I know most of my recent posts have been about boat repairs...and, well, that is most of what I seem to be doing when I'm not working the day job. But one of the simple pleasures I have is that I get to sleep under the stars.
You see, that hatch that is over my berth that was dripping on me the other day is also my view of the stars on clear nights. I can see Orion or other constellations depending on the orientation of the boat and the moon makes it's periodic appearance. It is one of the little perks of living on a boat.
And as for that dripping, keeping air circulating with the fan seems to cut down on the condensation on cool nights so I haven't had any further problems with that. Not intuitive to have a fan running when it is cool, but it works.
Looking up at the stars makes a nice way to end the day.
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Sunday, February 9, 2014
How Are You Heating That Water, Mr. Heater?
In a previous post I mentioned that after the engine work, I noticed that the water heater was no longer working using shore power. I thought maybe the mechanics had tripped a breaker or knocked something while they were down in the engine room where the heater is located. Well, what I found was far more disturbing. It seems the water heater was trying to heat water with fire...
Definitely not a good thing on a boat. From what I can tell, apparently whoever installed the water heater didn't find much of a need to secure the power cable. The result is the 120v wires rubbed against the metal casing of the water heater until the wire sheath was compromised. Then the combination of corrosion and the chafing likely caused heating and arcing of the wires which resulted in the extensive char marks on the inside of the electrical cover and casing around the electrical connections. Basically, the start of an electrical fire. It is fortunate that the wires played like a fuse and cut the power before a full on fire developed.
I cut away the burned and corroded wire, connected the wires back together according to the wiring diagram using marine grade heat-shrink crimp connectors. To help prevent further issues of this sort, I also used some electrical tape as added anti-chafe protection, added a rubber grommet to the bare metal hole the power wire runs through, and secured the wire so it should not move around and chafe in the future. I tested the heater and it is once again working just fine. After a couple heating cycles, I went back and checked the connections just to verify that the heater wasn't pulling too much current and melting the wires and I found no damage.
So, once again, I have hot water on board that works with shore power. And in a complete surprise, I didn't even find another problem to fix while I was working on the heater...so maybe I can start making a dent in "the list".
 |
| Note the burned and corroded wires and char marks. |
Definitely not a good thing on a boat. From what I can tell, apparently whoever installed the water heater didn't find much of a need to secure the power cable. The result is the 120v wires rubbed against the metal casing of the water heater until the wire sheath was compromised. Then the combination of corrosion and the chafing likely caused heating and arcing of the wires which resulted in the extensive char marks on the inside of the electrical cover and casing around the electrical connections. Basically, the start of an electrical fire. It is fortunate that the wires played like a fuse and cut the power before a full on fire developed.
I cut away the burned and corroded wire, connected the wires back together according to the wiring diagram using marine grade heat-shrink crimp connectors. To help prevent further issues of this sort, I also used some electrical tape as added anti-chafe protection, added a rubber grommet to the bare metal hole the power wire runs through, and secured the wire so it should not move around and chafe in the future. I tested the heater and it is once again working just fine. After a couple heating cycles, I went back and checked the connections just to verify that the heater wasn't pulling too much current and melting the wires and I found no damage.
So, once again, I have hot water on board that works with shore power. And in a complete surprise, I didn't even find another problem to fix while I was working on the heater...so maybe I can start making a dent in "the list".
Friday, February 7, 2014
The Grill and Easy Thai Style Peanut Sauce
Since I returned to the boat I have to admit I haven't been doing much fancy cooking. Being by myself it is hard to get inspired to make nice meals for one and by the time I get done working my day job and try to get some work done on the boat, I just don't have the time or energy to cook much. Spaghetti, hamburgers, and even peanut butter and jelly have been on the menu here when I haven't just grabbed something while out running errands.
