And now the end is near.   But I did it my way.

Launch day was April 7^th, a nice sunny but breezy day. The boat was as ready as I could get her when the crane arrived. We had only been able to run the engine for short bursts so this seemed to be a good opportunity to charge the batteries while getting the engine to working temps. We had had to put the raw water intake hose into a large tub on the deck which was fed by another hose from a tap on the ground.  Unfortunately the demand of the engine outstripped the supply no matter how far the tap was opened. A few minutes was all we had before the tub emptied.

The strops were positioned and up she went into the air, swung out over the water and gently lowered. I jumped on board as the crane was hurrying to get another boat ready for lift behind us. As there was only room for one boat we had to move sharpish.

Engine fired up but after a few seconds it stopped.  Started again, same thing.  Started a third time with the throttle a bit further open. Then she ran OK but didn’t like idle.  Hmmm!!! Into gear and out into the harbour as slowly as possible.  Engine stopped again.  But as the wind was blowing in exactly the direction I wanted I let her drift slowly on while getting the engine running again. The tide was fully in and there is a fixed road bridge that we had to go under, but not until the tide dropped enough for that, so by dint of some strong language and a bit of pushing and shoving we man aged to tie up to wait.

Eventually there was enough head room so off we went again with the engine running like a bag of nuts until we again tied up in the lower harbour which is open to the sea but tidal. We  were by now too late to do the short journey to Port St Mary as my mooring there would have been high and dry by the time we got there, also I needed to sort out the spluttering engine.

That seemed to indicate some air in the system.

Next day I bled the system manually a couple of times as the tide came in, then fired it up and did the bleed again.. this time with quite a lot of air bubbling out. Tightened it all down and into idle…..  sweet.

Checked all the nuts and bolts and then off we went.  Nothing desperate just a nice fast idle until we were out of the harbour then about half revs. All well so a bit more throttle. She responded well but started bouncing around. Trim miles out I thought. But that can be corrected later. The trip was almost head into a rather choppy sea, so it was a case of up and over then bang into the next wave with spray all over the place.  She didn’t like it at all. So took it very easy until we were tied up safe and sound in Port St Mary. The engine ran perfectly, no vibration and well within pressures and temps.

As we left the boat I rowed round her and could see that she was very bow high. We had taken all the ballast out over the winter and put it back roughly in position.  Next day we went and spent a lot of time shifting it around until the bow was much lower.  A small list to starboard. Cured easily enough after moving large lumps of pig iron around.

Of course the weather will never cooperate when you want it so we had to wait a few day before we could go out again. The next time was a flat day so off we went.

During the interim I had spoken to Kawasaki who could not believe that I had not tried her flat out….both of us be old time bikers…. He with the trials and cross country,,, me on the Isle of Man TT mountain circuit. But I thought about the old saying of Discretion being the better part of valour.

Anyway, of we went. This time she rev’d straight up to 4000. but alas, not the 14 kts I was hoping for. Up to 3000 fine… plenty of push but above that the prop started slipping badly. OK.. we had done all the prop calcs but it was a lot of guesswork.

We got up to 10 kts at 3200 rpm, which is about double the old set up. So that’s a great plus. It means that we now can punch through the tides and currents which run pretty fast around here, and 5 kts will get you nowhere slowly. Two seasons of that showed how not to do it.

The bow was still too high, and there was no way trim tabs were going to fix that. They don’t work until you are well over the hump.

So back to ballast shifting until the bow was lower still, more like the old set up in pics I had.

Checked the engine several times .. nuts and bolts. All in order. Nothing coming loose.

Then we got a lumpy sea with quite a strong wind over it.  Perfect to try it out again.

This time she was much better behaved, punching through it and keeping far more level. The speed kept up as well, though a lot of spray was flying by and over us. Enclosed wheel house is fine for that sort of thing.

I had been using about a gallon an hour with the old 50 hp Perkins.. and had thought we might be using about 3 or more with this engine.  This would have been true had we been able to do the 14 kts, but as we are now limited to 10 at 3200. the result is using 2 galls per hour near enough, which will do very nicely thank you.

The reason for the lack of kts is simple. The gearbox has a 2.13 reduction. so this means the shaft is turning too fast and causing cavitation at the prop. The cure is simple but expensive.  Change the gear ration to about 3:1 and another co****r pitch prop. But that means weeks without the boat, and another £1000 at a rough guess. Neither of which I can afford for now.  That’s a winter job anyway.  But I will get there one day.

