spit and polish

Another thoroughly productive weekend....

Plan was to get a long list of jobs done, and a long list of jobs we did!

My Sister and Brother in law were down, with their daughter at an RYA zone squad training event, so they popped over, and SWMBO, the kids and S-i-L dissappeared off to Oulton, and then the shops, leaving me free to get on.... which suited me just fine....

Initial task (thankfully with the cockpit tent up, as it was thrashing down) was to fit two additional clutches on the starboard coachroof.... so we now have both the kicker and the spinny halyard/spare genoa halyard through clutches, where previously they had to be locked off to a cleat or through a jammer, neither of which made life easy...

Next came the fitting of a Hydrostatic release to the life raft.... I bought this nearly two years ago, and its been sitting behind the chart table taunting me for all that time... well hah!... I got my own back, and it was dragged out into the rain to do its job properly....

After this, I got round to mounting the watermaker on its new base....

Sounds easy huh?

Well.... if you count crawling through a small hole, carring 35Kg of metal and plastic, doing bolts up with one arm crushed into a 1" gap and the other twisted through 45° and inserted under half a metre of wood just 3" off the hull, then yes I guess it was easy....

The biggest challenge was drilling the holes in the base in the correct place.... after several abortive attempts to mark up, I eventually sellotaped several sheets of A4 paper together, dragged the watermaker back out of its tiny hole (remember its 35Kg), and made a template..... I then took a deep breath and drilled the holes....

The water maker is then dragged (at 35Kg!) through the tiny hole... this time with 4 bolts hanging out the bottom (no room to insert the bolts once its in place) so even more difficult without trashing the aft cabin, and plonked on the base.....3 bolts immediately drop straight through the holes.... the 4th?..... well that took 40 mins of cussing and swearing until it relented and dropped into position..... I then had to maneouvre my arms into unatural positions to tighten the bolts......

This was repeated for the pump unit, which proved a whole load easier... its smaller lighter and the bolts were accessible.....

So, with skinned knuckles and severely bruised knees, its was in....


I finally plumbed up the bits of pipe for which I do have the fittings...

I'm rather pleased with the end result even if I do say so myself!

Saturday night was one of those impromptu evenings that proved to be great fun.... Alan was about, down to collect his new boat, and so we gathered him and his crew up, and dragged them to the Shipwreck, where a quiz night was on.... with an excellent quizmaster who spent the whole evening taking the mickey out of everyone.... we came mid field.... not bad for the amount of Adnams and white wine consumed!

Sunday was a cleaning day..... We started by scrubbing the deck from bow to stern with boat shampoo.... lovely... all nice and white again....

Then the cockpit got the same treatment... it needed doing desperately, after getting a lot of muck traipsed in while she was ashore....

Next was the transom.... this had become rather grey... and had a few distinctly grimy areas around the Eberspacher outlet...... I had tried Oxcalic acid last season, and it had little impact on it..... so we tried a new approach.... we decided that a degreaser was needed... so SWMBO bought a spray dispenser of Cif..... well... wow!... this worked spectacularly well..... the previously stubborn marks simply wiped away, revealing a shiny white posterior again!

Last, but not least was the cockpit teak..... I had bought some of the highly recommended Wessex teak cleaner.... I can confirm.... this stuff really works.... on went the first component.... and off poured loads and loads of grimy black and brown gunge..... lots of water was applied, and the second component was sponged on.... revealing lovely rich reddy brown teak again..... all all with no sanding or damage to the teak through excess rubbing.... marvellous!

Swmbo, after depositing S-i-L and her offspring back to Oulton meanwhile attacked the interior.... oven was scrubbed to within an inch of its life, floors were hoovered and wiped, lockers rearranged and repacked... lots of accumulated junk disposed of, and generally making her tidy again....

We'll still need to do a little polishing below, and we've brought the carpets out of the cabins home to clean properly, but she's looking pretty good!

