Here we go again. We
arrived in Quebec toward the end of June, ready for another summer of work on
the boat, hopefully the last one. We
therefore have rented a cabin close-by and take the opportunity to spend time
with our family, which we have sorely missed during our stay in Japan. Joshua and Benjamin have a lot of fun with
their cousins of the same age. The
yellow perches and sunfish of the river better be ready!
It takes us a good week to finally open the shrink-wrap tarp
over the boat. Partly because settling
the family takes time but partly, we have to admit for fear of the massive
projet under the tarp. After a thorough
inspection, all is good. A raccoon made
his nest on deck but didn’t dint a way inside, to my relief. Other than a bit of dust, everything is
exactly the way we left it. No rust
reappeared after our work of 2013. It
takes a couple of days to air-out the boat and remove the mildew smell and to
slowly form a plan for the summer.
First, the tarp must disappear. This is a boat, not a barn. That puts reinstalling the windows on the top
of the priority list. Then there is the
motor to recondition. It ran at the
purchase but didn’t since. I’m a bit
nervous, this could turn expensive Pronto.
Then there are the 2 hydraulic systems;
The steering system that includes the 2 wheels, rudder cylinder and
automatic pilot and the windlass/bow thruster system. Number4, the electric system and last but not
least, with the help of our welder JP, we are completely redoing the transom
and swim platform: The current one is rotten with rust. With all of this done, we’ll splash her at
the beginning of next summer.
Grandpa and Lulu are returning from their boat
in Florida on July 8th so we have a full week before we can touch
the windows (that’s a 2-man job). I
decide to familiarize myself with the electric system. Meter in hand, I follow cables from one end
of the boat to the other, head in the bilge. 
After many modifications, many wires lead nowhere and are
just capped and abandoned. I remove the
obvious ones while trying to understand the logic of the remaining ones. A couple of days later, it’s more or less
done. Ther was originally 3 battery
banks, 1 for the motor and 2 house. It
was now reduced to 1 of each. From the
purchase, I was still under the impression that the starting batteries were
half dead. After a few days of charge,
they seem to hold their charge surprisingly well (and it’s a good thing, these are 3 very expensive
batteries, more on this later). That
being said, the Trojan T-125 house batteries are gone. They wond charge past 12.35v. Not a big loss, we’ll put new ones in before
launching next year. Next I make an
executive decision: The cockpit
lazarettes will lose half their volume.
We need to remove all insulation from the transom panel to allow JP to
safely weld the new one in place. With
the rat’s next of hydraulic, electric, water and gaz lines back there around
the rudder post, it’S almost impossible to have access without destroying
something. With the wood of the
lazarette shelves removed, it’s much better (and a big weight off my
shoulders).
Granpa and Lulu arrive in Canada by the Lacolle border
crossing, just up the road and stop by for a few days. I shamelessly put him right to work. We install the first salon window. In 2013, we tried many different
adhesive-caulkings on different openings of the boat, by importance of said
openings and my willingness to start over if the caulking fails. The winner is DowCorning 795, the Nemesis of
Sikaflex295. Silicone-based adhesive,
500% elongation and UV resistant. I used
it for the skylight over the companionway, without putting any mechanical
fastenings back in. I’m very impressed: Standing under it and pushing up with all my
(incredible) strength, it will not move a iota.
For the salon windows, we will use bolts and nuts as this boat was
originally designed with, but we decrease the size from ¼” to #10 to make room
for caulking in the holes and decrease the danger of cracking due to the
considerably different coefficient of thermal expansion of steel and acrylic. I expect the windows to take a maximum of 1
day each to put in. The first one takes
3 hours and 3 tubes of caulking… looking good.
In parallel to this we attack the motor job. First, we put back in 3 minutes the exhaust
line which we had painstakingly removed 2 years ago (now that there is space in
the starboard lazarette). Then we do a bit of head scratching as to what’s
what on that Perkins M80T Prima.
Kivioq’s motor was a Yanmar and Grandpa’s is a Volvo-Penta. We find the bleed pump, run the line to a
fresh jerry-can of fuel and put the seawater input hose in a bucket, and tune
the key. It starts immediately! 3 years without turning and the cat purrs
within 3 seconds of being asked. I love
diesel engines. There are still a few
hurdles to clear: The water doesn’t run because the seawater filter gasket is
old and dry, and there is exhaust fumes and water that mysteriously accumulate
in the bilge (the wet exhaust drain is open) but a few hours later, we have a
working diesel.
We change the oil of the steering system and spend more
quality time upside down in the bilge following lines throughout the boat. There is still some air in the lines but
that’s minor. I spend some time reading
the autopilot manual and finally get it to work. It needs to ba calibrated but it works.
Of the electric system, all the lighting fixtures work
except of course the ones I removed in the salon to redo the windows. After the new ones are in, with their respective
trims and overheads, I’ll reinstall them and they should all work.
On the subject of overheads, Shannan is in charge here and
she wastes no time in finding online how to rebuild them. When I removed them after we bought the boat,
they mostly disintegrated in my hands as the wood cores were rotten from years
of leaks. We need luan plywood, glued to
Reflectix and covered with quality vinyl.
During a visit to a reseller, who matches the color perfectly, I almost
tumble over when he says the particular one we want is $50/yard. We will clean what’s salvageable. Shannan, ever the best buyer of us two, find
it online for half that price. Better.
She already rebuilt a couple of panels, including the one
that goes around the companionway skylight.
The new vinyl hasn’t arrived yet so she used the old one and it looks
gorgeous. We both feel like driving to
the boat tonight and putting it back in place… Ok, let’s be reasonable, it can
wait till tomorrow.
I kept for the end the not-so-fun part. The hydraulic system that drives the windlass
and bow thruster gives me gray hairs.
The electric motor that drives the system is positioned next to the main
diesel and coupled to a hydraulic vane pump.
OF course, this is a hefty motor:
1200w at 12V DC, it can draw up to 100A so you can imagine the cables
that runs directly to the starting batteries.
I read a bit on the matter last year and there seems to be somewhat of a
conundrum on the subject. Should a
windlass motor be plugged on the house or on the starting batteries? Some people argue that it should be on the
starting batteries, as the load is massive, much like a starter, but others
argue that it can be asked to perform for a few minutes at a time, which requires
a deep-cycle battery. The previous owner
founf a neet solution: He bought
deep-cycle starting batteries.
Retarded-expensive but impressive
setup. I also read in his log book that
the hydraulic pump burned his alternator in 2009. Doesn’t sound too good to me. Anyway, the thing refuses to start on
command. I verify the lines (ok),
connections (ok), solenoid (ok) and finally just kick it in action. This will clearly not do, plus it smokes and
runs slow, barely turns the windlass and stops on its tracks when I hit the
thruster switch. I pull the whole thing
out and send it tot the repairman. At
least I’ll know what I’m up against.
Tomorrow, we’re starting on the transom…
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