Nothing on a boat is ever easy

We had quite a rollercoaster weekend putting Horizon back together.

1. Saturday AM: Hydraulic steering reassembled and bled!  Leave it overnight for pressure test.

2. Saturday PM: Start engine to make sure all systems are ready for voyage tomorrow.

2a. Engine will not turn over.  Found that during steering pedestal work with hydraulic lines, wire pulled off switch.

3. Saturday PM: Start engine to make sure all systems are ready for voyage tomorrow.

3a. Engine started immediately and ran smoothly!

3b. Revs started dropping and eventually would not go above idle.  Must be fuel. Cogitated a while...

3c. Have not filled diesel tank so dipsticked it.  We still have 13" of fuel, maybe 30 gallons.

3d. Remembered I turned fuel off a couple months ago when we had a diesel leak.  Turned fuel on.

4. Saturday PM: Start engine to make sure all systems are ready for voyage tomorrow.

4a.  Engine cranked a while but finally started, ran smoothly, and ran in gear until temp stabilized at 170 degrees!

5. Sunday AM: Pressure and fluid levels held overnight but helm feels soft at stops and generally uncommitted to moving rudder.

5a. Bled through another 3/4 gallon of ATF until more foamy fluid and air bubbles were out of system.  Will leave until next weekend to verify pressure, fluid levels and steering stiffness holds before feeling sure enough of the system to take Horizon out.

6. Sunday PM: Dismantled A/C intake strainer system after only 3 weeks to clear out barnacles and weeds and replace chlorine tablet.  As difficult as it is to keep the marine water cooled system working, window units look more attractive every day.

7. Sunday PM: Our neighbor Rhonda helped us hacksaw a rusted shackle off the 60# CQR anchor we bought used a month ago then we made it ready on the chain rode.  Anchor is ready to go once I get the electric windlass wiring finished.  This week?

I don't think either of us realized how long Horizon had been disabled with the hydraulic steering system rebuild.  With all the initial leaks and bleeding of the system we ran through 5 Oilsorb bilge logs to clean up after the leaks from the old system.  And we probably used 20 Oilsorb mats during the bleeding processes for the new system.  Space is so tight there is little room to position buckets to catch spills so mats are the only way to keep the area under our bed oil and smell free.  One huge side effect of the cleaning process is the boat no longer has the mold growing medium of oil rich bilge water so she smells much less like a damp basement.  Now some occasional fabric softener should do the trick.

Weekend update

True to our word this weekend the last two port side plastic portholes were replaced.  Our neighbor Tom will now see only stainless steel portholes on his side of our boat.  A couple weeks ago we got our new mattress from JSI and it sure is comfy.  It is composite foam made of 3" of firm, 2" of medium and topped with 2" of memory foam.  Aaaaahhhhhh

We just survived a week of rather impressive storms and rain and it was nice to see the sun this weekend.  I am happy to say that while many other liveaboard boats on our dock had piles of towels out drying, we had very few leaks and they were all small ones.

The hydraulic steering motor/pump is back from the shop and this evening we expect to put it in.  Assuming it now purges correctly we will get to see how well it holds pressure and fluid long term.  After far too long a time it will be nice to have Horizon ready and able to sail once again.

I have been loading up on free Kindle books.  I have Kindle reader apps on my Galaxy Nexus and laptop and routinely visit a site (hundredzeros.com is one among several) that parses all the best seller books Amazon is offering for $0.00.  The selection rotates but you have to sort through the bodice-rippers to find the gems like thrillers and mysteries.  Cruising this time I expect we will not have nearly as many paper books but lots more electronic ones.  Of course we are also loading up on cruising guides and other avocational reading from freecruisingguides.com and SSCA.

