Jan 31, 2012 - Boat Projects

The weather hasn't been great since we got back from Florida's warm vacation, so I decided to get a few projects done on the boat.  I ordered some custom built mufflers late last year and I'm finally getting around to putting them on.  I measured several times and had the company make the largest ones that I thought I could squeeze into the confines of the engine room.  The bigger the muffler the quieter the exhaust.  Our boat exhaust was VERY loud.  So loud in fact that I've had several people comment on it.

Anyway, I've now gotten around to installing them.  They are much bigger than the old mufflers.  I think I calculated they are 2.5 times bigger (interior volume).  They JUST fit our boat.  I don't think I could have gotten anything bigger to fit.  Phew!

The old muffler (small) compared to the new muffler (large).

The starboard side old muffler.

New muffler installed.  Also some fresh paint.  Bright and cheery.

New muffler on the port side.  This one JUST fit!  Only an inch to spare.

These mufflers were made by the same company that made our original mufflers.  They are a newer design that reduces the noise even further.  The new design has two chambers and is this companies quietest muffler.  For every 10dB reduction in volume, your ear perceives it as being 1/2 as loud.  I was hoping to see the exaust noise with the new mufflers about 1/2 as loud, which would be a 10dB reduction in the sound level.  I measured a reduction of about 20dB.  This is a HUGE improvement, and well worth the money, at least in my opinion (and probably a few of my neighbor's too).

Before: 100.6dB.  Standing on the dock.  LOUD!

After: 79dB.  The new mufflers are MUCH quieter.

While I was at it I cleaned and painted the areas that would be impossible to paint with the new mufflers installed.  It's a start and someday I'll get the whole engine room painted.  This special engine room paint (Interlux BilgeKote) makes it much easier to spot leaks and drips.  It's also easy to clean, it's brighter, and just plain nicer to work in an engine room that is spotless.

I also removed the old square sine wave inverter/charger and replaced it with a nice true sine wave inverter/charger.  It's a big upgrade for the boat.  Now every AC powered device on the boat will be getting power like it would at home, not the chopped-up and crude power it was getting from 20 year old inverter technology.  This means battery chargers won't overcharge and ruin our batteries in laptops, cellphones, cordless drills, Nintendo DS's, etc anymore.  It means the microwave won't buzz loudly when in use.  It means clocks will keep time and the navigation computer will be more reliable.  It also means the TV won't make it's slight buzzing noise anymore, and will have an even better picture.  Plus it's a much better boat battery charger meaning our expensive house battery bank should live a longer life.

The old inverter.  I'm going to wire it up as a spare, just in case.

The nice new, high-tech inverter.  It produces much better AC power.

I have a few little projects left on the inverter installation.  I have to install the battery temperature sensor that senses overcharging (which causes overheating) and regulates the chargers output.  I also have to install the battery monitor kit which will tell me exactly how much electricity is flowing in or out of the battery, and keep track of it for me so I can just look at the display panel to see where the batteries are.  It will show up as a percentage.  If it says 68% then the batteries are 32% down from their max charge.  This is a big help in determining when to start recharging, and when to stop.  You never want them to get below 50% because discharging below 50% is tough on the batteries and they won't last as long.  You generally want to recharge to about 85%.  You can keep going in an attempt to reach 100% but you could end up leaving the generator running for half a day just to put back that last 15%.

I fixed a really bad transmission fluid leak.  It started a few months ago and would leak a quart in about 15 hours of engine run time.  That's a bad leak.  It was simple to fix once I figured out where it was coming from.  The O-ring that seals the shift rod was leaking. I just had to pull the shifter shaft out of the transmission and install a new O-ring and the problem was solved.  I replaced the O-ring on the other transmission as a precautionary measure, just to be safe.

