The good news is that the crew at Camachee Yacht Yard are making amazing progress (as promised). Halyard replacement, fresh water system pressure repair, teak refinishing, bottom paint, main engine maintenance, dinghy motor maintenance, and SSB radio installation are all underway.
But there is bad news as well. Routine inspection of the drive train found a damaged cutlass bearing. During replacement of the cutlass bearing, damage to the propeller shaft was found. Both of these problems were undoubtedly caused by electrolysis. In any case, the yard is making up a new shaft and will get it replaced during the course of the week. As long as the boat is hauled and the shaft out, I have decided to upgrade the stuffing box with a dripless PSS shaft seal. This is an upgrade for more of Llyrical's systems.
We had evidence of a problem when we brought Llyrical south down the ICW in fall of 2008. There was some unexpected vibration through the drive train and the stately drip.... drip..... drip..... of the stuffing box turned into an enthusiastic spray while our manual bilge stroke count went from 2-3 strokes per hour to 25-30 strokes per hour. The stuffing box was adjusted upon arrival, but I have been worried about an underlying problem since.
Our timeline is only slightly altered. Llyrical should be splashed on Friday, so we can't go over Thursday and sleep aboard. We're planning to go on Friday instead. This may have minor implications for departure. It may be Sunday rather than Saturday. - John
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Monday, March 8, 2010
T-5 Days and Counting
"Victory awaits those who have everything in order? People call that luck.
Defeat is certain for those who have forgotten to take the necessary precautions in time ? That is called bad luck." Ronald Amundson 14 December 1911
Preparations continue apace. Provisioning is almost complete. Sandra fears that we have more food than the freezer can hold. I fear that we have more than we can eat. In contrast, we are short of wine (been known to drink that) but long on liquor (which we drink rarely). After corresponding with Carl, I became worried about the challenge of getting fuel, water, and provisions to the boat on smaller islands . In response, I purchased a folding hand truck. It seems like a pretty useful item. We'll see...
We still need to find a replacement for our erratic but discontinued ship's chronometer, but we're getting close to the end of our preparations. I will call Camachee Yacht Yard today to see if we are on schedule. Victory awaits! - John
Defeat is certain for those who have forgotten to take the necessary precautions in time ? That is called bad luck." Ronald Amundson 14 December 1911
Preparations continue apace. Provisioning is almost complete. Sandra fears that we have more food than the freezer can hold. I fear that we have more than we can eat. In contrast, we are short of wine (been known to drink that) but long on liquor (which we drink rarely). After corresponding with Carl, I became worried about the challenge of getting fuel, water, and provisions to the boat on smaller islands . In response, I purchased a folding hand truck. It seems like a pretty useful item. We'll see...
We still need to find a replacement for our erratic but discontinued ship's chronometer, but we're getting close to the end of our preparations. I will call Camachee Yacht Yard today to see if we are on schedule. Victory awaits! - John
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Victory at Sea
"Victory awaits those who have everything in order? People call that luck. Defeat is certain for those who have forgotten to take the necessary precautions in time ? That is called bad luck." Ronald Amundson 14 December 1911
We will contact Camachee Yacht Yard today to find out if the SSB install and maintenance items are on schedule. If so, we depart for Llyrical and St. Augustine on Thursday with departure down the ICW on Saturday. More provisioning going on over the week-end. Sandra now is expressing concern that we have more for the freezer than it will hold. I am expressing concern that we will never be able to eat/drink our way through all the food and booze we are putting aboard. On the other hand, I believe we are short of wine. I purchased a folding hand truck meant to help fueling, water and reprovisioning. We'll see... - John
We will contact Camachee Yacht Yard today to find out if the SSB install and maintenance items are on schedule. If so, we depart for Llyrical and St. Augustine on Thursday with departure down the ICW on Saturday. More provisioning going on over the week-end. Sandra now is expressing concern that we have more for the freezer than it will hold. I am expressing concern that we will never be able to eat/drink our way through all the food and booze we are putting aboard. On the other hand, I believe we are short of wine. I purchased a folding hand truck meant to help fueling, water and reprovisioning. We'll see... - John
Saturday, March 6, 2010
7 Days to Go
We are trying to get our household affairs under control. For example, we have to file our tax return!!! We are stacking gear in the garage in anticipation of departure on Thursday afternoon. I will be making a run out today for food storage bags and chocolate bars. Sandra is trying to get a spare pair of glasses later today.
