On Mariadz, we have a 40Kg stainless Rocna anchor, that we changed soon after acquiring the Moody, and so we like to go out on anchor a fair bit. Just before we bought the Moody, the windlass failed and the previous owners had to replace it a few weeks before we took possession.  To be fair, it was pretty much the only thing that worked as it should when we got the boat 🙂

However, we shouldn’t get complacent about the windlass especially as that is four years ago now!  Previously I had serviced the Lewmar winches and so I was quite confident about the Lewmar windlass, especially with an electronic copy of the owner’s manual, with servicing requirements, to hand.  One of the jobs we did early on was replacing the anchor chain which is 12mm ISO (as I know now having taken apart the windlass!), with a sparkling stainless chain, eye-wateringly expensive but her ladyship demands.  The old chain had rust which had obviously flaked off as the chain was brought in which meant that the windlass is was covered in rust.  Taking the windlass apart, this was exactly what I saw.  The base of the windlass under the gypsy, that reels in the chain, was covered with rust dust, as was the gypsy itself.  I cleaned up all of the constituent parts of the windlass, much fewer than a winch.  On the gypsy the cleaning uncovered 204 which is Lewmar code for a V4 windlass, hence the 12mm chain!  Once again, I found the parts to be covered in thick grease and, like the winches, I cleaned this off and then reapplied a very thin covering of new Lewmar grease.  Putting it back together is five parts and three bolts, couldn’t be simpler. A quick test and it’s done.

Servicing the windlass is incredibly easy and like the winches rewarding.  When we go travelling we will be anchoring a lot and the windlass will be really useful.

However, you also need to have plans for how to retrieve the anchor if the windlass has failed.  The windlass does have a manual pull with the manual lock (left hand side in the picture) acting like a brake to avoid the anchor dropping again.  I think you also need a solution if the windlass is completely shot. Our solution is to use our long snubber with a hook, taken all the way back to one of the sheet winches.  This will allow us to pull up ten metres of chain at a time using a winch.  We haven’t tested this in real life yet, but the theory seems sound.

For some time Maria has been complaining that’s there is a funny smell in the saloon. It’s not there all the time and is sometimes disguised when the air freshener goes off but Maria wanted it traced. I either have to investigate the smell or buy Maria, and any guests, a nose peg!

Our friend, Mark from Motion, was on board and offered to help but little did he know that we would be doing this for hours!

We had already worked out that the smell wasn’t the grey water system and also wasn’t coming from the bilge.  When we lifted the floorboards around the holding tank, the smell was more pronounced. Oh dear, this is going to be nasty.  Inspection around the holding tank showed that there was no leak, that was a relief. We also knew that the holding tank was empty since we had emptied it a few weeks ago. Over the last few years we had changed a lot of the pipes, hence the white pipes in the picture. The creamy coloured pipes are the remaining pipes but these appeared to be fine with no smell coming from them.  We decide to try and trace where any gas is escaping the system by putting a fairy liquid solution across each of the pipes and around the top of the holding tank.  This reveals that the “gas” is escaping from around the sender unit that shows whether the tank is full or not.  It also revealed a small split in the pipe that led to the sea discharge, maybe this was enough to let the smell out? Rather than replacing the new and clean pipe we decided to put in a join and replace the split part with a new short length of pipe.  This was uneventful, having heated the new pipe in a pan of hot water for a couple of minutes to ensure that the 38mm pipe went onto the 40mm fitting on the holding tank…. a snug fit! But we were not convinced that this constituted the full extent of the problem. We then decided to add some water to the tank and discovered that the tank was under pressure when I opened the pump out and heard air hissing.  The setup on the Moody has two inputs from the two toilets, a deck pump out, a sea discharge and finally a breather pipe. With a breather pipe which works both ways, there should not be any pressure.  This led us to do some investigation on the breather pipe to try and understand why there is pressure.  Firstly we wanted to check that the breather pipe in the holding tank didn’t have a long downpipe (I.e. That the breather wasn’t connected to the pump out by mistake. Having checked which pipe was which and removed the tank inspection panel, it was time to hold your breath and open every window on the boat! That is definitely the smell…. but the pipes are the right way round – quick put it all back together again! Consulting the owner’s manual revealed where the breather pipe left the boat and it was interesting to see that this was a smaller pipe than the inch and a half pipe leaving the tank. A reducer somewhere perhaps? It also appeared that there was a join with another breather pipe…very confusing.  The breather pipe goes forward and we can see it doesn’t come back at hull level, so maybe The return is high and is in the headlining? Removing fifteen screws allowed us to check that this wasn’t the case! Great now to put them all back again.  But we are still confused as to how the breather is working.  We decided to force air into the breather using a footpump from the tender. There was a bubbling coming from the sink! The grey water system linked to the black water system for a breather??? Surely we would get foul smells from the sinks.  Tracing back the pipes revealed that the join in the breather pipes was from both grey water boxes and wasn’t linked to the black water breather at all. Back to the manual….and tracing the breather pipe forward behind the TV and up further forward. Check the hull to find a second breather, so the manual is incorrect and the pipe runs further forward. Ps, this breather isn’t the fuel breather which is adjacent to the fuel cap or the fresh water system breathers which are in the cockpit…

