It's official. I'm a trawler owner.

Updates:

We cruised for 5 days last week. We made it to Vallejo and back.
Our original destination was Sausolito, but my wife was feeling queasy in Carquinez Straight so we turned into Vallejo and made it as far as Napa. We watched the fireworks in Vallejo and they were pretty good. The boys loved them.

On the maintenance side;

I have an electrician scheduled for later this month to sort out the electrical issues (if there are any)

I removed all of the old navigation equipment from the boat other than the depth sounder. My android tablet seems to work better than the old stuff did and it was just cluttering up the console.

I am mentally gearing up for installing the new nav equipment. The first thing to do is install the new radar mast which has been ordered. If there is a lot of downtime required at the yard for this, I may put it off till fall or winter when the boys are in school.

I have made no headway with the windshield wipers. The posts seem totally deteriorated to the pint that I am convinced they are not worth salvaging as they will need to be replaced anyhow sometime soon in the future. Communications have broken down between AM equipment and myself. I'll have to jumpstart taht again soon as we could have used the wipers several times this last weekend running up Carquinez Straight.

DC fans are needed on the boat! The delta is hot! AC is out of the question so fans will have to suffice.

The final parts for the genny arrived today! Woohoo. I cant wait to fire it up although we havent needed it at all with the solar array on the roof. I noticed over the week that the solar panels will pretty much keep the batteries topped off if we only have the fridge running and we sparsely use the inverter for the microwave or coffee maker.

I also met with the mechanic who is a cummins specialist. He is going to repair our stern thruster that has water in the hydraulic fluid. If the issue turns out to be a major deal money wise, I may just remove the whole thing as I could live without it. I'm also going to have him install the fuel polisher and assess a small oil leak in the main.

cruising pictures

What? No photo of the Coot from when you said we passed each other Saturday?

bligh said:

I'm going to have to go visit Mark Pierce and other TF'ers on the way for sure.

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Missed opportunity: we (including Giggitoni and FlyWright) were at K dock at the Vallejo Marina on the Fourth for the fireworks!

markpierce said:

What? No photo of the Coot from when you said we passed each other Saturday?

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I was too busy hailing you on the radio and blasting my horn.

markpierce said:

Missed opportunity: we (including Giggitoni and FlyWright) were at K dock at the Vallejo Marina on the Fourth for the fireworks!

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I saw your boat the evening before, but I couldn't go strolling as we would have locked ourselves out of the gate. I tried you on the radio that day as well!

bligh said:

I was too busy hailing you on the radio and blasting my horn.

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Well there's your problem bligh. Shoulda contacted Mark via the forum.

Cannot find the thread right now but a few years ago one of Mark's dock neighbors actually signed up a membership here at TF and started a thread that his boat was leaning. Turned out to be a fresh load of fuel he hadn't transferred tanks on yet.

bligh said:

I was too busy hailing you on the radio and blasting my horn.

I saw your boat the evening before, but I couldn't go strolling as we would have locked ourselves out of the gate. I tried you on the radio that day as well!

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You need a louder horn!



Drove to the marina late afternoon on the Fourth. ... Don't always have my VHF on while at the dock. ... Mostly spent time on Mahalo Moi Friday evening, but Ray didn't have the VHF on either.

We probably wouldn't have heard it anyway with all the drinking songs!

Bligh, if you changed your avatar to a picture of your boat, you'd be easier to recognize. (For better or worse, my boat is consciously-made recognizable several times further away than most boats.)

Aside from my impeller detour this weekend, I made some headway on the windshield wipers. Friday, I spoke with Butch Eiland at AM equipment (AMequipment.com). We decided that I needed new pivot shafts. Ok no problem. I thought I would just be able to extract the motors after removing the teak covers over them. WRONG. I had to remove a tone of trim in teh pilothouse and the headliner. It wouldnt have been so bad except I was working upsideown on my chart table, console, and dashboard the whole time. Many of the screws were concealed behind the pleather padding as well making it a little more challenging. Here are some pictures of the project late in the process. I took all of the motors home with me so hopefully I will have the new pivot shafts installed in the motor assembly so I can reverse the process next weekend.

On another note, my father in law was checking out our jabsco spotlight. Everthign worked, except the bulb was really loose. We figured there was some sort of rubber gasket missing that holds the bulb in more securely. I went to get the model and serial # off of it to get a new gasket. After looking at it for a few minutes, I realized that the collar was not installed correctly. I was able to fix it with a screwdriver! Hallelujah! Finally an easy fix!

In other news, the mechanic I hired more than a month ago and met with a couple of weeks ago to work on my stern thruster and do a few odds and ends has bailed on me. He sent me an email saying he doesnt have time this season. Disappointing to say the least. I got the name of another guy in the area, but if anyone has any recommendations, I would appreciate it. It looks like I'm going to have to haul out anyways to install anew transducer at some point anyways.

Monday update. I spent Friday and Saturday at the boat. I met with a marine electrician on Friday. I hired him to go through the electrical system and check everything out. As I suspected, it seems like the battery banks are not properly separated. Somewhere in the boats history, a device was removed and replaced with an ACR. (It's pictured above somewhere). Apparently the ACR used was pretty small for my battery banks and there are not enough of them. The electrician will provide and install the proper devices to make the battery banks easy to manage and remain properly charged. We also looked over the future navigation equipment installation. None of the equipment I ordered has showed up on my doorstep yet, so starting the install is still a ways off.
In more positive news, I was able to fully rebuild the windshield wipers, pivot arms, blades, and arms. I also re-assembled the trim in the pilothouse. Other than some errant sawdust and WORKING windshield wipers, you would never know work was done there. Here is some fun I had with my boy testing the wipers.

well, i cant seem to figure out how to upload a video. probably better that you didn't see it.

