If you would like to sleep in a coffin, it would be all right. -True Grit

This is Pete trying out the lower bunk in the bunk room.  He fits!  All 6'5" of him.  Even he was amazed.
Well, we are all ready for Swiftsure.  Had the prop adjusted.  Turns out in pretty typical fashion, the prop was installed wrong.  The blades weren't seated properly and the blades were out of order.  The bolts holding the prop together were bent and the thing was completely out of grease.

So the pitch was at 22°.  We reduced that to 18°.  I can now hit 2900 RPM.  Not sure if that is going to effect my top speed or not.  We'll see Thursday morning on our way to Swiftsure.
We decided that the alternator problem is not worth worrying about.  To be sure the wiring is suspect but we think that the 16.5 volts that we see is the regulator being programmed to overcome the resistance of the battery isolator.  I called AmpTech and they said that the alternator can run up to 300°.  I think all systems are GO!  I hope.

This winch has been giving us fits.  The cog was in backward.  Had to drop the ceiling in the head again to correct.  All fixed now.

Pete made these new spin guy blocks.  Pretty cool, I think.
I chased the heater duct down and changed out the registers to something that can close.  We now have some heat in the forward two cabins.

All done but the packing and stowing of food and such.  More later

This is the hatch in the aft head with the ceiling down.  That is wet wood right there.  But no rot.  Haven't had time to investigate it properly but it might be teak.  I saw that wet area and thought "Ah hell, here we go."  Stabbed it with my knife and it is solid.  It is leaking and has to be fixed and it might be leaking into a cored balsa area so I really need to investigate but at least this area is OK.  After Swiftsure, I take the hatch off and see what I see.

Here is the man, David.  He has probably logged more hours on boat projects than anybody else.  The winches are almost done.  Here he is tearing down the aft head's ceiling to gain access to the bottom of the winch.  Certain Harken winch models make you take the entire thing off to lube it.  What a pain.  Rachelle helped put everything back together while I stood around and wondered what the hell I've gotten myself into.  

I love the boat but she needs some work to get her up to speed.  I've been working so hard on the hatch, heater bullshit, etc. that I really haven't had time to figure out the systems on this thing.  

Underneath the lower bunk in the kid's cabin there is a nice area for storage.  It could be better if the PO had ran the waterlines a little more logically.  Some in moving the lines around in an attempt to get a box in that space, I noticed an airleak in the line that draws water off the tank.  Tightened that and then decided to hit them all.  Feeling good about that, I went under the galley sink to tighten those hose clamps and found a couple things.  The water pump is being held by two screws.  The insulation on the freezer sucks.  They squirted that foam in a can all over the place.  WTF?  This area also holds the valves for all 3 water tanks.  This means that there are a bunch of hoses under there.  Looks like a snake's wedding.  Maybe 100 hose clamps in that area alone.  Ugh.  That and some of the connections are iffy.  The PO has various sizes of hoses in the same run.  Why?  Pretty minor stuff but still.  

Engine.  Chris is still trying to figure out the reason behind the dimly glowing idiot light.  We spent couple hours going over the connections and found some loose ones.  He thinks, and I agree, that the external regulator needs a cleaner power source.  So much of our time was spent looking for a 12 volt power source that worked when the ignition key was on.  I had to go home and sleep and left him to venture forth into the Lucas hell that is my engine room.  

 Here is Rachelle unloading stuff from the boat to make room for other stuff.  Big Costco run Sunday.  Sure am glad that I have friends like this.

Stuff is everywhere.

Eventually I am going to have to say the boat is good enough and let it go.  I have one more project that I will do on Tuesday.  Then clean this crap up and be done with it.  I am going to be gone for 5 days and I haven't really be connecting with my wife or my kids.

I should have followed my gut instinct and done more to the engine when we took delivery of her back in April.  In getting ready for Swiftsure, David found this-

The one on the right is the new one.  Duh, right?  We motored from White Rock, BC to Seattle with the impeller looking like this.  The engine temp never climbed above normal even when heading into 5 foot waves for hours bashing home down the Sound.  Now I have impeller parts in the heat exchanger.  Grrr.

