Toein' The Line

This whole thing of moving aboard our boat has turned into something really incredible.  I mean the whole experience, from A to Z, is just too gold plated to be calling it luck and we feel very fortunate for all we have.  And for all we don't have too.

This past weekend was really something.  Over the last two weeks we've been scrambling to sell all of our big pieces of furniture.  On Saturday we sold the two remaining bedroom sets and a couple of pieces that had been difficult to sell earlier.  I think what prompted the selling fury was when we allowed a guy from an auction house to walk through the house and eyeball what we had.  We had listed almost everything on Craigslist but hadn't sold much, just a piece here and there.  This guy didn't buy anything but was very honest in his critique of our prices, saying that most things were probably at the high end of what they would go for at auction and others were just set too high.  After he left we went through everything and reduced the prices.  Not a lot, but say if this piece was listed at $400, then we dropped it to $350.  Everything was re-posted on Craigslist and by Saturday we had sold about 80% of our furniture.

We still had a ton of other stuff to get rid of, mostly small things.  We arranged to have a garage sale on Sunday, posted notices for it on Craigslist and one other local site and then put up 4 signs around the neighborhood and out on the main drag.  I'm amazed at how much stuff we had laying around the house.  We set it all out on tables around the garage including one table in the middle with nothing but DVD's, and we had a bunch of them.

Once the doors opened up it went crazy and then stayed that way almost straight through.  We gave away so much stuff I didn't think we'd have much to show for it at the end of the day but it was just so much fun.  Little kids would ask how much for this and we'd say "it's free for you" and their face would light up.  Same thing with adults.  There was very little haggling over prices because we wanted things to move out and set prices low from the start.  We met lotsa people, made new friends.  It was just so cool.  In the middle of this frenzy our realtor called to say he wanted to buy most of the furniture we had left.  Unbelievable!  In the end, we cleared out almost everything, just a small pile of stuff left over and a few pieces of furniture.  We even managed to get rid of several old cans of paint.  Final tally for the garage sale, not including the furniture we sold, came to over $4700.  Yikes!  The money was nice but the experience and the people were what really made this great.  It was such a blast.  We feel very fortunate for how well this went and also for being able to unload all of our stuff so quickly.  What a relief to have that out of the way.

So now things are really moving ahead.  We have less than a week before settlement on the house.  Cheri's taking Bella Houdini down to Florida to visit with her folks (Cheri's folks, not Bella's).  While she's gone I'll be staying with some friends during the week and spending weekends on the boat.  She was supposed to be launched Thursday of this week but apparently I made the mistake of telling the yard dudes that we wouldn't be moving aboard until May 15th.  Now the splash date is sometime next week.  Good enough.  There's still a ton of stuff to take care of, mostly wiring connections down below and, uhm, fixing the propane system.  Grrr.

This week the hull was compounded and waxed and it turned out really nice, like a mirror.  They used some stuff with a 2000 grit and then waxed it out with Meguiar's wax.  Two yutes worked all day on the hull and still hafta do the topsides.  That's a lotta work.  I had originally planned to do this myself but I've run out of time.  And energy.  Lucky for me we pulled in some cash from the garage sale to cover things like this.  After seeing these guys doing the actual work I'd say it's money well spent.  Look at that shine!

The mast was stepped (put in place) on Wednesday.  This involved 5 guys from the yard and a hired crane.  I stood back out of the way and watched.  The whole operation took about 45 minutes.  These dudes really know their stuff!  As Mac said, "now we have a sailboat".  Next week she gets splashed, launched, at which time the rigging will be tuned.  This is a pretty involved process and I'm going to try to be there to learn as much as I can.  I think most of it is done by eye, watching the bend of the mast as you tighten up the standing rigging.  When the mast was stepped they discovered that it was rigged wrong, one side was reversed compared to the other, which I guess can cause the mast to twist.  I'll bet the previous owner was wondering why this boat always wanted to sail in circles.

Another thing we found was that some of the pins that hold the mast rigging in place were badly worn and needed to be replaced.  I plan to replace all the standing rigging in about 4 years, right before we head out on the big cruise.  Probably replace all the running rigging at that time too.  For those who don't know, the running rigging is all the lines that are used to raise and adjust the sails and can be divided into two basic types.  Halyards are used to raise and lower the sails and sheets are used to adjust the angle and shape of the sail relative to the wind.  This is a real oversimplification, by the way.

Sailing can be a highly technical sport and some folks really get into that end of it.  I personally like it for the connection to the wind and the water.  There's something in my soul that just clicks into place, rings like harmonizing voices when I'm out sailing.  A major attraction for me is the sound of the boat working through the water, the wind in the rigging and the quiet all around you.  I like the motion of the boat and the feel of the wind in my hair and the sun on my face.  I really like the pace, so slow yet crashing along at all of 6 or 8 knots (lardy dar talk for MPH).  You feel like you're going 100 miles an hour but it takes so darn long to get anywhere and half the time you don't even care.  It's a complete sensory kinda thing.

