The small projects coninue with some success

We skipped the boat entirely last weekend because of the snow. We've had an easy winter so far so we'll not complain. However, we did sit through the accumulation of about a foot of snow, exercised the snowblower several times and got to watch the birds at our bird feeder. They don't care much about us when they can find things to eat on the ground but once it snows, we're one the most popular bird spots in town.

Watching the birds and enjoying Frances' excellent cooking are the best parts of winter.

With the warmer weather this weekend, we arrived at the boat, full of energy to get some of these old projects complete.

The project to get more light in our head is complete but we still had to clean up the wiring in the locker forward of the head, which is where we ran the wires for the new lights. We used a terminal strip mounted on the forward wall of that locker to make the power connections and we wanted to cover it so that clothing wouldn't snag on it. We ended up using the top of one of Frances' little plastic storage boxes to cover the wiring and the terminal strip (the blue thing at the right in the photo below). That worked fine and once the door was re-hung, the jackets (and a dozen coat hangers) put back inside, we called that project complete too.

In the last chapter of this epoch history of owning a enjoying an old Silverton, we mentioned adding a fuse for all of this extra lighting and a gauge to monitor our battery voltage. That all works now, as well. Kinda cool to be able to flip a switch and read the voltage on each of our battery banks. Yes, we could turn each ignition switch on and see the voltage there at the helm but that's with the load of the engine ignition systems, so it's not entirely accurate. Voltage at rest, with no load (and no battery charger) is a good way to judge the health of the batteries. And besides, we had all of these parts in our boat stash, so why not use them?

Then there's the addition of two new LED reading lights in the cabin. Looked so easy and so far has been much more difficult to do, mainly because all the wiring has to be hidden.

Here's the new light on the starboard side mounted.

Looks good, but chasing the power wire for it, down behind that wall and then down into the engine space was a two-hour exercise in frustration. Nothing would fit and then, just as we were going to call it a day, the last wire we fed down appeared in the access panel opening down near the floor.

That opening also allows access to all the cables and wiring that goes to the fly bridge. It also gave us access to the wiring and cables behind that wall so that we could get power to the new reading light. But there is no convenient little panel opening like this for us to remove on the port side and that's where we want to mount the other reading light.

We're going to have to think about that one for a while. And we thought this was going to be so easy.

Video

We shot some video of what we did on the boat this weekend that is anything but exciting. The issue is that it's difficult to do the work and then go back and photograph it in an interesting way. That requires a camera or two, extra lights and some advance idea of what we we think you'll like to see. The editing of that material is another story.  When we come back from the boat, usually pretty tired, we have 15-20 different shots, some of which are unusable. Putting the good shots together takes another 2-3 hours.

We're only mentioning this because we have two audiences: those friends who read our blog and the hundreds who follow us on You Tube. So we are serving two masters here. Showing our friends what we've doing and, at the same time, showing something interesting to You Tube viewers who are really into boats.

That said, here is the video for this past weekend.

Super Bowl Sunday

It was quiet at Portland Riverside Marina today probably because most of the boaters who we usually see tinkering with their boats were home polishing up their giant flat screen TVs before the big game begins. We don't really care about the game but do marvel at the economics: Five million dollars per 30-second spot.

We get access to all the new Super Bowl TV spots via the internet. We'll watch them tomorrow morning.

Installing a fuse

If you read this blog, you know that we've been adding much needed lights in the head and upgrading the ones we had in the galley. All of these lights are wired directly to the port side 12-volt distribution buss that is behind the lower helm. That's fine but everything needs to be fused and today, we installed a fuse in that line. We would have preferred a 12-volt circuit breaker but those made for marine use are way over-priced in our estimation. So we drilled a hole in the side of the lower helm and mounted a fuse holder that no one will ever even notice.

The rotten port-side triangle

That project continues. We have the new 3/4-inch plywood pieces cut and almost ready to go.  They don't fit perfectly yet so we'll have to a little more trimming and sanding before they can be fastened into place. That will happen next weekend, hopefully.

Tinting the boat windows

This is something that we began exploring once we found out that replacing our slowly deteriorating blinds on the boat was nearly impossible. No one seems to make marine blinds and if they do, they are extremely expensive.

Tinting the side and back windows seemed to make sense since we could potentially reduce the load on our air conditioner and retain some degree of privacy.

Frances took charge of this effort and she came up with two companies that work on boats. The first, in Fairfield County, gave us a quote that was close in cost to replacing one of our engines. The other, in Montville, gave us a much lower price and will visit us here in Hartford this week to show us how the various tint options work.

