First Family Outing Part A

After a reasonably successful trial run as posted earlier, I committed to take my wife Suzy out for her first time on Big Duck. This would happen in about 2 weeks. I also invited my daughter Sara Jane, her husband Trey and my 16 month old grandson Patrick. They would bring their dog Kasey and we would bring our dog Merlin. Four adults, a baby and two dogs would make for a very 'interesting' overnight outing at anchor on a 28' boat.

The Honda EU3000i generator and roof mounted air conditioner had passed all tests.

I installed Seadek foam on the engine hatch and port walkway including swim steps so the dogs could get traction. I'll finish the rest of the aft patio when time permits.

The aft deck had been converted to a playpen with expanding swing away gates on the sides and a piece of plastic lattice across the stern.

The (blue) dinghy could be successfully stowed on the flybridge as shown above.

I ran out of time and along with the remaining Seadek, the Floscan didn't get installed. I also hadn't finished up a score of other non-essential projects...but if you wait until you're ready - you'll never go.

Fill the freshwater tank, pump out the holding tank, start/check the motor, air up the tires on trailer and van, check lights and brakes. Thankfully Suzy and Sara Jane had already procured and stashed all the food and family type essentials for the trip/cruise, and we were off to the gas station to fill up both the van and boat...on one of the hottest days of the year to an area that was generally even hotter. Forecast was for 100+° 100 miles down the road at Lake Murray. We would meet up with Trey, and SJ at the ramp.

We hardly ever pass up a Rest Area. If nothing else, it's a good time to give everything a once-over and empty the dog.

I was a little concerned about the heat. The tires/wheels on the trailer were mighty warm but not quite to blistering a finger yet. We have no real problems pulling Big Duck, except the Interstate run is up hill and down. The van does work pretty hard on the hills, but we don't expect to go 55 mph; I put her on about 2,600 RPM and let her find her own speed. The gauges on this daytime run showed outside temp at 101°, coolant temp at 205° and trans fluid temp at 195°. I really didn't have anything to compare these to, but they seemed to reflect the ambient temp and work needed to negotiate the hills.

Having help at the ramp was a huge blessing. We experimented to see if we could back in far enough to float Big Duck off the trailer but with the rear bumper of the van under water, although she was light at the stern, she still couldn't be pulled loose. I tried tying her to the dock with Trey pulling the trailer out from under her. No go. We finally reverted to the back her down and lock up the brakes method and she came off without further complaint. I do believe we could have powered her off...we'll try that next time and will also lube the bunks while the trailer is empty.

Lit up the generator and turned on the air conditioner. Put the girls, baby and dogs aboard, untie her and it's out onto the lake we all go.

Stay tuned...

 First Family Outing Part B

Sneezing Fits

I'm prone to sneezing fits. Sometimes 15 or 20 in a row - seconds or minutes apart, sometimes 50 or more. The fits leave me totally exhausted if they go on for too long. I have to pull over while driving. At home I've tried holding my breath, holding my nose, laying down, anything that might work, but nothing does.

My faithful dog Merlin, a Goldendoodle, is always by my side before the second sneeze, looking up at me in concern. I tell him, "I'm OK little fella." and he seems a bit relieved, but stays close until I quit sneezing.

Today a sneezing fit came on...I can tell from the first sneeze whether it's a loaner or the beginning of a fit. Merlin came quickly to my side and looked up at me with concern. I said, "Thank you little fella. I'm OK" and buried my face in the soft fur of his neck as a token of my gratefulness for his attention. I love the way he smells; I took a deep sniff...and the sneezing ceased.

Maybe a fluke...maybe he knew all the time how to help.

If this doesn't help I've found one other thing to try:
Get down on your hands and knees with your head on the floor - move your head in as close to your knees as you can...

Monumental Achievemant

Well, I call it monumental for two reasons.
First - it ts the lack of the single modification that has kept my wife from being invited aboard for a cruise, and
Two - it is something that I couldn't have done alone.

The generator is officially 'permanently' installed on the roof of Big Duck and is wired in.

When my son-in-law Trey decided we needed a generator for the camping trailer, he opted for the EU3000i with remote wireless start. I made a temporary enclosure for the generator to keep it out of sight unless it was in service.

The enclosure needed a 'door' on top so we could fill the generator without taking the enclosure off. I put a marine hatch on top.

Then we needed a way to yank the pull starter when the battery was low. I used a marine access port.

