In our last episode, you may recall we were in beautiful downtown
Deltaville. We told you why we were there, what we were doing in and around this
booming metropolis, and we referred somewhat cryptically to “improvements” we
were having made on the boat. Well, if this were a TV episode, it would be
called the “reveal,” if it were a little more sophisticated it would be called
the “denouement” and if it we had built up the anticipation a little more
diligently it would be called the “climax.” In any event, here is the list of
projects on which we have asked the Zimmerman boatyard to work while we were in
Arizona and where we currently stand:
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If you look closely, you can see the stainless
steel protection at the front and the side of the bowspirit |
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Bowsprit protection: As many of you will
remember, we replaced our 45 pound CQR-clone (aka hinged plow) anchor with a 66
pound Bruce because I did not believe the CQR-clone was heavy enough to hold a
55,000 pound boat. When we did so, we
did not realize that the sides of the new, larger anchor would come up and bang
the bowsprit. In fact, it has severely chipped the fiberglass. So, we have
decided to protect the areas where it is being chipped with some stainless
steel. Status: Done
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Salt water washdown. When we were in the
Bahamas, the sea bottom in which we usually anchored was sand. So, when we were
ready to leave an anchorage, both the anchor and the chain came up fairly clean
and ready to use again. Well, when we got to the ICW we learned that there is a
lot more mud and gunk at the bottom of the most of the world’s anchorages that
there is sand. (Ann swears it is warm, yucky and has the consistently of baby
poop. As for me, I try not to play around in baby poop enough to know, but I
will admit that is looks a lot like shit.) We also learned that this yucky
stuff seems perfectly designed to stick in the links of the chain as well
as to the anchor. So, when we pull up 100 feet of chain that has lain in the
gunk for one or more nights, we pull a lot of gunk onto the front of the boat.
About the only way to get it off the boat is to go through all 220 feet of
anchor and clean it out link-by-link. If you don’t believe me, you can ask Ann;
it was not one of her favorite boat
tasks. Even worse, unless you remove it almost immediately, some of this gunk
can, in fact, stain the bow of the boat. It took several applications of my
favorite cleaning product – FSR or Fiberglass Stain Remover – to get rid of the
stain.
To
eliminate that problem, we are having a pretty powerful saltwater washdown pump
put on the boat. (I think it will be about 60 pound of water pressure per inch.)
Basically, it pulls saltwater out of the sea and into the hose. All Ann has to
do is to aim the nozzle at the chain as we bring it up and blast the gunk away before
it gets on the boat – at least that is the theory. Lord, I hope it works! Status:
in progress
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Battery monitor: If you look back far enough
in this Blog, you will find a number of references to our battery banks and
trying to find out what is happening to them, particularly when we use the
inverter. Now we have figured out some of the stuff that is happening, but we
have asked Zimmerman’s to install a Xantrex LinkPro battery monitor. It is
supposed to tell me, among other things, how many amp-hours are left in the
battery bank. Status: Completed
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Heads: While some of you may have forgotten
our Battery Escapades, I am sure none of you have forgotten our Head
Adventures. Well, the saga continues, but these aren’t really repairs, these
are attempts to get in front of our problems.
