Commissioning
18 January 2014 | Oriental, NC
Al
Malaya is still in oriental, commissioned and sort of ready to go, her engine and windlass however are not.
We got out of Indiana a couple of days later than planned due to the extreme cold in early early January. Maddie and I did manage to stay ahead of the real cold and bad weather on our drive to Oriental, once there we seemed to have a day of sunshine followed by a day of rain.
Regardless of the weather we managed to empty the truck and trailer of Malaya's gear, food and our personal belongings. Commissioning of her systems went fairly well, we had the usual problelms like worn out diaphram on the fresh water pump, and a few lights that didn't work but all in all most of the systems worked well.
The engine however is another story! We found an exhaust leak that went from a minor hose replacement to major in the form of the heat exchanger exhaust elbow being complete toast!
The windlass also wouldn't run, that turned out to be the motor was shot. Now in the normal scheme of things both items are no longer made so the hunt is on for parts or in the case of the windlass replacement. Stay tuned...
In the mean time Maddie and I have traveled to Florida to join Tonia and Tristan at Al's dads house in Port Charlotte. Monday we head to Fort Lauderdale to look for the needed parts. Probably the best place on the east coast for boat parts, most everything can be found between Fort Lauderdale and Miami.
As for sailing Malaya south we won't loose any time this week as there is no weather window for a passage south for at least the next week. So we will enjoy the sun and warmer weather for a couple of days before Al heads back to Oriental to get Malaya.