So has it been worth it? The answer is a definite YES. The whole undertaking has been interesting, and I think all those years in the engine recon business have not been wasted. Whether I was more lucky than able when lining up the engine to the prop shaft is a moot point, though I like to think it was skill.  Ar least now I have a boat that will do what I want, and the rough trips that we have encountered have increased my respect for this type of hull. 

The only drawback I can see is that the cockpit though great for fishing and deck chair lounging given a hot sunny day is perfect, it is NOT self draining.  Therefore we must never take any water over the transom. I have stood watching a following sea and so far we have never had less than a foot of freeboard. The transom is wide and has a lot of natural buoyancy. It would not be possible to make it so, as scuppers would have to be built through the sides, and the floor sealed, also the floor level is practically at the water line.  Cost again, so if I really needed that I would have to get another boat.

Various trips and the logs for them will follow.

Moving on… part 6  nearing the end now!

After all the excitement and hassle getting the new engine in place and running, things have now slowed down.  The work in the wheelhouse is now finished and all the new panelling is varnished.  Gives a nice warm feeling to it. Made and fitted a bifold door from the wheelhouse into the cabin, such as that is. 

It’s great having that large cockpit which can take 4 rods when out fishing, but if I had my ‘druthers’ I’d rather have had another couple of feet added onto the wheelhouse.  Or maybe have the wheelhouse 2 feet further aft to give room for a proper loo. But as we don’t go far, it’s OK.

So the next job was the dreaded antifoul. Mind you.. before this latest series of gales, I had arranged for the local metal fabricators to come to the boat and measure up for a new rudder skeg. At some point last summer the old one dropped off.  I thought we had touched something a bit harder than the skeg would stand ‘cos it broke off and vanished.

Here's a coupkle of pics showing the new propellor  and it in place. The rudder is now repaired and it can be removed without hassle by just undoing the 4 bolts,,2  top and 2 bottom and sliding it out backwards.

this pic shows the prop in place and the rope cutter adjusted and fixed in place.

In the pic below you can see the new skeg, and the way the rudder can now be removedd easily

But back to the story. Fine days, and under the boat I went with the little chipping hammer and scraper at the ready.

I had noticed that over the years the layers of AF had thickened somewhat. Rather like my waistline with advancing years, and in places were lumpy and looked badly attached. My little hammer soon found out that a few raps was enough to shower me with large flakes of old paint.  So one thing led to another (as the actress said to the bishop) and two days later it was ready for a good power wash.  Now last year I had used one of those domestic ones with fair results but this time I was lent a semi commercial one.  Wow, the crap did fly, in all directions.  Next day showed that more of the little hammer was needed, so the same plan was followed with another power wash after.  Some of that stuff is really really stuck on. So after a discussion with Kawasaki we decided that at the moderate speed we travel at, a bit of rough would probably make little if any difference.  Time will tell.

However. During the above I saw that some of the oak keel band had been damaged and broken off when the skeg left us for other climes. So how to fix it? There is a gap of about 5 feet to be replaced.  So I got a nice piece of oak 4 ins wide by inch thick as this seems to be the size of the original, and had the same firm that made the skeg make three U clamps. I then made housings for the clamps in the timber to stop it moving at all.  Now when the missing piece of oak was in place along with all the rest of it, it was held in place by through bolts. But many years had taken their toll and there was no way I could get at the buried heads of those as they were glassed in under the hull void infill, so the protruding inch had to be ground off.  As they were loose it made a path for any water in the bilges to drain out very slowly. This was OK when the boat had dried out, ( being on a half tide mooring) and the leak was just as slow when she was afloat,

The boat does not have a self draining cockpit, so any rain water goes straight into the bilges and has then to be pumped over the side. There is an auto pump installed as well as a couple of man sized manual ones.

Now of course, that leak will be stopped both ways so when it rains, as it does here frequently, I will have to keep a close eye in things down there.  It would take a massive canopy to cover that vast area of cockpit, not to mention the expense of having one made.

The skeg was fitted like a jigsaw puzzle,. Clamped up bit by bit and tack welded (The neatest little arc welder I have ever seen) and then removed and the final weld done back at the works. I collected it the next day and fitted it. Now that was a job in itself because as you know ( well of course you do) welding on one side of a joint will tend to bend the metal towards the heat. Just a bit, but enough in this case to make the U clamps close that fraction to make it a really tight fit. So tight in fact that I had to use my little trolley jack to get it into place, and lined up with the existing bolt holes through the hull.  But its all in place now.