So we seem to be checking for a blocked breather.  Using the footpump from within the boat and we are able to push air out but it seems to take a lot of pressure. Filling the holding tank up with fresh water through the pump out resulted in water coming out of the breather.  But we have not been able to force air or wate into the breather from outside the boat.  Our current theory is that there is a flapper valve which stops water getting into the system but since it won’t have been serviced or replaced in fifteen years, then maybe it is stiff, blocked or jammed.  Our investigations continue but for the moment we don’t understand why the breather is not allowing the system to stay equalised.

We are big fans of teak decks although recognise that they are not everyone’s cup of tea and can get quite hot in warmer climates.  Some time ago I checked our decks which have worn away and now have 5-7mm of wood left. Apart from normal wear and tear and the slight impact of our occasional two part cleaner (wessex chemicals), this is probably just a sign of an older boat that has fifteen year old teak. One thing I did notice was a large number of exposed screw heads. Some of these had clearly never been recessed,  and so we wanted to cover these with teak plugs. I had borrowed a drill bit that was 10mm wide with an extended central point that makes the hole in the fibreglass under the teak but I was keen not to drill down too deep and was concerned that I wouldn’t have enough teak to hold the screw and allow me to cover it with a teak plug.

Before

After

Having found 24 exposed screws, I reviewed each one for depth and available deck thickness. For some I could use a standard 10mm wood drill bit, resink the screw and still have some room for the plug but for the vast majority, I was removing the screw, filling the hole with two part epoxy and then adding the plug. The plugs were about 15mm deep which left a fair bit of plug exposed.  The trick then is to use a very sharp chisel, correct way up (!), to knock the top off the exposed plug and make it level with the deck. Prior to doing this there are concerns around the hard wood and the force that is likely to be required to cut the plug but a gentle tap on the chisel with the palm of the hand is enough to cut the plug. Doing the same from both sides will make sure that the cut is straight and flush with the deck. Twenty-four plugs later and your done, until you walk the deck and find a few more exposed screws that you missed… when finished I went over the plugs and adjacent deck with a light sandpaper and the end result is smooth.  The plugs are brown against the grey deck but this will change over a few weeks and the end result will be a teak deck with no blemishes! I also took advantage to repair a couple fostrips of teak that were breaking and hopefully the extra strength will ensure this damage doesn’t get any worse.

In conclusion, this was one of those jobs that I was a little concerned about but actually is very simple to do and takes little time.  Using the chisel gently and taking your time seemed to get good results.  Interestingly, half way through the process there is a panic about whether the holes are too big or too small but everything falls into place and now we shouldn’t get any water coming through the deck, never mind that it just looks better.

We have done a fair bit of work on the engine over the last year and one of the last of the jobs we had identified was replacing all of the cooling hoses on the engine with new ones.  The old ones had been heat and age damaged and we thought we would take the pre-emptive step of replacing them all so that we didn’t have one go at a bad time and potentially cause damage to the engine.  At the same time, we wanted to resolve the slight oil leak at the front of the engine which we believe to be from the bolts on the engine.  We had reviewed the service manual, identified which variant of the Yanmar engine we have and then the replacement pipes had been ordered for us and we had these on the boat for quite some time before we could get the work scheduled.  Step one was to review what we had against the engine list.  We found that some of the ones we had were right but most of them were not!  Back to the drawing board on the ordering of the pipes.  We also agreed that we would get the key pipes sorted and then look at what was left after that.

