Hey again sailors…. it has been a busy week for us here on WildChild and I know it sounds impossible but we finally got to the end of the to-do list today (Thursday Dec 10th 2020). It has been a long week to get to this point though.
Every single sailor who owns a boat knows exactly what I am talking about when I say the to-do list. Every single boat requires constant upkeep and maintenance. It never ends, there is always something that needs doing. Sometimes urgent and sometimes not. Putting WildChild up on the hard in a tropical place and ignoring here for 5 months was terrible for my girl. There are many complex systems to make a blue water yacht function well, like a complex machine she needs loving.
You already know how hard we worked in the boat yard for 12 days to get ready to launch but that was all hull outside and bottom work. Once we launched we had to do the inside function stuff, stuff we could do while floating. Alex has been itchy and hungry to get out sailing and his youthful impatience spurred me on to hurry up and achieve that for my new young crew. He has been very patient so far as it has been a terribly long path to return.
On WildChild I keep a white board at the foot of my bed to stare at when relaxing and watching TV… so it can float around in my mind. It weighs heavily on me all the time. Its the way my girl calls to me.
Due to the way the boatyard did not support my girl properly on the jack stands in the yard when they moved her into the backyard it forced her to flex. My bathroom doors no longer latched closed anymore and the ceiling supports above the TV all popped off.
I had to remove that ceiling panel and re-fiberglass in the 3 blocks that fell. Fiber glassing is never a neat and clean kinda job and not really one you want to do above your salon cushions in a boat you are living in, but it had to be done. Alex seems to think Captain Lexi just loves to fiberglass stuff for fun, we have done so much of it in the last two weeks.
I have been having problems with the pawls on my old reefing winch for a year now. So replacing it has been on my to-do list for a very long time. With the ceiling below it now open and exposed I figured this was a good time to change out this winch. I had rescued this shiny LEWMAR 10 from a boat slated for destruction back home a few years ago. The winch has been waiting in my “hardware store” below the pilot berth for years now. With Alex’s help we managed to get the old one off easy enough and the new one installed within a few hours. Reefing winches are important when you need them.
There we go knocking things off the to-do list left right and center…. go team go…. Everyday I sweat and suffer for my girl, Alex at my side, earning his relationship with my girl.
When we first launched I had problems with my kitchen sink main faucet pump. I had rebuilt it quickly and thought it was done, the water pressure was not great but it was pumping again. I also had to replace the foot pedal on/off switch as the old one wore apart. After our sail last Sunday (Dec 6th 2020) I noticed my carpets beside the sink were wet. They shouldn’t be wet. So of course I had to dig into my water system to solve this puzzle too. It took a while.
First I had to prove it was not the sink drains. I have had this problem before. When the boat heels while sailing the ocean water comes up and begins to fill the sink. Sometimes if there is any tiny opening in the drain lines they cannot handle being full like a cup and leak. After proving it was not a drain leak I had further to investigate.
You can see there are a lot of water lines running down there and many connections, any one of which could be the new culprit. I dried the whole area up with paper towel and began to stress test different lines and fittings. Eventually I found out the main water pump (that I had just rebuilt) was the source of the leak. It frustrates me as I know I reassembled it properly after cleaning all the valves.
It took almost 6 hours to fix this one. It seems, after my fancy investigation, that apparently a perfectly sized and shaped piece of plastic that had been at the bottom of the water tanks for years, when I drained the tanks completely before storage, they drew this little piece of plastic down into the main water pump input line. This blocked up the input water flow to the pump, which then blew its seals trying to suck input water. The pump was never to blame. I had to remove and prove both the input and output lines to find this problem then cut it all apart to get at the culprit.
What amazes me is how perfectly shaped this piece of plastic is to exactly fit fill and plug the input water line so perfectly. My friend from Texas is sure it is a calcium gel but I tested it, it is not. I am not sure if this means I have very bad luck or very good luck.
The exciting news is, now my kitchen water system works perfectly. The pump survived the abuse without any damage and once I cut out the offending blockage the lines are all clear and the water is flowing as good as ever.
I like having water at my sink. It pleases me and makes me happy.
Kitchen water problems… BIG CHECK all good now and another day spent. Solutions to problems are great and problems just keep giving me headaches. Still I persevere. It makes me happy to keep knocking things off the to-do list having faith it will eventually lead to the good life. Alex’s tolerance is not so high, he just wants to go sailing.
Another big project that I have been dreading and putting off for years now has been servicing my big cockpit winches. I have never done them before and do not know how to. These huge old winches are essential for the yacht to function as a sailing vessel and IF I should screw this up and damage them or find serious problems in one of them, they are $10,000 each…! Yes basically unimaginably incredibly unaffordably expensive. If this goes bad I would be totally screwed.
