Week 21: Legal but without all the needed brain development

If weeks were years our blog could vote. I bet it would vote to get done and go sailing. The problem is more projects keep arriving. We got to the shop Sunday and we were worried that we would not have much to do and we would have to be creative about projects to keep busy. We got a task sheet that left no time to get bored. Bill got to design a platform for the muffler to sit on and then a path to route the exhaust out of the boat. Nina got to make the mounting block for the auto pilot drive to sit on her platform. This took all day Sunday.

We got in Monday and there was a new list with more projects. Bill got to modify the muffler mount and check the engine water strainer mount. Then he got to plan the exhaust hose route and drill some more big holes in the boat. The good news is a good path was there and only one more big hole was needed. The big new project was to design a greasing tube so the rudder tube can be greased while underway. When we are crossing an ocean the water will wash away the grease at the bottom of the rudder tube. This will give a sloppy feel to the rudder. It is easy to put a grease fitting down at the lower end of the rudder tube. The drawback is you have to climb into the locker to get at it, hence the tube. We got to make a copper tube tube to run from the bottom of the rudder tube up to the top of a cockpit locker hatch opening. This will make it easy to grease the rudder every couple of days when on a passage. Bending the tube went better than expected and we got the tube shaped in about an hour. The tricky part was trying to fiberglass a 3/8″ copper tube to a 4″ diameter fiberglass tube. We ended up with a mess of fiberglass fibers in hardening epoxy that were not cooperating as we had hoped. I think there is some sanding and try number two in our future.

The other news is the engine was fit back into the boat. It fits beautifully on the new bed logs. Along with getting the engine aligned for final installation, we needed the engine in place to fit the exhaust.