Tieing Up Loose Ends

Note: This post was written at the end of March but didn't get posted until we were halfway down the ICW.

 The month of March has come and gone and for us it came in like a lion and went out like a lion.  Life has been a whirlwind, lemme tell ya.  We drove down to Florida at the end of February and closed on the house, turned around and came straight back to Maryland because I was still working.  On the 12th I had my last day of work.  Woohooo!  More time for projects!  On the 15th I turned 60, major milestone.  On the 20th we rented a U-Haul truck and loaded up everything we still had in storage.  This included a ton of stuff from the boat and a shed here at the marina plus a large collection of stuff our families had been keeping for us.  The truck was packed to the gills.  When we left Maryland it was in the 20's and snowing.  When we got to Florida it was 80.  Unloaded the truck, did some work on the house, rented a car and drove back to Maryland.  With a week to go before our projected departure date (April Fools Day!) we had a long list of things to do to get the boat ready.  Between working on the list and getting together with family for final farewells the time has flown by.  We've now pushed our departure date back to Easter, April 5th.  I think we can make that.

One project was getting a new anchor, a Rocna 33.  That's 33kg.  The anchor weighs 73 pounds and is a major upgrade from our 44 pound Bruce.  To get it on board we had to move the boat so it was bow in first in the slip with the bow sprit hanging over the dock.  The Bruce will now be our secondary anchor and the Danforth will move to the stern.

We also extended the cockpit railing forward to the gates on both sides.  We used 1" stainless steel tubing (Sail Rite) and Bimini fittings (Click here).  I had to cut off the loops that connected the lifelines to the aft railing.  I cut them off with a hacksaw and filed the nubs down smooth.  For the top of the stanchion I could use  a top slide (p/n MPD 462) that slips over the tubing.  For the other connections I used hinged rail mounts (MPD 491) that clamp over the tubing.  On each end of the 1" tubing that made up the rails I used top caps (MPD 171).  The top caps have a single finger that fits between the two fingers on each rail mount.  All these fittings are held in place with set screws and I used Loctite 242 on these to keep them snug.

The top slide on the stanchion had to be modified to hold the gate section of lifeline.  The gate comes with a fitting made for swaging onto wire rope.  I was planning to just cut this off and slip a bolt through the hole in the fitting that would thread onto a hole on the top cap.  When I looked at the swaged fitting I realized it was threaded on the end that connects to the gate.  I cut off the fitting and then found that the threaded part was the same threads as the set screw on the top cap.  Perfect!  It all went together like it was made to be even though all the parts came from different companies.  The only drilling and tapping I had to do was for a new set screw location on the top cap.

I also ended up adding two upright supports between the upper and lower rails 21.5" apart using T fittings (MDP 474A) that slipped over the rails.  These help to tie in the look of the side rails with the existing railing at the stern and add needed rigidity.  Now if I need to remove the side rails for any reason it can be easily done by removing four screws and the whole assembly comes off in one piece.  This was the main reason I went with assembled rails fittings instead of having it all welded in.

I got the cabinets installed in the aft cabin and they're usable but not finished.  I'll do a blurb on them when I get all the finishing touches completed.  For now I'm very pleased with how they came out.  They added quite a bit of storage and look pretty nice too.  It's nice having all the tools in one easily accessed location. No more hunting!

We've had this boat for over five years now and during that time we've repaired or replaced most of the problems that existed when we first bought her. One thing we didn't take on was the gauge for the water tank. We took it on for this trip figuring it'd be nice to know when we were going to run outa water. We'll also need it for the water maker so it was definitely time to do it. It's an interesting setup. The actual gauge is held onto a large 2.5" nut with two screws. Remove the screws and the gauge pops off with no connections. Huh? Turns out it's magnetic. Inside the tank there's a float slung between two brass rods. Through the center of the float is a third rod but this one is twisted down its length and has a magnetic bar at the top. As the float goes up or down the rod turns and so does the bar which causes the needle on the gauge to turn. The twist in the rod is something like 3/4 of a full turn so the gauge reads full scale, full to empty. Pretty clever. I found the rods to be covered in corrosion preventing the float from sliding up from the bottom. I cleaned everything up and when I tested it outside the tank everything worked great. But when I reinstalled it it still read empty. Hmm, bummer. Turns out the float, which is a plastic case with foam inside, was water logged. I replaced the float with a cork from a champaign bottle and it works fine now. I'd like to point out here that our families have provided incredible support to us in our effort to prepare for our adventure.  They've given us space in their homes for the things we just couldn't bear to get rid of and given us safe haven during tropical storms.  Our biggest supporter has been my Mom even though she's none too excited about our plans.  This last year she's helped us in so many ways without which I'd still be working and our plans would be a year behind.  Thanks Mom and many thanks to all our family And friends for all the help and support over the last five years.

Workin' Onna Dockada Bay.....

