Kaimusailing

I had to pump out the starboard bilge after the storm poured more rainwater in, I had put the companionway dropboard backwards and wedged in to deflect the rain out on deck. It slipped and deflected rain inside. After pumping and sponging the starboard bilge I did the port side. That was enough for now.
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My thinner for the bottom paint arrived. A quart of thinner was worth more than a half gallon of the bottom paint. The bottom paint was on sale, the thinner wasn’t.
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I had on board a freezer, small, dc powered, but it wasn’t a good fit, so I off loaded it and put it in the free pile on the porch.
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We went to the gas station restaurant on the corner for the first time in a while. Geoff the chemist was there and we had an animated discussion about he and his wife’s troubles with family up in Delaware, car dying on the way up, Uhaul vehicle breaking down trying to tow the car back to St. Marys, brother-in-law passing away from covid, but a blessing in disguise, return to St. Marys, rebuilding floating dock with rotting beams, waterlogged, and complaints from the wife about how he makes her carry heavy stones and waterlogged beams. A new bartender fullfilled our glasses, from California, attractive, and my grand daughter’s age, if I had a grand daughter.
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I was thinking more and more about the projects facing me up in Crisfield. I had more work to do with the Atomic 4 (Bomb) engine. One problem is the gauge set is defunct. I couldn’t remember which gauges were bad. I looked online for replacements from Catalina Direct and Moyer Marine. I also searched appropriate gauges on Amazon and eBay. On eBay was a Sea Ray instrument panel, working, including 6 gauges, switches, and idiot lights, all of which I need. $59.99 including free shipping. These are Fariah gauges, a well respected brand, and a set of them new without the extras runs just under $400 at Defenders. Needless to say I purchased the panel and had it shipped to Crisfield. I just needed the tach, water temp, oil psi, voltage, and fuel tank level. The speedometer goes to 55, useless for the Catalina, but useful for Cornelia Marie’s skiff. Just need to get a pitot tube kit, around $33. And a battery. And while we’re at it, electric start for her Suzuki 25. For a speedometer for Sunsplash there are several available that use an internal GPS chip and include an odometer, trip odometer, and course over ground, with an analog speed display.
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I was afraid the gauges might not work with the senders on the Atomic 4, but these are all American standard ohmage, all should work unless the senders were bad or the wiring. At least we will have gauges that the needles haven’t fallen off of.
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Geoff came by on his bicycle and said one of his deceased acquaintances had a boat in the yard and it would be available at a low cost. It hadn’t been attended to for 9 years or more. It was on the hard off my starboard quarter when I was first hauled out some years ago. I remember it because when I did a delivery from St. Lucia, there was the same model there, a beautiful boat, a Nauticat motorsailer. This one in the yard was not so beautiful, but ones in good condition are in the $150,000 range on Yachtworld.
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Another boat that turned up, thanks to Ronnie the carpenter, is a Tartan 27 in Daytona for three thousand dollars. It looks like a project that has had most of the heavy work already done. A Sparkman and Stevens design. I sailed on one many years ago. I thought they were tiny inside, but here I am with a Catalina 30 that is supposed to replace a C&C 24. The Tartan 27 is a very nice small yacht. It would be great for daysailing, weekending, and even a cruise for a couple of weeks. This one has an Atomic 4 from Moyers Marine that is brand new, 0 hours. Most of the boat has been rebuilt to perfection. New, in the mid-60’s, these boats went for about $16,500. I thought then that they were too small, but as I get older, smaller is better.
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When I get up to the Chesapeake and get Sunsplash in condition to relaunch to take to haul out, my research says I should head to the Western Shore, like Deltaville, to haul out. It’s 35-40 miles. I need to repaint the antifouling, replace zincs, check for blisters below the waterline, and get lifted up to the masthead to get the anchor light working and repair or replace the Windex wind indicator.
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I kept looking for a template for the Atomic 4 engine gauges, but all I could find was panels with gauges for $700 and a bare panel for about $150 from Catalina Direct. That’s a place that sells to the yachting stereotype, a fat wallet broker who has a Buck knife at his woven leather belt, kahki shorts and shirt, hat, but sails on weekends out to the sea buoy and then has cocktails, if he doesn’t stay in the marina and avoid injury. The gauge panels I was looking at had the tach to the left, then a line of 4 gauges to the right, and below them a couple of warning lights, a couple of switches, and a key switch for the ignition. It turns out that this is the panel for a later model Catalina 30, mine has a smaller panel. I found that maybe the dimensions of my panel are 11 wide by 7 high. Mine might have only 3 or 4 gauges. I know there’s a tach and water temp and oil pressure, but I will have a fuel gauge and voltmeter also.
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I have no problem with designing a new gauge panel. I found an app called Front Panel (I think) and it is a simple graphic program to design a panel. I think the best feature is the ability to label the panel and print it out on clear mylar to properly label the panel. I won’t know until I get up to Crisfield and look at the actual original panel to see how things will fit. The app came from: https://www.frontpanelexpress.com/, who can probably make a bare panel with etching and graphics.
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The image is from the internet of a later model instrument panel for the Catalina 30.