In Palmetto Fl where I had purchased the boat the surveyor had identified a charging issue and after we had determined it was a bad alternator the seller agreed to replace it as part of the sale. However after getting the boat home I had a mechanic go over it pretty thoroughly and they determined that we also needed a new starter battery (likely shot because of the old alternator). I expected to run into things like this so no worries I needed to purchase a new 8D and after a bit of research I learned that you had to match you existing bank if it was lead acids everything had to be lead acid so I bought an new lead acid 8D and installed it (I would have preferred gel but oh well). After another visit from the mechanic to check on the charging which wasn’t happening as expected with the onboard charger (I suspected the charger was bad) they determined that the two house batteries were bad *&%$#^. Well you can guess the rest, I purchased two more 8D lead acid batteries for my house bank (problem solvedJ). You will soon learn, if you keep reading that I am a bit of an overkill type of owner and I like things overdone a bit. When I was replaced the batteries I wasn’t really satisfied with the tie downs that prevented the batteries from moving in extreme conditions. These were original and fabricated from 2 X4’s and screwed in place with 2” wood screws. I decided that I wanted to develop something a bit more robust that wouldn’t rot etc… I used some heavy 3 X 4 polly lumber across the top of each battery and then I secured the polly down with ¼ threaded SS rod. This looks great, even though no one will see them and they will never move on their own even in the boat gets rolled. Now that I have three new 8D' I am considering installing a foutrth battery next winter. This battery would be a group 27 which is smaller and I would use this as my start battery. Currently one of my 8D batteries is dedicated for a start battery which is a bit of overkill and I could use this battery as part of my house bank increasing my total amp hrs by 1/3. However enough with the batteries for this year:)
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With my list in hand I started with all of the basic but very important stuff. The boat is a 1999 model so all of the through hulls, hoses and clamps were original and since they kept the water out I thought this would be a great place to start. Because our boat is 47 feet in length and is equipped with a lot of complex systems (water maker, three air conditioners, washing machine, two heads, two showers, five water tanks, generator etc...) I began at the bow and started pulling up floor boards and working my way aft until I felt that I had checked and changed every hose or hose clamp that looked even a tiny bit sketchy. I found a surprising number of hose clamps looked good visually but when I gave them a slight turn they failed and were out under the spiral screw. As I checked or changed hose clamps I had yellow sleeves that I placed on the ends showing where I had been. Changing hoses was a pain, getting them off and then getting the new hoses back onto the hose barbs. I found the easiest way to get the new hoses onto the hose barbs was to stick the end of the hose into boiling water for five minutes. I used the stove on the boat; the hoses expanded just enough to make putting them on a breeze. I double clamped everything below the water line. While I was going through the bilge I also worked all of the through hulls several times to ensure they operated smoothly. I did find quite a few hoses that were past due for changing. This was a very worthwhile project, though it wasn’t visible to visitor’s. I also repaired a leak in the siphon break for the engine which had been identified in the survey, this was a pretty easy fix but because of the leaking over time it had rusted one of the engine mounts (pro-active maintenance on a boat saves a ton of time). This project doesn’t sound like much but kept me busy right into December, while the snow fell outside I worked inside.
When I visited the boat in Florida they were in the midst of some really nasty weather, flooding rain etc… The broker wanted to air out the boat and opened all of the opening ports prior to it raining, however since the boat and been using the air conditioning for so long the ports hadn’t been opened in years. I think when the ports were opened part of the gasket came away with the window and when I arrived there were buckets and rags under pretty well every opening port. You could tell that up to that point the boat hadn’t leaked there was zero evidence of any water damage inside. I made a mental note that this would have to be addressed sooner than later when the boat arrived I n Halifax. Of course I was reminded of this task the 1st time it rained in NS and got to work. The ports swing in and have two adjustable compression latches that provide the pressure to push them up against the gasket and frame crating a seal. I started by cleaned up the rubber gaskets with light san paper just to make them even. After I was satisfied that I was into good rubber I coated them with A&D baby ointment (recommended by my surveyor. I then thoroughly cleaned the ports themselves since some of the gasket material had adhered to the ports when they were 1st opened. I checked them for fit and found that when latched they weren’t that tight so I proceeded to adjust the latches via tightening a small allen screw in the latch. This worked well for 60% of the windows. In the remaining windows when I tightened the allen screw it simply bottomed out going right through the plastic pin in the latch that had degraded over time. I showed Joyce the issue and she was able to find some SS rid that I cut to replace the plastic pins, which will never rot, sweet. I am happy to say that the ports are working fine and are water tight, a few I had to adjust after sailing but all work well now. I also had a leak in the aft birth at the head of the bed after lots of looking I got a tip from the owners group and resealed the cockpit table solving this one as well. I also had some leaks in the large fixed windows so I ordered new windows for Catalina and would replace these in the spring, in the meantime I did an interim repair to keep the water out over the winter.
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