Ramblings

Ocean Maiden Voyage

Chris — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 05:37:28 +0000

Well it happened. The universe converged to make it so. It started with the rockfish season being lengthened by a month. Then it was between storms where it laid down for a few days and I actually had some time I could take off work. It would be my first day off this year where I was not studying. The final element is that Trent deigned to have time as well. So Sunday afternoon, after doing all my assigned “honey do’s” the hall pass was valid. I headed to Carmel and after an uneventful road trip I arrived and we did the usual prep and big food and beer drinking. Perfect! When we went to launch at the Monterey Coast Guard jetty we noticed there was more wind than forecasted. Hmmm. The harbor was still though so we were hopeful.

On the run around to Carmel, our normal fishing grounds, there was more swell than expected as well.

We motored around looking for a less windy spot with little luck so we hung out and had our cold Safeway breakfast Panini’s off Pebble Beach golf course.

The wind did die down shortly thereafter and the fishing was on. I hooked up pretty quickly and landed my first fish on this boat. A respectable grass rockfish. Then Trent hooked up on a nice lingcod.

Throughout the day we ended up throwing back as many as we kept and finished the day with a ling a piece. An Olive apiece, mine going 19.5” and we kept two grass rockfish each. Weird that we caught no blues though. As we were approaching the harbor we ran into several pods of dolphins. There must have been a lot of them as everywhere we turned there was three or four breaching the surface at any time. We pulled the boat out with my van on a slimy ramp without incident as well. Which ended a great first day in the ocean with fish on the boat without any mishaps!

Seating revamp for spring

Chris — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 21:17:24 +0000

Here is the starting point. Actually I have already redone the captains chair by removing the 4″ booster and replacing the seat slide. Now if you are driving seated you can slide the seat forward. If you want to drive standing you slide it back about 6-8″. This makes it easier to work fish and get into and out of drivers area quickly without getting hung up on things.

Dawn wanted a lounge seat on the port side. It is more lake boat styling and function which is fine by me. If it will make her happy I am cool with it and will probably be used more anyway. Smart gal. Kind of like this.

Here is what I have on order to replace the port pedestal seat. I got the grey/dark blue combo. They don’t make it in Oyster unfortunately which is the color of the hull and deck. Grey is better than Brite White which would have been blinding and stood out like a sore thumb on an old boat.

The existing pedestal seat is currently mounted to far forward to be comfortable. It is a knee basher as it is only inches from the forward bulkhead. The previous owner wanted maximum deck space for fishing. You can kind of see how close it is in this picture.

Here is my idea for behind the starboard captains chair. At the lake this will make for a nice lunch prep spot and when out fishing it can double as a bait station. It will have a sink with cold running water with a tackle center and storage below. Maybe a flip up seat in front. There is also a rod holder just to the right where I can mount a BBQ grill. Could be sweet set up if it comes together as I hope.

Good Progress

Chris — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 23:33:57 +0000

It is brutal working on the boat in 100 degree heat even with shade. I made good progress though by drinking buckets of water while working. I finished wiring both the rear bilge pumps though the new fuse block and everything works. I ran the radar cable into the electronics box. I replaced the captains chair seat slider, which was carroded stuck, and removed the 4″ riser. I had to file off a little bit of a mushroomed flange from the riser but what is left works smooth as butter now. I can slide the seat back and stand at the helm without the chair digging into the back of my legs. I yanked the starting battery and drilled out all the old holes in that area. Then filled them with epoxy. There were almost a dozen I filled. I mounted a new battery plate and attached it with SS screws sealed with 4200. I remounted the battery and nothing moves around now. What a novel concept on a boat. I will deal with the house battery next time. The charger got mounted and I used it to charge both the batteries last night so they are nice and topped off. The Battery Bug on the starting battery confirmed this. Then I vacuumed out the bilge and the rest of the area under the decks. Amazing how much crap was in the bilge just waiting to clog the pumps. All I really want to do is get the battery switch and VSR mounted. Then most things after that are optional and don’t have a time urgency. I spent a lot of time running wires properly and re-looming them wherever I could. More and more is getting dialed in and secured. Now it is time to get her back in the water. Ocean or lake, I am easy. Sorry no pictures this weekend. My wife lent her old camera, that I use, to a friend at school until she can buy her own. Smart phone pictures just dont’ cut it. Maybe next time.

Productive weekend working on boat.

Chris — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 02:24:41 +0000

Man I made huge progress on the fixing and upgrading the boat. Installed my old GPS and radar. Eventually I hope to figure out how to get my exisitng thruhull sonar unit hooked up to GPS. Upgraded an old bilge pump and installed an emergency backup bilge pump. Cleaned up more wiring and installed a fuse block to run the bilge pumps. Didn’t finish the final wiring but that should be fairly easy now that everything is mounted. A big thanks to my wife for handling the kids and letting me work on the boat for the weekend. Also a big thanks to Lee from work who came by and shared his considerable boat repair skills.

