Winter round-up

It seems kind of weird, but it's time to start thinking BOATING! again, even though we just got through with 2 weeks of sub-zero temperatures and have another 5 days or so of more coming.

• I have been refinishing the cockpit table.  It was worn but has cleaned up nicely.  I made a huge mistake, actually a couple, when refinishing it.  The first was refinishing the top first, and this one was made worse by the second, not separating the halves of the table when refinishing it.  I ended up with some ooze on the front which required some re-sanding and re-application of a couple of more coats of varnish.  Fortunately it will just be a minor hassle and will still look quite nice.
• I brought the sunpad cushion home with the idea of replacing the foam, which seems to have lost some cushion and is probably dry rotting a bit.  Lynn and I discussed replacing it outright with a new pad, cut larger to cover more of the bow.  I suspect this will be really expensive, although it would give us a larger cushioned area.
• I will probably replace the anchor line/chain combo we have now with 100' of chain.  I'd like more than 100', but most of our anchorages are 30' or less and we can get away with 2-2.5:1 scope with our current chain and rode setup, and probably closer to just 2:1 when the total tackle package weighs in around 90 pounds.  The overthink with this is whether to add the original 25' chain to the end of the 100' link by having a link cut and welded or whether to add 25-50' of rode at the end.  This would give me 125' of all-chain.
• Considering bottom paint -- the existing bottom paint is shot, and with the problem of zebra mussles in the bay it probably makes sense to have the bottom painted with anti-fouling paint to minimize this.  I think the outdrives should also get painted.  Downside (besides the outdrives) is expensive and time consuming.
• Probably not going to look further into a raw water pump washdown system, at least not a fixed installed one, this year.  The through-hull aspect is complex and probably expensive to have installed.  I may look at buying the pump and making some kind of enclosure for it, though, as fresh water for cleaning would be nice.
• I would still like the MFD upgrade to get mapping, depth/temperature and engine data.  Working with the guy I found has been impossible, he doesn't know the products well. It's also expensive, but the right way to do it is probably a Mercury data interface and two MFD displays from what I can tell.  Punt to 2019.
• Stereo upgrade?  It would be kind of nice to have bluetooth ability.  This isn't necessarily impossible, as it's reasonably priced and within my skillset.
• Carpets -- they still look like shit, but at least the backing is intact after coating with plasti-dip last season.  Would like some kind of sea-deck solution but will probably do nothing for this year.
• What I probably WILL do is pay money to Bayside for a more thorough investigation my boat's fuel consumption and get them to do a test drive as well.  I need to contact them soon so I can get this scheduled.

Fall round-up

It's been a while since I updated, and since we're pretty close to the end of the season, I thought I'd wrap up what's been done and what the current issues are and what expectations have and haven't been met.

• The pump out hose replacement got completed.  It was a chore getting the old hose off the fittings -- a combination of scraping with an old knife and cutting the spiral wire was required, essentially cutting the hose loose.  The old hose had visible dry rot cracking, which I'm hoping the toilet-to-tank hose does NOT have as that hose will be very, very difficult to replace considering its routing.  The new hose is vastly superior in flexibility and ease of use and the first test of pump out was a success.|
  
• The latest "big" problem is the asymmetrical fuel consumption between port and starboard engines.  The starboard engine is consuming 50% more fuel than port, confirmed by a second full fueling that showed 61.5 gallons added starboard, and 41.3 gallons port.
  
  I made a service call to the nearby marine mechanics who couldn't provide an explanation.  They didn't put more than an hour into it, but they were able to exclude any problems associated with leakage or engine malfunction codes from the engine computer.  I don't have an obvious engine malfunction that's causing this problem, but I don't have a very good theory as to why its happening.
  
