We are back in our slip in Newport. The trip up from Annapolis was uneventful. We left Annapolis and stopped at the Sassafras river for the night, then on to Summit North marina in the canal.
The trip from Annapolis to Newport
We left Summit North at sunrise with fellow Krogens Gratitude and Serenity. As we pulled out the rail bridge announced it was lowering in 15 minutes. Made it with time to spare, good deal because it stays down for 15 minutes.
Delaware bay was calm. Yay! We got there about two hours later than I would like, running the current down the bay is tricky because at our speed we can’t make it the entire way to Cape May without a current reversal. As it turned out we pushed up our water speed to eight knots and and averaged 10 knots or better through the water for four hours, which is about as good as you can do. By the time we rounded cape may we were only facing a knot or so of foul current and were about an hour earlier than I had predicted.
Because of the weather forecast we had earlier given up on our preferred course direct to Newport and were headed to NYC. But then Gratitude called with the latest forecast which pushed back the front’s arrival time. With the weather window reopening, and being a little ahead of schedule, we and Gratitude adjusted course for Newport.
The overnight portion of the trip was pleasant and we arrived at Newport around 3pm the next day. The front arrived about 6pm. Nasty, but by then we were tied up and enjoying happy hour.
Newport and Summer Projects
After nine months of cruising we need a little down time for doctors, dentists and boat projects. Lots of miscellaneous maintenance and upgrade tasks get deferred until we are back in Newport. I won’t bore you with what my dentist had to say, but the boat projects might be interesting to some.
Phase on is ordering parts and materials. Amazon Prime helps, as does a box at the local Post Office.
The water heater
We have a nice water heater but it was originally wired 120V. Last year we moved most everything on the panel to 220V. That caused a problem for the genset when the heater unbalanced the load on one of the 120V legs.
As it turns out, changing over to 220v is just a matter of swapping to a 220v heater coil and re-wiring for 220v at the panel. With a little help from an electrician (Scotty for all you Krogen folks) the job was simple. The heater had been slow to heat of late so I wasn’t surprised to see that the coil was pretty crusty. As an aside, we also changed out the zinc, which could easily have lasted another few years after the three years it had already been in there.
The lightning arrester project
I wrote a more complete post on the lightning deflection project a while back. finishing touches now. Besides the primary system that directs a strike from the mast to the waterline, it is important to break the link from likely entry points, such as antennas, to the main electrical panels and ground systems. Central to that is adding arresters to each antenna cable as close to the antenna as possible.
Every electrical item on the mast needs to be isolated from the panel as well. That is done with diodes.
panel mods
NMEA devices are a challenge to protect so my guy, DR Ewen Thomson, designed his own box just for this application.
NMEA lightning arrester
The last piece of kit I need to deal with is the radar. A power cable and an ethernet cable. Both are relatively straightforward to protect, it is just that I cant find the end of the cable! Buried somewhere behind miles of wire looms. A project for another day.
John Deere raw water pumps
We have had a long running issue with the raw water pumps on our propulsion engines. They leak oil, and sometimes oil and water. John Deere was a little slow to get on it, but has been great to work with. In their defense, these are procured pumps and a general problem for the marine industry.
John Deere has redesigned the pump a couple of times and we are now the test boat for the latest design. Pumps on both engines are looking great. Hopefully this is the end of it.
Panel lighting
Our electrical panels in the pilot house are a thing of beauty. If you like red and blue and yellow glowing lights and bright voltage displays. Ok by day but a significant distraction at night. Reflected glare everywhere. And a parasitic power drain as well. So I presented the challenge to Scotty, who quickly took me from dealing with literally hundreds of individual light wires, to a single ground wire for each of the three panels. Adding three switches to the ground wires for the three panels provides me the ability to turn off all the panels.
A bit of safety kit
We try not to fall off the boat while we are under way. But if it could possibly happen, we need to be able to get back aboard. There is a fold down swim ladder but it is difficult to deploy from the water and almost impossible to deploy in any sort of sea conditions. So we bought a deployable emergency ladder.
I wish that were the end of my projects, but after crossing off a dozen or so, I managed to find a dozen new ones for my list:
- holding tank sensor stuck
- screen door broken
- service windlasses
- replace leaky hydraulic coolant water pump
- change engine and transmission oils
- add boost capability to our isolation transformer
- upgrade radar (maybe)
- replace paddle wheel speed devices with sonar type
and the list goes on. No chance I will be caught up before we leave to head south in September. oh well…
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