Its over already?

 Is the season over already?

Wow, it flew by.  This was of course the COVID season of socially somewhat distant boating.  With not much else to do, we were out on the boat a lot -- I think the SmartCraft display indicated nearly 70 hours of engine run time and 420 miles of distance covered.

Mechanically the boat performed well overall.  We had a couple of minor issues involving generator cooling water being impeded and two incidents of the toilet pump running endlessly, but both issues were transient.  The port batteries are nearly dead, 2-3 times we had to use the emergency crossover function to get the port engine to start, although they seemed to recover later in the season when it was cooler.

The only real project this summer was a new anchor bridal, which worked OK although it got some griping from the admiral who thought it was too long.  I also re-mounted the TV antenna.

Weather wise I think it was a pretty good season -- very hot early, and scorching on the 4th of July weekend, one of the few times where I felt like being in the air conditioning on the water was worth it.  The water temperature read 85 degrees around the 4th of July, very early and very warm.  We didn't have as much of the August rain, clouds and cool down as we've had in the past.  We also didn't have the intense heat we've had in September, either.

The generator cooling water issue started in June.  Lynn and I took the boat out and anchored in Carson's Bay, which is shallow and weedy.  We were anchored in about 12 feet of water and running the generator for vacuuming.  I was actually finally re-mounting the TV antenna after last year's high water.  The generator cooling water output slowed to a trickle and we saw some steam, so I shut it off thinking it had ingested a lot of weeds.

When I checked the strainer I was surprised to find almost no weeds, but still poor water output.  I assume that there was something kind of big wedged into the through-hull.  Running a few miles at planing speed didn't clear it, and diving the boat at anchor wasn't a great option.

I got clued into a product meant for winterizing, some kind of thing which fits into the strainer and lets you use a shop vac to blow out the raw water line.  They wanted $100 for it, so I managed to gin up my own version using a length of pipe and some Sugru and a shop vac accessory adapter.  It didn't really help.

The good news was that the problem kind of seemed to go away on its own, with the obstruction clearing and water output returning to normal....then getting worse again, then getting better again without any coherent reason.

My current thinking is that there might be some more permanent obstruction, like zebra mussles or something else.  I plant to remove the hose section between the through hull seacock and the strainer, which will let me get right at the opening and seacock internals.  The hose will be replaced with a new section as the old one is probably iffy to put back on, especially after working it off.

I'd like to install a clamshell grate over the through-hull.  I think the existing opening is just a hole, and the clamshell grate offers a large surface area that no single weed could block, plus nothing can get stuck in the through-hull and running the boat should naturally clear it.  But this is a complex thing to get installed, the boat has to be out of the water and 3 screws sunk into the outside of the hull and in theory one totally through the hull for bonding to the DC ground.  I'm half tempted to not bother with bonding since fresh water ought not involve too much galvanic corrosion.

The batteries are another item for next season.  The port pair, which run house power, are on their last legs.  No crisis this summer, but I did need to use emergency cross over on about 3 occasions to start the port engine.  4 seasons probably isn't bad, considering the sitting over the winter and the heavy abuse from a hot engine room and the fridges running for hours.

I'm half tempted to extend the port batteries to 3 in parallel, stealing one from starboard.  This would require basically replacing all 4 batteries, but I don't think the starboard batteries need replacement.  Although it probably is smart to do them all.  Going with 3 batteries in parallel for port would also require coming up with a pair of short jumper cables to get them connected.

The hardest part about battery replacement is the weight of the batteries, making them weird to get on and off the boat and into the engine room, and of course removing the old ones.

Twice this summer, close but not always exactly after, pumping out the head we had incidents where the vacuum pump ran non-stop.  It self-cured after a period of time, although I did break down and buy a vacuum gauge for troubleshooting and finding potential leaks.  I never got to the point of actually using it, though, as these incidents self-cured.

Getting the TV antenna back on was tough, I spent about an hour trying to fish out the RF cable from the hard top.  I just could not get it out.  I ended up buying a hole saw meant for an impact driver and opened up the mounting hole to about 1.5" and it was easy.  I re-mounted the antenna using a piece of EPDM rubber as a gasket.  I actually bought a HDTV indoor antenna on a lark, and I'm going to see if I can mount this more permanently inside the boat with the idea it might actually work better.

The only other project type thing was making a new bridal for the anchor chain.  The one I had been using was a length of dock line with a snubber, and it was too short.  I made a new one with a length of rope from the old anchor rode.  It still uses the snubber, but the snubber clears the anchor chute so that the load is totally on the anchor chute.  Lynn complains that it's clumsy to work, but it's not that bad.

