Water, water, everywhere

 

I once posted about things I'd prefer not to experience while living on a boat. Unfortunately we had one (or two) of those experiences occur recently.

This past weekend we noticed a discoloration on our salon carpet (19 year old indoor/outdoor stuff that's still in pretty good condition) and immediately blamed the dog (don't tell me pets don't serve a purpose on a boat). Poor Wilbur, we said, he must have puked and cleaned it up by himself. And as we bent over the spot and squinted at it, Wilbur got into the act and gave it a good sniff too so as to throw us off the trail because surely a guilty dog would absent himself from such evidence. I assured Hans I'd clean it; someday; and we went about our business.

The next day I noticed the 'spot' was still moist but decided to ignore it.

Let me interject here that we've lived through more rain this past week than we ever have since moving aboard three years ago. Tropical Storm Debby dumped tons of water on us but she ditched us after a couple of days. Same thing for some other storms. But this week we've been dumped on every night and as we watch water gush through the parking lot and cascade over the sea wall, we've dubbed our marina, Pasadena Falls.

The next night I stole Wilbur's spot on the settee since he was sleeping in our berth ('sensible pitties know it's bedtime', we laugh everytime he thumps and bumps his way down below) and was enjoying the fact that I could lounge about with my feet up. Then I stood up to get a drink and 'Yuck'! my feet sank into waterlogged carpeting. What the hell? We immediately looked up at our hatches (because where else would water come in from?) and they were dry. I got down on my hands and knees (something I should have done when I thought Wilbur puked) and oh my god! water was everywhere. It was actually pooling between the salon and galley area.

There's nothing like a boat full of water to get one going, and we were moving. Hans immediately checked our bilges but they were dry and full of cobwebs.

As I felt about the carpet with my hands I realized it was especially soupy around our compression post (this post is the inside support for our mast, much like a support post in a house) which strongly resembles a dance pole. After drilling out the screws that hold the carpet in place I lifted a couple of planks from the base of the pole and found a space we'd never seen before. It contained a small well, and it was full of wires. And water.

A few years ago our electrician did some work in this area but when he started digging into the guts of the Knotty Cat I knew I wanted to watch this perhaps as much as I might want to observe surgery, and so I went shopping for provisions.

But now I had no idea what to do and couldn't imagine where this water was coming from as the ceiling above was completely dry. I dug out the shop-vac I'd used to vacuum a few days earlier which of course was full of dog hair and dust, and therefore needed to be emptied and cleaned first. Out into the cockpit (in my nighty) I went, where the wind was slashing water sideways and most of the dust and dog hair ended up stuck to me instead of in the garbage bag.

 

With the carpet pulled back you can see all the wires (and a washcloth jammed into the lower corner) sitting in a shallow well. Off to the right is a conduit where those wires continue on under the boat and it was completely full of water.

 

This had been slowly overflowing for a couple of days and since we didn't know it, we blamed Wilbur. I sucked over a gallon of water from here which included the water that had entered through the conduit that continued under the boat.

 

After sucking up a ton of water we could see new water flowing into the well and finally realized the water had to be coming down through the compression post. The rain had slowed down and the best we could do until the next morning was to stuff the well with paper towels and a wash cloth.

 

The next day I inspected the mast and about 6 feet off the deck I discovered that a rubber seal on the opening to the mast that our main halyard exits is starting to fall apart. Aha! I was sure I'd found the problem but just to be sure, I sprayed our hose all over the base of the mast and when nothing leaked through I was very happy. And after I sprayed the halyard opening and water gushed down the compression post into the boat, I thought I was brilliant. I immediately stuck a piece of duct tape over the opening and announced to Hans that until we got a new seal we were just peachy keen.

And then that night it rained buckets, and we watched the well under the compression post fill with water. Again.

 

I spent yesterday googling like a crazy woman and learned new 'boat' words like baffle (oh, I was baffled all right) and weep hole (I wanted to weep but was too damn mad). So for future reference for anyone else who experiences this problem with a boat, this is what I learned.

