Projects

We've decided to use this portion of the site to detail the involved level projects that people keep asking us about. There will be various posts on the projects along with links to the posts on The Retirement Project that explain them and have pictures. If you need any additional information on any of these projects, please contact us at svkintala att gmail dott com.

Nightmare in the marine industry

We bought a reputable boat (Tartan) from a reputable dealer, that had been maintained by a reputable boat yard. We had a reputable survey done, and contracted reputable servicemen to do a rigging and mechanical inspection of the boat. In fact it was the same service people who had been taking care of the boat for several years and claimed to know it well.

Less than 10 hours of low power operation later the V-drive failed catastrophically, taking the transmission, bell housing, and coupling with it.

And thus began a nightmare repair. Walter machine insisted that their V-drive had never been installed on a Westerbeke engine using a Hurth transmission, that Tartan would never spec such a thing. (They did and it was.) We never found a bell housing and ended up reworking the old one. The coupling had to be custom machined. (At least Tartan came up with a drawing.) The new V-drive arrived from the factory sans the studs needed to mount it to the boat. The repair is still underway with no good idea of when the boat will be operable again.

It would be wonderful if I could say that this was the worst of it...but that would be untrue. Purchasing this boat has been the most frustrating, infuriating, endlessly troubling enterprise that I have ever fallen into. The water system didn't work. Much of the electrical system was the same. Stuff that was represented as being on the boat (like a V-berth mattress and auto pilot) weren't. Much of the running rigging failed the first time it was put under a load. Point blank, if I knew then what I know now I would seriously reconsider the wisdom of trying to retire onto a sailboat. (Then I would probably try to do it anyway - being seriously smitten by the ocean.)

One thing I have decided is that the previous owner, the broker, the surveyor, the boat yard, and the mechanics, all knew just how bad this boat was. It is inconceivable to me that anyone familiar with the thing could miss how badly abused she had been. Being an aviation person and not a marine person, I made the mistake of hiring and listening to the opinion of "experts," who clearly saw an out-of-town Mark coming when they needed to unload a problem boat.

Since then the experts at Tartan couldn't tell me what units they had designed into the boat. The experts at Walter Machine couldn't tell me what unit I needed - even when they had the old one in their hands. I have conflicting stories on the drip-less seal on the shaft, and have seen the worst kind of "craftsmanship" in every nook and corner of the boat. In fact I have yet to find a singe installation or repair that is even as good as "half-assed. Unused hose and wire filled the bilge. Interior parts had been removed for work and reinstalled with one screw out of six, mis-aligned, out of place. The head system was missing major parts, the head floor wasn't even secured to the boat.

So far as I can tell the pre-owned portion of the marine industry is seriously broken; and some of the stories I have heard from new boat buyers suggests the same is true industry wide.

There is a lot of debate about the sailing industry and its decline. Young people don't seem to be interested, us older folks know well that the journey is more past than future. There is a lot of debate about leisure dollars, the lure of the Internet, the lack of adventuring in the next generation, harassment from the Coast Guard and the ever growing security apparatus of Western Culture.

But maybe the answer is a lot more simple. The Marine industry has become a den of thieves. Designs are poor, quality control is non-existent, warranties are worthless...eventually people get tired of being fleeced, move on, and tell their friends to buy an RV.

Which is okay, if you don't mind being on the land. If you do, the marine industry sells the only tools for getting off shore. They may be ill conceived, poorly built, miserably maintained and overpriced tools...but they are the only ones around.

Water works

I started changing the potable water lines in the boat this weekend. It is one of several jobs in the works. Just a review:

Ongoing V-drive / tranny repair.
Spice rack for galley.
Preliminary dodger review.
New splash guard for galley.

We would like to get the water lines replaced before putting water on the boat for the first time this season. That job will include plumbing the engine cooling loop to the water heater; which will require fittings and hose yet to be determined. Fun, yes? The first think I noticed when opening the box with the marine grade 5/8s tubing purchased for this job was that there is no tubing anywhere on the boat that looks like this stuff. Nothing on the boat is marine grade. That is a bit disturbing. How did all of the plumbing on the boat get replaced with sub-standard stuff?