And The Beat Goes On.....

This past weekend I went down to the boat on Friday morning by myself.  We're getting loaded down with so much to do and so little time to get it all done.  Cheri stayed home to work on getting things packed for hauling down to her sister's house in Florida.  There is a small trailer load of stuff that we'll be keeping or passing on to family and Holly and Phillip have agreed to store this for us.  Holly has been a great supporter of our adventure and will be our point of contact once we leave for distant shores.  We've actually had incredible support from all around.  Our friends Paul and Cheryl Marshall offered storage space in their barn and several friends have offered to donate money, which was a really nice gesture but not needed.  Hopefully we have things planned well enough that we'll be in the black from here on out.  Friends and family have been wonderful and we want you all to know how much you're loved and appreciated.

I spent Friday afternoon working on the mast, my never-ending project.  The first thing I did was to pull all the wire out to remove a blockage that was about 2/3 the way down the mast.  As the last wire came out it brought the knotted up braided cord I had lost the week before.  The mast is about 60' long and I'm using a 65' fish tape to pull wire so theoretically I should be able to see both ends of the fish tape sticking out of the mast at the same time.  Theoretically.  For those who don't know, fish tape is a long coil of 1/4" wide flat metal tape with a hook on one end for pulling wire through walls and conduit.  My first attempt I had the entire thing in there and when I walked down to the other end there was nothing sticking out.  I was scratching my head over this as I walked back when I noticed a large coil of fish tape sticking out the side of the mast.  I went over and looked and sure enough, it was sticking out the hole for the Main halyard.  This is the part in the cartoons where the lightbulb goes on over the guys head.  What I had been struggling with all along, the blockage 2/3 of the way down the mast, was actually a gap in the conduit inside the mast.  It turns out that the conduit is made up of six 10' sections split lengthwise and slid onto a T track to hold it in place.  There's really nothing else holding them together.  I took my hammer and a 3' length of 3/16" x 2" bar stock and tapped on both ends of the conduit to drive it all back together.  I then ran my fish tape through the entire length of the mast with no problems.  Eureka!  Progress at last!  I laid all the wires out full length on the grass and taped their ends together with electricians tape and then taped that onto the end of the fish tape with the hook.  I went to the other end of the mast and slowly pulled the fish tape through.  Some resistance is expected because it's a pretty large bundle of wire and it's 75' long.  This went through like pulling a hot knife through butter.  The worst is over.  Now I'm waiting for some parts to finish the job.  Still have another length of wire to pull but I feel confident that there's plenty of room and it will go easily.  I'd like to thank the good Lord for granting me the gifts of patience and persistance.

My next project was rebuilding the gas line for the range.  I pulled the two propane tanks out of the deck well and removed the hose and regulator.  Everything was coated with heavy corrosion.  Ugh!  I worked from one end of the line to the other, restoring one fitting at a time.  It had been so long since this was done that the teflon tape in the pipe joints had gone through a molecular change and was now something like chalky concrete in the threads.  It still resembled tape but was really tough to clean up.  I found a couple of fittings where someone had put in some goo to seal a leak in a joint that's supposed to be metal on metal.  Now the goo has tuned hard and makes it a guaranteed leak.  Great stuff.  It took me over two hours to go through the whole line.  When I got to the other end I found a rusty clump of crud that had once been a gas solenoid.  It still worked so I just cleaned up the fittings and put it all back together, figuring I'd replace it at a later time.  When I hooked it all back and opened the valve for the propane I could smell the gas right away.  Bummer.  I mixed up a heavy soap and water solution and dribbled it over all the fittings.  Everything was good except the outlet of the regulator.  I tried to tighten it but that made no difference.  When I got right up next to it and put the soapy water on I saw that the bubbles were coming from the regulator seal right above it and not from the fitting.  The regulator is coated with about a 1/4" of salt water corrosion so I knew right away it wasn't worth the effort to try to fix it.  Heck, I couldn't even see the screws to take it apart.  I think I'll just replace the entire system and stop wasting my time with it.

I took a break here and installed the new stainless steel strut for the refridgerator lid (wow, that's nice!) and the cover for the engine control panel out in the cockpit, both about 30 seconds worth of work.  Now I can at least say I've accomplished something!