Being the Captain is about being brave all the time even when you have to fake it. I got out the old original service manuals to these 1979 winches and studied it first to make sure I understood what I was getting myself into.
IT WAS SO EASY….! I do not even know why I had delayed putting it off for so long. You need a special tool to remove a single retaining ring at the top and the drums come right off…! YAY… YAY and Super YAY…! We, of course, do not have the special removal tool but with a little creativity we improvised and figured it out.
The super exciting news is none of the winches are damaged and they all function perfectly again. Sailors will understand how beautiful the gentle click click sound of the pawls can be, how beautiful it is to spin a winch drum by hand and it keeps spinning for a second after you let go. Such a beautiful sound it got me unreasonably excited. Alex could not understand my pure joy when we finished but I now have the sexiest winches in the whole Caribbean…!
You really have to be a sailor to understand…. 🙂
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Dinghy Engine
This topic is so huge I could dedicate an entire blog to it. I will try to boil it down and not bore you with too much details.
This is my Dinghy engine. We used to be friends, we used to be good friends. I bought it from my German friends Claudia and Martin back in St. Vincents at the beginning of the year. These old two stroke engines are usually very robust tough and reliable, unlike the modern high tech 4 stroke engines that fail even if new.
Me and this engine have such good history together. She was always so good to me.
I think she was rather pissed off that I left her unused for 5 months though. She has been one very unhappy moody girl lately and she has commanded a LOT of attention this past week.
A week ago on Race day (see last blog) we were on the mooring and supposed to dinghy over to Jon’s boat to join them for the race. We launched our dinghy… fought with this little engine for 30 minutes and lost.
After the race we came home and fought with the engine again for a few hours, tested it… and lost.
The next day we seriously set about rebuilding the dinghy engine, gave her so much love and attention, she almost seemed happy, but still we lost.
We moved out to anchor out in Jolly Harbour and again gave love kindness and attention to the dinghy engine for hours, still she was displeased with me. Moody like a woman.
Eventually we got her running great…. for ten minutes… then she would die. In fact she died so reliably at a specific point on our way into shore at Jolly Harbour we knew the exact building she would die beside and force us to row again.
Begging pleading and crying were to no avail.
We kept having to row in. Luckily Alex is young strong and healthy young man who even knows how to row a dinghy. My friend Kim started referring to Alex as my Gondola driver, how romantic she says, I love Kim.
On Sunday (Dec 6th) we are all set to finally go sailing. Alex is dying to get out into the ocean and actually sail. So I tell him we can sail down to Falmouth harbour in southern Antigua for a change in scenery. My friend Mike agreed to come sailing with us for fun and he just happened to have an extra outboard dinghy engine for sale he would give me a good deal on. So in the morning an hour after the appointed time we motor / row our way into Jolly harbour and meet up with Mike.
He is there waiting for us with this 5hp 4-stroke Mercury outboard. We get it mounted on our little dinghy and Mike proceeds to fight with this outboard for 40 minutes. Alex is holding an empty water bottle to catch all the gas pouring out of it. It takes forever to even get it started, then it pours out raw gasoline then it promptly dies within 30 seconds. Every time!
Mike keeps reassuring me the engine is good don’t worry (don’t worry is the Jamaican national anthem I think) but his positivity and faith do not prove out very well. The little outboard does barely get us back out to WildChild for our day of sailing but there is no way I’m gonna buy the heavy piece of crap.
Dinghy engine problem still not solved… grrrr…. 🙁
We go sailing, as planned down to Falmouth Harbour in the south and arrived just at sunset. We row Mike into shore to catch his ride home and we row back out to WildChild at anchor.
Still we had a dinghy engine problem.
OKAY… this fight is getting serious. I ask all my sailor friends for help and advice. The jets the jets they say… find your jets… you gotta clean your jets.
Ummm… I wonder what my jets look like and I wonder where I can find them…?
With lots of help from my Texas friend who walks me slowly thru this surgery we begin a deep rebuilding session with the dinghy engine while at anchor out in Falmouth. This time we are going for the gold, Captain Lexi will not fail… no surrender no retreat. We shall keep lovin this engine until she is happy again so we can be friends again.
We do everything… drain the fuel tank remove the carb bowl, check the lines, new spark plugs, and lots of positive affirmations.
The engine runs amazing… purrs… even runs amazing at idle speed… even low idle she is fine. We feel great about her this time.