  The leading contender I have is the deferred outdrive maintenance (mild dings in props and skegs) leading to inefficient prop loading.  The steering wheel is not centered when running straight, either, and this could be evidence of this as well in addition to contributing to greater starboard engine load (or could just be a cosmetic misalignment between the wheel position and the steering mechanism caused by cable stretching).   I plan to get detailed photos of the outdrives and props at haul out and have that work done, steering alignment checked to see if it has any effect, but probably none of it will be done until spring.
  
• The galley fridge failed about a month after installing it.  I replaced it with the same model against my better judgement, but there just weren't many choices easily available or known to fit the cabinetry or cabin entry.   We had a brief panic 3 weeks ago when it appeared to stop working *again*, but we're not sure what caused it as the cockpit fridge was partially defrosted.  The new fridge returned to normal function, so hopefully it will continue working.
  
• Never did any of my battery monitoring projects.  A lot of my labor and money bandwidth went into fixing broken items (vacuflush pump, pumpout hose, refrigerator, new TV).  I'd also call the mystery of fishing wire to the helm a big part of it.   Until we start overnighting on the lake, our use cases seem to make it less useful.
  
• Never overnighted on the lake itself.  I feel somewhat disappointed by this, but it's easy to see why we didn't.  One, the dog.  If the dog is with us, he has to have access to shore for potty breaks.  Two, the slip gives us power for air conditioning.  We could run the generator for that, but it's noisier than we expected and probably not a great idea overnight.  Three, there's a certain convenience to access to land -- groceries, restaurants, etc.
  
• Never got updates maps for the navigation system.  The local "marine electronics expert" has been frustrating to deal with -- hard to get ahold of and worse, hard to talk to.  Doesn't give me options I want and does a bad job explaining the difference between products.

Out of the toilet, into the bilge

If it's not one thing it's another.   During an otherwise uneventful Saturday cruise I began noticing sewage odor.  I kind of thought it was the result of not using the blue formaldehyde deodorant at pump out (I had ordered the sewage dissolving kind from Amazon and didn't apply it until that same Saturday).

Once everyone was off the boat, though, I got the ugly reality -- the septic tank had filled and had discharged into the bilge (I'm not sure how just yet).

I came back early the next morning and brought the boat to the gas/pumpout dock and found out what I had kind of suspected -- my previous 2 pump outs didn't actually pump anything out.  The pump out is drawing air, you can hear it hiss as it tries.  I pulled the fitting normally for the macerator discharge and we managed to get the pumpout hose into the tank itself and drew out about half so it's not totally full.

So the hose between septic tank and pumpout needs to be replaced.  The challenge here is access to the back of the pump out fitting on the hull.  The hose snakes up behind a bulkhead over the port gas tank, so it's not reachable at all from the engine room.

My first idea was to pull the hull fitting and pull the hose out, but after talking with Bob at Bayside Marine that sounds like a non-starter.  The cutout is likely no larger than the fitting barb (about 1.5", the ID of the hose), meaning neither the hose nor the hose clamps would clear the opening.

After looking at pictures, it appears the fitting is behind the wet bar.  The hope right now is that there is an access panel behind some part of the cockpit wet bar setup, either behind the garbage cabinet or behind the fridge that will allow access to the hull and this fitting to disconnect the hose.

If I can get access through there, it should be doable.  If not, off to the boat yard it goes for repairs, which include a variety of options including widening the cutout with some kind of access panel with the fitting over it or possibly relocating it with a new hull fitting.

Of course we're not out of the woods yet with a new hose alone.  Even if that solves the pumpout issue, I'm worried the septic tank itself is compromised somehow via ovepressure, because I don't have a great explanation as to where all the sewage came from.  Leaking from fittings alone doesn't explain it in my mind, so I think there will have to be some post-hose testing with food coloring to check for leaking.

Update:  7/12/2016

I went out Monday and indeed there is an access panel behind the cockpit fridge that allows access to the pumpout fitting and hose.

