Aft Companionway Done

We finished the aft companionway today. Cosmetically it wasn't too bad, but the fresh paint certainly smartens things up.

Pulling all the headliner out did help nail one minor intermittent leak; whenever we had torrential rain we would get drips of water coming down through the companionway headliner just above the stairs. I had not been able to see where it was getting in from the outside, but with the headliner out it became clear it had to be coming in under the old cockpit instrument locker. A poke with a screwdriver revealed that the caulking under the sill was full of holes which were plugged with black dirt, making it hard to see and letting water seep through when it got really wet. I've dug out all the old caulking and replaced it, so one more off the list.

New caulking in. Apart from the squabs, rebuilding the old instrument locker is the last job to do in the cockpit.

Wash, Rinse, Repeat...

One cabin down, onto the next section of work. We decided to do the aft companionway next, as it should be quick and simple. Let's remember those words, shall we...

One of these things is not like the other...

Just noticed this when we were doing the cabin. Can you spot it? 

I took them off and rotated them to the correct orientation. The bottom drawer has clearly been replaced at some point, and I figured they had just screwed up putting the handles back on. But as I switched them around I had a thought, and checked all the other handles. Every single one of them has been flipped, and the bottom drawer is the only one that has not been! Every handle on the boat is as per the upper drawers, so it seems that at some point someone decided to change the orientation of all the drawer handles on the boat. Go figure.

How Long is a Metric "So"...?

And the cabin is almost finished bang on time. I think you will agree (yes, You) that it is looking a lot better.

Still have to finish off some of the teak trim.

The panel by the outboard berth is temporary. It was all hacked up when they ran the exhaust through for the new gensets. I hope to get it all done this winter (or so...) 

So still some bits and pieces to do, but on the whole a massive improvement. We're now debating what to do next - probably the aft companionway.

Cabin Update

In a previous post I estimated that the repaint of the starboard cabin would take a week or so. I am getting much better at estimating the amount of time a job will take, and was bang on: the job is going to take exactly one "So".

A decision to strip and re-varnish the cabin side has delayed things, as has the subsequent decision to pull a porthole to check a suspected minor leak, which resulted in exterior paint getting cracked, meaning we now have to repaint the area....you get the idea.

Almost ready to prime...  The painting is actually now completed, it's the varnish that is holding things up.

Getting the stripped teak ready for varnishing. Pulled the fascia off for stripping, so have to re-plug all the fasteners. You can see the paintwork looks a lot better now.

Simontanium

When we brought Kamalii down from the USA, on the Hawaii to Tonga leg we had a wee mishap (not in any way the fault of the skipper, no, not at all...) which resulted in a main engine exhaust connection exploding. Quite spectacular.

Then fresh-recruit Simon Jenkin duly proceeded to spend several hours in the baking heat of the engine room effecting a repair to get the engine going again. His solution was to fabricate a new joint out of an advanced composite material, Simontanium, which is a hi-tech sandwich of rubber inner-tube, 3M 5200, hose clamps and selected chunks of exhaust hose.

Simontanium is very effective. In fact, up until now I hadn't bothered to replace his fix. Hey, if it ain't broke, then...

But, with the engine out of action for a bit I figured I had better get around to it. So all done; nice shiny new piece of unbelievably bloody expensive 6" wet exhaust hose fitted. The hose clamps even cleaned right up like new. Couldn't save the inner-tube, though...

Engine Dramas Update

The fuel injection pump has been tested. It's working perfectly. Shit.

After discussions with Jim Fols, who has tested the pump, the working hypothesis is as follows:

1) James replaces fuel lines and one of them has an air leak in it.
2) James runs electric booster pump to decrease fuel supply line vacuum and stop air leak. This works.
3) BUT, the fuel injection pump is an earlier model which is designed to run under vacuum. On occasion (twice now...) sufficient positive pressure builds up to allow the drive shaft seal, which is designed to seal against a vacuum, to start spurting fuel, filling the sump.

So, plan is that I will collect the pump back off Jim when I'm passing through LA at the end of next month, hook everything back up, vacuum test the fuel lines to find the damn air leak and fix that, and then run this puppy hard without the booster pump and see if we have any more problems.