Every Little Bit Helps

Things have been busy. Since reworking a little bit of the wiring for the house bank, I'm looking beyond it to the wiring the feeds into the rest of the boat systems. Some wires cross in front of the engine space, so I want to get those ones moved out of the way. I also looked into where the main wires go from the battery connections and found a single point of connection for the battery banks and what looks like a few other things. Looking to change that as well where I could label what each of the wires are for and use a bit larger bus bar to organize everything.

Positive connection

Negative connection

I'm also working on splicing lines that will be used as new halyards. It's a learning process. In this first picture below, I made the splice at the top while following a video and while it was a pain for part of it, I was told it wasn't the "right kind" of splice. Taking the recommendation to do a "Class II Double Braid" splice, following along to a video, I then did the bottom splice. Still in need of a lock stitch and wrapping the exposed cover. Both, I think, will still hold well. At least I'm getting some practice if/when I ever need to redo this.


The next picture below, is some Amsteel Blue that I made a Brummel eye splice on one end. Just the process of making that one locks it so it doesn't come undone. I'm expecting it to be used in the outhaul setup and will see how that works when the mast/boom goes back together.

The shop working on my mast also modified my mast step. Before the wires were coming up to the deck and all connections were made there. The shop owner said connections should be made below, out of weather exposure. So, they attached a short tube where the wires would pass through, down the compression post and exit below the cabin floor.

In an attempt to clean things up, this past weekend was spent cleaning up around the boat and putting things away that I didn't need at the moment. I also retightened the nuts for the chainplate bolts, reinstalled the insulation material I had up and started screwing in the boards along the side of the hull. I know the insulation will work well in the summer, but wondering if it'll help heat up the inside of the boat as well in winter.

While many people have their boats hauled out and any projects slow down, I'll still work through and do what I can along the way. Still a lot of work ahead of me and if I expect to launch next season, I need to keep at it. Still working on a lot of things so hopefully I can make some progress and be able to post here soon.

Getting Wired Part 2

It has been a good weekend. In an update to the previous post, I did some more wiring on the boat.

Spent a few hours today working on actually mounting/installing the Pronautic 1230P charger I bought TWO years ago. I recently ordered a couple of Firefly batteries for my new house bank. Since I want to make sure the batteries are taken care of, I had to get the charger set up. I ordered some 10/2 wire and some ring terminals from Genuinedealz to connect the charger to the batteries. While time consuming, it wasn't too difficult. I mounted the charger to a couple pieces of oak I had laying around and went head first into the starboard quarterberth to mount the setup to the bulkhead. A little tight but manageable.

I routed the new wires the same way they were with the old charger directly to the battery bank. When I flipped the breaker on the panel to turn on the charger, a fan started and in a moment, a click started charging to the batteries. Very happy this worked out. I don't have a starting battery yet and will run wires for one when the time comes. When I left the boat today, I turned on the vent fan that came with the Airhead for ventilation. The Airhead website said the fan draws .08 amp. So I figured even leaving it on for the week, or even two weeks, it wouldn't drain the battery too much, too fast. And now the charger is in place, I can top off the batteries during my visit.

In my last post, I mentioned ordering a panel from Front Panel Express using their software. Well, it came in and I'm pleased with how it turned out. Black anodized aluminum with engraved letters filled in with yellow, 7"w x 3.25"h. Everything lined up nicely for the toggle breakers. I'd say this was a good test panel for the possibility of changing the main breaker panel by the companionway. Changing the main panel isn't a near-term project but something I can play around with in the design in the meantime.

First look in the box. Vacuum sealed on cardboard.

only have two breakers at the moment

got a bus bar made for attaching the main positive line

This panel will be mounted just under the front of the nav desk where an old cassette car stereo was mounted. This will be used to wire the VHF in its new location, just above the nav desk. Later, perhaps other items. At least it won't require multiple wires to be sent back the main panel, keeping the wiring clutter to a minimum.

Lastly, the mast. The shop I'm having do a paint job is also doing a few modifications. They changed the setup by the masthead. This will help keep wires and halyards from interfering with each other. They're changing the location of the conduit for running wires up. Instead of being on the back side where the track is, they installed a new one on the front side of the mast.

The anchor/tri-color light was in the middle of the masthead and now on its own pedestal on the side. The wires will run up the middle of the tube instead of being external. They also patched up a lot of holes, the largest being the hole from the baby forestay that I didn't intend on using and also a hole used for a box sheave. They patched up a few smaller holes around the mast and boom that were mostly unused. A new location for the VHF antenna is also installed. Soon, it will be sent for painting and then the hardware will be reinstalled.

The guy at the rigging shop suggested connections shouldn't be outside of the boat. So he's talking about putting a short tube on the mast step that will go down a bit (maybe 1") into the deck. Then connections would be made inside the boat at the bottom of the compression post. I'll still have to see how big the holes are at the bottom of the compression post to see how feasible it would be for any connectors to pass through. Below is a picture of a tube on the mast step at the shop I used to visualize what it might look like. The final product certainly wouldn't be as high as in the picture. Should be shorter that would still allow the mast to be stepped/unstepped by an owner.

