Seemed like a Monday to me
After a week of being fairly productive, yesterday was one of those days. If the days of the week actually meant anything to us, I’d blame it on it being a Monday. For the most part though, a Monday is just like any other day for us.
I started out simply taking a look for a spot to install a fresh water tap near the stern. My big mistake was opening up the engine locker and crawling in. That really started the ball rolling! When I looked up inside to where the engine room blower is bolted on, I noticed that one of the wires appeared to be “broken.” Being Mr. FixIt, I quickly grabbed my wire strippers, crimpers and a new butt splice and reattached it. What do you think happened when I turned the ignition key to check its function? I heard a loud grinding sound which you might imagine, is not good. It became immediately apparent to me that the wire in question had not broken. Rather, someone had cut it to stop the engine room blower from running and making that noise.
There are several ways to fix things. You can do it the proper way, apply a temporary “band aid” or when possible, just stop using the item. Obviously, in this case, they chose option three. This goes to prove that no matter how good a surveyor you have, he/she can’t find everything. If we had noticed this during the survey or phase out, I am sure the Moorings would have installed a new blower for us. Now, here in Grenada, it was up to us to deal with it.
It took trips to both chandleries, a dinghy ride and a bus trip to find a suitable replacement. It then took some boat yoga, a bunch of scraping in the hot sun, and drilling a few new holes to install it. When all was said and done, we got the new one installed and up and running. With the cover removed, it is amazing just how much air that blower can exhaust!
Sadly, I have noticed that this blog has, as of late, had a lot of technical, repair-type posts. Hopefully in the not too distant future we’ll be able to replace them with some more beachy, fun, bikini-type posts. Hopefully!
The blower exhausts from behind the panel you see at the bottom of this image.
Yesterday’s unplanned purchase and install.
With the panel removed. Lots of scraping was required to removed all of this old caulking.
And the blower works. Woo hoo!
Note the new holes that had to be drilled. Of course the bolt pattern couldn’t match up.
If you had to drill a 2 3/4 inch hole I would like to borrow your hole saw. 🙂
Sorry, I only have up to 2 5/8″.
Agree, your posts are a bit less fun, more work variety but very interesting to hear the things you are finding and fixing in your recommissioning/refit. That will be us in a while.
In the end the fun/suck ratio will be much higher for your efforts now!
Let us hope.
The recent posts are not at all boring in my opinion. They are current, interesting and relevant.
Did you check the blower for the other engine? Did the absence of a blower cause high engine temperatures?
Also, did you have a fresh water tap by the end of it as well? 🙂
Mike
The other blower appears to be toast too. 🙁
Hard to say.
As for the tap, that quickly got lost in the activity.
“Boat Yoga”–I love the term, and it’s so appropriate!
Very appropriate but unlike real yoga, not all that healthy.
I love these posts… It is great to see the underbelly of these dream boats, the technical bits, and the interesting fixes. I was impressed with your water maker install last week.
If necessary, you could have a certain bikini model hold the parts in the pictures… 🙂
Also, I wouldn’t mind seeing some posts of Rebecca’s cooking that she is working on for guests.
Rebecca is working hard on the cooking aspect. Our charter guests will NOT be disappointed.
I am sure your work/fun ratio will turn to the fun side soon. The tech info is good reading too. I can’t wait to do some boat yoga too, just finsihed my RV yoga
RV yoga may be greater than boat yoga. 🙂
Your “problem” post are much more help that the “bikini” post. Keep up the good work.
Are you sure about that?
😉
Mmmmm,
The only thing I like better than technical/repair type posts is technical/sailing type posts. Of course, I like all of your other posts too, I just only read them.
I didn’t know that an engine room blower was really needed on a diesel. Had to look that one up. I found the following quote on a blog: “With diesel power the blower can be used to cool down the area and provide fresh air to the bilge, but most diesel boats do not have a blower system.”
Seems like the a good use of the blowers would be to maybe help the engines run more efficiently with additional fresh air, and maybe to vent any fumes from the hot crankcase for a few minutes after shutdown.
I also read in one post that the blower will vent hot engine heat out of the engine room, thus helping to keep the boat cabins cool. I’m not sure that the post is relevant to One Love though.
Boat Yoga. For me it was working on a Mercruiser Alpha hydraulics manifold that was crammed right between the exhaust and the gas tank (or doing an oil change on the same boat). That was 15 years ago and my muscles are still sore.
Our friend Simon, on board today installing our inverter / charger, explained that the blower on a diesel is not as important as that on a gasoline powered engine. That said, if the designers put one there, it should work.
You are both right!!! The blowers are WAY more important on a gasoline engine than diesel, but they do serve a function w/r/t air flow and temperature and should be used. Especially true on a charter boat where the engines are likely to be used a higher percentage of the time (still hope you can sail MORE, though).
Roger.
Mike –
I think it’s really good that you ‘tell it like it is’ in regards to boat maintenance and repair issues. The truth is that boats take an incredible amount of time/money/effort to just hold their own and this is hard to grasp until you’ve lived with it.
Most of us really want to believe in the dream that being out there in paradise is almost all just fun in the sun, whereas the reality is much different.
Your current “One Love” project is a perfect case in point. Here you have a top flight yacht that was professionally managed for ~ 5 years before you came on board. We’ve read how you assiduously oversaw the very complete transfer process from Moorings that included a professional survey along with your very observant inspection. Lately you’ve been on an amazing whirlwind of activity buying huge amounts of very expensive stuff and seeing to its installation along with all sorts of new crazy repairs that seem to pop up every other day.
I can’t help but think how much of the ‘time/effort/money’ sauce is going into this boat and what a daunting task it would be for the average person in many dimensions – to include financial. Therefore I think it’s great that you’re taking us along with you on the ride so we can vicariously experience the real story of boat ownership.
Thank you, Ross. I do believe sharing the info is helpful, in a limited capacity at least.
Maybe unbeknownst at this early time, but your really laying out the truth Mike, a large initial expense and lot’s of costly maintenance month after month, without end. It’s the nature of the beast. The dreamers who think of chartering, need to know!
I hope and am confident that you, Rebecca and Michael will make it work because you are all motivated, challenged and won’t easily give up. On top of that, you have a niche with your fitness, health and exercise that I alluded to last year that might be very lucrative.
You’re right, we’ll make it work. People should know that there is obviously a huge difference between running a professional charter operation and simply setting off cruising. The latter can still be done on a budget. The former, not so much, at least not at the level we aspire to.
I likes these fix it blogs, tells me that the life is not all fun and games, there is work being done by yourself, because you can’t afford to pay someone to do it all! Its part of the lifestyle.
I’m glad you’re enjoying them, Patrick. My goal is to have a few less of them. 🙂