With all of the excitement of a new boat I haven’t taken any time to write about her. Unsurprising, but I’ll try to correct that now, and to document our voyage together starting now!
Since getting home I’ve been doing a little bit of sailing when the weather’s nice and a little bit more of working on her rough edges. There is never a question that an old boat has lots of little things that need doing, so it was just a matter of spending time with her to figure out what Spice’s are, or at least the first wave of them. So far:
- Chartplotter screen is aging and I don’t have charts for Canada.
- AIS not transmitting.
- Sirius satellite radio and weather won’t be used, but are still powering up.
- Bilge smells horrible!
- Aft shower sump siphon break doesn’t work, and the system backflows into the boat. No cover on the sump, either, so it flows straight into the boat.
- Forward shower sump output connection broken – pumps straight into the bilge. And no cover.
- Pressurized fresh water system leaks.
- 2 of 4 batteries test badly.
- Battery monitoring system doesn’t register all current (bilge pump, Espar furnace, probably other loads are outside of the circuit it’s monitoring).
- Anchor too small (35 lb. CQR).
- No anchor snubber, chain brake on foredeck missing a key piece.
- Anchor windlass pulls up just fine, won’t power down (motor just spins and makes clunking noises).
- Etc.!
So I’ve started building the list, and knocking items off of it. So far I’ve:
- Installed a new Vulcan 25 kg anchor.
- Purchased (not installed) a new chain brake.
- Diagnosed the windlass problem: it has a clutch which limits power for putting the chain down so that it doesn’t force a chain kink through the deck, over time this wears, and it loses the little bit of power it has for lowering chain. I’ll be removing, disassembling and servicing the windlass one of these days.
- Purchased three new Rolls deep cycle group 31 batteries, will install as a single house bank and changing the charge profile of the Balmar regulator to match.
- Purchased a Balmar SG200 battery monitor and will install once the new batteries are in.
- Have and will install an automatic battery load controller so I can reduce to a single (relevant – there will still be a second for paralleling) battery switch.
- Purchased and am installing a new B&G chartplotter and radar (have to replace radar when you switch brands of chartplotter, unfortunately), and a new Em-trak AIS. This is entailing a switch away from NMEA 0183 to NMEA 2000 – hopefully I won’t regret the single point of failure that the CAN bus entails.
- Removed most of the old Furuno gear – still have substantial dead wiring to remove from inside the various wire runs, however.
- Thorough cleaning of the bilge, including taking the boat for a vigorous sail with clean soapy water in the bilge to slosh around – now it doesn’t actually smell sweet, but it smells so much better you wouldn’t recognize it!
- Fixed the rear shower sump siphon break (through blowing it out). Still need to deal with the lack of covers, and the broken forward sump box.
- Fixed the fresh water system leaks.
So that’s quite a lot, especially for one post, but it happened over the course of the past couple of weeks, which means it wasn’t so bad. I am happy with the anchor and the bilge and the water system, and with the Radar installation (photo below); still a long way to go, but progress is happening nearly daily. This weekend I will get the chartplotter installed (modify the Navpod to take the new unit) and connect power to the radar and the chartplotter. I’ll also install the AIS, and may get it connected to the backbone – but I may not have the cabling needed, we shall see.
