New Hole in the Boat

Previously, I was working on getting a block of wood to the curved shape of the cabin top. I cut away much of the material that I didn't need. I tried sanding it but the paper was loose so it didn't work out well so I got another sheet of 60 grit and taped it down to keep it from moving. This worked out well and took quite a bit of material off that smoothed it out.

 

 

Today was a very busy and productive day. I got a lot more done than I thought I would. I originally thought I would only be able to install the vent on the cabin top. It was a bit nerve racking since I was about to drill a new hole in the boat. To get an idea of placement, I placed the fan housing from the Airhead toilet on the ceiling to see how much bend there was in the hose.

 

I used a 5/16 bit to drill out the four corners to mount the wood block, but not all the way through. This allowed the  #8 screws I got to be countersunk below the surface. I used a smaller bit to drill through the rest of it, then the pilot holes into the cabin top.

I taped around where the block was being mounted. I also used tape around the block. I used Dolfinite bedding compound to bed the block onto the deck. Dolfinite has been recommended by other Nor'sea owners numerous times so I thought I would give it a try this time. A dock neighbor suggested I use 5200 or 4200 and said he never heard of Dolfinite. I wasn't about to go buy another type of sealant.

 

 

After using the Dolfinite, I smoothed it out on the edges and removed the tape. I wonder if I should have waited for it to setup before removing the tape but it seemed to work out well. I then used a 3 inch hole saw to cut out the center of the block. Turns out the cabin top is about 1 1/2" thick.

Nice skylight

I mixed up some epoxy. I used it to coat the interior of the cutout of the deck only, not the wood block. I only used it for a single coating.

The vent I got is a Vetus Mushroom vent. I took the base and drilled pilot holes for the screws I got at the nearby shop.

I also used Dolfinite on this too. I put some of it in a ziplock bag and cut the corner out of it to spread it out a little at a time without putting too much on. After placing the vent base back on, I decided to leave the tape in place this time. I also put the top piece of the vent in place and the knob that is installed from underneath.

I put the fan housing over the hole that was drilled out. The surface was flat enough, I didn't need to put anything else over the hole to mount the housing. I also ran the vent hose like the second picture at the top and it reached where it needed to on the head.

I mounted the head and the liquid tank onto the base. There wasn't much clearance for the mixing handle so I may cut that short for it to do complete turns.

There's only a few other things that need to be done to complete the install. I need to connect the wires for the fan that's mounted in the housing, install plugs on the wood block to seal the screw heads, connect the vent hose to the head and then it's pretty much ready to use.

Two Weekends Sailing

May 4th

I went to the boat to get work on a couple things. I decided to take the boat out on the lake and just as I was about to get the boat ready, my dock neighbor invited me to go out with him on his Catalina 27. I took his offer, we went out on the lake and he showed me a few bays that people anchor out into. We didn't go into the bays, but just sailed down the lake. It was a good day. It was nice that his boat had a bimini to provide shade from the hot sun.

 

Total Sail time: 5hrs
Total Engine run time: 15min


May 11th

Went out only for the day. I went to the boat, I didn't want to do projects, so I got the boat ready. I ran the engine as I took the main sail cover off, untied the dock lines and unplugged the shore-power cable. I motored out and had a nice sail for the day. It wasn't very long but it was still a relaxing day out on the water. Got a good sun burn and I got rained on pretty good too. It was nice having the refinished tiller back on the boat.

 

 

And took video of my day on the lake. You can see a little about how much it was raining at the end.

 

Total Sail time: 1 hr
Total Engine run time: 2hrs

Motoring around - Videos

Here are the videos I made from my attempt to go sailing.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by.

Motoring Around

Today was the day I was going out on the lake. Instead of just working on the boat to get ready to go, I wanted to actually GO.

As I heard once, "a plan is a list of stuff that ain't going to happen." The reason behind this quote is that you can plan all you want but when you start to DO your plan, sometimes you are just reacting to the situation you are given.

I showed up at the boat today to see a little bit of a mess. The mess mainly comes from all the dang spiders all over the place. Webs, nests, egg sacks(?), and the spiders themselves. I saw spiders today that were from the size of a quarter down to the size of the period at the end of this sentence. Or at least they looked that tiny.

Yesterday I bought a garden hose and a nozzle for the house but took it to the boat to spray anything off. I sprayed all over cleaning dirt and webs and such and saw there is a little bit of growth on the exterior in the way of green spots on wood and spots on the deck. Thankfully, the interior looked fine.

