Encinal Assualt 2011

I don't have time for details now but I wanted to post some photos from the yacht club cruise to Encinal.  these are mostly just photos of all the boats we had packed in there.  You'll see the difference from Friday (top photos) to Saturday (bottomish).  The last one is the bay bridge as we were coming out of the Estuary.

Weekend update June 17-19

We headed to the boat last Thursday night to get ready for a big weekend of boat projects as we count down to leaving for the California delta on Saturday, July 2.  Matt had decided he wanted to make homemade lasagna so he got started Wednesday by making the meat sauce and we took that and everything else we needed up to the boat Thursday to put it all together.  On the way up there I decided I wanted cupcakes so I'll start out with a couple of pictures of our dinner:

Thursday night we mostly got everything organized and came up with our shopping list for what we needed to get everything done.  Friday we both had to work and after work Friday Matt started in on trouble shooting our electrical issues yet again.  This time we think we have finally found the problem, a bad connection on one of the ground wires.  Once Matt fixed that and charged the batteries for a bit both motors started right up off of their own batteries, where before we had to switch the starboard motor over to the port motors battery to get it to start.  Here is Matt crawling around in the engine room playing with wires:

Luckily it was cocktail hour down at the dock and there were a lot of people around to bum pieces and parts and tools from, so Matt was able to get an appropriately sized terminal connector to replace the bad one.

Once the wire was repaired the volt meter showed one very dead battery. 

The next day I replaced the old corroded (inoperable) raw water anchor wash down spigot with a new spigot.  When Matt tightened it later he changed the orientation of the handle a bit so as to make it less likely to be accidentally turned on.  It has a dedicated water pump though so it is unlikely to be an issue. 

Somewhere in all of this we had a trip to Tap Plastics, two trips to West Marine and a trip to the fuel dock for 152 gallons of diesel. We were being VERY careful while filling up the tanks to stop and use our metal dipstick to see how full they were. We stopped filling the port tank after 80 gallons, even though it was not quite full, and shifted over to the starboard tank. We knew that the diesel heater only runs off of one of the tanks so we anticipated one tank would take less fuel than the other, however we underestimated how much less and over filled the starboard tank a bit. We were standing over the tank vent with an absorbent towel so we avoided any environmental disaster. we did not learn until Sunday just how big of a disaster we created in our bilge, however.  At this point on Saturday, in our blissful ignorance, we continued on other projects.  We finished up the set up of our new dinghy motor lift, though I forgot to get pictures.

I worked on sewing the fly screen covers for the sliding doors while Matt worked on wrapping up various loose ends on the to do list.  We went to bed Saturday night feeling great about all we had accomplished and looking forward to finishing up the fly screens and the forward head installation on Sunday.  I woke up at 3:30 in the morning to a strong smell of diesel in the boat, but went back to sleep.  When we both woke up Sunday morning around 8 we started investigating the source of the odor and found diesel in the bilge and a track of diesel from the amidships, forward corner of the starboard diesel tank.  We quickly put a damage containment plan in place.  Matt borrowed a friend's oil extractor and took some diesel out of the tank, in case part of the issue was it was overfull.  Then we had to get the diesel out of the bilge.

Luckily we knew Scott and Kim had empty diesel jugs that we were sure they'd let us borrow.  They were out of town so we called their house and talked to Kim's mom, who was watching their kids.  She said we could come on over.  As we hopped in the car we sent Kim a text to let her know what we were up to.  She called right away and told us they had just moved all the boat stuff to a storage unit.  Thankfully the unit was accessible through combination locks and a key lock door that was easily jimmied open.  We are so grateful to Scott and Kim for being so generous in letting us take the jugs. 

When we got back the boat we quickly began clean up.  Matt took the jugs to the boat to start getting the diesel out of the bilge and I was trailing him down to the boat.  I ran into our friends Ralph and Lisa and they were talking about borrowing Ross's "little thingy" to pump some tranny fluid out of their boat.  I told them they couldn't use his little thingy because Matt was using it on our boat.  Ralph then said he used to have a little thingy but he didn't know where it was.  I knew where it was and told him, then we made a few cracks about Ross's little thingy being bigger than Ralph's and too bad Ross wasn't around to hear people arguing over using his little thingy.  Which was the oil extractor Matt was using to extract the diesel!

Here is Matt pumping diesel and water out of the bilge.  All told there was maybe a quart in there and the tank did not seem to be actively leaking.  Hopefully.

Here is a closed fly screen on one side.

 And an open fly screen on the other.

Here is the forward head, installed on its mounting board, ready to be installed.  We have it all done, just didn't get any photos.

By the time we wrapped up Sunday it was around 4 and we still had to clean up and pack up, and we had some friends coming by to say hi.  We remembered we had some chicken breasts and some mustard sauce on the boat so we decided to stay the night and barbecue chicken.  Joe and Carrie decided to stay as well so we all hung out for a bit. They barbecued their dinner on our boat since our barbecue is easier to use than theirs (we keep ours mounted on the sundeck, ready to use, while they have to get theirs out and set it up every time.  Blow boaters.).  Once they were done barbecuing, after 9 pm, Matt and I soon called it a night and went to bed after a long, busy, stressful day.