Otis Redding - Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay

Originally written on February 25, 2015:

Another cold weekend.  I know, I know, it's Winter.  This is brutal cold weather though.  You walk halfway down the dock and your face hurts from being so cold.  The Bay is still frozen over and the ice at our dock is about 6" thick.  I usually try to keep an open channel around the boat by breaking the ice with the boat hook and pushing the large chunks back under the surface.  These last few weeks it got away from me though and now the ice is too thick to do anything about.

On Friday I picked up another 30 gallons of diesel to feed the heater.  In coast mode it uses about 0.1 gallons per hour but with this bitter cold we have now it's running full blast all the time and still not able to keep up.  I have to supplement the diesel heater with an electric heater to get the temperature up to 70 degrees F.  I had both of them going full blast out in the salon to keep things cozy.  When I went to take a shower I found that I had no cold water and the hot water was just a trickle at first.  I suspected a frozen hose but it could have been something worse like a blown out hose.  I checked the bilge and found about 4" of water, more than normal but I hadn't checked it in a while.  I did notice ice down there too.  If a hose had blown off there would have been a lot more water so that was a good sign that it was most likely a frozen hose.  I opened up the water panel for the shower and pulled off the cold water hose to verify no flow.  I noticed that the hoses snaked down into the cavity between the shower wall and the starboard hull.  Hmm, might get kinda chilly in there.  I decided the best thing I could do would be to position the electric heater so it blows against this spot.  It took all day to get water flowing again and the heater now stays in the forward head all the time.

It was so cold on Friday it was all I could do just to fill the Jerry cans.  I left them in the car until warmer weather, which finally hit on Sunday with temperatures in the low 40's.  T-shirt weather!  I added 30 gallons to the tank to give us a few more weeks of heat.  All I need at this point is for the water to get over 38 degrees and then we can switch back to the reverse cycle heat.  After I did the fuel transfer thing I took Bella for a walk.  I don't think she'd been off the boat for over a month.  She was so excited she just ran back and forth on the dock.  Pretty funny.

In the afternoon I got to work on the cabinet project.  Saturday I had hauled my 2' x 4' sections of 1/2" plywood down to the boat and laid out all the parts for the cabinets.  On Sunday I pulled a cart down the dock and used it for a workbench.  With my trusty cool-man saber saw I had everything cut out within a few hours.  The end panel on the long low cabinet has a "skin" that I ordered from the factory.  It's 1/8" thick and glues to the plywood panel behind it.  This is the only outside plywood surface of this cabinet that shows and this "skin" really dresses it up nicely.  For both these cabinets there are very few parallel or perpendicular surfaces.  The aft bulkhead in this cabin angles out from the hull at about 20 degrees.  The hull itself angles in towards the stern and also has a nice slope to it.  This makes getting a snug fit kinda challenging and requires rechecking all your measurements.  I used heavy cardboard for templates on the most difficult parts and that really paid off.  Assembly is going nicely and I hope to have these in useable condition after one more weekend of effort.

We had originally planned to take off in April for the Bahamas and continue on from there into the Pacific.  As our departure time got closer we realized this plan wasn't going to work for us.  A major factor was in preparing our finances and investments for retirement.  Over the last three years we've tried to refinance our boat several times and despite having adequate income, good jobs and high credit scores we were turned down because we live on a boat.  Some banks claimed it was because live-aboards are vagabonds and are a higher risk of running out on their loans.  Uhm, gee, that doesn't really apply to us.  Others said it was because the Federal Government's "Department of Homeland Security" puts pressure on banks not to deal with anyone who doesn't have a home stuck in the dirt.  Something to do with false identity and terrorists and the like.  Oh yeah, that sounds more like us.  Makes much more sense.  The effect of this ridiculous prejudice is that it causes honest people to lie about where they live and with that they take the chance of losing their boat when the bank calls in the loan because they submitted false information.  What terrorist in their right mind would want to live on a boat anyway?  It's so much work they wouldn't have time to  make bombs or plan terrorist kinda stuff.  I think "Homeland Insecurity" would be a more appropriate name.

All that just to say that we decided to buy a house.  We chose Florida because we have family down there and also because Florida has no state income tax.  They also have really good prices on homes right now.  We chose a nice little house in a good neighborhood located on the Atlantic side with a short drive to the water.  For the first few years this will serve as our hurricane hole where we'll return from the islands and put the boat on the hard for the Summer and Fall.  We'll have a place to store stuff from our voyages and Uncle Sam will be happy too.

