World record holder? Perhaps.
Rebecca and I may very well hold the world record for running windlass wire. The entire process, including set-up time, took us no more than about 30 minutes I think. Of course, there was a fair amount of recon done prior to yesterday to determine the proper path but that extra work paid off. We also took the (small amount of) time to remove the medicine cabinet in the head and the chart table box in the Nav area, both of which gave us nice access.
Our Easter morning began like this.
Rebecca with her head down where the chart storage box used to be.
The Lewmar windlass docs recommended that we use 4 AWG wire. We decided to spend a bit more and bump it up to 2 AWG to minimize the voltage drop in the line. Because we will still need to run a couple of smaller control wires the entire length we attached a separate messenger line to the battery cables so that it will be in place to simply (we hope) pull the others back through later.
Sitting down on the job.
Running the windlass wire was the big project of the day. In addition to that though, Rebecca re-bedded about a thousand screws with new nylon washers around the outside of our salon windows. While she was doing that, I stripped off the old caulking around the solar panels which has degraded in the sun and replaced it with some nice new 3m 4000. With all of this re-bedding and caulking I would hope there will be no leaks in the near future (in this area anyway).
All of the little white washers had become brittle from 10 years of sunshine. We purchased replacements last season and Rebecca took the time to replace them all yesterday.
I mentioned yesterday about installing the “extra” Harken 16ST winch that we had. While at the chandlery yesterday I found that the owner had a matching winch (used) lying around. Well, now we have a pair. Having these extra winches will be helpful and will add another layer of redundancy in case we have issues with the primaries while underway.
We need to have a couple of backing plates like this made up for the 2 new winches.
We hope to be able to launch this coming Friday. There are a few tasks that we want to get tidied up prior to that time. It’ll be another busy week but it will all be worth it once we’re back in the water.
It is nice to see all the work comming together isn’t it? I just have to assemble the mighty 9.9 outboard, and prime and paint the fibeglass work (All below the water line…Yikes) and we are ready to splash too, on the 21st that is. Good luck and what you guys have done looks great!…Allan
Thanks Allan. Good luck with your boat work!
Looks like the day started with all the proper ingredients:
a boat
sunshine
Hortons coffee
(Hortons doughnuts?)
A pile of expensive wire.
And I’m sure that it is only the luck of the draw on the pictures chosen that make it look like Rebecca did the crawling thru small places, while Mike did the far more critical job of feeding the wire…
bob
Definitely just luck of the draw 😉
And although there were no Tim Bits on hand, we did start off the day properly with nice cinnamon buns.
I got to know some of those same spaces when running wire and hose for my heater. Unfortunaty, there was only one straw, and it was short. It was an ugly sight, since I don’t fit there. Working on the propane locker (just to port of the water tank) bit.
I have been upside down and stuffed into every place on our boat. It just so happens that Rebecca is a bit thinner and more flexible than I am. We need to take advantage of each other’s strengths. 🙂
I did get my teenage daughter to help rebed the bow stanchions! I simply can’t get past the water heater…. not and ever get out again.
I had to re-run the gasoline lines when I got the boat; it involves climbing pretty far into the tank locker, both arms first. That pretty well stunk.
Truthfully, most of the PDQ 32 was pretty well thought out that way. Most things are a breeze, compared to working on the average car. I can’t complain.
Do you or Rebecca have a sister you can hook me up with….Where did you find a girl that will get in the bilge on Easter or any day for that matter and will take off on a boat……Please help me find Rebecca II! I will even name the boat after her.
Rebecca does have a sister and if she wasn’t already married and busy trekking around the world I would introduce the two of you. I think Wet paint sounds better than Deb for a boat though.
Are those wires pre-heat shrink or do you have another cool solution?
Um…. I had the chandlery crimp the lugs on if that’s what you mean. I had to do a bit of thinking on that as there are 1/4″, 5/16″ and 3/3″ lugs on various pieces of wire.
Our “guardian angel” read your comment and then explained to me that I should still put some heat shrink tubing the lugs of those wires. And so I will. 🙂
Guardian Angels rock!
Yes they do!