Its funny Friday!

Jun 14, 2010
2,081
Robertson & Caine 2017 Leopard 40 CT
I read this post on the Leopard Catamaran owner's forum. Despite what this guy's wife says, this is brilliant:
Good and Gentle People,

There are no questions in this missive. I merely recount the events of my Wednesday as a kind of schadenfreude exercise. Feel free to move onto other more useful

I am happy to announce that with substantial help from Terry Slattery I have installed the ACR in my stb engine. The job involved moving three wires 6 inches. Really that is all that was involved. 3 wires 6 inches. It took me five hours.

The wires previously residing on the defunct isolator had ring connectors just slightly too small for the connectors on the ACR. Since I didn't have double ought ring connectors, nor the press to put them on this little hurdle had the capacity of scuppering the whole activity. Cue the dremel tool. Standing in nice salty, oil soaked bilge water, with the extension cord dangling inches from same, I very very carefully began the task of whittling away the copper connector.

Now you, the astute reader, will have undoubtedly asks yourself, why was the bilge full of salty water and that my friends is the reason I was still there, still in my soaking wet and very oily engine room shoes at 11:00 post meridian.

Sitting astride the engine, looking at the connector that wouldn't fit, I noticed that the raw water strainer had some organic material in it. Being wise in the ways of water I concluded that said material would be better off somewhere else. Here was a nice simple job that I could do while trying to decide about the ACR. Not being entirely stupid, despite what my wife thinks, I reached for the stop cock, and then remembered that even though the survey stated "all stopcocks tested and found working", the stopcock is seized. Not to be dissuaded I carefully evaluated the strainer and decided it was above the waterline and opened it. The tsunami of water that erupted from the strainer upon opening called into question my evaluation vis a vis it's position relative to sea level. Thinking quickly I removed the filter and attempted to replace the lid. As everyone on this forum undoubtedly knows these strainers are designed by NASA to evaluate three dimensional spatial co-ordination and will only screw on if aligned at 0.075 degrees perpendicular to a line drawn between the center of the earth and the third moon of Saturn. The gushing water didn't help. Eventually I got it on, cleaned the filter and then repeated the performance replacing the filter.

So now I had actually achieved something useful, making me feel slightly better about some of my life choices, I tackled the connectors with the dremel tool. About midway through that little project I realized that I had been working for more that 2 hours and my feet were very very wet. Sitting on an engine, with my feet in salt water, using a 110 volt dremel tool, with a dodgy extension cord, on a live battery connection. My wife is probably right.
It was then that I realized the bilge pump had been making noises as if it was working, but in fact nothing was happening. It was at that moment that I realized it wasn't a bilge pump it was a politician. (pa dump bump)

I finished the ACR connections and a green light appeared, which by definition means everything is working. (ya sure) Two projects in one day, I was unstoppable. I moved onto the bilge pump.

By arranging myself such that my face was smushed into the wiring harness and my right ear was impaled on the motor mount, I could just barely reach the bilge pump. Suspecting that something, lurking in the slime was blocking the pump I felt around and was surprised to find oily goo but nothing of substance. Due to the fact that some intellectual giant had attached the pump to the bilge with ferrous screws the pump came free easily leaving only some sharp rusty bits sticking out of the fiberglass. Once out, I confirmed that nothing was blocking the intake. I could feel the little impeller going around and around but when I put it back in the water nothing happened. Over the next 8 hours, I cleaned the pump, tested it such that it inundated my shorts with bilge water, took off all the hoses, flushed the hoses, cleaned and flushed the joker valve. After each activity I hooked everything up and tested it. Always with the same result. Eventually around 10 p.m. I replaced the pump. Unfortunately it was a different size which required fabricating a part to join it to the existing hoses. Around 11 p.m. the sweet sucking sound of a bilge pump as it tries to pump air from a mostly dry bilge. I was so covered in oily sludge that my wife made me strip in the engine room and then just threw my clothes in the garbage.

That was my Wednesday. How was yours?

By the way, on a different note we had the GDB out for 5 entire days and only one thing broke. The third finger on my left hand. The finger, rather unwisely decided to get between the outboard motor and the dingy davit. It is a non-displaced fracture so there is nothing to be done, but it hurts like a mofo.

Stay safe
Sk
 
May 17, 2004
5,032
Beneteau Oceanis 37 Havre de Grace
I read this post on the Leopard Catamaran owner's forum. Despite what this guy's wife says, this is brilliant:
Good and Gentle People,

There are no questions in this missive. I merely recount the events of my Wednesday as a kind of schadenfreude exercise. Feel free to move onto other more useful

I am happy to announce that with substantial help from Terry Slattery I have installed the ACR in my stb engine. The job involved moving three wires 6 inches. Really that is all that was involved. 3 wires 6 inches. It took me five hours.

