28-MAR-2018, SEATAC Airport – …and other views from up high.
The items highest in my mind are three:
- I haven’t found the leak in the aft cabin starboard locker. Mogens Winther in the Maxi 95 group has suggested that the water is getting in through the cubby on the starboard side of the cockpit. I can’t see anything there, but I haven’t looked as hard as I might. This could be the entry point.
The leaky locker. Water is visible, lower left. Despite all the caulking water rain water still enters. - The fuel line still seems to be getting air in it despite having replaced everything from the injection pump to the tank including the filters, filter holders, all lines and the valve at the tank. The engine started fine several times in a row over a few days, but on the sail to Port Hadlock, starting was difficult with all the earmarks of air in the lines. The next stop is an electrical pump to push the fuel forward. I’ve resisted, but I’ve run out of ideas.
- OpenCPN for Android is no longer speaking to the Vesper AIS. We’ve upgraded everything in one go, so it is difficult to pin point what the problem is. I suspect it is the new OpenCPN for Android release, since OpenCPN on my mac works fine. John Register, the author of the port to Android, has been providing fast, intelligent support.
As it always is at a certain time during the ramp up to leaving, it is Christmas again.
- A new Galaxy Tab 2 Active, 8” screen has been a great device. We bought it because it is the ruggedized version that works in the rain.
- The new Suzuki 2.3 hp 4-cycle outboard was just delivered to Brion Toss’s shop to hold for us until we return from Shanghai. It weighs more than twice as much as the 3.3 hp 2-cycle it replaces, but it is the current technology.
- Jennifer and I have each replaced our phones with refurbished Samsung Galaxy 7s so we are increasingly becoming more and more Samsung with three out of five handheld devices made by Samsung. The phones are running Android 7.0, so they are a three version step forward. (This morning Jennifer received a notice telling her that one of her apps had been improved and would therefore no longer work on her old device. – Years ago we received a notice from Delta telling us that the Delta lounge was becoming even more exclusive: they were raising the prices.)
- The replacement burners for the stove arrived. Maybe this year we’ll figure the stove out and not soot up the headliner, or destroy the burners. Our marina mate, Terry Etapa, chided me for not buying the Wallas equivalent; I confessed that if I had it to do over again, I would buy the Wallas.
On Sunday, as scheduled, we sailed Caro Babbo from Lake Union to a mooring buoy at Port Hadlock. Although we had to wait for the railroad bridge, the sail was a good one and a fast one.
The wind was predominately out of the south: we ran north averaging better than five knots. The sky was generally bright and sunny except when it was sleeting. We planned our departure to have the last of a weak flood tide against us and to pickup the strong ebb as we got north.
It was Jennifer’s preferred sailing, wind from behind us with a few gentle jibes along the way.
The Thursday before we left, Jennifer and Harrison raised me up the mast to drop in the new additional jib halyard.
There were a few things of note:
– To get the halyard to drop into the mast we needed a train of 1/4″ sockets attached to the messenger line: a piece-o-cake. I had incorrectly thought a 1-1/2″ bolt would work as a weight.
– When I was at the mast head, I learned that the original messenger line that Scott Wilson and I threaded last spring when Caro Babbo was on the hard had become hopelessly entangled in the original jib sheave. I had to cut it free with my Leatherman Wave.
Because there were too many openings on the port side of the mast, where jib halyards are normally led, we cut the exit opening on the starboard side. This means that when we use the new halyard, it will need to share the winch with the main halyard. It has been time to replace standard cleats with clutches for a while. Now it is necessary.
– I’m looking online for used clutches, but I expect I will actually find one in a used sailing gear store somewhere.
We’re flying to Shanghai today. We feel like we don’t travel by plane much anymore, but the lounge staff recognize us. I think our definition of not flying much might be a bit skewed – Jennifer is Gold Medallion.
The todo-list has shrunk both by completing tasks and moving unfinished and not-started tasks to the fall or 2019.
We return on April 7th, get to Port Townsend the evening of the 8th. On the 9th, we move Caro Babbo to Point Hudson marina to have the rig retuned, put provisions on board and mount the outboard… and hopefully, successfully, test OpenCPN for Android.
I’ll also pick up the repaired stanchion. The base, as I expected,could not be straightened. Peter, of Peter’s Metal Working, will cut off the tube, and weld a new one in place. Cost: two hours labor.
Jennifer, I think, considers us to have already left. I see us as having finished the project part of the prep. Now we fly home, do a few things and we’re on our way.
Where to? Possibly just across the way to Mystery Bay, then 5-1/2 months of wherever.
For the leak, I wonder if taping up some pieces of cheap construction
paper, or some washable childrens’ paint might give you a tell-tale
where the leak might be coming from. Cheap construction paper is
colored with low-grade pigments that should record if water came
into contact it. This paper also fades in the sun incredibly fast,
but that will not help you find the leak.
I’ve been thinking about the advice from Mogens. Water flowing from the ‘‘hand locker,’’ what I call a cubby, could flow into the cockpit locker, but in a crevice that I can not see from the cockpit locker. And then down into the aft cabin locker.
Food coloring would work as a debugging tool, as would figuring out whether water pools in the cubby and then drains.
I think it was Mogens who said he painted the inside of that locker with epoxy and that solved the issue. If his problem was also on the starboard side, I wonder if it is a defect in the mold?
A manufacturing defect in the fuel tank took decades to show up, so it is not beyond reason.