Things are getting done. That's always good, eh?
Let's see:
Prop removed, dis-assembled, cleaned, polished on the wire-wheel grinder, and
ready to re-pitch and go back together.
Second coat of bottom paint put on
2 new batteries installed
Provisioning completed
This doesn't really sound like a lot unless you've done any one of these things before. So, for family, friends, and innocent bystanders...please read on. This is when the fun ensues.
The prop has been giving us fits. We've not been getting hull speed easily. When we're back in the water I'm going to check the RPM with a laser tachomoter that someone here in the yard has...but when we hauled out the prop would not feather. We have a Hydralign feathering prop (while sailing, the blades turn so as to reduce drag in the water- so basically the blades were frozen in an off-position) On to the logical question of why... so I removed the prop and took her apart. The grease looked brand new except one small spot that looked odd, nothing glaring. Cleaned all of the grease spooge out of the gears (q-tips are wonderfully reusable when cleaning grease from gears - wipe 'em off and keep a-spoogin'. No burrs, no wear, nothing out of the ordinary. Hmmm. The end-fitting from the gease nipple is missing, the fitting hole had been invaded thus I figure some of the outside had gotten inside. The grease fitting is inbetween 2 of the blade-gears. Will re-grease it tomorrow, pitch the blades, and re-assemble. While it was apart I took it over to the while wheel grinder and made a prop that has come around the world from New Zealand to Florida beyond and back look like new. Tomorrow I will re-grease, pitch the blades, and re-assemble.
The bottom paint second coat went better than the first. Less paint for more surface being a second coat. Slathered the waterline and high-friction areas better than the rest with the bottom of the can. Our gloves didn't break this time so we stayed our normal tan/off-white color with minimal blue splatter speckling. Paul will move the stands today or tomorrow. Then we can prep and paint those areas. Almost done with the bottom job, yay!
2 batteries installed...well, this task turned into a regular project. The batteries in HP when we bought were Lifeline AGM (absorbed glass mat) 8D size. They had circumnavigated, served 7 years - 6 of hard cruising and 1 in-between dock and cruising. They had served bravely and honorably and they are ready to go to bettery heaven. All summer we have fought to maintain and we're frugal...regardless of how windy or how sunny they refused to keep a charge. We've read little but good overall about the performance of the AGM's so in April we made an AGM envelope. Put money saved, scrounged, sacrificed, and found into it and said "When we haul out we'll get them." Right, so we order them and the day they arrive the driver looked from the ground to the boat and says "You're taking them up there?" I grin, "Sure, no worries." Lifeline AGM 8D's are 150lbs each. He drives away thinking we're just plain daft. We take them to HP, release the lines on the main, swing the boom out, tie a tag line, a safety line, grab some good, strong friends and we winched them one by one up to deck level and carried them (remember, 150lbs in a bulky square case) across the deck (15' above the ground) and into the cockpit. That was day number one. So now we just remove the old ones and hook up the new ones, right? No, Grasshopper, you must infiltrate the battery box which is built to the standards of German Efficiency, American Ingenuity, Vietnamese Torture, and Romanian Contortionists. Yes, this is the project which you need a midget who can bench press 400lbs (every boater dreams of this guy...) Today, I was this guy. The batteries are extraordinarily well secured, let's leave that at that. Ok so Isaac and I remove the old batteries with about 1/4 inch to spare on each side but the one that didn't matter, we lifted them out one by one. I had already cut away a small area of wood to give us a little more clearance. Then I went and got Steven from Samwari and he gave us a hand getting the old up the companionway stairs and the new ones down - which didn't prove to be as hard as I expected. The new batteries went into the case very willingly. A good omen. All systems are online, the Holding Pattern Power and Light guy really earned his keep today.
While Brian was at the Battery Bank, Heather went with Tammy from Moondancer to provision. We had gone through our ship's stores to inventory what we've used and what we've not. Jelly expires much quicker than we use it. We wasted about 4 containers. Next was Ramen-ish products. Had a few that escaped us and they went south sooner than we did. Only 3 or 4 (at .15 cents a piece, I can afford that) Gatorade goes bad quickly. I will do a separate blog on Provisioning that will be helpful to other cruisers with figures, lists, and numbers. But Heather bought a tremendous amount of food and supplies for very little money, she's a wise woman when it comes to this thing. We've put a lot of thought and study into this task and our first year provisioning was actually very good. Second year should be interesting to see. But 75% of it all is put away...we've been doing this after dark when yard-work is out. We can pop in a movie and re-stock ship's stores. Heather was a sweetheart and even splurged and bought me a case of dark chocolate M&M's and almost 300 slices of pre-cooked bacon that doesn't have to be refrigerated. So we'll food-saver them and be happy for many months to come.
We both need to shower. We're both covered in:
dirt
paint
sweat
blood (Brian)
polyester resin from laying fiberglass (Brian)
varnish (Heather)
grease
I'm not even going to read back through this now so any spelling errors, grammatical SNAFU's, etc. shall be tolerated by the reader.
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