Dinner Key Marina

I spent the better part of Wednesday on an IP-420 located at Dinner Key Marina, Miami.

The trip over was great but once I got onto I-95 that all changed and then when 95 turned into US-1 all bets were off......  Welcome to MEE AH MEE.

I was here to take a look at a freezer that had been causing the owner some difficulty.  A fellow from a local Refrigeration Company had worked on the unit earlier, told the owner that the compressor was bad, then added R134a.  When I climbed into the lazarette I was shocked - over 1" of ice on the copper tubing coming out of the freezer nearly all the way back to the compressor.  The system was SERIOUSLY overcharged.

I used a heat gun and melted the ice then slowly began reducing the charge in the system.  Finally got the charge corrected and the unit appears to be running properly but there may still be some issues.  One is that the compressor is fitted with a Danfoss AEO module (Adaptive Energy Optimizer) that is supposed to make the unit more efficient but this did not appear to be working.  There may also be an issue with the compressor but won't know till the owner reports back on the box temperature today. 
 

Planned Kerrville Home

This is a rough approximation of the exterior style we are planning for our new home.  Will have only 2 dormers (larger) instead of the 3 in this photo. 

No longer owners

We completed the sale of Grainne today and it was rougher than I had expected for Lesley.  We've really enjoyed our years aboard and that showed some today after closing.

The sale was made much easier as the new owners were great to deal with and are really, really, excited to be the new owners of "Our" boat. They are going to change the name and at least for the next month or two I'll be able to continue some maintenance work onboard, do the teak, and show them, quite literally, the ropes.

In the meantime we've hired an architect in Kerrville to help us come up with blue prints for our new home.

Lagoon 450

For a major part of this summer I worked on a Lagoon 450 here in the marina.  I'm not going to trash the boat - but let me say that the boat might be fine for a typical Caribbean "Charter Operation" but no way was it designed for all of the stuff that was installed on it this summer in prep for a trip around the world.  One major issue on the boat was that there was absolutely ZERO access for the installation of any additional cables, plumbing, etc. But we were still tasked with the installation of more stuff than I ever thought possible.  To the point that the owner was concerned with exceeding the boats design weight!

With that said - here is a post that the owner made in regard to a water maker problem:   


".......Once we cleared the marina, J... flipped the switch to start making fresh water. It wasn't working, which meant P.. and J... had to start troubleshooting what was wrong. P.. called the water maker installers and our contractor, S....., and started going through the steps of tracing down the problem. They saw water coming out and realized there was a leak. The only problem was that where the lines were run, it was a narrow opening and you couldn't see through it. Instead of running the lines through a bulkhead, the installers jammed the line through a narrow opening that was there, not knowing what was sharing that space. Instead of installing it properly, they took shortcuts and put us at risk. P.. and J... were able to pull enough line out to find the hose kinked. They patched a leak made by the kink and the water maker started working again."

I didn't install the water maker but was on the boat when it was installed and NO WAY WAS IT INSTALLED IMPROPERLY..................NOR WERE ANY SHORTCUTS TAKEN.   

PS:  The installer operated the watermaker for the owner here in the marina and it worked fine. 

Oh well...................