First, I have to tell you that, after we spent a couple of boat units on
them a couple of months ago, two of our heads continue to work as well as
expected, but we have never been able to get the aft-most head (in the master
stateroom) to work. In fact, we were told it was beyond repair. Well, after
long consideration, much counting of boat units, and a great deal of concern
for those of you who will come to visit us on the boat in the future (You
better come, darn it!), we have thrown a couple of BU’s at the master head. We
are not getting a new Lectra San, instead we are getting a brand new, high tech,
Purasan. In a future entry I may try to detail the differences between the old
fashioned Lectra San and the new fangled Purasan, but for now, let me just say
that while the Lectra San relies on the salt in the sea water, the Purasan does
not. Instead, we have to buy tablets to put into the Purasan – and make sure we
have enough for a Bahamas trip. That means we will never have to put salt in
the toilet again – even in the most brackish of water. (For those who don’t
know, the Chesapeake’s water is not very salty; in fact, the further north you
go, the less salty it is and the more salt we would have to add.) So, for the
Lectra Sans we will have to continue to add extra salt for every flush as long
as we are in the Chesapeake, but not for the Purasan. Our long term plan is to
replace the other two Lectra Sans over the next two years. Status: Completed
We have asked Zimmerman’s to make one
other modification to our heads. Both Lectra Sans and Purasans are classified
by the Coast Guard as an MSD I’s, which “is a flow through discharge device
that produces effluent having a fecal coliform bacteria count not greater than
1,000 per 100 milliliters and no visible floating solids. This type of device
is typically a physical/chemical based system that relies on maceration and
chlorination.” MSD I’s are supposed to be permitted everywhere EXCEPT in
EPA-designated “No Discharge Zones,” where you are supposed to use an MSD III
-- which is “a device that prevents the overboard discharge of treated or
untreated sewage or any waste derived from sewage,” which means, basically,
that you have to use a holding tank. (To complicate matters there are some
state and local law enforcement officials who do not understand what MSD I’s
are and assume that if you are not using a holding tank that you are dumping
your … er … untreated stuff overboard.)
Anyway, we want to make it so we can
use our holding tanks, either when we are in a No Discharge Zone or when the
Lectra Sans do not work. So, we asked Zimmerman’s to put in a switch that will
allow us to do just that. They did so, but in the process they discovered that
two of our thru-hulls were frozen open and needed replacement. (Thru hulls are
exactly what they sound like. They pass through the hull to either suck water
in or blow something out.) It’s always somethin’ ain’t it? I do not like
thru-hulls frozen in the open position, so, of course, we had them fixed; it
is, after all, only a boat unit or two. Status: Completed
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| A not-very-good-picture of the new stove |
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Stove: Another major issue was replacing the
stove. As most of you know, Ann not only loves to cook, she is very good at it.
Me? I am not so good at cooking, but I can be one hell of an eater. Anyway,
there were three problems with our stove: (1) It was 20 years old, (2) it
cooked around 50 degrees +/- too hot, and (3) it was difficult to keep pots and
pans on the stove when the boat tilted just a little. Clearly we needed a new
stove.
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| The old stove |
Ann
really wanted a ceramic, smooth-top stove.
Unfortunately, the only smooth-top stoves we could find were 30 inches
wide (the standard width); our space was 27 inches. No matter how much we
looked and no matter how hard we tried we couldn’t fit a 30 inch stove into a
27 inch space. So, we bought a coil-top 27 inch stove. It seems to work okay,
but time will tell. Status: Completed
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Winch repair: This one is a
repair/improvement. Most of you remember that the winch for our dinghy went
south a couple of weeks ago. The first day Zimmerman’s technicians were here,
they fixed the winch. It turns out that it wasn’t the electrical connections at
all, but instead was the clutch for the winch. Five minutes after the tech
fiddled with the clutch, it worked. Since they had it out and were working on
it I asked them to replace the cable that pulls the dinghy up. When they were
doing so, apparently the remote switch burnt out – so they replaced that also.
Because they had to wait for parts, they didn’t finish until yesterday, but now
it is done. Status: Completed.
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Swim platform rub rail: When we use our dinghy
we have to get on and off via the swim platform. The problem is that the darned
Boston Whaler is just high enough to fit under the platform. In the past, when
one of us got out, it would pop up and catch the rubber protective edging,
which we call the rub rail (because it is designed to protect the boat from
“rubbing” against the dock or anything else). Well, when it caught the rubber, it
lifted it up and started tearing the places where it was screwed onto the swim
platform. There were about 50 screws holding it in place and five or so tore
through the rubber so we knew we would need to fix rubber, but then we had a
bigger problem. If you will recall during the “Big Blow” at Marsh Harbor, the
dinghy (which we had tied to the back of the boat), was constantly thrown under
the railing, then it would bounce back and up, tearing even more of the rubber –
until the rub rail was almost completely torn off. We decided that when we had
it repaired, we would have a different kind of railing (stainless steel) put on
so the dinghy would never again tear it out. Status: Completed
·
Fuel Tanks: Our boat has two main fuel tanks
that carry 200 gallons of diesel fuel each. It also has two auxiliary tanks in
the master stateroom under the bed that can another hold 150 gallons each.