A couple of days ago I spent some time cleaning and repairing the Magma Grill that came with the boat and I wanted to give it a try. I had some hamburgers, but I was getting pretty tired of them so I picked up some chicken breasts to throw on the grill. I bought the smallest package, marinaded them in a pepper and soy sauce mix and cut them up in strips and now I have pre-cooked chicken strips I can use for a variety of dinner options. And if anyone is interested in the grill, it seems to to run a bit hot...even on it's lowest setting the lid thermometer registered in the medium heat range (like most grills, the lid thermometer isn't very good and this one didn't even have a temperature scale...just blue, yellow, and red for low, medium, and high).
But what to do with them. Back when we were experimenting with recipes that might be suitable for the boat (inspired by The Boat Galley site), I came across a recipe for a simple Thai style Satay peanut sauce (sorry, I don't remember where I found it). While it is not the absolute best peanut sauce I've ever had, it is pretty good and the best part is that it doesn't require a bunch of fancy ingredients like curry pastes and coconut milk that many of the sauces do. Instead, it is made up of ingredients that you might actually find on your boat. I altered the original recipe a little bit and here it is:
A couple of days ago I spent some time cleaning and repairing the Magma Grill that came with the boat and I wanted to give it a try. I had some hamburgers, but I was getting pretty tired of them so I picked up some chicken breasts to throw on the grill. I bought the smallest package, marinaded them in a pepper and soy sauce mix and cut them up in strips and now I have pre-cooked chicken strips I can use for a variety of dinner options. And if anyone is interested in the grill, it seems to to run a bit hot...even on it's lowest setting the lid thermometer registered in the medium heat range (like most grills, the lid thermometer isn't very good and this one didn't even have a temperature scale...just blue, yellow, and red for low, medium, and high).
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| Magma Rail Mounted Grill |
But what to do with them. Back when we were experimenting with recipes that might be suitable for the boat (inspired by The Boat Galley site), I came across a recipe for a simple Thai style Satay peanut sauce (sorry, I don't remember where I found it). While it is not the absolute best peanut sauce I've ever had, it is pretty good and the best part is that it doesn't require a bunch of fancy ingredients like curry pastes and coconut milk that many of the sauces do. Instead, it is made up of ingredients that you might actually find on your boat. I altered the original recipe a little bit and here it is:
Simple Thai Style Peanut Sauce
- 2 Tablespoons of creamy peanut butter (I prefer the natural stuff, but any should work)
- 2 Tablespoons of Soy Sauce.
- 2 Tablespoons of Brown Sugar.
- 1.5 Tablespoons of White Vinegar.
- 1 Teaspoon Garlic Powder
- 1/8 Teaspoon Ground Ginger
- Cayenne Pepper to desired spiciness.
Mix the ingredients until they are an even consistency, adding the peanut butter after the liquids and spices are mixed together. That's it. Obviously you can alter to your individual taste, I tend to go a bit light on the vinegar and heavy on the peanut butter. It looks a bit darker than the typical peanut sauce, but the flavor is pretty good for something with common ingredients that can be made in just a couple minutes.
Tonight I took some of the chicken, added some heated frozen broccoli, put it over rice and drizzled on the peanut sauce. Made for a pretty flavorful and simple dinner.
If you have any simple recipes that you think would work on a boat, please feel free to share in the comments.
If you have any simple recipes that you think would work on a boat, please feel free to share in the comments.
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
So, Whatever Happened with the Engines?
Remember when I told you about having work done on the engines? I wouldn't blame you if you didn't as it has been a long time. So, to recap, the mechanic was cleaning the heat exchangers on all three engines (two Westerbekes and the Northern Lights generator), sending a fuel injector pump on one of the Westerbekes off to be rebuilt, replacing a rusted exhaust mixing elbow on the generator and removing a rusted and broken stud on the manifold that attaches to the elbow.
Well, after initial disassembly and removal of the heat exchangers, pump, mixing elbow and manifold, the mechanic said he would have the exchangers cleaned up in a couple of days and the pump would probably take a week or so to have rebuilt and returned (it was sent to a shop in Orlando that is supposed to be good at such things). They would come back and complete the job once the pump came back. The mechanic also wanted some money for the parts so he wrote up a bill for the work that had been completed thus far. My normal rule is to pay for parts once they arrive and pay for labor once the job is complete, but since this was a recommendation by a friend, I went ahead and paid the tab to date. This was probably my first mistake.
