October 24 - November 6 -- Two Other Days, Six Work Days and ILENE Is Winterized.

 The two "Other" days were 1) cooking, bringing, and sharing a dinner with Harriett and Bennett (Harriett's broken leg is very much on the mend) and 2) a free webinar on weather forecasting presented by the American Sailing Association. The webinar was disappointing (though I got a few tips) because it was essentially an "infomercial" selling a new course that would make me a meteorologist -- teach me more than I need or want to know. I'm glad I did not pay for the infomercial as many people who wanted to get rich in the property development business paid to Donald Trump's "school" in which they were taught that if they really wanted to learn his secrets they should pay even more money for a longer course. It cost me nothing (except an hour of my time) and one gets what one pays for,

The six work days (21.5 hours) related to winterization. One day I spent the four hours half helping Bennett on Ohana and half being helped by Bennett on ILENE. But I could not get the salt water deck washdown pump to run -- and it needs to run to pump the pink propylene glycol through a funnel and hose into its body of the pump and thence through the wash down hose that I discharge into the toilet bowl of the forward head. Turning on the pump's switch at the breaker panel caused the pump to run for half a second --and then it stopped stopped. After buying new fuses and checking all fuses (that I could find)  I tried again on a later date and the same result: half a second and then nothing. I searched the boat and found the Saga cross connection list.

Using it I identified the well labelled wires of this particular circuit from among the many other wires on the frame behind the circuit breaker panel. But seeing them did not help me solve the problem, and it turns out that the problem was not behind the panel at all. 

At that point I was compelled to ask my friend and competent mechanic, Ed Spallina, to come and fix it. He removed the pump from its attachment to the hull (four screws), screwed off the inflow and outflow hoses, and removed the outflow end of the pump from its chassis (six screws of two different types). Then, after pulling that end off, he was able to turn the shaft with his fingers and reported it was not "seized", and spun the impeller, which moved freely as well.

Reassembly was performed with testing at various stages to see if it purred, and it did. So I don't know why it refused to run for me, but it ran for Ed and we used it, with me turning on the switch and pouring the pink stuff in through the funnel and Ed holding the washdown hose in the forward head until it ran pink instead of white.  WINTERIZATION IS COMPLETE! It only took him half an hour -- time and money very well spent, though I wish I knew why the pump had not worked for me. 

I had drained the fresh water tanks in that no more water came to the faucets when the electric and foot pumps were pumped. But I thought that maybe some water remained. So I took the boards that are atop the tanks off (eight screws each) and the viewing ports (off six screws each) and pumped about four more gallons of remaining water, sadly a muddy color, out of the tanks before adding half a galon of vodka to each tank and reassembling.                  

Before Ed came, after checking every fuse of the boat -- that I know of -- I found three that were blown or missing and replaced them; in the process I learned two of  ILENE's electrical secrets.

First, one fuse, (the one to the right in the row of five in the photo) once it was replaced, meant that I could not turn OFF the FM radio, my constant companion during work days. When I disconnected the batteries "entirely" from sending current to the boat by turning the two battery selector switches to OFF, the boat got dark, but WNYC FM played on. Hmmm? So I turned the volume to as low as possible (very little electrical draw) and slept on it. Obviously the fused wire in question connects DC electricity directly from the ship's batteries to the radio even when the circuit breaker switch for that radio is off. The solution came to me in my sleep: I simply took the fuse back out, and the radio now turns off except when I turn its breaker on. 

The other secret concerned a fuse holder that hangs behind the upper forward corner of the breaker panel. It was empty. I held a piece of whitish paper behind it so you can see it in the picture.

When I put in a ten amp fuse, tiny backlights for each of the labels for the sixty circuits on the breaker panel came on. But while these lights draw very little juice, I only need them when night sailing which we didn't do even once in 2020. So I removed the fuse and will reinsert it when we night sail.

Fresh rain water accumulates in the bilge during the winter and freezes solid there. It comes in despite the canvas winter cover -- in two places, I think. And I finally thought of ways that I hope will stop this. The first culprit is the hawse hole and the anchor windlass which are holes through the deck near the bow for the two anchor chains. I took a large flat plastic box used I have to stand open cans of paint in the spring and inverted it atop the holes. The more likely route of entry is water running down the outsides of the mast through the "mast boot", the hole in the deck through which the mast passes. The mast has be able to move a bit when sailing so there is room for water to run. During the summer the bilge pump just pumps the water out but in winter it gets frozen in the ice which is not good for the pump or the boat. My experiment here was constructing a sort of tent, of plastic bags and duct tape, about ten inches above to deck, to divert the water running down the mast away from the mast boot. This will not work in the summer because the wind will blow it away and the running rigging needs to move freely in that area, but it may solve the problem during the winter when the tent is protected from the wind by the canvas cover. I emptied the bilge dry and will find out if my efforts are successful after the next hard rain. 

I checked the zinc in the refrigerator's condenser and it is good for the first month of 2021. Before draining the fresh water tanks I bypassed the hot water heater by disconnecting the hose that lets fresh cold water in and the one that lets hot water out, connected these two hoses to each other with a short piece of plastic pipe and drained the heater's tank by removing a drain bolt which somehow, I lost! So after a long fruitless search in the bottom of the lazarette I searched in the box in which small parts are stored and took out about thirty small bolts of various sizes and threads that have been collected during my 30 years of boat ownership. They are now in a new small special plastic box (making more room in the first box for other tiny things) and then found I  -- one that fit the drain hole. While in the lazarette I pulled out very many lengths and diameters of cordage and coiled each neatly. But before returning them I need Lene to come to the boat to throw out some that are too old, frayed or short to be useful; I'm horrible at throwing things away and she is good at this -- we complement each other. And then I scrubbed many years of accumulated grime form the bottom of the lazarette.  ILENE is ready for her winter projects.