Solving the curious case of the creeping crud

First of all, I do NOT recommend Category 4 hurricanes as a diagnostic tool.  But that being said, we would never probably have discovered this problem without 100mph winds and torrential rains.

Our first suspicion had been hatches, we have two in the general area, but after those were replace and we had a few more tests by thunderstorm, we knew it was still there.

So that means tearing apart the boat.  Shit.

Off goes the cabinetry, the veneer, all of our crap (back berth, our living quarters) and there it was, a little bitty crack in the sealant at the deck/hull joint.  Top sides there was a little bitty gap at our built in chock.

But at least we found it.

Diagram provided by Jorg--boat builder/fixer extraordinaire.

Gap on deck.

The Curious Case of the Creeping Crud

A month or so after Irma, we were down to our routine checking in on boat and putting Humpty Dumpty back together and I noticed a very ominous stain in the wood veneer of our back cabin.

Oh, crap.

We's got a big leak.  I placed painter's tape to mark the boundaries so we could see if it was done or it expanded.

The veneer never felt wet, but over the next few months we notice it would expand/morph/move.  A couple of big thunderstorms had moved through during that time, so we new more water was getting in but how.

The obvious suspect was the portholes, so that's what we went after first.

When we first noticed, the stain was around the corner and also down to where the tape was.

I've encounter wood stains/rot/mildew, but this is just weird.

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.

From the 'oh, bugger me' files

Our boat has three a/c units. Never do we run all three at once, even with guests aboard.

But, last night, in the middle of the night the breaker to these a/c units kept tripping.

On a boat, if you have something electrical that keeps tripping, be concerned first and then very concerned soon after.

Nothing will ruin a cruise like a boat on fire.

Tim turned on the generator and started running a/c from it (bypassing the shore power breaker).

And yes, no breeze, 90 degrees and mosquitos from hell, we were running our a/c.

So, diagnostics begins.  First start at the scene of the crime....the breaker and whoops, there it is!
Fried wiring on the breaker.  Looks like the connection had worked loose, and when you have a high load situation and loose wiring, it's a gonna heat up in a hurry.  Bad, bad news.

Luckily, (on a Sunday, and a holiday to boot!) we were able to get a guy over to rewire it to get us through this trip and we'll get it totally rewired and redone later.  When we are not here, we don't run any high load items.

Moral of story, make sure all wiring connections on boat are clean, tight and not overheating.

you can see the scorch on the left side of the pic

List from hell update

Generator:
Not as bad as we thought.

But on pins and needles while we waited for Keys Disease to sort itself out with the guy who was to look at our generator.

Finally, our hero and boat guru extradonaire, Boat George tackled the problem himself.  And since he has some serious mad skills---fixed our generator.

There really is not enough money in the world to have this guy in our corner. 

The heat exchanger header was leaking and the bolts stripped.  Previous asshat owner used some sort of silicone to try to seal it and it did not work.  So as it gave out it started leaking saltwater, thus corroding crap until we tested it and voila.  Alarms go off and genset shuts down.

Below are the before and after pictures of what it looked like.

The silicone used instead of proper gasket.  (grrrrrrr)

After soaking and cleaning.

Reinstalled on the generator.  The threads for bolting it back on also had to be fixed
since they were stripped.

And speaking of stripped threads, we had to have the ones on our water tank fixed so that we could properly install the new tank indicator on the one tank.  Got tired of it saying full and then run out of water in the middle of our shower.


We don't know what to do about dear old Zeus.  The marina didn't want it sitting in front of the boat so they placed it in the barn for us.  

LED lights

We finally, got the lights replaced this trip. No small feat considering there's over 40+ lights on the boat.

However, in replacing them we found an oh so important reason to get non-halogen lights on the boat. If you haven't replace them yet, make sure you at least replace the one in your engine compartment.

Another thing we learned is the rheostat (#fancywordforlightdimmer) cannot make LEDs go completely out, so Tim installed an on/off switch for the salon.

He also supplied my galley and my vanity light with a bit brighter LEDs. What a guy.

My job: Sort and unwrap.

The old halogens with our melted cover from engine room.

Close up of how plastic had melted--oh, did I mention? ENGINE ROOM.

List from hell

Here's the list after we took our first blue water sail.  Holy crap.  However, some of this list started before we ever left the dock.  I will address some of this in posts to follow.  See below for what we hammered out.

