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Boatyard Blues

Boat maintenance is one of those reoccurring things….some is monthly….some is quarterly….some is yearly…..and if you’re unlucky enough to own the boat when some of the items, that only need to be replaced every 20-40 years come along? …you have to do it ……and guess what ? This was that year for us ……we had two seacocks (valves that control water either coming into to or going out of the boat) that needed to be replaced, and our depth sounder was dying a slow and painful death.

In addition, one of the lesser recognized hurricane hazards is from your own equipment. During hurricane Ian, we were in a marina that experiences some decent swell from the south which tends to hit the beam of the boat and our secondary anchor bashed a hole in what is called our trail board, or as I call our “mustache” on our bow.

Fortunately, we were about a month from a haul out for a bottom paint job. So we decided to wait and have it fixed while were “on the hard”.

If you’re unfamiliar with the haul out procedure, there is a large framework on wheels that uses a system of hydraulics to lift boat out of the water and carry it into the yard via some enormous nylon straps. You get the first view of how terrible your bottom looks …..(pun intended)

You also get to see what a horrendous job the prior boatyard did on your bottom paint…..Don’t ever use Cape Marine in Port Canaveral, Florida.

Next it’s the demolition phase……our depth sounder had stopped working in under 8’ of water (which is really when you need it the most) but still worked in 200’ of water???? That black collar is the inboard end of the depth sounder.

This is the outboard end of the transducer that is normally housed in a faring block that resembles a small canoe to avoid creating drag while underway. It took and entire day to get the faring block cut off and to start the process of removing the actual transducer. It only took 200 turns to get that thing out of the hull…..a quarter a turn at a time….while getting up and walking around a boat stand to complete each turn in the process. As a bonus, it’s all from a squatting position.

Pretty, clean, painted and ready for the new installation……

Then it was on to the removal of the old and leaky seacocks (I know some of you are giggling every time you read “seacock”).

These are what they call “tapered barrel” seacocks that use a pair of nuts to maintain the pressure on a the edge of the barrel inside the body of the seacock to seal against water intrusion. Our original seacocks are 43 years old and when treated well, and regularly maintained, they can last a whole lot longer.

The body is above and this is The barrel….

The inside and outside of the thru hull opening….

One of the new seacock backing boards….

A new seacock installed and finished….

We also needed to clean and refinish our running gear (prop, prop shaft, replace the anodes, and recoat with anti fouling paint.

step one sanding…..that takes a day…step two coating with zinc paint…another day ……..step three coating with water based anti fouling paint (the final Smurf blue coat) that can take two or three days…..

We also replaced our prop shaft mounted line cutter to our prop shaft in case we pick up an abandoned line, net or a line from a crab or lobster trap. Not fool proof, but makes life easier.

We had some damage to our boot stripe which we repaired also….and some scratches to the topside paint that happened during the hurricane.

While we are out of the water it’s a convenient time to compound and wax the hull….that’s a three day job …minimum….but she’s so pretty and shiny at the end…..thanks to Sherry and Dan Lambert, and Dave Uhles for the assistance.

Plus sanding, stripping, repainting and replacing anodes for our refrigeration “keel coolers” ….. if you’ve read the boat refrigeration entry, you know what those are already……

All in all, it took from October 11 to November 26th, and during that time I had the flu…or RSV or whatever they are calling it this year ….fun…..and hurricane Nicole made an appearance…….but it’s done now and we are back in the water awaiting the next trip…….

Dyneema 12 strand line splicing

How to turn this…..

Into this……

and then this …..

The tools of the trade…..

Order yours here…..

There will come a time in every boaters life when the need to splice lines together or into a loop will come along. On our boat the lifelines are made of Dyneema which is a brand name for a synthetic, 12 strand, high strength line. Unfortunately, one of ours fell victim to some unexpected chafing and it broke while we were in the Bahamas. We managed to replace it with some spare Dyneema we had temporarily using two trucker’s hitch style knots. Once we returned we had to make a final repair. So I had to learn how……

I highly recommend buying some line with which to practice, preferably something with a slightly larger diameter to make the first attempts easier. At the end of making your loop you will need to bury the tail inside the line. You’ll find varying mathematical opinions on how long this tail should be. I usually use a length around 21 times the diameter of the line, which for a 3/8” line equals a tail of about 8”.