The wires previously residing on the defunct isolator had ring connectors just slightly too small for the connectors on the ACR. Since I didn't have double ought ring connectors, nor the press to put them on this little hurdle had the capacity of scuppering the whole activity. Cue the dremel tool. Standing in nice salty, oil soaked bilge water, with the extension cord dangling inches from same, I very very carefully began the task of whittling away the copper connector.

Now you, the astute reader, will have undoubtedly asks yourself, why was the bilge full of salty water and that my friends is the reason I was still there, still in my soaking wet and very oily engine room shoes at 11:00 post meridian.

Sitting astride the engine, looking at the connector that wouldn't fit, I noticed that the raw water strainer had some organic material in it. Being wise in the ways of water I concluded that said material would be better off somewhere else. Here was a nice simple job that I could do while trying to decide about the ACR. Not being entirely stupid, despite what my wife thinks, I reached for the stop cock, and then remembered that even though the survey stated "all stopcocks tested and found working", the stopcock is seized. Not to be dissuaded I carefully evaluated the strainer and decided it was above the waterline and opened it. The tsunami of water that erupted from the strainer upon opening called into question my evaluation vis a vis it's position relative to sea level. Thinking quickly I removed the filter and attempted to replace the lid. As everyone on this forum undoubtedly knows these strainers are designed by NASA to evaluate three dimensional spatial co-ordination and will only screw on if aligned at 0.075 degrees perpendicular to a line drawn between the center of the earth and the third moon of Saturn. The gushing water didn't help. Eventually I got it on, cleaned the filter and then repeated the performance replacing the filter.

So now I had actually achieved something useful, making me feel slightly better about some of my life choices, I tackled the connectors with the dremel tool. About midway through that little project I realized that I had been working for more that 2 hours and my feet were very very wet. Sitting on an engine, with my feet in salt water, using a 110 volt dremel tool, with a dodgy extension cord, on a live battery connection. My wife is probably right.
It was then that I realized the bilge pump had been making noises as if it was working, but in fact nothing was happening. It was at that moment that I realized it wasn't a bilge pump it was a politician. (pa dump bump)

I finished the ACR connections and a green light appeared, which by definition means everything is working. (ya sure) Two projects in one day, I was unstoppable. I moved onto the bilge pump.

By arranging myself such that my face was smushed into the wiring harness and my right ear was impaled on the motor mount, I could just barely reach the bilge pump. Suspecting that something, lurking in the slime was blocking the pump I felt around and was surprised to find oily goo but nothing of substance. Due to the fact that some intellectual giant had attached the pump to the bilge with ferrous screws the pump came free easily leaving only some sharp rusty bits sticking out of the fiberglass. Once out, I confirmed that nothing was blocking the intake. I could feel the little impeller going around and around but when I put it back in the water nothing happened. Over the next 8 hours, I cleaned the pump, tested it such that it inundated my shorts with bilge water, took off all the hoses, flushed the hoses, cleaned and flushed the joker valve. After each activity I hooked everything up and tested it. Always with the same result. Eventually around 10 p.m. I replaced the pump. Unfortunately it was a different size which required fabricating a part to join it to the existing hoses. Around 11 p.m. the sweet sucking sound of a bilge pump as it tries to pump air from a mostly dry bilge. I was so covered in oily sludge that my wife made me strip in the engine room and then just threw my clothes in the garbage.

That was my Wednesday. How was yours?

By the way, on a different note we had the GDB out for 5 entire days and only one thing broke. The third finger on my left hand. The finger, rather unwisely decided to get between the outboard motor and the dingy davit. It is a non-displaced fracture so there is nothing to be done, but it hurts like a mofo.

Stay safe
Sk
Wait, why is this in the Funny Friday thread? Sounds like a pretty routine boat project to me. :poke:
 
Oct 2, 2008
3,807
Pearson/ 530 Strafford, NH
Three rednecks were working up on a cell phone tower: Cooter, Ronnie and Donnie. As they start their descent, Cooter slips, falls off the tower and is killed instantly.
As the ambulance takes the body away, Ronnie says, 'Well, shucks, someone should go and tell his wife.
Donnie says, 'OK, I'm pretty good at that sensitive stuff, I'll do it.'
Two hours later, he comes back carrying a case of Budweiser.
Ronnie says, 'Where did you get that beer, Donnie?'
'Cooter's wife gave it to me,' Ronnie replies.
'That's unbelievable, you told the lady her husband was dead and she gave you beer?'
'Well, not exactly,' Donnie says. 'When she answered the door, I said to her, "you must be Cooter's widow."
She said, 'You must be mistaken. I'm not a widow.'
Then I said, 'I'll bet you a case of Budweiser you are.'
Rednecks are good at sensitive stuff.