Now Hear This

Electronics, March/April 2007

Our boat, at the time of our purchase, included only basic electronics: depth sounder, VHF radio (lower helm only), and LORAN. This was enough to get us by for our limited use during the first season, but we had to do all our navigation by charts and compass, and step down to the lower helm any time we needed to use the radio. Upgrades were certainly in order.

Our adventures on the bay don't demand a whole lot, but minimally I wanted a new VHF with DSC capability, an extension microphone for the flybridge, and a GPS. Down the line, I'd like to add RADAR and another depth display (possibly on the GPS) for the flybridge. The GPS was a bit of a dilemma, though, as I wanted a display at both helms without having to program routes and waypoints on two separate machines. The only choices that meet those requirements are a networked system (big bucks), or a portable that can be moved between helms.

• For the VHF radio, I chose a Standard Horizon Quest-X GX-1500S, with a RAM+ extension microphone. Some makers, like Uniden, offer a wireless extension microphone. That sounds great (easy to install, at any rate), but brings two drawbacks in my mind. First, you have to keep the remote charged somehow, which means some kind of wiring anyway. Second, wireless means it can be dropped overboard. That would be an expensive contribution to Davy Jones' locker!

• For the GPS, I went with a Garmin 478. It includes a built in antenna, all coastal chart data, separate marine and auto mounts, and rechargeable batteries. The benefit of batteries is that it can be removed from the mount and transferred to the other helm without ever turning it off.

Installation raised only one serious issue. The old electronics, attached to the ceiling above the helm, had wires routed through the cabin headliner. Nightmare. I removed a molding strip, peeked above the vinyl headliner, and realized that the entire panel would have to come down to get at the wiring. With some trepidation, I went with an alternate plan: I drilled a hole (with a 1" holesaw) in the column used for routing wires to the bridge. This turned out to be a piece of cake, and vastly simplified installation. The only complication is ensuring that that, while drilling, no wires or cables already in the column are damaged. To protect them, I took several layers of heavy cardboard and inserted them into the column to shield the existing wires. A rubber grommet dressed up the hole, and all the new wires were routed easily. Removing old wires was as simple as cutting off the connectors and pulling them through; they pulled out easily without disturbing the headliner.

I installed the VHF right where the old one was. The LORAN is now in a box in my basement, destined to be a collector's item. The depth sounder moved to the right, where the LORAN was. Since the roof is curved, I added spacers to the left side of each so that they are more level. I kept the GPS down at the helm, where it would be more easily visible and have a clearer view of the satellites through the cabin windows. I expected to have to buy an additional marine mount, but as it turned out, the automotive mount worked perfectly well at the lower helm. It also came with a "beanbag" mount, which works perfectly fine in the car, so we can easily take it along for road trips as well.

I have two steps yet to do:

• I have not connected the power cables for the GPS. For now, it will run on the rechargeables at both helms.

• I want to connect the GPS and VHF together. Once done, the DSC automated distress signal from the VHF will include position data from the GPS. Likewise, any DSC calls that we receive will display position data on the GPS.

These, however, are projects for another day.

Sounds Good

Replaced Stereo, 3/17/2007

The old stereo was dead. I swear it worked when the boat was surveyed, but we had to live without it for the first season.

The stereo is in the cabin, just above the galley area, well-protected from the weather. In general, a marine stereo would be a better choice to stand up to salt air and spray, but since this one is so well protected, I used a regular car stereo (a Sony CDX-GT310). I chose this one for three reasons: 1) it plays CDs, 2) it's satellite ready, and 3) it has a front aux input for an MP3 player. OK, four reasons: I got it for about $100.

I had to file the box opening just a little bit to make it fit. The speaker wiring was a bit of a mess, and it appeared that the old wire was split between the front (cabin) and rear (cockpit) speakers. Generally, that's not good for the amp, so I also ran new speaker wire to each of the speakers. Now I just need to spring for an MP3 player. I have my eye on an iRiver Clix2 -- can't wait for the 8GB model!

Keep The Water On The Outside, Part 2: Stuffing Box

Repacked Stuffing Boxes, 1/13/07

Where the drive shaft and rudder shaft pass through the hull to the underside of the boat, there is a stuffing box that prevents water from entering. This is essentially just a hollow nut around the shaft, in which packing material is compressed to prevent water intrusion. Tightening down the nut compresses the packing. Typically, for a drive shaft, the nut is tightened to the point where the packing allows one or two drops of water per minute into the bilge. The water keeps the stuffing box cool and the packing material lubricated. Eventually, however, the packing material becomes old, hardened, and brittle to the point where it no longer does the job. At that point, new packing is in order.