I also installed some new digital tachometers.  It took a bit of messing around with to get them to match up correctly with our tach senders.  I finally figured out that our Detroit Diesel senders output three pulses per engine revolution and once I set the tach's for that, they were perfectly accurate.  I compared them to my hand-held digital laser tachometer and they are PERFECT.  These tach's are accurate to within one RPM.  The old mechanical tachs were off by hundreds of RPM's and were virtually useless.

New digital tachometers, with engine hour meters (top readout)

Our new 2nd refrigerator arrived yesterday.  So, now I need to turn to the galley cabinet project so we can have both refrigerators.  I also have a trash compactor to install in the galley which will mean cutting up and reconfiguring a cabinet to make room.  I know what I'll be doing in my spare time during the next month or so.

Stay tuned for updates...

Jan 15, 2012 - Florida and Bahamas vacation

We got a break from the usual cold, gray, cloudy NW winter and a had a family reunion/vacation in Florida.  Well, actually the reunion was aboard Disney's newest cruise-ship, the Disney Dream.  This is the 3rd largest cruise ship in the world.  4000 passengers and 1600 crew.  That's a LOT of people!

Kathy's entire family was there; her brother Brad and family from NY, brother Les and family from Colorado, and her parent's from Idaho.  There were 15 of us and we had adjacent rooms on the ship.  We were even able to have the crew open up the decks so we had one long balcony connecting all 4 rooms.  The kids loved this.  The ship left Port Canaveral FL and cruised overnight to Disney's private island in the Bahamas (Castaway Cay), then over to Nassau for a day, then out to sea for a day, then back to Castaway Cay, and finally back to Florida.  It was a great 5-day cruise.

We then spent the next week going to Epcot, a Disney Waterpark, a Disney indoor arcade, a Disney minerature golf, several other miniature golfs, an airboat ride through the swamps, and Universal Studios.  Prior to the cruise we spent several days exploring Florida by car.  We made stops at West Palm Beach, South Miami, and drove into the keys.  We put about 900 miles on our rental car in the two weeks we had it.  I feel like we saw quite a bit of southern Florida although it would have been nice to have another week to explore

Here are some pictures from the trip.

Florida Keys

The name of the cruise ship

Early morning walk while the boat was underway

Kevin catches a wave at Universal Studios

Getting ready for our air boat ride to see aligators and turtles.

Playing in the warm water - Florida Keys

People, one of the swimming pools, people, the cool waterslide, and people.
That's a huge TV that plays Disney movies during the day.  Did I mention People?

Kevin and Steve on a water toy ride.  The ship was HUGE.  1150' long.





Harry Potter World at Universal Studios.  Fantastic!

Heading into Epcot.

 After a great trip in the sun, playing in warm ocean water in the middle of winter, and the bright blue skies of Florida, we had to come home.  And guess what?  It was snowing in Seattle for our return.  The van was encaesd in a layer of ice and one of the sliding van doors was frozen shut from the ice.  It makes me re-evaluate where I live  :-)

We came back to this!  Snow in La Conner.  Brrrrr.......

Our kids had been out of school for the 2 weeks of winter break, followed immediately by our 2 week vacation.  Then, due to the snow and ice there was no school for an entire week.  Wow! 5 weeks with no school?  I hope they don't get held back a grade because of this...  :-)

Back to reality for all four of us; I hope we can take it.

December 19, 2011 - Kiket Island, Watmough Bay, Eagle Harbor

We finally get to take a trip longer than just an overnighter.  The kids got out of school at noon on Friday which is the start of winter break.  They donj't go back to school until next year.  Kathy had already taken Monday as a vacation day Monday so we have Friday afternoon through Monday night for a boat trip.  And guess what, the weather cooperated this time around!  Light winds for the whole trip and Saturday is supposed to be nice and sunny.  Yahoo.

Friday afternoon we took the short cruise over to Similk Bay/Kiket Island which is a good place to stage yourself for an early morning departure through Deception Pass.  Slack water is at 8:00AM and we intend to be there for it.

Sunset on Friday night at Kiket Island.