Then I put in a front access so we could see the indicator lights and switch the eco-throttle on and off.

Then Trey said, "Let's put a vent on the back for the exhaust so we don't have to take the enclosure off while it's running." So I installed the exhaust vent and lo and behold we had a generator that could provide power to the camper while being totally out of sight.

When I bought Big Duck, Trey said the camper generator would be a good fit for the boat. I said, "You bought the generator - it should stay with the camper."

Trey said, "You paid for half of the generator and bought everything needed to make the installation - including the 'temporary' enclosure, fittings and wiring. It belongs on the boat."

I'm still not sure who paid what, and it doesn't matter. What does matter is the relationship we have. And today he helped me make the EU3000i a permanent part of Big Duck. And it seems like the temporary enclosure is now...permanent.

The generator enclosure had a base on the camper tongue.

The enclosure slid down over the base. That base was mounted directly to the tongue. For installation on Big Duck, I put rubber doorstop feet on the base to allow circulation below the base when mounted on the roof.

The roof of my Land-N-Sea is about a 3/16"  fiberglass layer over several inches of foam with another fiberglass layer as the ceiling inside...not the best strata for a firm grip. My solution was to mount the base to the boat's roof with two 3/16" stainless studs. This was accomplished by getting a couple feet of stainless all thread and making 4 2" discs of 1/4 plastic. Careful measuring suggested that the mounting studs could be configured to exit inside the overhead locker in the head. We'd then slip the base over the studs and bolt it down.

We got lucky on the holes and they came through exactly as planned inside the locker. A nut, then stainless flat washer, then the plastic disc were used on the all thread inside the locker, then the all thread was pushed up through the hole and measured topsides for the proper length through the roof and enclosure base.

The stud was secured to the roof by placing first the plastic disc, then the stainless washer, than the nut torqued only snug, using appropriate selant and loctite. The base was then placed over the stud and fastened with a stainless washer and nut. This way the roof wasn't deformed by compressing the foam, but we still got a very secure attachment.

We then fitted a power cord from the generator to the shore power inlet that I had put in on the port side of the cabin at the stern. An exceptionally clean and very satisfying installation.
Fill hatch:

Front access door:

Manual start port, exhaust vent and heat alarm:

To top it off, Trey wired in a small battery maintainer for the Honda starting battery in the dinette seat locker. This would maintain the battery while on shore power in the back yard. I need to sanitize it, but it's fully functional.

Trey had a little more time so he decided to hard wire a 30 amp outlet to the outside of my garage for the shore power cord. I had him put it up at the eve so I wouldn't have to lift it while mowing.

I made a commitment to take Trey and my daughter Sara Jane and my 15 month old grandson Patrick shown at the flybridge helm,

and their dog Kasey, along with me and wife Suzy and our dog Merlin for a weekend on the lake in two weeks.

Kasey and Merlin on a previous boat outing.

Faucets

Yesterday it was 15° cooler than it has been so I was inspired to do a little boatwork in the now 85° temps. I undertook faucet replacements for both the galley and head.

I seldom go in with guns blazing, I'll almost always try a little finesse first. The package for the new fixtures said I'd need a scraper, adjustable wrench and safety glasses...and don't forget the (flexible) supply hoses which were not included.

I decided to do the galley first. I've replaced these before. Turn off the water, undo the supply hoses and twist off the large hold down nuts on the underside of the counter. This can be a little cumbersome, because there's never enough room between the sink and wall to get hands or tools up in there comfortably.

The first discovery on this 40 year old fixture was that there is no supply hose. The flared copper line attaches directly to the fixture. Those fittings weren't too difficult to remove even considering the fight with the adjustment on the adjustable wrench while jamming my head sideways between the shelves and then not having any room for my arms/hands.

I thought it would be wise to leave the copper line in place while I removed the big nuts holding the fixture to the counter. I couldn't get the adjustable wrench up in there at all so a trip to the shop to get an open end wrench and a beer ensued. I always get a handful of wrenches because I have no talent in choosing the correct size, but none of them fit.

I went to the shop entertaining the idea of making a custom wrench for the job, but decided to pull the copper lines away and undo the nuts with a socket.

I went back to the boat with a handfull of sockets and another beer. None of the sockets I tried fit well enough to move the stubborn nut.

OK, so another trip to the shop to get some deepwell sockets and another you know what.

