Time Flying By

Well, my quick trip to the boat has, as usual, turned into a marathon session. When it comes to boats, nothing ever works the first time and nothing is ever done on time. It has now been close to a month since I got to Nanaimo.

The first week was primarily spent waiting for the finishing touches on the new autopilot and instrument installation (was supposed to be done by time I got here). The actual hardware installation looks good but the wiring to get everything interfaced seemed to be quite a challenge. I'm not sure what I would have ended up with if I had not been here to make it clear how I wanted things to work. It also fell to me to actually read the manuals to see how to get the mixture of brand name products to talk to each other (Boat gurus feel it isn't very macho to read the manuals). I did manage to save a few bucks by doing some of the grunt work of running wires myself.

Once we had everything talking nice, we took the boat out for a bit of a sea-trial in Departure Bay to set up some of the autopilot stuff. Everything appeared to be working ok at that time. Here are some pictures of the new instruments actually turned on.

New radar and chart plotter, NX2 multi-control instrument and Comnav autopilot controller.

New radome.

New mast-top wind transducer (Solar powered would you believe)

Next up, because of the lack of availability of the marine railway for the planned haul out, I arranged to get the boat hauled at Stones and was able to get the new thru-hull installed for the new depth, log and temperature transducer.

While the boat was out, I took the opportunity to clean up the prop and replace the zincs.

The bottom paint appears to be holding up pretty good so I decided to leave it till the fall, presumably before we starting heading south.

Now, for the last couple of weeks, I have been attempting to catch up on many of the other projects that have been accumulating in the job jar for the last few years.

I have finally got the SSB/Ham radio and tuner installed and working. Lots of fun running another 30 feet of copper strip for a better ground, and some substantial coax cable for the connections between the radio and the antenna tuner, etc.

To solve an ongoing issue with access to the VHF radio in the cockpit, I have bought and installed a new VHF radio with a spiffy wireless remote mike to allow us to use the radio from anywhere on board.

After years of procrastinating, I have also finally got a holding tank plumbed in properly. Trust me when I say you don't want to know any more details of this project.

Other minor fixes accomplished:

• Took the life raft in for servicing.
• Throttle creep issue solved with the addition of a small clamp on the throttle cable.
• Replaced the failed temperature alarm sensor on the engine (discovered just how easy it is to get a soft brass fitting cross-threaded and totally screwed up, and subsequently now own a cool new thread file tool).
• Replaced both of the failing engine room blowers.
  

Did I mention that nothing on a boat ever works for long

Sure enough, as soon as I tried testing the autopilot and stuff again, the new fluxgate compass is no longer being recognized by the autopilot. After trying a new compass with the same results, I am now waiting for a replacement main processor unit for the autopilot itself.

Apparently all this work on the boat has made my car jealous, so it decided to get into the act too. One of the rear brake calipers froze up and forced me to take it in and get both rear brakes completely rebuilt. Not an expense I really needed right now. But it did mean that I could not leave for Edmonton for Easter. Instead, I will attempt to spend my time productively, diving into the endless list of things to be done on the boat. On this note, I have ordered a new "Pactor" modem for the SSB radio that will allow us to receive emails, weather faxes, etc. while on the high seas. Sounds like another fun wiring project.

Meanwhile, Susanne is busy back at the house, boxing up all of our worldly possessions to be put into storage. And working hard to help pay for all of the aforementioned equipment and repairs. Actually, I think I got the easy job.