Amazon Fail (again and again and again)

I think it is time to use the cranial rectal extractor on the entire Amazon  development team. Obviously their testing procedures are up there with the quality insight of the guy who attached two JATO (jet assisted take off)  bottles to his car and lit them off. That won him, by the way, a Darwin award. Somewhere along the line my Kindle Fire HD managed to attach to an open network connection. The clock on the router was wrong and it reset the time/date on my Fire to 31 Dec 1999. Now the people at Amazon (dedicated to providing the "best service in the world") are smart. Why trouble the user with getting the time/date correct.  Get the local time zone and set the clock for them. This of course assumes (assume: makes an ass out of u and me) 1 - that an internet connection is available, and 2 - that you don't need to log on to the provider over a secure (https) connection. Now I have railed about #1 - why should I not be able to use my Fire to read books and play games I have downloaded without fascist Amazon confirming over the Internet on a regular basis that I have a legal right to them. But #2 is even cuter. Since the clock is wrong the silk browser will not make a secure connection. Since I can't log on to my network provider my FIre can't get to the time servers. Thus it can not correct the time. Not a problem you say. Just set the time manually. Ah, what fools we mortals be. Up in the dark tube where the Amazon developers live someone made the decision to make it impossible to manually set the time and date. Most likely this was to prevent the EVIL users from resetting the clock to bypass the time sensitive copy protection. Oh evil, evil, evil customers. If we could only get rid of them then "everything would be for the best in this best of all possible worlds."  I guess at some future point my Fire will find an open network and reset the time. In the meantime it is once again rendered useless. 

MAJOR FAIL AMAZON. 

Fair winds and following seas :)

RE: Adhesive

Hello Capt. Jones,

I'm afraid I can't help you with your question. Tanks come with the fittings attached. We don't attach them. The plastic is probably fused together during the manufacturing process but I can't say for sure. Epoxy might work. Best I can help you with is a replacement tank. From your photo it looks like the 30 gallon B202 which sell for $403.33. Please let me know if I can help you further with this.

Regards,
Len

Len Keller
Catalina Yachts Parts Dept.
7200 Bryan Dairy Road
Largo, FL 33777
727-544-6681 x266
lkeller@catalinayachts.com
parts@catalinayachts.com




-----Original Message-----
From: Roger John Jones [mailto:rebootagent@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2016 12:09 AM
To: Len Keller <lkeller@catalinayachts.com>; Reboot Blog <rogerjohnjones.trevorspencer1@blogger.com>
Subject: Adhesive

Please look at the photo. The black object is the forward waste holding tank. The white fitting is attached to the tank. After many years the adhesive decided to fail. (Be very glad you were elsewhere.) We cleaned both the tank and the fitting and applied 3M 5200. It failed. What do you use to make this adhesive connection?

Thanks

Adhesive

Please look at the photo. The black object is the forward waste holding tank. The white fitting is attached to the tank. After many years the adhesive decided to fail. (Be very glad you were elsewhere.) We cleaned both the tank and the fitting and applied 3M 5200. It failed. What do you use to make this adhesive connection?

Thanks

Working on the rig

Ever since we replaced the mid shrouds the rig has been
making funny noises. We have been trying to figure out what is going on with little success. We did discover that the new fittings had worked loose and tightened them several times.

Today we loosened each shroud so that we could lubricate the fittings. Much to our surprise as soon as we loosened the port mid it unwound about three revolutions while making the noise that has been driving me crazy. We let it settle after applying lubricant. When I tightened up the turnbuckle the noise was gone.

I have no clue how the shroud got twisted. It is 19 strand wire. Half of the wires are laid clockwise and the other half counter clockwise. It is a mystery. Given the 20 knot winds in the anchorage we were unable to do a good static tune but we got close.

I am hoping we have solved the problem.

Fair winds and following seas :)

Kudos to Garmin

My GPSMAP 2012 is back from Garmin service. While traveling from Norfolk to the BVI it started saying "holding" when turned on. Garmin told me that this meant it had lost its software load and I should reload the software from an SD card. The problem was that the SD card slot had rusted out. They said that the only solution was to return the unit to Garmin for service. Out of warranty service on a GPSMAP is a flat rate of (if memory serves me correctly of $899.) I was surprised and pleased when Garmin waved the charge. Apparently the inside was so corroded that they sent me a new unit. Kudos to them, what great customer service.

Fair winds and following seas :)

Another drag

Woke up this morning to discover we had dragged again. Fortunately there is one mooring ball in the harbor and it was empty. We are now tied up to it. That is nice since our need for a full time anchor watch is diminished. This "ball" is sized for a commercial ship, about 10 feet in diameter. We think it will hold Reboot.