All in all it was a pretty trouble-free season.

Mid-winter dreams

I've come to think of New Year's as the time to start planning for boating season.   It's a little absurd, because even under the most ideal conditions the boat won't be on the water until at least mid-April and really mid-May is still optimistic.

I don't really have anything substantial to do this year to get ready.  Two years ago I refinished the cockpit teak table and had the foam replaced in the bow sunpad, in addition to making a bunch of phone calls trying to ID a mechanic who had some idea how to diagnose our uneven fuel consumption (answer:  none of them had a clue).

Last year it was refinishing the cockpit carpet backing (again, this time more or less permanently) and then making a new flag staff out of some stainless tubing, and then a last minute updating of the anchor chain to make use of the original 25' of chain from the original anchor and rode setup the boat came with.

This year?  Replacing the bungee line that connects the Lilypad to the boat, as the original from about 5 years ago is badly frayed in spots, and chasing that thing down in the wind is not something I want to do.  And that's already done.

The old one was made with a product called "EZ Splice", which is a kind of clever product that uses a splicing gizmo the line passes through.  Steel pins are driven through it and through the ropes, creating a firm splice a lot more easily than more manual methods (which are probably stronger).  You can only "pin" the bitter end, and you've got a line that will cinch.  An online review as critical, saying the breaking force was substantially less than the line itself, but I don't use it for anything so critical, plus there's no way to manually eye splice half-inch bungee cord, it can't be unwound and re-braided like actual rope.

In making much smaller eyes in much smaller (1/4") bungee, I kind of invented my own method which is a combination of brass nails and Ancor adhesive-lined shrink tubing.  I use two pieces of closely sized tubing, one at the bitter end and one about 3 inches down the line (or roughly 2x whatever eye size you want).  

The heat-shrink glues and gets quite hard on the line.  Next I make the loop, and drive the brass nails through, about 3 per side.  The last couple I've tried to enhance the strength by spiral wrapping stainless wire around each end of the loop and the entire loop in addition to the nails.  Then 1 or two larger size lengths of heat shrink go over the joint.   The spiral wrapping is problematic, as it's kind of hard to get it as snug as I'd like.

Near as I can tell, this makes a pretty strong connection.   Testing the newest one I made for the Lilypad connected to a fixed object and I can stretch the main line of the bungee without any apparent movement in the joint.  The bungee has a slight advantage (over say rope) in that it has give in it, which reduces shock forces which might strain the joint.

Of course, none of this is really meaningful "boat" maintenance -- the bummer with outdoor marina storage in Minnesota is not having access to the boat.  Otherwise I have a laundry list of stuff:

• Sanding and painting the stern and outdrives with copper-free anti-fouling paint
• Replacing the foot switches for the windlass
• Adding an ammeter for the house batteries
• ...and more

Some of this could be done on the water in the marina (other than painting below the water line), but it always competes with summer use or risks some kind of screw-up that might blow a good weekend.

An end to an easy season!

I'm due to make a final trip to Thanks Sweetie to finalize my owner's winter preparation.  I've hauled off all the linens, towels, and dumped all the food and liquids that weren't worth keeping, and the only thing left is removing the wet towels holding the water from defrosting the fridge.  I'll leave two large tubs of damp rid for the marina guys to open when shrinking the boat, and then it's just counting the days until spring again.

This season was pretty remarkably hassle-free.  The Vacu-flush system worked all summer without any issues (besides a little smell from the vent), and no other systems gave me trouble.  I did have a mystery problem at the end of the summer with the electric grill blowing it's fuse, but upon disassembly and tightening electrical connections it started working again.  I had thought maybe the element was cracked, but it wasn't.

I got out a lot during the week this summer, which is really the most magical time because of the glow of sunset.  It was also fun to be out with friends and not my family, a "guy's night" if you will.

We made it to Lord Fletcher's 3 times this summer, with no docking problems -- thankfully we had dock boys to help each time, but my close handling skills seem to also have improved a lot.  We struck out once when we wanted to go because it was packed and there was an hour wait, but really the only loss there is not spending $100 on bar food.

I also did probably a "record" amount of on-plane running this summer.  It's kind of amazing how much smaller the lake is when you can run at 30 mph instead of 8-9 mph.  It feels more than 3x faster.  It uses a crazy amount of gas, and we're out $1600 for about 300 gallons of fuel consumption this summer.

