Getting Wired - Done

Last weekends visit to the boat didn't go as planned. I ended up leaving my cordless drill AND the drill bits at the house. Still, I didn't waste the day. I decided to look at one of the two light fixtures by the galley. This one I looked at has a rocker switch that goes one way for white light, and the other way.... didn't work.

Took it apart to see little compact fluorescent lights. One, on the side that wasn't working, with a red cover over the light for night time viewing. When I took down the fixture, I saw on the circuit board what looked like a diode had burned up and melted part of the fixture housing. Now, this side of the light has not worked since I bought the boat, so someone somewhere was probably very lucky to not have an electrical fire on board.

I thought of replacing the whole fixture but then talking with someone about that possibility, it was suggested I do something with LED strips... then remembered I still had some left over from lighting up the head. So, I got right to work taking out the circuit board out, and putting in a couple strips of LEDs. So, like it was originally intended, one side is white, and the other side is red.

So that was last weekend. For this weekend, so far, I finished the last bit of wiring today. Since I had a breaker panel made for the nav desk, I still needed to get power to it. I took 4 gauge wire and with some drilled holes, routed it halfway down the boat to the nav desk.

So now, I have a working VHF radio. I still need to route new RF cable between the radio and the bottom of the compression post where the cable going up to the masthead antenna will be connected.

Progress is good. :-)

Splatters

This post I should have done at least a few weeks ago. Got distracted because of work being crazy busy lately.

The last time I did any painting on the boat, it had warmed up a little that day from the previous week. Not bad, right?

Well, warmer weather brought on some (ok, a LOT) of flying things. I thought the last coat of paint was going on pretty good but the downside of it was a bunch of gnats flying around. It seemed like they were attracted to the paint. That figures!

Not only were they trying to fly into the cup the paint was in, but they were flying into the paint on the boat too while it was still wet. Frustrating, to say the least. I figured I could get them off by washing the areas and/or when I sand for the next coat. Either way, they're done for.

Can you spot them in this picture? all the little black spots on the paint, those are gnats.

I went down the starboard side, got gnats. Went down the port side, then a new surprise.

I was painting with a plastic cup. You know, the one's you use for picnics. Well, by the time I was finishing up on the port side, I look into the cup and saw there wasn't as much paint as only a moment earlier. Turns out that the paint (or maybe it was the thinner) had eaten through the plastic.

The paint didn't just leak out the cup, it got all over the ladder, the ground, part of the trailer and down a pant leg and part of my shoe and on the BOAT. I was wearing gloves so I didn't feel it running down my hand.

With the streaks on my pants, I was thinking it looked like I had a nose bleed. So, a good pair of pants are now work-pants, for boat work and yard work, etc.

During the same visit, I took out the Garmin 546s to sell as I intend to upgrade someday to a larger-screened and more "proper" chartplotter. The latest from Garmin, like the 741xs is looking nice. I'd like to install a new radar and have it all integrated. So now the swing arm is empty of electronics for now. But all that will come later in the refit.

Some good news, due to good timing. I've been looking at battery chargers to replace the 10 Amp charger I had before. There were a couple of them that I was considering. While looking at Cruisers Forum in the classified ads, someone had just listed a ProNautic 1230P charger. Apparently, the guy who listed it bought it then changed his mind for what he wanted to do. So, I nabbed it up quickly as it was at a discount from the list price shown on Defender's website.

It's bigger than I expected it would be so now trying to figure out how/where to mount it, then may have to make new wire runs to hook it all up.

Wires

I have this pull switch with LED in the galley. The previous owner told me what it was, or what he thought it was but I don't recall what he said. I think it was once used for turning on the compressor for the refrigerator unit in the ice box, but there's a different switch for that in the starboard quarterberth.

I went around finding some wires that didn't go to anything any more and took them out of the boat. Not much, but it's a start. I've read how people will remove loads of wires from their boats that don't go to anything.

Here's what I got out of the boat.

