Simple and Inexpensive Air Conditioning

The heat is already upon us in northern Florida and summer has not yet arrived. Already, the air conditioner is running daily, and day and night most of the time. On our previous boat, we did not have the luxury of a built-in air-conditioning system, and early on, we decided not to install a central system. It would be another piece of equipment to maintain and would also require a generator installation for use when we were cruising. We opted for an inverter system to run the 110 appliances and tools, and to take a little different approach to the AC problem. Of course, on our current trawler Beach House, we have a built in heat/AC system and a generator. Living aboard in the Chesapeake in the summer, then many years in south Florida did require that we cool the interior of the boat if we wanted to be comfortable. While we were cruising through the Bahamas and Caribbean, we never felt the need for an air conditioner. But at the docks for periods of time, to replenish the cruising kitty, we decided on a less traditional setup.

Trials and Tribulations

The mechanic at Dockside Marina in Carrabelle did an excellent job getting Beach House back in operation. After our 4-hour tow back to the marina from the Gulf of Mexico, and a quick phone call to the mechanic, Eric arrived early the next morning. We were concerned with letting the engine sit, even overnight, with water in the cylinders and oil pan. There wasn't much that could be done about it on such short notice and just getting someone on board by the next day was better than we expected. Not knowing how serious the problem was made for a fitful sleep that evening. Whenever something like this happens, you always expect the absolute worse and have expectations of major expense and delay. When you live on your boat full time and don't have a place to go ashore when these things happen, it makes the anxiety even stronger.

Another Boating Equipment Update

We like to take some time at the end of a cruise or during a pause in a cruise to report on the equipment we have installed in preparation for traveling the waterways. If you have followed our blog for any length of time, you know we post each installation, upgrade and repair we do to Beach House in hopes that other boaters will find the information useful. These Project Posts are the most read and most popular on the Blog, so it only makes sense to let you know how things are holding up, what works and what was an absolute failure. Finding quality equipment and parts for a boat is getting more and more difficult as manufacturers look for ways to cut costs, and as a result, the quality declines. It's also the trend to add more and more bells and whistles to everything, and to use the latest and greatest in technology to justify the increasingly higher costs for equipment. This makes many of our electronics more difficult to understand and also adds to the possibility of failure as new features are added. We're still of the KISS mind set (keep it simple, stupid), but we also appreciate advancements that actually serve a purpose and make our boating experience safer and more enjoyable. So let's do an update of our equipment.

If It's A Boat, It Will Break

If there is one thing that I am certain of after a half century of boating, it's that on a boat, something will break. A pesky oil leak in the front of the engine began as a minor thing and an annoyance. By the time we were halfway across the Okeechobee Waterway, the leak increased and since it was the front main oil seal, the belt pulley was starting to fling the oil as it spun. That meant oil was not only dripping under the engine, but slinging up on the engine room walls and everything else around it. Not a pleasant thought and definitely time to make repairs. Replacing the main seal is not a major repair, but it requires equipment most boaters don't carry on board. We knew a good mechanic from our time living in Port of the Islands near Marco Island, so a call to him arranged the repair when we arrived in Fort Myers. The parts were ordered from American Diesel and would arrive at about the same time as Beach House. All seemed to be set for a short stop and a quick fix. Ah, but this is a boat after all.

Our Latest Projects

Since our arrival at Acosta Creek Harbor on the St. Johns River in Satsuma, FL, we have had two priorities. Number one was to finish the Chesapeake Bay anchorage book and have it ready for distribution. Number one completed. Number two was actually several small projects to be completed before we headed out in the spring and begin the next phase of our cruise. With number one behind us, we started as soon as the winter weather would allow. It's been a cold wet winter here in northern Florida and many of the exterior projects just had to wait. But the break finally came; the clouds parted, the sun came out, the temperatures began to climb and the crew shouted "Hallelujah!"