I am running circles around WildChild to prove it good now. At about two minutes at full speed I shout over to Alex that she seems great again… not two seconds later she dies. I scream out to the heavens and at Mother “…WHAT DO YOU FUCKING WANT FROM ME….?” my frustration has boiled over.
My stubborn survivor spirit is out now.
We haul the engine back to the cockpit and the next morning go at her again.
Exciting news…. I finally won. It seems sleeping on it really can help solve a puzzle.
I did not include the before pictures for you. Martin had done some modifying of the engine years ago. He removed the fuel filter and had a small home made screen filter in line. Then the fuel line went up and over a “hill” above where my hand is now, and then down to the carb bowl. Well it seems he over tightened the cheap hose clamp, it cut thru the fuel line tube (under the clamp so it was very hard to find). This meant that as the engine was running it was slowly sucking in air bubbles which then went backwards (towards the fuel tank on the left) and accumulated at the top of the hill. Once the line was full of air at the top she could not get enough fuel anymore.
Very sneaky problem, very hard to find and we had to rebuild the engine 7 times before Captain Lexi finally won again.
I cut out Martins home made fuel filter. Installed a proper fuel filter. Removed the “hill” in the fuel line. Cut out and removed the damaged bit of hose at the end beside the carb bowl. Used a proper fuel line hose clamp.
Dropped her back in the water… and she has been happy ever since.
LEXI WINS AGAIN….! 🙂
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Sailing
Of course throughout all of this I still have new baby crew I have promised to teach how to sail. Alex has been wonderfully patient with me and the never ending chore lists but the guy just wants to go sailing. I owe it to him.
Every chance I get I have been adding to the sailing theory instructions I have been giving him. We sit down usually for about and hour at a time and I carefully and patiently teach my young Jedi apprentice the ways of sailing.
Alex is very intelligent and I LOVE this about him. Sometimes he is hard to teach because he gets impatient and jumps ahead. I need to make sure his knowledge base does not skip any building blocks. I gotta slow him down sometimes and keep him following me and not leading me.
Together we sit together and with my array of colour pens we diagram things out for him.
He needs to know about points of sail and sail trim. I teach him about managing the slot and being aware of the P1 P2 and P3 pressure zones around his sails. I explain the differences between using your sails as parachutes and turning them into air plane wings to fly upwind.
Every time I break out with the physics and vector forces and balancing CLE with your CLR Alex is able to follow me. He is going to make excellent crew. I need to make sure nobody tries to poach him from me, people already have tried.
Eventually though… you reach the end of classroom time and you have to get to practical hands on stuff. We begin walking the decks of WildChild and touching different lines and systems. We practice tacing the storm sail while at anchor. Explain how to wrap a line on a winch. Touch the boom vang. Go stand in the anchor locker and study how the bridle harness and the anchor snubber have to be balanced to work together.
Eventually it is time to take my student out sailing.
Alex does really well on the sail. His tummy does get a bit funny but he doesn’t vomit.. so thats good. What is most impressive is how fast, and how well, he is connecting his sailing theory with what we are actually doing while sailing. I am teaching how to babysit the autopilot. How to think overall about the whole big picture while sailing. He does AMAZING.
Alex is GREAT.
Mike has been sailing on little hobby CATS but has never been on a “big” sailboat before. He did great and enjoyed his time with us. It was kinda funny that the motion of the ocean was so soothing to Mike he kept falling asleep.
Eventually we get to Falmouth harbour and get the hook set just at sunset. Rush Mike to shore and we row home to relax.
As you know we spent the next two days working on the to-do list and fighting with the dinghy engine.
I would not say we are hob knobbing with the rich and famous or anything… but same sunset same views. They just pay people to take care of their to-do lists.
Finally as the to-do list gets smaller we begin to get some free time to enjoy this cruising life.
Yesterday we went to shore and Alex got to go for a nice hike and sit on the beautiful beach.
Then around 3pm I picked him up and we went snorkeling the nearby reefs. It was fun, and as Alex said he has not done any tropical snorkeling for many years. He enjoyed it. Maybe a nice reward for all the suffering he has done for WildChild lately.
Last night the two of us even got home at a decent time and got to chill out and relax with a rum punch and enjoy the sunset.
This gets you almost caught up to today. I had a lovely hike to explore the old forts and ruins and museums here… but we will save that for the next blog.
The last thing on the to-do list was finished this morning. I had to buy new lines yesterday for the second reefing point and this morning before we left for the day we got them rigged.
WildChild is ready to go. The Caribbean is our backyard and playground…. lets see how much freedom we lost due to Covid.
Tomorrow we will sail up to St. John’s. I want to try and buy a spear fishing gun. Then we will go visit Barbuda.
Cheers sailors
Captain Lexi…..