Lindsay at Seapower has been great with us on this.  He knows our plans and knows we will have to be self-sufficient and so encourages us to get heavily involved in the work, for instance the last full service of the engine was done by me, assisted by Seapower (to make sure I didn’t mess it up!).

The pipe replacement process is quite simple but time consuming since you need to clean up where the old pipe was before you can put the new pipe in place.  Some of them do not have great access so someone with small hands is best.  Firstly Houghton It is very important to completely empty the coolant before you start!  We don’t want a messy bilge…. Each removed pipe is labelled so that we know what we have replaced and jubilee clips are replaced as required.  As part of this work, various engine parts were cleaned up or replaced including the thermostat.  By the end of this process we will have a pretty new engine 🙂 it takes quite a bit of time to do all of this work.

the other advantage of getting this upfront and personal with your engine is you start to see other things that need to be addressed. A missing injector clip. No pipe running an overflow to the bilge rather than letting it spray all over the top of the engine if there was a problem. Poor running of the fuel pipe too close to the gear change lever which could result in wear on the pipe.  A nice new vetus water strainer opener attached to the water strainer so that we can take the lid off without using a red rope! All of these have been addressed and i think we are now in a position where we can have a little confidence in the engine, at least until the next time we have to do something!

Sorting the engine – Part 3

Sorting the engine – step 2

Sorting the engine – step 1

Yanmar engine – why maintenance is so important

We recognise as we go round the world that every six months or so that we will be servicing the winches.  This regime hasn’t started yet and at the beginning of the week I was still very much a wench winch virgin.

We are fortunate to count as one of our friends Mat Jerram, who is a very experienced marine engineer, and as a friend Mat has imparted knowledge normally in exchange for copious food which has been a small price to pay. So on Sunday, as Maria was making roast dinner for all of us, he raises the fact that I have been talking about servicing the winches for a couple of years….and haven’t done it yet. Maria is twenty minutes from serving so it is enough time to break apart a winch and explain what to do! Mat explains the process really well and takes a look at the winches which have clearly not been properly serviced for some time (i.e long before we had the boat). There is a mass of grease on the entire winch mechanism and I now understand the process.

So the start of a new week and new jobs.  I get the lewmar oil, grease and spare pawl springs, as recommended by Mat, and now will service all of the winches. I start with the one that Mat had broken up on Sunday on the coach roof.  It all seems to be going fine as I clean up the winch using white spirit to remove the previous grease and grime.  I am able to keep hold of the pawl springs and even they get a good clean.  The whole winch was in a pretty bad state but not disastrous or close to failure. Having cleaned everything up, I apply oil to the pawls and move them around to spread it, they are moving really freely. I then apply the grease to the rest of the mechanism, a very thin layer so that it feels greasy to the touch but you cant really see the grease on it. Everything goes back together and I test the winch – all good. The second coach roof winch is in similar condition and the process is pretty much the same apart from the ping as one of the pawl springs goes flying from my hand across the boat and into the drink! Thank you Mat for suggesting that I get some spare springs.  This winch is somewhat quicker since I know what I am doing.  Quicker but ultimately flawed since it doesn’t work when I test it!  I know exactly what I have done, one of the units with pawls could go either way and I haven’t put it back in the right way.  Of course you don’t have to take the winch half apart to change this, the whole thing has to come apart to the base plate so that you can swap the part round the other way!  Retest and success, two down….SIX to go!