Tanks For The Memories

No matter how well you plan in advance to try and head off any possible problems or breakdowns, a boat will always find a way to surprise you. By definition, cruising is repairing your boat in exotic places. I don't know if I would classify Marathon, Florida as exotic, but we did find ourselves needing a fairly substantial repair. It all began as a casual check and prep for our move to stage at Key Biscayne for a crossing to the Bahamas. Climbing around in the engine compartment, checking fluids and giving everything a once over, I discovered a bit more water in the bilge than normal. We usually try and keep the bilge dry, but a little always finds its way in. Using the trusty wet vac, almost two gallons was extracted - way more than should have been.

What Works And What Doesn't

We're still sitting in Boot Key Harbor waiting for the winds to lay down so we can move north to Key Biscayne. That will be our staging point to cross over to Bimini in the Bahamas. While waiting, I thought it might be a good idea to comment on what equipment has been working well and what has not performed for us, since this part of the trip was to be a shakedown for all of the new equipment we have installed. Some has done extremely well, some has done okay and some has just been miserable. The really important stuff has worked as advertised and we're very pleased.

Do-It-Yourself Generator Install

For many, many, many years, our trusty Honda 2000 portable generator supplied us with 120-volt electricity when we needed it at anchor. On our sailboat, we used an inverter most of the time and our solar panels and wind generator kept the battery banks topped off. We made the decision early on to install a permanent generator on Beach House for our upcoming cruise to the Bahamas and the Great Loop. We likely won't have the wind conditions needed for a wind generator like we had in the Caribbean, and solar panels are not practical for us right now. We want to be able to run the air conditioner in the Bahamas and the heat in the Great Lakes when we need it, and an inverter would just not do. Generator options for boats are plentiful, and deciding which one would best suit our needs took a lot of research.

Installing Our Garmin GHP 10 Autopilot

After 17 years of sailing on our Mariner 40 Ketch, Sea Trek, we were really used to having an autopilot do most of the steering for us. With Beach House, we did all of the steering ourselves, until now. Both the trip from South Carolina to the Chesapeake and the return to Florida required us to steer every foot of the way. We often mentioned on those trips how much we would like to have had some electronic help. An autopilot has always been on our to-do list, but we decided to wait and install the latest model just before departure time on our upcoming cruise. The time is now.

Relocating The House Batteries

The next big project will be the installation of an inboard generator. The engine compartment of a Marine Trader 34 is not known to be the roomiest, so a few modifications are needed to make space available. The most logical placement choice is a shelf on the port side forward where we installed the house battery bank when we first bought the boat. Even then, we knew they would eventually have to be moved to accommodate the generator. There was still some work to be done to clean up the wiring, so it was time to move the house bank and tidy things up.

Can You Sink a Boat for Lack of a One Dollar Bolt??

I suppose theoretically it's possible. But can you really repair a 30-year-old radar unit for $30.00? I am here to tell you that you absolutely can, if the problem is the same as ours. Not long ago, I fired up our Raytheon SL70 radar unit and it all started fine. Once it was going, however, the beam was doing the sweeps, but there were no targets on the display. An internal self diagnostic showed everything was working okay, but obviously it wasn't. This unit is long past its manufacturing date and it's highly doubtful if Raymarine will even fix these any more or if it's worth it. So trying a few things couldn't hurt.

Care And Feeding Of The Ford Lehman Diesel

The time is finally growing short for our departure on our next great adventure. Since we sold our dear friend Sea Trek, our Mariner 40 ketch, we have been preparing Beach House for our Bahamas/Great Loop adventure. The first thing we did was join the AGLCA, America's Great Loop Cruisers' Association, to glean as much knowledge and information as we can from others that have done the Loop in the past or are in the process now. The number one thing we learned was that the engine and transmission would be our top priority and the most important equipment on the boat. With that in mind, we've spent many hours and dollars preparing our Ford Lehman 120 and the Paragon transmission for the 6,000 to 8,000 mile journey. If you have followed us here, you are probably well aware of the upgrades and repairs we have made. We found some minor problems when we bought the boat, added some important safety equipment we wanted, and corrected some deficiencies inherent to the engine.