With this done, all that remains is the T cut back and polish of the hull. A thorough wash down of all the upper works, a paint of the chipped safety rail and some of the bulwarks.

Last but not least to replace all the interior stuff stored for the winter and then we are ready for the lift in on 7^th April.

So just a couple more entries to show the fitting of the oak keel band and then when she is back in the water the sea trial will take place. Now won't that be interesting!!!!!!!

Watch this space.

Moving along Part 5

The engine has now run , so we know that side of things is more or less complete. Of course we need to run the engine for some time, but for now until the main alternator arrives back from the overhaulers it can wait. I haven’t got the new prop yet either.

Now attention is full time of getting everything else done. The relaunch is scheduled for the end of March which seems some time off , but the weeks are speeding by, and there is still a lot to do.

Here are some pix of the how the woodwork is coming along

This one shows the new domestic panel without the instruments but with the chart table in the UP position.

and this one with them installed witht he chartr table DOWN.

Now trhe shart table wghich folds down and away

When I bought the boat there was an ancient fishfinder installed. It didn’t work and a check up told me that it would cost about twice as much as a new one to fix it,,,, so out it went, but the transducer was left intact. I had bought a replacement at SIBS, an offer I just couldn’t refuse, and it came with a proper built through the hull transducer.  Getting the old original out was fun indeed, but at last it was out.  The new one required a larger hole through the hull, so I wondered if I could modify the original, a very nice teak one, with the 10 degree deadrise angle already machined.  Bu chance I have a friend who has a very well equipped workshop complete with lathes and all the lovely tools such things require.  He kindly offered to do it…. A matter or hours later I was presented with the job done. I had also given him apiece of mahogany to manufacture the matching inside block from. Suffice it to say the job went together no trouble at all, even though the weather was foul to say the least.  Cold, windy and generally miserable.  Now I can put the wiring for that together and connect jt up to the panel.

Again the original boat had just had a curtain across the doorway between the wheelhouse and the cabin, which was, I suppose the cheapest way of doing things, So SWMBO thought that a door might be a better idea. Well I suppose a suggestion is as good as an order or the proverbial Nod's as good as a Wink etc so I made a bifold door, that could fold right back against the wheelhouse bulkhead.

OK it's not finished yet.....

nearly there

closed but I have to fir the furniture yet.

It is in my mind to make a drop down shelf there so that the PC that runs the chartplotter could sit there at sea and so be seen more easily. If it were on the left hand door when part opened and bolted down, that half of the door would be facing the helm. Hmmm!!!!!

Moving along Part 4 the engine runs

The plan was to get the new engine as near as possible to a correct alignment before it was installed in the boat, as it was going to be a tight squeeze. I had measured the height between the engine bearers and the centre of the prop shaft so that I could set the engine feet as near as possible so that the gearbox out put flange and the shaft coupling flange, both 5 ins diameter would be more or less adjacent.

I had to renew the stud height adjusters as they were a bit tired. And change the mountings around, but all went well.

Came the day.  Actually that was not planned. We had been working on the boat when a lorry arrived with a boat on it.  It eventually lifted the boat off as it had a ''hiab'' on it…and then did some other stuff… I was not watching having my head in the bilges. Next thing I knew was the lorry pulling up alongside and the jib being extended. It turned out that my good friend and assistant had chatted to the driver and as he had a few minutes to spare…. Now was the time. Hooked on and into the air rose the engine.   Swing over the deck and slowly lower away. A bit of jiggling and it was in the boat.. on the bearers.  A small cash transaction and off he went.

Now the fun stuff.  The engine weighed in at about half a ton, so was going to be a bit awkward to move around. Also the fact that the bearers sloped down at about 15 degrees. I did not want the engine to slip downhill.

The solution turned out to be simple.  I made a frame out of 3 by 3 to stand over the engine. On he cross members over the engine I put a small car hydraulic 2 ton jack. Roped the lifting chain to it and gently pumped it up.  After a bit of straining and settling the engine was free to move.  Just the weight taken… no more than that.

The

The two flanges were nudged into line, and the vertical adjustment sorted until as near as I could tell they were parallel. To check this I tried some feeler gauges at each of the 90 degree points. Top  bottom and each side.  This is what the R and D instructions said to do before putting the flexi coupling in place.

They were very close to perfect. So far so good.

As this engine was a bit longer than the original I had had the shaft shortened by that amount before putting the shaft flange on as it was a very close fit and I didn’t want to have to take it off again once it was in position.

