Kaimusailing

Easter arrived with hot weather. I took a day off to get some pix of the chartroom. I learned to check craig's list from time to time and see if there are any bargains available. Some guy was selling 200 feet of anchor line at a good price. I called him in the evening and he sounded tanked. Also it sounded like he was selling things off and needed money. This affected my own budget considerations, so I decided to go over to him and buy his line. To make a long story short, I set off on a beautiful day with the top down, and went down to Severna Park. This is a general area between the Magothy River and Bodkin Creek. There are lots of vacation homes, sailors, and businesses along Route 2 from Glen Burnie, just outside of Baltimore, down to Annapolis. Like a penninsula with a major road right down the middle. On either side are communities, inlets, but mostly the roads say "Now Outlet". I tried to find this guy's house over on Old County Road, but I ended up calling him and then a miscommunication ensued. I thought he was going to come along and show me the way, but he thought I would be appeering at his front gate. Yes, that is right, a gate, a paved road into the property. Fruit trees blooming on either side. Following him on his large garden tractor, we weaved around to a complex of buildings, passed a building called "Studio K" and parked next to it, across from the tennis courts. I did a four point turn and cut the engine, and greeted him at the doorway. I went in and asked him., "What is this?", thinking it was some public park or historical building. There were covered walks from one building to the next and picket fences. He said, "I live here, this is where I live."

He is a scuptor and had been in a coma for 3 weeks after a severe heart attack. He had no knowledge of the drastic attempts to save him, the cut ribs, the stents, the coma. He was selling off his excess. There was a lot there, but he said he had sold a bulk of it, maybe 88 items. We talked for quite a while. I was afraid that I would overcome him with my endless stories, but he had his own and we were at it and both enjoyed it. He had been a sailor and then a trawler sailor, and now the doctors said he should stay close to shore or stay off boats. I think it is good for sailors to get together any way they can and enjoy their experiences by retelling them and hearing them from other sailors. How many pints have been poured to lubricate the sailing heritage.

The next project, the crawl space, has two important installations. One is the batteries and UPS that provide power to the port hull. The other is the watermaker. The planning for the carpentry includes cutting holes for battery storage and holes for conduit forward to the bunks and vanity area. There is a solar panel above the forward hatch and that needs to be wired back to the batteries along with the aft panel that is above the aft hatch. At the batteries will be a solar charge controller. Plumbing work will run a 1" line from an existing through hull fitting in the crawl space up to a Y valve, then from the valve to a large water filter, and from there to the watermaker. From the watermaker a brine disposal line will run forward to the vanity sink and a "product water" line will run forward available to test the product water or to fill 5 gallon water bottles. The Y valve selects either seawater from the through hull fitting or another line that can draw from maintenance chemicals, like biocide, or reverse osmosis membrane cleaning chemicals. The manufacturer shows a sample installation with the Y valve before the filter. It didn't make sense to me to run biocide and chemicals through the whole system, but when I sorted out the pipes and fittings, the sizes worked out better with the Y valve before the filter. I ordered adapters and fittings from US Plastic.com.

When the plastic fittings and filter body arrived, I started to organize the installation. Then I found the adapter from hose barb to through hull valve was the wrong size. I had compared the size with a similar but larger valve that I had in the plumbing parts bin. It took two trips to the hardware stores to find more parts that would fit. A bracket was made to hold the filter securely, out of the way, but available for replacement of the filter element. The remainder of the installation was cutting hoses and clamping them in place.

Captain Chris on the other dock was down on his boat making some changes to his mainsheet. He wanted to lead the main halyard, mainsheet, and reefing line into the cockpit where he could handle them with rope clutches and a winch. He was stuck in the middle of the project with the winch installation. I recognized the winch as one of a pair he wanted to sell me last year. There was a cross threaded nut on one of the winches and it broke when he tried to repair it. We disassembled the remaining winch to mark the boat for drilling bolt holes to mount it. It was sluggish and needed to be cleaned and relubricated. I took the mounting flange over to Kaimu and looked through my hardware and found flat head machine screws that fit the winch perfectly. There were lock nuts for the screws and fender washers to back up the nuts and spread the load. I brought over a gallon of carburettor cleaner with soaking basket to clean the old oxidized grease off the winch. I had a tube of graphite lithium grease to relube it. After drilling the holes, cleaning and relubing the winch, and bolting it down in bedding compound, the winch turned smoothly and it was a first class installation.

The next day I came down to the dock and he was uncovering his mainsail. I said he should test the winch on a load and see it the backing washers could handle it. He hauled up the mainsail and reported the winch was broken. The selftailing shaft had fractured. Well, maybe he could get the parts from the other broken winch and make one good one. The other one had broken in a different part. No, he had thrown the other one away. What a letdown. He would have to buy another winch and probably have to drill new holes in a different pattern, plus the machine screws might not work with the new winch.

I reinstalled the UPS into the crawl space and decided to move on to the forward bunk, paint that area, and install the water tank under the bunk. Then attack the middle bunk, then do the vanity area. When that was done the port hull would be essentially done except for some wiring and plumbing work. Also it would force me to organize all the junk I had there and throw out the excess.