Bock Marine #4

Yesterday was repair the leaking fixed window day.  Reboot has three fixed Lewmar windows about two feet above the water line.  One of them has been leaking while underway.  The particular location of these windows means that they are frequently assaulted by passing waves.  I have not wanted to work on the window with Reboot in the water for fear of dropping parts into the drink.  I have been working on unfreezing the screws that hold the windows in place and finally got the last frozen screw to release.  As I started to take the window out I was greeted with a randy smell.  When I popped the window out from the outside I got a small cascade of very dirty and smelly water.

I let everything dry out.  The hull is sealed with epoxy so there was not water infusion into the hull   The design of the window is terrible.  The lip is only about 1/2 inch and the hole is not perfectly cut.  This makes positioning the window back into the hole critical.

I have heard from several people that butyl rubber tape is a better sealant that silicone.  Ed, one of the other cruisers in the yard game me some tape and I sealed everything up.  The tape is more like a putty but comes in a roll.  You can form around the edge of whatever you are trying to seal.  We will see how it does.

Answers 2 & 3 favorite historical events

Battle of Agincourt – 25 October 1415 – Henry V, King of England – William Shakespeare wrote “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother; be never so vile. This day shall gentle his condition. And gentlemen in England now abed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.”





Charge of the Light Brigade - 25 October 1864– Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, Fellow of the Royal Society and Poet Laureate: “Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, And into the valley of death rode the six hundred” (a disaster by the way, lead by Lieutenant General James Thomas Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan, Order of the Bath, they were slaughtered by the Russians. At least we got a sweater out of it!)

Bock Marine #3

I had a frustrating day.  The weather was very nice and I decided to attack the broken hinges on the front hatch.  Ken (of Bock Marine) and I had tried to pop rivet them back together.  This had been the original fastner.  We had great difficulty getting them to hold so I decided to put in hex head cap screws.  Regular screws would not work as the heads were too big to go into the recess.  After a trip to the hardware store I got everything together and fixed the hinges.  I then tried to spread bedding compound on the hatch so that I could finish the job.  After getting everything cleaned and ready I opened the tube of bedding compound only to find that it was hardened and I could not use it.  Oh well, another day.

Answer for the first of three events

Battle of Trafalgar - 21 October 1805– Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronté, Order of the Bath ordered the famous flag hoist before the battle “England expects that every man to do his duty” Nelson was also famous for the Battle of the Nile where in decisive action he eliminated the French Fleet from the Mediterranean Sea. BTW neither worked out very well for Admiral Nelson – he was wounded at the Nile and killed at Trafalgar.

Bock Refit #2

Maxiprop

I had a very long day today.  Left is a picture of the maxiprop back on Reboot.  It has been cleaned (except for the blades, that is tomorrows task), greased, and re-installed.  It folds and unfolds a great deal easier than before.  Note too the zinc at the end of the prop.  I have been going through shaft zincs the entire time I was in New Bern, this adds at least 200% more zinc surface area than before.

My "one hour" project for today was to remove the front hatch, put in new bedding compound and replace the hatch.  Along the way I wanted to repair the hinges for the hatch.  The pop rivets that hold it together have popped out.  Of course this project took all day and it isn't finished yet.  How hard can it be?  A few simple wood screws to remove, clean the old bedding compound off the hatch, put in a couple of pop rivets and it no longer rains on one while sitting in the forward head.  One of the screw heads was smashed.  Add 4 hours to drill out the screw.  Why it took so long I have no idea, I was using a brand new titanium drill and ample amounts of cutting oil.  But there it was.  Then the pop rivets would not hold.  Solution, tap the hole and use a screw.  Except the screw would not fit into the recessed hinge.  At the end of the day I had a moment of brilliance (they are frequent here on Reboot - for example XO just dumped his litter box over) use a cap screw.  The sample I had fits like a charm but is too long.  So tomorrow purchase cap screws and drill and tap the holes.