So, I waited. And waited. I didn't hear back from the mechanic. After a week and a half I gave him a call. I was told the pump would be in on that following Monday and they would call me and let me know when they would be back to complete the work. So I waited some more. Monday passed with no call, so did Tuesday. On Wednesday I gave him a call and he now told me that the pump would be in tomorrow (Thursday). On Friday I gave the mechanic a call and he said all the parts were in but it was too cold to work since the temperatures were in the 40's and 50's. I can understand that working in the cold can be miserable...but being from Colorado I really didn't consider this all that cold...especially if you were out of the wind in the engine room. He would call me and set up a time early next week.
I ran into him in the marina parking lot in the middle of that week and he said he would be over to finish up the work on...I think it was Thursday or Friday. So on the agreed upon day I waited and he again failed to show up and failed to give me a call. I got a hold of him and he again said he had everything but it would be Monday before they could come finish up. Sigh.
On Monday they finally showed up with the pump and coolers. Things were looking up. After several hours in the engine room they told me they were missing some parts, but they had them at their shop in St. Augustine. They didn't want to go get the parts so they would be back Tuesday at 2pm to finish up. Well at least that was some progress, but it amazes me that after all this time and claiming they had everything that they were once again missing something.
You know what happened next. Yep, I waited around for an hour and a half on Tuesday before I gave up. No show, no call...this was getting to be a little too predictable. I caught up with him again in the marina parking lot on Wednesday and asked what was up. This time the explanation was that the delivery guy failed to drop the parts off, but they would have them and be over to finish up on Friday. To my surprise I got a phone call on Friday from the mechanic. No, he wasn't going to be able to make it...but at least this time he called. He was apologetic and said he would be over Saturday morning to finish up. That would be this past Saturday.
To my complete shock, they did show up on Saturday. They weren't even very late. Also to my shock, he announced that both he and his assistant were quite hung over. Really?!?! How professional. I asked if it would be better if they come back when they were feeling better, but he insisted that they would be fine. They worked for several hours getting things back together (I thought this was just a bolt and some clamps...guess I could be wrong...or the hangover slowed them down...a nice thing when you are getting billed by the hour). The starboard engine, the one with the new pump, was difficult to get started. I think at one point they realized that they had forgotten to turn on one of the fuel valves...sigh. We eventually got everything bled and got the engine started. The generator and the other engine were much easier, once they got the coolant filled and everything back together, both of those engines started without too much fuss.
Now the things we were originally trying to address were making the generator reliable if it wasn't too expensive (it's not a high priority here since I want to go solar anyway), fixing the fuel leak, and solving the issue with one of the engines running warm. The generator is now working and not leaking...but I'm not sure what percentage of the bill was the generator so I kinda doubt it was cheap. The fuel leak appears to be fixed, so that is one in the plus column. After running the engines a bit, the starboard engine is again reading higher than normal temps if you rev it up. Sigh. And it was smoking a bit more than I recall it had in the past (I don't recall any smoke in the past).
I ask the mechanic about the temperatures since the cleaning was supposed to help and he said that the heat exchangers didn't look very bad even before he cleaned them. What?!?! I guess cleaning them was just another way to get some more money out of the job then? He offered to go check the engines with a laser thermometer and I told him that was probably a good idea. He checks and we find out that both engines are running at just about exactly the same temperature...172F at the coolant entry into the heat exchanger. So Mr. Expert Diesel Mechanic...why didn't we do this before we took the coolers off to have them cleaned? I think that could have saved us a fair amount of time and money to find out that 190 on the gauge is actually 172. I guess it is my fault as I should have thought about actually verifying the problem before attempting any fix...and I know better than this but I think the boat is somehow hypnotizing me or maybe I'm just a bit overwhelmed by the size of the "the list" and the shrinking time frame to get things done. This is lesson number 2...don't EVER believe a mechanic that doesn't actually run tests first. "Oh, marine diesels are simple systems and it has to be xxxxxxx"...yeah, right.