Several years ago, we were told, the previous owner decided he didn’t want to
use the auxiliary tanks and stopped filling them. If we wanted to use the aft
tanks, we had two problems.
Microbes,
in the form of bacteria and fungus, are present in all diesel fuels. Long
periods of fuel storage can create ideal opportunities for microbes to grow in
fuel tanks. After they reproduce, the microbes die. As they die, they fall to the bottom and form
a “gunk” at the bottom of the fuel tanks. (This is, of course, not to be
confused with the “baby poop” gunk that comes up with the anchor and chain.) Over
a period of years, a lot of this dead-microbe gunk can form at the bottom of
the tanks. So, before we use the fuel tanks we had to have them cleaned out.
Moreover, since the tanks had not been used for a long time, we did not know
whether microscopic cracks and pits had formed in the tanks and the associated
hoses, so we had to have the tanks pressure tested to make sure when we put
fuel in the tanks that it would stay there. The total estimated cost would be
$2000 - $2500 dollars.
So
why, you ask, did we care about carrying extra fuel? As we cruised up the ICW
we learned that fuel costs can vary by as much as a dollar per gallon depending
on where you refueled. If we could carry 700 gallons, we could fill up at
locations where fuel was least expensive and skip those marinas where it cost a
lot. My back of the envelope
calculations showed that we could probably save $750 for every thousand miles
we traveled. Since the distance from the Chesapeake to southern Florida is
about 1200 miles and since we go up and down every year, we could save $900
each way. Moreover, in the Bahamas, fuel costs at least a dollar more than the
highest price in the US. Since we thought we might cruise 1000 miles after we
get to the Bahamas, that would be another $750 in savings. In a year, we could
save somewhere in the neighborhood of $2550 – which is more than the cost of
the improvement – or more than two-and-a-half Boat Units. Status: They are
pressure-testing the tanks even as I write this sentence. I am writing another
sentence and they are still testing. Still … still … Ok, it is going to take
maybe 24 hours so I should probably move on.
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Water maker: Do we need a watermaker? No. Do we want
a watermaker? Yes. Let me explain our thinking.
We
have three options: (1) No watermaker, (2) Have our current watermaker fixed –
assuming it can be fixed, (3) buy a new watermaker.
In
the Exumas (the portion of the Bahamas where we plan on going next year) and
further south in the Caribbean, water can cost 50 cents per gallon or more. A
new watermaker, however, costs $10,000 (no, that’s not a misprint, 10 whole
boat units) – plus another BU or two for installation. You can buy a whole lot
of water for 10+ BUs – even at 50 cents per gallon.
Over
a six day period, Ann and I use about 200 gallons of water – which is about the
capacity of our water tanks – including water for washing dishes, cooking, and
taking some very short showers. It
does not include water for washing clothes – which is a big water user.
Typically, we would spend 6 days at anchor, then go to a marina for a day or
two and use the marina’s water to clean the boat, take long, hot showers and do
the wash. Let’s say that comes to another 200 gallons. So, we would spend
$200/week on water. Now let’s be very optimistic
and say that we might have guests come to visit for two weeks out of a month,
and that they, too would use 200 gallons (that is not quite true, but I am
trying to keep things simple). That means we would spend $800 per month on
water for Ann and me and another $200 for guest water. In a month, therefore,
we would spend in the neighborhood of $1000. Since we plan on spending about 4
months or so each year in high-cost-of- water-area, we would spend abut $4000
per year on water.
A
second problem with having no watermaker is that we lose freedom. Let’s say we
and another couple are on a cruise. Our tanks hold only 200 gallons, so at
least once during the week and more likely twice, we are going to have to visit
someplace and take on water. Even if it is only Ann and I, we would have to stop for water every 6 days.
