Back to the Boat!

Matt and I are so ready to go to the boat tomorrow after work! We didn't go last weekend as I was in Hong Kong for work. Matt's brother Mark stayed on our boat with his family and they had such a good time they are going to take their boat up next summer for a cruise.

Last time we were up there was July 21st and 22nd for a work weekend.

I don't think I blogged that Friday the 13th we were at Coyote Point for a Bon Voyage party for Tiki J, the boat we sailed to Hawaii in 2010. Our former boat partners kept the boat and they went this year with a bunch of top notch sailors, namely our former partner Kim and her two brothers. They also let Kim's husband come along. :) just joking Scott. Plus two other crew. They were fourth in their division, as we were in 10. I figured they'd win with the hot crew they had aboard but i think conditions out there were tough this year with an abnormal wind pattern. Once was enough for me doing that trip; I'd rather take my vacation anchored out in the Delta! But to each his own... lots of people do the Pac Cup every time (every two years).

So back to our project weekend last trip to the boat. Two (of four) of our engine room lights had stopped working. We'd tried new bulbs with no success so we bought two new lights. Luckily one light just needed the wires tightened but we did have to replace the other one. It is MUCH more pleasant down there with light!

We also replaced the shaft packing on the port shaft. That is one of those frustrating projects that causes crankiness on my part so Matt mostly worked on it by himself. Luckily we started off with the correct size shaft packing this time, thanks to the helpful young man at West Marine. The size I'd written in our log (see photo) did NOT look right once we picked up the package so the clerk looked up our previous purchases and helped us get the correct size, smaller than what I'd written down! I ran to the grocery store while Matt started on the project and he found we were missing a necessary wrench. Luckily I was right by the Ace Hardware in Rio Vista so I popped in to get one. I was measuring how far it opened by using my iPhone screen to gauge it, then texted Matt to ask how big it had to open. He gave me a measurement in inches so I asked the clerk for a tape measure and measured my phone, then told the clerk that the wrench would work. He looked at me like I had three heads and asked what I planned to do to my iPhone with a wrench. LOL.

So once I got back with the wrench Matt was able to get the gland apart and get the old packing out. There are normally three rings of packing and one ring was pretty much loose and was exposed as soon as he loosened the gland. He then started digging around with whatever sharp pointy things we could find to try to get the next ring out. At first he didn't think there was one and he asked me to try. I agreed it didn't FEEL like there was one, but logic dictated that there was and Matt finally got it out. Obviously this is not something one can see into. At all. Even with trying to take photos of it. This is where my crankiness starts to rev up. We gave up on trying to dig out a third ring and figured replacing two was good enough. Matt then cut the two new rings, stuffed them in there and retightened the gland.

In case you are wondering what this thing is and why we had to replace the packing, aka stuffing... So in layman's terms I shall attempt to explain. As I have only a layman's understanding, hopefully this isn't too far off. So the transmission drives a shaft that spins the propellor. There is a "gland" along this apparatus where I think the two are joined and there is friction there between the spinning shaft and the not spinning pieces from the transmission. Or something. That's not spinning. But anyway, friction causes wear and heat. So the shaft packing is this greasy material stuff that is kind of squared off and is 1/4" (in our case) on each side. It helps with the friction and the whole thing is cooled by water that comes in through the hull where the shaft goes out from the engine room to the propellor. The nuts of the packing gland have to be adjusted such that a little but of water gets in to keep things cool but not so much that the boat is in danger of sinking. When you get to the point you can no longer adjust the gland properly or you start hearing funny noises, it's time for new packing. We got to the funny noises part... We'll find out Saturday if the new packing took care of the issue!
What happened was we were leaving the marina to get fuel at Village West on July 7th. We were passing a boat on the guest dock and we wondered what kind of power tool they were using that was making the high whining noise we were hearing. Except we kept hearing the noise just as loud after we passed the boat. We finally realized that OUR boat was making the noise and we tracked it down to the port shaft when we put the motor in neutral and the prop stopped spinning. We idled in the Mokelumne for awhile as we assesses whether to continue or turn back. We'd already previously realized we needed to change the packing as it was dripping too much. After a quick call to a very knowledgable friend we decided to continue. The noise was gone by the time we got to Village West, before we even changed the packing but we still needed to do the project. Hopefully the noise won't be back on Saturday!
After that project we started in on setting up a shelf in the storage area in the galley to the port side of the sink. There is a very large space under the counter but it is too deep to get much practical use out of. We put shelf supports fore and aft and plan to use some wire closet shelving material to span the space and provide more practical storage. I'll post a photo when we have it done.
After that it was all about cleaning and organizing so our guests would have room when they came up. We use our vee berth for storage so we had to clean it all out for Mark's girls. It was amazing what all we had in there and we were exhausted (not to mention hot and sweaty) by the time we were done.
This weekend we hope to be at a Willow Berm in time to see Vicky's son's concert. Vicky is the harbor master and her son is a guitarist/ singer who has been making his way in Hollywood and is visiting home for awhile. Then Saturday we are taking the boat to Ox Bow marina to go to a luau at the Yacht Club. We are thinking of joining so we can go cruising with them. They have a lot of members from Willow Berm, many of whom are on our dock! Should be a fun time Saturday night.