On the technical front. I'm still grappling with the largely theoretical question of how to do weatherfax using the Icom M802 HF radio and my Dell (you don't really need a serial port) laptop. I say it's theoretical because I haven't even see the radio yet. It will be waiting for us when we get to the boat at the end of next week. Information that I've found conflicts but here is the general idea: NOAA thoughtfully takes its weather charts as greyscale fax images and and encodes them into frequency modulated radio signals. I should be able to receive these signals on the Icom and send them to my laptop to demodulate and display them. The first and last parts should be fairly straightforward. The challenge seems to be interfacing the radio and the computer. One possibility is to run an audio cable from the headphone jack on the control head of the radio to the mike jack on the laptop. While this sounds like a natural, I have generally found individuals reporting failure who try this. A second, related option, is to use the speaker output on the radio's base unit. I don't have much data on this approach. Another pair of possibilities is to use one of the radio's serial ports. One is designed for computer communication so perfect, right? The other serial port is provided for a modem, so that sounds pretty good, too. The primary problem with this approach is that I have no serial port on my laptop. However, there are serial to USB interface cables. I don't know whether audio can be transmitted via USB but since it is a "universal" serial bus, it seems like it should. I have also seen serial to audio conversion cables, but that approach uses 3 of the 9 pins on the RS232C end and I have to be sure that the right pins are used. Some folks make their own, but I am like Jack the Ripper with a soldering iron. Expensive adjacent components are likely to melt into a messy slag of molten solder when I try to do anything delicate.
With all of these alternatives, there is still a great deal of uncertainty present. The software does not easily match up with the input signal. I am theorizing this is largely because the signal at the laptop has too much amplitude, but I don't really know.
What to do? I think I will try to obtain cables for all 3 approaches: 1) audio, 2) serial to USB, 3) serial to audio and try them all. It's wasteful, but once we are underway, obtaining the cables gets difficult to impossible. - John
On the technical front. I'm still grappling with the largely theoretical question of how to do weatherfax using the Icom M802 HF radio and my Dell (you don't really need a serial port) laptop. I say it's theoretical because I haven't even see the radio yet. It will be waiting for us when we get to the boat at the end of next week. Information that I've found conflicts but here is the general idea: NOAA thoughtfully takes its weather charts as greyscale fax images and and encodes them into frequency modulated radio signals. I should be able to receive these signals on the Icom and send them to my laptop to demodulate and display them. The first and last parts should be fairly straightforward. The challenge seems to be interfacing the radio and the computer. One possibility is to run an audio cable from the headphone jack on the control head of the radio to the mike jack on the laptop. While this sounds like a natural, I have generally found individuals reporting failure who try this. A second, related option, is to use the speaker output on the radio's base unit. I don't have much data on this approach. Another pair of possibilities is to use one of the radio's serial ports. One is designed for computer communication so perfect, right? The other serial port is provided for a modem, so that sounds pretty good, too. The primary problem with this approach is that I have no serial port on my laptop. However, there are serial to USB interface cables. I don't know whether audio can be transmitted via USB but since it is a "universal" serial bus, it seems like it should. I have also seen serial to audio conversion cables, but that approach uses 3 of the 9 pins on the RS232C end and I have to be sure that the right pins are used. Some folks make their own, but I am like Jack the Ripper with a soldering iron. Expensive adjacent components are likely to melt into a messy slag of molten solder when I try to do anything delicate.
With all of these alternatives, there is still a great deal of uncertainty present. The software does not easily match up with the input signal. I am theorizing this is largely because the signal at the laptop has too much amplitude, but I don't really know.
What to do? I think I will try to obtain cables for all 3 approaches: 1) audio, 2) serial to USB, 3) serial to audio and try them all. It's wasteful, but once we are underway, obtaining the cables gets difficult to impossible. - John
Friday, March 5, 2010
Counting down... 8 days till departure...
If all goes well, we will leave on Saturday. Llyrical is lying up in St Augustine for installation of an SSB, sealing of the teak toe-rails, and a myriad of small but expensive maintenance items. Sandie and I are in Tallahassee, handling business, provisioning and getting ready. John
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