We have a deck stepped mast (I can't help you with a keel stepped mast). This means the mast sits atop the boat and a compression post supports it from inside the boat. The deck is sandwiched in between. Inside the mast, conduits run from the top to the bottom and these conduits carry all kinds of wiring; radar, vhf, anchor light, steaming lights etc... They then feed into another conduit that enters the compression post inside the boat where all those wires exit through the bottom and go their merry way to wherever it is boat wires go.

Since the mast has several openings for halyards, electric wires, etc... water is obviously going to get in, but how does it get out? This is something I never even thought about until the other night. I found out that the mast is supposed to have a 'weep' hole at the bottom. I went out and crawled all around the mast but for the life of me I couldn't find one. I asked for help on a couple of forums and called Island Packet. IP referred me to a couple of boat yards that are familiar with this model but until they called back I kept searching. The forums were very informative and I appreciated their help but I still couldn't find the hole.

On our ice run/dog walk we ran into Mike, one of our neighbors, and he offered to come and take a look. Luckily he knew exactly what I was talking about.

The base of the mast. I couldn't find a drainage hole and I wondered what that screw (off set on the left side) was for. I thought maybe someone at a boat yard had plugged it up.

 

Mike took one look and said he was sure that the tiny rectangular opening at the very bottom of the black part was our weep hole. I just thought a hunk had been broken off over the years. I had been inspecting the mast only.

 

So now that we found what we thought was the weep hole, we discovered it was completely blocked with sealant. We spent a bit of time poking at it with a Swiss Army knife and one of my BBQ skewers but got no where.

Aha! Mike asked why we didn't just take the 'inspection plate' off. So we did. I did find that the screw on the mast (off to the right in this picture) I had been wondering about, holds a conduit in place that runs down the mast.

I was very hesitant to touch any of the screws until someone actually confirmed to me that it would be okay. So when Mike told us an inspection plate is just that; a place to inspect the mast, we opened it up. We had no sooner loosened the bottom screw than water started trickling out. Once it was open we saw that the water was up to the bottom of the hole. Out came the shop-vac again.

Now that the mast was empty we got a good look inside. The conduit that runs down into the compression post sticks up about 4 inches and once the water in the mast rose higher than that, it of course, ran down into the boat. Needless to say if it had drained properly this never would have happened.

What I hate knowing is, water has most likely been sitting in the mast and never fully drying out for a long time. My first line of attack is going to be trying to clean out that hole. However, I've already tried and it feels suspiciously like 5200.

 

If that doesn't work we're going to drill a small hole as close to the base of the mast as we can. This is what several people have recommended.

 

I'm pretty sure that makes more sense than Hans' idea which was to drill hole in the compression post well and out the bottom of the boat. Really.

 

I would bet there are a lot of people out there who are either highly entertained by our antics (as in 'Did you hear what those idiots did this week? You won't believe it!), or wonder how the hell we survive on a boat. I sometimes wonder myself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Up the Mast...Again

Considering the awful weather conditions that people up north have had to deal with this winter I should feel guilty complaining about what it's been like here in Florida.

But I don't. Sorry, but I did my time up there and I've shoveled my shit load share of snow. Then we moved down here and I was literally blind sided by the searing, suffocating heat of summer. And let me tell you it's more debilitating to me that any snow storm could ever be. So after slogging my sweaty way through this past summer I was looking forward to winter when I could finally feel like a human being again and get started on outside boat projects.

But October remained exceptionally hot even into the beginning of November and then all of a sudden it was cold, rainy, and crappy. Except down here in Florida cold, rainy, and crappy is oddly bone chilling, and that combination, added to living on a boat, isn't pleasant.

One of the projects we really wanted to get out of the way was replacing our anchor light with an LED bulb. We only have a two battery house bank and each non LED bulb we use draws 1 whole amp. An LED bulb barely draws a quarter of an amp.

