Let the Purging Begin

 

 

Hans and I really lucked out on our family trip to Pennsylvania for Christmas this year. We had no issues with snow (there wasn't any), we had sun shine nearly every day (unheard of when I lived there for 50 some winters, and doesn't that just figure), and our return flight (which we found to be completely topsy-turvy and had us leaving St. Louis, Missouri at 6 AM when we were indeed in Pittsburgh?) got straightened out and we enjoyed a smooth trip home.

We managed to stay awake to usher in the New Year and after spending a very lazy New Year's day watching the Twilight Zone Marathon, I decided the next day was time to start cleaning house (or rather boat).

How in hell have we managed to collect so much junk. While living on a boat.

Usually when the urge to clean out the garage (guest berth) hits me, I take one look at the mass of junk accumulated in there and calm myself by mixing a Wilbur Wow-Wow and settling down with a good book. But that just won't cut it anymore since we've decided to cast off our lines this month and start cruising again.

I'm still puzzled over why we have so many blankets, coats, gloves... for people who live in the tropics (because folks that's exactly what Florida is; the tropics), and don't get me started on all the hockey gear we have. Among some of the junk I yanked out of the garage was a massivesleeping bag. "But that's the sleeping bag I used when I lived aboard in New York City during that record breaking cold winter (a bazillion years ago)." Hans told me. It still ended up beside the dumpster (a place for great finds, I should know). Our heavy leather coats are going to get boxed up and sent north to sit in someone else's closet for our next visit as we do not need these in the Bahamas this spring. Since Hans no longer has to report to a desk job, I'm putting his huge Brooks Brothers dress shirts (they really do take up a lot of room) up for auction on eBay although we did hold onto three of them for future dressy functions. Also on eBay will be a size 3 Jessica McClintock cocktail dress (I wore it exactly one time) and a fancy schmancy propane/smoke detector because it needs to be wired electrically to the boat and we don't feel like doing that. We have battery smoke detectors and we're happy with those, and every time I cook we're reminded of how good they are.

Other than a lot more weeding, I need to make another trip up the mast to drain the water out of one of our spreader lights, take down our bimini and dodger in order to clean the mildew off of them and then treat them with 303 so hopefully they don't leak all over us when it rains. Clean, buff, and wax as many outer surfaces that I can reach, meaning not that many, but I'll bitch about it anyway.

At the age of twenty, our VHF radio has become a bit of a prima-donna and while she has no problem listening in on everyone else, she's taken a dislike to bridge tenders and refuses to speak to them. There will be no oil for that squeaky wheel, she's getting dumped like a first wife. We also need a breaker for our water pump (also acting up) since I'm pretty sure Hans wouldn't be able to live with me if that sucker failed.

Days before Christmas, divers replaced our old worn out feathering props with big new bronze props. We took the Knotty Cat out for a spin and she put on quite a show. We found ourselves zooming about at 7.1 knots under power. Our last trip (right before one of our propellors siezed up on us) had us struggling to make 5.

A very tired propellor. It did its job well for nearly 20 years.

The same week we were having fun with our propellors, we had also been wondering where the hell the water was coming from that we would sometimes find under the port engine. There are too many 'things' that could have been leaking, and during one of my stints in the engine room where I love to try out new yoga poses, I did find a very tiny drip on a fresh water hose. We thought that might be it but of course it wasn't. Finally Hans narrowed it down to the raw water impellor. Some people (very handy people) here at the marina told us how we could fix it quite easily by tapping out the wadda-you-call-it, buy a thing-a-ma-jig at the auto parts store, and jam it all back together. We called our old mechanic up north and he told us to replace it. Period. So even though our handy friends laughed at us, Hans went ahead and replaced both of them. I'm not crossing the gulf with something held together with spit and tie wraps.

Today we're getting hauled out in order to get her highness's bottom painted. Again. Of course today is windy and getting out of the slip should be interesting. We will then spend a few days at a luxury (pet friendly) motel where I sincerly hope no one gets murdered in the room behind us like the last time. They did capture the killer (the poor girl's ex-boyfriend) but not before he stole a couple of cars and killed yet one more person.

Now I've got to figure out what to do with all the stuff in our refrigerator since it will be shut off while on the hard. I hope Hans doesn't mind having chicken for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

At least Wilbur will be happy!