Reboot's Micron 66 Bottom Paint

The second coat of Micron 66 went on today.  With the exception of the bottom of the keel and the spots under the jack stands we are good to go.  I decided to wait until the next "availability" to replace the boot stripe.  I want to make sure that I am happy with the waterline before I spend money to add a 4" strip of color.

The final project for today was to repair the bow light. It has corroded out and the electrical connections were bad.  I cleaned up the one wire that was completely gone and soldered it directly to the flap.  At that point I discovered that I could put the LED light in backwards and it worked fine.  But green on Starboard and red on Port not so much.  After fooling around for a while I got it to work but it reinforced my displeasure with Dr. LED lights.  I discovered that one of the two bayonet tabs on the light bulb was missing.  I hope the future quality of LED lights improves, I have been most disappointed with them.

Tomorrow I hope to fix the hatch and start patching fiberglass.

Google minus

Just a note in passing.  I usually join most new web endeavors because of my long history as an IT executive.  So I joined Google Plus - their effort to capitalize on the Facebook craze.  So far only Spencer (my son and an IT guy) and one other person has joined my "circle."  And Spencer has only posted once. Projecting the universe from a sample of one my expectation is that Google Plus has a long uphill climb.

You can go to https://plus.google.com/ and try it for yourselves.

Bock Marine Refit #1

Bock Marine

As mentioned in a previous post I am at Bock Marine for (as they say in the Navy) an "Availability."  I guess that shipyard time was so restricted in WWII that getting into a shipyard was a function of it being "available."

We had very strong winds last night.  My wind graph shows peak gusts of 38 knots.  "Cause the walls start shaking. The earth was quaking, My mind was aching... and you (the wind) shook me all night long."  [Thank you AC/DC]  It is one thing to be on a boat in the water, totally different when you are on the hard and wondering if the boat is going to tip over.

We got a lot done today.  After a long night of rain the sides of Reboot got washed for the first time in a year.  Then late this afternoon the first coat of Interlux Micron 66 went on the bottom.  I chose "66" because they don't sell it in California.  This alone was an indicator that it actually might work.  But as I said yesterday it is horrendously expensive.  I decided to bring the waterline up over the bootstripe.  Most of the time half of the 4" bootstripe is in the water and gets covered with crud.  I will decide later if I want to put a new boot stripe on Reboot but at the moment that 4" of blue paint is gone.

Half the Maxiprop Install

The other big project for today was removing the fixed prop and replacing it with the folding prop.  I felt that Reboot was slow under power so when I was at Green Cove Springs Marina (Florida) I had them remove the maxiprop and replace it with the factory prop.  It was not long before I decided that it was a real bad decision.







The people here are great.  Below is Kenny Bock, owner.

Kenny Bock

Rainy Days

It is a sad fact of life that when it rains one can not put on bottom paint.  So of course today it is raining. This sets the schedule back a day.  I am trying to get motivated to do some necessary work inside of Reboot.  Mostly this is screwing in hard points to tie down equipment when I am underway.  But sailboats in the rain are like living in a small efficiency apartment.  It is easy to go stir crazy.

Sorry Trevor

Reboot has voyaged from New Bern, NC to the Bock Marine on Adams Creek near Havelock, NC.  Our best speed underway under power was 3 knots.  Ed (Door into Summer) and I got the new Neil Pryde 135% jib up for about 1/2 hour before the wind died.  We got up to 6 knots under the jib.

Ken and the folks at Bock did yeoman's duty getting Reboot safely into the marine hoist and on the hard despite some significant adverse current.  Once out the of water it was obvious why we were going so slowly.  Several months on the Trent River had left the bottom badly fouled.  I had of course expected this as Kirk Hathaway, the bottom cleaner I use in New Bern had stopped cleaning as he could not get a reasonable amount of gook off for the time expended.  So we are here  for new bottom paint.

