Cruise ready and then some

I started this entry a few weeks ago and at the time Caspian was just to the stage to be worthy of that status. Weeks later even more so. I will spare the details providing as many pictures as I can and text for items that I did not get pictures of. If you wonder why so much time has passed since the last post, well, there is alot of work to do and blog posts take quite a bit of time. I am currently working on sanitation hose replacement. I'll post about that later. 

Essentials.

Coho Designs created and applied the name for us. Brad Baker did the job and was great to work with. Bernie came up with all of the design specifications such as the compass dotting the capital I. I love it! The name reflected on the transom is a spoof on the boats name appropriate for sail boaters become power boaters. Brad had accidentally left the hailing port in his office. He mailed it to me and I'll be adding that on the transom's starboard side myself sometime after finishing the sanitation hose project.

Brad Baker of Coho Design's applies the reflection under the name.

It's pretty common to see the name on the dingy bottom. I buffed the area where the name is applied, complete dinghy deep clean somewhere down the line.

I wasn't sure if the name should go high up on the sides or in this location. I am glad we went with this.

While we were on our first cruise, our shake out cruise the toilet stopped working. The vent had become clogged and enough pressure built inside the holding tank to prevent flushing. Luckily I had my cordless drill with me and it was quite easy to drill a hole into the vent. as the pressure was released the smell was rich. We decided the boat was shaking us out not the other way around. It was a great weekend.

The cook top was giving us some trouble. We could get two burners to light, only one would stay lit periodically. Bernie eventually figured out the trick which was to press down really hard on the knob for the first 10 seconds or so after lighting. Having a generator gave us the option to use our induction cook plate which I really love. It cooks the food quickly without all of the excess heat filling the cabin like the propane stove does and the temperature is easy to control. IT is small and fits in one of the drawers when not in use.

The reverse cycle AC is working now that I have replaced the water circulation pump. Sea water carries away the heat when on AC and provides the heat when on Heat, yeah, its a heat pump. My goal was to have the genset and the heat working in time for the first cruise. That cruise by the way was the last weekend in April. I met the goal. It really helps to have goals such as that to keep me moving.

The generator turned out to be a very nice surprise. I've mentioned here before that I considered junking it and I am so glad that I didn't. I appreciate Steve from The Yard at Rocky Pointe who encouraged me to restore it. We've used it quite a bit perhaps one or two hours a day while cruising to cook, replenish the batteries and run the heat and AC. As wonderful as it is our goal is to minimize its use so you'll read about my house battery upgrade and solar panel installations sometime in the future.

The fly bridge is mostly reassembled. This entailed a temporary fix to an area that leaked rain water down into the salon. I'll do a more permanent repair perhaps during the solar install. The VHF radios antennas were installed and the radios brought to life. The venturi (windscreen), seat cushions, half top sealing and bolting down and electronics are all in place. I should have gotten a picture of Bernie in the "brow" of the boat. Bernie crawled in there to tighten the nuts on the bolts that hold the front of the half top frame to the brows. The brow is the area above the windshield. It is quite large with enough room to sleep 2-3 grandchildren if it were converted for such use. The brow houses the propane tank (don't get me started on that topic) and the TV antennae.

The fresh water tank was filled for the first time. It was winterized with a gallon or two of vodka so the water tasted a bit like vodka. I added 100 gallons of water so it was fairly diluted. The hot water tank is 11 gallons. It took several minutes to flush the air out of the system.

A new galley faucet has been installed and it really dresses up the galley. I wish I had before and after pictures to provide here, maybe later I'll do a complete before and after posting of some of the projects that I can get pictures for.

Most of the cabinet doors and drawers have had their knobs replaced. The old ones were brass and chrome and fairly dingy. The new knobs are white with a blue compass rose on the face. Bernie loved doing this project. Some of the knobs required changes to the latches. The two left require cutting down the mounting screws to fit.

There was alot of stuff to be loaded and organized into the boat. Box after box. It is amazing how much stuff we had on Vela Via and how much new stuff we picked up to make this our new home away from home.

I see I am far from chronological order in my list, rather random as this is where I tell you the boat had a thorough scrubbing inside and out. The exterior was covered in road grime from the drive up from So Cal and had some green stuff here and there. Caspian cleaned up real nice!