But in many ways, after 7 years of boating on Minnetonka, the lake has shrunk from experience, too.  The north half is kind of gross for swimming (relatively speaking), except maybe in Maxwell Bay and Crystal Bay.  Crystal, though, is a bit of a runway for traffic from Coffee Cove to the Arcola Bridge, so other than the NE corner, not exactly great anchorage.  But really the lake has lost some of the mystery it once had.

We *still* haven't done an overnight on the water, something I still want to do.  It's a ton of compromises, from needing to run the generator for several hours (and all the noise) to killing the fridges for the night so we don't lose the port battery array.

On the subject of the port array, which runs house power, I think we're getting to the end of those batteries.  I haven't had a start failure, but I did have a fairly weak-sounding crank after about 4 hours at anchor with the stereo system running loud.  The stereo sucks a lot of power, so that may have been a bigger issue.  I'm already noodling what's involved in replacing those batteries and how much larger I can go in terms of AGM cells and still fit the battery tray footprint.

Back on the (high) water

Thanks Sweetie is back on the water for the 2019 season, earlier than I expected considering it had been stored off site for the winter to get some needed maintenance complete.

Over the winter we had some longer term and recurring maintenance done that was mostly dependent on a haul-out.  Our marina is capable of only the most basic maintenance, mostly oil and gear lube changes and winterizing and the nearby marina which serves as its preferred shop for more complex engine and mechanical work has stopped being available to other customers besides their own.

We got lucky last year after not being able to get any response from the "preferred" vendor to make a relationship with this year's storage/maintenance facility, Indoor Boat Storage.  They have a really talented mechanic who sorted out our fuel consumption problem (detailed in previous blogs) and it made sense to have them perform some remaining and recurring maintenance -- pull and inspect the drives, replace the drive bellows, the generator exhaust hose, as well as the biannual replacement of water pump impellers on both propulsion engines and the generator.

It was an expensive diversion from the marina's storage, which is inherently cheaper since there's no hauling off site.  Indoor Boat charged more overall and for winterization, but there was no easy way to get the drive service and impeller replacement done at the marina so it was a cost that I had to bear.

I was worried that spring delivery would be late -- the storage facility is 30 miles away, and there's always a mad rush and queue to get boats back into the water, and with ours on the larger side it's a bigger time commitment.  I got lucky and called the same week as ice out and was pleased to get a commitment to deliver the boat on May 4th, within about a week of when the boat would have been back on the water even with on-site storage.

As it turned out, I scheduled this for the same weekend as a trip to Chicago.  This isn't really an issue, the storage people plus the marina can handle the tie-up.  As it happens, the storage people were delayed (and quite apologetic about the delay) and didn't deliver the boat until the Monday following the planned previous Friday delivery.

I didn't mind the delay since I was out of town, and as it happens it worked to our benefit because the snowy February and somewhat rainy spring has the lake level quite high.  This can complicate launch, especially from an off-site delivery which uses a public boat ramp and requires transiting the relatively low bridge in our bay.  The delay of a few dry days allowed a couple of inches of drop in lake levels, insuring channel clearance.

More importantly, it guaranteed we'd fit in under the slip cover.  Out boat is, to borrow a related maritime phrase, "panamaxed" to our slip. ("Panamax" refers to ocean freighters built to the maximum size to clear the Panama canal, which is smaller than many modern ocean freighters).  The slip is 34' x 12' and we are 33' 6" x 10', and the slip cover is proportionate to this.  During normal summer water levels we have about 18" of aerial clearance between the high spot on the boat (TV antenna) and the frame.

But with the lake up nearly 8" at maximum, I was really concerned we'd be risking not fitting under the frame and cover.  This isn't totally fatal, as the frame and cover are removable, but then I lose weather coverage probably incur a fee for removal and reinstallation when water levels went down.

The delay helped here, and the water levels declined and we fit in with just enough clearance.  We had intensive rain two days after delivery, and the lake went up two inches.  I was really concerned we'd start pressing against the canvas cover, but a visit yesterday indicated we have a good 6" before this happens, and then the solution is just to remove the TV antenna and lower the all-around light staff.

Right now we are probably danger close to clipping the TV antenna if we move the boat out of the slip, but with our schedule this weekend and fairly cold weather we won't be taking it out this weekend and hopefully the lake will start dropping again.  The outlet of the lake is into the Minnehaha Creek and the watershed district which controls the dam has been restricting outflow due to the creek running "bank full" and flooding some low lying areas along its path.

