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Recently, I realized that I never received my paper Certificate of Documentation that I renewed last November. I called (quick answer, one minute on hold). I was advised to send an email explaining. I did so, asking that a new paper document be issued. Thirty-seven minutes later, I received an...

Selling a four-step set of Marquipt stairs that have never been used. The aluminum is still bright and shiny, no marks or dings anywhere. Price is $800 delivered to any marina in the mid-Chesapeake Bay from Herrington Harbor in the south to Baltimore in the north.

Offered for sale ($217,000) is our 1983 DeFever 44, Catalina Jack. We have owned her for eight years but we recently purchased a dirt house and are ready to move on to new adventures. We completed the Great Loop in May of 2019 and have cruised extensively before and after. Catalina Jack has...

I have several of these still in service, working, but stiff and difficult to open and close. I know the guts can be removed while on the hard and serviced (sanded) and lubed such that they will operate far more easily. But, here is my quesyion. Why not leave them in the open and simply hard...

Here is what I have. 1. Two Lehman 120s, each with a 100 amp Balmar controlled with a Balmar regulator. 2. Two banks of four golf car batteries wired to a Off-Port-Starboard-Both switch. 3. Alternator output wired directly to each bank. 4. Output controlled by Balmar Centerfielder. Here is...

Over many years reading topics here, I have observed a profound tendency for assuming and pursuing the worst of causes of problems rather than starting with the simple, the basics. We dive, myself included at times, deep into the complicated and expensive. Well, I succumbed to this tendency...

When we acquired our boat it had two Standard Horizon depth sounders, one each at the two helms, separate transducers. The one on the lower helm did not work. Upper helm did work and still worked seven years later but the LCD display had become unreadable. I had installed a full suite of new...

This is for Rich Gano and any other former Naval officers. Although I could find nothing reported in the news, several days ago, CG-71 (USS Cape St. George) experienced a shipboard fire. Five Seattle fire trucks responded but it was the sailors who put down the fire. CG-71 is in dry dock for a...

I am in the process of recaulking portions of my aft deck and sanding the entire deck down to new wood. There is more than enough depth to safely do so. The completed section is looking mighty fine. My question, a survey of sorts, a request for opinions and recommendations, is whether I should...

Repair kits for these cone-type SV models have been long out of production. I have two SV seacocks still in service and three others that have been abandoned in place. Of the two that remain, both still work although they are difficult to rotate open and closed. I have no idea of whether this is...

I am replacing two identical oval sinks that are original to the boat. They are beige while the countertops are white, an unattractive mismatch in my view although that is not what prompted me to make the change. The faucet in the forward head had become highly corroded and unsightly...

Several days ago I decided to adjust the valves on my Perkins powered generator. I always suspected that it had been a very long time, if ever, that they had been adjusted. The engine has 2,550 hours on it. Removing the valve cover was easy. Removing the cork gasket, not so much. Based on how...

This is something I have wondered about since acquiring this boat six years ago. I have two generators wired to a pair of Group 27 batteries. Each generator has large gauge positive and negative leads wired to busbars as are the leads from the batteries. The only system ground is an 8 AWG wire...

I am considering replacing my Davco (Davco is used extensively on trucks) fuel filter heads with Tony Athens Cummins sequential filtering heads with vacuum gauges. But, I am running into a mounting location problem. I have two generators each with its own Racor 500 filter. I am thinking about...

I am relocating my water heater. In addition to a circuit breaker, the heater is presently wired through an on-off switch in the engine room. My questions are: 1) Should I retain the switch and run a new wire from the switch to the heater? 2) Or, should (could I, safely) eliminate the switch by...

I have a Perkins-powered (4.154) Kohler generator. No load it produces at 60 Hz. Any significant load and it drops to 57.5 Hz. Is this normal? If not, how do I correct this? The engine is equipped with a Lucas CAV DPA fuel injection pump. Is there a way to increase the running speed (1850 RPM?)...

Thought I would share the fix I came up with for our shower floor not pitched enough to drain when the bought has no list. I don't know why this ever should have been a problem but the boat came to us this way. It has been an annoyance for five years. Every shower required a squeegee affair to...

Yesterday, we returned to our boat after two weeks to find our batteries dead, dead, dead. The boat had been on the hard for a bottom job. Even though I specifically reminded the yard boss to ensure that the yard workers turned on the circuit breakers when they plugged in to the dock pedestal...

This is the breaker (Square D) on the feed from my 7.7kw Westerbeke. Yesterday, this breaker tripped twice with modest loads and was very hot to the touch. I opened the box this morning and could see nothing obviously wrong except the green line in from the generator is butt-spliced twice. The...

My elbows are five years old with about 1,000 hours use. Should they be replaced as preventive maintenance? I have no signs of leakage.

Took on 235 gallons of fuel at the Rhode River Marina (Galesville, MD) on 5/16/2020 and asked for a pump out. I noticed later that I was charged $15 for the pump out. I suppose I should not have assumed that the pump out was free. It was not and I was not informed that there would be a charge. I...

We are berthed about 10 miles south of Annapolis. Yesterday, Saturday, was the first nice weather day so far this year. It was also the opening day for fishing for rockfish. Boating to fish is allowed in Maryland. Recreational boating is not. We went fishing. Hard to do with no fishing poles. We...

I am re-wiring much of my bonding system. Today, I found a wire running from the drip tray of one of my three A/C compressors to a ground source. Is it this necessary?

I have decided to replace the green 6-gauge non-tinned wiring. Most of the ring terminals are heavily corroded. The terminals are all plain crimps (no heat shrink). There is no way to tell how deep the corrosion extends into the insulation so out it goes but no doubt it is present. My...

I am adjusting the valves on my two FL120s. Unlike the FL135 which has the same valve clearance for both the intake and exhaust valves, the FL120 calls for .015 for exhaust and .012 for the intake valves. Unfortunately, the manual does not show which of the twelve valves are exhaust vs. intake...