Only remaining jobs on board now are to polish all the stainless... eg the stanchions, pushpit, pullpit etc.... there's a lot of it, but it'll need doing..... and to use the teak cleaner on the cockpit table and grab rails... which shouldn't take long.....

Hopefully next weekend, if the weather is kind, we can get a sail in finally!

clean teak?

Just ordered some of the fabled Wessex teak cleaner to see what it does.... it allegedly brings teak back to as good as new.... well our cockpit seats are looking pretty dirty, so we'll be giving it a real good challenge....

We also plan to have a go at the transom, which is looking a bit grimy from the Eberspacher exhaust.... I tried Oxalic acid last year and that didn't work that well, but have been advised to try a degreaser such as Cif....

That and scrubbing the decks and coachroof at the weekend should see Morgana all sparkly and shipshape again!

still afloat!

Nipped down to Morgana this afternoon to check her over.... and the good news is that the ground plate fixings are as dry as a bone....

I went primarily to finish the watermaker mount.....

Firstly, I added a couple of wooden wedges that I prepared at home... this finalised the outermost legs, ensuring that they had full contact with the hull, and thus maximum support, and then, with concern over strength playing on my mind, I also bought a small pot of epoxy and cloth, and glassed the feet to the hull.... this should make it very secure.

It wasn't easy glassing in such a confined space, so a couple of bits are less than perfect, but they are robust, and are out of sight, so i'm not that bothered.... besides... once the watermaker is bolted to them, then they'll be all but invisible...

The cockpit looks a complete mess.... we traipsed quite a bit of dirt in last weekend, so next weekend will have to start with a thorough clean up of the cockpit.... the decks also need a bit of a scrub after winter, so I guess we'll combine the two tasks...

Next weekend we have sister and brother-in-law down, who are in the area for an Oppy event, so not sure at this stage whether we'll be sailing or not.... depends on the weather a bit.

wet and worried!

After getting Morgana completed in a single weekend, yet having previously arranged for her to be lifted back in on the 23rd, I was worrying about the fact that i'd left the genoa on the furler... (I just plain and simple forgot to take it off!), and so e-mailed Shotley on Sunday night (16th) to say, can you lift her back in if you get chance, not really expecting them to have any spare time with the obviously busy crane....

only to get a call today to say that she's back in and on her berth!

Marvellous.... so now I can worry about whether the newly fitted ground plate is water tight!

Shotley have promised that they'll keep an eye on her for the next couple of days, and all things being equal, I should be able to nip down at the weekend anyway.... it'll only be a day trip as its mothers day on Sunday, and this is a good opportunity to earn brownie points!

and a bit more detail..

The old antifoul had come pretty clean under the pressure washer, so needed just a little gentle sanding where the lifting straps had been, and a bit of fettling here and there to ready her for the new stuff.... which is designed to need very little prep of the previous coat..

One thing we did notice, is that the old antifoul had started to flake a little in places, and a few chunks had come off under the pressure washer.... we'll live with that for this season, but I suspect that next year, and if not certainly the year after, we'll need to do a thorough removal job, and get back down to bare gel..... that'll be fun!

Also, the pear anode, yet again, was fine, with hardly any erosion at all.... so it was treated to a good brush down with a brass brush, and will do it's third season... it obviously doesn't have much work to do...

I may well fit a Galvanic isolator at some point in the next few months, and see what impact that has on the prop anode too....

ready to splash!

All jobs done!....

The topsides are all shiny again...

and look at the gleam on that prop!

If you look, you can see the grounding plate sitting on the starboard side of the hull... and here it is a bit closer...

It wasn't a pleasant experience drilling holes in the hull below the waterline.... I fitted a substantial backing plate, and used loads of Dow Corning silicon sealane, so am confident that it will be watertight.... still... always that little niggle in the back of your mind...

I also fitted the watermaker and pump mounts..... they will need a little adjustment at a later date, with a couple of extra supports that I have measured for, but in the mean time, they are Sikaflexed in place, so should be ready to go as far as fitting the watermaker and pump are concerned....

