Kaimusailing

The awful jobs get done last. The Atomic Four was waiting for me to pull off the cylinder head, but there was an emergency job, sort of, the mainsail cover was torn and exposing the sail to U/V, very bad.
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Actually the cylinder head might not be a worse job than repairing the sail cover. I had the sewing machine, a Singer 4423 model, heavy duty. The sail cover had its zipper at the front torn off and the stitching was gone, as in mysteriously absent. Someone had crudely tied the front part of the cover to the mast with a piece of line. I know I didn’t do that, but I wonder who did.
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The edge of the cover has fancy folded seams, but now they were no longer stitched together. I could see where the stitching had been and so I was able to reconstruct the cover and zipper. I had I think V-69 thread on the machine. I threaded it and tried sewing the edge with a straight stitch. It went well. Next I folded the fabric at the edge under itself and sewed a parallel stitch. I did this on both edges that take the zipper. Next I removed any loose threads still embedded in the zipper while taking a call from Hawaii. I started sewing ½ the zipper onto the appropriate edge. That’s when I started having trouble.
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The bobbin thread that comes up from underneath was jamming, even when I tried to hand crank the machine. This jamming usually comes from the top thread tension being too low. I had the tension set at almost the highest setting. I dug around down below where the bobbin sits. There was excess thread there and I removed it. The problem persisted. Only after rethreading the top thread twice and replacing the spool I was using did the machine start sewing the way it should.
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It sewed fine for the rest of the job. I was able to reinstall the mainsail cover, it will do for now.
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I was pushing the workday into the dinner hour. I improvised with 1/3 box of garden rotini boiling while I gathered clam sauce ingredients: garlic, olive oil, lemon, sauvignon blanc, onion powder, fresh parsley, and a leftover bag of spinach. Try spinach in your white clam dish. Healthy.
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I put the spinach in after unsuccessfully trying to thicken the sauce. Too much wine and clam juice. I could have used bread crumbs as a thickener.
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Maybe I’ll work on the cylinder head tomorrow.
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It is tomorrow. I have been doing a lot of research on the Atomic Four engine and other flat head side valve engines. I thought my dad’s old tractor had a flat head engine, but looking around online I see it was overhead valve. My dad had done an engine job on that tractor. I grew up with that DIY mentality.
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On the Atomic Four forums there are lots of postings about freeing up stuck valves. Removing the cylinder head to get at stuck valves is probably the most extreme solution to the problem. One DIY’er got the engine running on 3 cylinders and used two stroke oil in his gas to try to get a stuck valve free. It worked.
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I should check over the ignition/starting system as far as electrics go, and clean the carburetor. The fuel pump needs to be checked also. I cleared out the area where I could get at the carburetor but it was too dark down there. I grabbed the table lamp and turned it on. It didn’t turn on. I looked around and realized the blue light Chinese bug zapper wasn’t lit, the laptop didn’t have its charge light on. I pushed the on button on the fan. No workie. No power?
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I checked the AC breaker. Fine. I went on deck and checked the umbilical cord. Connected properly. I went to the stanchion on the dock and checked the connection there, looked normal. I went up the dock to the power yacht at the end. The fellow was grinding something on the bow. He had power.
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I got out my electric meters and could find no power, but maybe my probes weren’t long enough. I called the marina and they sent someone to look at it. He opened the electrical box at the head of the dock and saw the breaker was tripped. He reset it. It popped rather quickly. He was called away to help tie up a big 70 foot power yacht up at the transient docks.
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When he came back, which was a long time, he said he got reprimanded (not his exact words) for saying the big power yacht skipper had more money than brains. After he opened up the electrical box again I wrote down the slips that were on my breaker. It turned out there were only two other boats hooked up to electric. One had a sketchy looking twist lock to extension cord adapter, I pulled that out, and the other was a nice new looking twist lock umbilical cord, I untwisted and pulled out that one. My own umbilical cord was also pulled out.
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I returned to the electrical box and said there are no boats hooked up to that breaker, and he reset the breaker which popped again. Oh no, we’ll have to get an electrical contractor to fix this. He reset it again and it held. I said I would go up the dock and reconnect the 3 boats one at a time and he could give me a thumbs down if the breaker tripped. I went up and all were connected. The breaker held. He said sometimes he thinks there are ghosts in the marina. I said well you also have a lot of salt in the air.
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This fiasco not only wasted the time set aside to work on the Atomic 4, it also put the kibosh on shopping and dinner plans at the Legion.
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I could have pasta with some leftover marinara sauce. Wait, there’s a chicken parm cutlet leftover in the fridge. I had a nice meal with garden rotini and some Black Box pinot noir.
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Overnight the breaker tripped again and I moved my umbilical cord across the dock to a stanchion not on that breaker. I called in the morning and reported the tripped breaker. The maintenance men were talking loudly as I finished breakfast. I was no longer on the circuit so I didn’t worry about losing power again. As they continued to troubleshoot they centered around the stanchion for slip 23 and 25. A loud noise would come from the stanchion when the breaker tripped, this time with no boats connected. They said they would have to take the stanchion apart to see what was the matter. It reminded me of a long ago repair of a remote TV repeater that had an electrified rat, singed, draped between the power wires. Could we have a wharf rat?
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I had to persist with the carburetor and then later the fuel pump. There was nothing wrong with the carburetor but, as before, couldn’t pull out one of the jets. I could replace the jets with a relatively inexpensive rebuild kit, but if you can’t pull out the jet you can’t replace it. The fuel pump was more of the same. It was a bitch to get it off, but as I looked at it and exercised the diaphragm I realized it was operating normally. Now the task was to reinstall the pump and carb and move on to the electrical portion of the engine.