I reviewed the hose choices and went with Raritan SaniFlex, and I should have a 10' length arriving tomorrow.  I also stopped by West Marine and bought new stainless hose clamps (4) for clamping the hose to the fittings.  I was also cursed into buying the extremely overpriced Sealand vent filter from West Marine -- I've surely fouled the AirForce knockoff I bought from Amazon and Amazon was out of stock until August.  But I plan to rehab the AirForce as a backup, and I wish I had kept the one I tossed when I rebuilt the vacuum pump.

The other good news is there was no new sign of leakage, almost no odor in the bilge (the slightest trace, which I assume is just because the whole thing wasn't fully washed) and a test flush of the head didn't produce any leaks and did produce proper pumping action.

I suspect the replacement task will be putzy, but not hard in any sense.  As I see the biggest wildcard will be removing the old hose from fittings and the boat and getting the just right length of new hose.  I'm not sure how exactly to cut it, I think I will need to use a hacksaw.

Generating some anxiety

One of the desired features I wanted in a boat was a generator -- it makes long anchorages more practical from a power perspective and provides power for higher power accessories like air conditioning and normal 110 volt appliances.

We got lucky and our 310DA has a generator, a Kohler 5ECD, but it didn't come with the generator noise shield and we're finding it to be louder than we'd like.  From what I can tell, the noise is actually engine running noise and not exhaust noise.  The noise from the exhaust is muffled by the "wet" exhaust system which mixes exhaust gasses and raw cooling water and is generally acceptable.

From what I've been able to determine, there's two solutions.  One is an aftermarket sound shield, a custom-sized "soft" frame-based structure that surrounds the generator and muffles the noise.  The other is the Kohler OEM sound shield.

The aftermarket solution is $1250 plus my labor to install it.  It has a number of challenges, mostly correctly marking the openings necessary to accommodate the inputs and outputs and then the challenge of mounting it.  The manufacturer also says the generator should be mounted on a separate base to effectively isolate noise.  While there is a pan underneath mine, I don't think it's mounted on any separate mounting point.

(As an aside, I often find myself wishing I had photos of these things when I don't, and think to myself I need to just take a 5 minute detailed video of the engine room, slowly panning over everything.  This way I will get at least a glimpse of something I'm thinking about if not a decent still I can extract.)

As it happens, the OEM sound shield is still available from Kohler but it's extremely expensive, over $2000 and probably half that to retrofit it to the boat.

Finally done fixing?

Are we finally done fixing?

The new fridge went into the cabin last weekend.  It was pretty simple and straightforward, with the most complex part finding which orgami-like orientation would get it through the cabin door.  It fit, but I mean barely.

It also fit the cabinet opening...kind of.  Width and height wise it was a perfect fit, however it's "too deep" by about an inch.  The fridge ships with flanges meant to secure it to the cabin opening (the parts saved from the old fridge were not needed), and these stick out about an inch, maybe a little less.  I just used longer screws to secure it for now.  I will probably make some kind of trim pieces to fill in the gaps.

What's annoying about this is that there doesn't seem to be a standard for marine appliance sizes.  The old fridge (Norcold DE0051) had a sloped bit at the back of it, and it's like Sea Ray designed the cabinet to fit the fridge, taking into account the slope, as if all fridges ever made would have this kind of unusual shape.  It'd be nice if Norcold recognized this kind of variation and made the flanges adjustable in some way front-rear to take into account variations in depth.

Anyway, at this point EVERYTHING in the boat works, with the caveat that we haven't used the hot water heater and my son broke the coffee maker carafe.  How long will this last?

Anyway, now I can move on to either just using the boat or tackling some other more minor items.

• Replacing the factory CO detector.  It's expired, and while I have two home models in the boat, the factory one needs to be replaced to be legally compliant and for general good sense.  The cover comes off easily, but's not obvious how the rest of it is removed.  No visible screws or attachments.
• Need to get the all-around light fixture bulb replaced with an LED so we don't drain the battery if we anchor out all night.  This will require a ladder or collapsing the bimini to get to it, or maybe both.
• The stereo needs some investigation.  Previous owners added some weird dimmer control that does some weird fading which I think has altered the stereo output, and a side effect is that aux in doesn't play in the cockpit.  This is a big job involving pulling out the stereo and sorting out the outputs.
• TV reception is pretty crappy.  Need to sort out where any amp is, is it working, and other mysteries of RF cabling.  Like the stereo, this may involve MCP loosening and pull out to see what's behind there.

