Way too much Water

They finally moved us yesterday. We were in the way of one of SUNY's boats, so they had to move us out the way to get her out. They put us back in roughly the same position, so hopefully we'll be here till we can go in the water. Maybe now I can start working on the transmission again -- didn't want to take it out before the move since the rear engine mounts attach to the transmission itself. -- but now it's raining and probably won't stop until the end of the week.

Even if I don't get to work on the transmission, I've got plenty of things to keep me busy, but right now I've got my hands full just keeping the bilge pumped out. I had to remove the drains to get to the transmission, so the cockpit is draining directly into the bilge at this point. I pumped it dry last night, but it filled up almost to the top by morning -- we've been getting a lot of rain. It's stayed relatively dry since them, and there are a few things I can do to mitigate it, but it's something I need to keep an eye on, i.e., check it right before and leave the boat and as soon as I get back.

I currently don't have a manual bilge pump installed in the cabin -- I bought one, but haven't installed it yet -- so I have to go into the cockpit to pump it out. My electric bilge pumps aren't connected either. One just hasn't ever been installed, and the other, which is the main one, connects to the drains that were removed. So, I'm forced to go out into the cockpit periodically to pump her out. That's not a big deal, but with the cooler wet weather, it's not as pleasant as writing this blog or playing on the radio, but is does remind me of the Corps.

I ordered a bunch of stuff over the weekend to finish up my head and replace the manual bilge pump in the cabin. I got the pumps and valves today, but haven't gotten the hoses or clamps yet. I forgot to order a 1-1/2" thru-hull for the new manual bilge pump, so I'll do that today. The old one was smaller and drained into one of the 1-1/2" drains I removed to get to the transmission. They don't recommend sharing drains for bilge pumps, so I'm going to run the new one straight out the back.

As soon as I finish this post, I'm going to see if I can temporarily reconnect the aft cockpit drains to reduce the amount of water getting into the bilge. I'm also going to see if I can make any more headway on getting the transmission out. If the bolts turn easily -- I've been spraying them for days with penetrating oil -- I might be able to go ahead and pull it. Otherwise, I'll just respray it and wait for better weather. I certainly don't want to break off a bolt. Unfortunately, I don't have any way to stay out of the rain when I'm working on it.

Chainplate watch:

I'm going to see if I can get back into the machine shop this afternoon to finish them up. I still need to drill and polish them, which shouldn't take too long, then they'll be ready to reinstall. I'll have to wait until the weather clears and I can dry-out and fix the deck, but that project is really close to being done.

Rigging watch:

I have the new wire, so all I need to do now is cut it to match the existing stays and shrouds (they swaged the upper ends and left the tails long) and attach the mechanical lowers. I bought Sta-Lok fittings, which are really strong and more weather resistant than regular swage fittings. They're also more expensive, but since you can reuse them and probably make the wire last longer, I think it's worth it.

Radio Interference watch:

I'm still having problems with interference on multiples of 220khz up and down the band from the local radio stations, particularly ham bands. They change their configuration during Yankees games, which makes the interference worse, especially on 14,300, the Maritime Mobile Service Network, which is what I monitor. Although they did tests under their normal configuration, they've thus far refused to test under the configuration used during Yankees games.

They obviously wouldn't change the configuration during the Yankees games for no reason (I'd bet that's their biggest money maker) but they claim that it shouldn't make any difference. I'm not sure I'll be able to get them to do anything about it, but the FCC has been pretty responsive and helpful, so we'll see. They're a big corporation, and I'm just a retired vet living on a boat with limited resources, so I'm not holding my breath. However, I did take issue with their attitude, so I plan to pursue the issue.