Back to the Boat
15 December 2016 | Pensacola
I have been "working on the boat" for about a month now in Pensacola. My working days run from about noon until eight in the evening, well after dark here. My first goal was to get a working bilge pump with completely new wiring so it would be fully functional, unlike the old pump. The boat was on the hard for the first few weeks, and needed bottom sanding and painting, topsides cleaning and waxing, and a working bilge pump before launch.
With the painfully partially re-plumbed and fully re-wired pump and water sensor in the bilge, a new bilge monitor at the nav station, all eight wasps nests removed from the: anchor, the side rail, the radar, the cockpit trash can, and 3 from the lifesling, I got the bottom painted, the topsides clean and waxed.
I launched on Dec 8th, a Thursday, and spent the first few hours trying to dock fairly deep in the bayou at a private dock where it became apparent that it would be too shallow for my boat in a low tide, with the north winds blowing the water our of Pensacola Bay, and thereby emptying the Bayous as well. While this condition normally isn't present, it was enough for me to be concerned about my keel on the bottom and my access to use of the boat at times of my own choosing rather than tide and weather dependent.
So as the day wore on and I slowly motored across the bayou, my call from the boat to my previous marina was successful in finding a slip, and I Broke Out Another (lots of) Twenties and signed up. I like the marina, it is low key, everyone is friendly, and I am free to come and go, use the facilities, and work on my boat. The altered budget will impact the boat projects, but there are certainly cheap ones to do. There is a band practicing a bit up the bayou from us, and they are playing all old hippie classics from the 60's and 70's, so, while they need the practice, I can follow along in my head.
A week of sitting in the slip has been focused on the battery and battery monitor/charger re-wire project. I have been reading about electricity on boats for months now, posting questions here and there on some forums, and came up with a design for my wiring that should satisfy for awhile. I made my "start" and "house" banks independent with a relay that keeps them appropriately charged, with the start battery starting the motor and the house getting the bulk of the charge. The monitor is now wired so everything is being monitored and I should be able to track my usage and status accurately. We'll see . . . I certainly have learned a lot.
After the final 2 wires were added to the batteries, everything tested, I climbed into my starboard cockpit locker, crawled back to the manual bilge pump and essentially took it apart in place, replacing the bladder and two flapper valves. This pump, a Guzzler 600, had to be 32 years old, as old as the boat. While the bladder and valves showed no sign of tearing, they were covered in huge chunks of what I surmise is salt, dried in place where the water had stopped moving, collected, and evaporated leaving the salt (or other residue) behind. All cleaned up, new rubber/vinyl/whatever, and I crawled out over 4 hours later, very glad to have done this maintenance, but seriously wondering why I own such an old boat. I've had brand new, and I now have old, and brand new was nothing like this.
Next up for maintenance are some sewing projects: a new lifesling cover and covers for the solar panel wires. Then we need new lifelines, rigging for using the whisker pole, installing the new autopilot control head, a 2nd bilge pump, water filter system, and a new gas tank for the small dingy motor. A busy January for me.