Summer 2020

 This was the summer of Covid. As it turns out we have been socially isolating for years.

Spring: When getting to the boat this spring I discovered much water in the boat. All the desiccators were filled as was the bilge. Even the empty fuel tank had water in it. Next year I will not leave all the ports open. I finished installing the new tiller. The shaft extension was added as well as the tiller head. I made a teak block to seal up around the hole in the deck. I installed a new morse control. The shifting cable was frozen  so I had to buy a new cable. Rerouting the cables was easy and there were no major modifications necessary. 

I then cut a hole in the bulkhead for the chartplotter. Apparently I damaged one of the connections and I had to get it repaired. Once in place it all worked fine.

I then glassed over the old binnacle holes and painted the cockpit with Kiwi Grip.

I finished installing a foot pump in the head. None of the hand pumps I tried worked very well so I went with the foot pump. I rerouted the hose from the bow tank to go directly to the head. I did put a valve in line so I can shut off the head from the tank.

We were launched June 25th. When putting it into gear apparently I hooked up the shifting cable backwards. Who would have thought that moving the lever on the transmission forward would be reverse. Anyway it was easily fixed.

Summer: I added 35 feet of g-40 5/16" chain to main anchor. This was attached with a peenable link.

Fall: we were hauled August 28th with 373 nm sailed

I then removed the fuel tank which you can see in another post. It definitly had a good size hole in it. I then unstepped the mast. The radar dome was filled with water. Apparently the installer had never removed the protective tape from the breather tube. Turns out electronics do not work well under water. While the mast was down I installed an anchor light and put foam pipe insulation around the wires going up the mast. There had been virtually no protection on any of the wires.

 Fuel Tank Removal

A couple of years ago we had noticed diesel fuel in our bilge. After pumping the fuel tank dry we hooked up a outboard motor fuel tank to the motor and have been running on that since. It was now time to replace the old fuel tank. A year ago I removed all the screws in the main salon area of the floor. This would turn out to be helpful as a year of walking on the floor helped to loosen the glue. 

To get started I removed the bottom of the corner seat of the port side settee. The plywood top is one piece with the rest of the settee but the bottom just unscrews. Then after carefully measuring the hole size necessary I used my skill saw and cut down the two long sides. I was careful to cut  along one of the holly strips. I then used an oscillating tool to cut the ends. Here I just cut through the plywood veneer. Then after removing the trim boards from around the small hatch in the floor I stuck a wide chisel in and pounded away trying to separate the floor plywood from the subfloor. It took a while but eventually the glue began to give way.

Once that outside edge started to lift I got a chisel and then a pry bar under it being careful to not damage the floor. Then it was just working my way down the edge until suddenly the whole thing just popped out.

I then proceeded to cut the ends of the subfloor with the oscillating tool and it popped right up exposing the fuel tank.

We had installed a composting head several years ago and so I was able to just cut the sewer pipe and hose which connected the head to the holding tank and remove it. For those of you with regular marine heads this pipe was filled with dried solids. I then cut the stringer out and the fuel tank just lifts out. At this point it dawned on me to worry if it would fit through the companion way. It did but by the barest of margins. And I wrestled it out onto the ground.

As you can see the fuel tank rests in a fiberglass pan. There are drain holes in several spots but it is not to contain spilled fuel but rather to keep the aluminum tank out of any water that may get in there.

Surprisingly the tank was in pretty good shape and I had a hard time finding where the leak was. There was some corrosion on the aft bottom as you can see but it did not leak there. It was only after getting it home and rolling it over that I found the leak. On the bottom there was a small piece of corrosion that was filled with black gunk. When I cleaned it out I could stick the probe right into the tank. 

People keep asking if I could repair it but my feeling is its a 40 year old tank and owes me nothing. For the trouble I went through to get it out I will put a new aluminum tank back in. We have ordered a new tank from Luthers Welding in Bristol RI. He has the plans already and has made them before. 

I made a temporary stringer and replaced the two floors so I could walk in the boat and now its on to the next project while waiting for the new tank.