From A Fabric Bimini To A Hardtop In One Day

As many of our followers know, we built our own bimini back in June of 2009. The yellow Sunbrella has kind of been a trademark for Beach House wherever we go. But the Florida sunshine and the cold damp weather in the Chesapeake has taken a toll in just a few short years. We usually get at least five years out of a bimini, but not this time. Weighing the pros and cons of building another fabric bimini or finding an alternative has suddenly come to the top of the to-do list. This is another of those unexpected repairs that we thought we would deal with in another couple of years. But it is a boat after all.

A Bit Overwhelmed

I really haven't had to interview for many jobs. Most of the time I either knew the company and owner well or they knew me and approached me for a position. But the few times I have had an interview, one of the questions almost always asked was "what did I consider one of my major weaknesses." Right now that weakness has reared it's ugly head big time and I am feeling the effects. I never have to hesitate to answer the question because I know the answer all too well. I have always had a tendency to try and do too much at one time and start another project before I finished the previous one. After this weekend, that weakness has taken on a whole new meaning.

Raising A Few Brows

The teak brows were probably the least attractive pieces of wood on the boat and a pain to keep up. All of the screws that secured them to the sides of the cabin have been a source of leaks that we knew we needed to deal with soon. We did some caulking early on to stop the water intrusion, but caulking is just the proverbial band-aid, and more drastic action was necessary to resolve it once and for all. Just as with the flybridge, removal has been my choice since day one and the time has come to tackle the project and check it off the list.

The Flybridge Makeover That Never Ends

I know that after this post I will get some feedback, but not all positive. I have committed a major sin in the trawler society, but I am not sorry and offer no apologies. The interior of the flybridge is finished, the uppermost of the outside now has a fresh coat of paint and it all looks great. Now it's time to finish up and get the last two steps of this ongoing project finished so I can move on to other more pressing parts of the to-do list. The inside of the flybridge is now fiberglassed to the deck and there will be no removal possible, so it's only logical that the outside gets the same treatment.

30-Year-Old Boat Plumbing Replacement

Replacing the 30-year-old copper plumbing in our fresh water system was on my Things-to-do-when-there-is nothing-else-and-I-have-lots-of-time list and I expected to get to it some time in the years to come. But as with all things boats, that was not to be. Our hot water began flowing ever so slowly out of all of the taps for no apparent reason. I disconnected some of the lines and attached a hose from the dock in an attempt to blow it out. I also took all of the faucets apart in case the blockage was there, but ALL of them? None of this helped so now the project shoots right to the top of my Need-to-do-it-now list.

Moving The Starting Battery

Our starting battery sits in a nice fiberglass box that is mounted in the front of the engine. The distance to our house bank is about a foot and makes for short cables and easy access to use jumper cables in case the starting battery goes dead. But this is the space we plan to use to move the house bank so that the genset can be installed. It also makes for a long cable run to the starter, requiring large wires. So it is time to make a change in preparation for moving the house bank. The plan is to move it right next to the engine starter and eliminate those long and large cables to the starter.

Flybridge Makeover Part Two

With the "interior" makeover of the flybridge complete, the "exterior" was next on our list. Since the exterior of the boat has been painted in the past and we knew it was done in AwlGrip, the maintenance coat was a lot less labor intensive. First, all of the hardware and fittings were removed, including the vinyl lettering for her name. All edges had a double row of delicate tape to keep paint off of where it does not belong. Several screw holes that had mounted hardware that was no longer in use had to be filled and repaired. A good sanding and a single coat of 545 white primer and everything was ready for paint.

An Exhausting Project

The Christmas and New Years holiday season doesn't mean the work on the boat will slow down or stop. If we are to stay on schedule, we need to push forward with all of our projects, even the smaller ones. Those smaller ones keep getting pushed down the list as more important tasks present themselves and some get moved to the top for a variety of reasons. But the list doesn't look any shorter even with all of the done items scratched off. One small project I have been promising to Susan for a long time is finally done.