Generator:  Tim tested it in the dock and it ran for 5 minutes, sputtered and crapped out.  Then we got what every boat owner wants to see:  Water leak alarm on the generator panel.  So, we gots Mr. Generator put to bed.  Just found out today that there was a crap ass silicone 'patch' on the generator that failed and there's a lot of corrosion and dry hose.  So, if we had ran it, we most likely would have set the boat on fire. F*($k. We didn't, but now we have some big B.O.A.T. units to shell out to fix this problem.

OC tender:  To take a line from the musical Hamilton.  "You married a Icarus, and he's flown to close to the sun."  My boy dreamed big, but he dreamed bigger than what the little tender could handle.  So Zeus is dead.  (Pulp Fiction: Zed's dead, baby)  The the combination of the attachment points to the davits and the weight in the dinghy-and possibly the Key West summer heat-Zeus suffered some serious structural distortion.  If we had tried to keep her on the davits, even without the weight of the Torqeedo batteries, she would have shredded on our way to the Dry Tortugas.  Thankfully we didn't get rid of Tiny Dancer or the other Torqeedo yet, so we got them rigged up.

Senders:  Waste tank sender already fixed, it got stuck.  Water sender has bad threading and we can't get it fitted to our tank, so we will get it grinded to right threading or they will send new one.

Stern light: We replaced our nav lights with LEDs just to find out that now, they are always lit.  Long story short-because I am not the electrical guru on the boat.  The diode that leads from the main power switch of the electrical panel to the nav lights went bad, so there was a constant short that provided enough ampage to power an LED light.  Got that? No? Yeah. Email Tim if you want more info.  However, it got fixed after we got back, and Sparky is so proud of himself of that.  I got to sit at the back of the boat like a jackass going, IT'S ON, IT'S OFF, IT'S ON, IT'S OFF.

All things anchor: More details in a bit, but remote is bad, snubber needs upgraded, and where the chain meets nylon rode is not good. As in, jams up the windlass not good.

Propane/stove:  Tim installed new sensors for propane in the galley.  It's either placement or sensitivity, but the damn thing would go off as soon as I tried to cook.  So, I get something started in the oven, start the stove. BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP and it does its job by killing the gas, but then I have to restart everything.  By now, the stove has had a bit of a build up of propane, so I'd open it and it would set off the sensor again.  Newly invented cuss words during cooking on the hook this time.  Generator shot, so no microwave.

I think the one thing is Front spot light, and more on that later.

Evidently, we thought we were buying a boat to go explore, but apparently its to practice....

....our skills in carpentry, electronics, plumbing, you name it.

We were THIS close to getting our boat fixed up and ready for the season when I get the call....hey, Kim, at the marina, the boat next to you got struck by lightning.  Just thought you'd want to know.
(Side note: By season, we mean thumbing our nose at potential hurricane threat)

#(*@&#

Tim was already heading down to put the final touches on some other projects, so he bumped up the trip by a day to see a) how bad the damage could be for us and b) deal with insurance if needed.

Turns out it could have been worse.  We did have to replace the control unit for the auto pilot, replace some wiring on the the thruster and replace thruster control.  Oh, the big thing was the comms network between the inside station and the cockpit was fired.  Since it was a combo of the old Raymarine Seatalk and NMEA 2000 it was sort of blessing to get it all NMEA now.

But as we have learned from our Hunter lightning strike....it's the ghost in the machine that can bite you in the butt.

Besides the step aside for lightning, the latest boat updates:
New windlass
Rebedded the midship cleats (well, we didn't, our awesome buddy Jorg did)
New dinghy
New propane sensors/alarms, one in galley and one in lazarette,  all remote connected, so if something goes weird, propane gets shut off
FINALLY GOT OUR MMSI!

...and there's tons other stuff, but since I can't get my Chief Engineer to write them down, there's no way I can remember.

New boarding ladder

I'm just going to sit here, drink a glass of wine and post random crap for the next hour.

Are ya in? 

We got a new boarding ladder built for us. Super sturdy and with a full rubber backed bar to brace against the boat instead of two points.

The scratching and gouging has gone way down, the other one was crap.

Added feature is that it folds up and is secured flush with the lifelines.  Nothing to get tangled in or trip over.  Love it.

Aft boarding ladder improvements

When the previous owner painted the boat, he had some brainy idea that the stern scoop non skid should be painted with awl grip.  Because that has as much traction as glycerin on ice.  Dumbass.

The ladder itself is just a series of rungs with no step or nonskid either, besides the foot cramp I get going up the ladder, not happy about the safety.

When you got off the ladder, there's an area of the boat with NO nonskid, just flat and slippery.

We had to fix that, pronto.  (remember, I break ME, not the boat)

So, we added some nonskid and a step to help the process out. MUCH better.