The 1 1/8" deepwell would only bump it's way around the locked tight nut. The 1 1/16 wouldn't go over the nut. Could these damn things be metric? Only one way to find out...

Big sockets are seldom used, and even less used are the big metric ones, but I had previously needed a 1+" socket and had gone to Harbor Freight with my 20% off coupon to buy a set. They were out of stock on the american size but the nut I had brought as a sample fit well enough in one of the metric sockets, so I bought the 3/4" drive metric set.

So now I'm wedged under the counter with this humoungous 3/4" drive and guess what? I find the 27mm socket fits perfectly. Hooray! I need to trade the breaker bar for the ratchet because there's no room to move the huge breaker bar, then get ready to break her loose.

A little grunt and she finally moves. A few clicks of the ratchet and I get her turning, but something doesn't feel right. I learn that the nut is not coming loose, the whole fitting is turning inside the fixture.

Back to the shop for a big pair of vicegrips to hold the top part from turning and another well earned beer. Finally the nut comes off. The other side of the fixture didn't stand a chance because the finesse was well behind me and I had reloaded both guns.

OK, now how to reattach the new faucet? Should I just run the copper up to the inlet on the new faucet? But wait, the new facuet isn't designed to take a flared fitting. Maybe I could take the plastic flair adapter out of the old faucet fitting and use it in the new faucet. But alas, the adapter doesn't fit into the new faucet.

I dug up a couple 1/2" plastic close nipples which would accept the plastic flare adapters.

I fitted the adapter to the nipple and screwed the nipple onto the flared copper line, then fitted the supply hose, which in turn connected to the inlet of the new fixture. Oops, I was so excited I forgot to put the big nuts on first - take it apart and screw the fixture to the counter, then reattach the supply.

Now onto the head.
I took the door off the cabinet then had a good look at what was in store.

This would be a piece of cake - easy access and plenty of clearance and my 27mm socket was handy. The extraction of this fixture was straightforward and accomodating, but I did notice that the flexible hose for the fuel tank vent was severely kinked...

I decided to modify the head fixture to take the flare adapter. This meant relieving the intake diameter about 1/16" which I did by hand with a drill bit in the vice.

Now the new head faucet would take the flare adapters fitted with a little caulk.

I thought it odd that these fixtures only needed 1/4 turn from off to full on and there was a solid stop in each direction. It turns out that these cheap plastic fixtures use a sliding valve, not the traditional screw down type. What do you want for $9?

I then started playing with R2D2, but that's an entry for a different day.

Bearing Buddies

I wouldn't take them off my boat trailer, but I wouldn't put them on either.

What do they do? They keep positive pressure in your hub - to keep water out.

How do they do it? By using a spring loaded sealed grease chamber which you pressurize by pumping in grease, some of them even bleed off excess grease/pressure.

Why am I not a fan of such a marvel?

First, if the hub is full of grease, you don't need pressure to keep the water out...the grease will keep the water out.

Second, it's possible to have the correct pressure in the hub (the red line is visable) and yet have no grease on the bearing.

Third ,almost everyone who uses these devices carries a grease gun and tops off their bearing buddies,  or re-pressurizes them at regular intervals. Why is this necessary? I'll tell you why. Grease, unlike gasoline, isn't consumed - how often do you have to add grease to your car bearings? So if I pump grease in at regular intervals, where is it going? It's replacing space that should have been filled with grease to begin with, or it's pushing grease past the rear seal into the brakes. And it may even be pushing contaminated grease or water into the bearing as it moves the grease from the dust cap to the rear seal then out into the brakes.

Did you ever lose one? I sure have. Do you know what the driver behind you thinks when he sees that hunk of metal coming toward his windshield? And now you're without a Bearing Buddy and the innerds of your hub are exposed - Oh My! The world will come to an end...maybe I need to carry a spare (or two or three). The fact is, they call them a dust cap for a reason - to keep out dust...but a little dust isn't going to have any effect on a properly packed bearing - even when submerged, at least it's never been a problem for me.

Bearing Buddies do do some good though. They bring an awareness that mechanical parts are present and those parts do require a bit of maintainence for a long service life.

For you grease pumpers, there is a hub system that does what it's supposed to do. It's known by several different names (EZ Lube, Posi Lube, Spindle Lube)...what they do is direct that fresh grease behind the inner bearing, and as you pump, the new grease forces all the old grease out of the hub (at the dust cap). You not only repack your bearings (and completely fill the hub cavity) but can also examine the grease that comes out of the hub to see if it indicates pending bearing trouble.

