Ewww.

Stopped by the marina early Saturday morning and was greeted with this nasty smelling stuff – almost tossed my cookies. Luckily it was gone a week later.

July 4, 2008

In the last post, the lake water was starting to turn green. A week or so later, around the end of May, Jeremy and I went to the marina for a sail, took one look at the harbor, and decided to go to New Orleans for dinner instead. The harbor was the color of antifreeze.

I was away in Georgia for a few weeks in June, so didn’t get any sailing in at the end of the spring season. By the time I got home, summer was in full swing – meaning pretty hot weather. The kids were in Panama with their mom, so I decided to take the boat out on Lake Pontchartrain and watch the fireworks while at anchor.

It was after 6:00 when I left, and I just motored out to the park since it was less than a mile away. By the time I arrived, there were probably two or three dozens boats at anchor. The Seafood Fest was in full swing, with a live band leading up to the fireworks at around 9:00 p.m.

The fireworks were pretty nice, although they seemed short. I was able to take a few short videos clips and uploaded the finale to YouTube – check the videos on right side of the page.

The trip back in was interesting, three dozen or so boats in the dark all heading for the harbor entrance. My biggest concern was running over a crab pot, since there was only a fingernail moon and not much reflective light to spot the buoys. As I was entering the harbor I watched in horror as another sailboat missed the entrance and ran smack into the seawall. Luckily, he was able to back off and come around. Had it been a powerboat the outcome would have been a lot worse, even tragic. The seawall he hit is pictured in the second photo below:

May 25, 2008

Jeremy and I went on a short sail out on Lake Ponchartrain today. It was somewhat breezy, and since we were only going to go out a little way and throw out the hook, we just went with the headsail.

The lake was just starting to turn green with algae, caused by the nutrient-rich Mississippi River overflow from the opening of the Bonnet Carre Spillway in April.

May 17, 2008

Last few trips out I’ve noticed a diesel smell from the engine compartment. It may even have started when I got the boat back from a local marine yard in December.

Letting the boat sit at idle in the slip, I noticed some fuel pooling at the base of the fuel injectors. I stopped then engine and tightened up the fuel lines, but then I noticed some bubbling, an obvious sign that there wasn’t a good seal between the injectors and the block.

Never having removed fuel injectors before, I decided to order a few parts and make sure I had the proper tools, namely a torque wrench.

First I ordered two sets (one for a spare) of fuel injector gaskets from Torreson Marine. Once they came in, I stopped by Cole’s Rental World in Mandeville and picked up a torque wrench. Finally, I stopped by K-Mart on the way to the marina to pick up some wrenches; I hate K-Mart, but they do sell Craftsman tools. It was a good thing that I did, since I picked up a set of five large metric sockets for $5.00. I had just paid $10 for one socket alone at a local hardware store.

First order of business was to remove the overflow pipe and hoses. Once they came off, I took some Q-Tips and cleaned around the base of the injectors to keep any dirt from falling into the block. I grabbed the $10 27MM socket, just like the manual said, and put it on the injector… too big! Luckily the $5 set had the right size – 21MM – and I was easily able to take the first injector out.

Upon first inspection, it was easy to spot a possible reason the injectors were leaking; the gasket on the injector was quite a bit smaller than the ones I received from Torreson Marine.

After a careful cleaning of the threads with a small wire brush, I pulled the second injector and repeated the process.

I put the new gaskets on, set the torque wrench to about 52 lbs, then replaced both injectors. After the overflow pipe and hoses were reconnected, I pulled and cleaned the glow-plugs as well. Once everything was back together and the fuel lines were bled, the engine fired right up and after 10 minutes, not a sign of leaking anywhere.

Fuel Injector maintenance

May 9, 2008

My sister Mandy and her husband Brian were in town for my son Tyler’s graduation, and we took advantage of the nice weather forecast for the day to go out on the boat.

We left the marina around 1:00 p.m. The winds didn’t look to promising, and sure enough when we got out to the lake they were light and variable at best. We made the best of it by meandering about for a few hours in no specific direction; not exactly what I had hoped for, but Brian and Mandy seemed to enjoy the tranquility of it.

