Leaning Tower Of....

Once again, crabbing has been good this year.  This is just three days catch - Jane likes to stack them up like this.  We have added so much to this that I am tired of crab for dinner...  Jane, infinite patience that she has, has picked most of the meat from these, and the many since these, so that we can fit it in the freezer here on the boat.

Leaning Tower Of....

A Tale of Two Tread Plates, Update

OK, it's now been two years since the original experiment...

Here's how they look now:

 

As you can see, the untreated tread plate on the left is still groady... in fact it is even worse in real life than the picture shows.

And on the right is the plate which was treated with BAC, still looking clean, tho grey.  I said BAC, but for this experiment I actually used a version of BAC that has some silicone functional groups substituted for some of the carbon-based groups.  This version, called "Gold Shield" (sample provided by Drew - thanks!) is considerably more proof against washing out.  In fact it is used by hospitals to sterilize and keep sterile their bedding, even tho it is frequently washed.

I call this experiment concluded, and a success.  I am going to treat the other tread plate, and our bare teak rub strakes, with Gold Shield.

A Tale of Two Tread Plates, Update

It Just Got Easier - An App You Have To Have

Previously I wrote about the tricky tide-driven currents in the San Juan Islands,and how important it is to take them into account when planning voyages there.  In that previous post, I referred to the Canadian Current Atlas for the area...  the bible.  I also mentioned the somewhat involved procedure needed to determine which of the 100 or so charts would apply to the current time.  This procedure had to be applied to each of the alternatives when planning a voyage, and involved a lot of flipping thru pages and reference charts.

No more!

It's now an app!

Someone has laboriously taken all of the information in the Current Atlas and built it into an app...  an app that makes it absolutely painless to scroll backwards and forwards in time to compare alternatives.

And here is the big bonus:  it's all in the app.  No internet connection is required, so this is entirely appropriate for use in internet-deprived areas (there are quite a few in the Islands...).

You can find it in your app store - search for "Current Atlas".  Yes, you'll have to pay for it, once.   (You had to pay for the arcane hardcopy version didn't you?)  It is worth every penny.

Get it.

It Just Got Easier - An App You Have To Have

Genset Summer

After doing all that work on the generator this spring, when we got back after a couple of weeks at anchor, I found this...

Yep - the seawater pump on the generator had failed.

Apparently the first to go was the seal - that's what keeps the seawater inside the pump and away from the bearings that support the shaft:

That's not supposed to be three different pieces...

In fact the seal was so far gone that it came out in three pieces.

And then, because Kohler didn't see fit to use sealed bearings, the seawater running past the failed seal got into the bearings.  High carbon steel does not do well with exposure to salt water...

Bearings no more...

But thankfully, I have the tools and a rebuild kit was just an eBay away for a nominal sum, so one more time into the bilges, and the pump was as good as new.  Actually better than new, because the rebuild kit came with stainless bolts to replace the brass (?!) phillips screws that had originally held the cover plate on.  I also replaced the single brass (again...) screw that held the pump cam in place with a stainless one.  That brass screw came out in three pieces...  I can just barely imagine what would have happened if the cam had come loose in there when the pump was running...

Better than new!

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Genset Summer