The transom scoop with nonskid added.

New dead sexy step, which makes handling dinghy easier also.

Non-skid tape added to rungs.

More non-skid painted on slippery deck area.

Final update on previously mentioned projects.

Heads--are awesome.  No more pumping a handle 15 times to find that it didn't flush.  The build work that George did is fabulous and looks like it was always part of the boat. The man is a fiberglass god.

As I might have previously mentioned, the day head can also convert to be salt water, manual flush, so backup plan is in place.

Some experimenting with how the heads use up our fresh water supply (no water maker--yet), doing good, the holding tanks fill up before we make a dent in the water.  Not a problem if we are in open water, because we'll be set to pump and dump.

Fridge--We we first started the nonsense with the fridge (previous post) , we thought it was not enough refrigerant.  So after a while with the new (and most awesome) thermostat, we called the guy that runs the service department at the marina, sure enough, needed refrigerant.  So he charges it and also shows us how to charge it ourselves.  YAY.

Now--now we have a fridge and freezer that works TOO well, as our last trip testified with frozen stuff in the fridge.  When we are on the hook it helps to place a towel over our fridge to help with condensation, but those suckers work with authority now.

Window/Port work on Elysium

After a good steady squall through Key West, we discovered that Elysium has a pretty hefty leak in her saloon windows.  After conversations with the fellow Southerly owners across the pond, we determined we were part of the lucky bunch that had inadequate sealant/installation of our glass.

We need to rebed these suckers pronto, so start dispensing more BOAT units to find a repair person.

As I mentioned before we did find a person to do it, and he's been METICULOUS.  Totally against the normal Keys Disease help you find.  So Boat George pulled the first window--which was problematic--to find that it had been rebedded before, but poorly.  So we call the previous owner with a WTF?  He said yes he had it done.

Not very well, it appears.  Our guy discovers after he cleaned it all off that the glass is fitting almost EXACTLY into the cutout it was designed for-which made he and Tim go UUUUUGGGGGGHHHH.

What? What!  So George and my husband (who restored cars in a previous life) explained that if you don't provide a bit of a gap, the sealant can't seal.  Well, duh!  So what do we do?

We need to grind off some of the glass--okay, what do you need I'll go get it.  NOPE.  It's tempered glass, you shouldn't really do that to tempered glass because it can shatter.

Oooooohhhhh.  UUUUUUGGGGGHHHH!

George starts exploring options, he thinks he finds one, but when he takes our window to show the guy, the guy goes UGGGGGGHHHHH, rounded corners?  $$$$$, ain't gonna be what I quoted you. George says, well crap.

Long story short--we finally found somebody that will grind down our tempered windows--they've done it before. Cool.  But they only do it on Fridays.

Finding somebody to do jobwork in the Keys is right up Bob Bitchin's ally--is it an ordeal or an adventure?  We have entertained ourselves with it endlessly--poor George has been our middle man, and he's done well.

George had to cover our window, couldn't leave a gaping hole, so he custom fitted some plywood in there for us.

Elysium looking a little Whisky Tango, renamed her temporarily Ellie Mae.

So, on Friday, the windows were successfully shaved down so that George could work his magic.  And that he did as you see below.

The shim is to allow the window to rest on it, so that sealant can get around the entire window.
Thus, properly embedding it.

Adding sealant.

Right before window is placed.

After window is placed.

Repeating process down below.

After it is done down below.

Check that off our list!

Kim boat projects

The first one was to take our old mattress cover that was for a SQUARE bed and turn it into a triangle for the V berth.

Hand sewing a two inch thick cover is something else. Especially when you have stuffing and everything else popping up.  

Not completely done with it yet.....mainly because last time we were there I kept blowing it off--remember HAND sewing. But it will fit perfectly when done.  And I got the bonus round of giving smug looks to my husband.

My other project was patterning the grill, which has currently become a pelican perch.  

Speaking of pelicans--NO FEAR--I had one join me for sundowners when we were there. Just plopped down by me on the back deck, hey wotcha got there, sunshine?

So, patterning done, just have to get the sail loft at home ready to do all the fixit projects on Patriot and small projects on Elysium.

I'm eventually going to have to load up the sail rite machine and take it down to Key West to repair our sail and leech line on our main.  ROAD TRIP!

Here's a pic of the patterning with my supervisor Big Beak O'Reilly.

Update on some boat projects

So, head install, we've had to boot the first guy for lack of response.  We also realized to replace the shower/faucet head hose will take either a)magic fairy dust that will shrink one of us down to size or b) most likely popping off the counter.  We are currently working with a new gentleman, and after this first project, we'll see if we want him to do the head.

