Day 7 - We rest

Time to recap the week. This evening marks one week since Caspian arrived.

Sunday Evening and night: Caspian arrived outside of Fred's Marina in Portland, OR. We unstrapped, untaped and moved stuff around to free up the Master Stateroom and tried to sleep.

Monday morning: We awoke to the boat hull being inside out. Translation, water on the wrong side of the hull. We were still on the trailer so it was all rain water. Bernie probably mentioned having the fly bridge torn apart plus coming from So. Cali where it rarely rains who knows what had collected in the scuppers. We had a 9 am appointment to launch but this would not happen. Casey arrived at 9:30 and drove the boat into Multnomah Yacht Repair for the launch. We are learning about the concept of "yard time". Debra who manages the appointments at MYR had indicated that our launch would be delayed 15 minutes by their putting another boat ahead of us. That time quickly passed and we found ourselves watching the bottom of the lifted 45 foot yacht that went ahead of us being power washed, and then not being pressure washed but not finished yet either. Eventually I asked for a certain time frame because Bernie and I wanted to go get something to eat. Debra said 45 minutes and recommended a place just up the road. I think this was about 10:00. Turned that place doesn't open until 11:00. We went to 7-Eleven and had a slice each of pepperoni pizza :(

Monday afternoon: The boat is finally lifted off of the trailer at about 1:00. A major accident was avoided simply because we had our mechanic, Race Turner there for the ride downriver to Rocky Point. Race notice the lift operator was lifting the boat high enough that its blocks were jamming. The blocks were literally overlapping side by side in danger of the cables slipping of the sheaves into the cheeks. Race noticed and yelled and pointed for at least 60 seconds before the operator noticed. Once that was cleared up Casey pulled his trailer out from beneath Caspian, the boat was lowered and the props put on.

Caspian, now well accustomed to fresh water on top and inside headed for its first taste of fresh water beneath.

Once in the water Race double checked the main engine seacocks and indicated all clear for ignition. Do they say ignition for a diesel? Combustion? The starboard engine started right up. The port engine wasn't clear on what it wanted to do. It would begin to fire but would not quite stoke up to run without the starter engaged. After several attempts and finally a prayer from Bernie it came to life.

Race gave a push off and to my surprise and satisfaction I performed my first big boat twin screw departure from dock flawlessly navigating out into the Multnomah Channel not far from the upstream confluence with the Willamette.

We idled most of the way down the river which was pretty amazing for us sail boaters. At idle the boat was making 6.7 knots over ground on slack tide. We're used to seeing that speed aboard Vela Via under 85% throttle. To slow down in the no wake zones I had to put one engine in neutral which slowed us to about 5 knots.

I will note that last year Oregon revised its wake speed. A boat is defined as producing a wake when the boat produces white water. This was a good change although I don't think very many people will apply the necessary thinking to understand it. The thing is that the longer the boat the faster it can go without producing a wake. Caspian at 38 feet can probably travel up to 8 or maybe 9 knots before producing a wake. So the new law if it works would in theory slow down the smaller boats and allow the bigger boats higher speed while still reducing damaging wake incidents. But you know how it goes, there are plenty of idiots who just won't learn this. Oh, back to the story.

Jason, remember Jason, he is our broker and an honorary Bacon on account of his being an all around great guy who has saved us thousands. Anyway, Jason had instructed me on the approach to the service dock at Rocky Point which is what I would have done anyway but nice that he was watching out for me as a newbie big boater. Again I surprised myself docking perfectly. I pulled up parallel to the dock, stopped forward progress and the boat slid sideways the last few inches to rest against the dock. I can't even park my car that well. One guy on the dock encouraged me with "nice job!". Another guy said, "don't expect that every time" and I won't.

All along the drive down Race was impressed with the engines not being as bad as he thought they would be based upon my description and the mechanical survey. Kory did the survey and practically put a money bet on #6 cylinder on the port engine having a bent rod (low compression due to hydrolock). I have researched and based on symptoms and other circumstances feel the more likely issue is a bad fuel injector. I had not shared that with Race but he came to the same conclusion which is reassuring. I am finding my old mechanic knowledge being useful. I pat myself on the back for having correctly diagnosed a frozen starboard engine turbocharger based upon symptoms and photographs without setting foot on the boat. At some point we'll check compression and know for sure. I took encouragement from Race's remarks. There will be more to follow on the engines which are a lower priority right now.

The high priorities are safety issues. Bilge pumps, electrical connections, fire extinguishers, propane leak detectors, propane tank locker refit and that sort of thing.
I checked in with Dave (RP yard manager) and drove Race back to his car. Upon returning Dave indicated he would like us to move our boat into position for a lift. Having something occur ahead of schedule was a first in the Caspian Journey. We were scheduled for a Tuesday lift. Another departure and docking making it 4 for 4. By 3:30 Caspian was out of the water headed for a land slip where it will spend the next few weeks.