Between
the financial cost and the loss of freedom, we are not big on having no
watermaker. A new watermaker can run on batteries, so we could have it on most
of the day. It can produce 10 – 15 gallons per hour which means that we would never run out of water. In fact, we
would produce excess water. (I already thought of it. No, we can’t sell the
excess; it is against the law for us to sell anything in foreign countries.)Anyway,
it would pay for itself in three or so years.
Our
watermaker is 20 years old, runs only on AC (i.e. when the generator is on) and
produces only 7.5 gallons per hour (at best). However, we have to run our
generator about four hours per day anyway (to charge the batteries). Four hours
at 7.5 gallons per hour amounts to 30 gallons per day. Over six days, we would produce 180 gallons –
or almost half of our total weekly requirement. Over four months, the cost of
water would be $2584; we would save $1416 per year with a repaired
watermaker. Since the cost of repairs
would be ~$1500, we would pay for it in about a year. Moreover, while Ann and I
could stay out for quite a while alone, even if we had guests we could stay out
almost six days, or we could run the generator just a little bit longer each
day and stay the whole week.
Bottom
line, we are trying to get our watermaker fixed. Status: In process.
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| Some of the new eisenglass on the flybridge |
·
Eisenglass Replaced: In our last entry we told
you about replacing the eisenglass – the clear plastic surrounding our
flybridge. Actually, eisenglass is supposed
to be clear. Ours is very foggy, foggy to the point where sometimes I can’t see
through it well enough to drive the boat. It was also so old that it was
cracking. If that wasn’t enough, it wasn’t configured the way we wanted it.
Normally, when we are on the flybridge, the weather is good and we like to open
the eisenglass and let the glorious breeze flow through. It was configured in
such a way that we couldn’t open it up as much as we wanted; some of the panels
didn’t open at all, and some of them didn’t open enough for us to enjoy the
breeze. So, we asked the folks at Custom Canvass to replace the eisenglass with
a combination of new eisenglass and staratglass. (Strataglass is similar to
eisenglass, but is thicker, lasts longer and is generally better.) The job is now
finished and it looks great. We are satisfied. Status: Complete.
·
Cushions: We have eight outdoor cushions, all
made of white vinyl. We keep the two cushions for the bow seats in the salon
behind the sofa so they are in very good shape. The six cushions for the
flybridge, though – maybe not so much. Because they are in the weather a lot,
mildew grows on them, they get stained and because they have been used for
twenty or so years, the fasteners that are supposed to keep them in place do
not work. In short, we needed to do something about the cushions. Ann thought
the best solution would be to get them covered in sunbrella fabric which is the
same fabric that we use for canvass throughout the boat. On the bad news front, the lady who does
cushions is semi-retired and works only occasionally. On the good news front,
she has agreed to do our cushions. On the bad news front, she had some members
of her family come to visit and she has not yet finished them. On the good news
front she should be finished next week. Status: In process.
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Entertainment Center and Wet Bar: In our
saloon we have a large cabinet that is about waist-high and stretches across
the width of the room. It contains a wet bar and an entertainment center. We
are completely satisfied with the wet bar and, though I add shelves to it once
in a while, don’t want it touched. The entertainment center is a different
story. Right now, it is configured to house an old-fashioned Sony TV and three
stereo components – a receiver/amplifier, a CD player and (are you ready for
this?) a four track cassette recorder-player. (Remember the boat was built in
the 1990s.) And, for us, it is good that it has the four-track. The best way
for us to play our iPods is to plug them into a gizmo that connects to the
four-track, which in turn is connected to the amplifier. The music comes forth
loudly and clearly. The system itself is connected to four very good speakers,
two in the salon and two in the galley, which can be used together or
separately. The bottom line is that the set-up we have is very usable, though I
must admit that we kind of want to get it updated with a larger flat screen TV
and 21st Century entertainment center components.