 At this time, not much to update in regards to the insurance claim on the fallen tree hitting the boat. I've been told I need to contact workshops to get detailed quotes for getting the damages fixed.

Lately, I've been side tracked, or maybe distracted, from a couple projects due to focusing on the mast and the tree damaging the boat. I hope to get back on track and tackle the major projects I've been working on over the summer that still isn't quite done yet.

Fixing Leaks

I visited the boat a few times over the last couple of weeks. Mainly it was in an effort to stop some leaking. I've wanted to do some of this for a while anyway. Last time it snowed, it was immediately followed by rain. The snow covered the cockpit drains so the rain that followed had no where to go but through the engine panel, onto the engine and into the bilge. I was not expecting it, nor the bilge full of water. One of the cockpit lockers was full of water too. But, that was quite some time ago. It pushed up the need to seal up the engine panel a little better. So, I put some tape around the engine panel, took it off, put some 4200 around the edges and reinstalled.

Here, you can see the streak on that one bolt where water was making its way past the panel. It was a slow drip but still needed to be stopped.

Unfortunately, the engine is right under that panel. So, any water making its way in, fell on the engine before it went anywhere else. So now I have another issue to take care of. It's not pretty but I need to Stop the engine from rusting any more and repaint/protect it in some way.

I wish that was the only leak I had to worry about but it wasn't. There's more!

The companion way has been leaking a bit too. Since the way the boat is stored, it leans to starboard. Any rain makes its way in and drips on the quarterberth. The cushion is old but still decent condition, and has been getting stained from the constant leaking. So, I dug out what I could of old caulking on the bottom of the companion way and filled the gap with some 4200 in hopes that it will help. Not only that, the starboard side has a bit of a gap with old caulking so I dug that out best I could and filled that with 4200 as well.

old caulking

don't worry, I dug out the caulking and created this hole myself

4200 in place

I'm sure I'll find out soon enough if this effort works out.

But the leaks don't stop there. I decided to feel around with my hands the underside of the cockpit drains and found out that there's some water making its way through them too. Not too bad, but still, enough to notice and again, I don't want anything dripping on the engine making things worse. I still have that left to seal up too.

Last, but certainly not least, the mast step. Yes, that leaks too. But this would be a bit more complicated to fix. First of all, no telling if (or how much) damage to the core there may be. Also, the wires/cable coming through the compression post and mast step on deck are old and in need of replacing. Right now, there's an RF cable (RG-8) and 5 conductor 16ga. wires. I would also like to add a power and network cable for a future radar install for the mast. I'm thinking to run the cables at one time so it's not needed to redo later if/when I want to install the radar. I haven't done it yet, but I want to get a tarp to at least cover the mast step to limit water ingress until I can get the supplies (wire/cable) so I can take care of this project.

these wires are for mast lights, one at spreader and one at mast head

not much space if I plan to add additional wires

bottom of compression post. white wire is for cabin light near top of compression post

Now the leaky parts are mentioned... I saw the LED strips that I installed in the head were not holding up as well as I expected. The double sided tape that is part of the strips were not holding well, especially the red strip. I decided to get some super glue, removed all the double sided tape for the red strip, then glued it into place. I went back a couple days later and saw that it is good and it is not coming out.

The panel that covers the front of the engine panel isn't exactly secured very well. There's a barrel latch at the top of it but it doesn't hold it in place any more. I bought some bronze Perko hooks to hold them in place. (actual bronze hooks instead of the more common chrome plated) I placed one on each side of the access panel. I also placed one on a cabinet that didn't want to stay closed on its own. I had to buy some #6 size bronze screws to go with them and everything went in nicely. I just had to make sure the placement was right in a couple spots otherwise they didn't seem to want to reach. The main reason I went with these was because the couple times I towed the boat, I would get to the destination and the panel would fall out, pushing the companion way steps out of place and I didn't want anything flying around causing more damage to an already older boat. I gotta take care of this old gal. ;-)

Now the worst part I discovered. I did the initial sealing of the companion way a couple weeks ago, the bottom part. This past Thursday, I stopped by the boat and found out someone had hit the trailer, bending the fender. With how it looks, I'm thinking it was a trailer that did it. But what's odd is that it wasn't in one place, but in another part of the same fender, it looks like it was pushed down. It doesn't look like it was so bad as to cause any issues with towing. I did bring it up to a lady working that the storage office but the cameras don't really pick much up. I could pursue this further but I am about to move to Northern Virginia over the next 3-4 weeks so I don't really have a whole lot of time to prepare. Right now, I may just have to push the fender out of the way of one of the tires that's about an inch and a half away.

you can also see the tire was rubbed

So, there it is. This week should be my last week at work, then I have a month off to move all the stuff in the house from TN to VA, find a place for the boat, and move that too. Hopefully there will be a nice day this next weekend (that's being forecasted) so I can work on taking the old bottom paint off before the move.

Until next time.