What a busy day we have had. I hardly know where to begin but the early hours were spent getting ready for our diver who was coming to reinstall the props. Had to remove the dinghy and fold the davits back.
Brent, from Suncoast, arrived and began the job. One of the blades was an inch out of line on the portside and both needed work. We have got to quit running aground. Between the two of us we have done this a total of three times on this trip.
While Brent was diving we talked to his girlfriend who is a neo-natal nurse and passed him tools whenever he popped up. There was a problem with the portside prop not fitting right on the shaft. It must have been very frustrating. Then another diver named Chris showed up to clean the bottom of the next boat over. I knew who he was because he had lost out on this job and was not very happy to see another diver in his territory. The more times Brent had to pull that prop back off and try again, the sharper the comments were from Chris. After a while he actually jumped in the water and went down to interfere with Brent. This was not looking good. Finally Chris used some pretty vile language as Brent was coming out of the water. I eased between them and Chris moved away. None of this was helping get my prop on. Luckily for Chris, Brent was sensible and decided to let it go because Brent was half again as big and not an ounce of fat on him. He would have wiped the dock with Chris. I later reported this to the club because they need to be aware of a potential troublemaker. I did find out from Brent that there is a history here I was unaware of. Apparently Suncoast had more work than they could cover and gave Chris a job to install a set of props and he put them on backwards. In a twin engine boat there is a left and right hand prop. If you put them on the wrong side the boat will run backwards when you put it in forward. Brent had to go back and correct it rather than give Chris a second chance. It would have been exciting if there had been an actual fight but my guess is both would have either been arrested or asked to leave the property and I would be stuck with a boat with only one propeller. All is well that ends well.
The new battery charger arrived at West and Ray kindly drove me to get it while dropping Jan at the Publix for supplies. I have installed it and it is humming right along. A Charles SP2000 40 amp made in the good old USA. I will bet it beats the heck out of those Chinese ones I had been using.
Cleaned the Walker Air Seps. These are filters on the turbos. There is a six step process to clean and re-oil them. It takes several hours because they have to be sprayed with a chemical, washed, dried, reoiled and put back on. It was way after dark when I finally emerged from the engine room. I will be sore tomorrow.
Speaking of turbos I am not sure if I ever told you what became of our friends Wayne and Francine on My Way. You may recall they blew a new turbo back at Fairhope, AL and had to leave their boat there. Well, I called Wayne to check on the progress and got the shock of this trip. They had to replace the whole engine at a cost of $52,000.00!!! None of this is covered by insurance and the turbo remanufacturer is denying all liability. That really hurts. Makes me ashamed to complain about our little incident. Wayne said they were taking the boat out for sea trials yesterday and would hope to begin catching up to us soon. We look forward to seeing how much Skipper the Portuguese Waterdog has grown.
Jan said if we had a $52,000.00 incident they would have to carry me home in an ambulance and she is right about that.
We hopefully start moving toward Sarasota in the morning. Some rough weather is moving in and we may have to stop short at Treasure Island because crossing Tampa Bay could be risky. Watch us on the SPOT to see our progrss if any. Of course all this depends on whether the boat passes the vibration test when we start out. Keep your fingers crossed.
Brent, from Suncoast, arrived and began the job. One of the blades was an inch out of line on the portside and both needed work. We have got to quit running aground. Between the two of us we have done this a total of three times on this trip.
While Brent was diving we talked to his girlfriend who is a neo-natal nurse and passed him tools whenever he popped up. There was a problem with the portside prop not fitting right on the shaft. It must have been very frustrating. Then another diver named Chris showed up to clean the bottom of the next boat over. I knew who he was because he had lost out on this job and was not very happy to see another diver in his territory. The more times Brent had to pull that prop back off and try again, the sharper the comments were from Chris. After a while he actually jumped in the water and went down to interfere with Brent. This was not looking good. Finally Chris used some pretty vile language as Brent was coming out of the water. I eased between them and Chris moved away. None of this was helping get my prop on. Luckily for Chris, Brent was sensible and decided to let it go because Brent was half again as big and not an ounce of fat on him. He would have wiped the dock with Chris. I later reported this to the club because they need to be aware of a potential troublemaker. I did find out from Brent that there is a history here I was unaware of. Apparently Suncoast had more work than they could cover and gave Chris a job to install a set of props and he put them on backwards. In a twin engine boat there is a left and right hand prop. If you put them on the wrong side the boat will run backwards when you put it in forward. Brent had to go back and correct it rather than give Chris a second chance. It would have been exciting if there had been an actual fight but my guess is both would have either been arrested or asked to leave the property and I would be stuck with a boat with only one propeller. All is well that ends well.
The new battery charger arrived at West and Ray kindly drove me to get it while dropping Jan at the Publix for supplies. I have installed it and it is humming right along. A Charles SP2000 40 amp made in the good old USA. I will bet it beats the heck out of those Chinese ones I had been using.
Cleaned the Walker Air Seps. These are filters on the turbos. There is a six step process to clean and re-oil them. It takes several hours because they have to be sprayed with a chemical, washed, dried, reoiled and put back on. It was way after dark when I finally emerged from the engine room. I will be sore tomorrow.
Speaking of turbos I am not sure if I ever told you what became of our friends Wayne and Francine on My Way. You may recall they blew a new turbo back at Fairhope, AL and had to leave their boat there. Well, I called Wayne to check on the progress and got the shock of this trip. They had to replace the whole engine at a cost of $52,000.00!!! None of this is covered by insurance and the turbo remanufacturer is denying all liability. That really hurts. Makes me ashamed to complain about our little incident. Wayne said they were taking the boat out for sea trials yesterday and would hope to begin catching up to us soon. We look forward to seeing how much Skipper the Portuguese Waterdog has grown.
Jan said if we had a $52,000.00 incident they would have to carry me home in an ambulance and she is right about that.
We hopefully start moving toward Sarasota in the morning. Some rough weather is moving in and we may have to stop short at Treasure Island because crossing Tampa Bay could be risky. Watch us on the SPOT to see our progrss if any. Of course all this depends on whether the boat passes the vibration test when we start out. Keep your fingers crossed.