Finally.

Blind Bay peace

It's later than many years, but we are, finally, off the dock.  I am typing this at anchor in Blind Bay, one of our favorite anchorages.  It is another wonderful, sunny, quiet day here.  In order to get here tho, this list had to be accomplished:

• Change the oil in the main engine
• Change the pencil zinc in the main engine heat exchanger
• Change the oil in the genset
• Top up the water in the batteries
• Locate, acquire and install a replacement fitting for the main engine expansion tank.  It seems like most years there is a major winter project - this was this year's.
• Dive on the prop and clean it; change the prop nut zinc
• Clean up the dinghy from the winter
• Clean up the boat from the winter
• Remove and store the extra "winter" fenders and lines that we install to weather the winter storms
• Fill the water tanks (300 gal)
• Check the fuel (we're good - both are half full)
• Test the anchor windlass
• Check the dinghy motor fuel
• Reinstall and test the dinghy motor

Oops... Tho we had all winter to do it...

Typically, we remove the dinghy outboard and store it in my shop over the winter.  And then getting ready for the season, I clean it up, paint the rusty spots and test run it.  But this season?  Well, I never seem to have gotten around to taking the motor home.

When I tried to start the dinghy outboard, it was dead.  A preliminary investigation showed that there was no spark.  Installing a new spark plug didn't fix it, leading to pretty much the only other likely conclusion: the points in the magneto are fouled.  To get at them, the flywheel must be removed.  Tho I have a lot of tools aboard, I don't have what it would take to do that.

So: decision time... do we go even tho we don't have a functioning motor on the dinghy?  Well of course!

So here we are, peacefully at anchor, with a rowing dinghy!  And tomorrow we will fulfill our annual tradition of listening to the Indy 500 at anchor.

Finally.

Origami Kayak

This morning while walking down the dock, we passed a gentleman pushing a dock cart with two unusual looking packages in it.  So of course we stopped to talk to him.  It seems that he had just purchased (at REI, in Seattle) a pair of ORU Kayaks.  And that was them in those suitcase-sized packages.

Huh?  Really?

This is a full-on 12 foot kayak, not a sit-on one.  Yes, it takes a spray skirt - it's a real kayak.  It is made of polypropylene sheets, the kind that have the internal bracing (you've seen light-duty versions of in lawn signs, etc).  It folds up (rated for 20,000 folds) into a package that is 32" x 28" x 13" and weighs 26 lb.

Go measure some of your storage onboard and see if it will fit...

(If you go to their website be prepared to be assaulted by an excess of fancy bells and whistles.  But do it anyway...)

Origami Kayak

Nano-tech Experiment #2: Initial Observations

Looks like silver, doesn't it?

 I've tried out the nano-tech superhydrophobic coated prop on our thundering 3 HP dinghy motor.  Here are some initial observations:

• The air film is retained when the prop is completely submerged.  As the picture shows, it makes the prop look like it is made of silver.
• The prop does not cavitate due to the retained air film
• The film of air remained intact over a half-dozen trips to shore and a day of submersion.  Perhaps it is maintained by gases captured from the exhaust, or perhaps the air is simply retained well enough to withstand the surface turbulence.

Nano-tech Experiment #2: Initial Observations

The king is dead. Long live the king!

After our beloved Evinrude 2 hp outboard passed on, we had room for and admitted a new resident into the Eolian Sunset Hospice for Seasoned Outboards.

He is a Tanaka 3 hp (rebranded as a Sears Gamefisher), which makes him 50% more powerful than the Evinrude.  And about 600% stronger than the Evinrude was when last it breathed.

The outboards we choose to admit into the Hospice must be lightweights - because I leave them on the dinghy while hoisting it up on the davits - in fact the outboard lives on the dinghy full-time.  Our new resident weighs in at a sprightly 22 lb - not bad.

