We're looking for the trash fence...

Dawn and I got the Yamaha F8 mounted to the Aquapro 860 today and I’m thinking it might be too bigheavy for the 860. When the dinghy is empty, it really site bow-up out of the water. When I’m in the dinghy it doesn’t seem top bad. I only ran it around the slips at the marina so I didn’t open it up, but it did seem to pull down the stern when I was going faster, I would probably have to be really going to get up on a plain.

I may have to call in the experts on this one and see what they think… now where do I find an expert?

Whew that was a long day of walking around and talking about boat toys. The show is all outside with some individual booths open to what is a public walkway (no way to enforce tickets) and most of the booths in larger tents. The tents themselves were very mustymoldy smelling though including the smaller seminar tents. For that reason and that it was 70 degrees and sunny with a slight breeze it was great to be able to get outside so often as we wandered around.

I’ve made a couple of decisions already and will be shopping for best prices or placing orders when I get home next week.

ICOM VHF – I’m going to go with the M504 with the rear panel microphone and Command Mic III in the cockpit. . I don’t think I need the extra functionality in the M604, the 10-keypad would be nice but that’s the only extra feature I found compelling. Ben at the Icom booth was very nice and super helpful!

Stern Anchor Line – I’m going to order the 400’ Dynemma model from Quickline. There is a discount code you can get at the booth which you can use to order online and includes free shipping.

Rescue Tape****– Plan to pick up a couple rolls Saturday. I just didn’t have any cash on me today.

RADAR – No decision here, but I ruled out RosePoint because they have no compatible chartplotters that you can use along with the PC solution. That’s unfortunate as their software is pretty good. Saturday we’ll look around at the nav software programs and chartplotters. I’ll be doing some spec comparisons (most interested in power draw) offline.

NEMA 2K – I had a good talk with Ben about Maretron gear as well and he helped me settle on a cable size (Mid) and validated for me that I can start small by getting my GPS antenna replacement an 0183 adapter for the ICOM and a USB gateway for the laptop and then add the whole backbone and upgrade the rest of electronics later.

Capehorn Windvane – Yves was delightful to speak with, but I'm a sucker for a French accent. The design of the Capehorn is solid and I love that it doesn’t put a jungle gym on the back of the boat. Right now I’m 99% sure I’ll be going with the capehorn, but I don’t need to be ordering it today.

PFDs – We already have a couple of auto-inflating PFDs, but the Mustang Deluxe hydrostatic model with harness with are super comfy so we’re going to get a couple more and have the others for friends to use. West Marine is selling them for \$249, Svendson’s also at the show for \$229. \$229 is cheaper than I see it online or back home. I need to figure out if we’ll be able to check them on the plane though.

We’ll be back on the floor Saturday and in the seminars. We’re headed to San Francisco for dinner tonight. I’m going to upload pics to Flickr in a bit.

If you have not noticed check out the SSCA Forums which I recently helped them upgrade to phpBB3. The new version has a much nicer look and a few must have features including email subscriptions to forums. I’m awaiting a more enhanced version of the email subscriptions and RSS Feeds to come out and then we’ll really be Web 2.0!

Seattle Maritime Academy Slug: so-much-to-learn-so-many-tools-to-buy Status: published

One of the things about making this decision to go cruising is all the cool stuff you get to learn.

Tonight was the last of our Marine Diesel class at the Seattle Maritime Academy. The class was 11 weeks long (roughly) and was about 1/2 rambling lecture and 1/2 hands-on completely unguided lab work. The class could have been much better run and organized but in general coming out of it I feel like I know a lot more about Diesels to the point of being knowledgeable enough to do some of my own work, to have an informed conversation with a mechanic and to have a sound basis for doing research to figure out how to do things I can’t do right now. I’d give the class a C+. I' was going to go lower, but I think the fact they actually have smaller diesels (like we have) was worth the C+. So it was passing, it accomplished the goals, but it also had a lot of wasted time. Judging by the amount of people who dropped out and frequently didn’t show up; I think many might score it lower.

One of the big outcomes of that (and of the Brion Toss Rigging workshop) is that I put together a big tool order tonight and will stopping in to get some Craftsman toys tomorrow. I like Craftsman tools, I’ve never broken one yet, they are reasonably priced and if I did break one they’d replace it! Did you know on www.Sears.com you can order things and pick them up in the store? Very handy and saves shipping since I wouldn’t have been saving sales tax. I’ll post some list of things and pics of things when I do a full tool inventory.

Next on the course of learning is the Mahina Offshore Cruising Seminar 4 April 2009 in SeaTac, WA. I have good things about this seminar, I’ll let you check out the site yourself and I’ll post more when we’re back.

We stumbled on to the upcoming Mahina seminar because we’re also going to the Strictly Sail Pacific show in Oakland, CA 17-19 April 2009. I didn’t want to invest a whole day in SF on the one class so taking it here in Seattle is ideal! We’re very stoked (they say that in CA right?) to be going to the Strictly Sail show as we’re going to also use the time as a little mini-vacation as well. I’ll post more about that when we’re down there or when we’re back.

Systems - Hull, Systems - Plumbing Slug: flu-impacts-productivity Status: published

Two weeks ago I took off work on Friday to work on a bunch of projects one of which included using epoxy and I wanted to take advantage of the warmer weather and have an extra day to get things done. That Friday went pretty well and I worked on cutting the hole in the cabin top and sealing the edges with epoxy so I can install the mushroom vent for the composting head (more on that to come) but about 11pm that night the Flu (or maybe food poisoning) hit me and I was down and out for about 4 days. Well this weekend I’m feeling much better and Dawn and I are ready to tackle the to do list. Here’s the goals:

• Finish Installing the mushroom vent in the head
• Wire up the DC power to the fans in the composting head
• Change the Oil, Oil Filters and Fuel Filters, remove sediment and water (don’t think we have any water) from the RACOR catch bowl
• Check the Port water tank for a leak. I think one of my fittings is leaking :-(
• Check the Propane tank overboard vent – I’ve not expected this since the purchase. I want to make sure its not clogged or broken
• Secure the Plumbing – All of the plumbing is working great but all the lengths of hose need to secured under the salon floor. Not hard, but time consuming since the work space is so confined

That list feels a little ambitious, but I think we can get it done. I have a bunch of pics from cutting the hole in the cabin top for the vent and I’ll take some more as I get everything installed and do a write up about the installation process.