This method works well because you only need access to one end of the line since quite often the other end already has a loop in it and is attached to the boat.

Measure out your tail and make your loop…..

Next you’ll need to mark two spots on the line where the loop will come together….don’t make it too close to the loop because you’ll want to fit that metal thimble inside the loop when you’re done.

Using the fid feed the end of the line through mark 1

It helps to imagine 12 strand line like a Chinese finger puzzle. When you push the line together on either side of the mark it will bulge and open slightly. Slide the end of your line through mark 1. You can also work a smaller fid into the same hole and work the fids back and forth in a crossing fashion, to widen the hole.

Once you feed mark 2 through mark 1 You then open mark 2 and push the loop through mark 2

Slide the marks together to form the loop and then work the thimble into the loop…..Dyneema will lengthen if you put some tension on it as the strands become compressed together…..be patient.

Next….at a point just beyond the length of the tail insert your D-splicer which you will use to pull the tail inside the line and “bury” it….pay close attention to the instructions for the D-splicer and only use the very end of the line in the splicer.

D-splicer inserted then pull and twist to pull the tail inside of and down the line and back out…

Separate the strands at the end and trim them into a taper to prevent any loss of strength in the outer line and work the end back inside the line to “bury” it…unfortunately the coloring on Dyneema isn’t a dye, just a surface color, so it will rub off…..

And you’re done ….

Here’s the line I replaced …….but since this was my first time I failed to account for the loss in line length due to the 12 strand being expanded by the tail being buried inside the line. I also never found any warning about this in the tutorials or videos I watched online. The rough math in that is you’ll need about 20% more length based on the length of the tail you bury, so make your loop about 2” longer if you’re using 3/8” line.

But at this point in my project, I had a thimble that wouldn’t reach the lifeline turnbuckle hardware……

Since I had read a few articles about life line stretch due to the compression of the line under tension (the opposite effect of the line being thickened when the tail is inside or the line is bunched up). I attached a ratchet strap and put the line under tension for a few hours.

Once the line was compressed it lengthened and the hardware was able to be attached…….don’t judge my hardware too harshly ….stainless polishing is next….

Twilight Zone Part 2

This past season we had hoped the big news for the blog was going to be a trip to the Ragged Islands. Since the lockdowns and protocols in the Bahamas were ever changing and at times contradictory we stayed put in Long Island for about eight weeks and then made the run back to Florida. It wasn’t a great season for photos as we were restricted to the boat for about 1/3 of the cruising season, but here’s what’s left of what we got …..

Gun Cay lighthouse at the south end of Gun Cay

that cloud looks like a giant cruise ship Barry the barracuda

Hoping we all have better luck ……And a better year next year ….

A Season From The Twilight Zone Part 1

So…..we left Florida just before New Years Eve, sacrificing our partying opportunities for a weather window to get down the coast and make a run for Bimini. Our weather forecasting service wasn’t all that optimistic about the chances but we decided to go for it and see what happened.

We left Merritt Island and made it to Ft. Pierce that afternoon and anchored near a nice trawler named Diesel Duck (who we saw in the Bahamas much later in the season as they were anchored in George Town).

The next morning we departed Ft. Pierce and headed down the coast, trying to time our arrival for either an entry to Biscayne Bay if the weather was bad, or a turn toward Bimini the following morning. As luck would have it, we were able to make the turn to Bimini just south of Miami and arrived there before 4pm for the outgoing tide so we could dock with some current against us and make it easier.

The below image is a screenshot of our track as we entered Bimini…..it was humorous that the dock hands didn’t mention that the channel had shifted about 100 yards to the south after hurricane Dorian. If you take a close look at the green line, which was made as I was following our old track from the last few years you’ll notice we had to turn around and try again after we hit bottom!!!! The response on the radio was “oh ya mon we forgot to mention that”

We spent about two weeks in Bimini and I was able to enjoy my first ever bout if vertigo …..woof……don’t try that at home……I spent about four hours on a beach chair unable to even stand much less walk…..and then had two lighter bouts of it before it subsided and I haven’t had any issues since.

We helped out our friend Aaron at his bar The Hy Star Lounge for a few days and somewhat of a celebrity stopped by, if you are familiar with the Bravo TV show “Miami Million Dollar Listing”

That guy is apparently a multi millionaire and made it all on real estate in Miami after moving there from Ohio…….