Anyway, the engines are back together now and seem to work. One important problem solved (fuel leak), one less important problem fixed at a higher cost than I really wanted to spend (the generator), and one problem that isn't really a problem and I just need to remember to do the math on the reading until I can trace down the issue (the false higher temp reading). At this point I certainly don't want this mechanic looking into that.
And the one time the mechanic was prompt and communicative...when he brought me the final bill this morning. He even had a little bit of a discount added with a note of "Good will"....heh...maybe that is the slow moving hangover discount. I could have brought him a bill for my hourly rate for all the time I waited on him and he never showed...that would have cut the bill in half at least (my hourly rate in my current occupation exceeds the combination of his and his helper). But I just wanted him gone so I paid the bill and sent him on his way. That was my experience with Marine Land Diesel...don't think I'll be using them again.
Oh, and now my electric hot water heater doesn't seem to be working. It's conveniently located in the starboard engine room...hopefully they just accidentally switched off a breaker or bumped into a fuse down there...but that is a task for another day since there is warm water for showers in the club house.
At least the engines all now run...yay! The final lesson I should take way from this...I should trust myself to be able to do these jobs even if I haven't done them before. I'm sure with a little help from the internet, I could have figured out how to do this stuff myself, probably done faster, and certainly a lot cheaper.
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| A Westerbeke 42B4 waiting for it's heat exchanger. |
Well, after initial disassembly and removal of the heat exchangers, pump, mixing elbow and manifold, the mechanic said he would have the exchangers cleaned up in a couple of days and the pump would probably take a week or so to have rebuilt and returned (it was sent to a shop in Orlando that is supposed to be good at such things). They would come back and complete the job once the pump came back. The mechanic also wanted some money for the parts so he wrote up a bill for the work that had been completed thus far. My normal rule is to pay for parts once they arrive and pay for labor once the job is complete, but since this was a recommendation by a friend, I went ahead and paid the tab to date. This was probably my first mistake.
 |
| The Northern Lights Generator waiting on it's exhaust system. |
So, I waited. And waited. I didn't hear back from the mechanic. After a week and a half I gave him a call. I was told the pump would be in on that following Monday and they would call me and let me know when they would be back to complete the work. So I waited some more. Monday passed with no call, so did Tuesday. On Wednesday I gave him a call and he now told me that the pump would be in tomorrow (Thursday). On Friday I gave the mechanic a call and he said all the parts were in but it was too cold to work since the temperatures were in the 40's and 50's. I can understand that working in the cold can be miserable...but being from Colorado I really didn't consider this all that cold...especially if you were out of the wind in the engine room. He would call me and set up a time early next week.
I ran into him in the marina parking lot in the middle of that week and he said he would be over to finish up the work on...I think it was Thursday or Friday. So on the agreed upon day I waited and he again failed to show up and failed to give me a call. I got a hold of him and he again said he had everything but it would be Monday before they could come finish up. Sigh.
On Monday they finally showed up with the pump and coolers. Things were looking up. After several hours in the engine room they told me they were missing some parts, but they had them at their shop in St. Augustine. They didn't want to go get the parts so they would be back Tuesday at 2pm to finish up. Well at least that was some progress, but it amazes me that after all this time and claiming they had everything that they were once again missing something.
You know what happened next. Yep, I waited around for an hour and a half on Tuesday before I gave up. No show, no call...this was getting to be a little too predictable. I caught up with him again in the marina parking lot on Wednesday and asked what was up. This time the explanation was that the delivery guy failed to drop the parts off, but they would have them and be over to finish up on Friday. To my surprise I got a phone call on Friday from the mechanic. No, he wasn't going to be able to make it...but at least this time he called. He was apologetic and said he would be over Saturday morning to finish up. That would be this past Saturday.