And it has to be replace, the metal covering has rotted away and the actual hose is permeated so it smells like, well, shit.

We-which means Tim-have successfully replaced the holding tank indicators and resealed the front tank so no more odors are leaking from there.  Still need to pull up the holding tank to make sure there's no bad juju hanging out underneath.

_________________________

Boat George is currently working on rebedding all of our saloon windows, as I probably mentioned before evidently the fine folks at North Shore used some incorrect window sealant it crapped out on some of the Southerly 135s.  After talking to another Southerly 135 owner over in the UK, we decided it would be prudent to do it right and pull the windows and replace them. Evidently the failure started with the previous owner and there was a suck ass fix job that George had to deal with to remove the window without breaking it.

_________________________

Fridge/freezer.  We had somebody come look at it--which resulted in $250 for him to install a thermostat in the freezer (upside down) and basically say we don't have enough insulation.  Our last trip we had proof positive that we had enough insulation around both.  So, this particular service guy is now in my jackass column.  He was on the line anyway for the 'little lady' routine.  Well, sir, this 'little lady' has a good working knowledge of every system on this boat, so kiss my ass.

Tim called the U.S. Frigoboat dealer and received tons of advice and help.  We all came to the conclusion that we probably need to charge the refrigerant a bit, which Tim and I thought might be the problem in the first place, but we could not get the service guy to even check it.  Once again, jackass.

We also have a VERY large freezer and at this point in our lives we don't need to utilize that freezer space as a freezer yet, so it was suggested we hook up a digital thermostat and that will allow us to turn our freezer into a liquor locker for beer and wine--something we did on HemiD.

Project Liquor Locker commences.

After passing the 'beer isn't freezing and exploding' test, we decided to go ahead and replace the fridge with a digital also.  Tearing up all the floor panels to run the wiring was fun.  We don't have a pic of me with my head smashed into our starboard fuel tank up to my shoulder trying to fish a wire to Tim--thankfully.

The digital thermostat we got also has the ability to control the compressor speed, so we can set it to quick cool when we get on the boat or load it up with food and then dial it back---nice feature for our power hungry refrigeration.

So, it seems as if we've nipped that in the bud. Hopefully.

Making a commando maintenance trip

In November, I got to be the bilge rat, mainly because I am more flexible than Tim, and even at nearly six feet tall I can be quite the contortionist.  Although I realize as I get older, my body is starting to give me warnings that if I don't watch out, I'll be staying in whatever contortion for the rest of my life.

This time, Tim's turn.  First, it was getting to Key West.  Tim wants to just take a carry on--no problem, until he shows me what he got.  A little baggie filled with an ICOM antenna, a wiring harness, some crack sealer, and a battery.

Nope, there's been no terrorist activity in the world AT ALL lately, so that's not going to bring any attention at all.  Evidently it didn't, because he made it through.  So, that should tell you something about the rentacops over at MCI.

As we had on Hemisphere Dancer, we are installing an alarm system.  This one has a bit more features than our old one (except for awesome dance music when you open the companionway).  We already tested the preliminary install last time.  It has geo-fencing, so if it goes on the move, Tim and I will get a text (or our boat sitter).  It has the standard motion sensor alarm, bilge alarm, low battery alarm, and it has the ability for a couple of remote alarm so we can run a wire through the lock on the dinghy and if it gets cut, voila.  I believe it can also light up your boat and sound a piercing alarm--but baby steps to get that wired up.  We just need the basics for now.

It's amazing how much more affordable they are getting, and our insurance company likes it.

His other project fall under the category of:  If somebody doesn't want to take your money, then you just might as well do it yourself.  This would be phase 1 of the head replacement.  So, first thing, get the tank monitors working correctly.  Also, he flushed the system with muriatic acid--our heads are sea water and not fresh water, so I am pretty sure we have 12 years of crud there.  He said it's already helped a bit.  He plans to pull the forward holding tank tomorrow to see if there is spillage from the previous owner under it, lucky him.

We discovered through measuring, researching, measuring, researching that there is nothing that will be able to replace the forward head except the newer version of a LAVAC.  Not ideal, but as long as it works.  The aft head has tons of room so we are going to put something different in there.  That will also give us a one manual, one electric set up.

The good part is that it's relatively cool right now in Key West, so that makes boat projects so much easier than when it's baking.

"Head" ache

Elysium is equipped with two Lavac heads.  From the immediate get go, I did not like them. I have used them on other boats before, just don't like them.