After a couple of weeks in Bimini, as the weather cleared, we decided to make a run for the Exumas…….We made a jump for New Providence where we spent a night in West Bay and then made the ten hour jump to Norman’s Cay. That was an adventure once we got there …..but more about that next time…..

I must have been hungry I already have my fork……

Havana…… ooh nanana 🎼🎤🎹

As promised here is the start of the Havana pics…..

a couple of interesting street shots to start off….

One side of the Hotel Nacional de Cuba…originally designed as a casino in the 40’s the hotel was nationalized after 1959…..

A little history about Havana ……

Founded in 1519 (this year is the 500th anniversary of Havana) as a city of the pirate age, and the even more frequent naval attacks by other countries, the area known as Old Havana was at one point a walled city. The city and bay were stopover points for the treasure laden Spanish galleons returning to Spain from South and Central America. In 1555 the pirate Jacques de Sores burned Havana while sacking the city in search of treasure. He destroyed the existing fort in the process but he didn’t find much. After that incident, the Spanish sent soldiers, built a wall and a new fortress (the Castillo de la Real Fuerza) which still stands and is now a museum.

Let me just move this cannon out of the way ….ouch…those cannon shells are pointy

As the pirate and a military naval warfare age faded the wall became obsolete and was slowly removed as the city expanded.

This is one of the remaining corners….

Mike reaches back in time …..and breaks a rule by touching the wall….

A different type of warfare in 1961…..remnants of the weapons supplied by the USSR ….the small SAU-100 tank which was used by Castro to fire shells at a US Naval vessel during the Bay of Pigs invasion.

And now….Hemingway’s former haunts in Havana ……Sloppy Joe’s and the Floridita (home of the original daiquiri)…….

Sloppy Joe’s was originally opened by Jose Garcia as the Rio Havana in the 1930’s and was allegedly nicknamed Sloppy Joe’s because of the constantly wet floors from the melting ice in the seafood cases. The house sandwich also adopted the name and was made of Ropa Vieja, a slow cooked wet beef.

Garcia came to Cuba from Spain in 1904, moved to New Orleans, and returned to Havana in 1919. Garcia was a career barman. As a barman it was obviously difficult to make a living in the US during prohibition. The building was a grocery store and warehouse before Garcia opened his bar. Hemingway recommended the name Sloppy Joe’s for a bar owned by his friend Joe Russell of Key West in honor of Garcia. Russell, a bootlegger and speakeasy operator, ran the Key West bar under a few names before he took Hemingway’s suggestion. Hemingway had an apartment on one of the upper floors of the Rio Havana prior to 1959 when the bar was closed by the government until 2008.

Hemingway’s favorite spot for a daiquiri…..

An interesting angle of the original Bacardi building…..the Bacardi family left Cuba in 1959 and relocated to Puerto Rico.

I once read an article in Sail magazine by someone who took a sailboat to Cuba, but elected to stay in a rented apartment in Havana for the duration of their visit???? The author whined throughout the article about the air quality in Havana due to the poorly maintained old cars throughout the city. Nothing could be further from the truth.

What to Expect When You’re Expecting to Arrive in Cuba…Part 3 of the Cuba Series

So, there’s been a few changes to the U.S. administrative aspects for visiting Cuba. That doesn’t mean the visits are completely over. People from the US have been visiting Cuba for decades before some restrictions were eased in 2010. The important thing to remember is that nothing lasts forever. You could, and still can in some instances, visit Cuba without supporting the Cuban government. There has been a blanket policy instituted prohibiting private vessels and aircraft from visiting but this has yet to be tested. It seems a bit discriminatory, to me, to allow guided tours by companies and yet prevent private citizens from visiting for the same licensed purposes.

Based on my conversations with the citizenry, the Cuban people are weary of their government running every aspect of their lives but live in fear of being jailed for speaking their minds. Visits to Cuba and the expenditure of foreign dollars at places controlled by the government (i.e. Cruise ship areas and many of the tourist traps in downtown Havana) only perpetuate the system that oppresses its own people and supports similar systems elsewhere. Cruise ship fees go directly to the government and military. Almost all the shops and attractions around the cruise ship ports are government controlled. We were very cautious to only visit private businesses, which are only the very small family run style and the individual owners keeps the proceeds. Marina Hemingway is controlled by a private group and is the only marina where you can currently clear in when coming from the US.