To my complete shock, they did show up on Saturday. They weren't even very late. Also to my shock, he announced that both he and his assistant were quite hung over. Really?!?! How professional. I asked if it would be better if they come back when they were feeling better, but he insisted that they would be fine. They worked for several hours getting things back together (I thought this was just a bolt and some clamps...guess I could be wrong...or the hangover slowed them down...a nice thing when you are getting billed by the hour). The starboard engine, the one with the new pump, was difficult to get started. I think at one point they realized that they had forgotten to turn on one of the fuel valves...sigh. We eventually got everything bled and got the engine started. The generator and the other engine were much easier, once they got the coolant filled and everything back together, both of those engines started without too much fuss.
Now the things we were originally trying to address were making the generator reliable if it wasn't too expensive (it's not a high priority here since I want to go solar anyway), fixing the fuel leak, and solving the issue with one of the engines running warm. The generator is now working and not leaking...but I'm not sure what percentage of the bill was the generator so I kinda doubt it was cheap. The fuel leak appears to be fixed, so that is one in the plus column. After running the engines a bit, the starboard engine is again reading higher than normal temps if you rev it up. Sigh. And it was smoking a bit more than I recall it had in the past (I don't recall any smoke in the past).
I ask the mechanic about the temperatures since the cleaning was supposed to help and he said that the heat exchangers didn't look very bad even before he cleaned them. What?!?! I guess cleaning them was just another way to get some more money out of the job then? He offered to go check the engines with a laser thermometer and I told him that was probably a good idea. He checks and we find out that both engines are running at just about exactly the same temperature...172F at the coolant entry into the heat exchanger. So Mr. Expert Diesel Mechanic...why didn't we do this before we took the coolers off to have them cleaned? I think that could have saved us a fair amount of time and money to find out that 190 on the gauge is actually 172. I guess it is my fault as I should have thought about actually verifying the problem before attempting any fix...and I know better than this but I think the boat is somehow hypnotizing me or maybe I'm just a bit overwhelmed by the size of the "the list" and the shrinking time frame to get things done. This is lesson number 2...don't EVER believe a mechanic that doesn't actually run tests first. "Oh, marine diesels are simple systems and it has to be xxxxxxx"...yeah, right.
Anyway, the engines are back together now and seem to work. One important problem solved (fuel leak), one less important problem fixed at a higher cost than I really wanted to spend (the generator), and one problem that isn't really a problem and I just need to remember to do the math on the reading until I can trace down the issue (the false higher temp reading). At this point I certainly don't want this mechanic looking into that.
And the one time the mechanic was prompt and communicative...when he brought me the final bill this morning. He even had a little bit of a discount added with a note of "Good will"....heh...maybe that is the slow moving hangover discount. I could have brought him a bill for my hourly rate for all the time I waited on him and he never showed...that would have cut the bill in half at least (my hourly rate in my current occupation exceeds the combination of his and his helper). But I just wanted him gone so I paid the bill and sent him on his way. That was my experience with Marine Land Diesel...don't think I'll be using them again.
Oh, and now my electric hot water heater doesn't seem to be working. It's conveniently located in the starboard engine room...hopefully they just accidentally switched off a breaker or bumped into a fuse down there...but that is a task for another day since there is warm water for showers in the club house.
At least the engines all now run...yay! The final lesson I should take way from this...I should trust myself to be able to do these jobs even if I haven't done them before. I'm sure with a little help from the internet, I could have figured out how to do this stuff myself, probably done faster, and certainly a lot cheaper.
Monday, February 3, 2014
Is the Boat Dissolving?
This actually started just after we bought the boat, but I haven't managed telling the story until now. When my wife and I bought the boat, we didn't actually stay on it until after we moved it to the marina at Hammock Beach.
Well, the first night at the marina we climb into the berth and turn off the lights. It was a good temperature so we didn't have AC, heat, or fans running. In the quiet of the dark, we started hearing a crackling sound. We both thought it was a bit strange and just a little concerning. In our limited time staying on boats, we had never heard anything like it so I got up and listened intently trying to locate the sound. It appeared to be coming from the lower hull. Not sure what the sound was, I pulled up the floorboards to look into the bilge. I didn't see a thing out of the ordinary. With the floorboards up, I once again listened and the sound seemed to come from all around on the hull. And with the floorboards up it sounded a bit like the fiberglass was cracking.