Here
is the problem. The cabinet is custom-made to hold the components we have. Flatscreens
do not have the same dimensions as the televisions of yesterday, so we would
have to modify the cabinet significantly. Now I suspect you are beginning to
get the picture; custom modifications to a custom cabinet call for some serious
woodwork – especially when we want all the varnishes matched – and serious
woodwork means big boat units. The estimate we got for that and a few other
little pieces of woodwork was five-and-a-half-boat units. To be honest I think
that estimate was high. We are not going to need much material and 60+ labor
hours seems a bit high to me. Needless to say, we are not going to get the work
done by Zimmerman’s. Instead, I am going to look around and try to find someone
who can do the work for less. Meanwhile, we will continue to watch our
old-fashioned square TV and listen to our iPods on our four-track. Status: On
Hold
Unfortunately, when people start taking apart your boat to make
improvements or repairs, they frequently find other things that need to be
fixed. We had two things happen: (1) The techs found that many/most of our
sacrificial zincs were worn out, and (2) we need new cutlass bearings. What are
sacrificial zincs? Any time you have two different metals that are physically
or electrically connected and immersed in seawater, they become a battery and some
(generally small) amount of current flows between the two metals. The electrons
that make up that current are supplied by one of the metals giving up bits of
itself-in the form of metal ions-to the seawater. This is called galvanic
corrosion and, left unchecked, it quickly destroys underwater metals.
The most common casualty of
galvanic corrosion is a bronze or aluminum propeller on a stainless steel
shaft, but metal struts, rudders, rudder fittings, and even engines are also at
risk. The way we counteract galvanic corrosion is to add a third metal into the
circuit, one that is quicker than the other two to give up its electrons. This
piece of metal is called a sacrificial anode, and most often it is zinc. In
fact, most boaters refer to sacrificial anodes simply as zincs. It would be
hard to overstate the importance of maintaining the zinc anodes on your boat.
When a zinc is gone, the metal component it was installed to protect begins to
dissolve-guaranteed. Now zincs cost a little bit and so
does the labor, but the cost isn’t that bad – especially compared to the
potential consequences. So we had them replace all the zincs.
They also noticed that our cutlass
bearings are failing and sadly, they are not quite so cheap. On boats with
inboard engines, the engine spins the shaft which, in turn, drives the
propeller. A “strut” – usually in the shape of an inverted “V” sticks out from
the bottom of the hull and holds the propeller shaft in place. The job of the
cutlass bearing is to fit between the shaft and the strut to reduce friction
and to hold the shaft steady as it spins. As the
cutlass bearings wear out, we will feel more and more of a vibration as we
increase the RPMs. Unfortunately, each set of bearings cost about $1500 and the
labor to put them in is probably another BU each. Moreover, we have to have the
boat hauled out of the water so the workmen can get at them. Overall, when we
have them replaced it is going to cost us in the neighborhood of 5-6 BUs.
Because we are spending so much money on all these other repairs/improvements
we deferred having the bearings replaced. We’ll probably have to have it done
this fall.
We still have a few more things to
do. We have to sell our current dinghy and buy another one, we have to get
someone to look at our generator, we have to sell our CQR-clone anchor and
probably buy another (bigger) Bruce, and we have to buy and install a new
electric oil changer. We’re not quite where we want to be yet, but we’re
getting there.
Ann's Notes: Michael sure did alot of typing in this edition of the addition of the blog...I don't think I can match the amount of words he used.
I must say my new stove is very pretty...I did try every which way to get a new flat ceramic cook top and I could have -- but at the cost of many more boat units. It is hard to believe that none of the big companies make 27 inch ranges, the standard size is 30 inches. I guess I will just have to wait and get the flat-top range when we live back on land . I did however learn ALL about the different types of ranges, there is the drop-in,which is what we have, the slide-in and the free standing .They also have a Sabbath Mode in some ranges. Look it up, I found it very interesting so I even learned something new about the Jewish religion.
I think all the repairs and improvements will make our time spent on our beautiful floating home much more pleasant and safer. Please do come and visit and see for yourself how much fun it is. We will welcome you with open arms and a drink of your choice.
Traveling Soul...
Out...