From SNL… I think this sums up my life these days :-)

Systems - Electrical, Systems - Entertainment Slug: installation-weekend Status: published

This past weekend was a good one in terms of getting things. It started out with a personal economic stimulus package when we dropped some coin at Fisheries for supplies. Mostly I stocked up on spare filters, electrical wiring components and 100’ of wire I’ll use when I put in the new speakers that I bought elsewhere, more on that later, here’s what did go in this weekend.

LED Lighting

When we were cleaning the boat this summer we pulled out the reading lights in the salon. We didn’t like how they looked, some of them didn’t work and they were a bit rickety. At boat show this year we looked at all kinds of lights some with built in LEDs and other that could take an LED bulb. There weren’t as many choices as we though there were going to be, and in the end we ended up going with two lamps from ABI. One is a classic bulkhead bell type reading light and the other is similar but is mounted on a swivel, like a podium microphone.

For LED Bulbs, we chose Dr. LED bulbs for these new fixtures and LED replacement bulbs for all the existing reading lights as well. The Dr. LED bulbs put out a nice light and they aren’t nearly as hot as the old bulbs which were so hot you could burn yourself on the fixture when pointing the light. They’re a tad expensive (ok a lot expensive) but they also reduce the energy we use which means running the engine less!!

Sirius XM Radio Antenna

When I put the new stereo in this summer, we were using the little hockey puck style antenna which we ran through a hatch and let it sit free on the cabin top. The new antenna is a Shakespeare SRA40 which I have mounted temporarily on the dodger hand railing. Eventually I plan to relocate this, the C.A.R.D., and GPS antennas, which are mounted on the other side of the dodger, to the mizzen mast or a stern mounted antenna pole. I’ve not decided yet. I think the Mizzen mast may be the only option give the mizzen boom’s swing through the stern area. I’ll decide all that when we starting working on the rigging and hauling the masts. I think the radio already holds the signal better and we’re just sitting at the dock.

That is the title of the class Dawn and I started on Tuesday at the Seattle Maritime Academy which is a department of Seattle Central Community College. We got there at 6pm as the website said, the instructor seemed to be there milling around rummaging through things in the front of the room and people were trickling in and he started the class at 6:30 with barely a hello, barely introducing himself and mostly he ranted on about the facilities maintenance and then he told a pretty long story about the VP of SCCC selling a barge (and losing 9 classrooms and labs which sat on the barge) for \$24K when the barge surveyed for \$94-100K allegedly the buyer sold the barge on EBay for \$130K.

Ooookaaay…… is what I was thinking at this point a little confused and starting to get upset.

He finally started talking a little bit about engines and along the way gave some miss information about biodiesel, gave some smarmy answers to questions about propellers. He also mocked the environmental laws, tax laws, ‘liberals’ as he frequently put it. Its like we teleported Crazy Cooter from the Dukes of Hazard to Seattle and asked him to be as offensive as possible.

In general the guy was a surly boat engineer, that’s fine, but we also didn’t cover very much information, didn’t provide an outline of the class and didn’t give a general engine overview for orientation purposes.

We did cover 2 stroke and 4 stroke cycles, which was interesting. We did cover how fuel usage rates relate to the HP output of the engine, and how that can also be calculated by measuring the fuel exhaust temperature.

I really really hoping the class on Monday was just the guy having a bad day. I was really excited about this class and if its not going to improve I’ll have to find something similar somewhere else, but it will probably cost a lot more. Here’s hoping tomorrow goes much better. He handed out a bunch of handouts I need to read now.. yay homework. ;-)

As I told my neighbor at the Marina, “We can check something off the list… and add 12 more things to it!” The plumbing project is now complete!!

We started this project because were unhappy with the quality of the water which had a but of a smell to it, the look of the faucets and the LOUDNESS of the water pressure pump. We resolved all those issues, especially the pump. The old pump was so loud I was embarrassed to even used the water, the new pump is so quiet I wasn’t even sure it was working at first. I also did away with the splices connecting both the water pressure pump seen in the picture and the wash down pump in the v-berth and put in a power bar instead which will let me add things in the future.

There are some random pics on TwitPic too.

Here’s all the new pieces that went into the project:

• All plumbing hose replaced with Trident 1/2” white hose. The old hose was clear which had allowed growth within
• Jabsco Sensor Max VSD 31750 Variable speed water pump
• Added American Plumber water filter to the to the pressurized side of the system. Foot pump had filter previously.
• Galley faucet with sprayer
• Head faucet
• Blue Sea Systems 30 Amp Power Bar
• Removed faucet from v-berth
• Removed sink drain to thru hull connection in v-berth. This thru hull is still used for the anchor wash down pump. I need to add a strainer here as there is not one today.

Tomorrow we should finish up with the tile in the head and bolt down the Nature’s Head composting toilet. I’m also going to determine where the Nicro vent will be installed as well. More posts and pics on that later.

According to the SDOT and MyBallard we’re about a month away from being able to make that straight shot from Shilshole up to 85th Ave NW. That will make my frequent runs to Home Depot so much easier and I love to ride the scoot up that windy hill!