On the plus side, the winches are nearing completion.  Thanks to my good friends!!  Next week this time, we'll be in Victoria getting ready to race!!

Boat bling.  What to buy.  I need new furler blocks.  Schaeffer or Harken?  Ronstand?  My problem is that the stanchions can be almost permanently welding via corrosion to the bases.  When repairing the toerail I had to destroy three of them to get the stanchion out.  I like the look of the furler block that goes around the stanchion but I'm afraid of the complicated install.  They are more money also.
Emailed with the old owner and found out that when the batteries are fully charged, the electric idiot light on the panel will be dimly on.  Our problem exactly.  Carden went through the manual for the external regulator and found that the wire to power the regulator is going through a light bulb on the panel and then to the regulator.  That would explain why he was seeing 14.5 volts at the alternator and only 8.9 volts at the power line for the regulator.  That wiring is a mess.  Just all jumbled together.  Gotta fix that.

Work party

Thanks to Lisa, Rachelle, Pete, David, Jimmy, Rich, Carden for getting this old tub whipped into shape!

Jimmy working on the winches

Carden going at the electrical problem

Rich, David and Rachelle on the dock

Thursday night we rebuilt 3 winches and hopefully the remaining 8 will get done this weekend.  I replaced the mascerator and installed new venting for the heater.  Also finished up the sink drains.
Emptied the two aft lazerrettes also.  Found two old electric motors and various cleaners and an old metal bucket that was starting to rust.

Old shelf where the forward heads pump was.  Frozen solid.  Why PO didn't remove it, I have no idea.

Sink connection

Swiftsure

We are doing Swiftsure this year on Appa.  I figure it is a good way to have people help me get the boat ready for Mexico.  Figure out what is working and what isn't.    We might have bit off more than we can chew.  The toerail on the port side right at the boarding gate was lifted from the deck.  The previous owner says that the CG did it years ago on the trip back from Hawaii.  He wasn't there though.  The toerail was secured using stainless steel rivets with no backing that I can see.  Here is a picture.

That bit I have my finger on is the rivet.  Thick deck but no backing that I can see.

Here is the socket driver that I dropped.  Put the camera phone in the hole and snapped this.  Had to put another hole in the cabinet to get the damn wrench out.

I wasn't able to pick the whole rail up as the rivets on the aft section are glassed over in the liferaft storage area.  I merely did the best I could and got to the holes I could.  I overdrilled and filled those holes and then countersunk them.  Used buytl tape and bolts with washers on both sides for backing power.  I then ordered 4 new stanchion bases to the tune of  $500.  Ouch!  But pretty.

The toe rail is not pretty but it is strong.  That'll do till I get the money for a new toerail.  That one project took two weeks or so.
I then tackled the anchor locker hatch.  Full of water and weighed a ton.  My thought was to use the dremel and cut the back of it off and then peel it off.  Wrong.  Although it was full of water, the balsa was still tenaciously clinging to the fiberglass.  I had to hammer that crap off with a chisel, destroying the fiberglass backing in the process.  Now I had to build a new backing.

 Here is the finished result getting it's first coat of paint.  Strong as hell and a lot lighter.  Used poly vinylester and this mat that Fiberlay suggested.  The reason for the water intrusion?  Someone at some point removed all the screws in the teak decking and never rescrewed the teck or sealed it.  Why?  Why would you do that?  Oh well.  Fixed now.

The wood is so wore out that I was afraid to sand too much hence the weird coloring of the deck.  Also did my first caulking job.  Very Zen type of thing.  I actually enjoyed it.
Next problem.  Stove.  We knew from the survey that the stove had one burner that didn't stay lit and the oven didn't work.  Nor the broiler.  Oh just replace a few thermocouplers you say.  Nope.  Had to buy another old stove to fix the older stove.  Force 10.  Grrrr.  Anyway, my friend Chris did all the work and it took him 10 days.  What a great job he did though.

It works!