Pulled the shaft back and put the flexi in place. Bolted it to the shaft flange, and with 'matey' gently pushing from astern got the bolts lined up with the holes in the gearbox flange. Now..would it fit?

Ok….push !!!!. It just slid in, not a ripple. Not a sound. Perfect.  Tightened the bolts and was still able to turn the shaft by hand without any tight spots.  Final check. Again according to the book. Feeler gauges again. With the red painted bolt in the same positions as before. The allowance is no more than 10 thou. So I found what the gap was… added 5 thou and tried it in each position.  No, there was NO out of alignment.

That's not me by the way,,,,I'm older. but better looking.  another good friend Dave who volunteeered to sort out the installation electrics.....

Leaving everything in position we then carefully drilled the bolt holes into the bearers and tightened all down.  Rechecked the shaft again just to make sure…. All still exactly right.

During the next few days I remade all the fuel lines and connected it all up. Had primed the lines trying to get as much air out as possible. The engine hadn’t  run for three months.  As the boat was out of the water I had arranged a large tub on the deck with a hose topping it up. And the engine water intake in that.  Would it start?  No .  not until a solenoid lead had been connected… then it turned over very smartly indeed and Vroom…..stop.   did this about three times before I realised that the fuel stop tap was in the OFF position.  Turned that ON  turned the key and off she went.

Oh joy.

The wheelhouse woodwork progresses well. Finished the seating and dash instrument panel, then moved across to the other side. 

You will have seen in the previous entry how I had left the corners of the seating etc wide to allow a quarter round beading to make a nice finish to the corners, so here's a few shots of that. 

Moving across to the other side

 Here as there are two alternators on the engine I shall have one to charge the start batteries, and the other to charge a separate battery running the ancillaries like the radar and autopilot.  The panel there will have the breaker panel, the auto pilot. the DSC radio and the spare fishfinder, and feed  the radar and the main fishfinder depthsounder.

We continued the panneling all round the wheelhouse. just cosmetic really but it does make a difference

There is a chart table to be re installed but that won't take too long. then wire in all the various instruments.  There seems to be a lot of time until the spring re launchn but how time flies............. welll better get on with it.

More soon.

Third yotblog

Now it gets more interesting. From a mechanical point of view.

What engine do I put in. I just could not afford either a new one or a recon.  I used to be in engine reconditioning for most of my working life so I know just what has to be done  and for the life of me I CANNOT  get my head round the prices they want to charge,

So it had to be the second hand market.  OK  so be it…I searched Boats and Outboards. That seeming to be the best place. There were hundreds of engines of all sorts and sizes.

What were the requirements?

1        Diesel

2        Turbo

3        150/180 hp

4        Easy maintenance

There were several possibles. The one I liked from the start was a BMW 530.  This is the marine version of the car engine. 160 hp turbo. And it ticked all the boxes. I mentioned this to a good friend and he thought a bit and then said he felt there were problems with the genre. 

OK  What problems ?.

Overheating, leading to blown head gaskets and repairs were never satisfactory, leading to replacement heads. And those on enquiry were c £400 a piece.

Severe research was started. The result was amasing.  Yes, there were head gasket probs. But NOT on boats .. it was the car engine that gave the trouble.  Why?  Jammed in under the crowded bonnet, bad cooling…. The list goes on.  Also the marine version was linked to an outdrive unit. It was that that gave the problem.  So provided that the cooling was more than sufficient there should be no problems as the boat is shaft drive.

I decided to go and look at this engine. And hear it running.  It was a beautiful sunny day when we arrived at the place.  The engine was sitting on a palette with the water intake  hanging into a canal. The exhaust with about 4 ft of pipe.

It might be of interest to say that this engine had been put into a 60 ft narrow boat from new but was far to much for it, snick it into gear and your are doing 6 kts,,, a real NO NO for canals as I understand it, so out it had come. Salt water had never been through its internals.

It fired up. And I crawled all over it. The noise was …loud, but there was hardly any vibration at all. I could almost have stood an old threepenny bit on edge on it. BMW being noted for their engineering excellence. It had a full wiring loom with a brand new instrument panel, and massive hydraulic Hurth gearbox.

I had measured the engine bay on the boat and this would just fit in. A tight squeeze but in it would go. 

A deal was struck after some haggling and away we went. Me to arrange transport to the Isle of Man.

This engine is a 5 cylinder inline with separate heads. Which means it is a push rod engine not OHC, it maxs at 4250 rpm. But I think that around 3500 would be a good economical rpm.