Our plan for right now goes like this:  I'll quit my job in eight days.  That's not going to be a surprise for them because I gave almost three years notice.  We'll move the stuff we have in storage along with one of the cars down to Florida, come back and sell the other car through CarMax.  With that taken care of we'll cast off and take the Intra-Coastal Waterway (ICW) down the coast to Florida.  If we leave by the end of March we'll have about three months to make the 1200 mile trip.  That works out to about 13 miles per day!  That's a very slow pace and should give us plenty of time to explore and see some sights along the way.  Maybe even stay for awhile if we really like a spot.  We'll start out from Hampton, Virginia and take the canal through the Great Dismal Swamp.  Cheri found several good books, Cruiseguide for the Intracoastal Waterway and Anchorguide for the Intracoastal Waterway that give us detailed information about pretty much everything along the way, including what to see, where to go, where to anchor, sources for fun, food and fuel, etc.  When we get the boat down to Florida we'll store her on the hard at a marina near our house.  The marina has cradles that tie down to the tarmac and this is something the insurance company seems to like so that's a plus there too.  Even though this is a major change from cruising the islands it only delays us for the next hurricane season.  We're both excited about just getting away and doing some exploring.

With the boat on the hard in Florida I'll be able to finish up the water maker and several other projects before we head to the Bahamas next Fall.  What's more, I'll be able to work out of a shop at home instead of on the dock.  Now won't that be a nice change?

Never Fails

 This past week has been very cold with sub-freezing highs and single digit lows.  Most daytime temperatures have been in the teens.  Yeah, pretty cold for our part of the country.  Normally this is not a big deal since we only have to deal with it when running between the boat and the car.  This being our final cold winter for many years to come we thought it would be no big deal.

 We've had our diesel heater for four winters now.  I calculated that amounts to about 9300 hours of usage with only minor maintenance such as replacing the glow plug and diffuser every year and the fuel pump once.  That's pretty good.  It's not an inexpensive way to heat your boat but it does keep it comfortable and it is fairly reliable.

This past weekend that reliability thing caught up to us.  I guess with 9300 hours I should have been expecting something.  Just as the temperatures dropped into the teens our heater no longer could keep up and temperatures inside dropped into the 60's even though the thermostat was set for 70.  At first I thought it was just because it was extremely cold outside.  Then I discovered strange sounds coming from the heater.  At first it sounded like a baseball card in your bicycles spokes.  It progressively got worse and developed into vibrations with the heater cutting out, usually in the middle of the night. 

After a few days of this  I climbed down into the cockpit locker and did some maintenance on the heater.  I was pretty sure the problem was in the blower that supplies fresh air for the combustion process as well as the recirculated air that gets reheated.  The error codes displayed on the controller included #32, "blower motor short circuit".  The troubleshooting manual (click here) suggests a blockage in the fan.  I removed the input air duct and vacuumed it out.  I also used a paint brush and the vacuum to clean the fan blades.  I was kinda disappointed not to find any large dust bunnies in there.  As I was putting things back together I discovered the output air duct had popped off and was hanging down about a quarter inch, allowing cold air to be sucked in.  Yes!  That would explain why the heater couldn't keep up.  Not.

I fired up the heater and it seemed to run very nicely for a while but after a few hours it started making noises again and eventually stopped running.  It never seems to fail....bad things happen at the worst possible time.  At this point our weather had really deteriorated with a major snowstorm predicted for that night.  Temperatures were supposed to go below zero at some point too.  Inside the boat we'd be waking up to temperatures in the high 40's and 50's and that was because we were running two electric heaters to keep it from going any lower.

The next day I removed the heater and brought it down below for some major surgery.  After pulling off the intake hood I spun the fan.  It was locked up and after it broke loose I could feel resistance when I turned it.  OK, this is definitely the problem.  To remove the blower assembly I had to first remove the upper jacket shell and shell holder.  The manual says the blower isn't serviceable and is simply replaced as a whole unit.  The cost of this thing is about $700 so I wanted to play with it, break it down as much as I could.  I can see why it isn't serviceable.  Once you get down to the motor you still have the whole combustion side of the blower attached and it doesn't break down much beyond that.

I tried buying my replacement parts from the local distributor but they were closed because of the snowstorm that had blown through the night before.  I ended up going on-line and buying my parts from Lubrication Specialists (click here) located in Greenfield, Indiana.  I've bought parts from these guys before and their prices are excellent and delivery is speedy.  This time I asked for overnight delivery which added $86 to the bill.  Well worth it considering the temperature on the boat this morning was 49 degrees.  I also ordered a new injector and two new diffuser screens.

The parts arrived the next day at 1100, delivered to the marina office.  When I went to pick it up I climbed the stairs to the second floor office and from there I could look out across the Chesapeake Bay.  From up there I was able to see all the way across to the Eastern Shore and into the mouth of the Choptank River.  The Bay was frozen solid all the way across except for the shipping channel.  This is the first time I've seen this but it's not that uncommon.  Sharps Island Light at the Choptank River entrance has an interesting history (click here) of being damaged by ice on the Bay.

Although this could be considered a major repair for this thing the actual job itself is not difficult.  Once I had the parts unpacked it only took me about an hour to reassemble the unit and I took my time, cleaning as I went.  The Espar heater is really well built with a tight, compact design.  Parts fit together well and the only drawback for me was the need to invest in a set of star drivers.  This was the first time I've had to remove the cover and do major surgery but now that's it's done I'll have no fear if I ever have to go back in again.  There are few serviceable parts and all components are pretty easily accessible.