The battery charger had to be replaced. The factory charger was a 30 amp and didn't work at all. Getting it out took 3-4 hours due to the mounting location. That beast was heavy. The new improved charger is a 40 amp and weighed half that of the old one. Until this upgrade only one of the three batteries was being charged, now they all are.

I rewired the batteries. This was done after our first cruise. The cables are long enough for the house and starboard engine batteries to swap around and the previous owner had the inverter connected to the engine battery. To get by while cruising I had to combine the house and engine battery the possibility of which was also do to the incorrect wiring. Now the inverter is on the house bank and the combiner combines port and starboard engine batteries as it should.

The charge coolers and gear coolers were serviced along with gear oil change. This was the last deferred maintenance I wanted to accomplish before pushing the boat too hard. A charge cooler, sometimes referred to an after cooler or before cooler depending on perspective removes heat from the air going into the cylinders. The heat comes from the air being compressed by the turbo charger, cooling it reduces the volume allowing more charge into the cylinders thus giving the engines bigger lungs to produce more power. One of the charge coolers was improperly reassembled during a previous service. Both were somewhat clogged. This would be a big performance boost.

Stbd engine corrosion under the charge cooler being treated.

After removing as much corrosion as possible a product called Coroseal is applied to convert the remaining rust to primer.

Initially purple, turns black when the chemical process completes

Lots of clogging evident in the charge cooler including bits of an old exploded seawater pump impeller.

Bits of impeller in one of the end caps.

Fresh paint applied. It is Cummins paint that is supposed to match. More corrosion treatments coming in the future.

One of the charge coolers headed home for servicing.

Speaking of performance boosts. Recall the major issue with the boat that brought the purchase price way down was the boats inability to reach full speed as it should. This boat should reach 2600 rpm at wide open throttle and around 20 knots. After this service and on our next cruise we decided to push it. On our first attempt we reached about 16 knots SOG at 2300 rpm before backing off for a no wake area. This was going upriver against a 2.5 knot current and I didn't use enough trim. The next day as we were going downriver with the current Bernie managed the trim and we reached almost 22 knots SOG and around 2400 rpm. Adjusted for current that is 19.5 knots or about what is expected. I'm still a little bashful about pushing the boat like that and very happy that this boat is performing as it should. I will probably have the prop pitch reduced to make it a little easier on the engines getting over the hump onto a plane. We'll rarely push the boat very hard though preferring a cruise in the 5-10 knot range and the fuel economy that goes with that.

The cockpit lights have been upgraded with touch sensor LED lights making it much easier to get the key into the door lock. The courtesy light assemblies which are old and yellowed are being replaced with new white fixtures. Little upgrades like this really update the appearance at a low cost with very little effort.

The companion way door lock has been replaced. The old lock was pretty sloppy and required a certain technique of inserting the key just so far but not all of the way in and pushing in the direction that the toothy side would engage the pins just right to unlock. It seemed that any day we would not be able to either lock or unlock it.

This seems like a good time to point out the benefit of todays internet search capability and owners blogs. We're amazed at the replacement parts we're able to locate that in many cases are exact fits. Items like sliding door fuzzy weather seals, light fixtures, door locks, engine parts, genset parts, you name it. The only thing I've not been able to locate thus far is a sliding window knob. Those tings are like mini hockey puck in dimension with a screw and grommet fixing it to the window. One is missing and for now has a re-purposed cabinet knob in place.

The transom had two mounting holes for a bait well that required filling prior to having the name applied. There was also an void in one of the wash deck toe rails that I wanted to fix and since I was getting the resin and gel coat out for the transom I tackled both. Color matching requires practice and patience. It turned out that the two areas to be patched were fairly close in color but not the same color as the area I used to do the match. I learned a lot and I'm satisfied with the results. Note to the discerning on my repair (Jason). Yes I did taper out the edges well to insure the patches don't split away. 

Toe rail void.

Void hogged out and partially filled.

Transom mounting hole partially filled.

Toe rail faired in

Toe rail ready for final contour sanding.

Next up: Macerator pump replacement, sanitation hose replacement, tank monitor upgrade, toilet rebuild, curtains cleaned.