Fitting the anode proved easy...

I was concerned about relocating the ropecutter (which was incorrectly located after the shaft was dropped last autumn to fit the new gearbox), as undoing the propshaft bolts didn't look easy, and then I had a brainwave.... why not undo the fitting on the P bracket instead... which came off really easily.... I was also, at the same time, able to turn it 180 ° and have it so that if the shaft ever needs undoing again, then it should fall naturally into the right position.... ie with gravity assisting it.... the picture below explains it better...

So, now we are ready to go for the season.... all that remains is to clean the cockpit once we are back in the water, as it suffered a bit this weekend with dirt being traipsed in from the bottom of the ladder.....

We will contact Shotley this week to let them know that she can be dropped back in sooner than the 23rd if they like, but no problem if they don't....

.... it does feel as if the season is about to start!

good progress

Down on the boat and making good progress....

We came down Friday night in order to get an early start on Saturday, which we duly achieved...

By the time we gave up for the day, we'd managed to clean both sides of the top sides with a good cleaner, sand the hull properly, clean and sand the prop down to within an inch of it's life until it gleamed, polish one side of the hull, and then antifoul.

So tommorrow, we need to polish the other side, and then I only have a few jobs to do...

Refit the rope cutter
Fit the anode on the prop
Fit the grounding plate

As you'll gather, the prop was fine.... the anode was very nearly all gone, but was still there, so now we know that we can manage a whole year in the water without a lift out

Secondly, the watermaker mounts were fine... need a little adjustment in order to fit, but all things being equal, should be able to get that done tommorrow as well...

Will report on progress tommorow evening....

start again

Went to the local DIY merchants to get some wood today for the plinths, and came away with enough to redo the legs properly without have to laminate pieces together.... that and the plinth from softwood offcuts for just £3... bargain!

This evening, I managed to cut the legs to the correct shape, cut the plinths, prep mount the legs with screws, then fix them with Polyester resin thickened with microspheres, screwed them up tight, left it to set, and then got the first coat of varnish on!

Will stick another coat on tomorrow morning first thing (working from home!) and that'll probably do....

I did have one near disaster.... after carefully marking up the legs and cutting the first two, I realised that I had marked them up incorrectly... damn... I didn't have enough wood for another set.... and then I realised that the bit I had cut off was the correct size... in fact it was better, as it was lower profile, so from an engineering perspective, a better solution as less leverage will be exerted on the fixings if the watermaker is lower.... so I copied it for the second pair for the pump legs! (I was ultra carfeul in measuring up this time.... a case of measure twice, cut once... only it was measure 6 times, think about it for 15 mins, measure again and then cut once!)

I may need to do a bit of minor fettling to the legs to get it to sit snugly against the hull, which i'll do on-site with a power sander (assuming we have a shorepower socket near where Morgana is put ashore), but it should be pretty close....

I'm rather pleased with the product thus far even if I do say so myself

sticky fingers

Just cut two lumps of wood to make the 'legs' of the platform upon which the watermaker will be mounted..... I used two old offcuts of wood in the garage, which weren't quite thick enough, so i've glassed two pieces together..... the only prob is that the resin was slightly out of date, so not 100% sure it'll go off properly..... not the end of the world as I need to get some more wood for the legs for the pump and also some wood for both of the platforms.... so i'll just have to get a bit extra!

If it sets, then I need to mark 'em up and shape them to follow the contours of the hull.... whats the chance that my measurements are good and that they fit first time? [hah!]

Boat lift for Friday has been confirmed, so the weekend will be spent sanding, scrubbing, painting and polishing....

mounting the watermaker

I've been thinking through the approach i'll take to mounting the watermaker, and have come to a few conclusions.... I also have a couple of 'niggles' to deal with....