Ok, so today, all the parts to rebuild the Raycor filters arrived! They all look like the right parts too! (knock on wood). this is another one of those projects that has lost steam, since I was not sure about what parts i needed to order, but It looks like we got it right. I'll find out this weekend if they will work, but things are looking up.

Some small shakers we caught in the harbor.

bligh said:

well, i cant seem to figure out how to upload a video. probably better that you didn't see it.

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I believe you post the embed link directly into your post.I haven't done it here in so long that I can't be 100% sure.


Good work by the way.

Bligh-your last two pictures show why all the work and irritation is worthwhile! It does not get much better than that!

Pleather, one of my favorite words.

Gulf Comanche said:

Pleather, one of my favorite words.

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Yeah it's definitely underrated. After i feed my boys, I just walk around the boat with windex and a paper towel and wipe all their grime off the walls and ceilings.
On second thought maybe I shouldn't replace the carpet until they are older...

bligh said:

On second thought maybe I shouldn't replace the carpet until they are older...

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My wife is stuck with a living room full of 15 year old worn out furniture owing to that same logic. Light at the end of the tunnel as 2 boys flew the coop and our youngest is in 8th grade. Wife promised I will pay dearly when remodel time comes.

This thread sounds like my to-do campaign. I file work orders at the service department at the marina and they just ignore them, so I have to do everything myself whether or not I have the time, and whether or not I want to pay somebody else to do it. A few times I've thought about flying up a boat service guy from say Florida for a few days and knocking it all out at once - but good luck finding a good boat service guy (or woman, I don't care) willing to travel.

kthoennes said:

This thread sounds like my to-do campaign. I file work orders at the service department at the marina and they just ignore them, so I have to do everything myself whether or not I have the time, and whether or not I want to pay somebody else to do it. A few times I've thought about flying up a boat service guy from say Florida for a few days and knocking it all out at once - but good luck finding a good boat service guy (or woman, I don't care) willing to travel.

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I know the perfect guy who can do that. The infamous Captain Bob. He can do anything from rebuild engines, weld, match gel coat perfectly, electrical, and electronics. If you have a motorcycle for him to ride when he gets there, he'll likely hop on a plane for you. He has no bad habits except ribs, send me an email, and I'll send you his contact info.

2 weekends away seems like a lifetime. I was glad to get back to the boat with my oldest this weekend. We were only there for Sat and left early sunday, but it was well worth the visit. We didnt leave the dock, but had a great time together. We ate our meals together, he fished, and I worked on the boat.

I was able to change out both bowls on the Raycors- the parts finally came (and the correct ones were delivered the first time!). Checked off another requirement for the insurance.

I refilled the batteries with distilled water. Easy beans.

I finally was able to install the BBQ. After several trips and special orders to West Marine, the correct mounting bracket arrived. But we forgot the meat and settled for canned chili and spagettios for dinner. For whatever reason, my kids prefer spagettios for breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the boat. It's fine with me, just dont tell my wife.

The canvas guy has been around. He has all the new directional snaps installed around the windows and has the window coverings ready to go. I think all he has to do now is install the other half of the snaps onto the covers themselves and we are good to go. He is using some sort of plastic reinforcment at the edges of the covers and wants to install them when it is hot out so the plastic is stretched out/expanded. I told him not to worry about sealing the snaps as I will take care of it myself. Our pilothouse bulkheads are FRP over marine plywood. I was thinking to just take the screws out, fill the holes with 4200 and re-install the screws. I know the whole method of drilling the hole bigger and filling with epoxy, and I'm willing to do that too, but wont the epoxy crack when the screws are reinstalled? And will the screws still hold? the holes are very small at this point and not subject to any amount of water at this point. Thoughts?

Also scheduling a haul-out for a new transducer, radar mast installation, and some work on the stern thruster.

I've been away for a couple of weeks. But the canvas artisan has done some work on Frisky. He sent me this picture;

Greetings,
Mr. b. Moving right along..."...fill the holes with 4200 and re-install the screws." IF the screws have good solid bite I see no problem with this approach. If the screw holes are a bit wonky, go the epoxy route with a pilot hole after the epoxy is set.

Wouldn't the same approach using 5200 solve wonky screw holes?
I'm just asking not stating fact.......
Bill

Greetings,
Mr. lll. Well, filling wonky (meaning larger than acceptable for a good solid bite of the screw threads) screw holes with a resilient sealant will simply glue the screw and the associated fitting into the substrate. If there is any movement of the fitting, even minuscule movement, as in snapping and unsnapping of window covers, the screw eventually loosens and will pull out. Don't even get me started on 5200. For this application, Mr. b has rightly chosen 4200 although I would probably use Dolfinite which is my "go to" bedding compound.

RT Firefly said:

Greetings,
Mr. lll. Well, filling wonky (meaning larger than acceptable for a good solid bite of the screw threads) screw holes with a resilient sealant will simply glue the screw and the associated fitting into the substrate. If there is any movement of the fitting, even minuscule movement, as in snapping and unsnapping of window covers, the screw eventually loosens and will pull out. Don't even get me started on 5200. For this application, Mr. b has rightly chosen 4200 although I would probably use Dolfinite which is my "go to" bedding compound.

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Awwww come on RT - Tell us what you really think about 5200!

Not knowing too much about it, having only used it once (the slow set type) on a pool repair, I'm always interested to learn more about it.

There are upcoming applications where I plan to use it for "permanent" affixation on our Tolly boat. I have heard that although both the slow and fast setting 5200 is very strong/durable that slow set is stronger in the long run.

Any info on 5200 (4200 too) is appreciated...

Art