Once I had it back together and reinstalled in the cockpit locker it fired up on the second try and has run well ever since.  Just in time too because the weather went from bad to worse with temperatures dropping even further for the next three days.  Yikes!  That was close.

Strut Your Stuff

Did some interesting work this past weekend.  Even managed to take care of a few things other than the radio.

But we did start with the SSB radio.  I read an article on Latitude 38 (click here) called the Idiot's Guide to Marine SSB.  There's lots of good information about licensing, range and frequency and more but down towards the bottom is a section on testing reception and transmission.  I've been able to pick up signals from as far away as Miami and they came through pretty clear.  I don't know how the transmission is though, how clear my signal is at the other end.  The best way is to have someone to receive your transmission at a prearranged time and frequency.  We don't have that yet so we'll settle for plan B right now.  You can get a pretty good idea of signal strength just by holding the mike up to your mouth and saying "four" loud, long and drawn out.  I did this and pegged the power meter and never saw the SWR warning which would indicate transmitted signal bleeding back into the radio.

We got the GPS info fed to the SSB and VHF radios via the NMEA 2000 backbone.  It's actually getting the GPS info directly from the multi-function display out in the cockpit.  This provides an accurate Latitude/Longitude position of our boat which is displayed on the control head along with Zulu time.  This information is nice to have ready access to for emergency situations such as our second day out on our voyage to Bermuda.  We encountered a deafening explosion in our close vicinity and broadcasted our position to anyone listening.  Our immediate concern was that the Navy might be doing some practice fire and we did not want to be an unintentional target.  The Coast Guard responded right away and asked for our position.  To have it displayed right at the radio is a huge time saver and prevents mistakes.  They sent out a helicopter and with accurate information they flew right down our side.  Never did find out what the explosion was though.

(click here for the ICOM M504 VHF Radio Manual) One thing about this GPS connection.  I had thought I could use both the NMEA 0183 input and output from the VHF radio (SSB only has 0183 input) for use with DSC, digital selective calling.  This is kinda like making a private call over the radio because it uses MMSI numbers (Maritime Mobile Service Identity, assigned by the FCC and USCG, click here) and digital coding.  When you're traveling in a group of boats you can program each MMSI number into your radio and assign it a "group" name (manual page 15 thru 48).  You can then make "group" calls that are only received by those boats.  The MMSI number is also used in emergency situations and provides the USCG with pre-programmed information about your boat and it's location.  Both of our radios have DSC capability but I've since found that the way I have the system set up I can't get the incoming NMEA 0183 info fed into the system and displayed on the chart plotter.  Our local pros at MSC told me not to worry about it, that the few boats they've set up with that capability never actually use it.  We'll still be able to do the "group" thing, just won't be able to see the other boats displayed unless we hit them with radar or if they have AIS.  Since both radios have the capability I decided not to use it on the SSB.  That requires setting up another antenna and I think we already have enough crap hanging off our boat.  It would be redundant to the VHF radio anyway.

I finally got started on the cabinet project in the aft stateroom.  I assembled the face frames, doors and hinges.  Everything seems to be of a pretty nice quality and the color of the wood, honey maple, is a pretty close match to the teak, just a shade lighter.  The doors are larger than I expected so I had to remove the fiddle that runs across the front of the shelf.  This will be cut down to work with the cabinets and still help to tie the cabinets in with the rest of the boats woodwork.  The hinges are a nice quality and have a spring-loaded closing action.  The face frame is milled on the backside to accept 1/2" cabinet sides and tops in an 1/8" deep recess.  That'll make assembly a little easier.  The biggest problem I have working on these cabinets is unloading all the junk we have stashed in the aft stateroom.  It all gets moved out into the main salon and forward stateroom so the boat is in a complete uproar while I'm working back there.  At the end of the weekend it all goes back again.  Hopefully these cabinets will help reduce some of that clutter.  Life on a boat.

Another project I took care of (actually finished) this weekend was replacing the gas spring struts on our bunk and the lift-up mirror in the forward head.  The one in the head was a direct replacement, cost about $30 and took two minutes to install.  Our bunk was a different story.  The mattress sits on a hinged platform that lifts to reveal multiple levels of storage underneath.  We store all kinds of stuff down there and need access all the time.  When we first got the boat it had a foam mattress and two 80 lb struts to lift the bed.  We replaced the foam with an inner coil mattress and the struts still helped but it took an effort to raise.  We added a memory foam topper and that just made things worse.  We finally got rid of the inner coil mattress and replaced it with a 12" Latex foam mattress.  Now the struts were way out of their league.  Lifting that sucka was a real workout and to hold it up we used a length of wooden hangar rod that we borrowed from someones closet.  I finally got around to replacing the struts and having never worked with these before it was a real learning experience.  The originals had the part # marked on the tube so I looked it up on the internet.  Made by Attwood they have an 8" range, 20" extended length and are rated at 80 lbs lifting force each.  Attwood makes stronger ones with the same length and range, up to 120 lbs.  I was hoping to find something that would use the same brackets to keep things easy but I wanted more force than 120 lbs.  I did another search using the range and extended length and found some rated at 180 lbs.  That's more like what I was thinking.  There's a way to measure the amount of force you need which involves a floor scale but I tried it and couldn't do it safely because of the weight and location.  So I was just kinda guessing what I needed based on the amount of struggle with the old struts.