Researched a lot, and some people swear by them, say they are bullet proof.

But, I've noticed a lot more people DON'T say nice things about them, mainly seals and valves and pumps failing on them.

Of course, since I'm sure it was one of them many things that routine maintenance hasn't been done on, ours are giving us fits.  Back flow into the toilet, not flushing properly, just annoying in general.

And for those of you who are not familiar with Lavacs, here's what we are dealing with (x 2):

From top to bottom:
Tank indicator (not working)
Top valve indicating to tank or to sea
Handle for flushing (yes, it's a bilge pump)
Bottom valve saying from head or from tank
Toilet itself with rubberized seal

So to flush, make sure valves are in the from head to tank mode (or you will be pumping to sea either from the head or from the tank).  Insert handle, pump 8-10 times, wait 5 seconds, pump 5-6 more times. Yeah, absolutely no problem with that.  Because when I'm underway and prone to seasickness I want to be doing this shit. (no pun intended)

This entire process is run by essentially two Henderson pumps (bilge pump), ideally to create a vacuum.  Now, I don't know about you, but I'm not too keen on using the equivalent of a bilge pump to flush my toilet.  Nope.

Add the fact that they haven't been maintained.....lets say we've had to evacuate ship a couple of times and let it air out.  Not cool.

So, our NEW best friend is Perry, the Head Honcho, Perry is going to assess our head needs and get us something that is effective, water efficient (as in, not filling up the holding tank) and won't drive me crazy.

How much is a 9 ft draft?

A lot, especially when she's out of the water.  Getting ready to have the final paint job done on the keel.

So, the final list of things that were done?
1.  Bottom and keel soda blasted, keel cleaned up and treated, barrier and bottom paint applied.
2. Dings in side of boat fixed and painted (paint doesn't match, oh well) waxed
3. Topsides waxed
4. Generator serviced, engine serviced
5. Fuel filter set up replaced with Filter Boss
6. Power monitor installed
7. Raymarine chart plotters updated and returned for replacement
8. Stereo replaced so chart plotter can act as remote (safety issue)
9. Outside speakers installed
10. Propane valve inside the boat relocated as required
11. Dorades replaced
12. Vents replaced with solar vents with two-way (in/out) control--essential in the tropics
13. Prop serviced
14. Bow thruster serviced
15. Stern thruster installed (talk to the spouse, roll your eyes at him)
16. Pennant for retractable keel replaced and keel fixed to go completely up
17. Had forward hatch repaired for leaks.

..I'm sure there's a lot more things, but I can't remember.

Still to do, overhaul heads and replace nozzles in bathroom sinks so they can act like a proper shower as they should.

Clean, clean, clean, clean.

Replace all of the lights with LEDs.

Eventually we'll get to enjoy this thing!!!!!

The care and feeding of your boat--not the crew, the boat

If you buy a boat, and the previous owner says:  Oh, I didn't do a lot of required maintenance because for the first 10 years of her life she sat mostly on the hard.

If you hear that, you have some options:
1--Run like hell.
2--Decide if you really, really, want the boat.  If not, run like hell.
3--Know you want the boat, it ticked off a lot of what you wanted, and break out the wallet.

Elysium wasn't used much her first 10 years, maybe twice a year for a couple weeks and then on the hard for the rest.  The second owner thought that routine maintenance shouldn't be an issue...since the boat wasn't used much.

Horseshit.

Whether it be boat, car or bike.  Neglect is neglect.  A boat that isn't used (or a car for that matter), shit will dry out, shit will seize up.

Some things were flagged on the survey and fixed at close.  However, and since we are anal and like to start fresh when we buy a boat used--we found a lot of other things that needed help.

The engine and genset have got some long overdue love, the hull is getting fixed up and beautified. We found a leak in one of our hatches, so we sent it off to be refurbished.  Evidently, the prop was serviced by somebody who didn't know what the hell they were doing, so we had to get that sent off, I think we just wound up getting a new prop.

The sailing part of the boat is in good shape, lines and sails, some UV needs to be repaired, but that is a spring project, for now sail tape will do.

Our ambitious and aggressive list for the boat yard is slowly getting ticked off, but we are running out of time, mainly I want to make sure the gas valve for the stove is moved outside per US standards, nothing would piss me off more to start up the stove and boom.  It would really ruin my day.

Mainly, we just need to get the boat in the water so the spouse and our delivery captain can do a shake down cruise before it makes a 1000+ mile journey to the Keys.  Not much to ask for correct?

BTW--I have left out names of the surveyor and broker/owner to protect the guilty.