6 to go

This weekend Julio got the 4 v-berth portholes replaced.  So of the 16 total, only 6 remain: one in the forward head, four in the main salon, and one in the galley.  Next weekend we intend to get 2 done in the main salon so the port side will be complete.  Our dock neighbor to port says it upsets his sensibilities to see the mixture of plastic and stainless portholes on "his" side of our boat :)

The newly rebuilt hydraulic steering motor from the helm is back in the shop.  We just could not get things to work so I took it back and hopefully they can figure out what is wrong with the pump.  We have had long discussions on the yahoo morganowners forum but none of the suggestions worked out.  We will see what the shop finds with the pump and hope things get squared away easily.

The radar is all hooked up and works great and we now have two chart cards in the HDS-8 unit: one for US coastal waters and one for the Caribbean.  Our electronic suite will be complete once I build the GPS hack for the VHF radio.  When we get the hydraulic steering working we expect to spend lots of weekends out getting used to the gizmos.

   

Visible Progress

Last weekend Brad of Paradise Yachts spent about 6 hours up our mizzen mast mounting all the gear you see in the photo.  We now have a full complement of gizmos and are slowly working to get them all hooked up.

• Lowrance 4G Broadband Radar
• Rutland 913 wind generator on KISS isolation mount
• TV antenna
• Loud hailer speaker for the new GX2150 VHF radio
• Tri-Lens radar reflector

Settee bin access

We also got Julio down to work on our under settee storage situation - now we can actually get into those bins and start getting our storage organized.  To compare, you can see the new bin access with the original tiny tops.  Next up is to find that can of paint to make it look prettier...

Random interruptions

We have been busy running the three new (+1 spare) hydraulic lines for the steering but we are still scratching our heads over how to get the two 2/0 windlass battery cables into the engine room - thirty years of patchwork wiring has left a real rats nest of wires and cables in the area we are working in.  Layout and configuration work continues for integrating the future new batteries with the wind generator, 360 watts of solar panels, a C-60 charge controller, and water heater diversion load.  Sound like enough going on?  I would love to also get the VM NF-200 water maker out of the back seat of my car and actually mounted on the boat!

On a side note, I gave up Verizon and my Droid Bionic.  I have gone contract free with the GSM Galaxy Nexus and the StraightTalk $45/month unlimited everything SIM-only plan and the combination is fantastic.  My first 2 battery conditioning cycles went 31 and 35 hours, a far cry from the 5-7 hours the Bionic got and my HSPA+ data speeds are nearly as fast as those I had on the Verizon 4G network.

Miami Boat Show 2012

Boats, toys, vendors, manufacturers, and ...um... skimpily clad deck ornaments!  What is there not to like?  This year was not like prior years for us; instead of drifting aimlessly through every display of every aisle of every floor, this time we targeted information on specific products.  Well, we did wander the small booth aisles on the main convention center floor and all of the Strictly Sail venue before ending the day as volunteers at the SSCA booth.  We gathered information on lots of stuff but the two most useful to share are about satellite phone and radar.

GlobalStar Evolution II satellite phone plan - This is a $40/month unlimited voice, text and data plan with a home area of North America and the entire Caribbean.  We thought that sounded perfect for us... until we talked to the GlobalStar representative.  He said satellite availability is about 70% of each hour at any given point in the home area which we could probably live with, but then came the problem: the last set of satellites launched in December have the exact same problem with reaction wheels as earlier ones and satellite longevity will be short.  It is up in the air if the investor backing the project will fund yet another batch of satellites given the repeated problems.  Even if more are launched, once complete coverage is available, plan prices will probably jump to the competition's in the $1 to $2 per minute range.  Sigh.

Navico Broadband 4G Radar - I already knew this was likely to be the radome we wanted because of its low power and instant on features but it still needs a display and control unit.  The choices I talked over with the program manager from Navico were narrowed to the tried and true Simrad NSE8 or the new touch screen NSS8 or the economy fish finder style Lowrance HDS8 Gen2.  While he was careful to not show bias, for me his most telling statement was "until the Gen2 the Lowrance was slower".  The NSS touch interface was smooth and looked intuitive but I have personal reservations about the technology.  The HDS8 is $500 less than the NSS8 and $1000 less than the NSE8 unit.  The HDS8 is in a slightly smaller package and it uses less power than the Simrad units.  Yesterday I ordered the HDS8 Gen2 unit with the 4G radar.  

