So everything s going cording to plan until I put the dingy in the water … I have never “launched” the dingy that late (day before the real lunch) .. Tony was even wondering about it - especially since I never ran the dingy engine in the yard. I have one excuse for putting the dingy that late in the water - As of Tonys request, the cover was only removed this morning and Tony didn’t wanted me to cut any holes into it as long as he was still working on the varnish of the wood rails…

But I should have test the engine … Anyway I was very confident the engine would start without any problems ..
I could not find the yard guy to move the dingy and the engine until lunch time … anyway in the water we put it around 1PM .. It started right up as expected … but no raw water seemed to be exiting the back of the engine ???? just hot gases ???

Darn - I get Antoni with his car - back goes the Dingy engine to the boat - has to be the impeller
…Did I install it correctly in spring when we came out ?? ….

Off comes the lower gear and I open up the Impeller housing - dam all looks good - I force water trough then coolant exit on the engine - sure enough water comes straight out of the inlet = no blockage …

What the hell is going on .. back in the water we go - the same thing seems to happen, but this time I take my time to investigate the situation ..

Looks like there is actually water flowing if the engine is idling , but once you rev it up the water flow stops and hot gases (Fumes ?? ) escape trough the raw water exit .. it seems whenever the thermostat opens this happens.

This can not be good … back in the yard ( now it’s around 5PM as the engine guy showed up and finished the service on the diesel engine)

So I figured, it had to be one of the two gaskets sealing the engine against the motor housing or worse a leaking head gasket (better not as I don’t carry a spare gasket)

It took me until 7Pm at night (mostly in the dark with flash light) to remove the engine body and replace the two gaskets sealing the engine against the engine cover..

We will see if I fixed it … Once the engine was removed it seemed obvious what’s happening - once the thermostat opens the water get’s routed trough the cylinder head and exits directly into the lower gearbox together with the exhaust fumes - at this point no water should exit the raw water exit anymore .. I think a leaking gasket allowed at that point for some fumes to pass into the raw water channels and exit trough the raw water exit …

The good thing is, that the engine was never in real danger of overheating or getting damaged …

Because of all this I forgot to make sure the sail maker dropped the sails .. I definitely need to do this ASAP tomorrow morning or I’m in trouble ….

Other then that she starts to look like a boat again …

Yesterday afternoon I finally went over to Budget marine to pay for the chain ..
The night before I had tried to google the Maggi chain (Aqua4 3/8 ) I’m supposed to get to find out what the chain should be stamped with .. I could not figure it out …

So at the store I asked them about that = How do I know I’m getting the right chain and not some cheap Chinese copy? It created quite the stir until the warehouse manager finally found the description and we could verify the chain ..

As I had to "wait" for the chain to arrive and Tony to finish the varnish I started a new (Unplanned project) The Port side locker .. That thing got modified by the fuel-cell company as that’s where they stored all there propane tanks to power the fuel-cell during the atlantic crossing ..
The remains of that modification was still in there in the form of some useless propane tank holders fiberglassed into the port locker ..
So I finally removed them (Not all of them, as two a them are vertical low profile fixtures, that actually help me to secure our spare anchor)
Once they where cut out I decided to paint the locker (mostly because I wanted to get rid of all the fiber glass dust ) - I do hate fiberglass !

Now that the locker locked more presentable, It made no sense to put pack the old rust items I store in there - emergency tiller, spare anchor (s) and so on.....
So today I sanded and cleaned the tiller and then primed it with one of those “miracle” rost converters - it should be ready for paint by tomorrow .. On the spare anchor I just used some zinc phosphate paint to re coat the anchor (I’m not planning on using that anchor anyway) - hopefully it will last a few years ..

As a setback the engine guy didn’t show today - I need to check with him tomorrow and see if I can get him out … All he has to do is to change the two diesel filters and then make sure everything is running as expected (I did all the rest ) I could probably as easily change the filters myself, but I just like him to see the engine running and making sure everything looks and sounds Ok.

With the help of Antoni I installed the new alu rails today ..
First I had to jump a small hurdle as my drill would not allow me to drill the holes required to mount the rails.
The bow pulpit would just not levee enough room for normal drill.
I asked local Boat shop if they could send somebody out with angle drill - sure enough
the required 8 holes where drilled within 45 min - all for a total of 128 TT - amazing how it sometimes just works …

It took the two of us about 3 hours to install the two rails …
This means I can get my chain delivered tomorrow :-)

Also early in the mooring I dropped a sample of the coolant from my engine at the machine show (had to stuff it under the door as the guy came in late) When I called later he told me that I must have mixed up the yellow and the red coolant to get that color …
Not sure about this - for now the plan is to drain the coolant in Antigua and see what it looks like - if it comes out brownish again that heat exchanger will be opened ..