At this end of the weight scale, frills and amenities are not allowed - in particular that means we have never had a dinghy outboard with a transmission.  They have all been direct drive - that means that you must have the dinghy pointed in the direction you want to go when you pull the starter rope, because when the motor starts, you're off to the races!  The Tanaka is slightly different - it has a centrifugal clutch.  That is, until the engine RPM reaches a certain point, the engine is not connected to the prop.  Woo hoo!  We now have the civilized option of starting the motor, and then leaving, as two separate and independent steps.

It is also an air-cooled engine, which means there is no water pump to maintain (yea!).  But it also means it is noisier (boo) - in a water-cooled motor, that water jacket soaks up quite a bit of noise.  Jane says it is like having a chainsaw running on the stern of the dinghy.  There won't be any gas-powered wine cruises...  but I don't think that's going to be a problem.

The Tanaka will be receiving loving care (actually, more like loving neglect) here in the Hospice until it too passes on.  Hopefully, like its forebears,  not for a few years.

The king is dead. Long live the king!

RIP Evinrude 2

You might recall that last Christmas, we had to be ignominiously towed for the lighted dinghy parade.

And last weekend, when I tried to start the outboard, I couldn't get it going.

Well this morning I set out to make things right in the dinghy world.  I got out my tools and put the dinghy down into the water so that I could delve into the outboard.  But before I turned a wrench, I gave a diagnostic tug on the cord.

No compression.

At. All.

You could just barely feel some resistance in the pull if you pulled rapidly.

*sigh*  It's plum worn out.  Replacing the piston and cylinder would cost more than the motor is worth (I only paid $100 for it, many years ago), and that would be if I could even find the parts for a 30+ year old motor.

So, once again, I am on the hunt for a dinghy outboard.  The primary criterion is minimal weight, since it spends its life on the dinghy hanging on the davits, and since I have to hoist it up there by hand.  The Evinrude 2 weighed about 24 lb., which was suitable.

And it should be cheap... because I am cheap.  Like with the Evinrude, I am willing to be a motor's last stop on its way to the graveyard.

In the mean time, we are back to having a human-powered dinghy - not necessarily a bad thing.

(If you are into coincidences, John Vigor's post today also treats with outboards.)

RIP Evinrude 2

Lighted dinghies and engine foibles

The first time, a few years back, there were maybe four or five dinghies.  And if I remember correctly, only one was lit up - the rest of us waved flashlights or something.  But that was several years ago, and my memory is not known for its accuracy (maybe we were all balanced on floating logs, paddling along and waving flaming torches).

Rudolph leads the way

But this year, all the dinghies had some kind of lighting, and the lead dinghy even had a sound system (along with Rudolph) so that we didn't have to sing.  Wait!  No singing?  Well, with the dinghies strung out over perhaps a quarter-mile, singing was always a little problematic - getting us all to sing in time with each other, or even the same song, was not easy.  But aside from being practical, the electronic form took some of the folksiness and charm out of it, I think.

Wanting to be full participants, we rigged Eolian's dinghy with the handle from our deck brush as a mast, and strung a string of lites from the stern, over the mast and down to the bow.  These were battery-operated LED lites, and were full-on kitsch because they blinked and changed colors.

Of course, the final bit is that the dinghy outboard, our not-so-trusty 2 HP motor, should run so that we could stay in the conga line.  So yesterday afternoon I put the dinghy down and started the engine, just to make sure.  Well tried to start the engine.  In the end, I had to take the spark plug out and heat it on the stove to burn off the oil and water on it.  And then when the engine did start, it would never get anywhere near full power output - and believe me, when you only have 2 HP, you need all 2 HP.  The smell of the exhaust told me that the gas was old.

So I drove the dinghy up and down the waterway, trying to heat up the motor to dry out any condensation in the ignition system, and trying to burn off the old gas.

I give Brent & Jill the prize
for the most lights

But last nite, at the moment of truth when everyone was leaving to go over to A Dock to form up, it wouldn't start.  And so once again, we were participants, but we were ignominiously towed participants, towed by Brent & Jill, our slip-mates.  But even that turned out great.  As luck would have it, Brent's warming libation unexpectedly ran out just before we got to the F/G Dock waterway, and so we had to stop at our home slip for a refill.  And then we got invited below, and...

