Well, my three major boat projects are completed, save for tying up a few loose ends. Robin has returned to the boat on Tuesday afternoon and I've appreciated her help in wrapping up the work.
Project 1, Engine Charging Upgrade
The new charging systems are installed and tested on both engines. They seem to be working more-or-less correctly when running individually. However, the both systems seem to go into an idle condition, delivering no amps, rather than float charging stage (like a trickle charge) after satisfying the exit criteria for the acceptance charge stage. Also, when I connect the two WS500 charge regulator so that they can talk to each other, an error code is displayed on the regulator for the engine started last. I have a call into Wakespeed to find out what to do about these issues.
Project 2, Standing Rigging Replacement/New Jib Furler
All the work is complete, but the riggers made a mess of the decks. At first, I was just annoyed at all the black marks, but figured I'd just clean them up. When I tried to do that, I found that the marks wouldn't come clean by just scrubbing with soapy water. All of them have to be spot cleaned by hand scrubbing with SoftScrub (with bleach).
But much worse than the black marks are the stains from the WD40 oil used to free up the turnbuckles up on the mast. There are hundreds of orange spots all over the decks. I tried all sorts of cleaning products including detergent, ammonia, backing soda, bleach, toilet bowl cleaner, acetone, degreaser, mineral spirits, rubbing compound. Nothing would remove the spots. I called the owner of the rigging company to complain and he has offered to pay to have the spots professionally removed when I get the boat to Fort Lauderdale. We are working on the logistics for that.
Project 3, Replace Starboard Diesel Tank
Jeff Kingree dropped off the new tank on Tuesday morning and Robin and I installed the tank on Wednesday. Everything went smoothly, except for Robin dropping a wrench which ended up under the tank. We had to yank it out to recover the tool and put it back in, again, for a total of three roundtrips! Fortunately, we were just getting started bolting down the tank and the fumble only took us an hour to recover. The tank is holding fuel, no hoses are leaking, no fuel in the bilge, no odor of diesel. Problem solved! Jeff fabricated the tank out of 1/8-inch thick aluminum, 25 percent thicker than the 2.5 mm thick original tank. The new one should last longer as it will take longer for corrosion to make it through the thicker tank.
I'm cleaning up and putting everything away now. It feels good to be (almost) done after nearly a month's effort on these projects.
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| The riggers' so far indelible WD40 oil stains on the deck |