I’m on a roll, so onto the big sheet winches, knock these out in a day (amongst the other things I have on) and then the four small winches should be easy.  Unscrew the cap, take off the self tail mechanism and lift the casing off the mechanism. It moves a quarter of an inch.  Stop being a wimp and lift it! Quarter of an inch again. Last try, all my strength, quarter of an inch! At this stage, you look around for something to beat the winch with in true Basil Fawlty style.  Unfortunately there are no trees in the Marina, so I will have to come up with something else.  I find a couple of blocks that I can rig as a block and tackle. and attach set this up to the boom which I have swung out and tied off above the winch.  My trusty “red rope” (previously used for lifting outboards, freeing water filter caps and pulling pipes off through hull fittings) is at the fore as the attachment to the winch.  I tie it off using a pipe hitch and a round turn and to half hitches to the block, the tail of the line is then used to provide a second lifting point on the other side of the winch so that the pull is straight up.  I am ready to go and …..success….it moves half an inch! Success is measured in degrees when you have successfully lifted the whole winch by a quarter inch on three previous attempts.  I was happy to get it to a half inch on the first attempt.  Push it back down and pull again and it goes a bit further. I continue this making more and more progress until the casing comes clear 🙂  I now get to see what I have to deal with… The entire mechanism is glued together with calcium, salt and lots of old grease which has hardened.  The whole thing was solid and it is difficult to see how the thing moved in the first place.  The bearings are equally bad with no movement.  At this point I have to admit that the act of cleaning these things up and getting them back together is incredibly therapeutic and does give a great feeling of satisfaction when it is all back together again so thoroughly recommended.  When I was young I used to try and fix broken alarm clocks.  In common with a number of people I would take them apart and put them back together again, they never worked again and there were always a few spare parts lying around at the end of the process.  It is important that this isn’t the case when rebuilding a winch! A nice way to try and stop this happening is to be very organised as the winch is taken apart.  I laid out paper towel on the deck and had each group of parts on a single piece.  I found this really helped to make sure that I put it back together in the same order as it came apart.  As you can see, there was a lot of work required to clean these up and the whole process, with a few interruptions, takes a number of hours.  There is no way I am getting the second one done on the same day.

The next day, I set about the other sheet winch.  I have left the block and tackle rigged, I’m clearly going to need that.  This is going smoothly and faster than the first.  I get most of it apart quite quickly and I now have to remove five bolts, with alun key holes, that hold the tower casing onto the base.  On the first winch these were tough cookies but my rachet set up is equal to the task.  I get four off with quite a bit of effort and notice that some of them are a little rounded but they are off.  The last one looks particularly tight and the hole looks even more rounded than some of the others.  Even spraying with WD40 and PlusGas does not help this one to budge and as I try to shift it the wrench twists round and the alun key shaped hole is no longer alun key shaped but round 😦  For the moment I have to clean up everything that I can and reassemble the winch but I will need to drill out the bolt to finish this winch off.

The “half” clean up goes well and the winch works again so at least I can put it back together. I receive quite a bit of advice on how to get the remaining bolt out.  Cut a slot in the top of it and use a flat head setup to get it off, the idea being there is more metal to push against.  Another is to use a “screw extraction” set, which works by burying itself in the bolt and then as you tighten (it has a reverse thread), it loosens itself.  This probably works best when the bolt is not stuck fast into the hole. I cant get the screw extraction tool to bight into the stainless steel bolt.  Time for some help.

Lindsay is on board doing some changes in the engine room, more of that later, an offers to help me drill out the bolt.  Drilling out stainless is not lightly taken on and the trick is to have the drill on a very slow setting and take your time.  We drill out quite a wide hole so that we can get a large screw extractor in there.  I had previously been using the ones that you screw into the bolt but Lindsay’s set is driven in hard.  The large one works well and the head starts to move.  Unfortunately the screw is stuck so tight that the head separates from the rest of the bolt but at least I am now in a position to get the winch apart.  We use a smaller drill to get into the screw but this is still stuck hard so we have covered it with Plusgas which should help the bolt to loosen over twenty four hours.  That said, the whole area had been lightly bathed in WD40 and plusgas for most of the previous 72 hours so it may not be enough. That still doesn’t work so we will be leaving the thread in their for a few weeks soaked in plusgas and have a go at a later date.

Having temporarily resolved the seized bolt issue, I can now continue with the servicing of this winch.  This is as bad as the first with lots of cleaning required again to get it to a standard where you would be happy to reassemble.

Anyway, at least the other winches which should be uneventful since I have done the hardest ones first…. Or maybe not.  we have eight winches dotted around the cockpit and another at the mast.  Each pair in the cockpit are completely different and the mast is a two speed winch without a self tailor.

To be fair the servicing is not bad, except two of the winches are pretty much jammed due to lack of use and poor previous maintenance.