The area in the transom where it will go will have to hold the watermaker itself, and the seperate pump unit.... ideally i'd like the pump unit in the engine compartment to minimse the electrical run, and also to keep it as low as possible (the closer it is to/below the waterline, the less work it'll be doing, and therefore the less current it will draw), but there simply isn't room, so it'll have to go behind the watermaker.... this carries its own issue, in that it will make it a bit harder to change the filter, but i'll have to live with that....

Its a 5 micron filter, and I suspect that using it anywhere near the east coast will neccessitate regular filter changes with the silt laden water that we have around here.

The inside of the transom area is sloped/curved as you would expect, so in order to get a level mount for the pump and watermaker, I need to build a couple of plinths.... these will be a single sheet of thick wood (around 3/4") and feet at either end that are shaped to match the hull contours... I measured up for this, and will make it up at home, and then will need to fine fit when on the boat.... the plinths aren't very big, so wont need central support witha 3/4" plank, which is good as it will make the fitting a lot easier....

These plinths will then need fixing to the hull..... I won't be screwing them down as I don't want to be screwing into the hull (!), so will be gluing them down.... options are to epoxy them in, or to use a strong adhesive such as Sikaflex 291..... at the moment, I am erring towards the Sika route, as it is quicker and cheaper.... plus has a kind of 'high build' quality, so will allow for some minor errors in shaping the 'legs'

Onto these, at the front will be the watermaker (facing the locker entrance), and behind in parallel, the pump... this will mean that the Manometer (pressure guage) and flow meter will be visible through the locker entrance....

I will then finally have to plumb it in...

There is a 3 way from the seawater intake to the pump.... one direction draws seawater, the other to a loose pipe that can be placed in freshwater to 'wash' the watermaker if it is to not be used for a few days.... eventually I will plumb this loose pipe into the main tank, via an activated carbon filter (which removes the chlorine - which damages the membrane) so that a wash is a simple matter of switching the valve....

The other side of the pump goes to the watermaker itself....

This leaves two other pipes.... the first is the brine, which will need venting overboard.... I'd like to tee this into an existing skin fitting if possible to avoid making yet another hole in the boat, but not sure yet if there is an obvious candidate....

and the second is the fresh water itself... called the 'product'... this is easier at face value, as it can just be teed into the inlet pipe for the tank.... right by where I am fitting the watermaker is the airvent/overflow for the tank, so this is the perfect place to plumb in.... However, there is one remaining complication..... when the unit has been left to stand for a while or 'pickled@ run with chemicals to allow it to stand for long periods unused), then the first run (up to an hour if its been pickled) needs venting overboard, so I need to work out how to tee this product pipe and vent it overboard..... so another 3 way valve required, and possibly even a skin fitting.... or I may be able to get away with fitting a valve in the vent pipe between the tank and the tee so that it forces the product water out of the overfow... an option to be considered....

Finally, the pickiling itself..... if the loose pipe is plumbed in, then I need yet another 3 way valve so that I can have a loose hose to run to a pickling source (usually a bucket!).... this may have to wait until I plumb the loose hose into the main water tank....

These valves will all be mounted on the rear on the bulkhead that forms the aft locker (lazarette) which again isn't perfect for accessibility, but then again, not that bad, and they won't be used every day.... in fact if the watermaker is being used every day, then they won't need touching.... only when it is being left for more than a few days, or at the end of the season for pickling...

I have looked at motorised valves as an option.... I can then put switches for the whole lot on the instrument panel... and with some careful consideration, and use of some intellugent switch combinations, reckon i'll be able to have 1 master switch, a second for wash, and a third for pickling.... need to work that through properly though, and won't be rushing to do it.... the motorised valves are £85 each!

So.... i'll build the plinths this week with a bit of luck, and then can mount them next weekend, and leave the sika to set for a week, and then fit the watermaker the following weekend.... i'll worry about the plumbing and wiring after that!

location, location, location!

The tender is gone.... sounds like she's going to enjoy travels across the Pacific a lot sooner than I am.... she's off in the autumn on her travels...