Cuba is the only country I have ever visited, where, despite the constant touting of their healthcare system by some, you continually meet adults with completely treatable conditions which they are not “permitted” to have surgery or other remedies to correct. The most notable was an otherwise perfectly health young bartender who had suffered from frequent infections of his tonsils since he was a small child. He was frequently unable to speak for a week or more. The only treatment he could obtain was a constant supply of antibiotics which will eventually lead to bacterial resistance and a host of other side effects. He was also not allowed to leave the country for surgery.

I’ve read a lot of complaints about the tightening of the visitation regulations. Most seem rather selfish and short sighted. Imagine if the employees at any business were denigrated, oppressed, threatened, denied healthcare, and generally mistreated by the management ? Would you still patronize them and line the pockets of their oppressors? If Europeans and Canadians were allowed to go, and went, at times supporting such a system, would you use that as an excuse to visit through that form of tourism anyway ?

US Travelers can still visit Cuba, subject to specific conditions:

Family visits
Official U.S. government business
Journalistic activity–you must be employed full time by a recognized media outlet….unfortunately bloggers don’t qualify
Professional research and meetings
Educational activities (like those from U.S. academic institutions and secondary schools)
Religious activities
Support for the Cuban people—this will hopefully be the license that allows private vessels to visit again.
Humanitarian projects

If this program doesn’t work out we will have to wait till the tide turns and we can more easily visit Cuba again (without supporting this current Cuban government) let’s still be ready……

You’ve done all your research, you have the USCG permit email in your hot little hands, the boat is ready to go and there is a weather window approaching right on cue. Why are you so nervous then?

Over the decades there has been a lot of misinformation floating around about Cuba, some even correct information attributed to the incorrect source or cause. Some people believe it is crime ridden, dirty and unsafe. I have always judged places I visit by the character of the people and not the spit and polish state of their buildings and streets. By this metric, Cuba could not be a better place to visit. It certainly has infrastructure problems. Sidewalks are broken and usually poorly maintained, if still usable. Roads are potholed, some are dirt, some (most) have horse drawn wagons on them, even the interstate. The people are kind, honest and humble. Cuba is more than Havana, as the US is more than NYC. Some think Cuba must be like any American Cuban neighborhood they may have visited. It seems that Cuban/American culture has become so commingled and diluted by American culture that it has become unique. The lack of similarities were surprising.

Back to arrival preparations…..be sure and take a stack of $5 bills for tips, I took about $100 in fives. You will meet Marina attendants and other employees who will expect small gratuities. Don’t change any money until after you are fully checked in and don’t go to the hotel or the bank when you are ready to change it.

If you like to trade things, take some MLB hats or shirts, some American beer, some bourbon or other American products that aren’t imported to Cuba. They make great gifts when someone really helps you out or just to trade and save a few bucks. We traded a case of Budweiser we bought for $15 stateside for a case of Cristal Cuban beer which was $24 a case. We gave away hats and MLB shirts to people we made friends with around the marina. That didn’t hurt when it came time to stock up on rum, coffee and cigars as we were pointed to the best sources.

As I previously mentioned, the entrance to Hemingway Marina is tricky and exposed to North winds, so you’ll have to time your arrival appropriately. The channel is a bit narrow and there was a sunken boat on the east side of the channel in about 15′ of water when we were there. If it’s your first time it will look a little confusing as you come into the inlet. The markers are on poles rather than the more traditional buoy. That makes them hard to see from a distance to be sure you are lined up. The last green mark before the turn to the customs dock (the dock, actually just a wall, is painted blue and I marked it with a blue line in the image below.) the last green mark is actually on shore and obstructed by some large growth. The seawall on your port side is the edge of the channel, but I still wouldn’t cut it too close. The channel appears to drastically narrow and in truth the last red mark does narrow it slightly but it’s not as bad as it looks. It would have greatly reduced the stress had I known the last green was on the corner of the land by the Customs dock, rather than just being confused about where it might be lurking.

Once you round the corner and tie up on your port side, the Customs officials, who were all much younger (early 20’s) and friendlier than we anticipated, come aboard. A Nurse comes aboard with Customs for a few minutes to take temperatures and generally check the crew for communicable diseases. The process was quick and the search was very, very minimal. The customs officers won’t accept or expect a tip, although some might accept the offer of some coffee or a soda.