I took a bunch of stuff to the boat with me. I emptied some of it from the truck and stored it inside. Spent quite a bit of time killing spiders too. They get everywhere. Stepping foot onto the boat is also stepping into a bunch of webs too.

Spider slayer!

Once I got everything stored, I went on to bleed air out of the fuel lines. About this time, it rained pretty hard a few times. Found a leak from the deck that I didn't notice before. I thought a porthole was still leaking even after replacing a rubber gasket but turned out to be a hole from something that may have been mounted on the deck from a previous owner. Now, I need to come up with something to fix that. I'm thinking penetrating epoxy might be something to take a look at to seal it up.

bled air from fuel filters

Black spot is the leak culprit

The rain didn't last too long and I decided to go ahead and do some sailing for once. I have only sailed a Colgate 26 for an ASA101 class so I've been looking forward to sailing MY own boat for a while. Took the mainsail cover off and untied the starboard dock lines while getting a few things ready to go.

Looking at the weather online yesterday, there were reports of thunderstorms happening a good part of the day. It ended up really nice and didn't really rain much more throughout the day. It stayed partly cloudy with a nice breeze blowing too.

Things were going well motoring in the lakes, or so I thought. The lakes are connected by a canal. Just to get from my marina, through the canal and to the other lake is about 3 miles. I motored this entire way. Thankfully, I didn't have any issue with the engine at all today. As soon as I got to the other side, I raise the sail to get started, then I hear a really annoying sound. It was the sound of the bilge alarm. To that, I immediately jump down into the cabin, open up the floor board to see an almost full bilge and water flowing into it. I don't mean a drip or trickle, I mean a flow like a faucet was turned on. I didn't have the bilge pump turned on so I turned it on and jumped back into the cockpit. When I saw no one was nearby, I jumped back down and poked my head into the engine space and heard the flow of water. I found out the water was coming from the stuffing box. I was surprised to see this. I replaced the stuffing material last year to make sure it was good and tightened the nuts together so they wouldn't come off. I wasn't comfortable trying to work on it out on the lake, although thinking about it now, I could have just by dropping the anchor and getting to work. I ended up motoring all the way back to the marina to take a closer look at what was going on and to fix the issue. Not only was the nuts on the stuffing box loose, the big one holding the stuffing material wasn't even on the threads of the stuffing box. I think the boat yard loosened the nuts to do some work on the boat getting it ready to put in the water but forgot to tighten it back up. Anyone hear of the nuts on a stuffing box working loose?

While motoring back to the dock, there was a guy in an rigid dinghy with his son. As he passed by, he asked me if my boat was a Pacific Seacraft. I just said "no, it's a Nor'sea." On the owners group, I saw someone comment about how they were asked many times if their boat was a Pacific Seacraft so they made some "Nor'sea 27" lettering and attached them near the bow.

After taking care of everything back at the dock, I worked on organizing a few things I brought with me for the day. I bought some storage containers to use with food items. One cabinet I plan to use as a pantry for storing food and wanted to test fit some things on the bottom and on a shelf. It looked pretty good to me and I could end up getting quite a bit of food supplies in this one cabinet. I then filled the containers I got with some food I bought. I could add more containers over time.

I was watching videos from another Nor'sea owner, Greg and Jill who own Guenevere. They recently posted one video of useful items for the galley. These items included a collapsible strainer, bowls and I thought this was a good idea. I went grocery shopping recently and just happened to find a couple of items and I thought I would go ahead and get them. I got a collapsible strainer and a funnel. Thanks Greg and Jill for the space saving idea.

I looked at a couple storage boxes that are molded fiberglass that is used under the cook-top. I'm looking at scrubbing them and roughing them up a bit and painting the inside of them to give them a nice clean look. One of them was cut on the end because it was slightly longer than the space allowed. I'm looking at using some epoxy and fiberglass tape to reinforce it and then smooth it out for painting also.

Despite the setback trying to go for my first sail with my own boat, it still turned out to be a pretty good day. I actually left the dock and was gone for a total of 2 hours. I still got a lot done. I'm glad I was at the boat when I found out about the stuffing box. I would hate to come to the boat and find it sitting on the bottom. The short time I had the sail up, I ended up going in circles a couple times. I guess in a way, I did go sailing, just not how I expected it to go.

At least everything is a learning experience to prepare for the next step ahead. I'm sure the next time will go better.