Just wrapping up some loose ends here …
I posted something recently about the Maretron NMEA 2000 extender gizmo, but didn’t have a photo. Here it is on the right side of the lower helm station. It allows four devices to connect to the NMEA 2000 backbone through one “T” connector. I just noticed what looks like some kind of alarm buzzer in the lower right. I guess I’ll need to figure out what that is for. It’s probably important.
Our chartplotters each support two video inputs. I am the kind of guy that thinks if it can, it should. If there are two jacks there, something should be plugged in to them. So I added a camera on the mast, and another in the engine room.
The camera on the mast looks backward at the stern deck and the area around the stern of the boat. We use this camera often. Whenever one of us is outside on the stern deck while we are underway, the other is watching from the helm.
The camera is especially handy when we are maneuvering around marinas and near docks.
Besides untangling anchor chain last weekend, I was able to get a few additional projects completed … and squeeze in some actual fun as well. The details of these projects are not entirely interesting so I’ll stick to the highlights.
I installed a second chartplotter. A Garmin 7212. With Garmin’s release of the new 8000 series chartplotters, the cost of the 7212 has come way down. Down to the point of affordability … at least for us.
What a way to spend a glorious weekend on the boat. The sun was shining, the weather was warm. Lake Union was full of boats. I was untangling anchor chain in the v-berth.
But, it needed to be done. We were in some big waves a couple of weekends ago. It appears the 300 feet of anchor chain lifted up in the locker, inverted, and fell back to earth tangled. It took me about an hour of fighting to sort it out and find the problem. And a bit longer to resolve it.
The culprit turned out to be the board in the photo below. It is meant as the floor of the chain locker. The weight of the chain seems to have broken the board and the whole mess fell down into the bottom of the locker. The board wedged in there and prevented the chain from moving.
One of the joys of boating is inviting friends to visit for the weekend … then putting them to work. That was Bruce’s fate this weekend.
Last year, we added a seat and steering station to our 12 foot Flexboat inflatable. This was a great improvement to the usability of the boat. The details can be found in this post. What we learned was that we still need a fair amount of weight forward to keep the bow down and allow the boat to plane easily. To address this, the second person in the boat usually sits forward. Too bad there is no seat up there and that person has to sit facing backward.
Our solution was to add a matching seat forward in the boat. This gives the passenger something to sit on and allows them to face forward (or backward, I guess, if they want to … or maybe even sideways …).
We ordered a seat from St. Croix Marine Products through Defender.com. The seat matches the seat we put in earlier. Defender was the only place I could find it. St. Croix no longer lists this seat on their site. It may or may not have been discontinued … which may also explain the sale price at Defender.
We are back! Back in our slip. It has been a long two and a half months since we dropped her off at Native Brightworks for the varnish work.
We did not have Native Brightworks varnish all the teak. There is so much on this old boat that I am resigned to it being a never ending process. We had the cap rails and handrails varnished. We also had all the grab rails sanded. I think we are just going to let them go natural. There is so much labor in keeping those up. It would actually be less expensive to have all the grab rails replaced with stainless than it would be to keep the teak rails varnished. So natural they will be.
But the end is near (or at least nearer). With luck, this will be the last (or next to last) report before we get the boat back. Yea! Work on the doors continues on schedule at Thomas Marine Interiors. The new interior panels are on the doors. As you can see, this require many clamps. Mike is going to paint the outside panels and put in new glass as well.
Courtesy Mike Thomas, Thomas Marine Interiors