The picture here is looking down on the rudder post. The reflection is the water that shouldn't be there. Over our first summer, I tried tightening the packing nut, but it didn't prevent the inflow of water. I repacked both the rudder and shaft stuffing boxes while the boat was out of the water for winter. It can be done in the water, but it's a bit more frantic, since water flows in at a pretty decent rate.

The best description of repacking I've ever seen is here: Re-Packing A Traditional Stuffing Box Unfortunately, this wasn't available when I did mine, but I muddled through anyway. I initially ordered the wrong size packing, but after exchanging for the right stuff, it wasn't bad. On some boats, the hardest part is being able to reach the stuffing box (particularly V-drives, where the engine is directly above it). Other than that, it's definitely easy DIY.

Hosed

Replace Hoses, 12/2006

Rubber hoses deteriorate over time. They become dried, cracked, or brittle, which can cause them to burst, which would be bad!

The surveyor called out our engine intake hose as needing replacement. The worst part of this replacement (aside from the cost of 10' of 1 5/8" wire-reinforced hose) was routing it through to the seacock. I have some plastic chafe protection surrounding the hole in the bulkhead to keep the edges of the wood from wearing through the hose.

The surveyor also suggested replacing the air conditioner intake hose and the plastic fitting on the pump. In this case, the hose and fitting were in fine shape, but not the right type for below the waterline. Regular plastic fittings shouldn't be used, so I replaced the elbow with marelon. And the hose, like the engine intake hose, is wire-reinforced and resists bursting and collapse.

Blower

Blower, December 2006.

An upgrade required by BoatU.S. Insurance...

Blowers are generally used to evacuate gasoline vapors from the engine compartment before starting the engine, so that the vapors don't ignite and explode. Diesel powered boats don't require blowers, because diesel vapors aren't explosive. Nonetheless, BoatU.S. required that I install one.

Meh, blowers are cheap and easy to install, so I didn't bother fighting. I can use it to evacuate heat after shutting down the engine. I installed it inline in a vent hose close to the DC switch panel, and ran the wires to the panel. Piece of cake, compared to all the other wiring I was doing.

Wired

Electrical Wiring, 12/2006

In general, the electrical wiring on this boat was done pretty well (well supported, chafe protected, etc), but in a few areas it was suffering from 20+ years of vibration and exposure to salt air. This was most obvious in the cockpit courtesy lighting, where exposure was the worst and the wire had become so brittle that the lights weren't even working consistently. In a few other areas, repairs were made with household wire and wire nuts, which (to me) are unacceptable on a boat, just begging for further deterioration. One such place was the bilge pump wiring. Wire nuts on bilge pump wiring? Yikes -- if there were ever a place for waterproof connections, it's the bilge!

I tore out the wires to the courtesy lights and ran new Ancor 16 GA duplex safety wire to the cockpit and wired in both cockpit lights in parallel. (At the same time, I ran a wire for the stern light that I plan to install in the spring, to complete the navigation lights.)

I also replaced the various wire nuts with waterproof heat-shrink butt connectors. While tackling that, I changed the bilge pump wiring a bit. It was set up so that the pump could be turned on manually or set to "automatic" with a switch at the helm. That setup required the main battery switch to be on all the time to provide power to the pump. I changed it so that the battery float switch is now wired directly to the deep-cycle battery (with its own inline fuse). Now I can turn off the main battery switch, and the pump will still have power if the float switch is activated. This is a much safer setup: the main battery switch is off, so nothing else is accidentally left on, possibly draining the battery, or possibly even starting a fire. The only downside is that you can't turn the bilge pump completely off; the float switch is always supplied with power unless disconnected from the battery.

Grease Is The Word

Serviced Seacocks, 11/26/2006

The Spartan seacocks on our boat were frozen in place when we bought it. The boat was in the water almost immediately, so I couldn't disassemble them for complete service. I did just enough work to get them operational, postponing full service until haulout.

These seacocks are fairly easy to maintain. Spartan suggests annual maintenance, but word on the water has it that every two or three years is sufficient if they are operated frequently. Disassembly is straightforward: remove the lock nuts from the barrel, and slide the barrel out of the housing. Michele and I disassembled the three we have (engine intake, head intake, and head discharge), cleaned them thoroughly with paint thinner, and then gave them a light coating of waterproof grease before reassembly. We used Morey's Super Red waterproof grease (available at Napa), which came highly recommended by other Cape Dory owners. A light coating is sufficient: anything more just squeezes out during reassembly.

The only tricky part is getting the seacock adjusted properly during reassembly. The barrel is tapered, so if you tighten the nut too much, it becomes difficult or impossible to operate the seacock. I overtightened one, and we had a hard time getting it back out. Snug is best. The handle should move smoothly, but shouldn't be so loose that vibration will cause it to move.

