Left work early last Friday and drove down to Blaine where my boat is, arriving at 14:00. Haulout was at 15:00 so I had to quickly load up the boat, cast off and head over to Blaine from Semiahmoo. And as was expected no one was there at the ramp. I quick call on the cell phone and reminded them of my 15:00 haul. I manuvered around in a narrow area until they showed up at 15:25. The boat was pulled out of the water and they did a great job pressure washing and blocking the boat. Did some fine touchup work Friday evening and retired to the salon for the evening. I could'nt really go anywhere as my car was still in Semiahmoo. TV reception was better here probably due to the lack of metal sailboat masts in the boat yard.
The next day the fun begins. I had two main tasks to finish over the week-end. The first was to install a new bronze transducer as my boat only had a cheap transom mounted unit that was lucky to see past 100 feet. The second was to paint the bottom.
I first started by removing the hardware holding a plastic speed transducer common on sailboats. It really didn't want to come out so I had to give it alittle extra help. Feed the wires from the transducer through the hole and, drat, the hole was about 1/8" to small. I marked to proper size of the hole and using a saber saw. Good thing I brought lots of blades the the fiberglass hull would reduce the teeth on the saw blades to a nub after only an inch of travel. After that was done fine tuned the hole with a rasp and cleaned it out with some acetone. This gave me a good look at hull being about 5/8" -3/4" thick. Hull cross section looked real good with no visable voids or resin stravation. Installed the new transducer with a fairing block cut at a 12 degree angle insured that the transducer was pointing straight down. 5200 was used as the sealant.
Next was the bottom paint but snap, I forgot my gloves. Got a good coat of paint on the hull and also polished up the props and shafts to bright metal. There wasn't alot of barnacles on the props but it was enough to loss 400RPM off of max throttle. This year I'm going to try a product from Pettit called "Barnacle Buster" or something like that. It's basicly a spray on Zinc coating. It's windy out here today the the tarp is dancing around alot.
The next day another coat of paint and spraying the props and shafts with the Pettit antifowlent. Darn, its still real windy here. I'm staring to run out of food so I hike up to the store about a mile away. I didn't look the best with my dirty painting clothes and semi black hands. I should of made up a sign and stood on a street corner. I probably could have made good money.
As it's still windy Sunday night and I'm launching tomorrow and I'm thinking back on the movie Patton and say a prayer for calm winds tomorrow and remind God I have to dock this boat alone and my fairway are so narrow.
And the next day... Perfect! Zero wind. Pay my bill and the boat is loaded and down the ramp I go. Slid into the water and I go down below to check the newly installed transducer. #$^%$%, it's leaking about 1/2 a quart a minute through the plastic plug down the center of the transduser where the optional paddle wheel can be installed. I decided to see if i can fix it at the dock as others were waiting to use the ramp. I ran the boat around for about 1/2 an hour and got my 400 RPMs back. It's amazing what a few barnacles can do. Sure hope the pettit stuff works at least for a year.
After getting the boat back at the dock and tied down I went below to further investage the transducer leak. I decided to try to install the paddle wheel insert and remove the blank and see if that helps. I know there is some sort of flap that should close to allow removal of this but I've never done it before. So I gather lots of towels, wooden plugs and try to prepare for the worst. Unscrew the top plastic cap. More water starts poring out. I think about calling by wife and making sure our insurance is paid up. Carfully start pulling up on the blank. It doesn't want to move. Trying to prepare for the possible geiser that might happen. Pull harder. Still won't move. And harder and then POP, out it comes. Quickly reach of my towles but it is completely unnessary as the water flow now coming out is very minimal. Well this is fun I think so I stick my finger into the hole and push the flap down and water comes poring out. Release the flap and it stops. Cool, it really works. So I insert the plastic paddle wheel insert down into the tranducer and this works great with all water leaking stopped. I took the blank up to the salon where I could get a better look at it and found that the flange that holdes the O-ring was either defective or had broken somehow.