Next on my list was troubleshooting the charging system for the batteries.  The electrical system for this boat is complicated, to say the least.  It has two 30 amp 110VAC shore power connections with an associated breaker panel.  It also has a 12VDC breaker panel connected to two banks of batteries.  One bank is for starting the engine and running the anchor windlass.  The other bank, consisting of 4 batteries tied together in parallel, is called the house bank and is used for lights, making hot water, instruments, refrigeration and a host of other things.  The batteries are all AGM (absorbed glass mat) type which means that all the acid is contained in the glass mat.  There's no free liquid so it can't spill.  It also means that they are sealed and maintenance free.  Sweet!  There is an inverter that can convert DC to AC so you can run your hair dryer when you're out at sea.  There's also a charger, actually two, that will keep the batteries charged.  One of these is stock, came with the boat.  The other is a Freedom 2000, made by Xantrax.  This thing is programmable and can be set up to monitor both banks and charge them automatically in three different modes to prolong the life of the batteries.  This works in conjunction with the high current alternator mounted on the engine, shore power when you're sitting at the dock and with the solar panels.  The solar panels are run by a doodad called a Blue Sky controller that's supposed to boost their output by 30% through some kind of black magic voodoo.  Both the Blue Sky and the Freedom 2000 weren't working.

I have a 3 ring notebook that is filled with manuals for all this stuff that I downloaded off the internet.  I spent all of Saturday afternoon reading through this thing trying to get a handle on what I had here.  In addition to all the stuff I mentioned above, there are remote panel controls for everything, each having it's own seperate manual.  Of course.  After reading through everything I settled in on the Freedom 2000 as being the best candidate for repair in the amount of time I had left.  The troubleshooting went pretty easily and consisted of removing shore power, removing DC power, waiting 45 seconds to give the computer a reset, and then putting it all back together.  Then there's a sequence of buttons to push to initialize the system and, woohooooo, it worked!  I spent the next two hours going through all the controls and reprogramming it.  Pretty cool!

Now all I have left to do is figure out the solar panels and their controls and I'll have the charging system back up and running 100%.

I made pretty good progress this weekend.  I talked with John Hellwege on Friday and set things up to get the hull compounded next week.  I also ordered 3 gallons of anti-fouling paint to do the bottom and ordered the rest of the stuff I needed for the cell phone system.  Had to leave Saturday afternoon to get back home in time to help Cheri get ready for her trip to Florida.

Next weekend I'll be on my own again as Cheri won't be back until Saturday or Sunday.  I hope to get two coats of paint on and maybe wax the hull.  If all my parts are in I can finish up the mast also.

Can you hear the wind and the water yet?  I can.

Two Steps Forward....

This past weekend we reached a milestone in our plans to live aboard.  Please note that I said "reached", not "passed" a milestone (is passing a milestone like passing a kidneystone?).  After being on the market for only 3 weeks we received a full price offer on the house.  Needless to say, we jumped on it.  It took us about 30 nanoseconds to discuss the downsides of this offer before signing the contract and pouring the champaign.  Actually, we didn't pour any champaign because neither of us really like the stuff, but more importantly, we don't want to jinx this thing before it's all finalized.  The home inspection was on Saturday and the appraisal will be next Thursday.  If we can get past that then we're doing pretty good.  We're saying our prayers that this will go smoothly and work out well for all concerned.  We signed the contract Thursday evening and then headed down to the boat, getting in around 1AM.  Why do we keep getting there so late?  Whatsamatta with us?

Friday morning Cheri took on the job of washing down the topsides and then scrubbing all the gloss gelcoat with a white pad and Scrubbing Bubbles.  There's a lot of surface area from the deck up and a good portion of it is gloss.  She was really feeling it in her arms by the time she was finished with this job.  La Vida Dulce is starting to look pretty sweet.

Her next project was to make a template of the cabin sole (that's lardy-dar speak for floor) so we can get a price on wall-to-wall carpet.  A few weeks back we nearly froze to death in spite of our cool-man oil filled space heater.  We became very aware of how cold the sole can feel in bare feet so we made the decision to put in carpet.  This was actually suggested to us last Fall by Sharon Malatich, yacht broker extraordinaire at Gratitude Yachts.  If the wall-to-wall stuff is too pricey then we'll put in area rugs.  Either way it's gonna be an improvement.  The template she made is from heavy brown construction paper that we had from a previous project.  She cut up pieces to match the oddball shape of the sole and then taped them together to make two sections, one for the Main Salon and the other for the forward stateroom.  That doesn't really account for much floor space so hopefully it won't cost too much.  If we have them made we'll have the edges bound all around to give it a finished look.