Interesting neighbors

We were at the house last week and heard some odd noises coming from next door.  The neighbors now have 4 chickens pecking around their back yard!  It amused us because these are the same neighbors who filed a complaint over our TNR (Trap, Neuter, Release) of some of the neighborhood feline population because the cats "buried poop in their yard which their 9 year old boy would dig up".  I wonder what changed that their now 10 year old boy doesn't pick up chicken poop that is not even buried?  LOL

Autumn roll-up

It has been a while since I last posted so here is some of what has happened.

Portholes - With the close of summer came cooler weather and we could finally live without air conditioning long enough to mount the portholes in the stern.  Julio, our favorite intrepid boat worker, came through for us again.  Of course nothing is ever simple on a boat and in this case the problem was the compound curve of the transom.  Julio made a template then overnight made perfectly curved teak mounting shim plates that gave the portholes flat mounting surfaces but followed the curve of the transom for the sealing faces.  All 6 portholes in the rear half of the boat have now been replaced.  All that is left are a measly 10 ones forward.

Hatch - We sold the too-heavy-for-us RBI dinghy that came with the Morgan and replaced it with the Avon R3.1 slatted-floor roll-up model from our old Horizon.  The newly exposed foredeck was nice but the first rain storm we found the old dinghy had been covering a badly warped and leaky plastic hatch in the main salon.  I was lucky and found a perfectly sized Bomar cast aluminum hatch at Don's Marine Salvage for a surprisingly good price.  Bedding the new hatch in place stopped all leaks from the cabin top.

Rose goes swimming - One evening in October we were sitting in the cockpit, sipping sangria and listening to a Martina McBride concert in the marina park when our black cat Rose decided to join us.  Rose has been out a few times but always before with harness and tether.  This time she slipped out of the cabin under the screen, then her feral switch must have tripped because she decided to make a break for freedom.  She ran down the side deck, realized the deck stopped before reaching the dock, then launched herself towards the boat next door.  She flew about half way across before landing kerplop in the cold water.  There was about a second of stunned silence followed by a cacophony of splashing and caterwauling.  She splashed her way under the swim platform of our neighbor's boat where she wedged herself on a support strut half in and half out of the water.  I got a net under her but couldn't reach far enough back to unhook her from her perch.  By this time our dock mates had mobilized and within minutes Chuck had peeled her loose and pulled her out, and we got her wrapped in a towel.

Windlass - Horizon came with a Quick electric windlass sized for combo 5/16 rope/chain anchor rode, good for little more than a lunch hook.  For cruising I wanted the security of all chain rode and after lots of research settled on the Lighthouse 1501 electric windlass for its size, power, and manual backup options.  It arrived three weeks after ordering it and my hunt for chain turned up 200' of 3/8" Acco HT (G4) chain locally at Standard Marine Supply in Tampa.  We expect to have the system installed by the New Year.

Ham/Marine SSB Communications - At this month's St. Pete Boat Show the first booth we visited was Sea-Tech.  They have a really complete communications/weather fax/email package with an Icom 802 HF radio, antenna tuner, Pactor modem, and all the incidentals to install the rig.  That package has been on the "to buy" list for a while so we went ahead and ordered it.  All the parts arrived within a week so it is now on the "to install" list.

Slot head screws [Rant] - In trying to replace a broken stanchion bolt then trying to mount the thru-hull fitting for the new radio antenna lead, I found my usual sources of stainless steel pan slotted head bolts now only carried Phillips head.  When asked, I was told that they stopped making slotted head because everyone wanted Phillips.  For deck hardware there is no substitute for slotted heads.  Salt water has to be able to flow out of a fastener head and not pool since salt water rusts even stainless steel.  I finally found and ordered an assortment of bolts from what may be the last supply of SS slotted head bolts at Jamestown Distributors. 