This meant someone would need to go to the top of the mast to replace it. Hans wanted to hire an electrician but that's not cheap so I told him maybe I should give it a try. You might wonder why Hans didn't volunteer. He did, however I wouldn't let him. Back when he was sixteen years old some of his friends hoisted him up a mast and it broke thus plunging him down to the deck where he broke some ribs and ended up spending a few days in the hospital. He weighs a significant amount more these days than he did back then and I shudder to think of the damage to him or our boat if something were to go wrong.

So up the mast I went. And since I'm terrified of heights it was quite the experience. I remember the first time a couple of years ago when I volunteered to go up the mast but once I'd cleared the boom (which is just a mere few feet from the surface of the boat) I panicked and made Hans lower me back down. It was a huge letdown for me as I'd really wanted to help.

Last year I actually managed to get up as far as our spreaders in order to replace our steaming light. After that experience I told Hans I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to go all the way to the top as I literally hug the mast and couldn't imagine pushing my self away in order to get past the spreaders.

So a couple of weeks ago Hans bought a new anchor light and with clear skies and no wind I allowed myself to be hoisted to the very top of the Knotty Cat. I was pretty much okay until I got to the spreaders and then I had to leverage my body around them in order to go higher. However, once I was clear of the spreaders and well on my way to the top my heart was pounding so hard I almost called the whole thing off. I kept telling myself not to look down and when I actually got to the top I could barely breathe and I was shaking so bad I couldn't let go to reach above me where the anchor light sits. I finally did calm down though and after unscrewing the light cover I then had to deal with swapping the bulbs. I was amazed that the only thing that holds the bulb in place is the pressure created by a thin piece of metal and I nearly dropped the old bulb when it simply fell into my hand when I touched it. Of course the new bulb had to be different and I had to place adapters on each end (not fun with sweaty shaking hands). Needless to say I was pretty disappointed when the damn thing didn't work. I finally sent it down to Hans via a bag attached to a line I took up with me and he tested it where our stern light is. It didn't work there either.

Down I came and I took the bulb straight back to West Marine where I discovered 24V and 12V are two different things!! Honest to god, I have no idea why no one checked the package for voltage. Luckily the weather the next day was also good so up I went again only this time armed with a 12V bulb and let me tell you it was no easier and my heart pounded just as bad this second time around. But it worked!! And this time I took my camera with me (I didn't even bother the first time) and got some nice pictures.

The new LED light. Nice and bright!!!

 

The entrance to our marina.

 

 

The deck of our boat. That's my leg in the lower left corner.

 

 

Our neighbor's boat. When he's not at work he's busy sanding.

Wilbur didn't understand where I was, he didn't seem to understand that I was above him.

 

Hans took this picture from shore. You can just see me at the top.

With the cover in place our anchor light is ready to stay lit all night long without using a lot of energy.

Needless to say, the rest of my projects aren't nearly as exciting as going up the mast.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Life at our Marina with neighbors

This post addresses the age old issue of 'neighbors' and I have an odd  feeling that even if I  live long enough to find myself residing in a nursing home I will still find myself living next door to a pain in the ass.

For some reason I've had far more experience in the neighbor department than most people would ever want starting way back when I was a small child and we lived next door to a mean drunk (I still have vivid memories of the night he decided to straighten a crooked bullet with a hammer). Back then we thought that calling the police would put a stop to the harassment he heaped upon us (music blasting outside our bedroom windows at 3 AM, fish, fireworks, and bricks thrown into our pool during the night, and that time he tried to run my mother down with his truck).  But at the end of the day our calls for help just seemed to add fuel to the fire and my parents put up with and suffered through the most unbelievable abuse for over 40 years until the idiot finally died.

