May 1, 2010 - We be boat people

The big news is that we are now out of the boatyard. "KingFisher" (yes, that is our final new name) was launched today from the Salt Creek Marina boatyard and it feels great. In the last couple of weeks we have continued to work hard to ready the boat. Here are some of the things that have been completed since our last report -

1) Hull painting.

2) Stainless Steel rub rail installation

3) New zinc installation

4) Propane stove installation

5) New 110 vac outlet installation on the pilot house helm

6) New anchor installation (55 pound Delta)

7) Purchase of a bunch of stuff such as fenders and new shore power cords

8) Flybridge top (bimini) installation

9) Sink faucet installation in both bathrooms

10) Bright work (varnishing by Linda - see photo below)

11) Installation of new lazarette drain.

12) New house bank battery installation

13) New starting battery bank installation

14) New inverter (110 vac from the batteries) installation

15) Bottom Painting

16) Installation of our refurbished compass.

17) Installation of a new "sanitary" system.

Above is a picture of the boat showing it's new coat of paint. It made a great difference in the appearance!

Here is a picture of Linda working on the main head (bathroom) floor grating. We moved onto the boat on Thursday and are trying to get used to it. It feels great to finally get the boat cleaned up. You can't believe how hard it is to have ten or twenty projects in various states with all the associated parts sitting around. We have gone through two boxes of Zip Lock bags for organizing parts and I am sure that we spend at least an hour a day trying to find parts that we set aside because we were delayed on that particular project for some reason. And of course switching from job to job means we are constantly looking for tools in spite of trying to diligently keep them in their place. We have had to go parts shopping at least once and often twice a day. Couldn't have done this without a vehicle.

Below is a picture of the actual launch process. Pretty cool eh?

So that's the good news. The bad news is that since we were launched we have discovered three problems. First, the generator shut down after five minutes due to (I think) an overheat problem. Second, the starboard engine started making a screeching noise after about an hour of running so I shut it down. This required docking on one engine in pretty strong wind but I avoided disaster with a low speed crash landing. I suspect a frozen alternator or something similar. Finally, one of the thru hull fittings or it's valve is leaking. I will investigate all of these over the next few days and I'm sure we can get them fixed.

So we are at least wet if not fully functional. It is GREAT to get out of the boatyard after 50 days. This was 22 days more than our original plan but not really too bad considering all the stuff we did. It will take a week of washing just to get all the paint dust off. Here is a picture of the boat moored at the St Pete Municipal Marina (Linda had been working hard in near 90 degree weather and refused to be in the picture).

Are you getting sick of boat pictures? Hopefully there will be real journey pictures in my next report.

Miss all of you

Tod and Linda.

April 15, 2010 - Are We Cruising Yet?

-Hardly!!

Hi everyone -

Our original plan was to complete all of the boat repairs and upgrades by April 9th and be on our way. Boy were we optimistic. It is now a week later and we are still a couple of weeks from getting wet. The picture to the right was taken on April 5th and shows some of the old stuff that we took off the boat so we could install new items. It was a nice place to rest.

We have hired a company that is based here in the yard to paint the hull. They are all

Russians and are interesting to talk to. They have the boat prepped but but have been hampered by high winds. Hopefully it will calm down in the next few days. Here is a picture of one of them working on the paint prep.

We just received a set of charts and cruising guides that we bought from a guy who recently completed the loop. It was two full boxes. I had studied the inventory list before we bought them but I was still a bit overwhelmed by how much material there is. For navigation, we will mostly use some low end GPS chart plotters (Garmin 540S) that we bought and installed plus a nice PC Package (Rose Point) but I feel that you always should have paper charts. Well now we got em!

Here are our various thoughts and feelings-

- This is a lot harder than we thought it would be.

- This is more expensive than we thought it would be.

- It's hard to look forward to cruising because of all the projects that need to be done.

- Any day without excrement splashing on you is a good day.

- St Pete is a pretty nice place to do this. Great weather although it does rain hard.

- Where did our old life go?

- Does Kirkland still exist?

- Why did we abandon our friends?

- What have I done to my golf game?

- Our hotel is our little cave home.

- Too many projects going on at once. Parts are getting lost all over the place.

- Will we ever get out of here? Will it be on the boat?

- Every project we start turns into two or three.

- Hope the truck keeps running.

- There are victories every day but are we winning the war?

