Battery switch wiring...

Two trips to West Marine today, and a third trip scheduled for tomorrow...
Those guys know me so well...
All day today I spent trying to get the batteries to work correctly.
Last night I had noticed that the batteries seemed really drained as the lights were really dim...
That made me nervous, because the batteries shouldn't be drained already!
We can't have that, so there was no other task but the battery task at hand.
With some help from my neighbor, Buzz, the batteries are now wired properly and working like a charm. If only I could readily screw this new battery switch up. The pic on the left is new switch. the pic on the right is the old broken switch i've been working on replacing. I guess in the act of replacing, I got the wiring mixed up... but now, it is correct :)
Always learning something new... today I had re emphasis of previously learned checking for voltage. Practice is good for the remembering mind...

Cooler down below

It's a little more cozy in Athena now with the cooler down below...
I really need to start using the cooler to store food and keeping the cooler outside in the heat will just loose my ice quicker. So, this 28x16x16 inches cooler is now down below.
I use to think that it was "acceptable" to buy pre-cut fruit to eat, but the prices are just blowing my mind compared to buying and cutting myself. I thought the cost of the ice would out weigh buying pre-cut ready to eat portions, but now I'm not so sure, so we're going to go back to trying this method out...
I think my next goal should be a solar panel and a cold plate.

"Hippie Chic"

Recently I was "accused" of being a hippie chic....
So, I decided, if I'm going to be accused, perhaps I should take part in some hippie chic type activities :)
Wearing my hippie chic attire partially obtained at the Goodwill store in Tallahassee, FL, (check out the cool wing-arms a flying) I went to the local drum circle to do some dancing with friends :)
What great fun :)
thanks for the pic Beth :)

More wiring...

Once galley sink was back in, I started working on installing the radio, a must for continuing working on the boat. It's been driving me nuts since I threw away my old broken radio. I find it difficult to work in the quiet. Although, while I was working away on this project, one of the neighbor live-a-board boaters started playing some island music loud enough for me to enjoy too... The pic on the left is the wiring mess just above the house battery box in the starboard aft storage compartment. The black box on the right in the picture is the new box for the starter battery sitting on top of the new battery box shelf I built weeks ago now... it's not yet complete.
The pic on the right is the neatening of the wiring below the galley sink. It was quite a rats nest previous to this organization. Unfortunately, as you can see, I did not pay quite enough attention when I was threading the black wire from the new depth sounder... I think it's just fine where it is, for now...
New radio still not yet installed completely... perhaps this coming weekend...

Old knot meter

The thru-hull taken out of Athena was the old knot-meter that was no longer working... Thru-hull on the left. Knot-meter gauge on the right, top right, large circle.

I usually use the GPS Chartplotter to determine speed...

Galley Sink Hose...

After splash, now in the water, thru-hull valve for galley sink closed...

I temporarily stuck a hose onto the thru-hull. Getting a new hose onto the thru-hull valve not very easy.... and, I had to run out to help a friend. So, I "stuck a cork in it," zip-tied up to the faucet hose to keep above the water line, and went on my way, praying that she stayed afloat... thru-hull valve still closed....

Upon return the next day I made numerous attempts to get the hose onto the thru-hull further than previous attempts... I noticed during my efforts that the valve does leak a little water by, even closed... bruised and battered again and using all sorts of lubricants... I gave up at 1 inch instead of 1.25 inches onto the thru-hull valve, just sufficient to get two hose clamps to secure the hose to the valve. The adjacent thru-hull valve with black hose is one of the cockpit drains.

New hose installed, I then installed the old sink back in, opened the thru-hull valve, and she's working...

Leaving her again to sit on my mind hoping my new hose holds...

Time for a Splash Party !!

Finally... time to go back in the water :)

yae :)
New bottom paint. New saphire blue stripes...


guess I'm going to have to start saving for matching canvas...

also need to get camera fixed cause i still see spots!

House/cat sitting

Been house/cat sitting for Lynne & Russell while they're on vacation and Athena has been on-the-hard.
Patty & Fluff have been staying on Lynne & Russell's lanai. Patty has been leaving me presents at the door. Different ones every few days....

Stainless Steel Sink...

trying to find a new stainless steel sink... it might be mission impossible to replace the perfectly sized sink I currently have. If only the previous interim owner of the sailboat hadn't messed up her sink!!!! i wonder if there is some way to clean the sink up as opposed to trying to find new...
the sink opening is 10"x14" and a nice deep sink would be nice... not none of this 5.5 inch crap!
too tired to keep searching, must retire to bed on land... thinking of Athena on land too...

Zinc on prop shaft

Oh Canada....
Thank you Canada for the lovely zinc now on my propeller shaft!
The person diving my sailboat for the past 6ish months to scrape the boat and check the zinc has been telling me my zinc was fair... when the sailboat came out of the water... there was NO zinc!!!!!!!!
How do you trust someone that is doing work that you normally cannot see....