Turns out, I found the wires on the other end of the switch above, also in the quarterberth where all wires end up with the electrical panel just above it. I couldn't pull the wires from the switch, it's wedged up pretty good. I could cut all the wires and clean up what I can get to but decided to leave it for now. Maybe I could use it for something else, just not sure what right now. Besides that, if I remove the switch and LED, I'm left with a couple holes.

I also took out the shore power charger. I think it went out on me that caused my batteries to go dead. I may have found a replacement but still working on it. It'll be a while before the boat is back in the water so I still have time.

I also took out the old GPS, a Garmin 546s, that I intend to replace with something more current. This replacement will take some time since new units cost much more than I can afford at this time. I will sell this unit soon along with a Garmin Vision card for lakes.

I've also painted a second coat of burgundy on the starboard side of the boat. It turned out to be a nice day. I only did the starboard side so I now have two coats on each side. Now it'll be the same number of coats on each side.

Cold weather is setting in so there may be less work on the boat itself. Lately, I've been working on varnishing the rudder cheeks and the spacer boards for the chainplates. I had hoped to get the chainplates on before it got too cold but still need some more coats of paint on the boat.

I've also been hearing discussions (from non-boaters of course) who question the point of being on a boat. The assumption is that unless you're actively piloting the boat, you're just sitting around and not doing anything, and thus bored. It would seems that non-boaters would find sailing a boring useless pastime but those of us who are fortunate enough to take up sailing know better. There's always something to do and certainly not boring. If it was, I wouldn't be doing it.

I find it funny the perceptions non-sailors have when it comes to boating.

There are others who post sailing type quotes and I find these to be pretty good that can relate to how I think of sailing.

Aside from what it teaches you, there is simply the indescribable degree of peace that can be achieved on a sailing vessel at sea. I guess a combination of hard work and the seemingly infinite expanse of the sea - the profound solitude - that does it for me. - Billy Campbell

"There are those that stand at the shore looking to the sea, wondering, and there are those standing at the helm looking back at shore, knowing." - Kurt Leisenfelder

“A sailor’s joys are as simple as a child’s.” — Bernard Moitessier

REFIT Plan: Instruments

This part of my refit plan, I'm looking at replacing the Garmin 546s and Furuno radar. Lately, the Furuno stopped working which I may just need to trace the power to see if I can get it working again. While the 546s still works, I like the idea of having a bit larger screen.

Both of these are mounted by the electrical panel on a swing out arm to be viewable in the cockpit. Both take up quite a bit of space and I'm thinking it would be nice to consolidate the two into one system.

My idea for the upgrade is to get a Garmin 4208 chartplotter with a Garmin Radar, either the 18HD or 24HD. The Garmin 740s also seems to be popular and is touchscreen and costs less. Currently, the Furuno radar antenna is mounted on a pole on the stern rail. I'm thinking to mount it a little higher with a Scanstrut mount on the mast.

I can mount this single screen on the swing mount but I'm leaning more towards the idea of placing it where the bulkhead compass is currently mounted. This way, I won't have to have it swing back and forth on the swing mount. I'll look into how it might work out later but this is my current plan.

If this new chartplotter is mounted in place of the compass, I thinking to make a new companion way panel that is low profile, but big enough to mount the compass. This panel would removable for the times when not sailing.

Garmin also has AIS capabilities that can be viewed on the chartplotter. This is something I considered adding to this installation but I may not use AIS (yet). Maybe a VHF radio with AIS receiver could be a good alternative. Another aspect of some of the equipment is the possibility of using it outside of the US. That's when the FCC comes in where a Ship Radio Station license and Restricted Radiotelephone Operator Permit seems to be needed. Just something else to research along the way.

GPS Software Update

I went to Rhapsody for a few minutes today. I have a Garmin 546s Marine GPS. The system software on the unit was version 3.10 and the most recent version is 4.20. I found that the GPS had software from 9 versions ago. I used an SD card from my camera and used it to update it. It took a few times and took my laptop and used it to load the SD card a couple times and repeating until it worked.

I also recently bought some maps for the GPS. I bought Garmin Vision lake maps for Southeast US from GPScity.com that seems to have better prices than others I found. It seemed to work well with the GPS. It also has some basic maps for land. I'm looking forward to getting Rhapsody in the water to test it out.