Today was an unusually good day. I finished wiring 110 AC outlets in the pilot house (can you believe there was nowhere to power a PC or charge a cell phone?), our carpenter put the new laminate in the bathrooms, we picked up our replacement Lexan hatches and the Russians actually started doing a little painting (although the wind has picked up again). The really great thing today is that no new surprises came to light! This picture is from our fly bridge out to the entrance to Salt Creek. This leads out to Tampa Bay. This is a pretty nice view if you are stuck in a boat yard.

Well that's it for this report. Hopefully we will be able to report that we are in the water by our next report (May first).

Hope you are all doing well. Good bye for now. We miss all of you.

Tod and Linda

April 1, 2010http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_SQc5G74LvUg/S7QGVKnMehI/AAAAAAAAAA0/Za4YtJ7f6Og/s320/P1030491.JPG - No Joke in St Pete

This is what happens if a boat stays too long in the Salt Creek Marina.

It's day 33 of our trip and we are in sunny St Pete. We had originally hoped to get out of here by April 8th, but now I will be happy to be floating anytime in April. Linda's prediction is the 19th but I think that's optimistic.

Our life has become a series of breakfast

s at the Comfort Inn, shopping for boat stuff, working on the boat until 7:00 or 8:00 and then home to the hotel and maybe dinner. We had a bit of a break over

the weekend when we went to the St Pete Grand Prix. They had a bunch of different race classes from sports cars up to full fledged Grand Prix cars racing through the streets of waterfront St Pete. They postponed the Sunday final due to torrential downpours but we saw(and heard) lots of up close high speed racing. This photo was Linda's choice and is Danica Patrick signing a girl's tee shirt. For those who don't know, Danica is famous for being a successful woman driver for the "GoDaddy.Com" team. She came in 7th in this race out of around 20 cars. Pretty good!

Overall, this is really

hard work, physically and mentally. Every time we go to do something, we find something else that needs to be done. It's dirty work, the boat is filthy due to all the work going on in the yard and in our boat and we get filthy every day. We are spending more money than we hoped.

However, there are also many good things to report too. Our new shafts are back and ready for installation. We have our new chartplotters and are keeping them in the hotel room until we are ready for installation. The company that is helping with some electrical mods and toilet changes started today and seem to be doing a good job. I actually started putting some of the engine stuff back on yesterday. Linda has pretty much prepared the bathrooms for a little "remodel" work. I figured out a way that I think will fix the leaking hatches and won't be too hard to do. Etc. etc. I did a tally today and of the roughly 55 projects that we identified six weeks ago, we have completed or at least started 36 of them including all of the "biggies". We are in a great spot about 15 feet from the water so any break from work includes great views.

We miss all of you and hope you are well.

More on the 15th unless something interesting happens between now and then.

Bye for now - Tod and Linda.

3/26/10 - A day in the life at St Pete

It rained HARD last night but it was a beautiful morning. We started the day at a real fiberglass supply outlet and got penetrating epoxy, epoxy paste, a few other fiberglass supplies and lots of good advice. This is all for Linda of course. We went to the boat for a bit and then walked over to the St Pete Grand Prix (about two miles). Incredible noise and lots of very well organized racing teams. We saw Danica Patrick up close as well as a bunch of those "men" drivers.

Got back to the boat about 3:00 and Linda started sanding the rub rail again. See photo.

I talked to big Jim who runs the yard and it looks like we need new cutlass bearings ($1k) as well as the shaft on the starboard side ($1.5k). This was our daily surprise.

I poked around on the generator exhaust hose and the fitting that goes through the genny "box" broke off in my hand. It was a mess. I took off the hose (2" dia) on both sides of the fitting and they were full of rust and corrosion. I knocked out the fitting, cleaned up the hole and now plan on putting on a new hose that goes right through the hole where the fitting was. Then I moved on to the head "demo" work. I determined that the hose that goes from the back head (non operational) that goes through the engine room and up to the holding tank area should go. I started in the holding tank area and cut the hose close to the bulkhead. AAAAAAh. Boy did it smell. Stuff dribbled out and I had to hold a small bowl under it while it drained out of the Lectra San (sewage treatment device that we are discarding). Linda supervised from above and handed me towels and stuff. The hose is completely full of fresh brown stuff. We called it a day and will ATTACK this tomorrow. Something to look forward to. Heading home to the Comfort Inn at 8:00 for showers and then crackers, cheese and wine.