 

Wilbur inspects the latest interloper.

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

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

New neighbors

But first an update on our water situation.

And let me tell you, it's weird.

Hans got online, found a site that supported our type of hot water tank, and made a phone call. The very nice lady that answered told him that she thought we had an air lock. She told him to simply shut off the water (already done) turn on the nearest faucet to the tank (our sink in the port side head), drain the hot water tank via its pressure valve, then close the faucet, turn the water pressure back on (a nerve wracking thought), and see what happens.

What happened was, we no longer had a leak.

I refilled our water tank and it appears we lost about 50 gallons of water during our siege of terror (at least that's what Wilbur is calling it and he blames his bout of diarrhea as a direct result of this trauma).

Still no leak.

We made sure to run enough water to fill the hot water tank, turned it on, and I was able to wash dishes!

And BTW, I love to wash dishes, I don't know why but I really do.

All that's left to do now is to replace our bilge pump. And no, I'm sorry but, there will be no reprieve for Little Miss Snotty.


So now, let me introduce our new neighbor, Mr. Boots.

Mr. Boots lives on the boat right beside us and he's very social, and very vocal.

What I mean is, he's very social with Hans and me, and he's very vocal with Wilbur. But I can't repeat what he says to Wilbur as this is pretty much a G rated blog.





Actually, he doesn't even have a name but after noticing that it appeared he was wearing hip waders, I dubbed him, Mr. Boots.

Mr. Boots showed up two years ago in the middle of a cold Florida winter (is there really such a thing?), and after a spell of very nasty weather, he moved aboard the boat that resides in the slip next to us. He has since become a marina fixture.





And like all marina cats we've encountered in our travels, he is one tough dude.

Wilbur so wants to be friends but check out Mr. Boots' expression.

"Go ahead and make my day, Sissy Boy!" Mr. Boots laughed at Wilbur's wagging behind. "I'll kick your Pitty Butt now and ask questions later!"

Wilbur's feelings were quite hurt and he went down below to watch Pit Boss on Animal Planet. At least Shorty appreciates the pitty.












Mr. Boots.
















Water Update:

This morning before we left for West Marine and Winn-Dixie (I feel so southern just saying Winn-Dixie!) we decided to turn off the water pressure... just in case. And damn if the hot water tank didn't start leaking again. So for the remainder of the day we were again without water. Tonight after we drained the tank and let it cool down we repeated yesterdays procedure and voila we no longer have a leak. Again.

We're not sure what's going on but for now we're going to leave the pressure on until we get some more information.

The bilge pump is another story.

OMG! Why is there water INSIDE the boat when it belongs OUTSIDE the boat?!

What on earth will they subject me to next?

I guess the fact that we haven't suffered a personal or marine disaster within the last 48 hours was more than the Knotty Cat could handle.

Yesterday, after getting the heads pumped out, I swept, cleaned, dusted, rearranged our belongings (in other words tried to find room for my books, sewing machine, sewing supplies, mini ironing board, and Hans' clothing), filled up our water tanks (not one square inch of my body was free from sweat after that fun endeavor and why I wore my good clothes I'll never know!), took Wilbur for a hot sweaty walk, picked up some more groceries, and finally took a shower at the shower house (wasted effort on my part as a few minutes later after boarding the Knotty Cat to find a disaster, I was once again thoroughly soaked in sweat). And BTW,are you keeping count of how many times I type 'sweat'? Because that's what you do when you live in Florida. You sweat!!!!!!!

My reward for all these good deeds? I came back to the boat to find about 3 inches of water sloshing around on the port side cabin floor, and the bilge pump was snotty about the whole thing and refused to pump. I tossed poor Wilbur into the cockpit where he climbed onto a cushion, shot me accusing looks and sarcastically thanked me for leaving his precious pitty self alone on a sinking boat.

I grabbed the metal rod that's needed to manually pump out the bilge and joined Wilbur in the cockpit. I had a rapt audience in Wilbur, who, with all the excitement of watching me pump like a mad woman and hearing water splash overboard, forgot that he was upset with me.

Then it was time to find out where all this water was coming from. I opened the port side engine room and nearly fainted when I saw water all over the floor and it appeared as though water was coming in through the shaft that connects the propeller to the boat. It was way too much like the time we took on water in Charleston.