With any luck, we'll have dry weather, the watershed district will keep the dam at least at 250 cfm (if not 300 cfm at some point).  Several warm sunny days will also help, driving some evaporation losses as well which will help get the lake back closer to nominal normal water levels, 949.4 ft above sea level.  It's 949.88 at current writing, about 6" over the datum and probably 8-10" over typical summertime levels.

What's nice is that the water levels are my only big worry with the boat this summer, having had nearly all my mechanical issues sorted out.  It doesn't mean the boat isn't without potential projects, but the ones I'd really like to do are way too expensive to ponder for this year -- MFD/sounder replacement, cockpit carpet replacement, and anti-fouling painting of the stern and drives (which requires a haul-out anyway).

I did get some cheap self-service stuff done.  The aging cockpit carpets got their lease on life extended this spring.  The first year I had the boat, the carpet backing, a black rubber coating was crumbling badly.  I sprayed it with "Plasti-Dip" then, which helped encapsulate the rubber and stop the decay.  But spray Plasti-Dip proved frustratingly poor in coverage (I used 4 cans I think), and it was starting to wear.  I discovered the paintable version of Flex Seal, and used it to re-coat the carpet bottoms.  Much better coverage and a more durable, silicone-like rubber which ought to outlast the carpet itself which is pretty worn and hard to get anything like "clean".

The only downside was that the coating shrinks as it cures, and this made the carpet a bit of a pain to get snapped down, requiring a pliers to stretch it to get the snaps snapped.  But it's in, and it should hold up for at least another year or more until we decide if we want to invest in a replacement, which ideally with be an EVA foam like "Sea Deck" which is glued down and semi-permanent. It runs thousands of dollars custom installed, so it will probably be something I will have to do myself with a knock-off version sourced from E-Bay.  But not this year!

The other project I managed to knock out within a week of returning to the water was extending and repainting the anchor chain.  I replaced the original chain and rode combination last year with an all-chain setup, 125' of new 5/16" chain.  It runs much better than the rode through the windless in addition to supplying a pound per foot in weight, which aids in anchoring and anchor hold.

I still had the old rode and 25' chain.   I had cut the rode from the chain and washed it in the washing machine -- it's like new now, but I probably won't ever reinstall it as we have little use for an anchor setup which would exceed 100' of anchor rode, and certainly not a situation where I would need to play out 150' of chain plus any length of rode.  The lake isn't deep enough we'd ever need this, and where it technically might be, we'd never anchor, nor would we anchor out deep enough and in poor weather where such a scope ratio would make sense.

The 25' of chain seemed a waste to throw, but connecting it to the new length of chain in a way that would run through the windlass was a challenge.  Sourcing a machine shop which could weld the links proved difficult, so I thought I'd give a "monkey link" a shot.  These are galvainized half-links of chain which link chain segments, and mate together to form a continuous link.  Small barbs extend through and are hammer peened down to make the link connector solid.  It was kind of a challenge to hold the link on my tiny vise anvil and hit them hard enough with a ball-peen hammer, but I managed to do it and only hit my hand once.

The 125' chain I painted last year got sprayed neon green at 10' intervals, with the last 10' painted neon orange as a warning indicator.   This worked great, with the conceptual error on my part of painting the "first" 10' up to the anchor green as well.  Unless you count closely, you have no visual indicator that the anchor is almost up, it's just another green segment.

So the overall plan was to extend the chain with the original 25' and paint the entire 10' segment closest to the anchor a unique color.  I ended up painting the 25' segment "stop red" and the first 10' of the 125' segment white for contrast.

The real problem with all of this was the need to take the entire chain and anchor off the boat.  The issue was that I had connected the bitter end of the chain with a large stainless caribiner to the anchor eye inside the anchor locker.  When I did this last year, it was a major challenge.  There's an access port, but it's about 8" in diameter and the anchor eye is deep inside the anchor locker, deeper than I could get my arm into.  Some deep frustration, blue tape and a boat hook got it done, but removal seemed impossible.

I bought a "grabber", a tool with a set of jaws and a 4' handle with a grip that activates the jaw thinking I could use it to grab and release the carabiner.  This proved worse than the installation.  I finally got clever, however, and realized if I could get he anchor locker strut removed, I might get my arm another 4" into the locker and be able to actually grab the carabiner with my hand.  It worked like a charm, and I was able to get it released and bring it home.

I applied two coats of paint over the next day, and brought it back to the boat when I went yesterday.  I'm thrilled to report that not only did the monkey link pass through the windlass with no problems, I was also able to easily reconnect the carabiner, reconnect the strut to its mount without losing the screws and it's all back, ship-shape as they say, and it's done for the season or longer, plus I know I can disconnect it at some point in the future when the paint wears off.

