01/25/2013, Some things never Change
Almost on cue the rain started just as we were crossing the Oregon/Washington border and my sun glasses are now put away in my glove box for the rest of my stay in Seattle. It's pretty clear to me why we saw so many boats with "WA" painted on the stern of their boats down in sunny Mexico. They left Washington in search of a mythical thing called the sun.
The Seattle Boat Show starts today and this year I have my good friends from Tom and Jeanne helping me in the booth from SV Eagle. Jeanne is giving a few presentations at the show, while Tom will help me talk to perspective customers. It helps that he swapped out his low output 12v water maker for one of ours last summer to make more water. So he can talk from experience about the pluses of a higher output water maker. Besides, even I get tired of hearing myself talk after a 10 day show!
As they often do, big things seem to be happening while I'm away. First Lori will move the boat from the slip out to anchor. Amy will act as line handler and Jason will jump in our dinghy to play tug boat just incase our full keel beast gets a mind of its own and tires to smash into something hard. Lori's more than a capable captain, so it has nothing to do with her skills, but more to do with the Morro Bay cross current since our slip is perpendicular to the 4kt estuary current. Without Jason playing tug boat for me, I would have smashed a few things up when we were pulling into the slip last month. The other big development is still a bit under wraps until the money has changed hands and all the paperwork signed, but if things go as planned, we will soon have both a summer and winter home for SV THIRD DAY. It's been said before that once I get into an estuary, I dig in like a tick. Well why wouldn't I with the flat calm conditions and a salt water taffy shop just a short walk away?
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Comments [5]
01/18/2013, Maybe I should have burnt the Ship
Can anyone name the part in the photo?
Yep...that my friends is a cross threaded fitting on the inlet side of my diesel lift pump which leaks diesel like a pasta strainer. How could it happen? Well hanging upside down laying on the engine with 6 sharp objects poking into me didn't help, but in the end good old human error strikes again. I'm trying to relax telling myself that it could be worse. Lori could have been backing out of the slip with me up at the Seattle Boat Show when the engine died, oh ya....that could be worse!
So forget about my fantasy of finishing this fuel system project by noon. If anyone knows someone in the market for a Hudson Force 50 Ketch with a non-operable engine, I just might know someone in the Market to SELL. It's moments like these where living in a house sounds pretty darn appealing. But perhaps my luck isn't all bad because I have been carrying around a NEW lift pump for 2 years now. Why because you never knows when you will need one due to a Bozo. 3 stores and about 3 hours later the new fuel lift pump is ready for instalation.
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01/12/2013, There's No Turning Back Now
When Hernando Cortez landed in present day Mexico in 1519 his motivational technique to complete the task at hand was to burn his 11 ships giving himself and his men only one option, success or death. While my motivational technique doesn't risk the death of the crew it certainly only gives me one option. That option is to rebuild the fuel system that I completely tore out of the boat!
Reworking the fuel system was always on the list, there just never seemed to be the time (or motivation) to do it, but when the fuel supply to our diesel heater started getting interrupted, the cold became a great motivator. The heater is now temporarily pulling diesel out of a 5 gallon fuel jug and our engine is useless without fuel lines. Being in a slip rather than at anchor makes that "ok" but I'm heading off to the Seattle Boat Show on Monday 21st and if we don't get this slip in February, Lori will have to pull out and move to the anchorage without me! I know she can do it, she has taken the boat out without me before, but that means I have 6 days to get the fuel system back up and running.
I've always been better under pressure, so tomorrow I'll start living under the salon floor plumbing in the fuel system. Failure isn't an option, or at least not one I want to think about.
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