the compass, and the chart plotter on nmea2000 and the Hydra2000 on analog serial network. It is supposed to output nmea0183 but we haven't been able to get it outputting. It's a shame to take out this perfectly good racing system but it's only beeing used for depth and wind at the moment. Everything else is being run by the Zeus T12 system. If I can get it to send nmea0183 to the T12 then I'll leave it in. Otherwise I need to replace it with nmea2000 sensors and masthead unit.
We purchased an icom 803 and AT140 HF/SSB radio system and just got our FCC station license and new MMSI number. I found the old Coax (RG8) that runs to the stern for the antenna tuner and now I'm making sure it has enough power. It needs 30 amps and I think it is on a 15 or 20 amp breaker. I have to check before we use it full power. Our new call sign is WDN2128 so if you hear us out there please say hello!
Date:Sun, 30 May 2022 03:03:00 GMT
Good Friends!
One of the main reason we love cruising is meeing great peopleThis evening we had drinks again on a wonderful Grand Banks before she heads out on the great loop. Jib and Teresa have spent the last week or so at the yard here getting some work done but tomorrow they are off. We will miss them, but you should follow them on www.JibTeresa.com. We hope to meet up in the Keys this winter and exchange notes about our cruising. Their boat, "Make is So" looks like new. It's been incredibly maintained and is one of the best examples of a Classic Grand banks I've ever seen.
Today we spend the day installing the Icom 803 SSB and testing it. We don't have an antenna set up yet and it's not grounded properly but the antenna tuner is set up and we re-wired the nav station so it was a good busy day with lots accomplished. We hope to have videos published of the work later on youtube. I'll keep you posted about our youtube channel once it's up and running. For now, good night!
Date:Sun, 31 May 2022 01:23:00 GMT
Getting started
Work is beginningWe're moving Grace over to the dock where we can use the bucket lift to do rigging work. It looks like we're going to go with wooden spreaders. And I've replaced a couple of the power bars for the nav station and back by the bilge pumps. I'm trying to clean out some of the rats nests of wiring one piece at a time. Our EPIRB came in today as did one of the wires for the AT140 antenna tuner. We are going with upgraded B&G systems and they will be arriving soon. Everyone loves the decks. Now that we're on the main dock more people are seeing the boat.
I met Jay working on his Wauquiez and he has a really cool feathering prop. It's an autostream. I think we're going to get one.