And some of it is seriously sub-standard; simple clear plastic hose. The main pressure pump has 1/2 inch fittings so the 5/8s clear plastic was just clamped on. Ugly, ugly installation. Most of the plumbing is held in place with screwed in zip-tie clamps. (Where it IS held it place and not just lying free.) I am going to replace them with adel clamps. Also, the tubing runs are chaotic, hoses running every which way, crossed over each other, kinked around sharp corners...stupid stuff. It would be best to just start from scratch but that isn't really an option. I'm just going to make is as professional as I can while getting the boat back in service.

Chicago Boat Show boat thoughts

This year's Chicago Strictly Sail show was the first one Deb and I attended were we weren't looking for "The Boat". We found Kintala last year while at the show (hard to believe it has been a year) so, this year, we were looking at stuff we think we need (want) to put on "The Boat" before casting off our shore lines. Reading cruising blogs and books and gazing at pictures of cruising boats, our Tartan would appear to be far from ready for big water. Things she lacks include: dink & motor, autopilot, dodger, chart plotter, AIS, RADAR, solar panels, wind generator, stone-reliable furler, (the one we have appears too small for the task) proper anchor chain, (what we have is mis-matched to the windlass) water-maker, AC inverter, sea anchor / drogue, storm trisail & jib, and some kind of stern anchor. That seems like an impossibly long, and expensive, list.

But here is my current list of things I think we must have before going: dink & motor, autopilot, storm trisail & jib, drogue / sea anchor, AIS, and a stone-reliable furler. (Okay, I know there is no such a thing but ours appears undersized and is stone-cold unreliable.)

High on the list of things I would really like to have is a chart plotter, RADAR and dodger. As a long time airplane driver I loves me some GPS moving map. I am also an expert at RADAR and can imagine 100 different scenarios where having one would be a damned good idea. As for a dodger, the companionway on our 1982 Tartan 42 is simply a hatch in the cabin roof. Without a dodger the only two choices are close the the boat up tight or let the rain and spray fall inside.

But I'm pretty sure I can find the Bahamas with a hand held GPS and a paper chart. If hanging out on a limb I am absoluty sure I can find North America from just about anywhere in the Atlantic by looking at the sun, the North Star, and anything even close to being a compass. (One could probably follow the contrails and even hit a major city.) Just sitting at our little lake we have an old Garman chart plotter, two smart phones (complete with GPS and compass aps) an iPad, and two laptops. How much navigation stuff does one boat really need?

As for the other stuff, we can leave home without it...and probably will.

Winterize

Kintala will stay in the water this winter. We couldn't pull her if we wanted. Not only is the only travel lift big enough to lift her at another marina on the other side of the lake, with the V-drive disaster still unfolding we couldn't get her off the dock on a bet. That being the case we need to try and not do any more damage to her due to freezing temps.

Nomad was easy to winterize; pump some pink stuff through the engine, drain the water and holding tanks, add a little more pink stuff, a splash in the bilge...ready for the cold.

Kintala's engine can't be started. Part of the cooling loop runs through the V-drive, those lines loose, open, and lying in the engine bilge. I think most of the water drained out when I pulled the drive but this last weekend I took the wet-vac to them. Now I'm pretty sure all the water is out of the cooling loop. I did the wet-vac trick on the A/C as well. The manual suggest one "blow the lines out, with compressed air if possible." There are times when sucking and blowing end up with pretty much the same result; I'm hoping this is one of them.

I sucked all the water out of Kintala's bilge last weekend. With the a/c out of service and not needing any ice in the 'fridge (the only two things that empty into the bilge) it seemed reasonable that it would stay pretty dry. Not. It pored down a cold rain for much of last week and this weekend. Apparently water running down the mast, inside and out, is the bane of a dry bilge with any keel stepped mast; I sucked another 10 gallons or so out of it this past weekend. I'll empty it out every chance I get, but a little pick stuff will be added every time we leave the boat for the city. We dump a little down the galley drain when we leave as well.

Nomad had one, 50 gallon, water tank. Kintala has 3; 79, 4, and 20. It takes a little more pink stuff and one must turn a valve or three, but it isn't much of a deal. There is also a deck wash that needs to be drained.

I think that is it. If not we'll know before spring.