Oh. we did all the prop calc stuff and talked to several wise people about which prop. It was interesting to see that only two of those asked actually agreed on which way to go. So  we now have ordered one, and hope to have it to hand about mid January. If this happens it will be very welcome, as this means I can then fit it and the rope cutter and finally lock the shaft coupling down tight.

Being a SD hull the normal max worked out at 6.5 kts with he old Perkins. This 160 hp will give us about 12/14 cruise with about 16 WOT. This is going to very interesting when we get to the sea trial stage.  That’s when theory gives way to practice.

The woodwork in the wheelhouse progresses. The dash panel is now installed with the seat and we are now working our way round panelling the sides below the window level. This is to create a warmer feel to it. This of course means a lot of rewiring, but that’s all to the good as some of it is years old and needed replacing.

It can be seen in the pix that I deliberately left the panel edges open rather than overlapping, this was so that I can fit quad beading of a different colour, and apart from the aesthetics it makes nice rounded corners.

That will be seen in the next blog.

Saturday 5^th Jan  A moment of joy for the new to me engine ran for the first time in the boat. But I am running way ahead of the tale, so lets get back to where we left off.

I had had to potter around for the last two seasons. The old Perkins was really reliable but sooooooooo  slow. That said it was only using about a gallon (oops…sorry… 5 ltres an hour)  This might be very useful next year when the derogation ends, but what the heck.

The boat is kept in Port St Mary and as there was no room for me to have her lifted out onto the quay there, we took her to Castletown as there was a space in the Yacht Park.  That was interesting as there is a rather low solid road bridge that is only passable for larger boats just as the tide is rising so you can float through but not too late as the wheelhouse will catch under the bridge. Actually that is a bit of an exaggeration but you get the idea.  Then it’s into a very narrow dock, again only accessible when the tide is full in.

The boat was lifted out; I wanted to put thicker blocks under the keel but they said NO……as the oak keel band is damaged, more of that later, and needs repairing.

The boat was then stripped out for the winter, all the bits stowed away at home. Then the work began. All the engine connections were removed  and I had a length of chain and a couple of stainless shackles ready on the lifting brackets. Came the day. I had a friend of a friend come with his Hyab  (Costing me two bottles of Lambs Nay Rum)  and with a minimum of fuss out she came.  Dropping the engine onto a palette I hastily screwed the two together, and wound some rope around both as a safety measure. Then he kindly delivered it to my house where it was neatly placed in my garden.

Here's pix of the old engine in situ

Next thing was to remove the years of crap from the engine bay, and wash it out with some good detergent. All done and dusted. Takes a lot less time to write about it than do it.

As the instrument panel had to be moved we thought it would be a good time to make a silk purse out of a sows’ ear. By that I mean that the boat was just a basic work boat without any real refinements, besides which I am toy freak.  This meant re-jigging the whole of the interior of the wheelhouse.

Here's the wheel position stripped out and a start being made to put it right.

The previous winter we had spent many months just dragging her back from the point where it is easier to say ‘ Forget it ‘ to making something very nice and respectable.  I suppose it was a case of thinking how nice all the real leisure boats look inside. Those which I was totally unable to afford, and ending up with a boat I could say was at least three quarters of the way to excellent.

We had started from the bilges and worked our way up. Work included ripping out a lot of rotten timber such as the cooker work top which had soaked up a lot of water and was starting to crumble away. So now was a golden opportunity to get it right.

She is built with the wheelhouse more forward than most, which gives an excellent view over the bow, but leaves no room for a decent dash as the windscreen is but 6 inches from the wheel bulkhead, and rather than hang all the toys all over the place blocking the view, I decided to make the dash run down the side rather than across the boat. 

Next will show the new to me engine in position.

Why am I doing this. 

Well I think there must be many boaters who are, like myself, DIY inclined, and prefer not to pay many hundreds or even thousands of pounds to the  'professionals'.

So this will be the tale of how we re-engined the boat.  She is an Aquastar 27 ft SD hull  circa 1975 built as a fisherman, but has had a long a varied career until she came into my hands. I have owned her for the last two years and enjoyed every minute of it. BUT, and this is a big BUT, for the Isle of MAn she is just not up to the very changeable weather , the tides, and the currents we get around here. She had a Perkins 50 hp diesel which would give a WOT of about 6.25 kts in still water, no wind.... etc, and as she lives on a half tide mooring you have to watch the time very closely. and if the weather turns a bit lumpy it can delay you getting back into harbour.  Yes, we have scraped in with the keel almost rubbing the ground at times, and the echo sounder alarm buzzing merrily away.