I removed the old teak portions under the cleats, then prepped the bow for installing
the new alu rails .
I also cleaned up the cleats .. They might just do it for now, but I probably should bring them home in December to rework them in our shop ..

I reinstalled the main winch base (rotated 180 deg) ..

Then I drained the engine coolant ... darn it came out brownish .. usually that means some sort of trouble.. I saved some of it and will show it to the mechanic tomorrow .
I also have him check the coolant mixture, as it's is still possible that his guys didn't use the correct ratio last year and therefore the rost inhibitory effect of the coolant didn't "click in"

I now think I will remove the end caps on the heat exchanger tomorrow evening .. just to be sure - I was planning on doing so this this year anyway, but once I saw what's involved in doing so, kind of decided against it last week... :-)
If everything goes well with installing of the new rails tomorrow , I' ll definitely take the end caps off ...
I think I have enough time

So one of my main winches was installed the wrong way by Beneteau (some say Beneteau will always install that winch the wrong way - most likely in preparation for upgrading to a motor winch .... Really that would be the only acceptable excuse !)

If the winch is installed backwards , you can not remove the gears for cleaning - possibly creating a real safety hazard over the years.

I have tried to remove that winch platform a couple of times - but as they used silicon or 5200 it would never butch ..
This year I had the rigging guy looking at it - he took the hammer with some wood to it to the point where I had to stop him - Let's google this - They say constant pressure will release 5200 ... so we put a mooring line to another winch last night and tightened it against the winch body .. the rigging guy though this will never work but still cautioned me to put to protection against the boat - just in case the base would be flying off .

Guess what - I showed up on the boat this morning and the base of the winch indeed was laying on the seats in the cockpit :-)

I spent all morning in Port of Spain trying to get my Fedex package out of customs
We arrive at the office around 8:15AM .. It started really well -only another couple ahead of me - checking in at the desk with my Fedex documents produced within 2min a printed receipt - indicating no charge for storage or anything else ...
What I missed was the troubling sign, in that the guy in the other party seemed to be sleeping in his chair = he seemed kind of out of place - older Rasta guy with dirty work cloth ...

Anyway - I sat down in of the chairs and started waiting .. about 10 min later the other party was called to the back room -- Wow this is going to be quick I thought to myself ... :-)

After approx 10 min the Rasta guy came out and started walking towards the main Airport. I did kind of expected that ,as the Officer at door told me I would have to go to the Main Airport to pay any custom fees..

Other people started arriving - by 9Am there must have been 6 parties in the waiting area ..
The suddenly an older lady in customs uniform appears She heads straight towards the exit door and mumbles something like " my shift is over somebody else will be here shorty " ??????
Now I started to get worried - as we know how this can end in the Caribbean = most likely nobody is aware that the customs office is without the only person really needed - the Customs officer

I guessed 10AM until somebody might show up - it ended up being past 11AM until another Officer arrive ...
9It took them 1-1/2 hour to realize that no replacement was scheduled..) I got to watch some sitcoms (2-1/2 man -The Big Bang Theory - and some Disney channel comics) that helped

Pretty soon after the officers arrival it was my turn (20Min or so ) - and as expected she could not clear the package - this can ONLY be done at Chaguaramas for yachts in transit ...
Basically the same happens as when I arrive by air - They write something in a book make copies and then fold it nicely- seal it - staple it - and write the time of departure on the outside - you're supposed to go straight to Chaguaramas with this - NO STOPPING ANYWHERE - and off you go with you package and the "secrete" paperwork to Chaguaramas where they just have a quick look at you're paperwork and the items and it's all yours ... easy peasy..

The reason this is being down like this, is because to many local companies have taken advantage of us boaters in the past, bringing in parts illegally for "yachts in transit" - having to go up to Port of Spain is pretty much just inconvenience enough so that no Yachty (Us) will help them with stuff like that anymore ...

With the rails in my hands I was able to start working on prepping the boat to install the two new sections on Monday.
Unfortunately both forward cleats look pretty bad - there is substantial part of the underside eaten away by corrosion .. I need to decide if I can have a local machine show cut them back on Monday or not ... but that's not that easy done as one would think, as the stainless steel bolts that a screwed into the aluminum cleats won't come out anymore... Otherwise I would have it done for sure...