This is the anchor locker with the TeakGuard on it. Two coats and then I had to book home and cook dinner for the family.
I think it looks pretty good. But let's face the facts as Gunther use to say, that teak is beat the hell up on the bow. It is pretty trashed. Not in the cards for me to put new teak down so I made do. The TeakGuard should protect the teak so maybe this will hold up. Who knows. The rest of the teak on the boat is much thicker so should stand up to more abuse. The bungs aren't the same color as what the French used making the deck. Oh well.
The other problem when I was reefing the decks was the wood is in such worn shape that it would splinter off and so some of the channels have an area that is wider than the rest. 10 foot finish I call it. From 10 feet away it looks good.
I am trying to not get into the mode of "just finish the freaking decks already!" Rushing through, half ass cleaning, etc. Still trying to take my time and do it right. Now to find the time.
Still working on this damn teak deck. Have gone through 1000s not 100s but 1000s of teak bungs so far. I have replaced every single one of them. Fisheries has the best bungs by far. Jamestown's suck ass. I mean bungs. They suck. Really suck.
So the decks now need to have a final sanding and then cleaned. Finally then I can put on TeakGuard and see if all that hard work paid off. Gawd what a job this has turned into. I should have just paid the $14,000 and had them redone. Not. This hasn't been too bad. Just long. Way long.
The chili cook-off is all done. Here are some photos from that weekend.
The prizes!
Afterwards you eat the chili at a big dinner.
Some dinner aboard Appa on Saturday
Samey napping Sunday afternoon!
Ben helping with the dessert
Appa at Port Madison outstation
Engine ran great and no light flickering! Yay! No buzzer either. So far so good.
Our sail over on Friday to Eagle Harbor.
What a day. Friday the 15th we sailed from the breakwater of Shileshole to the entrance of Eagle harbor. Peaceful and gentle. Perfect for the kids and the wife to get reintroduced into the rhythm of the boat.
This is the pile of stuff that Samey wanted to come along.
Did the SYC Port Madison Chili cook off this past weekend. I got eighth place out of 28. Much better showing than last year. While waiting for the start of the cook off, I heard a knocking on Appa's hull. We really don't know anyone at the cook-off and nobody has come up to the boat before but we do have kids and maybe they did something. Turns out it was one of my "online" friends. That is Kim to the left and my son Ben in the middle and of course my ugly mug off to the right. Kim tracked us down via a cruising anarchy post in which I mentioned I was partaking in. What a great surprise. I am part of a sailing community that exists online and most of us have never met in person or even know what the other looks like or their real name. Slowly that is starting to change. Kim and his wife visited for a bit and took off. We had a fun visit and hope to repeat it soon!
After waiting on parts from Stewart's Marine in Ballard (Thanks Kathy!), I finally got the time to put everything back together. That shiny bit there is the new ($$$$) raw water pump.
"Why don't you put her in charge?!"
What a jig saw puzzle! My 2 year old loves puzzles. I should have had her help.
I should have taken more "before the rebuild" pictures. Reluctantly my brain clicked in gear after much grinding and I figured it out.
The new raw water came with directions on how to install it properly. Why is it directions always assume you have encyclopedic knowledge of that particular engine? I think I got it though. Per instructions you have to line up the adapter plate correctly or the key on the shaft for the pump will strip out, leaving you with a smoldering ruin of an engine. They go on to add that they have many pumps sent back to them claiming faulty shafts. "We have periodically tested the returned pumps and found them within specs." Then why the design that ruins so many pumps. You cannot tell if you do it wrong either. You have to take the pump out to see if the shaft is being ruined. What if you did it right and then upon returning the pump to the engine, you do it wrong that time? Dumb design I think.
This Perkins Prima 50 loves hose clamps also. I counted 40 clamps and then stopped. I am switching out the crap clamps that the PO used and am putting in AWAB hose clamps. A bit pricey but they are 316 stainless steel. Superior product I believe.
Here are some photos for your viewing enjoyment.
Cutting the metal wire in the hose. I kinda like this photo.
You know, I am attempting to photograph some of my progress and I find it hard to do. Hard to remember to take the picture, hard to find time, hard to get action shots but yet, holding a Dremel with a cutting wheel in one hand and a stupid camera phone in the other, I managed to take the photo above. I seem to gravitate towards the stupid side of things when working on the boat.
Trying to fit that 2" hose on the exhaust. My god what a pain. Had to have my much stronger friend Arnold help. Well actually it was Pete but you get the idea.
See that black disc below the hose without the copper elbow on it. That is the shaft the turns the raw water pump. Black disc is the adapter plate.
New boots for the heat exchanger. Uh, that will be $60 bucks each. I needed two.
Jeremy in his 2Go car. He looks a little too happy there.
Boat show pictures. Ben just loved the Sea Rays and the Bayliners. Not sure how to feel about that. I loved the powerboats as a kid also. Hell I owned Jet Skis PLURAL!