Nothing will happen until we're back in Norwich for the summer but we think that tinting is in our future. Let's hope it works the way we want it to.

The Marina at American Wharf

Speaking of Norwich, we check the Marina at American Wharf website each week just to see what they have in store for us next summer. So far, nothing. The website is now woefully outdated, with events back as far as 2015 still listed. The Sunset Burger Company is shown as about to open but as we remember, they struggled though last summer and then left, much like the restaurant operator before them.

Right now, they have $2,300 of our money for a slip next summer. Let's hope they come up with a business plan that works.

Winter boat projects continue

Back again for another fun-filled Saturday on the boat.

Some of the wiring that needed to be completed turned out to be difficult to do properly but this weekend, we applied ourselves and did it all correctly.

The switch for the new lights in the head needed to be hidden and that took at least 45 minutes and our entire vocabulary of foul language to get the switch mounted and the wires routed. But once done, it worked out as planned and unless you know where the switch is, you will never see it.  (For our good friends, just slide the right vanity door open and the switch is on your right. The light will be bright enough for you to easily read a chapter or two of your favorite book while sitting on the head.)

We also fixed some of the wiring for the LED lights in the galley and we were happy to see that everything works.

Our effort to fill in the missing pieces of our starboard triangle will take a little more work. Let's just leave it at that, okay?

Finally, we shot some video and proved to ourselves that Bill will never get a job as a CNN anchor. He even forgot to take off his head-mounted light. We don't use a Teleprompter, which is pretty obvious. Still, it's fun to do and look at later.

January 21 and it's 52 degrees... now we can get some things done!

We hit the boat early on Saturday to take advantage of the good weather. It was so nice to be able to work without four layers of clothes on. In fact, we didn't even bother with the electric heater.

We cut an accurate cardboard template for the patch we need to repair our so-called triangles.  We have the 3/4-inch plywood ready at home with one side primed with fiberglass resin. We'll cut and test fit the two pieces next weekend. Once we know they fit properly, we'll take them home again and apply resin to the other size and all the edges. It's a little too cold to mess with resin on the boat right now.

In our last post, we mentioned removing the dreaded "white" VHF marine radio at our lower steering station and replacing it with the newly repaired Icom radio, which is black. You'd think that one radio could easily replace another since they are supposed to be a standard size but no, the Icom was just a hair too big fit the cutout used by the old radio. We used our multi-tool to shave off just a little of the panel and in it went. We love that multi-tool!

Rather than pay Icom $49 for a "Flush Mount Installation Kit," we bent and drilled a couple of short lengths of aluminum we had on hand and made our own. Worked fine and when we turned the radio on, the nearest NOAA weather channel came in loud and clear. Frances will now have a nice black radio to work with rather than that ugly white one.

Next we ran the wires needed to power our new light in the head. This took some time because we like things nice and neat (and safe) and because it meant making the connections in a locker not quite wide enough to crawl inside. It all worked out and before we left for the day, that new light was working.

On Sunday, the warm weather continued so we went to the boat immediately after digesting much of The New York Times (as well as some breakfast). We weren't through in the head.

When we remounted the LED strip lights in the galley, we bought another string of LEDs so that we could make the galley lighting a little longer by just adding a short section of new LEDs and splicing them in. But when we were finished with that, we noted that the remaining unused new LED strip was just the right length to mount under the front of the vanity in the head. And for us, the head could always use more light.

It took us a while to figure out how to mount the LED strip so that it wouldn't be obvious and all of the wiring was hidden. Once we had a plan, it took several hours to get it done, since our head isn't the easiest place to work.

Here's the head before installation of the new LEDs. 

and after they were installed and powered up. We'll mount a switch inside that cabinet next weekend.

Before we left, we turned on the VHF and heard the weather forecast for Long Island Sound over the next few days. "Seas 13 to 18 feet, wind gusts to 60 miles per hour." We're glad to be where we are.

The "honey do" list

We went back to the boat project list last weekend (January 7) but it was bitterly cold on the boat, even with the electric heater on. After about 45 minutes we went out to the car to get something and there was three inches of snow on the car. The only other boater in the yard was just getting into his car and he waved and said, "I'm outta here!" We followed about five minutes later.

This weekend was more productive. We got our new light mounted in the head and it looks like original equipment.

We haven't wired it yet because all the wiring will be well hidden in a locker behind that wall and that's going to take a little time. Once we get that done, it's one less thing on the list.

