No longer sailing or boating

We've moved from Florida to Kerrville, Texas where we are building our home.  You can follow along here  Grainne moves to Texas

Last Boat Project

I finished my last boat project yesterday, a complete electrical rewiring project on a Catalina 32.  The wiring on the boat was an absolute mess and stuff was located all over the place.

  Nothing was labeled, no color codes were followed, push on terminals were soldered to breakers and the panel back lighting was from the Flintstones!

After cleaning out all of the old wiring:

I started from scratch.  I install a new Starboard mounting board for the new bus bars.

Then, since the old wiring harness was old brittle untinned copper wire, I ran new marine grade wiring from the DC terminal strip up to the new Blue Sea Systems breaker panel.

The final steps in this project included reinstalling the VHF and AM/FM radio in more accessible locations, removing and replacing an old Heart Interface inverter/charger, installing a LinkLite battery monitor, replacing the galvanic isolator, testing each circuit and then cleaning up my mess!

Now that I'm finished I can focus on our upcoming move to Kerrville!

We nearly filled up the first POD, a 16 footer and then this was picked up and a smaller 7 footer was left behind.  Will finish gutting the house on Wednesday 14 June and then this last POD will join it big brother enroute to storage in San Antonio.

Podzilla with POD Jr on the way to our drive.

Bye for now!

Gra'inne is going back to Maine!

We had quite a surprise yesterday afternoon.  Our old sailboat showed up in the marina here and we went aboard and had a great visit with the new owner and his family.  I'm going down to Fort Myers on Saturday to go over boat systems and visit.

More later

Bad day like none other

I've been working on an Island Packet this summer and had completed electronics upgrades and finishing up some interior finish work.  I noticed that 3 USB chargers had failed and didn't think much about it - got them all replaced.  Then a week or so later I noticed that the battery charger was dead, curious but still no alarms went off.  Replaced it and everything was fine.  Next, noticed that the wind indicator was no longer on the mast but I've been busy so still no alarms.  Then the owner was onboard over night and indicated that the reefer was tripping the breaker - took a look the next day and alarm sounded.  Compressor was dead which was strange as we had used the unit when we moved the boat from Dry Storage to the Marina in July.

Thorough check of all system and wiring indicated a mess - nearly everything electronic/electrical on the boat was dead.

I went up the mast the other day to reinstall a new wind instrument and remove what was left of the VHF antenna and masthead tricolor and the damage was obvious.

Autopilot, plotter, instruments, radar, antenna switchers, engine electronics, alternator regulator, all toast!

Hope your day is better!

Lewis Agility Video

We took Lewis to practice agility on 9/16 and was able to capture this video.  He does really well when it is just us in the session!

Lewis does Agility Practice 

Land clearing

We were able to get the crew in to remove the Cedar trees that we wanted cleared on Saturday.  They started at 8:00 and by 3:30 they were finished.  We were amazed at the look of the lot when they were finished.

I called the Fire Dept to see if I needed a burn permit and they said no, the burn ban has been lifted (plenty of rain lately), told me to let the Sheriff's Dept know just in case.  So I did that yesterday and picked up the supplies I needed and set out this morning to get rid of the brush.

I eventually set fire to three different areas along the edge of the brush pile.  I used kerosene and newspaper and with the wind from the right direction at about 10mph things progressed nicely.  This photo shows the brush pile after the second fire was started.

By 12:30 most of the brush was gone, stumps were nearly gone and smoldering, and smoke had died down quite a bit.  Plan to go over about 6:00 this evening and see what's left.

546 Estates Drive

We spent the day on our property yesterday marking tress for removal and looking at the wildlife and just checking things out.

Lewis was every alert for any threats to his family.

Then chasing down anything that might get to close.

Lesley is out at the Agriculture extension office and running errands.  I'm taking it easy today!