Sam on a Bayliner.
They just loved the powerboats. All sorts of areas to explore in them.
Benny in his "Lair"
Samey in her "Lair".
Still finding time to work on the decks.
Getting ready for painting.
So after working a 12 hour shift at the hospital, I headed to the boat Saturday night and got that blue Perkins back together. Tightened the one million hose clamps and put new longer bolts on the raw water exhaust fitting cause the old ones were way too short and junk. Filled the engine with water and punched the start button. Started right up and was spitting water out of the exhaust like:
No leaks to speak of and I even ran the watermaker. No problems. Yet. boats. It is always something.
That's it for now. Going to Port Madison this coming weekend. gotta clean that boat up. It is a wreck what with teak dust on everything, tools everywhere. Gawd!
This Monday or Tuesday the waterpump comes in. Then the sleeve for the tubestack. I bought all new hoses and all cutting them to the correct sizes. O'Reilly's Auto parts let me go back into the store room and rummage around in their hoses for awhile. Got what I need!
I am painting the parts that I took off the engine and I'll get some photos of that and post later. Big thrill right? Can't hardly wait, eh? Well, I am doing this for me also. Keeps track of what I did and how. Kinda.
Here is Swiper the fox helping me with the water pump. I had my little girl help me on the boat. By help I mean she was in the V-berth and playing while I was getting the cooling system apart.
Here is Dora helping me. Actually she is laying down on the job. Those bits next to her are impeller parts that I found in the cooling system.
My new favorite! Limited edition I found at Safeway. So good on fries!
This is the aluminum exhaust elbow. You are looking at the inlet for the raw water after it has gone through the heat exchanger. The water gets injected into the hot exhaust gases and cools it down so you can have a rubber hose handling the exhaust gas and the exiting raw water used for cooling. I think the corrosion is from the stainless bolts into the aluminum. Dissimilar metals can cause corrosion. The rest of the elbow looks great. I wasn't even going to take the elbow off but after looking at the bolt holes, there is no way that is going to go back together again. Luckily I have a spare. Can't be cheap. I'll buy another one for back up. I am also going to coat the bolts with TefGel or something similar to stop the corrosion. Going to have to ask around about this.
Here is my spare.
So being in the middle of taking apart the cooling system in our Wauquiez Centurion 42 that is how I found the exhaust "problem-to-be". Appa has a 50hp Perkins Prima 50. A funky engine if there ever was one. As you might remember, I pulled the raw water pump due to it leaking like my 2 year old's diaper. The generic diapers not those Huggies I buy now. Or actually my wife buys. Wait, I did buy some last week. Hopefully she will be out of them soon but I digress. Anyway, the previous owner screwed up the pump by installing it wrong. Evidently when replacing the raw water pump, you put the pump on and then tighten the bolts only part way. This allows the shaft and the key to get seated correctly. Failure to do this results in the shaft on the pump to get chewed up. Which mine was. Now I need a need one. Or replace the shaft. Shaft=$200. New pump=$300. Actually a new pump exactly like mine new is $600 but since my motor is actually a rebadged Volvo-Penta MD22, I can use their pumps. Thanks to Stewart's Machine shop in Ballard for doing all the leg work on this.
I plan on keeping the old pump as a spare since it works but leaks a bit. Maybe eBay will come up with a rebuild kit or something. Never know.
The boots are on the ends of the box that say Perkins Prima. These go over the HeatX and the fresh water coolant manifold. They were completely shot and leaking sea water over the engine motor.
So since the pump was out I decided to look at the heat exchanger (now called heatX). There is a sleeve in the manifold that serves as a gasket. This sleeve is $60 and needs to be replaced. All new gaskets for everything also. New boots for the manifold also.
So Monday the pump should be here and then Thursday the sleeve for the heatX. Maybe just maybe we can get this boat out on the water in time for the Chili-cook off at the SYC Port Madison in the middle of February!
The engine block is not a ground. The only time it grounds itself is when the starter is engaged. This makes chasing electrical gerlims a bit of a chore.
The joys of teak decks. Well, I am done reefing, cleaning, and caulking these decks. All that is left is rebunging about 200 holes and then sanding. After that, cleaning that deck with this stuff.
I thought I had a macerator problem and bought a new Whale pump to do overboard discharge of the holding tank when in the appropriate areas but it turns out that I forgot to open the seacock instead. Now I can either hold onto this pump or finally clean up that mess of a holding tank installation that the previous owner did. Options, options. The current setup has me unable to pump out the holding tank at the pump out stations that are scattered throughout the area unless I turn on the macerator. There should be a standpipe into the holding tank then a Y-valve to select between macerator or the on-deck fitting.
We have a lot to do before Mexico. The holding tank will be a priority. Right after I get this deck done. I figure another 10 hours of steady work and we'll have a big dent in it.
