Aftermath

     Both boats made it through the storm fine, but the house is still without power.  No electricity means no hot water, which means don't expect a lot of work to get done in the next couple of days.

Irene

     I tied up the boat as well as I could this morning in preparation of the hurricane heading up our way.  Cross your fingers.  I'll let you know in the next day or two how it made it through.

Still more electrical

     Today consisted of more wiring.  I put in a 12V outlet, wired in the side marker lights, the stern white light, and installed/wired the marine radio.  This stuff is stupid time consuming, but it has to be done and I'm trying to get it all done correctly the first time so I don't have to come back to it.

A little wiring

     Did a little wiring today.  Crimped connections, soldered, heat shrinked, you get the idea.

More electrical

     Kind of a late entry.  The following relates to the work I did last Friday.

      I bought some 3" bolts and nuts to put on the back protective piece of the battery disconnect and after hooking up the positive leads I secured it in place.  I also hooked up the cables to the battery and the one smaller line for constant power for the bilge pump.  The only thing left I have to do down here is finish up the drain for the icebox, clean everything up, and give it all a final coat of paint.

     I have some rough cut outs on the panel for a couple of the things that will be mounted here and I installed the panel with a hinge that runs the length of the bottom.  I need to figure out how to lock it in place at some point, but no hurry right now.  If you look close you can see how poor of a job I did cutting the hinge to size.  I have plenty more of it to fix this if I ever decide to.  The rough edges from where I cut out the cover will be covered with some pieces of trim eventually.  I installed two bus bars inside for the positive and negative leads coming from the battery and hooked them up.  I also started the permanent wiring for the bilge pump.  All the wires are terminated with "O" ring crimp connectors, soldered in place, and covered with heat shrink.  This is pretty time consuming, but I would rather take a little longer and only have to do it once rather than having to redo it later.

     The day ended early with a trip to the pool to cool off.  Once that happens it is a little difficult to get back to work.  Such is life.

   

Electrical Work

     I spent today working on the electrical system.  I started by testing my GFI outlet to make sure it was wired up correctly.  Yay!  It works!  I then finally pulled out the long ass extension cord and ran the shore power to my new connection in the cockpit.

     Next I moved down to the bilge.  Joy.  I installed a connector bar in the bilge right up under the sole and connected the bilge pump and float switch up.  I ran a 3 conductor wire specifically made for the bilge up to the panel location.  While I was doing that I also ran a red and a black wire up through the conduit from near the battery to the panel.  The red will be for constant power for the bilge pump switch so I don't have to turn everything else on for it to work and the black is an extra for later.  I started hooking up the auto/manual switch but I didn't have a small enough screwdriver with me.  I also could use a wiring diagram for the switch.  It should be easy to wire, but I want to make sure I do it all correctly.

     I also started installing the cut off switch for the battery.  I put it on the panel in front of the battery, in the upper right hand corner.  As of now, the only thing I am planning on having wired around this is the bilge switch.  Right now it is held in place with two screws.  I need to take the back cover with me to the hardware store so I can get some bolts and nuts to install it correctly.  I also need to buy some lugs for the lines to run from the battery and switch up to the bus bars in the panel.  I used a short wire with connectors already installed from the old broken switch to hook up the switch to the battery so that leaves me with four to buy and install.

     While I was at the store I also bought a float switch and auto/manual switch for it for the fishing boat.  The amount of water that can collect in that thing after one good rain is pretty amazing.  I'm pretty sure this is why I keep getting water in the fuel and have a hard time with the motor.  I'm going to have to add a fuel/water separator sometime in the future as well.

     First sail!  The Mrs & I actually went out and did a little sailing yesterday.  Getting in and out of the marina and raising/lowering the sail were a little more stressful and involved than we expected, but I think they will get easier each time we go out.  We also discovered that we need to get someone who knows how to sail to come out and give us some pointers.  While we did manage to sail, we were far from efficient.  At one point while trying to tack we ended up actually spinning around and facing the opposite direction.  Oh well.  All in all it was a fun outing.  If only the weather would cooperate today to allow us to try again.

Electrical

      I broke out the hole saw today and cut out a 2" hole in the back of the boat to install a connection for shore power, shown above inside and out.  Right now it is hooked up with an extension cord and I hate the way it looks.  Thanks to the local sailing consignment shop it didn't set me back too much either.  The wire (yes it is marine rated, and yes that means it is stupid expensive) runs down through the conduit to the engine box where I installed a GFI outlet for the battery charger to plug in.  I'm not sure if I will run anything else from here or not, but it is in a very convenient location if I do.  I also cut out holes for some of the panel components to fit in but I need to get some smaller screws to put them in place.  I'm hoping to get the electrical system at least far enough along to have the lights needed to go sailing but of course there seems to be a million things that need to get first.  Today was one of those days where I was wondering if I bit off more than I can chew.

More painting

     I went it out to the boat today just to make sure everything was OK and clean up a bit and got sucked in.  Probably a good thing seeing as i want to get this project to a point where I can enjoy the boat.  I cleaned out the engine box and put the outboard in there to give me some room.  This reinforced my idea about making the covers easily removable because it was a pain to wiggle it in there.  I marked up the covers where they need to be sanded and measured for the hinge I will need.  While I had it all opened I hooked up the battery charger that is installed on the side of the galley and hooked it up to the battery to charge.  Free electricity at the new marina so why not?  Then it was time to start some real work.

     I started by measuring, making, and installing the supports to hold the cut outs in the backrest.  After they were installed I figured I should finish them so I removed the whole backrest and sanded the corners of them down and primed them.  Seeing as I had the backrest out I swept out all the dust from making the cuts and cleaned it all up.  Then I went ahead and put the second (and last) coat of paint on the inside.  Nothing holding me back from re installing the backrest now, so back in place it went.  Then I went ahead and painted the above mentioned supports and cutouts because the primer was already dry and I already had a brush used with primer.  My justification for that was not having to buy another $1 brush.  Weak.

     At this point I was so disgustingly sweaty I couldn't bear the thought of doing anymore for the day.  My hat was actually so saturated by sweat that it was dripping pretty steadily from the brim.  I didn't think to take any pictures, but you can look at pictures earlier of the other side to get an idea if you want.  It is pretty similar, except in the aft the backrest goes down instead of up.

Back from our trip

     Well, we made it through the 8 day, multi-state, family vacation alive but a little beat down.  I got a little sailing instruction while in Newport, got to taste almost 100 different types of cheese and a bunch of local beer at the Vermont Cheesemakers Festival, and I also stuffed my face with a couple of lobsters while in Boston.  Food wise it was a pretty damn good trip.

     I know I said in the last post that we were going to wait until today to move the boat over, but we decided at the last moment that we should do it before leaving.  That way if there was a problem we would still have today to take care of it.  It was insanely hot so we didn't attempt any sailing, we just ran straight to the new marina.  Thankfully it went very smoothly and the boat now sits in its new home within sight of the local tiki bar.  That is sure to get in the way of at least a little progress this year.

     Today I probably won't get a lot of time out there because of house cleaning, laundry, and an assortment of other chores that need to be taken care of after a week of slacking off but I am hoping to stop out there just to make sure everything is OK and that I don't have any notices or anything hanging on the boat. Then tomorrow it is back to work.  Joy.