Monday morning I thought the boat smelled fine other than the forward head which seemed to have a diesel smell.  Matt was convinced the whole boat reeked of diesel.  I generally notice odors more than he does so I think it is ok.  I hope.

We head to the boat again on Thursday this week, though we are both off work and plan to head to the Encinal Yacht Club in Alameda Friday morning for our yacht club's annual "Encinal Assault" cruise out.

Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls

A few months back, Joe and Carrie introduced us to the delicious goodness of Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls.  Saturday morning, before we started our projects, we made a pack of five.  When we left to run errands, there was one left on the plate and we left it sitting out.  A couple hours later, when we returned, Matt went over to check in with his brother on something and I popped over to Joe and Carrie's boat to say hi.  Carrie was there by herself, cooking up bacon and sausage and it looked like a few other goodies.  I'd been there a few minutes when Joe came aboard, eating a cinnamon roll.  I asked him where he got it and he said "well it was just sitting there on the plate!"  LOL now I don't feel bad that we got sodas off his boat the other night when he wasn't there.  Being surrounded by friends in our marina sure is fun.

Ta Da!!

We have a fresh water head!!

We will have to finish the other one next weekend as we need a part from the store--we only had the exact number of small hose clamps that we needed (actually we didn't have any, but one of our dock neighbors had exactly the number we needed...) and one broke so we need to go buy more before we can finish the second head. Luckily the clamp broke while we were doing the first one, otherwise we might not have been able to turn the water pressure back on! 

So we went to the boat Thursday night with a fairly extensive list of things to do this weekend.  Friday morning I jumped on a web based training at 6:30 am as Matt got ready to go to work.  He left me on the boat and I worked from there on my lap top all day.  I took an hour lunch break and worked on mocking up the install of our dinghy motor lift.  I discovered we needed one more part (of course) and got that ordered.  I left it all set up so Matt could see it and see what he thought of it.  Then back to work for a few more hours.  That evening we went through our list and made sure it was complete while compiling our West Marine shopping list.  Saturday morning we started in on projects and quickly decided we needed to go to Tap Plastics and West Marine before we could get much more done.

At Tap we got a backing plate for our door lock so the part of it in the door and the part of it on the door frame would line up properly and we'd be able to lock the door.  We haven't had a lock for months, which doesn't bother us at CP but we would like to be able to lock the boat at the delta.  Then off to West Marine for a laundry list of items, both to complete projects and to have for the delta trip. 

Once we were back at the boat, Scott and Kim came by for lunch so we could plan out logistics for the Delta trip.  While they were there, Joe and Carrie and Mark stopped by.  Then Eric, who has a PT 35 in Monterey came by.  It seemed like Grand Central Station but it was a lot of fun. We are looking forward to seeing Eric's boat sometime.  We had never met anyone with the exact same boat so it was really neat to hear how the boats compare.

Once things calmed down a bit I started prepping for the head installs.  First I made my own Tee fittings to adapt from the 1/4" water lines we have to the 3/4" water lines the heads require.  Then I mounted the solenoid and vacuum breaker for each head onto a board with some of the hose segments attached.  Then Matt helped me get those mounted inside the cupboards of each head and he helped me get the one in the aft head teed into the water line.  We also got the lock working and messed around with the battery wiring some more.  We called it a night after I cut a new piece of hose and then attached the wrong (old, too short) piece onto the solenoid!

Sunday we slept in pretty late and I had to get to Filoli to work (I volunteer in the garden shop as a cashier).  I REALLY wanted to get our head in so we started in on it but it was not done yet when I had to leave.  Matt had a bunch of other things he wanted to do as well so I wasn't sure if he would get the head done without me to help.  He said as soon as I left Joe came over from across the dock to help drill the holes through the transom for the dinghy motor bracket and then Matt went over to help Joe with something on Joe's boat.  Matt said a couple of hours went by and he realized he should get back over and finish the head install.

So he got the head in place and then spent a good 20 or 30 minutes getting the discharge line on.  He said it was really hard due to the way the hose curved around.  He said Joe came by twice to say hi while he was working on it and when he found out Matt wasn't done yet he went back to his own boat.  Matt finally got it on there, got the wiring hooked up, turned on the water pressure and the power to the heads then came back and pressed the button to try out the flush.  He waited, figuring the air pressure was coming out of the lines, and he heard water running but no water was coming in to the head.  It took a couple seconds for him to realize he hadn't hooked the water line to the head.  That was much easier than getting the discharge line on and soon he was able to do a real test flush.  It works GREAT and is much quieter than the old head.  There is also no nasty salt water stink!  The head we got for the aft head is "household" size and it is noticeably larger and taller than the old marine head that was in there.  All in all we are very happy with how this project came out and we think finishing the forward head next weekend will not take long at all.

