3 April, 2000
Progress! The shaft coupling finally came off. I used a borrowed disc grinder and about a dozen cutoff wheels to cut the thing off. Two longitudinal cuts and two days later, and using a wheel puller, the coupling came off with a resounding "thawong!" The shaft looks fine, it just needs a little clean up with BrightBoy. While I was in destructo-mode, I used a Sawz-All and a new disk grinder to cut the water heater in half and remove that as well. Then I took our new ShopVac and sucked out all the metal filings, dirt, grease and sludge that I could find. The engine compartments looks pretty damn clean (and relatively empty).
I have a new term: Traumatic Equipment Purchase Reflex (TEPR). When most people are faced with a repair problem, the usual course of action is to hire the appropriate tradesperson, wait 6 weeks for the guy to show up, gush with fake gratitude when the job is completed and smile with true grace as you write out the check. In the boating world, there usually isn't anyone more qualified than you to do the work, unless money is no object. On the other hand, you can't be prepared to do everything. And in most cases, you are not even aware that something needs to be done, until it is too late. Then all the folks in the chandlery and folks on the dock come out of the woodwork with advice. Advice that usually requires purchasing yet another tool. And hence TEPR.
True story: When I was just a lad, I was out with my Dad and some friends sailing the family Islander 27, just outside Rockaway Inlet, Long Island. Well, the seas were lumpy and the fog rolled in and we were lost. All we had was a VHF, an RDF and a hand bearing compass. We called the Coast Guard, and asked if they could at least tell us where we were. If you read the news at all, you'll realize that Coasties are no more capable of radio triangularization today than they were 20 years ago. It is not their fault, either. These days, you can get a GPS for $100, why would anyone spend millions of dollars on technology that would only provide the very roughest of approximations. We could hear breakers crashing against the jetties along Rockaway Beach, and could motor away, but we had no idea whether we were North or South of the inlet. The Coast Guard then asked the fateful, TEPR inducing question: "Do you have a depth sounder?" "Er, um, no." Navigation by soundings is a time honored and effective method of getting yourself around. Well, we stewed and worried and sweated for awhile longer until we heard the deep grumble of a fishing boat coming close by, radar on, heading for the inlet, we hailed them and they said, "follow us". We were at most 200 yards from the first marker and from there it was easy. By the next time we sailed, we had a digital depth sounder installed.
On Thursday, I called about our transmission at the diesel shop, only to learn that the mechanic had quit! Stunned is probably a good description of our first reaction. Deep shock was our second, and it lasted the whole day. Neither Suzy, nor I were all that functional for the rest of the day and Friday was not that much better. Now we're scrambling to find another mechanic to re-assemble / re-install the beast. We were definitely not prepared for this!
On Saturday we began the next big project: Replacing the anchor locker. Once again, I was up close and personal with a grinder, but this time instead of steel, it was fiberglass, gelcoat and polyester resins. The old windless is out, and so is the old locker and hawse pipe. I roughed back the deck to raw resin/glass on the port and starboard sides before I had to stop (I couldn't hold the grinder steady any more). There is now a hole the shape of an equilateral triangle, 4 feet on a side in our bow foredeck. We kicked up a lot of fine gritty dust, but managed to get most of it sucked into the ShopVac as I was grinding, so hopefully the neighbors don't hate us. I figure a weekend or two more of prep before we can start re-construction.
So that's the past two weeks. I'm making all of the neighbors on the dock tired just watching me sweat. I'm achy in places that I never thought I had, and the boat is in some serious state of disassembly. The love of boats should never be too closely examined.
Copyright © 2000 Ken Mayer