July | 2015 | Every good thing….
Since baby girl is here I have put a new life event on the timer.
I recently purchased two log books.
One we call the “Ships Log”. In it we will be recording who visits and when as well as were we go and what we do. Hopefully mostly fun entries. Anyone that comes aboard is welcome to make an entry.
The other is the “Maintenace Log” I. It we will record any major work and routine work done to the boat.
This weekend we put our first entry in the ships log. I roughly states “Elizabeth Flora Lillian Monroe visited the boat and spent her first night aboard”. A pretty cool entry.
We first had to get her a PFD. Actually we have had one in the garage a few years now. Still with sale label attached. We were able to use it.
Here she is dangling by the carry strap. It fits her in that it will keep her head above water and she will not fall out.
To take her to and from the boat we suit her up in this thing for the off chance we fall off the dock.
We have a small sleeper for her to stay in. We actually use this at home also, it folds up nice and has a carry handle.
Here she is sleeping like an angel.
One good thing about the boat is it affords a lot of places to hang washed linens if they get soiled.
Baby girl spends her time below out of the sun. But we did take her for dinner at Chef Larry’s and for a walk after.
She did pretty well, we were lucky and the temperature stayed below 90 this weekend, otherwise we would have stayed home.
Unfortunately this weekend had me make the third entry in the maintenance log. This entry listes things I found that needed repair due to lightning. It took half a page.
Basically all the engine gauges and the electronic ignition system are shot.
Surprisingly enough I worked on wiring and the mast lights all survived. Steaming, spreader, foredeck spot and anchor light all work. The only navigation bulb we had blow was the stern light.
I replaced the radio and charge controller.
As well as the indicator LEDs on the fuse panels.
Oh, and the Lightning jumped from my back stay and ateabout 4 holes in my rolled up Bimini.
If you look close you can see black char marks were it burn thru to the metal frame.
I also replaced the exhaust hose this weekend.
To get it from the motor compartment to I laced the end of the hose with a tie wrap.
This allowed me to feed a rope down inside and with the help of a screwdriver make that last tight bend through the the forward bulkhead of the sail locker.
In replacing the aft section of hose I had to crawl back under the cockpit behind this hatch.
Here you can see daylight through the split old hose at the transom fitting.
Here is a look at the space with the rudder shaft in frame. It pretty much forces you to only have one hand to work with.
A better view of the work area.
Lucky for me I did this part first thing in the morning before the heat set in.
Up next trip, tuning the rig, aligning motor, replacing burnt up stuff and hopefully going out and about for the first time.
Pejorative!!! I should have stayed home with the baby…….
I have less than a week left on my baby leave from work. Back to the grind Monday.
I have been missing the boat and being very close to actually cruising trim I am anxious to get things done.
Today I decided to take the Yellow sled out to the marina and get a little done on replacing the exhaust hose.
Checking the new dock lines they appear to be getting a but of a salt and pepper look to them.
I went below to open things up and air it and the boat seemed fine.
I went to energize the fans, throwing the master toggle for the aft fuse panel. It seemed loose, the knob was just hanging there. The master led would not light and there was no click in the switch. Further investigation showed the forward fuse panel master light would not energize. ugghh.
I broke out the digital multi meter to check the batteries.
All the batteries looked good, hmm. Time to open up the fuse panel.
Looking at the one master switch it was missing, the entire back was not there any more.
This a good version of the switch.
At this point I came the conclusion we had been struck by lightening. Oh my.
I rewired the aft control panel so I was getting electricity on the bus. After that I energized the electronics and turned on the chart plotter (the only thing currently installed as the AIS and VHF with Ram mic are in the trunk of the car.) Sure enough the Plotter turned on.
Yay, it survived and the depth sounder still functions.
I then tried to determine what we had lost. The cabin fans were running once I turned on the accessories but the hand held vhf radios were not charging. A new fuse int he charger plug and they started to take a charge and both turned on also, Good news.
All the interior lights worked except for the Vberth and the starboard reading lamp. Here is a photo of the port reading lamp.
Starboard lamp led bulb is just gone, just a toasted socket.
The AM/FM no longer functioned. Replaced fuse and got a good smoke smell from inside of it.
As the the VHF antennas run down the mast and enter the cabinetry directly behind the starboard reading lamp I decided it was a good idea to take a look at the masthead. I dug out the binoculars.
Walking back along the dock and observing the masthead with the binocs I was unhappy to find the upper VHF whip is now missing. Looking at it with the specks you can see the white base is blown apart much like Elmer Fuds rifle when he has a run in with bugs bunny.
Can not get a good zoom but note there is no whip the antenna base is just below and forward of the anchor light.
Edit: I just noticed from looking at this photo the bird spike above my wind vane is also gone….. Grrrr. I wonder how long until some vermin ruins it or the vane falls off since it still moves.
I see a trip up the mast in my future.
It looks like the bolt vaporized my whip, traveled down the coax and then jumped into the lamp and accessory circuit back to the panel. It ruined my smart switch voltage indicator, my solar charge controller and watt meter.
Also I tried to energize the motor instrument cluster but it ate some fuses. So we have a casualty in the motor etc. Hopefully it is just a gauge or the blower fan. If we are unlucky the Electronic ignition on the motor could be shot. I will have to chase that rabbit at a later date.
After taking stock of our losses and ordering some replacement parts (solar charge controller, AM/FM radio and indicator LEDS) I then attempted to run in the new exhaust hose.
However I had lost motivation and after fighting with it for an hour or two called it quits and came home.
I should have just stayed home and played with the baby girl.