While my parents were putting up with this continuing nonsense I got married and found myself living next door to Gladys Kravitz (these days when I take my daily walks around the marina, I tell Hans I'm going Kravitzing). Let me just say I can't imagine approaching a neighbor to announce that I didn't recognize a car that I'd seen in their driveway a day or so earlier and expect an answer, but Gladys did (too many times). And to this day it pisses me off that I actually felt the need to answer her questions.

After my divorce I moved into a new house where my retired neighbor insisted on mowing my yard even though I was thoroughly capable of mowing it myself. He ignored my protests and deep down I knew nothing good would ever come of this situation so needless to say I wasn't too terribly surprised when Mr. Good Deed turned on a huge hate campaign ten years later when I put up a For Sale sign. In his opinion I was selling out, I was in cahoots with a couple who owned the vacant lot next to me, and  I didn't give a damn about my neighbors. Honest to God, he thought a huge corporation was going to snatch up my tiny little lot and the whole neighborhood would then go to hell in a hand basket. I know this because he showed up at my work place one day and screamed at me in front of all my co workers. He also erected a barrier of sorts along the back perimeter of our properties consisting of old tree branches woven together in a makeshift fence. The reasoning behind this still puzzles me but I'm pretty sure he was hoping I'd knock it down. Of course I didn't and I still can't believe my house finally sold. I do admit I harbored a nasty desire that the new owners would park a few rusty vehicles and perhaps an odd refrigerator or two in the front yard if it would only piss off Mr. Good Deed.

Then I moved to The Big City where Hans and I lived together for a couple of years.  We really didn't know our neighbors very well but they certainly made themselves known to us thanks to the constant police presence in our neighborhood.  Never in a million years would I have thought that I would actually find myself side-stepping gun wielding policemen (more than once) upon returning to our apartment from a store run and I felt like a relic from the old west and  prayed they wouldn't shoot my purchases out of my arms before I could flee upstairs. And right before we moved away we watched as the coroner's office hauled a body out of the back yard of a house from across the street. I was more than ready to leave.

We eventually arrived on the west coast of Florida aboard our Knotty Cat and were barely settled in when my newly carved Halloween pumpkins that I had sat on top of our dock box were tossed into the water and my recently purchased potted plants stolen.


And I met one of our new neighbors, Joe.

Initially I felt sorry for Joe. Joe was upset because his girlfriend had been forbidden to set foot back in our marina 'just because the owner found her smoking in the bath house'  and could I believe someone would throw a homeless cancer survivor out into the street? But I soon discovered that the girlfriend was a nut case (and that Joe's mother is the one who didn't want her around. By the way, Joe was well into his 50's) who though supposedly homeless was able to afford a cell phone and cigarettes and enjoyed stealing Joe's vehicle on a regular basis including Thanksgiving morning. The girlfriend continued to visit Joe and they would have hugely loud fights and would then be stunned when the police showed up. 
Every single time. 
Then there was the morning the young couple who lived next to Joe discovered him in their cockpit with his arm deep in their beer cooler. Upon being caught 'red handed' Joe played the fool. "Oh my God! This isn't my boat? How embarrassing! I can't believe I did this! But anyway, I'm out of beer so do you mind if I take one?"  It wasn't until a few months after he'd been evicted that another live aboard couple realized that Joe was most likely the culprit who'd stolen all but one bottle of beer from a case they'd left on ice in their cockpit. 


But, my relief of finally having gotten rid of Joe didn't last long when he was replaced by a whole new neighbor.

A neighbor who felt the need to hail us at 11 PM, far too often, in order to impart some valuable piece of information upon us such as how many knots the wind was going to blow during the night. I finally learned to quickly close our cock pit door as soon as I smelled the cigarette smoke that always preceded another unwanted visit from Neighbor.

Neighbor thought he knew much more about 'boat stuff' than we did and succeeded in completely screwing everything up the second time Hans sent me up the mast. It was a Saturday morning and we finally had the proper bulb and o-ring for our steaming light (or so we thought), and a new bolt for our radar. 