Before

After

That is easily resolved and it actually makes it more interesting when you have to work out how the winch is put together each time.  Reassembly is also interesting and I was flummoxed for a few minutes when I put a winch back together and couldn’t drop the bolts into the cogs.  On inspection, the whole was out by 2mm.  Now that just isn’t possible, these things are precision engineered and when not covered in gunk go back together beautifully   I worked out that I had put one of the mechanisms in upside down and the two “same-sized” cogs were actually slightly different sizes.

So I am done on the cockpit winches, lets start on the mast one!  this is interesting and again completely different from any other winch I have done.  For the first time, I take the winch casing off and something drops out – that shouldn’t be possible.  It is a pawl, the part of the mechanism that gives the winch is familiar clicking sound.  That’s not good.  I get the winch assembly off the mast and onto the deck so I can see what needs to be done.

This winch is a two speed winch and it is the slower setting that has both Pawls broken.  I have bought some spares and so can set about cleaning up the winch and getting it back to perfect working order.  Now on my ninth winch, ten if you count one on a friends boat that I helped with, I am confident when putting it back together and it all works first time.

My top tips for winch servicing:

1. Don’t be scared, things are not going to ping all over the place as soon as you take the case off.
2. Remove everything slowly and make sure you hold the underneath, sometimes some of the components have others within them.  You don’t want them falling out
3. Read the service guide, the lewmar one has pictures
4. I put my finger at the end as I lift the pawl out of place, this means that the spring hits your finger rather than pinging off into the water
5. A very thin layer of grease but nowhere near the pawls and oil around the pawls.  I had it so that they felt greasy but you couldn’t really see grease on them
6. Take your time and clean everything really well, it will cost an extra five minutes but if you don’t do it you will know it every time you look at the winch

We had an eventful weekend in the Stour and the broken list was extensive.

• Initially the large domestic alternator had broken down and I had disconnected this to try and prevent any further damage.
• The davits had stopped working and this seemed to be electrical in nature too.
• We still had a problem with water flow to the engine
• We had a sheered bolt in the impeller

To this list I added a couple of long outstanding jobs:

• Replace the hydraulic rams for the swim platform and get this working again
• Fix the mount for the navigation on the rib and make sure it now charges

Firstly the cooling problem.  We knew that this was related to the through hull and so the first technique we tried was to attach the filling end of the rib’s foot pump to the pipe from the through hull.  This would create air pressure that should shoot out whatever was in it like a torpedo.  Or not.  Lots of pressure and difficult (read almost impossible) to increase the pressure further with the foot pump.  So that didn’t work but we know there is something blocking it.  The next theory was to insert the dockside hose down the pipe and blast it out with water.  I do not like the idea of filling up the boat with a hose (water tanks excepted) but I wont be blasting for long.  With Maria holding the hose in place and a cloth over it to avoid any “blow-back”, we test slowly. I imagine Maria wouldn’t be too pleased if she and the engine room wee soaked by an icy blast of water.  One second burst, five second burst, five minute burst while I discuss with Peter, our neighbour, the problem I am trying to solve.  Oh sorry dear, forgot about the hose. Fortunately no drama or screams from the engine room.  Put everything back together and a quick check of the engine – we have full flow! 🙂  Subsequently, I heard of another technique that I also think would work which was to use a plunger from outside the boat, but Maria wasn’t keen for me to go swimming in the locked Marina water.

For the swim platform and impeller bolt, I will need to go to a chandlery to get spares (hydraulic fluid and bolts).  I go to Fox’s chandlery locally but they don’t have the right bolts and they are asking detailed questions about the rams and the pump before agreeing which hydraulic fluid I need.  I phone the UK distributor for the Bennetts rams who explains that any automatic transmission fluid will do so that saved me some money since it doesn’t have to have marine in the labelling.  On my return to the Ipswich marina, I see Lindsay from Seapower and explain my difficulty obtaining the right bolts for the impeller plate and he has a couple of spares “in the van”.  So I am sorted!

The sheered bolt is remarkably loose and I am able to spin this round with my nail to retrieve it.  Spin may be exaggerating a little, I can move it without drawing blood. I had tried to use a tool to help but the lack of visibility meant it was easier to feel your way with your nail. I replace all of the bolts with longer bolts having checked that they will fit correctly and that is another job ticked off.