The end of G Dock, and Eolian's
interrupted strand of blue lites

Well, we sipped and gabbed while the second half of the parade went on, down below in the warm.  And we later walked down to the yacht club which was the designated endpoint for the parade, where drinks and goodies were to be had.  In fact, we got there on foot just as the water-borne parade contingent arrived.

So maybe having an unreliable engine can be a good thing after all...

---

Postscript: a new sparkplug cured the engine woes. Well actually two new sparkplugs.  I discovered that sparkplugs do not float.

Lighted dinghies and engine foibles

There's a story in every dinghy

Walking down the dock this morning, I saw this skiff - clearly, it has a story in it.

Now, I happen to know that on the big Nauticat that the skiff belongs to there live two delightful little three or four year old girls.  Twins in fact, with matching purple polka dot pajamas.  So as I walked past the skiff I imagined I heard giggles, squeals and delighted, high-pitched chatter as they played in the sand, perhaps at the little beach that reveals at low tide on the outside of the breakwater.

Funny, how just a glance into this skiff could warm my heart and make me smile.

There's a story in every dinghy

Lighted dinghies, 2010

Ghost's lit up dinghy
(picture shamelessly lifted from Angela's Facebook)

The run-up to Christmas continues here at the marina.  Sunday nite was our third (?) annual lighted dinghy parade.  In this event, we tie a bunch of dinghies together in a line and putt up and down the waterways between the docks singing Christmas carols.  Well, we try to sing carols.  If we can remember the words.  And if the front of the line and the back of the line can keep synchronized.  That is harder than you might imagine, because we are strung out so far (there were 10 dinghies in the line this year).

Of course, the lights are a big part of this.  Sadly, the only light we had was a red LED flashlight, but we waved it merrily (lites on Eolian this year, lites on the dinghy next year).  Scott and Angela get the prize (from me anyway) for the best lit dinghy - they even rigged a bowsprit so that they could show more lights!  And adding to the display, the battery Scott put into the dinghy to run the lites was kind of low on charge - the little inverter he used to power the lights kept kicking off due to low voltage, making Ghost's dinghy the one with the flashing lites!  I think it added a great note to the celebration.

And amazingly, it didn't rain!

Lighted dinghies, 2010

Lighted Dinghy Parade

In a tradition started by Scott & Angela of Ghost, F and G docks got together for a lighted dinghy parade on Friday nite.  After a day of calm, dry, reasonably warm weather, we gathered off the stern of Reflections down at the head of G dock.  Unfortunately, then it started to rain, but it didn't dampen our spirits any!

So we formed into a train with Nat & Linda from Reflections at the head, and providing the motive power for the seven dinghies.  We were near the end of the train, so it was absolutely quiet back there - the only thing you could hear was the singing.  Oh, the singing.  What it lacked in pitch, cadence and harmony, it certainly made up in enthusiasm.

We had a good time snaking our way down the waterways from F/G all the way to A dock, and then back, caroling (more or less), and wishing a merry Christmas to one and all along the way.

Finally, Nat and Linda hosted us all for Christmas cheer and Nat's special hot buttered rum afterwards.  Yum!

Lighted Dinghy Parade

Hardly working

Sheila aboard Tropic Star snapped this picture one summer day. We carry the dinghy on davits at the stern, but when the weather is nice, and we don't have anything we have to do, we like to put it down and just spend some lazy time in it. See, if you position yourself athwartships, the tubes are just the right distance apart so that you can put your feet up on one side, and lean back comfortably on the other. Complete the picture, if you will, with a cold adult beverage or two, a paperback book, and share it with your life's companion. Every now and then, you have to unship the oars and row away from the dock as you drift about. Others are out, working on their boats, and you might have a leisurely conversation with them as you drift by (thus the title which Sheila applied to this picture). It's a great way to spend an afternoon.

Hardly working