As a side note one thing I noted is on the old paddlewheel tranducer, it had a rubber gasket on the endcap that is screwed down. The Garmin unit does not. If it did it would have provided a secondary seal to prevent water leakage even in the case of an O-ring failure.
Just another day in the life.
Sure hope all are safe on the East Coast.
Dave
The next day the fun begins. I had two main tasks to finish over the week-end. The first was to install a new bronze transducer as my boat only had a cheap transom mounted unit that was lucky to see past 100 feet. The second was to paint the bottom.
I first started by removing the hardware holding a plastic speed transducer common on sailboats. It really didn't want to come out so I had to give it alittle extra help. Feed the wires from the transducer through the hole and, drat, the hole was about 1/8" to small. I marked to proper size of the hole and using a saber saw. Good thing I brought lots of blades the the fiberglass hull would reduce the teeth on the saw blades to a nub after only an inch of travel. After that was done fine tuned the hole with a rasp and cleaned it out with some acetone. This gave me a good look at hull being about 5/8" -3/4" thick. Hull cross section looked real good with no visable voids or resin stravation. Installed the new transducer with a fairing block cut at a 12 degree angle insured that the transducer was pointing straight down. 5200 was used as the sealant.
Next was the bottom paint but snap, I forgot my gloves. Got a good coat of paint on the hull and also polished up the props and shafts to bright metal. There wasn't alot of barnacles on the props but it was enough to loss 400RPM off of max throttle. This year I'm going to try a product from Pettit called "Barnacle Buster" or something like that. It's basicly a spray on Zinc coating. It's windy out here today the the tarp is dancing around alot.
The next day another coat of paint and spraying the props and shafts with the Pettit antifowlent. Darn, its still real windy here. I'm staring to run out of food so I hike up to the store about a mile away. I didn't look the best with my dirty painting clothes and semi black hands. I should of made up a sign and stood on a street corner. I probably could have made good money.
As it's still windy Sunday night and I'm launching tomorrow and I'm thinking back on the movie Patton and say a prayer for calm winds tomorrow and remind God I have to dock this boat alone and my fairway are so narrow.
And the next day... Perfect! Zero wind. Pay my bill and the boat is loaded and down the ramp I go. Slid into the water and I go down below to check the newly installed transducer. #$^%$%, it's leaking about 1/2 a quart a minute through the plastic plug down the center of the transduser where the optional paddle wheel can be installed. I decided to see if i can fix it at the dock as others were waiting to use the ramp. I ran the boat around for about 1/2 an hour and got my 400 RPMs back. It's amazing what a few barnacles can do. Sure hope the pettit stuff works at least for a year.
After getting the boat back at the dock and tied down I went below to further investage the transducer leak. I decided to try to install the paddle wheel insert and remove the blank and see if that helps. I know there is some sort of flap that should close to allow removal of this but I've never done it before. So I gather lots of towels, wooden plugs and try to prepare for the worst. Unscrew the top plastic cap. More water starts poring out. I think about calling by wife and making sure our insurance is paid up. Carfully start pulling up on the blank. It doesn't want to move. Trying to prepare for the possible geiser that might happen. Pull harder. Still won't move. And harder and then POP, out it comes. Quickly reach of my towles but it is completely unnessary as the water flow now coming out is very minimal. Well this is fun I think so I stick my finger into the hole and push the flap down and water comes poring out. Release the flap and it stops. Cool, it really works. So I insert the plastic paddle wheel insert down into the tranducer and this works great with all water leaking stopped. I took the blank up to the salon where I could get a better look at it and found that the flange that holdes the O-ring was either defective or had broken somehow.
As a side note one thing I noted is on the old paddlewheel tranducer, it had a rubber gasket on the endcap that is screwed down. The Garmin unit does not. If it did it would have provided a secondary seal to prevent water leakage even in the case of an O-ring failure.
Just another day in the life.
Sure hope all are safe on the East Coast.
Dave