Bilge Troll

The float switch for the aft bilge pump died. Remember, kids: check your bilge pumps regularly.

Replacing it required a caving expedition into the bowels of the aft bilge. When we were working on Kamalii in California I could not physically fit through the hatch, let alone maneuver myself around down there. Now, not such a problem. #notsuchafatbastard

Rather steampunk, don't you think?

 

Another one bites the dust...

Did another winch. No need for pictures, you know the routine... One more to go.

The Cover

Here it is.

It fits. It's waaaay easier to put on and take off. And it stows easier.

We are pleased.

It's Hard To Kill Bronze

So, in my last post I noted that first winch was by no means the worst...

I give you Exhibit B.

Was "leaving them to deal with later" the best approach? I enter no plea. In actual fact it is not as big a mess as it looks, but it was pretty fouled up with dirt and crud due to the drain hole in the base having become blocked - I think I just flushed a little bit of California away.

Anyway, during a very, very extended lunchtime break today...

And she's all good again. A couple of the roller bearings are rather pitted, but not enough to warrant replacement given what a limited workload these winches have.

Two down, two to go.

Antikythera Mechanism

Long-time followers of the blog may recall the marathon efforts undertaken by Jon and later myself in getting all the winches back to operating condition after more than a decade of sitting around. Most were fine, and just needed some love, but the four foredeck winches (for spinnaker control) were in the saddest shape. Two we got working, but were in the "Must get back to that some time" category, while the other two were in the "Yuck, hide it, will deal to that when we have some serious time on our hands".

Now is the time.

We don't run a spinnaker - Minneys Yacht Surplus in Newport Beach has all our spinnakers...if you haven't sold them by now I'd be happy to take them back off your hands.  :-)   Because of that the need to tear the foredeck winches apart has not been great. But now we are doing the bulwarks, and I am going to remove the bronze stands that the outer winches sit on to have them stripped and recoated, so the first of the Evil Four has come off.

Here it is in all it's pre-service glory - and this is by no means the worst of them.

Nice, huh? To the machine shop, Batman!

A few hours later...

I could of gone further and bead-blasted all the bronze parts, but, you know, I'm trying to have a life...

One down, three to go.

Finally, some good ole sanding weather!

Back to the bulwarks...

And Yes, the mainsail cover is finished! Will post a pic when we get around to fitting it.

And the sail cover is.... Finished. Ish....kind of...

We finished the sail cover on Saturday. And then realised we had sewn in the closure zip at the front upside down. Shit. Double-stitched it, too.

I will post pics of the finshed product once we have unpicked the damn zip and put it in the right way around. To be fair, it's the only real screw-up we made. Honest.