Friday night is very calm with virtually no wind to worry about.  It does rain overnight though which makes me doubt the sunny Saturday forecast a bit. 

8:00AM slack current at Deception Pass.



We head over to Watmough Bay on the south end of Lopez Island Saturday morning.  This is supposed to be a great sunny day.  There is a very nice hike to the top of the cliff that overlooks the bay.  It is pretty spectacular.

Having lunch at "the cliff" overlooking Watmough Bay.

Looking down on "Adagio" from atop up the cliff.

We have Watmough Bay all to ourselves.  Winter boating at it's best.

Up at the top there are a lot of trails that wander through the beautiful wooded forest.  Someone has built a really nice rope swing up there that has been here for several years.  After I give it a good test to make sure it's strong, the kids start their swinging frenzy.  They love this swing!

The swing is still here.  Who goes first?

 

Cindy catching some serious air!



Kevin gets up there too during one of his turns.  What fun.

Back down on the beach there are some really huge boulders to climb around.  Despite the kids getting bigger each year, these boulders don't seem to look any smaller  :-)

Huge boulders.

It was a spectacular sunny December day; cold and clear with no wind.  Perfect!  It rains quite hard overnight and we are pretty sure that the sunshine is now gone for a while.  When we wake up Sunday morning it is cloudy with some fog patches.  It is still drizzling a little.  Quite a change from yesterday.  We decide to head over to Eagle Harbor on Cypress Island.  There are a bunch of great hiking trails there too.  We hope the weather breaks so we can go for our walk and not get too wet.

It's an easy two hour motor over to Eagle Harbor.  The rain stops and there are a few patches of blue sky now and then.  We arrive in Eagle Harbor and grab a buoy only to decide that it might be just a bit too shallow when the low tide rolls around at 5:30PM (after dark).  So, we untie and move to a buoy in much deeper water.  We them put down the dinghy and head to shore to hike up to one of the little lakes on the island.

On our way up the road we find something we've seen here before.  In fact, we've ONLY seen this on Cypress Island and nowhere else in the San Juan's.  They are everywhere.  The kids must find dozens of them within a few hundred yards.  I'm sure you are asking what by now?  Little salamander creatures!  Needless to say, this is a SLOW hike.... but it's a lot of fun.

Cindy with her salamander



Kevin has a pair of them.

Close-up of one of these cute little reptiles.

We eventually make it up to the lake and take the lake loop trail.  It's a cute little lake and at one end we find a well built log shelter.  This would be a good place to hide from a sudden downpour.

The very sturdy rain shelter...

We find a lot more salamanders on the way back down, then we climb into the dinghy and motor back to our boat to warm up.  The diesel furnace is sure nice, but it is having one problem, and it's somewhat serious.  The furnace boiler refuses to "fire" when the engines are running.  After the engines are shut off it takes me a while of tinkering with it to get it up and running again.  I've discovered in my tinkering that the furnace will fire instantly when the generator is running, and it will also keep runnning just fine under gererator power even with the engines running.  So, I'm narrowing it down to some sort of issue with our old inverter, which creates 110v AC power from the 12v DC house batteries.  I need to do more testing.  Right now the net effect is we either have to run our generator when we are motoring somewhere, or we get cold and leave the generator off while motoring.

It is a perfectly still night with absolutely no breeze.  Monday morning we awake to overcast skies, but no fog or rain.  We get a fairly early start and take the dinghy over to Pelican Beach which has good access to the Eagle Cliff trail.  Pelican Beach is full of great flat skipping rocks and the kids are learning how to skip rocks.

Skipping rocks at Pelican Beach.

We hike up to the top of Eagle Cliff, which seems much easier this time around.  Maybe it's because the kids are older and we are having trouble keeping up with them?  Or maybe it's because we started our hike at Peilcan Beach instead of way back at Eagle Harbor?  The view from Eagle Cliff can be specacular, but it's overcast with some low clouds.  In fact, some of the clouds appear to be lower than us.