Onto the hydraulics replacement, carefully lower the tank to a level where it wont try and fill the system when I take the old ones off.  Place a container under the rams to catch any fluid that leaks out.  The swapping over is easy and it is now time to try and bleed the system.  Back in the lazzarette, to find the reservoir lying nicely on its side and the hydraulic fluid coming out of a rip in the lid, thanks, and after I had tried to be so careful.  Refill the system with the new fluid. It is quite a small system and there appear to be no bleed valves so it’s a case of opening and closing the bypass while activating the pump.  It is all good and I am finishing the bleed when the platform starts to come up. And I am holding the down switch!  Our friend Mat, marine engineer on Song of the Whale, is coming for dinner, maybe I can pick his brains.  Mat and I take a look at this and the Davits.  It seems that whichever button you push it comes up, and if you swap the electrical connections over you can get it to open, no matter which button you push.  So a problem with the switching that needs to be solved when Ollie from Seapower comes back to the boat. To be fair this switch was wired when the platform didn’t work so easy not to get it right.

The davits are interesting and we spend time looking in the control box.  There is what appears to be a slow burn fuse that is located on the edge of the box and pokes through the box at the top.  This has the same pins as a car fuse and we swap this for one to test it.  The davits start to work.  Taking apart the black slow burn fuse reveals water is inside it (from all of the rain the previous weekend!).  We clean this all out and replace it.  The davits are now working perfectly. But who puts this outside of the box when there is likely to be water, we cover the top of this in tape to hopefully overcome this problem in the future.

As our final job for the moment, we take a look at the alternator.  We had found that a bolt had sheered which held the casing of the alternator together.  This had come out and had significantly damaged the vanes of the fan, which also explained the noise Maria heard.  So we get the alternator off and I will take it to the local specialist to see what can be done.  On investigation the alternator is fried and badly damaged which makes it uneconomical to repair.  A replacement is available and should be with us within 24 hours.

It is interesting though that since removing the alternator, some electrical devices are no longer working, and the engine circuit will not power up.  I had taped off all of the wires for the alternator. We put the negative from the alternator onto an engine bolt and everything starts working again but we are both at a loss to explain why the engine earth is going through the domestic alternator.

The next day I have refitted the alternator and tightened everything up. Just as discretion is the better part of valour, cowardice is the better part of discretion so I want Mat to check my work before I restart the engine.  We are all fine and so decide to test the new setup.  The engine starts well, we have water flow and the charge is also looking good although the batteries are pretty full at this stage anyway. We are working our way through the list well.

The new mount for the rib navigation has arrived which is a straight swap with a little help from Maria to hold the screw driver on one side while I tighten the bolt.  Definitely not a one man job unless you are stretch Armstrong.  When perusing the instructions I discover the original problem.  Apparently the mount comes with an all weather cover for the electrical connections.  That will stop water pooling around them causing corrosion and the mount to fail! RTFM.

Another job ticked off and I’m feeling good – maybe just lift those davits….nothing!  Maybe they are on the engine circuit so I need to power that up.  Nothing! In fact no light on the engine circuit at all. So this appears to be the same problem that I had when I took off the old alternator….but the new alternator is fitted and the negative is connected again.  I speak to Mat quickly to get an opinion and we agree that I need to look into why the domestic and engine circuits are connected.  I have already checked the “parallel” switch, for anyone starting if the engine battery is dead, and this is set correctly.  So it is under the bed in the aft cabin to check out the wiring there.  There is a problem, it appears the bolt holding the engine earth to the negative bar is loose (right hand side of picture).  This has caused arcing between the cabling and therefore heat build up with some scorching.  In fact one of the negatives has corroded and melted the insulation so much that it has melted through another wires insulation and these are welded together.  That will be what caused our problems and it could even have been what damaged our alternator.  In some respects we were probably lucky the alternator went rather than continuing to build the heat up and potentially start a fire under the bed.  This doesn’t explain why the old alternator used to provide the earth to the engine and the new alternator doesn’t, despite being identical.  The current view is that this was as a result of the damage to the alternator which provided that earthing thereby by-passing the corroded engine earth.  But I will update with more information as it is available.

In the interim we have put a bypass in place for the earth but the engine and alternators will not be used until the above is fixed.