The only problem with the bigger struts was that they have a bigger ball mount and would require a different bracket.  When I looked up the brackets available for it I found them all to be way too big.  It would have really hogged a lot of space beneath the bunk.  I took another look at the brackets I had and decided I could modify them to work.  I went ahead and ordered the struts along with spring clips (?) and the bigger ball mounts.

When I received everything I found the new ball mounts were threaded studs as apposed to the old ones which were smaller and pressed in.  I filed off the backside of the old ones and popped them out and then drilled and tapped the bracket for 5/16"-13 threads.  The tube-end of the struts mounts flush to the storage area wall so I had to cut the stud down flush to get it to fit.  The rod-end sticks out in the air so I mounted a nut and lock washer to keep things tight.  I had never worked with the clips though and had to do a search on YouTube (click here) to figure it out.  Once you see how it's done it looks so simple but when I pulled the parts out of the bag I could not figure it out and there were no directions in the kit.  Those two little holes in the ball housing are almost invisible.  Once everything was mounted I tried lifting the bed.  Very little effort to get it started and it slowly rose up to it's limit.  Closing was a breeze.  I had Cheri give it a try and she could also do it with little effort.  Excellent!

So we're still making progress on things but the time is flying by.  I need to get the cabinet finished and get to work on that water maker.  We also have a new mainsail scheduled to arrive this month as well as a new life raft which will need mounting somewhere.  Oh yeah, plus two more solar panels and the railing around the cockpit.  Yikes!  Now I'm feeling stressed.  36 days to go until I leave my job and just two weeks or so after that we take off for the Bahamas.

SSB Finishing Touches

 
Down below at the Nav Station I'm making the power connection to the house bank batteries.  The transceiver draws about 25 amps while transmitting and has a 30 amp fuse on the positive power input.  They provide about ten feet of #10 wire but I'm using #8 for most of the run to ensure adequate voltage levels.  Coming from the batteries located beneath the starboard settee the wire runs through 40 amp fuses, one for each leg.  This is simply to protect the wiring in the event of a short.  From there it runs up to a terminal strip near the transceiver where it mates with the now shortened #10 wire.  I used non-insulated ring lugs with shrink wrap on all wire terminations.  Using #8 wire required some heavy duty crimping and I ended up investing in a ratchet type crimping tool.  Money well spent.  For the shrink wrap I used Cheri's blow dryer.  Not as fast as a heat gun but it did the job.  After I made some voltage checks I went back and dressed out all the cable runs and neatened things up.

Another connection on the transceiver is for GPS information.  This is displayed on the head unit screen as latitude and longitude and also used in DSC mode so your position is automatically transmitted.  Both our VHF and SSB radios have DSC capability.  To get the GPS info I'm tying into the NMEA 2000 backbone using a gadget from Raymarine called a "VHF NMEA 0183 to STng converter" (p/n E70196, $75).  Only one of these is required for both radios.  The input side provides the GPS info and the output from the radio provides location information of the vessel you're in contact with.  This might be handy if you're traveling with a group of boats and keeping in touch using the DSC mode.  If you're spread out over 20 miles of ocean each boat will still be displayed and identified on your chart plotter with pop-up flags containing all the boat's information. Pretty sweet!

The final connection is for the modem, in our case a Pactor-4 Dragon DR-7400 from SCS (click here).  This little unit allows the SSB radio and our Mini Mac computer to communicate, giving us the capability of sending/receiving e-mail and downloading weather information.  This thing costs as much as the radio itself but this is the main reason we wanted a SSB radio, being able to stay in touch with friends and family by e-mail, even when we're away from a WiFi connection.  Maybe just as important is the ability to pick up weather forecasts anywhere in the world.  This little box is a key component for our travel plans.

Once I finished up all the wiring down below I went back topsides and completed the connections in the cockpit locker.  All our wiring runs through the genset compartment so I needed to pull the genset forward to allow me to get in behind it to finish the job.  This is a tight space requiring the dexterity of a contortionist and made it obvious to me that I'm really getting too old for this kind of stuff.  I can get into the tight spots but then it's a major struggle to get back out.  It wasn't that long ago that I could do this stuff, no problem.  Getting old sucks.