Fair winds and following seas :)

Pago Pago - American Samoa

We have been here in Pago Pago for several days. Since the night of the wind storm with all the boats dragging we have kept an anchor watch on board pretty much all of the time. With four off us it has not been much of a problem, two on shore and two on board. There is really not all that much to see on shore. Most of our trips are shopping or provisioning.

Last night Al and I went to Tisa's Barefoot Bar. It is the Trip Advisor
#1 restaurant on the island. With the exception of one other table we were the only diners. This has been my experience in the Pacific, most places seem very empty. Perhaps the economy continues to reduce tourism. We had prawns and an outstanding filet of yellow fin tuna.

At lunch we went to Emilio's. It was OK. I think it is #3.

Btw, to give you some idea McDonalds is the #9 best restaurant according to Trip Advisor.

Today there have been occasional showers. The forecast for the next few days is more of the same.

Fair winds and following seas :)

There is always one

So the people on boat yyy showed back up. They got sorted. Then they came over and anchored right next to us. We told them that we would swing into them. They said no, its all right. Then they left their boat again.

The rain and wind have come back. Both sides of Reboot are adorned with fenders.

There is always one in evey group.

Fair winds and following seas :)

What a drag

The cruising guides caution that the holding in Pago Pago harbor is not very good. After a day and a half of heavy rain we were hit by strong gusty winds to about 30 knots. The result is that about 7 boats dragged. (We did not really get a chance to drag as we raised anchor and ran away! The advantage of not single handing. Of course standing on the bow in heavy rain is not the most fun. We reset away from the action.)

Just when we thought it was over we got a call on the radio. "Reboot, xxx is dragging and they have fouled yyy's anchor. They are dragging them across the mooring field. Can you hop in your dinghy and help out?" The dinghy is half full of rain water and the outboard doesn't like to run in the wet until it has warmed up but off Matt and I go to the scene of the crime. Someone had run a line between yyy and xxx so xxx was dragging both boats up to the very large and occupied mooring buoy. We got xxx tied to the buoy, rafted it up to the previous occupant and checked on yyy. With no one on board but the anchor down and a line daisy chained to the mooring ball we decided to leave well enough alone. (It will be interesting when the owners return as their boat has moved about 600 yards!)

Back to Reboot. We are sitting in the cockpit watching when we hear another radio call. "I am dragging and my engine will not shift into gear." Fortunately several other boats responded so we are still on Reboot monitoring the situation.

What a drag!

Fair winds and following seas :)

Rain Rain

As those who have been following know we have been having more than our share of maintenance issues. Joy of joys the bilge pump works. The problem was a broken hose. Thus the pump was pumping from the bilge to the bilge.

Good thing we found it as we have had several inches of rain all day. Some of it always finds itS way to the bilge. The backup pump works fine, but it will be nice to have them both functional again. Then of course there is the manual pump.

Fair winds and following seas :)

Maintenance hell

What a day. This morning one of the crew was pumping the toilet into the holding tank. Pop. The holding tank fitting came loose and the tank emptied into the bilge. Hours of disassembly, cleaning, discovering additional problems (e.g. the mascerator pump has failed.) We don't know where to buy parts in American Samoa. It is Sunday so there is nothing open and no one to ask.

With the entire pullman berth area open we decided to address the shower sump pump. We got it working after cleaning it but it is no longer strong enough to prime itself. Another part to find.

We noticed that the bilge pump was running. Since we had been dumping salt water into the bilge to clean it this was not surprising. Until we realized that no water was coming out of the pump!

What a day.

Fair winds and following seas :)

Transit - Bora Bora to Pago Pago

The second or third worst transit in my experience with Reboot. Not really dangerous, just frustrating. Left Bora Bora with a good weather window for the 1100 nm transit. We actually traveled 1375 nm to avoid motu, islands, and running away from bad weather. Not to mention being becalmed for a couple of days. Ah, the cruising life.

Fair winds and following sea😇

Via Inmarsat:

After 2 days of bad weather including 40 knot winds we have pretty skies
and moderate waves. 138 nm to Amer Samoa.

Please note your reply is limited to 160 Latin characters or approximately 135 for non-Latin characters.

Sent via Inmarsat. The mobile satellite company

Via Inmarsat:

Traveling from Bora Bora to Pago Pago. 371 nm of 1100 to go. A nice
sunrise.

Please note your reply is limited to 160 Latin characters or approximately 135 for non-Latin characters.

Sent via Inmarsat. The mobile satellite company