The electrical front specifically:

• Still dreaming of Balmar Smartguage battery monitoring and possibly ammeter setup.  I think the wire route to the cabin goes through a PVC pipe (helpfully foamed up with expanding foam).  Need to confirm this (and the viability of punching through the foam without wrecking anything).
• I'm feeling newly enthused about adding solar to the top of the bimini, with a partial attachment for structural integrity to the radar arch.  Some challenges include the right panel with the right dimensions, enough output to be worthwhile (I'm thinking 5 amps), how messy wire routing would be, panel weight, and the Lego mess of mounting frame and hardware.

Fantasy projects -- these are things that I'd like to do, but complexity and cost make them more challenging:

• New MFP/chartplotter and sonar.  Found a local guy who knows it all and have talked to them.  Need to narrow down brands and how much junk I can afford to add.  I will probably be selling off my reloading gear to finance it.
• Tapping the air conditioning raw water supply and adding a washdown pump plumbed to the fresh water spigot.  This would make a lot of boat washing tasks much simpler. The challenge is finding the right fittings to split the supply.

Mechanical projects:

• I think I really do need the prop and skeg work MarineMax recommended.  I find that my steering isn't as true as it could be, although some of this may just be never being able to perfectly balance engine RPMs.  It's not really an issue until you get to planing speeds.  I'll wait on this until the off season.

Anyway, I guess we're never done with stuff to do.  I'm sure the cockpit fridge will eventually crap out, for example.

It does highlight my bargaining problems.  I probably should have bargained higher when I bought the boat, asking for another $10k in concessions to offset the $7k I put into it and the other unexpected stuff (most of which has been relatively cheap and easy).  Live and learn, I will add this to my book of knowledge if there's a next time around.

This fixing business is getting silly

Last Saturday we had our first real summer day on the boat -- it was hot, the water was warm enough for swimming, and it was like you want it to be and at the end of the day I noticed that the VacuFlush head had no vacuum.  After double-checking the obvious, I went into the engine room and sure enough the vacuum pump motor is running...and not stopping.

So I shut it off and dived into the Internet to sort out what to do.  I'd known, sort of, that the system's rubber "duck bill" valves were wear items and could cause vacuum problems.  My research suggested both duck bills and pump bellows (they can dry out and crack over time).  I ended up ordering a rebuild kit with duckbills, bellows, and O-rings and tracked down some decent exploded diagrams so I'd know how it all went together.

The repair was easy enough, although it took about 2 hours to do, mainly slowed by the difficulty in separating the motor from the eccentric crank and removing the bellows bolt.  The motor shaft and eccentric are held together with a set screw, which was really tough to loosen.  The bolt wouldn't budge at all without being put in a vise to allow enough torque.  I think the motor should have a keyed shaft and the eccentric a matching key slot; this would simplify removal.

It was also less messy, so I'm assuming the system worked well, longer than I thought, before it quit.  No goopy solids, although enough residual crud to make it kind of gross.  Lots of nitrile gloves and shop rags.

I will say this fixing business has gotten out of hand, though!   The good news is the VacuFlush is fixed.

I also took out the broken fridge.  Came out easy, but there was a moment of panic until I realized I needed to remove the door to get it out of the cabin.  I set aside the "feet" it sets on the and flange assembly, they may be added Sea Ray parts not on the fridge from the OEM.

The new fridge is in at West Marine, so with any luck I'll have it put in this weekend.

Then will we be done with fixing for a while???

First weekend of summer

It's been a month and a half since the boat went in and there's a lot to update.