All in all, not a bad week, since we fixed a lot of issues and uncovered a pretty major new one. At least we found them in Ipswich rather than in the middle of nowhere and know how to deal with them in the future – all part of the education!

Well there we go I have brought up the dreaded T word -TV.

There seem to be a number of schools of thought on this.

• I go sailing to get away from the modern world including television
• There is nothing to watch on TV these days
• What channels are you going to get in Fiji anyway

However, we have always been very keen watchers of films (movies for our American friends).

This work was originally done in 2014 when we first got the boat but has had to be refreshed.  When we got her, the boat had a 20 inch TV permanently fitted in the saloon, now we like watching TV sometimes but a) how will you see that from the other side of the room and b) who would want the TV on display the whole time anyway! When we had viewed the Moody 49, Mornin’ Gorgeous, prior to buying ours, we had admired the simple setup that hid the TV safely behind the seating. That was now our solution and it would allow us to have a large enough TV that we could both see and watch films on.

However, what TV to fit. At the time we did not have an inverter and I am also keen on a 12v solution to the problem. We had done something similar on the Dufour and bought a British made, or assembled, TV (Cello). This had worked really well and had a built in DVD player. When I looked at the options the largest 12v DVD TV that Cello produced was a 32inch, now that’s more like it. You certainly wouldn’t want the TV on display the whole time since it takes a lot of space.  One downside on these TVs can be the sound quality but there are a number of solutions to that these days including soundbars and we bought a cheap sound bar.

Unfortunately my suggestion to emulate the simple, and cheap, solution for lifting and hiding the TV that we had seen previously received some criticism from my co-skipper…. So we looked at lifting cages with remote controls that would achieve the same goal, somewhat more stylishly. These cost more than the TV :(. But work really well and are more stable – quite useful for a boat 🙂  In the end we went for the Venset TS700A.

So now we have the means to watch whatever we like, even home videos of dolphins playing next to our bow :).  Even better than that, if we don’t want the television up, it is hidden away and not obtrusive.

We originally bought two of the Cello TVs and mounted the second in the bedroom of the motorhome (now that is excessive!).  Unfortunately, after eighteen months of not very much use, the screen went black on this TV so I was left with a decision to make.  In the end I decided to swap the Cello out of Mariadz and use it in the motorhome.  This limited any issues I would have with changing the power cable and the mounting.  However, I then had to choose whether to get another Cello for the boat or whether to go for something with a better reputation.  On the motorhome, we had the Avtex 187 TV (now Avtex L188DR 18.5-Inch Widescreen Super Slim LED TV with Freeview HD) and I had also bought an Avtex L218DRS 21.5-Inch Widescreen 1080p Full HD Super Slim LED TV with Freeview HD for our bedroom.  These are very good quality TVs with excellent resolution, a built in HD Freeview and satellite tuner.  I have also been very impressed with the customer service throughout the three year warranty period which has the TV collected and then returned by courier within a few days.  I decided to go for the Avtex L327TRS Super Slim LED Digital TV with SAT-Freeview and Record – Black, 32-Inch. Unfortunately, the original fitter for the lifter had kept the bars that allowed the larger TVs to be mounted so I needed to get some stainless bars made up by East Coast Stainless to help with the mounting.  We are very pleased with the result, in fact the earth loop, the buzzing noise from the speaker, also does not happen with the Avtex – that was getting a little annoying!

So early on we decided to use International Woodskin Flexible Wood Oil/Varnish on some of the teak on board.  This is a varnish-like finish that allows the wood to “breathe”.  It also doesn’t need quite as much preparation as varnish with only a light sanding needed to get additional coats on.  Once we are away, we will be doing this on a six-monthly basis to protect the wood and keep it looking good.

However, we were slightly unhappy with the existing state of the handrails, which hadn’t been touched for a couple of years.  In particular, these were not very smooth and had ridges all over them.  This caused problem for the woodskin too which didn’t go on evenly.  We decided that it would be best to take the handrails back down to the natural teak colour using scrapers and sandpaper.  This would then give a smooth finish for the woodskin to soak into.  However, it is best to do this with your eyes open and not how I appear in the photo!

