New additions to the Hunsinger boat rulebook

1.  From here on out, we shall NEVER let somebody sight unseen handle our boat, move our boat, look funny at our boat.  Never.

Our boat needed to be moved to have the generator replaced and a boat captain (supposedly from Boat US) moved it for us.  They were also SUPPOSED to contact Tim and have a chit chat with him about the boat. Nope,  and evidently said Capt. and/or crew didn’t go to “how to tie off a boat” school because when I got to the boat last night I almost didn’t have a way on.

High tide and the boat is three feet from the dock.  I am tall, but come on folks.

So it turned into a tug boat really hard (my back says, gee thanks) get ladder down, tug really hard again and do this Spider-Man swing maneuver over onto ladder.  Oh, and it’s dark out. NO lights.  I planned for how can I fall in the drink without concussing myself.  Success. Heart rate through roof.

Now, to retie boat.  First, trip over extra dock lines that weren’t stowed away or even nicely coiled up.  Roll my foot on more dock line and power cord, grab for lifeline, but our usually not used gate is WIDE open.  WTF?  Averted going into drink again (one hand for the boat).

Start working on dock lines and evidently our boat mover didn’t go to cleat hitch class either.  I thought I was going to have to involve a marlin spike or knife.  Holy sweet crap, really, really pissed by now.

Now, if a so-called professional captain moves your boat, you’d think he know not to do all these things? Right?

So, from here on out, boat doesn’t move without us knowing the person.

2. Make sure anybody on boat doing work doesn’t think they are doing you a solid by leaving the A/C on.

After finally accessing the boat, get down below, doing my routine fire up the boat. However, A/C pump and salon A/C are on. But, but, but....not working.  Oh, blown breaker, I got this. Get off boat, recheck all connections. Get back on boat.

Realize, oh, they left our A/C on.  While we are not here, so its been running for almost two weeks, which means, the strainer is clogged.  Clogged strainer, pump overheats, shuts down, blows breaker.
Our pedestal is still in dubious working order since the hurricane.

At this point, I am not digging all the crap out of the work room to pull up floor panels to access the thru-hulls.  70 degrees with winds from the north, boat was just fine.

Next morning, I dig out everything and the seacock was CLOSED.  What?  Who the hell is doing work on my boat?  They must have thought they closed the generator seacock, they are same size and side by side, but closed the a/c. Forgot? Who knows.  So, open it up, and yes, despite being closed, it was jammed full of all sorts of nastiness.

Very grateful our a/c pump has a great thermal switch off, it saved it from burning up, and possibly burning the boat down.

Moral of this story: Leave note that a/c does NOT remain on after job is finished.

Ironically, all that work, and I haven’t been running the a/c (Tim not on boat obviously....)

Generator replacement

Earlier in the week,  Tim was fretting about the removal of the old generator.  Evidently it would be going through the work room, the back head, our cabin, the galley and out.  All sorts of protection and ramps would need to be built.

I say.....why aren't you taking out through the floor?  The floor panel unscrews right there.

Tim replied that he and 'the guys' didn't think it would work, because of the seating area cabinetry.  I say...really? Did you even try?  So, I popped over to the floor board in question, tell my helpful assistant to get me a short flat head and Phillips screwdriver and with the gentle coaching from my assistant of "DON'T STRIP THE SCREWS!" I removed the floorboard.

Well, lookee there, Cap'n. Score one for blondie.

So, after the initial 'oh that will never work' hurdle was jumped, Tim took back over to create his instructions and ideas on how to hoist that monster out of there.  Much easier than ramps, and woodwork protection throughout the entire boat.  Once we planned to removed the bracing bar and the salon table, et voila!

Enter new, Mr. Generator Sir.  We switched from Fischer Panda to Northern Lights. Newer model also means newer technology to help prevent corrosion, something the older FP didn't have.

In she goes!

So, next hurricane that rolls around, no excuse for not having A/C when its 1000 degrees out and no breeze!  :-)

We came, we saw, and we left the boat looking like this..(again)

Went down to Key West for a less hectic visit.  Put some things back together, checked other things out that we thought were NOT working, but were.  Did some more disaster tourism.

Not very eventful.

But the generator has officially shot craps.  It had many years with little to no maintenance so we tried desperately to keep her rolling with corrosion removal and new hoses, but it wasn't to be.  We could have sent off the coil to be rewound, but that would be a very expensive patch on something that wasn't showing much promise.

Not having a generator is an absolutely no go for Tim, so, generator replacement here we come.  Now--if we were truly shitty, dishonest people, I'm sure we could have found a shitty dishonest claims adjuster to say this happened because of Irma. But we are not, so we won't.

..and DON'T get me started on certain people in our marina who are making claims on their boats that they DID NOT PREP FOR.  They were excited because they found their dinghy a month later.  It was left on the deck of their boat and I'm sure when it flew off it probably came close to colliding with our davits.  Not to mention the pieces of isinglass we cleaned up off our deck.

GRRRR. I think if you didn't follow your hurricane plan, you don't get money. But that's just me.

But, as usual, I digress.....

So, before we left, we had to get boat prepped for moving it to the next marina and generator.  So, the spider's web of dock lines got removed, canvas and cushions moved to berths, all the fun stuff.