Some Boat Projects

This post is just for those of you who might be interested in a few things that we are having done to the boat at present. Any boat owner knows that maintenance never stops, but there are some projects that we choose to not do ourselves (and frankly we can't do most of these). So, last Monday, we pulled the boat out of the water to get a few things accomplished.

For those of you who might be wondering how you pull a 20,000 lb boat out of the water, it is actually quite simple...if you have a marina with the right equipment. In this case, our marina has a 44 ton travel lift that makes it a piece of cake. We simply drive the boat up to the loading area, they slip the slings under the appropriate lift points and away we go. Once they have it in the slings, they can "drive" the crane around to a spot on the yard where they basically just put the boat up on blocks for the maintenance tasks. Here we are hanging in the slings:

So what are we getting done? Here is the laundry list:

• Bottom Job - basically sanding off the bottom paint (the black paint), and re-applying 2 fresh coats. This paint protects the bottom and inhibits algae growth. In fresh water, we don't have to worry about barnacles, but we would were we in salt water. The paint we applied is designed for use primarily in fresh water environments. It will last at least a couple of years.
• Prop tuning - we decided to pull the propeller and have it re-tuned to factory specs. This is something that needs to be done every so often, and we also found a couple of small dings that will be fixed. This thing is a beast...26" in diameter and it weighs a "ton"...not something that any of us would want to try to lift. Here is a pic of our bright shiny tuned prop:

• Dinghy davits - we finally are having our dinghy davits installed. This will allow us to take our dingy with us on our travels, and will make dog management a whole lot easier. In simple terms, this is a set of brackets attached to the transom and swim platform at the stern of the boat. The dinghy will hang from these brackets...we'll have pictures of this in a later installment.
• Fuel Manifold replacement - one of the original manifolds that serves as a junction point for getting fuel from the tank room, through a bulkhead, and into the engine room needed to be replaced. The original factory manifold was prone to leakage, and ours indeed did leak...so this will be replaced, and this nuisance item will be off our list to worry about.
• Anode replacement - there are a number of anodes (commonly called zincs) on our boat. These are necessary chunks of metal that sacrificially corrode so that the important metal parts of our boat don't corrode. As they are sacrificial, they need to be replaced every so often, so now is the time. We will be replacing the main shaft anode, the bow thruster anodes, and adding a new anode to the rudder shaft. The 2 shaft anodes will be magnesium, and the bow thruster anodes will be aluminum. Again...in salt water these would be different...they all would be made from zinc. Here is a picture of the one that is on the main shaft, just in front of the propeller.

          And here is the replacement anode and refurbished prop:

There are a few other minor items that will also get attended to, but these are the major items that will put us in primo shape for the time being. The list never ends, but having these done makes the list a whole lot shorter!