Estimated launch date is now late April.

3/15/10 - Working on the boat in St Pete

Hard to believe that we have only been gone for two weeks. It seems much longer (that sounds bad doesn't it?). We are well entrenched in working on the boat at Salt Creek Marina. Big Jim who runs the place is a fine fellow and very cooperative although not much has happened yet from them. Linda, Bill and I have been falling into a routine of shopping for supplies first thing in the morning and then spending the rest of the day until around 7:00 at the boat. Then it's home to the Hampton Inn and showers, dinner and bed. So far, here is a partial list of what we have done.

1. General cleaning (needs much more)
2. Removing the 10 zincs
3. Removing all of the hoses on both engines and the generator (there are many and they are TOUGH to get off).
4. Cleaning the raw water strainers including trying to remove all of the barnacles that lived inside (they smell great as they die!). Might have to replace the worst one.
5. Removing both transmission coolers (need replacement)
6. Removing the heat exchanger on the generator (corroded and needs servicing)
7. Doing some bright work (varnishing - Linda of course).
8. Rough cleaning the rust off the top of the fuel tanks in prep for treating and painting. See the photo
9. Trouble shooting/repairing the four bilge pumps.
10. Trying to trace many of the electrical circuits.
11. Installing new filters in the water system.

Note that the items that say "removing" still need to be replaced. There are enough active jobs that little bags of parts are stashed all over the place and can get misplaced.

The photo is Linda as she was preparing to start work this morning on the fuel tanks. She wouldn't give me permission to take her picture at the end of the day - use your imagination.

Although there are lots of things that need doing (and it's hard for geezers to work hard), in general the boat is pretty easy to work on. One exception to this is the electrical and electronics wiring. There are THOUSANDS of wires running all over the place and none are really marked. Quite a challenge. Oh well.

I just asked Linda what she would like to express to you and she said "Tell em it's really hard". It's one thing to know it will be hard but a whole 'nother thing to experience it.

Although we haven't done any tourist stuff, we really like St Pete. The people are friendly, the weather is nice this time of year and prices are pretty cheap.

Hope everything is well with ya'll (hey, we're in Florida).

I still plan on doing a post on the first and the fifteenth of each month plus occasionally in-between.

Bye from Tod, Linda and Bill.

3/10/10 - Working on the Boat in St Pete

Stormy day today. It really blew and there were dark clouds all day. Luckily it didn't rain until about 6:00 and we were getting ready to quit for the day anyway. The power went off briefly several times and the hotel elevator died. We're on the 2nd floor so it isn't too bad.

I can't remember when I had a lifestyle that required me to shower at the end of each day instead of at the beginning. Boat prep is HARD work! Linda spent a long time down in the "hold" today trying to figure out how to paint the fuel tanks. There is only about 1.5 inches of room above the tanks and that is where all the rust is. We have concluded that they are quite thick and are probably OK even though they are UGLY. Hopefully paint will arrest further deterioration.

Bill did lots of trouble shooting including working on the old ice maker. If he can't figure it out it will be moving to the dumpster shortly.

I talked to the fellow who did most of the work on the boat over the last 5 years and learned many interesting things about the boat. I also started removing the zincs and found that the mounting bolts on some of them were really threaded rod and had come loose. This means they will require rebedding. Damn.

We lost our camera temporarily in the madness of trying to work on a boat (that has all of our junk stashed here and there) while we go back and forth to a hotel. We'll try and put a picture of the boat on the hard in the next posting.

Things are moving slowly but overall it was a good day and we are in good spirits.

3/7/10 - HERE In St Pete

Made it to the boat yesterday at noon and started digging around. MUCH to do. Just cleaning up is a monumental job. I have taken ten trips to the dumpster so far and Linda is cleaning like a Hurricane. Found a hatch under the galley sink that went down to the top of the port fuel tank. Major rust. Not sure if this means we will have to change out the tanks soon or if they are OK for a while. Otherwise, lots of fun straightening things out and figuring out how things work. Water on board smells like rotten eggs (sulfur) so we drained out the tanks today and refilled them after putting a cup of bleach in each one. We will let it set for a day and then drain it again. I pulled the water filter out and it was black. AAAAgh!!! No where to go but up. We stayed at a Hampton Inn last night but not sure what we will do tonight. Do we dare stay aboard?