Tuesday: Bernie and I returned by 10 am. The government had shutdown on Saturday and by this morning was not yet reopened for me. I spent the first hour or two erecting a tarp over the fly bridge to stop the water pouring into the salon. I got drenched! Boots instead of running shoes next time! After that I took inventory on work to do. Bernie started making Caspian our home away from home before leaving to work 1/2 day. I spent the day examining one thing after another. I wanted to pull the injectors on the port engine but this would require a 24mm deep socket that I have yet to own. I checked out the mid ship bilge pumps finding one frozen and the other operational allowing 3 of the 5 inches of water in the bilge to be pumped out. This allowed me to set foot in the bilge onto a piece of plywood bridging the lowest part of the V shaped hull keeping my feet dry. I looked over other engine room items that will need attention. Through hull bonding, missing heavy wire terminal caps, melted terminal caps on engine intake heater relays, all things the insurance underwriter and our common sense require fixing sooner rather than later. Below is a picture of the heater relays (failed).

You might notice a bit of corrosion. I will be scrubbing, applying corrosion converting solution and painting all of that.

I moved on to the forward bilge pump area located under the guest stateroom birth. I had to relocate a lot of stuff out of this room. I took the venturi screen sections up to the fly bridge, moved the salon table off of the bed and moved a bunch of other packed stuff back into the master stateroom. I then went on to explore the holds beneath the bed. The most interesting thing I found there is a factory supplied damn for the anchor locker. Along with the damn was a letter written in 1997 to the owner. Thank you for purchasing... it has come to our attention that under certain conditions water entering the anchor locker may drain into the master stateroom along the hull sides. Please place this damn as pictured. Yes! hopefully they are right! Maybe this will fix one of our leaks. I won't know until I can get the dink off the fore deck to gain access to the anchor locker.

I surveyed each compartment. I learned from my stepson Bryce that on the huge ships he works on they call those voids. There are six voids accessible here; 4 beneath the bed, the engine room ahead of each engine and an area beneath the galley between the engine room and the head. This is where access to the mid-ship bilge pumps, the hydronic heater valve, the reverse cycle coolant pump, holding tank, black water hoses, hot water heater and inverter/charger can be had. I will be spending a lot of time in here. Eventually I'll pull the hot water heater and the holding tank to replace the tired black water hoses. For now I am only concerned about the bilge pumps. Look at the wiring mess.

The immediate issue is unsealed butt connectors. The water here looks like waste water. It doesn't have a smell though so I think its just rain water made dirty as it made its way down the dusty passages on the way to the bilge. Later I'll take a wet/dry shop vac to all of the bilge areas and clean all of that up.

While I was in this area I discovered two possible causes for things reported on the survey. The reverse cycle coolant pump fuse is blown. Most likely the pump is frozen so I will be checking into that. There is also a pair of wires with one labelled propane leak detector power, the other is not connected. The wire the PO ran for this device is household lamp wire :( I wonder if the thing ever worked as there is quite a gap between the two wires that should be connected. I'll be replacing the detector anyway so I didn't bother completing the circuit.

Below the pumps rewired with heat shrink butt connectors. Both pumps are now functional, this is the first check mark on my list of DIY repairs to be done while at RP. Hmm, in reviewing my picture I see a green wire that appears connected to one of the pumps. While in there I just cut, stripped, crimped and reconnected all of the existing connections. Now it appears the PO used the bonding wire as a ground and I just repeated his mistake. I'll check that out and redo if necessary. I'll be going over the entire bonding system.

Wednesday evening: Bernie continued cleaning and organizing. I made further adjustments to the fly bridge tarp and organized my tools and supplies under the salon couch. 

Thursday evening: Bernie returned and I stayed home. See Bernie's entry.

Friday evening: I returned and Bernie stayed home. I added additional measures to stem water intrusion. The yard got the radar arch out of the cockpit so I worked on clearing out the items packed there by the rigger. The dingy outboard, anchor, upper helm pilot chair, anchor, salon table pedestal and lots of old filthy carpet used as packing. I gave the area a thorough survey checking bilge pumps, bonding, battery connections and various hoses. Somewhere along the line of its previous ownerships the boat acquired multiple water pumps to support live bait wells. We don't fish so those will go. I decided to wrap up 10 minutes earlier than usual ahead of the yard closing time. We're only allowed in the yard during business hours which we believed were 9am to 5pm. I pulled away from my parking spot behind the boat (oops, hidden from view) and headed towards the... what! Locked gate! I texted Jason. Did I mention that he used to manage RP? I didn't have an after hours contact at the yard but I knew Jason would. A few minutes later Dave called me to tell me he would return in about 45 minutes (yard minutes) to let me out. I felt bad. It is a huge plus that RP allows owners to make DIY repairs in their yard. No other yard in the area does this. The last thing I want to do is inconvenience these guys.

Saturday and Sunday the yard is closed so I spent the time reading every manual that came with the boat, enough to fill a bankers box. I also applied rubbing compound to the radar dome.

Before

After