Great view from the top of Eagle Cliff, even on a cloudy day.

We hike back down to Pelican beach where the kids skip some more rocks.  We then dinghy back to the boat and pack it all up to head home.  It was a very quiet trip home with only one other boat on the water.  In fact we only saw half a dozen boats on the water the whole weekend.  It always amazes me (Steve) how few boats there are out there during the winter.  Another successful and rewarding trip.









 



December 04, 2011 - Similk Bay

We took a close-to-home overnight trip.  Friday night we took the kids to the Elemetary School x-mas party where they made crafts, decorated cookies, and then watched the movie "Rio" in the school auditorium.  So, we couldn't leave Friday night.  Saturday morning my sister took the kids to the Santa breakfast in town, so we couldnt' leave early Saturday morning.  Sunday Kathy and my sister Pat are taking Cindy and her friend Natalie to see the play "The Nutcracker" at a local theater.  So, we couldn't stay out on Sunday either.  This was definitely a short trip.. 



Zappa watching for logs as we leave Shelter Bay.

We left Shelter Bay after the kids got back from the Santa breakfast.  It was overcast and cold; about 37 degrees.  We motored over to Similk bay and it was nice and calm.  During the ride over the furnace stopped heating, or perhaps it stopped circulating hot water.  I tried several restarts of the system while underway but couldn't get it to work.  Once anchored I was able to get it running again and it was fine for the rest of the trip.  Our new anchor seemed to get a good bite.  This is the first time using it.

We have new appliances in the galley; a new propane cooktop, a new refer, and a new convection microwave oven.  We got to try them all and so far so good.  Kathy loves the propane cooktop.  The refer is quiet and uses virtually no electrictiy compared to the old home unit that was in the boat.  The convection microwave is something we need to learn how to use.  It is supposed to function as an oven and we did cook potatoes in it for dinner and they turned out good.  But, we really don't know how to use this thing yet.  The furnace performed perfectly overnight and easily kept the salon at 68 degrees despite the low 30's temp outside.  I installed setback timers on both the pilothouse "loop" and the salon "loop".  This let me turn off the pilothouse and salon heat overnight and set it to come on an hour or so before we woke up so both areas were warm for us when we woke up.  It was very nice not to have to heat it all night (a total waste of diesel and electricity) or wake to a 30 something degree room.  Luxury!


 We wanted to take a dinghy ride Saturday afternoon but it was cold with a slight breeze (making it even colder!) and it was drizzling.  So we decided to stay inside and hang out.  The kids played with some Legos while Kathy and I did some reading and puttering on the boat.  The drizzle stopped so I put the dinghy down only to find out that the motor starting battery was too weak to get the motor running.  Bummer.  Maybe I better install a bigger battery?  So I put the dinghy back up and went back inside.

Trying to get the Yamaha outboard started.  No luck.

Playing with legos.  We are enjoying the furnace (short sleeves!).

Kathy and the kids play "Risk" for a while before dinner.  It's a somewhat challenging game but they are getting the hang of it.  After dinner the kids (and me too) watch a DVD.  Then off to bed for the kids.  We got them new adult-sized sleeping bags and they like 'em.  Both Kevin and Cindy said they were very warm.  They went to sleep easily. 

Kathy and I turned in at about 11:00 after watching a DVD.  We never get to do this at home.  Being on the boat is definitely a nice change of pace, and it's very relaxing for us all.  It is raining from time to time during our DVD and we can hear the raindrops dancing on the boat deck above us. 

In the morning we wake to a beautiful sunny day with no wind.  It is cold outside.  The foredeck is a sheet of ice when I go to pull the anchor at around 9:15AM.  Brrr!

Playing "UNO" on our way back to Shetler Bay.

We have to be back so Kathy and Cindy can leave the house in time to pick up Pat and Natalie, go have lunch, and make it to the Nutcracker on-time.  On our return trip I notice the water temp as indicated by our depth sounder.  That's some COLD water.  I wouldn't want to slip off the boat into this water!!!