Keep in mind these canals were dug out and poured in the 40’s or 50’s the concrete must have escaped from the forms during pouring and there are some large extensions that extend into the canals by 5-6′ in places at depths of 3-5′. Stay as close to the center of the canal as you can until you’re ready to tie up.

If you can, it’s a good idea when you make your reservations to request the first canal and the berths along that wall are numbered in the 100 range. We were in slip 124. The restrooms and a small snack bar are located where you make the turn into that canal, so wifi and restrooms will be convenient.

Speaking of wifi….you have to purchase wifi cards, similar to the old prepaid phone cards in the US. You can get the cards at the snack bar, the Chinese restaurant, the Yacht Club or the Mexican restaurant. Then you go to a place with wifi access, the snack bar, the Chinese restaurant, which is very good, or the Yacht Club and log in. You get an hour for $1.50CUC.

As you approach the wall in the canal, the dockmaster will probably be there to meet you. The dockmaster will hint around for a tip. I found that giving out a few $5 tips when appropriate makes later interactions much easier and the people you might need help or guidance from are obviously much more willing to help. The marina electrician has to plug your boat in and it’s a good idea to give him a small tip because you will have power outages and he will be the one fixing the power pedestal.

Next the agriculture officer will come around to inspect your food stores and make sure you don’t have any risky vegetables or meat. A Doctor from the health ministry will come aboard to verify your holding tank is closed off from discharge (they just ask but don’t inspect). After the paperwork is done both of these agents will say “we would appreciate a small tip if you’d like to give one but it isn’t necessary”, we tipped them both and they checked in on us three times during our visit to make sure we didn’t need anything.

After that you are all checked in and ready to see Cuba !!!

The store, marked as the “Ship’s Chandlery” on the satellite image is the best place to change money. You can get .9 CUC for each dollar rather than .87 and paying any other penalties and if you have Cuban CUC’s left at the end, Jose the store manager, will buy them back. Jose is also a great resource for meeting other people who sell rum, cigars, coffee, souvenirs and conduct tours at much cheaper prices than the stores and other organizations. Plus you’ll know your money is going to the person and not the government.

There are two currencies in Cuba. The CUP, the peso, is for Cubans. The CUC is the tourist currency. One CUC is equal to 24CUP. Tourists are not legally allowed to have or exchange in pesos. All businesses accept both. Some, that charge in pesos will charge tourists in CUC one for one. Most will adjust the exchange rate and you can eat and drink very inexpensively. One afternoon three of us had lunch and beers for about $8.

Next time we get around Cuba and buy some goodies……

It just raises and lowers the anchor….how complex can it be ????

It recently occurred to me that our windlass could probably use some attention. After all, it has served us well for a few seasons and hasn’t received any TLC. Our prior boat was much smaller and didn’t have a windlass. Since I didn’t have any experience with any sort of windlass maintenance, I turned to YouTube. Imtra, the company that manufacters the Lofrans Tigres Windlass we have, has a channel with a detailed six step maintenance tutorial. All seven videos were a total of about 30 minutes….easy peasy, right ?

It seemed simple enough, so the next day I dove into the disassembly, cleaning and regreasing. In the far left side of the diagram, on the end, you can see the Circlips, which are small circular washer type safety stops to prevent an item on a threaded shaft from falling off if you loosen it too much or it vibrates loose. Those were missing, so I found and ordered some from Grainger. It seemed that the end of the driveshaft had been damaged at some point and the slot for the clips was bent closed……40 minutes of filing later, the groove was fixed.

So, working our way inward, once the clutch release is spun off you can remove the outer clutch cone, lower the chain stripper out of the way by removing the aft mounting bolt, remove the chain gypsy and the inner clutch cone. Our inner clutch cone was deformed and jammed on the driveshaft.

So, our inner clutch cone wouldn’t come off. In the video it slipped right off for cleaning, greasing and replacement, not so much in the real world. At some point in the history of our windlass it must have had a lot of stress on the chain without a snubber line to absorb the force. It was bent and slightly split where the keystock fits into the driveshaft. The stainless steel shaft was also slightly bulged, deformed and the keystock was bent. So…out comes the Dremel….90 minutes of careful cutting and the clutch cone was off…..plus ordering a new one for $74 and waiting for delivery…..plus a new gasket for the motor housing $22….

