THE BIGGEST LIST FOR OUR BOAT EVER

One of 4 stabilizer fins

Our 2019-2020 list was long, detailed, demanding, time consuming, sometimes frustrating then rewarding, exhaustive and finally "get us off this dock please"!

We wanted to save money by doing work ourselves preparing to install the 4 fins for the stabilizers and Paul did a lot of preparation down in the engine room. We travelled down for almost 3 weeks in July (hot!!) to get this done. The major work was to be done in November when we were to be hauled out of the water.

In November when our boat was hauled out we got a few things completed that boats do when getting hauled out of the water.
Underwater lights, bottom painted, tuned up the props, rebedded a couple of cleats, changed all the zincs, had gel coat touched up, replaced the seal in one of the transmissions. 




We installed another solar panel and charger. 

We had to have an expert come and look at our davit Quick Lift to bring up our dinghy to the top deck. It is hit and miss whether it decided to work or not. We had to purchase a new rotation motor. 

We took off all our Led Acid batteries (1,100 pounds) except for our start batteries.  We added on 225 lbs of lithium batteries. This is a major job and major investment. We can run the davit off the batteries. Before we had to turn on the generator to move that thing! This will be a new world of boating for us this season. 

Some of the lithium cells, Paul made the connections and box

Our stateroom's air conditioning was not working and to replace it with the same unit was going to cost too much. We decided to go with a unit that we can run off our batteries. A smaller unit but does just fine. Paul bought it online and installed himself which,

 if you know Paul this is not a surprise. 

We had a custom-made stainless steel stand-up post/handle for our dinghy. Paul can drive it with his new tiller extension. This is great when we go fast and can stand up and read the water. 

There is a Flat Stanley in Paul's hand. A school project for our grand-daughter. He had to travel!

Paul changed all the oil in the engines! Need I say more?

And filters!!

We fixed our windless to bring up our anchor. This had to go to an outside source to get cleaned and fixed. Our windless was working but slow motion. This is very annoying going down and up. Plus, what happens if it fails while anchor still in the water? This had to be taken care of before we leave again for the blue waters of the Bahamas. 

While we were coming in to dock a few days back our reverse on Starboard engine failed. (See a previous Post). We are now waiting for a sensor before we leave for Bahamas. Time Out is ready to get out of here. I would love to post blue waters on the next post or something more exciting than this post.

Soon this blog will be dedicated to blue waters and me swimming with the pigs again? Stay tuned. Thanks for reading and following our adventures, good, bad and sometimes the ugly.

   

STABILIZER TEST

We travelled the ICW south for an hour and half to the Ft. Pierce Inlet. On the way dolphins came to play with our boat. That was the best part of the trip! I took my anti-nausea pill but an anxiety pill would have been preferred. The waves were five feet out there and not nice big rollers, these were fast and like a washing machine. Even with stabilizers, boats are not out in the big big water. The stabilizers had to go off and back on numerous times to calibrate and program them. I have zero video of when stabilizers were being tested because both my hands were hanging onto the fixed counter top in the galley looking at the horizon at the back of boat until the curtains closed from the movements!! Every time the stabilizers were turned off, I compare it to a contraction while giving birth, it is a short period of time but all kinds of things happen. It could be 20-30 seconds of agony and my internal screaming as I see stuff I had forgotten to lock properly or locks not working. The locks on 3 cupboards don't work well in five foot waves, and the furniture can't handle the angle either, so the couches are moving all over! That is right.... the FURNITURE!! The couches are full of provisions, no way to move back until emptied out on our return. 

This picture above was taken after we came back into the ICW. I had to stand at counter and watched this over and over and hear the clunking and "crashing" over and over. There is a trash bin, I was standing to the left of that hanging on wide-eyed!

There is a couch on left of above picture and is Paul's tool storage couch. I had to empty this couch, so we could move it back in place. It was way too heavy to move/slide. The above picture just shows all the heavy tools out on floor to give an indication of all the weight in that couch. There were canned goods in the other two couches, so a little easier to manoeuvre them back into place. 

Needless to say when the stabilizers were switched ON, they worked and the motoring was good on our way back. 

When we back into our slip at our marina here, reverse is very important! Starboard engine failed in reverse! Paul is a great driver and used his bow thruster to get us back into the slip safely. Just when one project is almost over, another pops up before we can leave for Exuma, Bahamas. 

The funny thing is.... Paul wants us to put non-skid on feet of couch. I figure if we need non-skid under the couch WE SHOULDN'T be out in the water that day? Or is that just me?


We are making our boat better with stabilizers.