Veterans Day Thank You
Sunday evening sitting in the cockpit and remembered it's Veterans Day. Tried to put up our flag but it will take a couple of more rums before I can fly out to the end of the mizzenmast boom…
Thank you to all who have served.
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Sore in New Places…
It is kinda crazy when you think about it. Here we are on a boat, on a river, with no 'jobs', and nowhere we have to be, nothing we have to do and I can't find time to blog!
There is a lesson here somewhere. I'll think about it later and get back to you…
The work continues to make Yume ready for sea. We bought her having been told the mechanics were good and really all we needed was the cosmetics. Right. I guess everyone's idea of good is different.
This week has been spent on a couple of projects that seem to get more complicated as they grew on their own.
This is the “engine room' which is basically a fiberglass box molded into the hull, with a few cut outs for access that would be perfect if I was about two and a half feet tall. Most of this week has been spent in or half out of the “room”.
1. To change the engine and generator oils took 3 days. What was supposed to be a simple job of using an electric oil pump to suck out old oil and pump new oil back in didn't exactly pan out. The first two hours was spent taking apart the frozen pump and fixing that, then taking apart the reversing switch to find it corroded so badly it had to be replaced. Then when the pump was finally free, there was no hot wire to be found. The ground was right there but no feed. What the heck? So new wiring had to be run. THEN I could change the engine oil but for some reason the generator oil would not suck out no matter what I did. That took all day Tuesday.
That red engine is the Westerbeke generator which gives us lots of electricity to charge batteries, run the refrigeration system, and even run air conditioning ( and heat). The main engine is just to the right (aft) in this box.
Of course Ryan is hard at work in his cabin doing his online schooling (or playing video games if I am not checking him!)
On Wednesday we needed to get a wifi extender system installed to boost the marina wifi so we could use it on board. This is supposed to pick up and boost signal from wifi stations up to two miles away. I built a housing for the antennae and radio booster from PVC pipe and mounted in up on the mizzenmast forestay and ran the cat5 cable to a cabinet. Here 110v outlet from the inverter was needed for the power supply to the antennae and the wireless router. It took me almost four hours to get the damn thing programmed. That ended up being a 10 hour project and costing $150 but who is counting?
Then it was back to the engines. This time to track the pump issue I needed to take off all the tie wraps and connectors for half of the wiring and piping in the place. While I was doing that I had access (I was already half under the motors in the bilge) to the piles of nasty, oily, debris in the bilge so I dove into that too. We can actually see the bottom of the bilge now!
Then the salt water strainers needed cleaning and a bolt broke off as soon as I started removing those.
I could go on for another couple of days (and did) but you get the idea.
We knew that by buying an older boat we would be doing this stuff – and I am not complaining at all. Aside from the oil and grime under the fingernails and the sore muscles in places I did not know I had muscles, I am so thankful I have the abilities to know what I am doing, the boat to do it with, the time in which to make it happen , and the support and help of Shelly to get through it.
And in the end I will know every wire, every hose, every part of this floating assembly of parts that we call home and are about to take to sea to God knows where!
By the way, the feed burner has screwed up somehow so if you signed up to get notification it may not be working. I hope to get to that today as soon as I get the generator fuel filter changed. It should only take me a couple of minutes. 😉
Leave a comment. Our friend Steve let me know I did not have it enabled so I did fix that…
Work Continues on Yume
Day 3 and day 4.
Yesterday we tore out the hot water heater that was not working.
Ouch.
One would think a little five gallon can would be a fairly easy to remove. That would assume a magician had not installed it!
I ended up rigging block and tackle as there was no way to drain the water and no way in heck to get hands under it.
Then all the piping had to be removed using a very small pipe wrench, and cutting off the old hoses. The hoses were shot anyway as they had been lying in the oily bilge for who knows how long…
It only took two and a half hours to get the sucker out at the cost of half the skin on my arms. I did notice I bleed much easier and bruise now – like my Dad.
The tank was full of very rusty water because some moron had used galvinzed steel fittings which had badly corroded.
Then it was off for parts search to Savannah. Yuk. 3 hours later, we have new fittings ($55), new hot water heater hose to the engine ($30) and muriatic acid to flush the tank. (We get hot water when we run the engine as well as 110 volt.)
While I was gone Ryan got the fun job of wire brushing everything he could reach, and cleaning rusted bits of steel, nasty bilge stuff etc. he made a good start bu there is much left to be done before the capt is satisfied. It is crucial to have your mechanical gear clean and in great working order so when something does happen (and it ALWAYS does) you are able to see what you are doing. For instance we noticed pretty quickly that the forward motor mounts for the generator are just holding on with the rubber mounts as all the steel is gone!
We ended the day with hot water so all is well.
Today was aft head. The cabinet was poorly designed and had leaked in the past causing some wood rot that needed attention.
I can't say the first mate is exactly happy with the day's work, but in my defense for lumber I was limited to pieces of teak scavenged from old hatch covers. It is never fun trying to build something to the materials you have instead of to the situation at hand.
In addition, attempting to do finish work with a skill saw, no files, no sander, router, or any other finishing tools is a challenge at best.
This is what the space looked like after everything was torn out and below the (semi) finished product.
Plus today we finally got the DSL canceled at the old house. Three times we tried on the AT&T website, then finally found a number to call today. 45 minutes on the phone , transferred 4 times and finally got it canceled. Another yuk.
But life is good on the water. I feel a bit of pressure to get these big projects completed while we still have decent weather. Next is more engine work. Replace all filters, change oils, etc. Check hoses and clamps, bilge pump and clean bilges. Then we get take her out for a shakedown cruise!
Can't wait!
Settling In
Day 2 on Yume as our new home.We are all a bit tired at the end of each day as we go from the time we wake to dark thirty.
Just stopping now and watching the sun set. Got the grill going for some pork chops and Shelly is below making some fettichini with Alfredo to go with it.
Ryan is up at the tiki hut where he can get monster wifi speeds to play his games.
He learned about working on bikes today as the boat came with a foldup 6 speed that needed some TLC.
We have been cramming two full pickup loads of stuff on the boat. Yesterday I removed a 110volt ice maker and turned the space into storage for all the grain, beans, sugar and other supplies we have in 2.5 gallon tubs and all the canned supplies we have.
We filled the water tanks with 150 gallons of water (watched the boat sink down with an additional 1050 pounds!) and added a bit of bleach to help keep it sweet. Red wine works too.
Ryan and I washed the outside today while Shelly worked inside to make it like a home.
Tomorrow the plan is to work in the storage of the master head (bath) where there were some leaks in the past causing some rot. We brought plywood just for that purpose.
The next phase is to make Yume ready for sea. We look for anything that would move . Basically you think about flipping your house upside down and see wohat would fly out! Then you fix it…
We are close.
Next – start looking at the engine, steering systems, and anchors and lines and getting ready for some trial runs to see how she (and we) perform!
We have had a great two days with perfect weather, lots of projects completed and a hope we can get on down the waterway before it turns cold again.
Looking down into the salon, I see Goose is getting his dinner so mine can’t be far behind!
Why We Do What We Do…
Life is a Yume! (That’s Dream in Japanese!)
We decided a long time ago it was infinitely better for us to be doing what we love doing all the time and working when we can.
Learn how this is accomplished by scrolling through the menu. There is lots of good stuff there from years and years of writing!