I sat there and listened, tapped on the hull (which I know is about 5/8" solid fiberglass at the bottom) and pondered what the noise could be. Is the somewhat cool water causing the fiberglass to expand and contract unevenly? Is something eating through the hull? Is this just a "normal" sound that I've never heard before? After staring at the dry fiberglass hull for a while, it was getting late and I decided that the boat wasn't sinking so we just put the floorboards back and went to sleep. Hopefully the rush of water will wake us up if the hull gives way. The next days the boat remained afloat but the crackling sound could be heard anytime the boat was quiet.
Now, fast forward to a week or two after I get back to the boat. I still hear the noise but, while I have no explanation for it, have dismissed it as a "normal boat noise". Talking to one of my dock neighbors, they were telling me how they were hearing a noise like crackling or water leaking into their boat. They invite me to come listen and, sure enough, it is the same noise that I've been hearing all along. They hadn't noticed it until they started doing some work near the hull (they are a motor yacht and their hulls are covered with cabinets and other things that mask the sound). I told them I had been hearing the same thing since I've owned the boat and had dismissed it. They couldn't believe it was the same noise so I invited them to come listen. Sure enough, they agreed it was the same noise.
As we were standing on the dock discussing the strange sound that we both hear, one of the locals wandered by and offered an explanation. Apparently, when it gets a bit cooler, some small shrimp tend to come out and they are the cause of the noise. Neither of us had every heard of such a thing, but sure enough, a quick Google search reveals it is quite common.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpheidae
Or for an over-dramatic video explanation...
In any case, it is fascinating...and good to know that my fiberglass boat isn't dissolving.
Well, the first night at the marina we climb into the berth and turn off the lights. It was a good temperature so we didn't have AC, heat, or fans running. In the quiet of the dark, we started hearing a crackling sound. We both thought it was a bit strange and just a little concerning. In our limited time staying on boats, we had never heard anything like it so I got up and listened intently trying to locate the sound. It appeared to be coming from the lower hull. Not sure what the sound was, I pulled up the floorboards to look into the bilge. I didn't see a thing out of the ordinary. With the floorboards up, I once again listened and the sound seemed to come from all around on the hull. And with the floorboards up it sounded a bit like the fiberglass was cracking.
I sat there and listened, tapped on the hull (which I know is about 5/8" solid fiberglass at the bottom) and pondered what the noise could be. Is the somewhat cool water causing the fiberglass to expand and contract unevenly? Is something eating through the hull? Is this just a "normal" sound that I've never heard before? After staring at the dry fiberglass hull for a while, it was getting late and I decided that the boat wasn't sinking so we just put the floorboards back and went to sleep. Hopefully the rush of water will wake us up if the hull gives way. The next days the boat remained afloat but the crackling sound could be heard anytime the boat was quiet.
Now, fast forward to a week or two after I get back to the boat. I still hear the noise but, while I have no explanation for it, have dismissed it as a "normal boat noise". Talking to one of my dock neighbors, they were telling me how they were hearing a noise like crackling or water leaking into their boat. They invite me to come listen and, sure enough, it is the same noise that I've been hearing all along. They hadn't noticed it until they started doing some work near the hull (they are a motor yacht and their hulls are covered with cabinets and other things that mask the sound). I told them I had been hearing the same thing since I've owned the boat and had dismissed it. They couldn't believe it was the same noise so I invited them to come listen. Sure enough, they agreed it was the same noise.
As we were standing on the dock discussing the strange sound that we both hear, one of the locals wandered by and offered an explanation. Apparently, when it gets a bit cooler, some small shrimp tend to come out and they are the cause of the noise. Neither of us had every heard of such a thing, but sure enough, a quick Google search reveals it is quite common.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpheidae
Or for an over-dramatic video explanation...
In any case, it is fascinating...and good to know that my fiberglass boat isn't dissolving.
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