Kaimusailing

The internet at the marina has been intermittent and so I can only post on the blog every now and then. Perhaps my external wifi adapter is intermittent.
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After a late bike ride in the rain from Eve’s house to the marina, I awoke onboard Sunsplash with moderately damp clothing, and took it easy. The past few days have been some sort of stomach flu and then just flu like symptoms. But I was feeling better and decided to go up the mast and at least install the halyard restrainer, not much of a job, drill and tap for #10 fasteners, only two, and screw the restrainer to the mast.
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The big part of the job is getting the electric bos’un’s chair up on deck, a secondary safety harness, a bucket of required tools and parts, and the cordless drill. I procrastinated, am I really well enough to go aloft? When I tried out the bos’un’s chair it was dead. Go get the meter and my electrical tool box. Whoah, the electrical tool box isn’t here. Could I have left it in Georgia? It was one of the things on the top of my list to bring, I expected to be doing a lot of electrical work. After searching all over, which doesn’t take long on a 30 foot boat, I decided to use the tools in my 40 dollar Harbor Freight drawered plastic toolbox. It has a wire stripper/crimper and some crimp connectors.
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I had found that the battery voltage on the chair wasn’t getting to the winch motor. It has to pass through a simple control that has an up and a down button. The screws holding it together were corroded. I was able to remove 3 but had to drill out 2 others. After opening the control I could see a lot of rust and corrosion. The screws holding the wires to the control switch(es) were somewhat corroded. I was able to remove a few of them but a couple were frozen tight. The negative wire from the battery did not have continuity and it was one of the frozen screws. I ended up snapping it off, stripping the old connector off, crimping a new connector on the wire, and then screwing it down to another adjacent screw hole using a different screw. The other wires either had continuity or were scraped clean and screwed down again.
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When I opened the switch(es) four springs sprang out and I was able to find 3 of them. The fourth must have gone overboard. It was impossible to reassemble the switch(es) without retaining the springs somehow. I ended up using a little Gorilla glue to glue the springs onto the switches.
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The next day I tried to assemble the switch and test, but there was no action, I took it all apart again. It looked like the glue for the springs was enough that it kept the contacts from meeting. I began trimming the glue and another spring hit the deck. I assembled the switch with only two springs instead of the original four and it still worked. We would not be testing it out in the rain.
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It rained and rained. I was able to get to the showers and get a shower in a lapse in the rain. When I came out I decided to duck into the new boater’s lounge. This was the laundry room, but the washer and drier were gone. A big screen TV, remote, coffee table, and plush couch were there instead. Kind of like putting a living room in a phone booth. I was able to power up the big screen and watch an amazing tennis match. It had gone on for 2 hours before I began to watch. Rafa Nadal and Djokovic were tied at one set apiece and it was now in the 3rd set.
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I was rained in but enjoyed the highest level of tennis play that I have seen. For the next two hours every rally was contested at a level of physical expenditure that was unbelievable. These are like marathon runners who are also trying to thread the needle hitting a tennis ball. I am sure many exchanges of this match will be on YouTube.
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I made it to the boat and headed to the Red Shell Shanty. I was the only customer. It was still lightly raining but soon stopped. I had a crab cake and an Orange Crush. Everyone was socked in by the rain. I said to the lady at the bar, “They will start coming in now.” The bistro started filling up by ones and twos. Cornelia Marie and Nori, the Wonder Dog, came in from the wet weather and we had a drink. Outside it was dry and the sun was starting to set. We continued to talk over at the house and at the semi-hydroponic garden. Looks like a million tomatoes.
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An old friend, Cap’n Neil, was coming up to Crisfield to pay a visit on his way to a memorial service in Pennsylvania. The plan was to have pizza night at Eve’s house on Sunday. The day before we worked on CM’s outboard motor on her skiff. The problem was bad gas. We used a Baja filter funnel and ran all the gasoline through it. Sure enough, there was water in the fuel. The water sinks to the bottom of the tank where the pickup tube sucks it into the engine where it plugs up the carburetor. After cleaning the fuel from the tank we used the squeeze bulb to flush out the fuel line to the fuel pump and the motor’s water separation filter. We ended up with everything flushed out up to the carburetor. The carb was removed and disassembled. It was remarkably clean, the water that clogged it had probably evaporated.
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After reassembling the carb and motor we hooked up the fuel line and pumped the bulb to fill the engine with gas. A large garbage can full of water was put under the engine and the engine started right away but ran rough. I adjusted the idle needle valve but it didn’t help. We stopped the engine and removed the spark plugs to see if one of the cylinders wasn’t firing. The plugs were oily and black, one worse than the other. I cleaned them as best I could and put them back into the engine but swapped the cylinders they were in.
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When we tried to start the engine it made a strange sound. I noticed the idle needle valve was gone, just its spring was there. We began searching for the valve, it was very small, maybe a half inch long, and not magnetic, brass, we couldn’t use a magnet to sweep the ground. The ground was grass, the lawn, and I crept around looking but didn’t find it. Perhaps it had fallen into the big garbage can of water. We also looked around on the engine itself, it may have landed there. We drained out the big garbage can, no idle needle valve. I was resigned to buying the valve or a carb rebuild kit that included the valve.
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It ended up the valve had fallen into a little hole at the bottom of the engine and I saw the tiny tip of the needle valve, just lucky to see it. It was retrieved with needle nosed pliers and reinstalled. This time I didn’t fool around with the setting. The engine ran well. Our next step is to replace some or all of the gas with fresh gas.
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The next day was pizza and the dough was made as usual and the oven was set up at Eve’s house. Neil showed up and CM showed him Crisfield while I made dough. Once again I only made dough, the ladies prepped the toppings and made the pies. CM’s mom joined us, the talk drifted around to the old days when Neil had introduced me to Cornelia Marie and introduced her to Cap’n Chris who became her partner up until his tragic accident. Neil commented that he never got around to see old friends except when there was a memorial service for one of them.
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An old friend, Radio Bill, has departed St. Marys, GA, and is underway to Italy in his little Pearson Triton 28. He can be tracked at: https://cms.winlink.org:444/maps/PositionReports.aspx?callsign=N2ZLY&title=Position%20Reports%20for%20N2ZLY.
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The image is of Spartina grass which there is a lot of both here and St. Marys.