I decided to go with Interlux 66, a hard antifouling  paint that is considered the best you can purchase in the U.S.  Of course in other places they sell antifouling paint that actually works, but they don't have a nanny culture and the EPA.  The bottom was so foul that Bock sanded it down to the barrier coat so I was free to put on anything I wanted.  The previous Interlux CSC was also a hard finish so I could have overcoated it but that became moot as we pealed off the mussels and crud on the bottom.

This of course comes at significant cost.  I went with the "66" because even though it is horrendously expensive a haul, power wash and scrape is about $400.  If I can avoid one "round trip" I will have paid the extra cost of the premium paint.

Speaking of cost I have had to sell Trevor, my older son, into indentured servitude for 3 years to pay my bill. I know some of you may find this harsh, but what are children for?

Sorry Trevor.

Postscript:  This is my first experience with Bock.  So far it has been very favorable.  They hauled me yesterday, sanded today, and are painting tomorrow.  This is a very cruiser friendly yard.  It has a great boaters lounge, clean and attractive restrooms, and a nice contingent of friendly people, both staff and cruisers working on their boats.  The only downside is the mosquitoes, but they have been a problem everywhere since Hurricane Irene.

Historical Events clues

Thank you those who are playing.  I realized it is not as easy as I thought.  So here are some clues:

1.  They are all battles
2.  They were all fought by the same country (Which has changed its name over the years)
3.  They were immortalized by a play, a poem, and a naval flag hoist.

Good luck

Three big historical events

In the next few weeks three of my favorite historical events are going to happen.  Do you know what they are? Leave me a comment and let me know.

Happy 236th Birthday

Happy Birthday US Navy!

Cold Deck

I have mentioned before that the inside of Reboot is usually about the same temperature as the water.  Over the past few weeks the temperature of the Trent River has been dropping.  This morning it is 66.5 F.  For the first time since I was up in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland the deck (floor) inside Reboot is cold enough that my feet get cold if I walk around barefoot.  This is quite a change from a month ago when I was trying to keep the inside below 90 F.

Cleaning up

I have been moving around a great deal, and then of course it has been very hot, but I am finally getting some of my projects handled.  The wood floor of the dinghy has lost most of its paint which means that it is getting wet all the time.  The current project is to repaint the floor. Of course I don't want it to look too good.  I want to be the most miserable looking dinghy so that the bad people will steal someone elses!

After Hurricane Irene the lower unit of the outboard was leaking oil. I called around and found out that it was a $10 part.  I decided, what the heck, I will let someone else install it.  $200 later I got my engine back.  The good news is that the throttle linkage has rusted out.  Had I tried to use the dinghy I would most likely have been stuck.

Eastern End of Erie Canal Still Closed

As of this writing Erie Canal remains closed between Locks E8 and E17.  It appears the remainder of the canal locks have reopened.  Since these are on the east end of the canal a transit on the Erie or Oswego canal to the Hudson River is still impossible.  The Champlain Canal is open.  I have never taken this particular route and there have been shoaling problems in the past.

What happened to Fall?

I have been successfully procrastinating for several months on the grounds that it has been too hot to work on Reboot.  Of course I was also able to use Hurricane Irene as an excuse.  That was good for a week of getting ready and then a week of getting unready.   I actually started to get some stuff done a couple of days ago as it had cooled off a bit.  But now it has cooled off with a vengeance! I woke in the middle of the night to find it about 45 degrees F in Reboot.  I had previously put on long pj's and was using a light blanket.  I got up and pulled out my sleeping bag that I use when the temperature gets low.  XO of course is now safely burrowed into the sleeping bag where I expect him to remain unless he needs food or water.
The forecast for the next week is temperatures in the low 70's with night time lows in the high 40's and low 50's.  It looks like time to put the A/C unit away and recommission the propane heater.
I would love to procrastinate further but I really want to get to Green Cove Springs and haul Reboot before the winter season.  So time to put on my winter clothing and get the work I need to do done.

Fair winds and following seas.