Here is Matt checking out the inside of the new head prior to install.

Here is our shim for the lock.  (Tap Plastics deemed the piece they cut our shim from as "scrap" and gave that to us as well for the $1.00 they charged us!!  Matt already has some ideas for using it.  It is about 8 times the size of our shim.)

 My homemade tees to go from 1/4" to 3/4"

 Here is one of my boards

and this is Matt installing my tee into the water line in the aft head.  The large metal tee is the heater vent ducts)

 Out with old

 the board installed for the aft head

 mounting the new head to the base

the four holes in the transom for the dinghy motor bracket (from the inside of the storage cupboard)

I did not get any photos of the dinghy motor lift or the holes from the outside of the transom.  Next weekend!

BIGGER NEWS!!

We were so excited Friday about our BIG NEWS and then we had even BIGGER NEWS on Saturday!  We took the boat out after the rain ended Saturday to give the autopilot a whirl.  IT WORKS!!  Granted the conditions were mild, but it held a course, turned nicely, executed a U-Turn, shows the rudder angle if we want it to... all sorts of good stuff.  We still have no idea why it did not work before and does work now but we will take what we can get!

Here are two shots from our auto-pilot sea trial and a gratuitous engine room shot.

Our batteries and charger also seem happy now.  We've been having problems with the charger putting out to much juice (over 15 amps) and the mid battery not holding a charge and not being able to start the engine.  We have a series of combiner switches so we've been able to use the other battery to start both engines, however the batteries (and the charger) are only 18 months old so it seemed weird to having issues.  So Matt took the mid battery into the shop it came from and they checked it out and told us it was fine.  We put everything back together and labeled all the wires, then turned the charger back on.  Once again it was putting out too much juice.  We turned it off and did a bit more fiddling around (really nothing in particular, just labelled a few more things...) then when we turned it on again it worked fine.  We left it on the whole weekend and never saw it putting out more than 13.5.  Who knows.  It is a boat, after all!

We also have the dinghy motor davit and the motor mount nearly sorted out.  In fact, we were ready (physically, if not mentally) to drill four holes in our transom to mount the motor mount, but realized our drill was at home.  I've never seen Matt so happy he had to stop working on a project.  Drilling all the way through the fiberglass is a bit stressful.  Not something you want to mess up! 

Since we had to halt the motor mount project, we instead went to the store for light bulbs and a new light bulb socket.  We have not had any light in the forward head since our last Angel Island trip.  There are two fluorescent lights in there and one was barely giving off a glow and the other one was completely dark.  Well come to find out one of them was turned off!  You may wonder how we did not notice this.  We always turn the lights on and off with the light switch but one of our guests must not have realized there WAS a light switch (it is outside the room) and used the switch on the side of the light.  Anyway, a new light bulb took care of the dim bulb in that head and the one in the aft head that had the same problem.  There are also two ceiling dome lights in the aft head and one of those was not working all the time.  We took it apart and found the piece of plastic that held the light bulb in place was cracked so the light bulb was not staying up against the socket.  We found a new, slightly different, socket and West Marine and were able to swap that out and get that light working again.

Before we go to the delta we hope to have Keith make us canvas screens for the big windows in the saloon and the side windows in the aft cabin.  There are a few screens that came with the boat, but only for the very small ports in the forward cabin, the forward head and the galley.  We also have a few other to dos before the delta trip and we only have three weekends before we leave!  One of those is the yacht club's big cruise to Encinal so we're not likely to get much done that weekend.  So much to do!

This is the motor mount we still have to install, as well as some clips to hold a boat hook at the back of the boat.  Those are on the project list for next weekend.  Plus that is a bowl of pistachios.  If you like pistachios, PLEASE come by and eat some as we have lots.

BIG NEWS!!

We have two new FRESHWATER HEADS on order!!  I am so excited. I am so tired of the nasty smell from the old saltwater heads!  YEA!  It sounds like we can get Matt's friend Brian to help us install them.  He said he cannot get that smell out of his nose since he stayed with us almost three weeks ago. 

We were planning a trip to Angel Island this weekend with our friend Barry (Sparkler III) but unfortunately it is supposed to rain.  We have plenty of boat projects though, so it is just as well.  Hopefully we will get the boat out to see if the autopilot is working.  I don't think I posted, we went through all the wiring the other day and just couldn't figure out what the problem was.  Just for the heck of it, we tried to move the rudder with the autopilot and it worked!  (this was in the slip)  It had NEVER worked before.  We have no idea if this was a one time stroke of luck or if somehow the old GPS (now removed) was causing the autopilot not to work. In any case, we really want to take the boat out and see what happens!

We've also been having some battery issues and we plan to spend some time investigating the wiring of the electrical system.  That should be interesting.  We have a great reference book on electrical systems (Nigel Calder's Mechanical and Electrical Manual), though unfortunately, reading it makes me want to pay someone else to figure this whole thing out!

Hope to have some new photos for you soon!