Next up is the heater.  The PO had this wrong size duct going to the heater.  I just got back from SURE Marine and had some new ducting made.  We gonna have heat!

We went for our first test sail with most of the crew onboard and found a couple of problems.  Evidently you have to close all the sink through hulls prior to sailing on the Wauquiezs.  We had about 10 gallons of water come through the sink drains in the galley and both heads.  Lesson learned.  I also pulled the hoses for the sinks off and am going to replace them.  I found an old shower sump pump in the forward head that wasn't being used.  All rusty and nasty looking.  Gone.
The aft head had a sloshing sound when when walked on the area around the teak grating.  Full of water from the sink leaking.  Had to cut holes in that liner to get to the water and is was also very weak and thin.  I'll build that up tonight or tomorrow with epoxy.
Mascerator pump failed and I have a full holding tank.  Replacing that also.  Ugh.  I could pump out the head now if I had to.  The mascerator pumps needs to be on even if using dock side pumpout.  Why?  No clue.  Less holes in the holding tank though.
On the plus side we did get the name on.  Maybe that will give us some luck.

Mid-January, my wife and I were walking down the dock at the Elliot bay Marina in Seattle to my After Christmas work party thrown by the doctors that I work with.  We had just motored over from Shileshole Marina in our 1991 C&C 34+.  We were quite happy with the boat but had always felt that it was a little small for our family of 5.  The V-berth on the C&C was one of the smallest that I had ever slept on and the kids didn't like it up there.  Ben, our 7 year old is afraid of ghosts and he thought they could get him up there.  It was too high for the baby to sleep on.  I could have made a netting or something there but the baby, Sam, really wanted nothing to do with sleeping up there.  Our 14 year didn't like it because it was small (he is taller than me) and cold.  So every night the salon would be turned into a bedroom and then upon waking we would have to turn it back into a breakfast table.   Pain in the ass.  So we were walking down the dock and my wife turns to me and unexpectedly says, "I think we should buy a bigger boat."  Jaw hit floor.  "Yes!" I blurted.  So that started our search for another boat.

We had been talking about doing Mexico and I am sure that the C&C would have handled it fine but man, it was short of storage.  A bigger boat almost automatically means more storage but I wanted it to be logical also.  Huge lockers are great but they also need something to use that space well.

We wanted 3 staterooms.  With our budget, that meant Beneteau charter boats were going to be high on our list.  I loved the Stevens 47 but too big.  Too much money.  

I ran across a 1986 Wauquiez Centurion 42.  Three staterooms. One of which with bunkbeds.  Decent storage.  Smallish tanks but we could figure something out.  OK.  Haggling with the price and we got them down pretty good.  Money down.  Test sail with survey.  Lots of little problems and one big problem meant that we turned it down.  Loved the model of boat, just not this one.  

Alright.  Another Centurion 42 up in Canada for sale.  1991.  More water tankage.  Much better shape.  Lots more money.  Went to go see it with Tori our broker and fell in love.  Older boat that has been raced but she was in pretty good shape.  Had all the go fast gear also. 

She is the one with the full cover.

Long story short.  We made an offer and it was accepted.  The boat was located in Blaine and we live in Seattle 107 miles away.  Drove up for the initial viewing.  Drove up again for the test sail and survey.  Drove up again to take the boat to Point Roberts to check her into the US and then pay the duty.  Drove up to Point Roberts to take the boat down to Shileshole.  Man, am I glad I don't have to drive to Canada anymore.  

The sail over to Point Roberts wasn't without it's hiccups.  We were suppose to do the trip on Monday but the forecast was for 35 knots of wind.  So we went Wednesday.  Had to motor.  No wind.  Steve, the previous owner, hands me the keys to the boat at White Rock BC and says Good Luck.  I start the motor and the alarm starts ringing.  No power to the fuel gauge.  Wiggle some wires and a couple phone calls to the broker for Steve's number and we are back in business.  I had all the bugs worked out on Hooked.  As much as one can anyway.  I was going to have to start all over again with this boat.