It’s Working!

I’m behind in postings as I’ve been sick and working on Sojourn. It isn’t done yet as there are still small details (like connecting it to a prop shaft) to finish, but I’m happy to report…..

It’s working. It’s working!

And it’s fantastic! There was no crawling half into the lazarette with a can of ether, no smoke, no smell, and no embarrassing oil sheen.  There was just a 10 second pause for the glow plugs, then voila. 

And to top off an already good evening….

Four Feet Closer

One of the fringe benefits of my job is access to a rather well equipped machine shop.  The shaft line on the Beta sits about 1.9 inches lower than it does on the old Volvo and therefore the new Beta needs to sit 1.9 inches higher.  Beta Marine advertises that they have a solution for this, but having already purchased this on the secondary market, visions of hundred dollar bills danced in my head.

I found a piece of 6 inch aluminum C channel and drew up some feet in Solidworks around this material.  I cut it into 5 inch lengths and a few hours on an mill and this is what I ended up with.

I was worried that the timber under the engine beds would be rotten after 37 years, so I wanted a good hold to the fiberglass itself.  I decided that six #14 stainless wood screws should do the trick.

Despite a cold soggy morning, the afternoon turned out to be delightfully sunny and almost, dare I say, warm. Annie and I headed to the marina to install the new hardware. 

To my pleasant surprise, nice dry pink wood chips came out of all 24 of the drilled holes.  I wonder what species they used that might have pink wood. If six screws was going to be enough in rotten wood, this felt very reassuringly solid.  After screwing down all four feet, I rigged the engine to the Halyard for the last time and set the engine on the new feet.  So, Sojourn is four feet closer to having a running Kubota power plant.

Forward Progress

We, here in the northwest, had a break from the dismal excuse for spring weather on Saturday.  It was one of the first dry days we’ve had in a while, not to mention one of the first this month above 50. Our good friend Bill was available for a quick afternoon trip, so I seized the opportunity and off to the marina with a shiny red engine and a sense of enthusiasm we went.

To solve the problem of handling the engine between the garage and trailer and then the dock, I made a frame out of 2X4 timber and strapped it to the engine with motorcycle straps.  The result was a akin to a double ended wheelbarrow, which worked very well. The problem of getting it from the dock into the cabin and subsequently into the engine compartment was solved for me by virtue of the fact that Sojourn is, after all, a sailboat.  We rigged the main halyard to the engine sitting on the dock.  I manned the winch, while Bill and my slip neighbor, Matt, guided the engine over the gunnel and down the companion way.  Short on time, we left it there for the night.

Sunday, the weather returned to its less than spring-like dampness, wind and gray, but not so much to prevent me from moving the engine from the cabin sole to the engine compartment.  This went with out a hitch, even by myself.  I ran a motorcycle strap between the end of the mast and the halyard to keep the engine from swinging toward the mast.  The lifting eyes were ideally located on the Beta and permitted me to get all four feet on the beds in one shot. To scoot it back into position and adjust the feet, I rigged it though the deck hatch and put some tension on the halyard.

Voila, a shiny red engine in its new home.  (Sorry, my final image was too fuzzy to post.  Stay tuned.)

A Sorry Sight

Being only 30 feet long, Sojourn is moored at what I think of as the entry level dock.  I say entry level as most of her neighbors are like her, less than 32 feet and seasoned.  A few docks away are the bigger slips and more expensive boats.

What is striking is the number of apparently neglected boats on the dock. There are no less than 10 boats on D dock with no canvas at all protecting their sails from the ravaging UV of the sun. Two of them have seen their sails shredded in the time Sojourn has been in Everett- just 5 months. Ironically, one of them bears a sail repair advertisement.  I didn’t want to embarrass the owner, so I didn’t post the image. 

What, by the way, is the nautical term for these neglected and deteriorating vessels?  Airmen call their aeronautical counterparts ramp queens.

That Which Didn’t Sink a Ship

I’m now finished with phase two of Sojourn’s repower project.  The engine bay is clean and painted and Sojourn is waiting to be powered by Kubota (in the absence of wind of course).

I cleaned the engine bay, first with Greased Lightning, which I’ve found to be a very good surfactant in the past, then simple green and scrub brush, vacuuming the resultant gray foam with a shop vac to keep it out of the bilge.  I then coated it with two coats of Interlux BilgeKote on two consecutive days.  The only two problems I had were that the shaft packing was dripping too fast for the bottle and the rag I placed under it and there were traces of grease showing up in the roller.  Time will tell if the latter causes any adhesion issues.

One thing I did in preparation was remove the shaft flange so that I could modify it. The Volvo had a metric bolt circle slightly different than the imperial one of the Technodrive. I would not bother to modify this eighty dollar part if I didn’t essentially have a machine shop at my disposal.

Getting to the subject and title of this post, I woke up in the middle of the night realizing that Sojourn’s slip is subject to river currents and there was nothing preventing the prop shaft from working its way out of the stuffing box should a current cause the prop to turn.  Could the bilge pump keep up with a 3/4 inch hole in the hull?  Perhaps for a while, but not something I wanted to learn empirically, so I stole away on my lunch break to check on it.  Thankfully, it hadn’t moved.  I installed a piece of hose and hose clamp on the prop shaft and headed back to work anticipating a better night’s sleep tonight. 

The next time an opportunity presents itself, I’ll have to remember to offer a little extra wine to the old man in the sea.