I primed the chain where I neon painted it last year, but didn't prime the new paint areas.  The red 25' length will probably never get played out, so the only wear it will see is in the anchor locker, but the white enamel will probably wear quite quickly, and even the primed areas neon painted are wearing, mostly because you can't get a very durable neon spray paint, in addition to the general wear factor of the anchor rollers, water and windlass.  But knowing it can be re-done fairly easily is good.

Other than that, I'm kind of coasting into boating season with everything pretty much ready.  I'm sure the Vacuflush system will give me some kind of trouble this summer.  The toilet-to-pump hose length I think is somewhat permeated, but this is an impossible replacement job.  I've got vague ideas of trying to coat it with Flex Seal or EPDM roof sealant on the inside, but that will be a desperation move and I'm not sure what this would really involve -- probably multiple passes with a rag on a strong pull string to dry the interior, and then pouring the lining liquid into the hose.  The challenge here is probably using up couple of gallons in the process @ $120/gallon, not making a colossal mess doing it, whether you can get it sufficiently coated to the hose interior, and whether it would "work".

But that's not a project for this year, right now it's waiting for the weather and some good boating!

Pinhole problems

We've lost a ton of snow in the last two days, but despite that it's hard to see how we will be back on the water before May with a foot or so of snow still on the ground and the lake likely still iced over pretty thick.

But even so, the mechanics are hard at work, making me even poorer getting the boat back into a known, good state of repair.  I had the drives pulled and other than the starboard trim sensor and some kind of pinhole in the same drive's bellows, the drives are in good shape but will have the bellows replaced.

The generator is getting a new exhaust hose, and everything else in the way of basic maintenance (water impellers) is being done.  So when we finally do hit the water, the boat will be in decent shape and not at risk of any breakdown, especially with all new injectors and the fuel system fixed.

It's still kind of after-the-fact frustrating that I didn't get some of this picked up in the mechanical inspection or have the knowledge to negotiate the likely costs.  Experience is a mean teacher.  I'm definitely going to negotiate this next time -- whatever the price offered is, cut 10% because they expect it/overpriced the boat, and then another 15% to make up for deferred maintenance unless the owner has proof that these items have been done.

I'm not sure my seller would have agreed to cut his price by $25k, but it would have been an interesting negotiation.  The challenge is if he refuses and you have to walk away, the supply of boats of this vintage/quality/hours isn't super high and it would have been tough to find another one.  My guess is he would have given me half of the next 15k.

So expensive

While it was great to finally connect with a mechanic who could fix my fuel consumption problem and address other issues to put us on a glide path to a manageable mechanical status, I'm not realizing how expensive it all is.

I got new fuel modules, fuel lines and fuel injectors out of my engine fuel consumption problem fix, and I'm kind of seeing the $2200 in cost as a bargain compared to some of the cost with a total engine failure or other major mechanical problem.

Where it's getting really expensive was choosing to store the boat off site to have other mechanical issues addressed.  I'm looking at something like $4500 in cost for storage and basic mechanical support (oil and lube changes, some cleaning, etc).  This is normally maybe $3300 at the marina for the same services.

And none of this includes the drive examination or other minor stuff I ticked off to Indoor Boat Storage.  I'm looking forward to being back to Greenwood next year, even though it is probably lesser service.

It all makes me wish I had been more aggressive in my bid for the boat -- even without better more detailed mechanical survey information, I should have looked at the $5,000 list of misc. mechanical items and turned around and asked for another $10k discount to cover what was found and what wasn't found.  I probably wouldn't have gotten it, but might have gotten half of it.

Of course the challenge was what if the guy said no?  Do I just go ahead as I already did or do I walk away and then spend forever finding another boat as nicely equipped and in as relatively good of a condition?

It's kind of the existential problem with buying a boat.

Finally a fuel consumption solution

So we FINALLY gained some explanation for the fuel consumption problem on the starboard engine.

As it turns out, it's a kind-of well understood problem with the Cool Fuel III module (which apparently cools the fuel?).  It has a problem with peeling paint on the inside of the module, which clogs the fuel system and potentially fouls injectors.

My fix involved new injectors (at Mercury's expense), some new fuel hoses to fix cracked fittings and a new fuel system module.  The down side is that the port engine is also vulnerable to this and needs the fuel system module replaced and the injectors (Mercury's expense) to be safe.

I have no idea how deep I am into labor and extra parts for all of this, but the outcome will be engines in very good shape that I shouldn't have to worry about.  I can also run confidently at planing speeds.