Here is a link to my pictures and notes: http://www.flickr.com/photos/9489480@N03/

Family Boating Maiden Voyage

Chris — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 03:14:48 +0000

Well it finally happened. We made it out the the lake on the boat as a family. Initially we didn’t have Kyle but his Dad and him were already at the lake and we met up to get Kyle late afternoon. Dawn did great as a first mate and rose to the occasion on the things I asked her to do. She is a boat newbie you know. She ran the boat while we were anchoring and was like an old pro. Anchoring was a little interesting to start with but we managed. The windlass just move a few spots up the list. Hoisting the anchor manually a handful of times gets old fast. Argh! Erin generously christened the porta-potti not once but twice. Thanks Mom and Dad for the birthday gift. Who is laughing now. Once Erin got in the water we could barely get her out. Dawn and I had to take turns so we wouldn’t get tired out. Erin never stopped moving. Swimming and jumping off the swim platform over and over again. The haul out went smooth as glass with Kyle’s help and on the drive home everyone but Dawn fell asleep. Out like lights. After emptying the boat I cleaned out the porta-potti which was not as bad as I thought it would be. I put the boat back in storage and covered it up for next time. Oh yea top speed was 36.4 mph at around 4100 rpm. My dashboard precludes me going faster as the controls were pressed against it firmly. Ran most of the time at 3500 rpm and 30 mph. The hull eats up lake chop easily, crosses wakes with nary a bump. Having a 25 foot hull really smooths things out. Enough for now. Later.

Sea Ray test drive on Folsom Lake

Chris — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 03:32:06 +0000

Kyle and I ran out for a quick test drive after fixing blower. It worked great and actually moved air out of the bilge. It probably helped that I rerouted the hose so it was not crushed behind the exhaust manifold. The capped through hulls didn’t leak either. Two for two on Sunday. We ran for about an hour and saw a gps speed of 30 mph at 3200 rpm. We got the rpm’s up to 4000 but that is when we were making the video so not sure how fast. I am not sure how accurate a phone gps is anyway. 30 mph will be more than enough on the ocean on even a perfect day anyway. One step closer to being ocean ready!!! Lots of work to do to make the boat a restored classic but it is usable now.

Catching up.

Chris — Tue, 10 May 2011 00:53:13 +0000

Dawn and I are back from a wonderful few days in Seattle. Beautiful city but rainy and I drank to much coffee. What a surprise. There really is a Starbucks on every corner. We walked all over the city and saw all the major sites. Today is catch up day at work and home. The penance for the trip I suppose. Dawn is hanging a painting tonight at VOX for second Saturday’s show this weekend. I am hanging with the rug rats. I hope to finally get a chance to work on the boat this weekend and maybe toss it in the water at Folsom to log a little more time to get familiar with things. I did get a chance to pull the batteries and throw them on the charger before and after my trip. They seem to be holding a charge and good to go. Now I just have to put them back in.

Finally, mostly…

Chris — Tue, 03 May 2011 03:36:35 +0000

We it finally happened after what seemed like and eternity. I have my new trailer for the Sea Ray. They did forget the other spare wheel mount but will be sending along shortly. Other than that the trailer is damn nice! I need to adjust the side guides once the boat settles in so the spacing is correct but other than that it is ready to go. Ford was kind enough not to include a relay with the tow package so technically I still dont’ have brakes yet. A trip to the dealer should fix that. Batteries in the boat got left on during the rains to run the bilge pumps. Apparently they do work but ran down the batteries. It was set to “ALL” which burns down both batteries instead of just one. Argh! Just enough juice to lower the outdrive once we got back to storage. I hope they aren’t ruined as I just bought them. They were the nice a Marine cranking and a dual purpose deep-cycle. I haven’t installed the charger yet so I can’t use it to fix things. I am heading out on business for a few days to Seattle so I can’t work on it this weekend either. Argh!!!! Here are some pictures:

Still waiting…

Chris — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 18:49:11 +0000

I called the trailer shop Tuesday to see if everything was ready for pick up Wednesday. “About that” he said… Turns out that they ordered the wrong axel length. Argh!!! Honest mistake but dang I want my boat back. Summer … Continue reading →

Test drive

Chris — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 21:38:49 +0000

Yesterday’s test drive went well. No overheating and she ran well. With trib tab issues I was able to get a top speed of 32mph out of it at around 4,000 rpm. Only at little water in the bilge after 45 minutes on the lake. I think I have a slow leak in one of the petcocks. One is rusted open and needs to be replaced so I kind of expected that. It is the one that is the poor installation to start with. My Dad and Kyle went with me and Victor met us out there with his boat as a chase boat. That was a hugh piece of mind for me, thanks Victor. We ran around at various speeds for about 45 mintues and the engine temperature stayed between 170 and maybe 185/190 the whole time. It is hard to tell as the guage scaling is kind of poor to start with. I also don’t know if the guage it reads correctly. The boat runs comfortably around 3200-3300 and 24-26mph. Kyle at one point decided to ride in the crows nest and he froze his butt off. I left him up there for a while just to mess with him a little.

Docking at either end of the trip was a little chaotic as I and still learning the throttle and inertia and Kyle is learning to work a dockline and cleat. He is still trying to use muscle over leverage and friction. All and all a good day. Today I am going to fiddle with the trim tabs and trace out some of the wiring then put it back in storage for the week.