I found a great new source for parts…. https://www.pleasureboatmarine.com they were quick to respond and the parts arrived in two days.

Once the new inner clutch cone arrived I had to file the driveshaft to remove the bulges. That was another hour of fitting the bronze cone, and filing and fitting, since bronze is softer than stainless it made yellow marks on the shaft where it made contact which made it easier to know where to file.

After that was greased and installed the rest went back together pretty easily with the addition of the safety clips on the driveshaft.

Next, I removed the motor housing cover. This is held in place by two threaded rods that fit into the main body of the windlass secured by acorn, or cap nuts on the outside of the cover. Our cover however, had a bead of caulk around the edge making it extra difficult to remove….so add forty minutes to the process…….

It appeared this caulk was necessary because the nitrile cord gasket had been installed backward and the raised edge was in the groove of the cover rather than facing outward toward the main body of the unit. This removal process was made slightly more difficult by the proximity of the standing rigging for the staysail. I had to loosen the acorn nuts, pry the cover loose, then remove the rods and then take the cover off at an angle and use a rubber mallet to “encourage” it.

Since the housing is aluminum and the bolts and acorn nuts are stainless the cover should have plastic “Delrin” washers to keep the metals from touching as they will interact and cause corrosion. Those washers were also missing.

The motor housing was in good shape, the wiring was run properly under the motor and the terminals were clean and secure. I cleaned the motor and applied a light coat of oil to inhibit corrosion.

Once it was reassembled, I tested the rope rode drum side (far right in the diagram), the manual override (where the vertical handle is) and we loaded our new, 250′ of anchor chain into the boat.

need one ?

The 30 minute videos turned into about 4 hours of actual labor and a few days of waiting for parts…boat life !!!

As an added bonus, our windlass remote control has stopped functioning in reverse mode so that’s next on the list…..

Winner winner ….Kalik beer fishing shirt….(I’m a terrible poet)

Congratulations to our most recent prize winner….and long time subscriber, Dave Uhles !!!!! Dave is an extraordinary pilot and was the best sailing student I’ve ever had the privilege to teach….what a natural !!! He piloted the boat all day on Brookville Lake while I drank beer…..Dave likes to fly fish so I hope this shirt saves his skin from any unwanted sunburns……

Dave won this prize for correctly identifying the corresponding crew member based on our Jaws themed monogrammed custom napkins quiz on Facebook this last June.

Don’t forget to encourage friends to subscribe….any month we add ten or more subscribers we have a random prize giveaway…..it’s like automatically increasing your chances to win !!! And your odds are MUCH better than with the powerball.

On an unrelated note……Christmas is coming…..a lot of people use online shopping these days for that……I received a few questions on how the program we advertise in posts works …… if you use our links to access their site and you order anything or buy a video or music, or sign up for a prime or kindle trial we get a small commission and that doesn’t increase your cost at all…..I hope that helps answer any questions…..thanks !!!

AND ……

Congratulations Dave !!!!

A season at the dock…..Part I

We were hoping to make a late December getaway to the Bahamas since November was preempted by some return trips to visit and support family, but on December 26th I was paid a visit by the kidney stone fairy. I’m very glad we weren’t in the Bahamas as this was my first time dealing with one of these. On the pain scale of one to ten I’d give that experience a 12…..I was told by the doctor that I had two more waiting in the wings so we thought it might be a good idea to take this opportunity to fix some things that we had been putting off while we were staying put for a while.

We had a few projects……..Our watermaker had stopped working in the Bahamas, and that required diagnosis and repair…..we had some wood work that needed repair from some very old water damage,……our alternator needed a rebuild and realignment……the adjacent engine driven, high pressure watermaker pump also needed to be realigned……our refrigerator and freezer compressor had originally been wired in the same circuit which I thought was interfering with the performance when both units tried to start up at the same time,….. our wifi range extender was on the fritz,…… our new outboard was due for it’s ten hour service and our backup, new to us, outboard needed some work as well, and our masthead wind instruments (which supply the wind speed and direction to our instruments) stopped sending data to our cockpit display for some reason and finally our refrigerator evaporator plate needed to be replaced. Keep in mind these projects were tempered by trips to the beach, happy hours and visiting friends !!!!

