My Accomplishment For The Day

Vero Beach
No LL

Saturday morning I worked with paint stripper chemical. That is sure nasty stuff. I'm working on preparations for refinishing the non-skid on our upper decks.

This afternoon it was a lovely afternoon. Our mad dash to escape from the cold to the warm sure paid off. On Friday afternoon it was 94F (34C). Saturday it was mostly sunny, wind only 5 knots and 80F (27C); just perfect weather.

Libby and I took the dingny to the beach. How does one dinghy from the ICW to the beach? Study the sattelite picture.














At the beach, we laid on our backs and soaked up some sun. I took it upon myself to count the number of clouds that passed overhead. A little later I took a swim. Libby chickened out.

The sea was flat and green. We could see only one boat out there with all that ocean to play in. Amazing.

Oh yes, my accomplishment for the day? 1

Helpful tips

Vero Beach
No LL




















Several readers sent in helpful tips about my zinc problem. Thank you very much. I think I'll try some of the tips to limp along instead of precipitously running to haul the boat out of the water.

The picture above was taken after our repowering project. We have a Max-Prop that feathers when in neutral. You see it here in the feathered posittion. You can also see the cone-shaped zinc attachted to the butt end of the prop. You can also see that there is no room for a collar zinc on the shaft.

We put the new motor in with the help of Bud Taplin. Bud is the guru about all things Westsail. Bud said that in the past he had trouble with Max Props getting too close to the rudder (seen on the far left of this picture). Therefore, he makes the shafts short. The trouble is that he made it so short that we have no room on the shaft for a zinc. In reality, the shaft could have been 3 inches longer while still giving adequade prop-to-rudder clearance.

I thought about moving the whole engine and shaft further aft. I could use more room at the front changing the raw water impeller. But we can't do that without building a new fiberglass platform for the aft motor mount. It would be a major project.

I would also like to re-grease the Max Prop. It has two places where you can remove a little set screw and screw in a grease fitting instead. Then, using a grease gun you pump in grease until it oozes out from all the seams, like in the picture. In theory I could do that under water also, but chances of losing the little set screws and/or the grease nipple would be very high. Perhaps in the Bahamas with clear water, I could get Libby in the water too to hold a big pan under me to catch dropped parts.

By the way, Bill K also commented that low water in the batteries is a sign of overcharging. Maybe so. Another dissapointment on the new motor was that it came with an alternator that uses an internal voltage regulator that is incompatible with the modern external three-stage battery charge controllers. We have such a controller already, but now we can't use it.

Especially when we motor down the ICW, I see the battery voltage pegged at 14 volts all day long, and I wondered if we weren't overcharging. To get around that problem, we would have to buy a new alternator.

Our shore-power battery-charger also does not have a three-stage controller. It is a 25 amp controller and it was plenty expensive. I paid $450 for it. A 40 amp charger with 3-stage controls would have cost more than $750. Ouch.

However, another project on my list this month is to install a battery monitor that I bought on E-Bay last year. The battery monitor lets me keep track of Kw-hours, not just battery voltage. With the monitor I can hopefuly learn a lot more about our energy consumption and our recharging cycles. It should make it clearer whether or not we are overcharging.

Bad Things and New Projects

Vero Beach
No LL

I told yesterday about the broken screw in the propeller. Last night, our main battery voltage suddenly dropped to 10.5 volts on both batteries! That's really dead.

I scrambled to start the Honda generator to charge them up. The starter rope broke off when I pulled it. Double Oh no.

This morning, I opened up the engine compartment and started to remove the batteries to take them back to the store and trade them for new ones. First though, I checked the water level in the cells. Surprise! They were very low on water. I don't really understand that. I have been checking the water level every month or so and it was always fine. I don't know if the low water was the cause of a battery problem or a symptom of some other problem. Anyhow, I refilled the cells with distilled water and we'll try them for a few days before taking any other action.

I then set out to repair the Honda generator. I never had a recoil starter apart before. Needless to say, as I took it off, the recoil spring unwound. What a pain that was. It took Libby and I 3 hours to rewind that spring and put it back. Now, I have the whole thing together with a new rope. It started, but it makes a bad noise. There is a nylon pawl that sticks out to start, and should retract when running. It's not retracting and it hits on the rotating parts, making the noise. I don't know what to do about that. Does anyone have experience with small engine recoil starters?

This afternoon I started with paint stripper. I'm removing the old deck paint in preparation for repainting. The old paint I used, Interlux Topsider, turned out to be very unsatisfactory. It didn't stick, flaking off in places. That could be poor preparation on my part. It also wore completely through three coasts in high traffic areas in less than a year. It also seems to absorb dirt and it looks dirty everywhere we walk.

I bought a gallon of tug boat deck paint. That stuff, I hope will be immune to all those problems. It is also non-skid. One applies is with a very coarse roller.

We also ordered new cockpit cushions. We have custom fitted vinly covered foam cushions. They are ideal for our purpose, but the vinly came the end of life and began to crack and split in multiple places. New custom cushions are very expensive. Nearly $900. But we can't get along without them.

Oh No, Screwed Again

Vero Beach
No LL

This morning early I resolved to do an unpleasant chore. I had to replace the zinc on our propeller. The water in Vero is very murky and not so clean which makes it not nice. Besides, it was a bit chilly and windy and the water was cold; not the best time for swimming.

Brushing aside all that, I went in the water to inspect the old zinc. It was completely gone. The poor design of the Max Prop zinc I've complained about before. The zinc first wears away at the screw holes which fasten the zinc and it falls off.

I started removing the three screws that held the zinc in place. While unscrewing the second one, it broke off. Oh No! It left the stub of the screw in the screw hole. Double oh no!

Now to repair that, I'll have to haul Tarwathie up on the hard for an hour or two. Then I'll have to drill out the remnants of the old screw without damaging the threads on the prop. That will cost $250 to $300 just for the haul out. That makes it a very expensive screw. You might say I'm screwed.

For temporary protection I hung a loose zinc over the side attached to a wire with the other end attached to the boat's ground. At least that buys some time while I think on the problem.

Can anyone suggest a better way to get that screw out while under water?

News In The Morning

Vero Beach Public Library
No LL

I get the feeling that Libby and I were the only two people on the planet not tuned in to TV watching the election returns last night. Instead, we got the news on the radio when we woke this morning. I think that we are also the only two people on the planet who have never seen Obama speak; we have only heard him on radio.

Well, it sounds like the whole world loves Obama. At the very least, his administration should have the opportunity to do much better with foreign relations. At home, his fate depends mostly on when this great recession bottoms out. It would be the same if McCain had won. If he leads us out of the depths in to renewed prosperity, he'll be much loved like FDR was. If things continue to decline during his term, then he'll be despised like Hoover was.

I don't normally dabble in poetry. However, Pat and Ray on Reflection recently sent me a poetry challenge for cruisers. You can read my entry to Pat's challenge here.