The mounting board has had over a week for the 5200 to set so I went ahead and mounted the antenna tuner in the starboard side lazarette.  The location I settled on is basically up inside the aft coaming.  This works well for a short direct run to the backstay but once it's mounted on the board most of the connections are facing away towards the center of the cockpit and have to be made by feel.  The only really difficult part was the wing nut for the ground connection.  Because of it's shape it's pretty tough to get it started and I managed to drop two of them before finally threading it on properly.  This is one of those locations where anything that falls instantly rolls out of sight, in this case under the genset.  At $2.42 each, it's already an expensive collection down there.

At the ground lug I made connections for RF ground and the green wire for the control cable.   The RF ground is a critical component in the SSB antenna system.  The actual back-stay wire between the insulators is really only half of the antenna.  The other half is the ground which enables the RF signal to jump free of the antenna.  A really good ground is key to having a good, clean and strong signal.  It's important to understand that to keep system noise to a minimum an RF ground needs to be separate from all other grounds on a boat, including the batteries, engine and bonding system.  There are different techniques for creating a suitable RF ground on a boat.  One is to mount a bronze plate on the outside of the hull below the waterline and connect a heavy gauge 4" wide copper tape between the mounting bolts inside and the ground lug of the antenna tuner.  This uses the water the boat sits in as the ground plane and is pretty effective.  The drawback is that the bronze plate requires cleaning.  Another method is to run that copper tape along the inside of the hull and connect it to through hulls and deck mounting plates.  They recommend you use about 100' of copper tape for this.

I'm going to try something a little different called a counterpoise made by KISS-SSB (click here).  This is a series of wires cut to exactly 1/4 wavelength for the most common frequencies used on the SSB radio.  The tuned wires are contained in a heavy tube about 9' long that is run inside the hull and connects to that same ground lug.  This sells for $149, requires no holes in the hull and installation takes about 10 minutes.

The high voltage output at the other end of the antenna tuner was pretty straight forward.  It has a boot that slips over the insulator to prevent any moisture running down the wire from getting inside the tuner.  It's designed so it can be mounted outside in the weather and that would explain the need for the boot.  Probably not needed in this location but it went on anyway.  I drilled through the back side of the coaming and installed a weather-proof feed through.  The wire used to connect the antenna tuner to the back-stay is GTO-15, originally designed for use with neon signs.  Since this is a high voltage cable I ran it through conduit with 1.625" stand-offs attached to the non-insulated part of the back-stay.  I placed the stand-offs every 6" to give the conduit plenty of support and it's strong enough to be used as a grab handle while moving around the cockpit.  The conduit exits through a PVC cap at the top of the conduit just above the bottom insulator and makes a gentle 180 degree turn before connecting to the back-stay with a "GO-To Bug" clamp.  I sealed it up with tape but then read the "Sailor's Quick-Start Guide" where I found that this clamp is supposed to be left exposed to weather to keep it accessible for cleaning on a regular basis.  OK, gotta go back and fix that.

The final part of my work this weekend involved installing an earth ground for the antenna tuner.  I decided to go with this after discussing it with some friends with the same SSB radio and KISS counterpoise.  The radio comes with 10' of 4" wide heavy copper foil.  I ran this from the ground lug on the tuner down to the packing gland nut on the rudder post.  Anywhere it changed direction I folded it over on itself to form a 90 degree turn.  At a convenient spot I cut the tape across and mounted it to a block of wood, leaving a gap between the two ends.  Across this I soldered four capacitors (0.15uf, 100v) to create a DC block that will prevent electrolytic corrosion. I then covered the edges of the foil with Gorilla tape to hold it in place and prevent injuries from the sharp edges.

As I was cleaning up at the end of the day I found the wingnuts I had dropped, both securely wedged in the wiring beneath the genset.

We fired up the radio and did a listen test to see if we could hear anything.  Picked up some dudes chatting down in Miami.  Cool!  Now I gotta learn what all those knobs and buttons do so we can do some chatting of our own.

The Continuing SSB Saga

My original estimate of having a four day weekend to install this thing was off by the speed of light.  First of all, a four day weekend does not necessarily mean there's 8 hours per day available to work on projects.  With everyday chores and unforeseen priorities I'm probably lucky to get in four hours per day.   Besides, everything I do takes at least twice as long as I originally thought it would.  Maybe even twice that.
 
I went back at it this weekend and pulled the cables through to the cockpit locker on the starboard side.  I want to install the antenna tuner there because we're using the starboard side backstay for the antenna and we need to keep the high voltage wire as short as possible.  After I got the cables pulled I spent some time looking around for a good mounting location for the antenna tuner.  I needed a spot about 8" x 16", a good piece of real estate on a boat.  Plus it had to be where the HV wire wouldn't run near any other wiring because this could induce noise into other systems.  This is a pretty high powered radio.  I've heard stories about people keying the mike and the lights in the cabin would flash, electric toilets would flush, etc, etc.  I don't think we need that kind of entertainment.  Let's see now, we've got the wiring for shore power running through from here to there and the wiring for the genset goes over there.  Oh yeah, all that wire over there is for the auto pilot.  There was plenty of space on the inside of the hull but there's too much wiring it would have to cross and it's further away from the backstay than I wanted to be.  I ended up settling on an overhead spot tucked up inside the cockpit coaming.  I cut out a board and pre-drilled it to mount the tuner.  Glopped it up with 5200 and used gorilla tape to hold it in place on the fiberglass until everything dries.  In this 20 degree weather that'll probably take a few days before I can mount the tuner.