Then the water pump kicked on and water started streaming down from a leaking hose over my head. I turned off the water pressure and the hot water tank, prayed that it wasn't the head, and zipped back to the engine room. The flow eventually stopped and the water that had leaked in, settled around the propeller shaft so at least I now knew that we hadn't sprung a leak.

Hans called me on his way home and said he noticed I'd left a message on his voice mail, and what's up? He figured it couldn't be good because I never call him at work so two hours later when he realized I'd left a message he didn't bother to listen to it and just called me. Hmmmm...

Very long story short, we think a pressure valve on the hot water tank failed. We had a 'discussion' about the fact that I'd left power to the tank on for a few hours but it really shouldn't have caused a problem (so there!)

We are now without water and for some reason the manual pump at the galley sink won't work either.

We have no idea how much water actually leaked out (we'll find out when we're finally able to refill) and I really hope the hot water tank didn't run dry since it's a big no no to operate it while it's empty!

Today Hans will try to find parts and as for the snotty bilge pump?

It's fired, and we're interviewing new ones today. Just like Fritz the GPS, if you refuse to carry your weight and want to act like a prima donna, you're going to go on a little one way trip to the dumpster.

Unfortunately Hans is putting in very long days and instead of enjoying his few free hours relaxing, he's once again tending to the Knotty Cat's selfish needs. And of course to make things even more fun, Wilbur has decided to have another bout of diarrhea!

This is life as we know it.

An unexpected stop and a decision to make.

Beware, this is a long post.

So if we're supposed to be sailing, why is our Knotty Cat out of the water?

Because two nights ago we discovered a leak in our starboard engine room.

A big leak.

And of course we found it only after dropping our anchor in a very remote part of the Intracoastal about 15 miles past Georgetown.

We had made such good progress, and for once the currents worked with us and we actually motored along at 8-9 knots for quite a while.

The anchorage was beautiful and the sky had gone pink as the sun was just setting. I was going to use the grill and make dinner and we were looking forward to a relaxing evening when we realized the starboard bilge pump was dumping out water about every 30 seconds.

One look in the engine room and we knew we had to weigh anchor and get the hell out of there. Water was streaming steadily from where the propeller shaft enters/exits the boat and our batteries would never be able to handle the load of the bilge pump running all night and we don't have a generator.

I wanted to head back to Georgetown but Hans wanted to forge ahead. We called Leland's Marina in McClellanville (15 miles south of us) and he said we could tie up there for the night.

Thus began one of the most nerve wracking three hours I have ever endured.

The sun set shortly after we got underway and even though we had clear skies and a crescent moon we had to rely almost totally on the MapQuest disc on my computer (remember Fritz our GPS has been surly lately and would prefer to show us on land half the time).

Why this couldn't have happened on one of those stretches of water with all the houses and a lot of light is beyond me and we found ourselves navigating through the most desolate swampland you can imagine. The water was completely still which caused the tree line to reflect in a mirror like fashion from the shore and made us feel like we were going to run aground at any second.

Markers were few and far between and the unlit ones were a bear to spot. I would run up front and frantically wave a flashlight and feel immense relief when I would finally find it.

We knew from my computer that we were approaching a green marker but I couldn't see it at all. I was leaning over the bow with my light when I finally spotted a stick in the water just in front of us. It was my marker but the green reflective square was missing.

Everything became one dimensional and distance was impossible to judge. We would see flashing red lights ahead of us that would scare the bejeebers out of us because we were supposed to see flashing green. Then we would realize that the red lights were from towers miles away from us.

Three hours later we arrived at the creek to the marina and then came part two of our adventure. Jutting out from both sides were many unlit docks, my flashlight couldn't pick them out at the same time, and there was a bend in the creek. I was literally screaming PORT! and STARBOARD! back to Hans and he still couldn't hear me over our engines.

After barely missing a couple of docks we finally arrived at the marina only to find someone had tied a boat up to our spot and there was no space available anywhere.

That's when I almost started crying.

We got lucky though when we spotted a couple of guys sitting in a shrimping boat and they went up to a building that looked like a speak easy from the twenties, rousted the owner of the squatter and made him move his boat.

They also helped tie us up and then even came on board to have a look at our problem. Two hours later Mike and Eric left. They ended up stuffing tea towels, one of my cute pot holders, and a piece of our flag pole into the shaft area and slowed the leak to the point where our bilge only went of every few minutes.