More thru-hull work

This thru-hull from the bow pump-out, took me about an hour to clean, and about another hour to get back into the tight space from which it came... See picture on the right, I should have taken this photo with the tools I was using to try and tighten that thru-hull... this pic does not justice to the tight awkward spot this is... this is not a wide open space by any factor of the imagination. One has to squeeze arms through a flip access opening about 6"x12"...
Didn't get it tight tight tight, but hoping it's okay anyways...
also, foolishly lost one of the thru-hull nuts into the bilge of the boat when working under the sink in the head... a place where my hands cannot go... :( ugh.
it was the "safety" nut, so hopefully this thru-hull will stay in-place without for a little bit until i find another option....

Thru-hull valves

These nice old bronze valves come apart for servicing. I'm cleaning up the corrosion, greasing them up and putting them back together.

The valve put together in the pic on the bottom left is for the sink in the galley...
yes, that is light coming up through the open valve... I'm replacing the hose to the sink and potentially the sink...
These type of valve are on two thru-hulls for the cockpit drains, the galley sink, the head sink, and two for the head itself. One other thru-hull is a ball-valve type and can't be taken apart.

Bottom of keel patch

As it turns out, the hole in the fiberglass at the bottom of the keel wasn't as bad as i thought...
Epoxy fill and fiberglass patch. She's beautiful again :)
thank you thank you thank you Russell :)
A hole had to be dug beneath the boat to achieve this mission.

patched thru-hull

Old thru-hull out, new wood-epoxy-fiberglass patch in.

Artwork by Russell ;)

up in the air

It just doesn't look right... does it...
The green bottom paint will soon be black, and the green stripes... sapphire blue...

Brian cuts one ;)

Thanks to the incredible tool shop of my fantabulous friend, Brian, a very nice piece of "not crappy-ass" plywood (yes, there is a story behind that quote) was cut. A nice circle plug to fill the spot of the old thru-hull.

Thru-hulls...

Russell helping me get going with the thru-hull work...
One through-hull is being completely removed and sealed up.
Russell and I (mostly Russell) also used lots of brute force and contortionist moves to take apart six other thru-hulls (some were "rather difficult" to access). They hadn't been actuated in some time and definitely need some tender loving care.
Now that all the thru-hulls are apart and one removed, there are, yup, you added it up correctly, seven rather large holes in the boat...

On-the-hard...

SV Athena came out of the water today...


A somewhat exciting and nervous type of activity...

Really Rad Russell spun Athena artfully aft.


Now she's officially "on the hard"

We looked her over and discussed her soon to be new bottom paint job.
I've been debating whether or not to change her color scheme... I've been considering sapphire blue.

I think I can't hardly wait until she's back in the water...

She probably feels the same...
Boats belong in the water for sure.

It's rather strange for both myself and Athena to be on land...


The cats also got a ride in the slings...

I wonder what they thought of the hull being power washed...

New Battery Shelf...

Well, a project I started over a week ago (new battery box shelf) got a little further... Note nice sailboat "shop" in photo... yes, that's inside the boat! and was cleaned up before I went to bed. The "tortures" of living and working on the sailboat, one has to actually clean one's mess up to live!
You see, the original battery box for the boat only holds two batteries, and I now have two, what they call, golf cart batteries in that box, which essentially make up what is called the "house battery bank." With that space used up, I need a new place for the separate "starter battery." All these batteries are connected to a battery switch, which can be off, battery bank 1 on, battery bank 2 on, or combo 1 and 2. I've got the house battery on 1 and the starter battery on 2. I use combo to start the sailboat engine, but switch to 1 when i only need to use interior electronics, which "saves" at least one battery (the starter battery), for just in cases.
I used a helpful hint from Beth to use cardboard for template making the very difficult to measure curvature of the sailboat hull for the new shelf. See reuse of triscuit box before it went to the recycle center ;)
Thank you Brian for letting me use once again the all important jig-saw!
As always, Patty-cakes must always be where the action is... She is down in the storage compartment area that I have to lower myself down into to work on the battery banks. The original battery bank is the white box with the little round holes in it beneath my new cut pieces of shelf that will go between the original box and the sailboat hull. The crappy streaks on the hull I can't figure how to clean. They appeared when i applied some strange chemical stuff that's suppose to prevent mildew... Patty is actually facing towards Athena's engine "room."
A very long day and a mess in the boat created yet another somewhat temporary fix for holding the starter battery. Still more work left to do (painting, gluing, re nailing with longer nails, getting a 3-inch strap to hold the battery box & battery in place...not to mention i may need to change out some of the wood i used since i'm not sure it was the best kind to use...), but ran out of time for this work session. I did re hookup the batteries to the new battery switch, not yet installed completely... it's so nice to have the lights that run on the battery back up and running again, and so nice to have electricity to the bilge pump again... a little water had collected apparently, as the auto switch came on with the power up.

Tropical Storm Barbara

First tropical storm of the season to pass over us...
The rains started to arrive on June 1st, happy first official day of hurricane season!

With the full moon and onshore winds, the high tide was really high!

The night (early early morning) the real winds of the storm came through, the boat wouldn't stop rocking. My net slings kept swaying back and forth all night. I poked my head out, i think it was around 4 AM, and the moon was really full and beautiful, the wind was howling, the water sloshing, the tide really high, an eerie feeling, and I went back to sleep to have nightmares that the boat came loose from the dock...