Now that's some COLD water!

It was great to finally be on the boat again; it's been way to long for us.  We have been missing it.  The new systems in the boat performed well and have defintely transformed the boat into a much better cruiser for our style of boating.  I came home with a short list of new projects, but overall I'm very happy with all the work that I've done during the past two month on "Adagio".  She's slowly transforming into our boat, setup for the way we use her.  It is starting to feel like our home on the water.

October and November 2011 - no boat trips

Well it's been a long dry spell for us!  We haven't been out in two months which is likely a record for us.  I tore the boat apart to replace most of the galley appliances and to install a diesel furnace so we can stay nice and warm during the cold winter months.

After our boat renaming party where we followed traditional maritime tradition, I began to tear the boat apart.

NOVEMBER 23, 2011 - Thanksgiving Trip cancelled:
We were planning on taking the boat out for 5+ days during the long Thanksgiving vacation.  I spent a lot of time in the weeks just before Thanksgiving getting the boat furnace installation completed, and putting the boat all back together.  I made it in time for the long trip, but the weather just did not cooperate.  It was VERY windy throughout the long weekend.  The forecasts were calling for 50 knot winds with 6'-8' wind waves.  At one point I saw the weather station at Smith Island (just a few miles south of the San Juan's) report 58 knots.  That's almost hurricane strength.  Obviously we didn't go out.  We decided to instead stay on the boat Wednesday night at the dock.  It was nice to be on the boat again, even if just sitting at the dock.  We played games, watched some DVD's, BBQ'd dinner, just as if we were out in the islands.

Playing "Clue".  I think it was Col. Mustard, in the Conservatory, with the Candlestick.

This version of Clue is from the 1950's.  Wow, how has it survived this long!

Eating popcorn and watching  a DVD.

Kevin playing with Mom.  Good times on the boat.

September 10 through November 22, 2011 - Projects:
This has been one long dry spell without boating.  But, I knew that I had some serious work to get done before the boat was going to be usable in winter/cold weather.  I also knew that our home refrigerator had to go.  It was literally sucking our house battery bank dry overnight.  It was also an excellent opportunity to deal with a great number of other issues.  I was able to take advantage of the good weather and caulk/seal all of the windows.  I also repainted the flybridge and the cockpit floors.  I removed all of the old snaps, filled the holes, ground out any cracks in the gelcoat and filled them in.  I painted with Interlux non-skid mixed into the first coat of paint.  Followed by a second coat of just paint to even out the finish.  It turned out great.

The flybridge just before the new non-skid paint.

Just after the new paint.



The cockpit before the new paint.



The cockpit, after the new paint.  Looking good!!!

I also tore into the galley removing the electric cooktop that was damged in the trip up the coast.  I also took out the microwave, which only operated on 220 volts meaning it could not be run via the inverter, only the genset.  I also took out the house refrigerator.  That was a total power hog; consuming at least 10 times as much power as a boat-specific refrigerator.  This meant tearing cabinets apart in the galley, which was not fun.  The washer/dryer had to be removed in order to get the refrigerator out of it's hole.  I seriously contemplated cutting the refer into pieces to remove it, but decided that the environmental impact of releasing all of that freon into the atmosphere just wasn't the responsible thing to do.

The galley before the remodel began.

Washer/Dryer removed so refer could be taken out.

Appliance Central.  I could open an appliance store!

One of the new refers.  Also the new cooktop.

The new convection microwave, the propane cooktop, the efficient 12-volt refer

Repainting the chain locker.

