More boat projects while the weather improves.

Ladder Mount

By Scott Buckley (Captain)

I had an aluminum ladder made for boarding the boat from the side.  My thinking was it would make it easier to get on and off the dinghy and with the Monitor wind vane steering on the stern it would be hard to board the boat from there.

New alum ladder

Putting the final touches on the monitor install

 The ladder will double as a gang way if we have to med moor and need a way to easily get on and off the boat.  The ladder had to be stored on deck somewhere and could take up a great deal of space.  I think I over designed it but it is too late to do much about that.  I thought I would stow it across the coach roof under the main sail boom.  I also thought I could lash the inflatable dinghy on the ladder and tie it down securely to the ladder while underway.  What ever secured the ladder would need to be strong.  Again I used the composite wood because it is easy to work with and will not rot or split.  I also decided to mount it to the combing on the coach roof that covered the sliding cover for the companionway hatch.  I made some cardboard templates to get the shape of the mounts correct and cut the shapes out using my table saw right before I sold it at the last garage sale before we sold the house.  The width was trimmed with a small hand saw once we moved aboard. 

I had to pull up the combing to have access to secure the bolts.  It is held down with 9 of the biggest screw I have seen on this boat.  The mounts are held on with 5 #10-24UNC screws.

 

Once I pulled the combing up I could see it was pretty dirty under it so I completely removed it to clean things up.

 

I discover another location of secret vessel identification that is engraved into the coach roof.

 

The Bag Tube

First mate wanted a place to store those little plastic shopping bags that usually get stored under the galley sink and generally get push to the back until you need them.  It was an easy project and got mounted on the back rest at the nav station.

First mate at the sewing machine

TaDa!
 

Where it will get mounted

 

 

Installed and tested for hand fit.



 

The outboard motor cover

 

Again the crew worked together to make this cover.  Usually the Captain designs and cuts it out and the first mate stitches it together.


Under construction

 

installed and secured.



And of course there is more small projects to come....stay tuned.

 



Chasing a leak

By First Mate Tamera - Edited and Enhanced by Captain Scott

During the winter months we had a lot of condensation on the boat.  This caused a couple of issues:

1) Mold and Mildew (covered in a later post)
2) Moisture running down the inside of the hull.

Item #2 caused the bilge pump to run often.....so we thought.

We would often hear the bilge pump run and that is not unusual on a boat.  However, it is not common to hear it run in conjunction with the occasional running of the water pump.  This started out a rare occurrence that began to happen more often.  We looked for a leak and could not find any source of water running and again we put it off as condensation collecting and running down the hull.

Then one night we noticed the bilge pump was running about every 8 minutes so we seriously began chasing a leak.  This is not an easy task on a boat. 

Many of the lines are run along the hull and you can see sections of the lines looking through hatches, doors and port viewers. 

As some of you know I am an RN and work in the Endoscopy world.  For Colonoscopies we use a colonoscope (a long tube with lights, camera and access channels) that is inserted into the colon to find abnormalities.  THIS tool would have been very handy in our search for this leak.  We improvised by sticking the camera into various holes and snapping a photo, bringing it out and looking at the results.  We did this until finally I heard Scott say "son of a bitch, there it is"

Finding the leak is half the battle.....now we have to fix it.

The leak was actually a fitting for the shower.  This is something we could fix it we could just reach it.  Remember the lines run along the hull and you can only see sections, well you can also only REACH the sections you can view.  The leak was just out of reach.....now what.

Scott not being the type to give up easily decided we would add a new access port to fix our problem.  So he cut out the new access port and the fortunate part is that the area with the leak was between the hull and shower wall.  He cut the hole, fixed the shower fitting and installed a new port hole cover.

We were up till 1:30 in the morning fixing the leak but we slept so much better that night.