With that delay in mind I went below to the Nav Station and concentrated on the power for the transceiver.  This is mounted in a cabinet directly over the batteries for the house bank.  Perfect!  I plan to run power directly from the batteries instead of through the breaker panel to keep out any stray noise.  I'm mounting 40 amp blade fuses just downstream from the batteries, one on each leg (+ and -).  Up at the radio there's a 30 amp fuse on the + side but the bigger fuses will protect the wiring (fingers crossed, knock on wood, swing a chicken over my head, etc, etc) in the event of a nearby lightning strike.  I'm running #8 wire from the batteries up to the transceiver.  It comes with what looks like #10 wire so we'll mount a terminal block up there right next to it to make the connection.  That way we'll have maximum diameter wire for most of the run to give us maximum voltage and minimum noise.

I also worked on finishing up the wiring at the transceiver.  In the kit there is a pile of RF "chokes", ferrite clips, that are used to inhibit stray RF in order to reduce noise in the system.  These get placed on cables connected to the transceiver by placing a loop in the wire and then snapping the choke in place.  I ended up removing pretty much everything I had done last weekend to re-do the cables.  I also found that after I installed the choke on the control cable for the antenna tuner I no longer had enough wire length to plug it back in to the transceiver.  Now I hafta pull some back from the cockpit locker.  Grrr.  One step forward, two steps back.

  While I was at it I also added some chafe protection where the wires pass through the bulkheads.  I used split plastic wire loom, 3/4", and forced it around the inside edges of the holes I had cut out with a hole saw.  Even with everything tied down firmly there's a chance the wire will wear against the hard surface, especially where I had cut through fiberglass.  This is good insurance.

That part back in the beginning where I went on and on about how I never have enough time to get anything done?  Uhm, gee, go figure.  On Friday I was climbing off the boat, literally.  The wind had been blowing ferociously out of the NW for about four days and the water level in our creek had dropped about 4'.  To get off the boat we had to climb up one of the pilings to get up to the decking of the dock.  Once I got up on my feet I looked out over the marina and saw a huge column of smoke rising above the masts.  At the same time I heard sirens coming in from all over the place.  At first I thought the smoke was coming from Calypso, a local bar that's been closed for renovation.  Oh no, not the rum!  I later found out it was actually a house across the street.  Bummer.  I mean, it would have been bad either way but I hate to see someones home go up in smoke.  Still, there's something beyond fascination about a fire.  This one had equipment come in from miles away, as far away as Bowie.  There musta been twenty fire trucks out there.  Slow day at the VFD's I guess.  They set up a pumper in the marina at the haul-out ramp.  That little operation alone drew quite a crowd.  There was fire equipment everywhere.  They had so many fire trucks respond to this fire that they had to close the road off at Rte 2, about 3 miles down the road.  Anyway, I managed to waste quite a bit of time scoping out all the action.  Didn't get back to the boat for quite a while.  Still can't figure out why all my projects take so long.

Projected Time Does Not Equal Actual Time

This time of year tends to get busy with family and all sorts of things going on.  Most important of all, we recently hit a major milestone in our lives.  Cheri has retired, ending a twenty year career as a Project Manager with the Federal government.  Woohoooo!  Congratulations Baby!  This also marks a point on our calendar where we have just three months to go before throwing off the dock lines and heading south.  I can't believe we've come this far.  The last five years has flown by so quickly.  It had better slow down now so we can savor some of that time we have ahead of us.

I did manage to make some progress on several of our projects and others....not so much.  The most time consuming of them all, varnishing the teak, has come to a halt because of the cold weather.  I had originally thought I could crank this one out in about four weekends.  Over the duration of the project I lost track of just how long I had actually been working on it and recently realized that it's been since late October, about ten weeks.  Yikes! Of course most of that time was lost due to weather or traveling (or procrastination) or whatever but the really significant thing about this is that I left all that blue tape on there.  They say you're only supposed to leave it on for a few days at most because it gets really tough to remove after a while.  It's now been somewhat more than a while and guess what?  It's true.  That blue tape is a bear to remove.  I got out there this weekend and started peeling it off, very slowly, with a single edged razor blade to encourage the sections that didn't want to come up on their own.  That's right!  Give me a blade and my dark side comes out.  This took hours with very little progress.  Then it rained for two days.  After the rain stopped I went back out and found that the tape came up much easier.  OK, thanks for that.  Somebody is looking out for me, fer sure.

