During my pre-launch check I find out my VHF isn't receiving. Hmm, is it the radio or the antenna wiring? I try the FM radio which is split off the same antenna. No reception. I debate dropping the mast for a nano-second before deciding I can get through the season with a handheld VHF and deal with it in the fall.
Fast forward to two weekends ago. We get to the boat in a deluge. Thunder, lightning, animals are lining up 2x2 on the dock. By the time we get everything loaded on board I notice the carpet is wet by the nav station. Not a big deal with the hatch open in that kind of rain. I curl up in the aft berth and try unsuccessfully to sleep through the storm.
The next morning I notice the corner of my bunk feels wet. I roll out of the bunk to get coffee going and plant my feet in a puddle on the carpet. :cussing:
After the second cup of coffee I'm ready to deal with it. I grab a flashlight and start pulling things off the shelf and feeling around for dampness. The first thing I notice is there's a line of water down along the outside of the breaker panel. Then that the antenna splitter is full of water.
I kill the shore power breaker and all the DC circuits and start looking behind the panel. Dry as a bone. Next all the cushions come out and I twist into a positions that no grown man should ever try. The water is dripping down from the center bolt of the double stanchion just aft of the fuse panel. The stanchion the cockpit lifeline gates tie into. To get to the bolt all the aft teak trim, and the bead board hull liner have to come out. To get the bead board liner out I have to remove the trim ring for the fixed portlight in the aft bunk. :cussing:
Hmm, the portlight should be held in by more than two bolts right? There should be an internal flange and 5200 in there right? I don't like the way my lucks been going so I decide to play it safe. I get a buddy to run three strips of gaffer's tape over the portlight and hold a hand against it while I pull out the inner flange and hull liner. Success. There is an inner flange and squeeze out from 5200/4200.
But now that it's opened up I can see that what I thought might be two machine screws on the stanchion are indeed through bolts. Even worse are the nuts for the forward leg of the stanchion. The breaker panel is a molded piece fiberglassed into the boat against the hull and deck. The nuts are behind this molded fiberglass assembly.
My buddy departs with a beer to go sailing. I depart for home to get a dremel and roto-zip.
Three hours later I'm back on the boat. The roto-zip is too big so I'm cutting in with the dremel. Since I'm blind cutting in behind an electrical panel I've got all the power off. So no air conditioning. It's 105 degrees below deck according to the bulkhead thermometer.
Every 10 minutes I'm getting text messages from a third friend telling me how great the sailing is out on the bay.
I'm pretty sure I can see to it they'll never find his body.
Did I mention I hate boats.
15 minutes into the job I've burned out the first dremel bit. A quick mental calculation tells me I'll go through about 10 dremel bits at this rate. I try a flexible drill extension on the roto-zip. It gets me into the tight spot and makes quick work of the fiberglass but it overheats almost immediately. It's not designed to work at this speed. Off to Home Depot.
On the dremel isle I find a chuck that will allow me to use 1/8th inch roto-zip bits in a dremel. Yes! :dance:
With my new chuck and a couple of bits I head back to the boat. The bulkhead thermometer says the temperature has dropped to 104 degrees. Things are looking up!
I finally get the fiberglass lip ground back and I can reach the nuts. Of course I cut through a 12v wire despite the fact that I've carefully tied back every wire I can find by feel. But I'm finally over the hump right?
With all the nuts finally off I wiggle the stanchion back and forth to break the bond on the 4200 or whatever was used to seal it. Goof off and a scraper gets the sealer off the stanchion base and I set to work with a sharp 5-1 tool to get it out of the diamond pattern in the non-skid. I'm sitting on the narrowest part of the side deck with my feet on the spring line in the beating sun. I'd like to say I found some kind of a zen state while I was cleaning out the non-skid but I'm pretty sure it was sun stroke.
Finally done I go below and down a whole Gatorade in a single gulp and sit for a few minutes. Then back on deck to spluge a bit of sealer under the stanchion base and under the bolts and reset everything. Below I tighten down the 3/4" nut that holds the stanchion in place then start on the outboard bolts. The two rear nuts go on easily. I hold the nuts in place with a wrench while the wife tightens the from above with a screwdriver.
The front two are another story.
I've only been able to open up an area slightly thicker than my oversized paws. Getting the nuts on is another painful contortion but one of the nuts simply refuses to thread. %#$*#! :cussing:
The sealer is beginning to set up. I finally pull the two front bolts back out and find one has damaged threads. Back in the car I head back to Homer Depot looking like a drowned rat from sweat and covered with fine fiberglass dust. I prefer not to contemplate the odor.
The new bolts and nuts do the trick. I button everything back together. Bolt the interior in place. Remove the gaffer tape from the hull and solder the 12v wire.
With the wire repaired I kick the power back on. The inside of the antenna splitter is coroded so the stanchion has been leaking unnoticed for quite a while. I hook the antenna directly to the VHF and the WX channel comes in crystal clear. :dance:
It's getting dark so the temperature on board is down to at least 98 degrees. I flip on the air conditioner which begins to blow mercifully cold air. I crack the day's first beer. Things are beginning to look up. Just a few teak trim pieces to screw back into place.
Then I hear an alarm code from the air conditioner. I spent a whole day the previous weekend troubleshooting the damn thing and finally figured out that mud wasps had set up shop inside the unit over the winter completely clogging the cooling lines with a cement like nest. High pressure water finally dislodged a surprisingly large nest from the bowels of the compressor. Now it flashes E1 and shuts down. It's sucked something up into the seacock that's blocking the water flow.
