AC Water Pump Gets a "T"

Winterizing the AC is always difficult because the hose between the sea cock and the cooling water pump is difficult to remove. "Difficult" is being kind. Once the hose is finally pried off of the sea cock, it's necessary to pour antifreeze into the end of the hose using a small funnel while someone else cycles the air conditioner on and off. I know we could always blow compressed air through the system to push out the water but dragging our compressed air tank down to the boat always seems like even more work. Besides, it's reassuring to see antifreeze squirting out that fitting on the side of the boat.

The list of things to be done this winter is growing short so today we too the opportunity to remove the stiff old hose from the sea cock to the AC pump and install a "T," which will allow us to winterize the system much more easily.  We have a T on each of the engine sea water intakes and winterizing the engines just takes a few minutes.

Instead of just replacing the old 3/4" ID hose, we were able to shorten that line considerably by adding two elbows.  Make a much neater installation, as well.

Here's a closer shot of the new T fitting.

While we were doing this plumbing and with the old hose out, we were able to stick our head down next to the pump and look aft, under the salon floor.  There's space there that goes back perhaps seven feet. Don't know why we even bothered to look into this space but when we did, we saw two long pieces of 1" hose just laying there, much too far back for us to reach.  They weren't connected to anything.  They had to go.

We straightened out a coat hanger and were just able to hook the hoses and pull them forward until we could grab them. They turned out to be deteriorated red 1" hose of the type that Silverton used in other parts of the boat (and which now have been mostly replaced).

Between the two pieces, there were perhaps 25 feet of hose and neither piece showed the impressions that hose clamps would have left on the ends. Our guess is that these two sections of hose were left there when the boat was being built. It would have been almost impossible for the previous owner to have stuffed them that far back under the floor, but they could have easily been left there before the salon floor was added.  It wasn't even good quality hose, which makes us even more suspicious that the guys in Millville left it there more than 32 years ago.

As we said, our list is growing short and we're on the list to go in the water during the week of April 23 so today was a good day to check the navigation lights.  The stern light has always been troublesome (sometimes needed a tap of the finger before it would go on) so we took that apart and found it, well, less than salvageable. We've ordered a new one and we'll install it next weekend.

 Shallow water. It's always something!

.Sunday, we had to spend most of the morning doing some house cleaning and of course, some quality time with The New York Times. The next thing on the boat list was to touch up the bottom paint but the curtains on the shed are still closed and it's too dark in there to see to paint accurately. Instead, we busied ourselves taking stuff off the boat, and there was quite a lot of it.

We checked in at the office to order our stern light (and hopefully get a better price than the outrageous $64.95 shown in the West Marine catalog) and were told that the "crew" was having difficulty putting the docks back in the water because runoff from the yard had built up to the point where at low tides, the shore-side of the docks were not floating but resting in the mud. Of course, we had to take a look before we left.

The area where the crew was working is carefully cordoned off for the safety of the public. Here's a typical Connecticut River mooring doing double duty.

A few dock sections are in. This is apparently as far as they got.

The process for putting these dock sections and the fingers that attach to them is really quite interesting. The sections are lifted by a crane using a fixture that fastens to holes in the side of each section.

For any gearheads who might be reading this, the crane is hydraulic and it's powered by a GM 6V53 diesel engine. This crane was purchased used about 12 years ago and that old Detroit engine is still going strong. We wish I could find a pair of those engines to put in our boat.

We shot a photo of one of the spiles and while it's difficult to see in the picture, the water between the spile and the rock embankment is only a few inches deep, and this wasn't even at low tide.

 That means there is a problem. Without most of these docks they will be unable to launch boats quickly. Will that affect our launch date? God, we hope not.