Working through The List

Progress on the "to-do" list has been slow but mostly continuous up to this point. Speed has been hampered somewhat by the current weather pattern.  Not sure if this is normal, but the pattern is either cold and windy or warm and rainy.  I have to admit that this year my joints are not terribly happy with the weather and folding myself up into the nooks and crannies of the boat has been trying at times.  Yet every day the boat closer to the way we left it.

One issue I've dealt with was a minor fuel leak that the caretaker for our boat recently found.  Apparently over the course of the year (or at least a good portion of it) a tablespoon or so of diesel had made its way into the bilge. We initially tried getting a local company to fix the leak, but they were unable to find anything.  The only "problem" they could identify was that the Racor fuel filter "may" have leaked and offered to rebuild it for a pretty hefty sum.  Since I was unconvinced that this was the problem, I decided I would check on it when I came down. I crawled down into the engine compartment and was rather quickly able to find that the fuel supply hose was showing age and was seeping just a bit.  In the process of removing the hose it became fairly apparent it was the cause. The hose was replaced, new fuel filters and accompanying gaskets were installed and the system was checked for any signs of leaks.  None were found.  I checked fluid levels and then started the engine.  Despite the age and hours on the motor, it started right up and ran like a top.  I let it run for a little while and repeated my leak check and it all checks out great now.

Identifying some of the Kidde recalled extinguishers
(image linked from Kidde recall web site)

Then there is the fact that 5 of the 6 fire extinguishers on board the boat were made by Kidde. Just in case you weren't aware, there was a recall of around 40 million Kidde fire extinguishers. Given boats are required to have working fire extinguishers on board and I had no idea how long it would take to get any warranty replacement, dealing with them was high on my list and one of the early things I checked when I returned to the boat.  Fortunately, I found that none of the extinguishers on board were impacted by the recall and the boat was good to go on that front.

The rainy weather helped to point out another issue, a leak on the boat. The aft berth overhead hatch was leaking.  It was the only hatch that I had yet to re-bed, so it isn't isn't much of a surprise that it would be the one to leak. On one of the few relatively warm and dry days I was able to pull the hatch, clean it up, and re-bed it.  Rains that followed tested my work and confirmed that the leak has been fixed.

Failing West Marine lifeline netting

Another item that I didn't expect to deal with was the lifeline netting.  When I arrived at the boat I was quite surprised to see a number of holes and broken strands in the netting.  At first I thought someone had come along and vandalized it.  But after tugging on it a bit myself, I found the netting to be quite brittle.  Obviously this netting, sold at West Marine, is not UV protected and a couple years in the sun has all but destroyed it.  If anything were to fall against the netting, I have no doubt that it would give way and whatever it was supposed to prevent going overboard would end up in the water.  Since it was now useless and looked ugly to boot, I spent quite a bit of time removing all of the netting that we painstakingly added just two years ago.  So, if you are thinking of adding netting to your lifelines, I think I can safely say you should avoid the stuff sold by West Marine.  Given how long it takes to properly install, you will really want a better netting. Look for netting that clearly states it is protected against UV.

So, work continues, in between rain and wind storms.

Did Someone Mention Crazy?

The other day I mentioned that things have been a bit crazy here as we prepare to make our way out of the hurricane box my insurance company has defined in our policy. Well, karma or life or whatever it is, decided to show me that, where there is a little crazy, there can always be more.

On Monday we started installing lifeline netting on our boat.  Lifeline netting can usually be found on cruising boats that have either kids or pets. We have the latter and would like to keep them on board, especially after Madison's little adventure off the dock the other day.  While the videos and instructions all make it sound easy, it took us most of a day to do about 2/3 of one side of the boat.  Getting the spacing right and working around curves and hardware can be a pain.  I don't even want to know how many times we threaded something, didn't like it, unthreaded, and retried.

All we managed to install the first day

So, on day two of what was supposed to be a half-day project, we were making better progress and completed installing the same amount of netting that took us all day Monday in about 3 hours.  It was at this point that I needed to go find some clips to allow me to unhook the netting where there are gates in the lifelines (being able to use the gates seems like a good thing). I went to every hardware store in town (two towns, four stores actually) but couldn't find a plastic clip I could use to tie to the netting.  Finally, I found a set of cheap bungee cords at a local Dollar Tree and decided to scavenge the plastic clips from those cords.

Trying to figure out proper spacing during the install.

While we were out shopping, I got a call from our realtor who told me the appraisal on the house we are selling had finally been done (we previously had to alter the contract due to the inability to get an appraiser out in a more reasonable time frame...I guess they are busy in Denver these days).  The good news was that the appraisal came back at the sale price, so we had cleared the last big hurdle before closing.  The bad news is that, as late as it had been, the likelihood of an early closing was close to nil.

Of course, about 15 minutes later I got another call from the agent telling me they now think they can close on Friday.  This Friday. Oh no!  We were suddenly in a panic to see how we could get the paperwork sent to us, signed, and returned to Colorado in time for a Friday closing (for some reason, Colorado doesn't allow for electronic signatures and only blue ink on paper is acceptable).  Oh, and did I mention that some of the documents need to be notarized?  We come up with a plan to have the title company email us the documents so we could print them here, sign, and then next-day mail them.

So, netting project on hold, we start searching for options to print the paperwork and find a notary. We even bought a printer in case we couldn't find another option. Fortunately the resort we are staying at has a business center (a computer with printer) and even has a notary on staff, so we thought we were in good shape.  Well...until the package from the title company arrived (conveniently at 7pm local time...or 5pm Colorado time).  Included in the instructions was a note that it had to be printed on legal-sized paper.

Naturally, the business center doesn't have legal paper.  We run around looking for legal paper and the only office store in town (along with the other big box stores that might have some) were out. About this time I felt like I was banging my head on a brick wall. Then we found out that while the local Staples didn't have any legal paper in stock, the copy center could print them for us. (I guess the copy center doesn't get their legal paper from the same source as the rest of the store). We get the documents printed out and make our way back home for the night.

The next morning we look over the documents and find a number of mistakes.  Did I mention that we had an appointment with the notary at 9 am...which is 7 am Colorado time...and before the title company would be open?  How is it that a title company, whose only job is to get legal paperwork details right, does this one task so poorly?  Adding to the pressure is the fact that, if there is any hope of closing on Friday, the paperwork needs to be Fed-Ex'd that day.  We postpone the appointment with the notary and make a bunch of phone calls to the title company and the realtor.  We finally get a hold of Equity Title Associates, and they tell us they will get the missing papers to us in 15 minutes. After not seeing them for one and a half hours, we call back and suddenly the missing paperwork doesn't exist because they are waiting for information from the lender.  Then the story became that they are working on it and will have it to us shortly. Finally, we are able to procure the missing paperwork, get everything signed and notarized, and make the trip over to the Fed-Ex facility we found to drop it all off.  We can only hope we found all the title companies mistakes and the closing goes off as planned.

Now, where were we?  Oh yeah, back to the netting that has been hanging half-installed on the boat.  We finally managed to get all of it installed, and it only took 3 calendar days. We are also working on plans for the trip north.  It doesn't seem like we'll have much time to do any sightseeing as we head north. With all the misfires trying to get the hard-top bimini project going, I'm trying to find someone north of Cape Hatteras where we can spend a few weeks and get the top made.  If anyone knows of a good welder or fiberglass person on the coast anywhere north of the Carolinas, let me know.

Hopefully that will help keep the dogs and gear on board.

As a tropical depression passes us by (earlier than normal and threatening to be the first named storm of the season), we continue making plans to head north starting in just a couple more days.  Yeah...just a bit crazy.