Did I mention that I hate boats?
:bang:
Fast forward to two weekends ago. We get to the boat in a deluge. Thunder, lightning, animals are lining up 2x2 on the dock. By the time we get everything loaded on board I notice the carpet is wet by the nav station. Not a big deal with the hatch open in that kind of rain. I curl up in the aft berth and try unsuccessfully to sleep through the storm.
The next morning I notice the corner of my bunk feels wet. I roll out of the bunk to get coffee going and plant my feet in a puddle on the carpet. :cussing:
After the second cup of coffee I'm ready to deal with it. I grab a flashlight and start pulling things off the shelf and feeling around for dampness. The first thing I notice is there's a line of water down along the outside of the breaker panel. Then that the antenna splitter is full of water.
I kill the shore power breaker and all the DC circuits and start looking behind the panel. Dry as a bone. Next all the cushions come out and I twist into a positions that no grown man should ever try. The water is dripping down from the center bolt of the double stanchion just aft of the fuse panel. The stanchion the cockpit lifeline gates tie into. To get to the bolt all the aft teak trim, and the bead board hull liner have to come out. To get the bead board liner out I have to remove the trim ring for the fixed portlight in the aft bunk. :cussing:
Hmm, the portlight should be held in by more than two bolts right? There should be an internal flange and 5200 in there right? I don't like the way my lucks been going so I decide to play it safe. I get a buddy to run three strips of gaffer's tape over the portlight and hold a hand against it while I pull out the inner flange and hull liner. Success. There is an inner flange and squeeze out from 5200/4200.
But now that it's opened up I can see that what I thought might be two machine screws on the stanchion are indeed through bolts. Even worse are the nuts for the forward leg of the stanchion. The breaker panel is a molded piece fiberglassed into the boat against the hull and deck. The nuts are behind this molded fiberglass assembly.
My buddy departs with a beer to go sailing. I depart for home to get a dremel and roto-zip.
Three hours later I'm back on the boat. The roto-zip is too big so I'm cutting in with the dremel. Since I'm blind cutting in behind an electrical panel I've got all the power off. So no air conditioning. It's 105 degrees below deck according to the bulkhead thermometer.
Every 10 minutes I'm getting text messages from a third friend telling me how great the sailing is out on the bay.
I'm pretty sure I can see to it they'll never find his body.
Did I mention I hate boats.
15 minutes into the job I've burned out the first dremel bit. A quick mental calculation tells me I'll go through about 10 dremel bits at this rate. I try a flexible drill extension on the roto-zip. It gets me into the tight spot and makes quick work of the fiberglass but it overheats almost immediately. It's not designed to work at this speed. Off to Home Depot.
On the dremel isle I find a chuck that will allow me to use 1/8th inch roto-zip bits in a dremel. Yes! :dance:
With my new chuck and a couple of bits I head back to the boat. The bulkhead thermometer says the temperature has dropped to 104 degrees. Things are looking up!
I finally get the fiberglass lip ground back and I can reach the nuts. Of course I cut through a 12v wire despite the fact that I've carefully tied back every wire I can find by feel. But I'm finally over the hump right?
With all the nuts finally off I wiggle the stanchion back and forth to break the bond on the 4200 or whatever was used to seal it. Goof off and a scraper gets the sealer off the stanchion base and I set to work with a sharp 5-1 tool to get it out of the diamond pattern in the non-skid. I'm sitting on the narrowest part of the side deck with my feet on the spring line in the beating sun. I'd like to say I found some kind of a zen state while I was cleaning out the non-skid but I'm pretty sure it was sun stroke.
Finally done I go below and down a whole Gatorade in a single gulp and sit for a few minutes. Then back on deck to spluge a bit of sealer under the stanchion base and under the bolts and reset everything. Below I tighten down the 3/4" nut that holds the stanchion in place then start on the outboard bolts. The two rear nuts go on easily. I hold the nuts in place with a wrench while the wife tightens the from above with a screwdriver.
The front two are another story.
I've only been able to open up an area slightly thicker than my oversized paws. Getting the nuts on is another painful contortion but one of the nuts simply refuses to thread. %#$*#! :cussing:
The sealer is beginning to set up. I finally pull the two front bolts back out and find one has damaged threads. Back in the car I head back to Homer Depot looking like a drowned rat from sweat and covered with fine fiberglass dust. I prefer not to contemplate the odor.
The new bolts and nuts do the trick. I button everything back together. Bolt the interior in place. Remove the gaffer tape from the hull and solder the 12v wire.
With the wire repaired I kick the power back on. The inside of the antenna splitter is coroded so the stanchion has been leaking unnoticed for quite a while. I hook the antenna directly to the VHF and the WX channel comes in crystal clear. :dance:
It's getting dark so the temperature on board is down to at least 98 degrees. I flip on the air conditioner which begins to blow mercifully cold air. I crack the day's first beer. Things are beginning to look up. Just a few teak trim pieces to screw back into place.
Then I hear an alarm code from the air conditioner. I spent a whole day the previous weekend troubleshooting the damn thing and finally figured out that mud wasps had set up shop inside the unit over the winter completely clogging the cooling lines with a cement like nest. High pressure water finally dislodged a surprisingly large nest from the bowels of the compressor. Now it flashes E1 and shuts down. It's sucked something up into the seacock that's blocking the water flow.
Did I mention that I hate boats?
:bang:
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