Kaimusailing

The deflatable dinghy was still leaking. I kept tipping it up so that the green slime inside would pool near the leak, then position it so that the slime would clog the leak. I could see where the slime was coming through the worn fabric of the dinghy. I painted over the green with some of the leftover top coating.
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I showed the dinghy to the original owners who had sold it to the person who abandoned it. They said, “That doesn’t look right”. I didn’t know what they meant. Later I ran into them while shopping and they said it wasn’t their dinghy, their dinghy was under “Unicorn”, a yacht on the other side of the boatyard. Now I had to take a look at their dinghy.
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Their dinghy was in much better shape than the one I was working on. Its problem was a bad valve, compounded by the new owner incorrectly trying to install a new valve. There was what appeared to be contact cement all around the hole where the valve should go, plus the new valve was all covered with contact cement. We took the dinghy to a hiding place and I began to work on it. The people working on Unicorn are having some kind of war over it and valuable pieces of the boat are disappearing. It is a shame. Neither of the two parties have paid any money to the boatyard and each says the other has to pay. I thought it best to get that dinghy away from that boat before it too disappears.
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Fortunately I had advised Capn Jane Morgan to use Xylene to clean contact cement off her companionway aluminum. I borrowed the solvent and cleaned the contact cement off the inflatable and off its new valve. The procedure for this type of valve is to somehow force the lower part of the valve, which is kind of like a cylinder with a flange on one end and threading on its inside surface, in through the valve hole inside the inflatable. Then the top part of the valve, which is also like a cylinder with a flange and threading on its outside surface, is screwed into the bottom piece and the two flanges compress the inflatable’s skin between them and thus seal the valve hole. I used the valve’s stopper to turn the upper part until I felt like I would break it, it’s just plastic. I used one of the boatyard’s big pipe wrenches to grip the flange of the upper part and get it really tight. Soapy water was spread around the valve to check for leaks and the valve tightened until there were no leaks.
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I decided to test out the Chinese Hangkai 6HP 2 stroke motor, so I launched the first dinghy I had worked on and mounted the engine on it. I took along oars and a foot pump. I wondered how the engine would run and how the combination of a small rigid bottom inflatable and the 6HP motor would perform.
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The engine seemed eager and pushed the dinghy along very strongly, even at idle. When I got clear of the dinghy dock and opened the throttle the dinghy took off and soon was on a plane. I was surprised at how well the engine ran and how fast I could go, also I knew it was dangerous to fly along like that, so I only ran at full throttle a short time. I could take my little hand held GPS along and get an actual speed number.
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So, for $150 I got a good running outboard motor although it took a lot of work to get it going. For about $50 I reconditioned an abandoned inflatable boat and now have a way to commute to the boatyard while the D4 hard dinghy gets repaired.
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The picture is of the dinghy and Hangkai motor after its first outing.