Also, got the watermaker and SSB... even better, i've worked out where both will be going, and can now start the slow process of getting them fitted.... the watermaker first... that is all out of the way in the lazarette locker space that is wasted below the gas locker..... it will mean a little trip into the transom when we want to 'wash' the watermaker, ie flush it with fresh water, which you only need to do if you aren't going to be using it for 7 days or so.... so sensible planning shouldn't be a problem here, and its no big deal to get into this locker... just 30 seconds... it means that I need to make up a couple of plinths for the pump and watermaker.... will try to do that this week, and then either Sikaflex or Epoxy the plinths in place ready for fitting the new goodies!

The SSB is going to have to go behind the chart table seat.... its just too big to fit anywhere else.... even if I rearranged the curremt instrument panel, the space behind the panel isn't deep enough for it....

So i'd better get the dynaplate fitted.....

Doug did indeed come over last night, and with James also hanging around after dropping off the watermaker/SSB, we grabbed a couple of pints and bite to eat in the Shipwreck... yum yum.... and then Doug and I knocked back a couple of bottles of claret, and put the world to rights.... :)

getting there

Ground plate arrived today.... its a strange thing.. its made up of many thousands of tiny bronze balls (about 0.5mm each) that are compressed together at temperature to form a solid (ish) mass....

Because the final product retains a huge amount of air between the balls, it also has a collossal surface area, and its this benefit that you are looking for.... it allows a massive amount of seawater to be in contact with it....

It will be connected to the aerial (or more correctly, the aerial tuner) using a copper strip of about 7cm width and around 1mm thick to provide a good path for RF to ground (remembering that RF in effect travels along surfaces, so has a very different requirement from a ground than a normal AC or DC ground....

James is coming along Saturday afternoon with the SSB and the watermaker, so no doubt i'll sit on board just looking at the things for several hours!

Finally, Doug is down, and has already called me to suggest a beer or two would be in order for Sat evening.... who am I to disagree?

LRC

Should have added that I have made some enquiries regarding getting my license for the SSB.... called the Long Range Certificate.... cheapest by miles is Lowestoft College... they are checking course dates and availability for me.... but at £210 for the course, compared to the £390 that all the south coast establishments want, its a much better deal!

just rambling

Will be down to Morgana on my own this weekend to prep her for a lift the follwoing Friday... need to remove the cockpit tent, and take the dehumidifier off the working top (so that it doesn't fall over!)...

While i'm there, i'll try to get the rest of the heater pipe insulated.....

I am also half toying with the idea of saying "sod it" on Saturday afternoon, and going out for a little sail single handed...... lets see what the weather does...

Antifoul has already arrived, and had a card through the door for a missed delivery, so that must be the grounding plate....

SSB ground

OK.... I've decided that it would be plain daft not to fit a grounding plate while Morgana is out of the water, so i've ordered a Dynaplate grounding shoe.... this is £99..

It'll be interesting fitting it, as it needs a flat area to be mounted on... one that has readily access inside for the mounting bolts, needs to be close to the area where the aerial and therefore ATU will be mounted, and finally, an area that stays imersed when the boat is heeled....

Here is where I think it'll go...

Just aft of the prop, on the centreline... this area is accessible from the lazzarette locker, and also from the hatches in each aft cabin... so would fit the criteria above....

It'll mean drilling holes in the bottom of Morgana though..........

pricey paint

Well... its cruiser Uno for the antifoul..... still £126 for 6l of paint delivered.... v expensive...

and about twice the price of the stuff we used last year....

But... if it works.... well, we'll see....

So that'e everything I need for the lift now, bar a pear anode (i'll get from the chandlery) and I've still to decide whether or not to fit an SSB grounding plate while she's lifted (£99)... not sure if i'll get around to doing the LRC certificate this year, and even if I do, whether or not the aerial (and prbably Pactor modem too) will be on the list of priority spends.....

Perhaps its worth spending the £99, as the rest can be done in the water, whereas, I need to get her lifted if I decide to fit the grounding plate...

It'll almost certainly be a Dynaplate