Shocking

GFCI outlets, 11/26/2006

Another suggestion by the surveyor, and one that makes sense: replace the galley and head outlets with GFCI (ground fault circuit interrupt) outlets. GFCI outlets have a breaker that shuts off the power if there is a ground fault. For instance, let's say you're standing in water and providing a ground path through your body, and you don't really like all that electricity passing through your body. Well, a GFCI will help you by interrupting the circuit.

I've installed these at home before, and it's easy, so I thought it would be easy on the boat. You see where this is going, don't you? Riiiiight. The back of a GFCI outlet is a bit bigger than that of a regular outlet, and the holes in the bulkhead on the boat were cut just to size for a regular outlet. No way to get a saw in there, so I used a grinding bit attached to a drill, and ground the edges of the holes until they were large enough.

I also needed a new outdoor-type water resistant outlet cover for the head compartment (we shower in there, so it's likely to get sprayed). Newer GFCI outlets have a square face, so the old cover did not fit. As usual, all more effort than expected, but a good upgrade for safety.

A Little Rusty

Corrosion Cleanup, 11/12/2006

Rust... corrosion... it's everywhere. Well, it was everywhere. Seacocks, rudder mounting bracket, bonding wires, engine mounts, the engine itself. Salt air is such a hostile environment. It really takes a heavy toll, particularly on metals.

Michele and I went through everything on the boat, cleaning and removing the corrosion. For the most part, the job wasn't nearly as bad as it might seem. We attacked most of it with tooth brushes and a mixture of baking soda and water. In a few spots, we needed to add a wire brush to the arsenal, but we tried not to resort to that. Once we loosened everything up, we cleaned up the mess with the shop vac, and gave everything a good coat of Corrosion Block. That should keep the problem at bay for a while. What a difference!

Put Away Your Toys

Winterization, 10/28-11/11/2006

Nothing fancy here. This was my first time winterizing a boat, so I was a little nervous about doing it right. Also, this was my first winter with this boat, so I don't know when a lot of things were last done. As a result, the whole process probably took a lot longer than it will in the future.

• Pumped out the holding tank. Flushed a gallon of pink antifreeze through the toilet.
• Ran the water system dry. Poured in two gallons of pink antifreeze, and opened the taps until pink flowed through the whole system.
• Hot water tank was bypassed already, so nothing to do there.
• Pulled the intake hose for the A/C off the seacock, held a funnel in it, and poured pink antifreeze in until it came out the discharge.
• Filled the fuel tank with diesel, added stabilizer.
• Changed oil and filter.
• Changed crankcase breather.
• Drained raw water from the cooling system. There are a handful of petcocks for draining off the water, and some are positioned such that the water won't drain directly to the bilge. I drained into a small flat basin that I could fit under them, and emptied the basin each time it filled. Definitely learned something here: Get a hose that fits over the petcocks and let the water drain into the bilge.
  
• Drained and replaced coolant/antifreeze. Like with the raw water system, next time I'll get a hose for the petcocks so I can drain the antifreeze directly into disposal containers. Fortunately, the coolant doesn't need to be done every year.
• Replaced engine zincs. The raw water cooling system has zinc anodes that screw into caps, that then screw into the side of the heat exchanger. There are a handful of these, and some went in easily, others not so much. Part of the problem here is that I think the pencil zincs available at the store do not match the original specs -- they are longer, so they don't quite go in all the way. I cut some of them with a hacksaw so they fit better.
• Cleaned seawater strainer. Here's a tip, if you do this in the water make sure the intake seacock is closed. If the strainer is below the water line when you remove the cap, well, you can guess what would happen!
  
• Circulated pink antifreeze through the raw water system. Basically this just involves pulling the engine intake hose from the seacock and sticking it in a bucket of antifreeze. Run the engine, and the antifreeze is sucked through. There are arguments about whether to use non-toxic pink, or toxic ethylene glycol. Apparently, many people are concerned that the pink stuff doesn't inhibit corrosion, but the stuff I used specifically says that it does. The advantage with pink stuff is that it's non-toxic, so in spring you just run the engine and blow all of it straight out the exhaust.
• Changed antifreeze cap. Old cap was rusted badly, so I replaced it.
• Greased steering cable.

I saved the fuel filter change for spring. It doesn't hurt them to sit over the winter, so I did this for one main reason: I wanted to make sure that when I first try to start the engine in the spring, I could be sure that any failure to start isn't just due to air in the fuel lines. I had never bled the air from the lines before, so I wanted to save this for spring, after I know the engines are ok.

So that's about it. There are various other miscellaneous things, like cleaning, taking down curtains, propping up cushions, etc, but the list above is the bulk of it. It was work, but it was interesting and educational. Shrinkwrap will be done soon, and then the boat is put to bed for winter.