Some other things went a little easier.  I replaced the life lines (hand rail) this weekend.  The old ones were covered in white vinyl or PVC or something and had developed rust stains.  When I removed the stanchions for cleaning and re-bedding I took the old lines down to West Marine in Annapolis and placed an order for all new lines in bare stainless wire with all new fittings.  We're only running the wire lines from the bow back to the gates on each side and will use 1" stainless tube from there back around the cockpit.  Mounting the new lines was pretty painless  I also added two stanchion mounts on the port side up by the bow for a whisker pole.

I have the parts for building the cabinet in the aft cabin and once this is finished I can get started on the water maker.  I also have all the parts needed to install a single side-band (SSB) radio.  Time for a priority list.  I reasoned that the radio installation should come first because with that completed Cheri can spend some time getting familiar with it while I build the cabinet and install the water maker.  Good plan.  I had a four day weekend and figured this would be plenty of time.  Best laid plans and all that.

Last year we had some cabinetry done in the galley and at the same time I reconfigured the instruments located in the Nav Station cabinet.  In addition to working on the instrument panel I had a small cabinet added on top to house the radios, VHF and SSB.  We didn't have the SSB radio yet but I knew we would eventually get one so I had the cabinet maker install the cut-outs for an ICOM-M802 head unit and speaker.  Because of that the actual installation for that part was pretty simple.  I actually sat down and read the instruction manual (ICOM M802 SSB Users Manual) and here I found a bit of information I hadn't considered when I re-did the Nav Station.  In the manual it says to place the radio's head unit in a position that's easy to get to from a comfortable seated position, taking into consideration left or right hand use.  Geez, good idea, although I'm not really planning on spending hours on this thing.  Really just wanted it for weather and simple communications.  I think we'll try it the way I have it for a while, years maybe, and see if it suits our needs.  Maybe some day I'll decided to reconfigure the instruments again and can place it in a better position.  Right.  Because I have so much time for stuff like that.

The bigger part of the SSB installation was mounting the transceiver and running the wires.  The transceiver weighs about ten pounds and the manual makes a big deal about not hanging it from overhead and being sure to secure it firmly to a flat horizontal surface.  It's dimensions are 11.5" x 11.5" x 4.75" so it's not so much huge as it is dense.  If this baby broke loose it would do some damage.  It also draws 25 amps so it must produce some pretty good heat.  I spent some time trying to find a good location for this thing.  I originally had wanted to mount it under the Nav Station desk but that would create a conflict with your legs when you sit down plus it would require a hefty shelf to mount it on.  I ended up taking over the cabinet just forward of the Nav Station.  It has a louvered door so hopefully it'll have sufficient ventilation.  We had been using this as a catch-all for CD's and DVD's and pretty much anything having to do with a computer.  Everything was just piled up in there and the space was poorly used.  I decided I could build a shelf to support the "stuff" and mount the transceiver and the modem underneath.  The cabinet is 15" deep and the shelf is only 12" deep with a gap in front and back so there should be good enough air flow.  And yes, I added fiddles to both the front and the back of the shelf.

There are a number of cable connections to this thing.  The control head and speaker each have one.  The modem has another.  There's also a port for connecting GPS.  On the back there's three cables that run to the back of the boat and connect to the antenna tuner which then connects to one of the back-stays. This has already been set up with insulators at the top and bottom to be used as the SSB antenna.  One of the cables goes to a separate antenna for DSC (click here for more info).  Running these three cables turned out to be a major pain in the tukhus (click here for more info).  They come with connectors mounted at both ends and the two antenna cable connectors are pretty bulky.  This makes pulling them through tight spots difficult at best.  If the factory would install a connector at one end and provide a kit for the other it would make life soooooo much easier.  I first tried pulling all three cables down the starboard side cable-run that goes behind the cabinets in the galley and dumps out in the cockpit locker.  This was my number one choice because it's the most direct path and the main antenna cable is big and stiff and only 33' long.  I spent the better part of a day trying to get the cables pulled through this location but in the end had to run them under the cabin sole, beneath the galley and then out through the genset compartment.  I've only gotten them halfway through so far so I have at least a few more hours of work ahead of me.  Even going this way is a tight squeeze and I'm beginning to see that this boat has way too many wires and hoses running down one side.  No wonder she leans to starboard 2 degrees!  Gonna hafta move all my future projects over to the port side. 

While I was working on the physical installation Cheri has been installing the software to run the modem.  This will allow us to send and receive e-mail by radio and pick up weather reports from NOAA.  The biggest complication so far has been because we have Mac computers and the software is only made for PC's.  She had to install Windows 8 to work with the e-mail program and the modem.  Dang!  We tried so hard but there's just no getting away from Microsoft.  We'll see how it all works out when I get the radio up and running.

Right now the plan is to complete this installation next weekend.  I'll do a complete write-up and add some pictures then.

Since we've been talking about time I'll just point out here that I have 65 days, 6 hours and 45 minutes to go until my last day of work.  Two more weeks beyond that is our scheduled cast off time.