It's mid-summer already. The mostly good news is that everything has basically worked.
- Fuel consumption is still a problem -- starboard engine continues to burn about 35% more fuel than port. Worse, we've had the engine stall three times within about 10 minutes of startup.
- The first time happened when we got caught in a horrible rain storm, which was pretty scary because we were in about the biggest water on the lake. It seemed like it wouldn't restart at all, but that was because I had the engine in gear and in the chaos of the rain I didn't think about that.
- The second time happened after raising anchor in a calm, secluded bay and the engine restarted and ran fine right away because I knew to make sure it was in neutral.
- The third time was in the same bay, and it would start but stall right away. It finally restarted and ran, but not until we had to clear a channel and get into another bay.
- The stalling is a major annoyance because we get power steering via starboard engine and running on one engine is a bear by itself, let alone without power steering.
STILL WAITING for service at the "neighborhood" maintenance provider preferred by our marina. We had a late ice-out and they were delayed launching boats (or so they said) and couldn't provide an estimate of any time. I finally broke down and called the marina to complain, they said they would call and see what they could find out. I feel like I will ultimately have to switch providers if I don't get service. I know there can be delays, but I feel like a year to get reasonable maintenance response is a big problem.
- I started to dig into the stereo to find out why the factory AUX port didn't play in the cockpit. That was a major hassle that didn't get anywhere. I did find out that the entire control panel needs some level of disassembly, including 12v and 110 panels, if you want to do any maintenance. I can get the head unit out, but DVD and CD changers are mounted in a way that makes them non-removable without a major disassembly project.
Of course I found out the hard way that pulling out the head unit also unplugged the antenna whose cable is too short to plug back in and slide the head unit back in. I had to buy a short extension cable to reconnect it (and spend 2 hours finagling to try to fix it without it).
I also managed to somehow disconnect the in-cabin speakers, but that's not really a problem at this point. I did rig up another AUX port using an extension cable (3.5mm <-> RCA) and now it plays in the cockpit, the why escapes me.
- The biggest win has been replacing the chain and rode setup with all chain. Not without its frustrations, the first length of chain was short by 35+ feet and required shipping it back and delaying replacement by a week. I finally got the right length, painted 10' depth markings with fluorescent green pain over self-etching primer and the last 10' in orange.
The only two mistakes I made -- not securing the bitter end of the chain inside the anchor locker initially. My son decided to "try" the hand crank for the windlass, ended up loosening it and dumping 35' of chain before I stopped it and tightened it back up. I could have lost the entire chain & anchor! I got a big stainless carabiner and secured the chain to the in-locker D-ring, which was a funky bit of engineering because you can't reach the D-ring through the access port. Securing it was sort of a strategic error, I should have re-purposed the original 25' length to the D ring and then used a monkey link to link the 25' to the 125'. Now I have a real hassle if I want to disconnect the chain. Fortunately, I can't see why I would want to.
And the good news is that the windlass runs GREAT on all chain, no more jamming like the rode used to do. And the chain holds so much better, and even my home-brew anchor snubber works fine. A short length of 5/16" dock line extra-wrapped around a snubber with a carabiner to attach to the chain once the anchor is dropped. Takes the load off the windlass, and my anchor crew seems to get it.
- The toilet system has worked great. Pump outs work, and the toilet flushes fine. I have started to see some slight (every hour or so) loss of vacuum resulting in a vacuum pump cycle, but it stops on its own. I picked up some spare duck bills and gaskets in case it gets worse. It shouldn't require more than that unless the factory toilet->tank hose has started to rot (which it probably has, but not bad enough to be a problem.) Actually using the toilet probably inhibits rot by keeping it wet and plugging any permeation.
- The fridges, old and new, keep on keeping cold. No problems, which is great. Those things are spendy and a pain to install. I expect the cockpit one will quit eventually, but so far so good.
- We still haven't anchored out all night yet, but it's kind of nice having all-night air conditioning at the slip with shore power. It's been a hot summer and I'm not sold on long-term generator run time and at-anchor AC. I did make a "screen door" for the cabin. It's hokey, but it would work.