We had started the process at the back end of last season but hadn’t been able to complete it prior to the bad weather.  So I started this on the Friday and soon had the handrails back down to a finish that was more acceptable.  Having had issues with the woodskin getting onto deck, stainless etc as part of the application, I decided to use masking tape across the bases of each of the handrails.  This did take time, since I wanted to make sure that the tape was shaped around the curved handle and provided the protection needed.  By late on Sunday, after a glorious sunny day, I was ready for the first coats of the woodskin.  The plan would be to apply a minimum of four (light) coats but realistically as many as we can since the depth of colour and protection gets better with more coats.  The touch dry time is 4 hours and then 24 hours for it to be fully dry, so a reasonable week of weather and it will be done.  I apply the first coat on all four handrails and it looks great so I can settle down, relax and admire my handy work.  Five hours later, the first of the rain hits 😦 grrrrh!  Fortunately it looks like the woodskin was dry enough but we waited for everything to dry out before adding the additional coats.  So three coats down and it has consistently rained five to six hours after I have done them!

her is a link to our original work using wood skin: Exterior wood

Sometimes you have these conversations with your wife and sailing buddy.  Then you realise it really is beyond the time to do what needs to be done.

For the last few weeks, I have been looking for my next role in work and this has meant that I have had more time than I usually get to do maintenance on the boat.  To that end, I have tried to keep busy by fixing minor problems that have been hanging over us for ages.

The vast number of lines on a yacht can get covered in sea water and dirt causing them to get very stiff and go green.  You know it is bad when you can’t tell what the colour the line was underneath the dirt!  The picture shows mid way through cleaning, the bottom green part of the line had already been soaked for a while and was a lot cleaner than when it started – although still disgusting!

A standard way that people do this is to take the lines off the boat and put them in a pillow case within a washing machine.  This is fine when it is your own washing machine, but our marina explicitly forbid this and we didn’t fancy trying it on at a 24hr launderette.  The other problem is that EVERY line on the boat needed to be cleaned and so unless you are going to take down all of the sails too, you need to come up with a way to clean them “in place”.  Our technique was to have a hot bucket of water with mild washing powder and fabric conditioner in it.  Spray down the line with a hose to start with and then immerse it in the bucket for some time. Having given the water some time to get into the rope, I then painstakingly went through each metre of line with a soft brush, cleaning off the dirt.  The final touch was to spray down the line with more cold water.  It is tedious, hard work but very rewarding when you see the difference at the end, with the lines looking like new.  They are also not stiff anymore so we should find that they work smoother and better than they did.

With in excess of twenty lines on Mariadz, this took a long time, but the added advantage of a metre by metre clean is that it gives you an opportunity to check every part of the line.  I am now aware of a couple of places where we have some light chaffing of the line that I will need to keep an eye on.

The lesson for us, don’t leave it so long! Some of these lines had clearly not been done for at least five years, so long before we got Mariadz three years ago. I suspect that it will not be the last time that we do it!

Some top tips though… Firstly, it is a very mucky job, the brush nicely distributes the “green” all over the person doing it and the boat.  So be prepared to get very dirty.  Secondly, when the lines are done, wash the boat down really well.  All that green has gone on the decks and the last thing you want is the teak or the lines that are on the deck getting all of the dirt!

We have struggled for the last few years with issues with both the fridge and freezer on Mariadz. The problem is made worse due to the fire damage, and poor quality repair, that happened before our ownership of the boat. The galley area has not been refitted with a view to maintenance and access to the freezer and the fridge mechanics is “difficult” to say the least. As part of the attempts to fix this we have had to cut out parts of the units in the galley area. This allowed us to change the couplings which are a common failure resulting in loss of gas. However, it is still a problem and after our last “emergency” lift-out, it seems that the water cooling has also stopped working. This would normally mean we would lift-out to check the hull part of the cooling system but at a cost of over £400 for a lift out, we are keen to leave this if possible.

We are having to bite the bullet and come up with a better long term strategy for resolving the issue or we will be haunted with these problems for the rest of our lives. The first step is to perform a pressurisation test to try and see where the leak is located. By excluding parts of the system, such as the compressor, we can ensure that the rest of the pipework for the freezer (and fridge) are working as expected. If this proves that the pipework is in working order then we will change the compressor for a new one with air-cooling then when we come out in the summer for some other work, we can resolve the issues with the water cooling system. Fingers crossed this means that we will have finally solved the refrigeration problem!