Marriage - Our big event was October 29th on the beach in Key West.  Of course we did it for the children; Rose and Ollie cat-nap more soundly knowing they are legitimate.  Our family is now unofficially known as the McHop clan.

Bon Voyage Horizon - Our old Horizon was sold again and is now sailing her way toward the eastern Caribbean and new adventures.

Attack of the crab traps - Our first time out in quite a while ended almost immediately.  We had just cleared the breakwater and were raising sail when suddenly there arose such a clatter (see my holiday spirit?) from the stern.  The entry to the marina is densely filled with lines of crab trap floats.  We managed to hit one exactly right so the prop caught the line and started winding it around and around and around...  Being the right pirate, I gripped my trusty butter knife between my teeth and started down the swim ladder, but the moment my solar plexus hit the 64 degree water I knew it was just not going to work.  We had no damage except the prop shaft collar zinc, but we did have to get a tow then overnight at the pumpout dock until a diver could cut the whole mess loose the next morning.  Sadly we forgot to check the trap for a crab feast but a 12v hookah and full wet suit have now moved to the top our "to buy" list.

PhD

Yeah 

Doctor 

Cate!

Four down, 12 to go

Our Morgan OI ketch is 30 years old and she was built with plastic portlights.  The decades have taken their toll and many have broken parts, some leak, and some look like they would break if we tried to open them.  At this year's Miami Boat Show the folks at New Found Metals made us an offer for new stainless steel portlights that we just could not refuse.  It was not an insignificant order, Horizon has 16 portlights, but in the end we placed the order for the 4x14 portlights, screens, template, arbor, and Butyl sealant. 

The first shipment of 4 arrived in early April but it took a while to find time for the project.  We decided to start with the 4 coach top ones since we can easily get to both sides from the boat and do not have to use a dingy or work from the dock.

The videos on their web site make it look so simple; it takes them minutes to cut through the drywall panel they used for the demo, drill the holes, fair the cutout and mount the portlight.  Real life is not quite as easy though and we found that after 4 installs, each portlight still takes 4 hours working plus 1 hour cure to install.  I was lucky to get a referral for Julio, a fantastic worker we hired to help with the project.  Well, he was hired to help but he has so much more energy than I that he ends up doing the majority of the work and I help him.

A hacksaw and chisels make short work of getting the old plastic portlights out but even 30 year old 5200 can maintain a tenacious grip.  Then the template is used for drilling the screw holes and to mark for the slightly larger cutout.  We used a RotoZip to cut through the 1.5" to 2" coach top and each portlight chewed through 1 or 2 cutting bits.  Superbond Epoxy filler from Fiberglass Coatings is used to fill any voids then we wait an hour for it to cure.  After that, a little shaping and re-drilling and the hole is ready. 

Next comes the fun part: the cabin sides are not parallel and an odd thickness so we have to custom cut each of the 8 through bolts for length.  The videos didn't show that step but I think we snapped one of the gussets on the inside of first trim ring before we figured that out.

We did use the Butyl sealant but found that making the smaller sealant "string" they show in the videos is NOT easy so we fudged that part a bit.  I hope that stuff holds up as well as 5200.

The new portlights are sturdy, look nice, and pass a lot more light than the old hazed plastic ones.  We now have the procedure down so the more difficult hull portlights may not be as impossible as they appear.  While we can get within reasonably easy reach of 11 of the rest, the one in the galley is arms reach.  That will be the toughest one!

Bittersweet

Yesterday I helped deliver my old boat Horizon to the yard for bottom paint.  Her captain was Eoin, her new owner, and it was the first time she has been commanded by anyone other than myself for probably 20 years.  Horizon did great, and her new captain did even better.  She is in very good hands.