I guess I might as well touch on oil bath hubs too - the kind the big rigs use. From my perspective, oil bath hubs are a solution to a problem that doesn't exist, not to mention they require special parts which are not convenient to obtain in an emergency. Fill the hub with grease when you pack the bearings and you're good to go for thousands of miles - which is what you'll be doing if one of your oil bath components fail on the road.

Merlin

Folks have asked me about my dog Merlin.

He told me he wanted to be a Therapy Dog and was welcomed into the Paws2Care program shortly after his first birthday. He's now 2 1/2 and although we don't keep track, he's probably been on 50 visits to retirement communities, hospitals (including Shriners), churches, schools and others.

He loves boating and the water...

Here's a little blurb I did on him a while back.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Near our house there is a hospital. Next to the hospital is a small glen with a 1/4 mile blacktop walking trail around it. Up past the glen is a fountain w/ pond. Merlin and I regularly walk the path and up and around the pond, and sometimes even around the hospital.

Last Sunday Merlin and I headed over to the path. On a Sunday morning there's no one else around so I let Merlin off the leash. He stays close and often stops and turns around to make sure he's not 'out of bounds'. When he turns around, I shout, "Good Boy!" to let him know I have no concerns.

We had a good walk, even around the hospital, returning to the path. I was engrossed in the Spring landscape as Merlin stopped at the top of the hill and looked at me, then away. "Good Boy!" I told him and he disappeared over the hill. Being that he was out of sight, I quickened my pace and topped the hill.

There he was, standing completely still, looking my way, waiting for me to see him. He was standing in the middle of the pond. As soon as our eyes met, he pranced off to the beach with a mutually understood, "Gotcha!".

I love that dog. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Merlin is a GoldenDoodle, 1/2 Golden Retriever - 1/2 Poodle. He weighs about 50 pounds and is as cuddly and loving as he looks.

His motto is:

The whole world is a playground.

All livinng things are playmates,

Everything else is a toy.

Joy and enthusiasm, every day in every way.

Roof Air Conditioner for the Boat - EU3000i Generator

With the help of a couple friends, we relocated the Honda EU3000i generator from our travel trailer

to the roof of Big Duck.

Then the experimenting began. Here's what we learned.

All my documentation says we have a 9,000 BTU roof mount air conditioner. Our first test was to try the roof a/c and my 9,000 BTU R2D2 unit on shore power at the same time. After about 30 mins the 20 amp supply breaker in the garage tripped, indicating that we'd need over 20 amps to run both.

We relocated the shore power to a 30 amp circuit in the garage and both air conditioners ran fine, except the 9,000 BTU R2D2 output was very lacking compared to the 9,000 BTU roof mount a/c. And the R2D2 cooling wasn't very satisfying as it tried to cool the helm area. The roof a/c, as usual, did a great job cooling the dinette.

We then tried to run the roof a/c and R2D2 from generator power. We first cut in the roof mount a/c which didn't phase the 3kw unit, then kicked in the 9,000 BTU's of R2D2. The generator immediately overloaded. We then tried running R2D2 first, then bringing in the roof a/c, but the results were the same.

My electrical engineer S-I-L Trey, couldn't believe we were overloading the generator with two 9,000 BTU units, so we tore into the roof a/c to get specs to find out why it was so inefficient and found a plate that said it was designed to draw 14.6 amps running.

This didn't seem right to him for so few BTU's so we dug deeper and got the model number, then went to the Internet. We discovered the roof a/c was not a 9,000 BTU unit, but was in fact a 13,500 BTU unit. This quickly answered our question as to why the R2D2 output seemed so feeble compared to the roof mount unit. But this also negated our potential to significantly increase cooling by going to a 15,000 BTU rooftop unit. And anything over 15,000 BTU would require a generator upgrade.

In conclusion, we decided the R2D2 unit didn't warrant the space it took up for cooling it provided, so it has to go. A high velocity squirrel cage fan can provide marginally acceptable cooling for the helm by blasting the 13,500 BTU air from the dinette forward, but it isn't a permanent solution and probably wouldn't be workable for a scortching hot day especially with the heat generated by extra crew. The challenge now is to somehow make the existing roof mount 13,5000 BTU a/c and EU3000i generator get the job done.

Cover for the 3000i