Fixes complete:

• The spotlight -- I finally got it fixed.  When I dug into it the first time, I learned a few things.  One, there's an inline fuse for the spotlight, a 10A automotive-type tube fuse, which I managed to blow by shorting out the power leads.  Two, this thing is poorly sealed and the connections were pretty corroded.  This did fix the up motion on the spotlight, so I at least had both axis of rotation working.  After cleaning the connections, I thought I had good voltage at the light itself, but since there was still no light I assumed the bulb was bad.  I tracked down a replacement cheap on the internet ($30 vs. $85 for the same bulb from Marinco).  Still no light, and when bench tested (why didn't I do this first?) the old bulb still works.
  
  The second time, I finally had the brains to short the hot lead directly to the spot & flood circuits and the light lit, which meant the switch was bad.  Tracked down a replacement switch and got it replaced.  The replacement is lighted like the old one, but required shorting power and the illumination lead with a jumper since the original control package has no separate power lead for the switch light, as the OEM switch is connected internally.
  
• Water system -- That's fixed and works fine now.  I was sucking air on the input side.  The pump had been replaced in about 2010 or so, based on the manufacture date of the pump.  It has a mesh filter inline on the suction side to keep tank silt out of the lines.  It's integral to the fitting, but the way the pump was mounted you couldn't fully tighten the fitting without the filter getting in the way.  I moved the pump about 1/2" so the filter could clear the mounting surface and once tightened water flow returned to normal.
  
• Squeaky Belt -- this was a dodged bullet!  We lost a bolt from the bracket on the belt tensioner pulley.  I retensioned the belt with no effect on squeaking.  My marina owner came out and listened and found both the bolt missing and found the bolt.  We got it back on and the squeak went away.  I'm glad this was easy, because we could have lost a belt and had some real problems.
  
• New TV installed -- I put in a new 32" flat panel TV.  This was mostly straightforward and I was pleased that we generally get broadcast channels, although reception can be dicey.  Sorting out reception means seeing if we have the amplifier the parts diagrams says we have and what kind of shape the cabling connections are in.  It may be that the existing antenna (and amp, if it exists) just aren't great for DTV broadcast, but sorting this means getting behind the main panel which is not trivial and right now is a lower priority.
  
• Rug life extension -- Our poor cockpit rugs are kind of gross, and when I lifted them to clean some dead bugs discovered I'm suffering from the dreaded disintegration of the backing.  I took them off the boat and coated the backs with 6 cans of white Plasti-Dip rubber spray.  This should encapsulate the backing and provide a more durable wear surface.  6 cans should be workable coverage, but just barely.  I discovered too late that I should have used the "paint on" variety for thicker coverage, and more likely, I should have used a white elastomer roof sealant.  But what I ended up with seem decent, and the rugs got a good scrubbing with a hose and detergent, so they are about as clean as they will ever get.  We'll get at least a season out of them before eventual replacement with SeaDek or some other flooring.
  
• Grill element replaced -- this fixed the grill, and we have enjoyed burgers off it at anchor. It works slick and will be a great way to make hot food on the boat.
  
• Pending fixes -- the icebox/fridge in the cabin had the door fall off.  The door pin sockets pulled out of the door.  I think I can fix them with some epoxy.  I ordered a replacement fridge for the cockpit, which ought to be an interesting installation.  In theory it should fit as the dimensions are identical to the original and its from the same vendor, but I suspect some fitting will be required.
  

Overall, it's been a good experience.  We've been mostly cruising at about 9 mph, which keeps fuel burn low.  This speed was impossible in the Yamaha, especially on open water.  It was kind of a plowing speed on that hull, and we got beat up bad in open water.  But this boat's size, power and hull make that speed stable and easy to manage, and I generally prefer cruising slow for the scenery and lack of noise/wind.

This weekend it's projected to be in the high 90s, which means the lake should be warm enough for swimming and give us a real taste of what summer on this boat should be like.