First a quick tutorial on watermaker function. We take in seawater and filter it to remove any large contaminants. Then the water is pressurized using a “low pressure” pump at about 17psi. That pump maintains the pressure to the high pressure pump which operates at hundreds of pounds of pressure. The water then travels through two tubular membranes (filters). The seawater is highly pressurized and travels along the outside of the membrane and the freshwater is pushed through to the inside of the membrane “cylinder”. That freshwater goes to our tanks and the remaining briny seawater goes overboard. Sounds simple right ? Here’s a diagram ……

Our watermaker was a two fold issue. Our low pressure pump, which feeds the high pressure pump wasn’t moving any water. It is an intermittent duty (i.e. 30 minutes on and 30 minutes off) pump and required a cooling coil to keep the temperature down and extend the duty cycle. Unfortunately, the cooling coil couldn’t make 100% contact with the motor so it suffered from some efficiency issues.

I had initially assumed that the motor was burned up. I removed the pump and was about to order a new one. I had hoped there had been some advancement in pump design and we could get a continuous duty pump, but apparently there haven’t been any advancements in this type of pump design. I thought we were destined to replace the pump for $395. As I was taking the pump to the trash, I decided to try something and I attached the leads to the battery in our van and the pump ran !! So, I found a local pump repair shop and got it rebuilt for $65…although, it took over two weeks to get the parts.

Once the pump was rebuilt I began to investigate other ways to cool the pump and extend the duty cycle. I discovered that Shur Flo pumps makes a 5″ heat sink that fits the motors on a variety of other manufacturers pumps. I get the feeling the motors are all made by the same company and relabeled for the “manufacturers”. I consulted with a friend who was an aerospace engineer for ideas in cooling the pump motor and he recommended “Thermal Grease” under the heat sink. This makes the contact between the sink and the motor housing 100% by removing air gaps and the grease has metal particles in it to transmit heat more efficiently.

http://www.steam-brite.com/shurflo-34007-heat-sink-cover-inch-continuous-pump-longer-life-cool-clip-p-11287.html

I added a 138cfm cooling fan like you’d have on a large computer and fabricated a support from a PVC bus hub and a rubber reducer coupling and ended up with this …..we flushed the system and the motor was as cool as a cucumber !!!

The “woodwork” turned into tearing out 60% of our port settee and replacing the entire seat and a small section of the outboard bulkhead that separates the storage area. I used marine grade plywood and treated it with Copper Coat which is a 9% copper solution that prevents future mold, mildew, rot and insect infestation. I also increased the size of the access hatches so we can store dive tanks under the settee. The biggest challenge was matching the shape of the board that was glassed into that area which would not come out in one piece…or even six !! A lot of the outer edge had to be ground out of the fiberglass. I took this opportunity to run some extra 0 gauge wire forward for the addition of some electrical items down the road. I was tempted to remove the washing machine during this process, but decided we could do that later.

Next time…alternator….masthead instruments…..pump alignment….fridge/freezer…..etc….etc….etc

An interesting new product we discovered….”Sugru”

On our boat we have a lot of essential electronic equipment. Some of these devices have remote handsets you can use to control and/or monitor the device like the Autopilot, VHF radio or windlass. These handsets have coiled, rubber coated cables that run from the control head to the plug.

Recently, our autopilot control head cable began to deteriorate. This was pretty concerning since our autopilot was manufactured by a European company called “Cetrek” and they have been out of business for a few years. Since a new autopilot would be around $1500 for just the equipment, we were tying to come up with a way to repair this, and future, cables.

I found a product online called “Sugru” and it is described as a “moldable glue”. It is billed as being waterproof (including salt water), UV resistant, flexible, electrically insulating, heat/cold resistant and shock / vibration resistant. This was readily available on Amazon so I ordered a multi pack. It comes in various colors but for our purposes black matches our cords.

I applied the first section as a test and in 24 hours it was fully cured and seemed to live up to it’s sales pitch. I plan to cover the rest of the deteriorating cord and we will post an update in a few months when we can fully evaluate the wear it stands up to during our travels. I also suspect that Sugru will be a good replacement for caulking around spaces like those around our chainplate through hull openings on the deck combing which need to be recaulked every few years or they leak. This may be a permanent fix for that issue!!! It was a great improvement over the electrical tape wrapping I was trying to use on the cord. It was easy to use and not messy at all.

The new Sugru wrapping …..

The old, ugly, sticky tape wrapping ……

You can get some Sugru for yourself right here using this link !!!