2024 Winter Projects Part 2

The second half of the winter carried on exactly as one should expect. I found a bunch of unexpected problems and ended up doing totally different projects than I planned at the outset.

The Bilge: Redux

I never understood why one of my batteries was shot; instead, I just replaced them in the last post. Well, there are no mysteries on the boat, and problems never solve themselves.

I discovered that my electric bilge pump was trying unsuccessfully to pump water. This pump is attached directly to the battery that had died, and the pump draws a lot of power (12 Amps!). I think I found out why my battery was shot 💡

I brought the bilge pump home to try to fix it. It was… how you say, disgusting. It seemed like salt water had gotten inside and corroded portions. I ended up breaking some electrical pieces on the circuit board, and that ended my attempts to fix it. I ordered a new one on Amazon, wired it up (twice, since I got it backwards the first time), and I now have both manual and electric bilge pumps that work (and I am no longer frequently drawing 12A from my battery).

Portholes

The previous owner redid all the portholes on the boat. Apparently, the old ones were scratched and hard to see through. The new ones look great. The only issue is that a couple of them leaked. The previous owner had followed the Sabre , but they didn’t put the silicone bead on the lower left section of the below diagram:

I put silicone (well, specifically Dow Corning 795) around all of the portholes. I did a comically bad job, and the portholes look like shit now… buuuuut, they don’t leak.

Propeller

I cleaned the propeller using steal brushes attached to a drill, and then I sprayed the prop with Petit Prop Coat. We’ll see how it fares against the barnacles.

Leaky Lazarette

I noticed that the lines on my fenders in the lazarette were often wet. At first I thought the issue was the starboard aft seacock. I couldn’t close it, and I wanted to at least be able to close it so that I could replace the hose attached to it once I’m in the water, if need be.

I managed to hammer the seacock and get it free. I then sanded down the inner cone and regreased it.

After all that, I closed the seacock, filled up the scupper with water, and sure enough, there was no leak!

On a subsequent visit, I found that there was a leak in the instrument panel, and that leak ends up on the seacock (another mystery solved). I removed the instrument panel and re-caulked things. TBD on whether this fixed anything.

Steering Wheel Leather

My big at home project for the winter was handsewing a leather wrap around the steering wheel. This took… forever. The best way that I found to sew the wrap was to balance it with my head on an ottoman. I wanted to watch TV while doing it, but I couldn’t actually see the TV. I opted to watch listen to Seinfeld.

I finished the wheel a couple days before splashing. There’s something particularly fun about riding the PATH train and a Citi Bike with a giant boat steering wheel.