Catching up

I don't post here very often, most of the stuff ends up on The Retirement Project. But Kintala has turned into a maintenance boat, so this would be a good place for the more wrench-orientated ramblings.

Kintala is tied at the dock without a V-drive. It suffered a catastrophic failure and took the transmission with it. Fixing that is going to required a new V-drive, new tranny, new coupling (yet to be defined) new damper plate, 6 new engine mounts (4 under the engine, 2 under the V-drive mounts) and a TON of work.

All 4 main hatches came out of the boat to be powder coated. Epic fail. The cast aluminum parts out-gassed while in the oven, ruining the finish. As a result they will need to be stripped down (again) and painted rather than powder coated. A $500 mistake. I loves me some powder coating, but find a very reputable shop to do cast aluminum parts. We do have new Plexiglas to install in the frames when they come back. After 30 years the old glass was crazed and I was concerned that it was getting pretty brittle. We putting smoked glass back in and I am expecting all of the hassle with the hatches to be worth it...eventually.

Bedding the new hatches in place was something that was probably going to be needed anyway. Kintala leaks like a screen door. Not only were all of the hatches leaking, there is a leak around the companionway (that I haven't found yet), evidence of a leak under one of the handrails (that I haven't found yet), and at least 2 of the 12 portholes are leaking as well. I learned on Nomad that one should only re-bed an item that is already leaking, so that is the approach I am taking on Kintala. If it doesn't leak, don't fix it.

Kintala is a 30 year old boat; all of the running rigging has been or will be replaced before we take to big water.  The stuff that was on the boat was down right dangerous in spite of what both the surveyor and rigging inspector suggested.

Surveyors, rigging inspectors, and mechanical inspections are, in my humble opinion, a complete waste of money.  Insurance companies usually require a survey, so get a cheap one to keep them happy than inspect, poke, prod and examine everything yourself. Open every panel, look in every hole, take lots of high quality pictures to show experts and ask questions. Don't take any one's word on the shape of the boat...their lives will not depend on it and all they want is their money. If you don't think you know enough about mechanical things to find the bad stuff, at the very least follow the surveyor's every move, question everything that doesn't look perfect to you that he says is okay, and find a boat-knowledgeable friend to take along. Also, if it has been more than 10 years since the engine mounts have been changed, figure that the will have to be replaced sooner rather than later.  Get a sample of fluid from every mechanical thing on board; engine, tranny, v-drive, anything that has oil in it, send them to the lab and have them tested. Don't care about the cost, don't care about the time it takes, just do it. If any of the big items come back questionable, WALK AWAY or plan on spending thousands and thousands of dollars to get it fixed. Better yet WALK AWAY.

Logistics and costs made it nearly impossible to do a sea trial on Kintala. I'm not sure what I could have done to fix that, but I would never, ever, consider buying a boat again without a extensive test sail - in the ugliest weather I could talk the buyer into. Take the surveyor along if you can. He will probably prove useless but you might have the fun of watching him puke. Having said that, none of the truly massive problems that turned up on Kintala would have shown up on a sea trial.

Flip every switch, turn on every light, run every pump, run water out of every sink, find out if the water heater works, light the stove, spin the wenches, pull on the halyards, spin the helm, test the autohelm, use the head. If it doesn't work have it fixed before you take delivery of the boat or get an enormous amount of money taken off the asking price. If you don't know how much to take off, get an estimate for fixing each item, double it, total it up, add 10%...there you go. If the buyer flinches WALK AWAY. There will be a better boat along in a week or so.

Anything that stinks, find out why.

Go into any boat purchase with the attitude that you are looking for a good reason to WALK AWAY. If one doesn't present itself then, and only then, allow yourself to be persuaded into buying the boat...maybe. If the broker strikes you as anything less than an upright, professional individual completely dedicated to getting you a good boat at a fair price RUN AWAY, don't walk.

From choosing to chosen

This blog was started to be the place where we discussed much more technical matters regarding our search for the perfect retirement boat and preparing it for cruising, things that would only interest others serious about the same goal. We haven't posted here for quite a while and when I came here tonight it was kind of funny to see how our original ideas compared to our final decision. Choosing the perfect cruising boat is definitely a process not an event. Some things you thought were important end up not being important at all, but in general, the Tartan ended up being pretty close to what we set out to buy.