Up the mast I went and out came Neighbor full to the brim with commentary. 


Now, I'm terrified of heights and Hans being aware of this was very carefully hoisting me up the mast  manually as opposed to using our electric halyard since he knows this gives me an odd sense of control. This was more than Neighbor could handle and he fairly danced about his boat with impatience and shouted instructions to both of us. Hans assured him that this was a simple routine for us and that we were just tying up some loose ends and then did his best to ignore Neighbor.
Then I discovered the replacement bulb for the steamer light was too small and the o-ring too big. And the bolt we'd bought to replace the missing one on our radar was the wrong size too. I shouted this information down to Hans and we decided we may as well give a bigger bulb we'd found on board a try. But since I was already up the mast and didn't feel like coming back down only to go up once again we were debating on how to get that particular bulb up to me.

Poor Neighbor went nuts.

"Oooh! oooh! I know! I know!" And then he was on our boat. While Hans tried to calmly explain what we were going to do, Neighbor kept shouting, "No, No! Listen to me! Listen to me! Shut up! You're not listening to me!" Hans had found the spare bulb and taped it to our boom so it would be within easy reach for him, and he'd tied off the halyard that was holding me in place. While Neighbor leaped and jumped about and continued to shout, the wind started puffing a bit. From my perch up above these conditions combined to cause the mast to start swinging to and fro and my heart to pound.

Me:  Would you guys hurry up and do something, I'm moving around too much and anyway I'm getting sunburned.

By now Neighbor is swinging a huge thick line like a lasso and thinks he's going to loop it over one of the spreaders.

Me: It's getting windy up here, would you guys hurry up?

Neighbor is in a frenzy of throwing and wants me to shut up.

Me (noting with great alarm): Hey, I'm sliding down the mast!

Neighbor: No you're not.

Me (still sliding): YES I AM! What the hell are you doing!

Neighbor: You're not moving.

Me: I'M SLIDING!!

Neighbor: Oops, I stepped on the winch handle.

And in order to step on the winch handle this meant he'd jumped up on our boom during one of his tossing efforts. This also meant that he'd somehow dislodged the bulb Hans had taped to the boom and it was now gone.
Hans cranked me back in place and told me to try the original bulb one more time.
We discovered that a tiny little bulb when dropped from a great height will shatter into more pieces than you can imagine.
I didn't bother to go back up the mast until after Neighbor was finally evicted and in only a few minutes I calmly and successfully replaced the light, the o-ring, and the bolt.


Someone recently asked me if we're enjoying the quiet these days now that Neighbor is gone and I had to admit that while I like not having to peek outside before leaving the boat anymore, it's almost boring.

But I've no doubt new neighbors will arrive as they always do and I can get back to some serious Kravitzing. 

Up the mast I go.

Yes, that's me.

Up the mast of our Knotty Cat.

And it was actually quite interesting. I would have said it was quite illuminating but since I was up there to try and figure out why our steaming light doesn't work... well you can see why it wasn't illuminating!

Sometimes I crack myself up.

I was checking out our spreader lights here. They are held together with electrical tape and work just fine. I think we'll leave them alone for now.

We never did know where the heck our steaming light was since it's so hard to see this kind of thing from the deck. Even after I got up there I couldn't find it. Then I told Hans to turn on all the lights I realized that the foredeck light had a plastic cylinder attached to the top of it. I was able to unscrew it and behold! there was a dead bulb sitting there. The location of our steaming light was no longer a mystery.

Here I am, saying Hi to Hans.

And don't worry, I made sure I didn't piss him off before I let him hoist me up.

An artistic shot.

Wilbur was quite concerned when he heard his mama was going 'way up there'.

"I can't watch!" he cried, but before he squeezed his eyes shut he made sure I told Hans where I hide his tasty pitty treats.

Just in case my trip down didn't go as smoothly as my trip up.

Traitor!