May 5, 2008

From the log book:

Beautiful day – 71°, sunny, winds from the north, then from the southwest. Got out of harbor and the wind died. Waited a few minutes for the “puff” I could see out on the water… once it hit, it never stopped. Anchored for an hour or two just past Green Point and perked a small pot of coffee. Nothing beats sitting on the cabin top with a cup of steaming ‘joe, especially if there’s a race on.

Nice sail back on a close reach, lots of boats out racing.

Noticed a heavier diesel smell than there should be from the compartment, upon further inspection I discovered some fuel bubbling up through the base of the fuel injector and burning off the block. Not cool! But at least the engine is running like a charm, no overheating problems of late.

April 20, 2008

Fun stuff today… cleaned the bilge and tightened up the packing gland.

We had a little visitor in the afternoon:

April 19, 2008

Last week I found a small electric Campbell-Hausfeld pressure washer on sale at Wal-Mart, nearly half-price at $50. I thought I kept the boat pretty clean, but was still amazed at the amount of dirt that had accumulated, especially in the non-skid.

I was going to do a little work inside the boat today, and clean and oil some of the interior teak. It was just too nice of a day to sit in the slip, however, so I prepared to go out as soon as I arrived. Sunny skies, winds at 5-10, and temperature in the 60’s was too good to pass up.

Just as I passed Northshore Marine, and right after I passed a huge houseboat on her way to the pump-out station, the engine began to overheat. Gah! Here we go again. I managed to turn her around and tied off on the side of the canal… the temp gauge was showing 220°. The coolant level was good, I had water coming out of the exhaust, but a quick feel of the inlet and outlet hoses on the heat exchanger and it was pretty clear that the coolant just wasn’t circulating – one hose was hot, the other cold.

Pulling up the access panel under the stairs revealed the culprit – a broken belt. After another five minutes or so a new belt was put on, and I continued on out to the lake, waiting for the next catastrophe to strike.

Luckily, the bullet-proof Universal M2-12 chugged right along and a few minutes later I was out on the lake. The winds had swung around to the west, which meant a nice starboard tack along the shore.

On the way back I took a few pictures of the State Park and Mandeville Harbor:

Brightwork

Last week I start to tackle the toe and hand rails, the majority of the teak on the exterior. They were coated with Marine Cetol, which was beginning to flake and peel off, and was obviously beyond maintenance.

Repeated sanding by previous owners took so much teak off the toe rails that the tips of the fastening screws are now exposed. To minimize sanding, I used a heat gun to remove as much Cetol as possible. This worked pretty well on the handrails, but was difficult on the toe rails, as I had to be very careful not to melt the gel coat!

Today I finished stripping and light sanding, then cleaned the teak with some acetone. After spending an hour taping off the brightwork, the first coat of Sikkens Cetol Marine Natural Teak went on. This is a new Sikkens product, a lighter color than the “orangey” Cetol, with which most are familiar. The downside to using this is that I wasn’t able to completely remove all of the original, darker-colored Cetol, so the color isn’t as consistent throughout as I would have liked.

Since I planned to take my son and his girlfriend out on Sunday, I took the advice in a post on Sailnet.com and put another coat on several hours later, before the first completely cured (I hope!). I purchased a quart of gloss Cetol, which I will apply within the next week or so.

Update March 29: put on two coats of Cetol Gloss; one in the morning, and one after the first coat had dried to touch but not cured. These two pictures were taken about three weeks later:

Sail Log: February 9, 2008

Today was a lot like the day before – cold in the morning but warming up to the high 60’s, light winds, sunny skies.

I left the marina around 10:30 and planned to anchor off of Fountaineblue State Park for awhile. I called a friend who has stopped by the marina on numerous occasions to see if he was in the area; he was in Covington, just up the road, so I headed back in to pick him and his son up at the marina.

After a quick tour of the boat, we cast off once again and motored back out to the lake. This time we head to the southwest for a few miles, then tacked east towards the park before heading in on a broad reach. We tried wing-and-wing for a while, but there wasn’t a lot of wind.

Got back in around 3:00.

• Total Distance: 13 Miles, Under Sail: 10
• Average Speed: 2.89 kts
• Conditions: Clear, 65-70 F, Wind East at 0-5 kts, Seas 1-2 ft