While Cheri was working on scrubbing the topsides I concentrated on placing two antennas, cell phone and Wi-Fi, at the top of the mast.  There's not much room up there to start with and the specs call for having antennas 3' apart.  That's not gonna happen!  There's already a VHF antenna mounted up there, centered on the port side of the mast, pretty much hogging all the space on that side.  This left me with mounting spots on the starboard side.  The mast is something like 55' long and it's laying on it's side across 4 saw horses.  There are 2 sets of spreaders sticking out from the sides at approximately 1/3 and 2/3 the way up.  The spreaders are positioned in such a way that they prevent the mast from being rolled side to side and of course the side I wanted to work on was facing down towards the grass.  I had to drill a 1/2" hole for cables to run through and then drill and tap 8 holes to mount the brackets.  I had to pull the top off the mast and then remove the sheeves (pulleys) for the lines that hoist the sails.  Inside the mast are two conduits.  One runs half way up to the lights mounted at the spreaders, the other conduit goes full length to the top and runs the wires for wind speed and direction sensors, VHF radio antenna and now cell phone and Wi-Fi.  I'll probably decide to mount a TV antenna up there some day too.  For now that skinny little 3/4" conduit is getting pretty full.  Island Packet ran a length of braided twine through there to be used for pulling wires.  What a great idea!  Of course I didn't see it beforehand and managed to pull it down into the mast where it bunched up into a knot about 2/3 of the way down.  Great.  Now I've got a real problem.  I spent all day trying to pull 2 cables through there, got one through and finally gave up.  I have everything mounted and ready to go except for the cable for the cell phone.  I don't want to leave things as they are because some day I'm gonna want to run more wire through there and I'm gonna get really upset with the creep who made this mess.  I think my only option now is to remove all the wire from the conduit, clear the snag, and then re-run all the wire again.  That means all new connectors.  Might as well put in new wire since that's all ten years old and has been exposed to salt water all that time.  This project certainly snowballed.  I'll hafta continue on it next weekend.  That is, IF the yard isn't waiting to step the mast.  They have two others to do and want to do them all at the same time.  I feel like I'm inna bind.  Am I the only one who has projects get outa hand like this?

Saturday I spent all day washing and scrubbing the hull, same job that Cheri did on the deck the day before.  My new friend Mac told me we needed to get this done so the yard can get to work on compounding the hull.  About 1/3 of the way down the port side a guy stopped by to talk.  He asked me what I was doing with the white pads so I told him this was to knock down some of the oxidation prior to compounding.  He stood back and looked real long and hard at it.  I stood back and looked at it too.  Neither of us could see any difference between what had been gone over with the white pads and what hadn't.  Dude just shook his head and walked away.  Afterwards it dawned on me that maybe that wasn't the purpose of the white pads at all.  Maybe they were just supposed to clean away all the wax to give a good clean surface for compounding.  Yeah, that's it!  I went ahead and finished up.  This boat stuff is a daily learning experience, I'll tell ya.

I learned one really important lesson this weekend: boat people really like to talk.  I'd be scrubbing away on the hull and one after another, folks would walk up and start talking.  Pretty soon you know their life history, their hopes and dreams, how many boats they've owned, where they've sailed, how many times they've run aground.  Usually after about 5 minutes of conversation they'll get into their opinion about a better way to do what you're doing.  One guy actually called me an idiot for the way I sanded the hull the week before.  Of course, he owns a big humongous, gas guzzling, twin engine cabin cruiser so I guess it takes one to know one.

I did meet some really great people.  One couple had just bought a 1983 Bristol with a dark blue hull and it was, forgive me, in bristol condition.  Every time I walked past we talked (that's right, I'm one of those boat people) about our boats but mostly about how beautiful this Bristol was.  Another nice guy I talked to was a professor from Pennsylvania.  We chatted quite a while about fixing up boats and how you end up spending as much on a cheap, used one as you do on a newer, more expensive one.  This was his theory but I believe it's probably true.

I met some real goons too.  We're plugged into a 15 amp 110VAC circuit and use that for our lights, our cool-man oil filled heater, to charge the batteries, to run any power tools, pretty much everything.  Last weekend we lost power so I went over to the box to reset the breaker, figuring we were pretty much maxed out.  I discovered that someone had plugged in to the same outlet even though there were others available.  I went over and asked the guy if he'd mind if I switched him to another outlet and he gave me a lecture on running the proper sized power cord.  Even asked me how much current I was drawing.  I don't know!  Too much is my guess.  He said he wasn't even running anything yet and how could his stuff trip the circuit?  When I went to reset the breaker I found that the GFCI had tripped.  After I moved his cord to another outlet I didn't have any more problems the rest of the weekend.  I think his extension cord was bad.

So, this weekend we didn't get as much done on the boat as I had hoped but on the other hand we might have sold the house.  When we came home Saturday night we had a message on the phone from a guy who wanted to buy Cheri's motorcycle.  This was just icing on the cake.  Things are definitely moving ahead with our long term plans.  Now we just need to make some progress on the boat.  Still shootin' for a launch date at the end of April.