Marking the chain every 25 feet.  Red/White/Blue = 25'/50'/75'

Our new anchor.  This baby is MASSIVE!  Yellow/red/yellow = 100'/200'/300'

But the biggest change of all was the  installation of a new diesel furnace.  This is a HUGE project.  It's a really complex system.  There is a diesel-fired boiler in the engine room that heats water/antifreeze which is circulated through PEX tubing throughout the boat. 
      There are 4 loops in the system (PEX tubing loops, that is). 
         1.  The v-berth and guest head. 
         2.  The master stateroom and head.
         3.  The pilothouse.
         4.  The salon.
Each loop is considered a zone and has it's own thermostat.  That means we can set each zone to a different temperature or even turn a zone off if desired.  This allows great flexibility when using the boat in cold weather.  I had to fabricate a custom stainless steel exhaust for the boiler to vent to the outside.  I had to tap into the fuel tank.  There were a lot of elctrical wires needed to connect everything.  Plus, running nearly 275' of not very flexible PEX tubing from one end of the boat to the other.  Definielty a big project with great rewards; year-round boating!  That's enough boring details for now..... here are a few pictures.

The di$tribution manifold.  4 zones plus a water conditioner/filter loop.

I painted and installed the vent on the right.  This pulls fresh air into the boat to dry things out.

The 2.5" double-wall exhaust.  I don't like cutting hole in the hull.  But, this is  a quiet system!

The exhaust on the inside.  Nice heat insulation blanket.

Beginning the wiring for the control module.

The furnace control center; fuel filter vacuum gauge, master power switch.  3 setback timers.

One other little project was to polish the portholes in the master stateroom.  You could not see through them when we bought the boat.  It turns out that with plastic cleaner followed by plastic polish, applied with my Porter Cable random orbin sander using some special polishing pads, you can actually buff very cloudy Lexan back into a "window" you can see through.  I never knew...

The porthole before cleaning and polishing.

The porthole after restoration.  What a difference.

In addition to all of this I dealt with some other random water leaks.  I installed new digital tachometers in the pilothouse.  I removed all of the temporary electronics that I had installed in the pilothouse for the trip up the coast and remounted those that I wanted to keep in the overhead.  I also upgraded the navigation PC monitor from an old LCD screen to a nice new LED backlit, widescreen unit.  How nice!  Widescreen allows multiple windows to be displayed simultaneously, as well as a pane for navigational data.  I big improvement.

Waht's next?  The galley needs to be finished.  We have a second refrigerator-only unit on order.  It will really only be used during longer trips where we overflow the new refer/freezer.  We are going to convert a galley base cabinet corner, which is kind of a dead-zone into a custom-built freezer with large capacity, and efficient operation.  This might wait a few month while other project are completed.  The v-berth has been torn out and needs to be rebuilt so it can become the kids room or guest room when we have overnight company.  This will take a month or so.  Next might be the salon u-shaped settee.  After that it will be the pilothouse dash reconfigure.  This would be followed by the master stateroom remodel, which won't be a huge project, but will yield us with much greater flexibility when we have guests overnight.

SEPTEMBER 9, 2011 - Boat Renaming Party:
We had a boat renaming party on the dock with a bunch of our boating friends.  It was a great time.  Kathy read the traditional boat renaming "script" that is used by mariners to appease the gods of the sea so that we may have good luck aboard our new, and renamed, vessel.

Our group of boating friends for the boat renaming party.

The ceremony was complete with offering champagne (not the cheap stuff either) to the sea gods, pouring in specific directions (North to South, West to East, etc).

Reading the traditional renaming script and toasting the sea gods.

Pouring the champagne during the ceremony.

It was a fun party and it was the first time some of our friends had seen the boat.  The kids had a blast running around the boat, up and down the boat, on the dock with fishing nets, and acting like kids. 

The kids stop for a moment.  They were having a lot of fun.

Aidan getting off their dinghy.  Don't spill that wine young man.

Kids grabbing some beverages.  I hope they don't drink our wine!

The party went well into the night.  I feel sorry for my Shelter Bay neighbors who had to endure our late party well after dark. Sorry friends and neighbors!!!

Still partying!  I think we got pretty loud.  Ooops.

Our boat is now officially (both with the Sea Gods and the US Coast Guard) renamed "Adagio".  It was a fun night with our friends!