Ahhhh!

I know that I am guilty of Weather Whining™.  It is a shortcoming that I freely acknowledge.  And here in Seattle, whining is permitted whenever the temperature is more than 5° away from 72°.

Ah, but this weekend.  Wow!  It was our first real weekend of summer - it was heaven!  Monday topped out at 80°.  I know, I know, that is outside of 72 ±5°...  but it was so welcome.

And unbelievably, this completed our 7th consecutive non-rainy weekend (yes, we Pacific North-westerners keep track of things like this).  In Seattle in April/May, that has to be a record.

I think I'll wear a Hawaiian shirt to work today.

Ahhhh!

Project ST5000: My kingdom for a block of foam

My next step in the ST5000 project is to mount the rudder reference transducer - it tells the autopilot where the rudder is positioned. To do so, I wanted a block of foam to prototype the awkward shape that would be required to provide a surface parallel to the rudder quadrant while mounting to the hull.  This is a difficult problem because there are no benchmarks, and nothing is straight or vertical.  The hull is curved in two planes there, and the rudder shaft is far from vertical - it is canted significantly aft and so therefore is the plane of the rudder quadrant.

So where could I get a block of foam, say a 4" or 5" cube? I asked everyone I knew, and even begged a piece of polystyrene packing foam from a computer monitor, that might work... in a pinch.

And then a miracle occurred: someone discarded two giant blocks of urethane foam at the marina recycling center. I grabbed one, and cut what I needed from it.

Big block 'o foam

This is truly a boon because first, there is more than enough there for several trials, and second it is urethane foam - it will be unaffected by polyester resin. I had originally intended to make a foam block and then recreate it in wood for final mounting.  But with the urethane foam I can just laminate a piece of plywood to the top to provide a platform for the mount screws to bite into and stick it all in place with fiberglass and resin. Yes, I can hear the purists out there saying that I should use epoxy.  Well, epoxy takes hours to cure (and I expect to need multiple applications), and this is, after all, not a structural application.  Polyester resin is perfectly adequate to the task.  So polyester resin it is, and glory be, it goes directly on the foam.

Foam is already shaped here

Now, to shape the foam... how to do it?  I devised this plan:

• Hold a block of foam in place where I think it should be (mark the hull so that I can locate it there again).  This has to be a place that is close enough to the quadrant to avoid interference problems with the nearby exhaust hose, and far enough away from the quadrant that it won't be hit by it when the rudder is hard over.
• Using a straightedge laid across the rudder quadrant, mark where the plane of the rudder quadrant crosses the foam
• Remove the foam and cut on the line I had marked

It took two tries, but here is the result (the black dot is where the center of the transducer goes):

Weird shape, empirically derived

It wasn't easy working in the small access hatch.

Awkward access

(By the way, that nasty rust stain is from a standard plumbing elbow that one of Eolian's previous owners had installed on the exhaust hose to mate up with the bronze discharge fitting. I replaced that rotting mess with a fiberglass elbow a long time ago.)

Now all I have to do is glass it into place.  But that's why there's next weekend...

Project ST5000: My kingdom for a block of foam

Things that go Brrrrrrr in the nite

Last Tuesday nite I was rudely awakened by the sound of our freshwater pump running.  That's rare, but not completely unheard of.  For example, if it just so happened that the last use of water took the system pressure down to 0.001 psi above the pressure switch setting, it wouldn't take much leak-back thru the pump to cause the switch to trip and the pump to run.  So, I sort of noted it and fell back asleep.

And then it happened again.

Well, OK, this was not normal.  Just as I was groggily contemplating this, the bilge pump ran.  Even half asleep, I knew we had a fresh water leak.  I hopped (that's a euphemism) out of bed and shut down the fresh water pump and the water heater (don't want it to be on if it is empty...).  Then I went back to bed.

But not back to sleep.  My damn brain would not get out of problem-solving mode.  So when the alarm went off, I leaped out of bed (that's another euphemism), got a flashlight, and went looking.

The first compartment I opened (under the setee, where the water heater is) was
drenched.  Got it in one.

I had to go to work on Wednesday morning, so only triage was in order.  I got the things out of the compartment and put the dehumidifier in there to dry it out (have I mentioned how nice it is to have a dehumidifier on board?).  Thankfully, the espresso maker already had enough water in it for the morning's coffee.

Wednesday nite I crawled into the compartment with a flashlight.  After asking Jane to briefly turn on the pump, the location of the leak was obvious, but the cause was not.  That may seem obtuse, but it is accurate.  The water was coming out of the fitting above, right from where the hose met the body of the fitting.

First guess?  Loose hose clamp.  Tightened it.  Nope - same leak.

Second guess?  Split hose or pinhole in the hose.  Pulled the hose, cut off an inch, and reattached.  Nope.

Third guess?  Fitting broken/cracked.  Pulled the hose and then the fitting.  Looked carefully at the joint between the hose barb section and the body of the fitting - looked good.  Put it all back together... and the leak was in a slightly different location.  (That's a hint...)

Then I bumped the hose while there was still some pressure in the system - *big* gusher, obviously coming from the fitting.  Took it all apart again, and got the fitting out into the light where I could scrutinize it.

In the picture above, I carefully posed the fitting in contrasting light to highlight the failure.  In normal light, it is not at all obvious; with a flashlight and wedged into the compartment under the settee, it is invisible.  But see the light-colored discoloration?  That is actually a crack - the entire hose barb section is about to split off.

Thankfully, my plumbing box had enough spare fittings that I was able to put the system back together again.  But I had to use another nylon fitting.  Since the last nylon fitting failed, in cold water service, with just the weight of a foot of 1/2" hose pulling on it, I consider the repair to be a temporary fix, only until I can get a brass equivalent fitting to install.

Lesson learned:  Beware nylon fittings - they will keep you up at nite!

Things that go Brrrrrrr in the nite

I love springtime in Seattle

I took this picture at daughter Erica's house... So many flower petals that they are drifting in on her front steps, like snow... pink snow.

I couldn't resist throwing a double-handful straight up in the air over my head.  Could you?

I love springtime in Seattle