We also took care of the drooping LED lights in the galley.  We installed them under the edges of the counters about three years ago and rather than use the tiny plastic clips that come with the LED strips, we glued them in place. Bad idea, since cooking and dish washing eventually caused the lights to come loose in places. Lesson learned, we disconnected the LEDs, took them home and remounted them on a thin strip of wood.

That would allow us to mount the wood strips under the edges of the counters. However, mounting the little plastic clips meant driving in dozens of the tiniest Philips-head screws known to man.

That's a quarter behind the lights, just for comparison.

Anyhow, we reinstalled the LED strips and the galley is now, once again, nice and bright.

We also made some progress on replacing the rotted wood on our port side triangle. We posted about that project before and won't update it until we have a good fit for the new plywood.

The white radio

When we bought this boat all those years ago, it came with a white Horizon VHF radio hanging from under the fly bridge. We eventually mounted it next to our lower steering station as a back-up radio and it worked fine.

Recently, we were going through our electronics stuff and came up with an black Icom M304 radio that had stopped receiving. At the time, we simply replaced it with a newer Icom radio, which we still use on our bridge today.

But before throwing this older radio away, we checked some forums and found that this particular Icom had a known receiver fault that Icom would repair for free. We followed up and found that the repair wasn't free any longer but wasn't much money either.

We talked about spending $75.00 or so to repair the Icom radio (it has all the bells and whistles of the new ones) and Frances replied that she always "hated that Horizon radio because it is white!" Who would have known? She's called the marina for a pump-out a couple of hundred times using that white radio.

As you might have guessed, we had the Icom radio repaired and that was quick and inexpensive. Now, part of our "to do" list is making that black Icom radio fit the cutout the old white Horizon radio occupied. We think that won't be too difficult.

The days are now getting longer...

...which means that it's okay to even think about spring, but let's remember that it's four months before we can launch the boat.

We had a very nice Christmas, low key as we like them, and we are writing this on New Years Eve. Frances is making an apple pie, so things are good.

Our boat projects continue but we won't bore you with too much detail. The reclamation effort on the port triangle has come to a stop. Dr. Bill performed all of the needed surgery, removing all of the rotten plywood. We have a template for the new plywood to replace what had decayed but the low temperatures make it questionable for applying resin. Better wait until it gets a little warmer before completing that project.

But, other projects continue. We wanted to add a light in our head and we did that today, We've learned not to do all this stuff on the boat but to do some prep at home where it is easier to work. It was really cold at Portland Riverside today but we headed down and, after warming the cabin to a toasty 40 degrees, got busy mounting the new light

This is where the light should go but only in a way that looked as though it had always been there:

Up near the ceiling with all of the wires hidden.

It took us an hour or so to mount the light (which we had prepared and painted at home) and run the wire channel, which worked perfectly.

Snap the cover over the wire and we were done.

If you've become feverish looking at these exciting photos, it's okay. Take a cold shower and enjoy New Years Eve.

We still have to connect power to this new light and since we don't use electrical tape or open splices, we have to come up with something that is correct and safe. No problem. We have ideas.

There's more innovative and fun stuff to do on our boat this winter but right now, Frances is putting that apple pie in the oven. You get the idea.

We cut some of the triangle

If you're still reading this, you are truly part of our blog. Boat maintenance can be really boring.

When we left last weekend, we had discovered some extra rot creeping into our cabin. We needed to cut out the bad sections of plywood and replace it with new wood.

But how would we cut out sections of 3/4-inch plywood without damaging the fiberglass? We gave that some thought during the week and came up with using a multitool. It's a handheld machine that can use a saw-like blade to plunge-cut wood, vibrating the saw blade at something like 15,000 rpm.

We looked into such a device and found that the best one was Fein Multimaster but, at more than $230.00, it seemed a little more than we wanted to spend. We ended up with a Sears MultiTool for about $70.00 and we picked it up at the Sears store at nearby Manchester.
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Here's what this thing looks like.

On Saturday, we we went to the boat and first measured along the triangle to separate the good wood from the bad. Then we used our new Sears MultiTool to do a plunge cut. We dialed  it up to 18,000 rpm.

We know, not a good photo, but it was the best we could do at the time.

The result?

Looked good to us. That piece of molding on the right will have to be removed to keep from damaging it as the last cut it made We'll do that next weekend.

Remember that we have to make the same cut on the inside, That should be interesting.