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First I had to shop and while up in the area of the American Legion, pay a visit there. I was running late, biked up to the post office to send in my request for a mail in ballot. There is some controversy about mail in ballots, mostly coming from the conservatives. I like the convenience of not having to worry about biking in the weather to vote or even being out of town, like in Hawaii, where all votes are cast by mail. The conservative view is that the integrity of the election is jeopardized by mail in ballots. It is part of their effort to restrict the vote.
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I continued to the grocers with my TEMU shopping bag, large, and my shopping list saved on my phone. My plan was to make a meat and mushroom pasta sauce, also make a clam florentine noodle dish. My plans change when I came across some spicy sausage on sale for only $3.99 a pound. I bought a large can of Nature’s Promise crushed tomatoes with basil. No Tutorossi in this store, some Cento products, but ridiculous prices. The Crisfield monopoly.
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The TEMU bag was packed to the gills and it was the first time riding the Schwinn with a grocery bag strapped onto the bars. It was tedious, I won’t carry that much again. At the Legion I was remarkably 20 minutes early. I did not need to hydrate with soda, just glug down the merlot. Teri showed up and we took the high top at the window with the North view. Cuddily was still at home enjoying fresh fish, I think rockfish or red snapper. When she arrived we mewled about not being invited to dinner, but she said it was only a little filet. I had some shrimp salad on lettuce and shared potato chips with Teri. The sunset was spectacular and I got some good shots.
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Back on board I stowed the perishables in the fridge. The next day I did not work on the Atomic Four, I made my pasta sauce. I used a large skillet and sauteed ½ of a large red onion and a couple large cloves of garlic. The sausage was skinned and added to the pan. A box of mushrooms was sliced and added. I wasn’t sure how the sausage was spiced, it said “hot” on the label. I kept breaking apart the clods of meat and then added the crushed tomatoes, rinsed by a shot of wine. After the sauce simmered a while I tasted it and concluded I didn’t have to add anything to it, maybe some salt, which can be added at the table.
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I made a small batch of pasta and added a scoop of sauce when it was al dente, then shredded parmesan on top. Yummie yummie. The remainder of the sauce made 3 good sized portions in the fridge.
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The next day was to be reinstallation of the fuel pump and carb, also make the baked florentine clam casserole. The oven I will be using is the Optima which can be described and a sort of bundt pan, circular with a hole in the middle, with a lid, and it sits on top of what looks like the circular pans that sit under a stove burner. The oven sits on top of a stove top burner. The heat rises through the hole in the middle of the circular base, continues up through the middle of the bundt pan main part of the oven and circulates there, kept in by the lid. There is no direct heat on the bottom of the oven, just convection inside the oven. It works pretty well and maintains about a 350 degree temperature.
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CLAM NOODLE FLORENTINE
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Makes 6 servings
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9 tablespoons butter or margarine
1/4 cup chopped onion
3 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 1/2 cup light cream or milk
2 cans Snow's Minced or Chopped Clams, drained, reserving 1/2 cup liquid
3 cups cooked medium noodles, well drained
1 (10 ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
1/4 cup grated parmesan and Romano cheese
1/2 cup buttered bread crumbs
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Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In large saucepan, melt butter. Add onion; cook until tender. Blend in flour, salt and pepper. Slowly stir in cream and reserved clam liquid. Cook and stir over medium heat 5 minutes or until mixture thickens. Add clams, noodles and spinach to sauce; blend well. Spoon half the noodle mixture and half the cheese in greased 1 1/2 quart baking dish; repeat layering. Top with crumbs. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until hot. Refrigerate leftovers.
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I made the above recipe using more spinach than called for, more “noodles” (garden rotini), but mostly following it. I have never made it before, so I like to keep to the script first try. The Optima oven would work well camping. The only way to see how hot it gets is to put an oven thermometer in it and let it rip. I used garlic salt instead of salt.
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The fuel pump and carburetor were reinstalled. There is one jet in the carb that was damaged by someone previous and it couldn’t be removed and cleaned. It is time to continue with the Atomic 4’s electric. I had a schematic that was very simple. It showed the distributor, four spark plugs, alternator, starting motor and solenoid, and that’s about it. I should have +12VDC on one side of the solenoid. I had a remote starting switch with alligator clips on it and I clipped between the + side of the solenoid to the terminal that would be energized by the ignition switch in the cockpit. When I tried the remote starter the solenoid clicked but nothing moved. The engine was frozen, probably piston rings rusted to the cylinder walls. That is a set back, but it was time for me to make the trip to the grocers, again, and to the Legion, again.
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It was a beautiful day with a NW breeze that made the short ride to the Legion from the grocers a bit of a workout. Good for me. At the Legion Cuddily and Teri arrived and we set up a speaker phone call with Eloisa. That went well until the crowd noise inside the Legion made it impossible to carry on a conversation.
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On the ride back to the marina I gave it an extra effort, aided by Saddlebred Pinot Noir. When I stepped on my footstep to get on the boat it tipped over toward the water where I ended up. I treaded water and climbed out at the end of the finger pier. I had to rescue one of my flip flops. The groceries were soaked. Fortunately most were encapsulated in plastic. The eggs were in a cardboard egg box which was wet and had a few damaged eggs inside. The linguine was in boxes that were now soaked. I took off my wet clothes and could see some road rash, actually dock rash where I had scraped against the edge of the dock.
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The next day I went over the aftermath and found I had lost my favorite pair of reading glasses. The eggs were transferred into an almost empty plastic egg box. I made a small batch of linguine which I would have with my sausage mushroom marinara sauce.