I guess Fritz finally got his wish because The Knotty Cat is now on the hard at the Charleston City Boat Yard way up in the Wando River and we're wondering how the hell bolts on the plate that hold the propeller to the boat are loose and/or missing. Also a couple of bolts that hold the cutters in place were sheared off.

I'm not really smiling, I'm just insane.

You can see where a bolt is missing at the bottom of that plate and the loose bolt at the top.

The bolt on the bottom of the port side plate is loose.

Also, after two weeks in the water our zincs were ready to fall off. The problem was not corrosion (we had a galvanic isolator installed this summer) but the fact that they were improperly installed.

A lot of work needs to be done (parts ordered or retooled) and if it's going to take too long, we'll be calling this trip quits and going home. That means the Knotty Cat would winter in Charleston. I think she's always wanted to be a southern belle.

Electric is Now Fixed So How About a New Disaster!

After an uneventful flight I arrived at the Knotty Cat and was very pleased to find that our electrical issues had been resolved. A wire inside our brand new inverter had come loose (and it took three hours for the electrician to rip it apart and put it back together). I'm sorry to say that I'm not a very gracious winner because I immediately said, "I told you so!" I just knew it had to be the inverter, but I'm glad to report that it's humming along very nicely now.

A disemboweled Knotty Cat nav station.















Our girl loves some attention.












This is just a small part of what I arrived to. But it's my fault because I told Hans not to put anything away.
I know where everything goes and I don't want to spend the next two weeks finding my canned goods in a drawer, the towels in a locker, and the toilet paper in the pantry.






I arrived Monday night, put everything away, and on Tuesday we were up and ready to go. We dropped the dinghy in the water, rolled up the solar panels, Hans was getting ready to bring in the electric cord and start untying spring lines etc... when I got the brilliant idea to sweep the salon carpet. So I opened up the port side closet (located on the far side of the berth) where the sweeper is stored, and screamed at the sight of three feet of water happily sloshing around in the locker.
I felt just like Chicken Little who screamed, "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" because I ran up the steps and out to the cockpit like a crazy women screaming "The boat's full of water! The boat's full of water!"
Hans very calmly climbed over the berth and said, "Where the hell is this coming from?"



The back of the locker has yet another door to a small storage space and it too was full of water.



















Looking down in the locker.That's 3 feet of water down there.













After thinking we'd need to go buy a pump, Handy Hans decided to try syphoning it out first.

Some day I'll get the concept of holding both ends of a full hose level (I'm sure the berth and cabin carpet will dry out).
















The bilge happily sucked up the dirty locker water and sent it on its way!













Once we determined that the water was fresh and not brackish (thank God!) we had to figure out which of our many hoses this water was coming from. Each of our water tanks is under our berths. And of course this was the port berth where I'd loaded all of our provisions, including cases of pepsi and gingerale, boxes of canned food, our luggage (we're flying home) and anything I just wanted out of the way.
In order to get the water tank all of this stuff (including the mattress) had to be hauled up to the salon.



When I had to go over the the starboard berth and check out the plumbing in its locker, I had to crawl on my stomach to get past the mattress. For once I'm glad to only be five feet tall.

We finally figured out the leak was not from the water tanks but was coming from this hose.

What is it?

It's a locker on the front of the boat and that is its drain. Why someone felt the need to pass a drain through an inside locker is beyond us.

Here is the nice new hose after Hans got it installed.

And here it is where it drains to the outside. The top hose is a drain from the sun pad area. It looked pretty nasty so we replaced it too.

It took about an hour to get the lower hose off its fitting. Its placed in such a way that we couldn't get leverage and cutting it was difficult because its wire enforced.

In addition to that, the hoses snaked through two inner wall openings and there was barely room to yank them out and force the new ones through!

I can't imagine what we would have done if I hadn't gone to get that sweeper! And since I rarely use that locker I'm not sure how long it would have been before we discovered our indoor swimming pool.

We checked the starboard berth and were surprised to find its hoses are relatively new. You have to wonder why they didn't replace the port ones at the same time!

We lost the entire day and my ice maker got a good workout!

Today we are on our way! We're taking 20 knots on the nose and the rain has let up. I'm hoping we don't run into the thunderstorms that are predicted but tomorrows forecast is calling for west winds and we hope that holds!