Added Remote Control

Took advantage of a grey day and installed a remote control for the salon stereo in the galley.  These things always take much longer than you plan because tracing the wiring through out of sight is not a simple matter.  You never know what the boat designer had in mind when they put these things together.  They are part, in my mind, of the most evil of professions.

Anyway, it works and makes audio from the galley much easier!

Time to upgrade TV and stereo.

I have been wanting to update the TV and stereo for a while. Those who know me well will wonder why it has taken this long!  Admittedly I did change the helm stereo radio as soon as I started bringing the boat home.

There are two stereos on board, both of which were the original fit from 1996.  The helm stereo feeds two sets of speakers.  Two in the fly-bridge/helm area and two on the aft deck.  The stereo in the main cabin feeds three sets of speakers.  One set in each of the the forward and aft cabins each with a local volume control, and the third set via an amplifier in the main salon.

There are three TVs.  Those in the fore and aft cabins were analogue only so didn't work with the new digital over the air TV.  The TV in the main salon was old but was a replacement for the original.

Stereo:

As already mentioned, I changed the helm stereo at the beginning.  I bought a Fusion unit that took an iPod internally.  It is to the left of the white marine VHF radio below.

I also changed the fly-bridge speakers for Sony marine speakers at the same time.  Later I found that the aft deck speakers had dissolved cones.  I was going to simply remove them and put covers over the holes.  However I couldn't find covers.  So I bought two more Sony marine speakers and installed and wired them directly to the new helm radio.  

The old system had a remote control at the aft deck.  I haven't changed it for a Fusion one yet.

In the main salon I ripped out the old Clarion CD Changer and changed the radio for a Poly Planar on that also takes an iPod internally.

I will be cutting the panel below the radio to open up the cupboard where the radio resides and installing a radio remote at the galley.  I also changed the speakers in the salon to a pair made by JL Audio.

Television:

I removed the old analogue flat panel from the forward stateroom and will not replace it.  I removed the old analogue flat panel from the aft stateroom and replaced it with a modern 22" Samsung unit.

For the main salon I removed the Sony 32" unit (currently for sale) and installed a 40" Samsung 3D Smart TV.  I also installed a Polk sound bar and a Samsung Blue-ray player (donated by Jon and Janice) to complement our existing Western Digital TV Hub.  Jo also replaced the rug in front of the stairs to the aft deck.

All makes for a great improvement to our TV and listening experience.

Cold!

But not as cold as up North!

Got this really neat tool from Home Depot.  I needed a chisel and they had this combination chisel/weapon. It has a conventional chisel on the end and a very sharp chisel edge on the side.  I forgot about the side.

Trouble is it resulted in this:

But that's normal for me.  I need to wear gloves when using sharp tools. Super glue only mitigated the blood loss!

Joe has re-positioned to Ponce Inlet until we converge for the Bahamas crossing.  Four weeks away!

Putting in a new TV in the salon tomorrow.  The old one is, well, an old one!

More anon!

Back to "Normal"...

The sea trial went perfectly.  29.8 mph and 2850rpm at wide-open throttle and no vibration anywhere in the range. And, to end the trial I aced the docking back at Twin Dolphin.  But then there was no wind, I timed the docking at slack water and four folks helped me in  so acing was pretty much a given!  I am sitting here updating the blog in bright sunshine feeling very happy this morning.  We will miss Jon and Janice's happy faces in the morning though!

Spooky is happy to be home!

Finally....

...the boat is finished and will be launched today.  We can leave Jon and Janice in peace  and Spooky can get back to her familiar environment.  I ran over to the marina this morning to check things out before it goes in the water then I will leave the mechanics to check everything out in the water and clean things up.  

The running gear has been painted with anti-fouling.  And the boat is sitting under the travel lift all ready to launch.

There's another Sea Ray 420AC just like ours having a bottom job being done.  That is behind the car Jon has been letting us use.  Not too shabby.

Front view of Jon's Merc.  Dream Weaver is in the background.

After lunch Jon and I will go sea trial her and move back to the marina after parting with just under $7K!

This weekend Jon and I are going to disassemble the washer/dryer and remove it from the boat once and for all.  Jo will get some extra cupboard space in return for abandoning the dream of getting it working!

Look what we found...

...in a pond round the corner from Jon and Janice's place:

He/she was only about 5 feet and let me walk up within 15 feet before moving like lightning into the water.  It was only after I walked back to the car that Jon reminded me that its Mom might have been close by.

A quick update on the boat.  It turns out that the starboard shaft was bent and twisted and therefore couldn't be straightened properly.  So, another new starboard shaft is being made. That's $1800.  All four props were unbalanced and needed rework.  I am having two done using PropScan techniques which result in a very accurate pitch profile ($600 each).  The other two will be reworked using traditional manual techniques - good enough for spares ($150 each).  The running gear will be painted with anti-fouling to withstand long periods at rest in the Bahamas.  Add the labour and haul-out costs and this will be a big bill!  We are hoping to relaunch early this week.

We really appreciate Jon and Janice's hospitality in the meantime.

Inverter

Some may remember how, en route down Chesapeake Bay, we lost our 120V feed to ships systems.  We run our generator whenever we are in transit for any length of time to run our fridge and freezer which, unlike most boats, will only run on 120V instead of both 12v and 120V.  I installed an inverter and large battery bank so that we can have 120V without being on shore power or running the generator (loud when at anchor).  The inverter sits between shore-power or generator and the boats systems and kicks in automatically whenever either are not running.  In Chesapeake Bay the inverter failed and the laptop, which was providing our primary navigation, ran out of juice and stopped.  We have back-ups.  First, I have a 12V power supply for the laptop, second, I have a chart plotter on my Nexus 10 and, third, I have paper charts.  However, since we had a fair way to run and we really didn't want the food to spoil I had to by-pass the inverter to get power back to ships systems.  Not an easy task at the time.

So, now I have had the inverter fixed I wanted to have a quick way to by-pass it in the event of a failure.  I bought protected terminal blocks, some more 8 gauge wire and lugs.  Here you can see the inverter back in place with the inverter input and output wires all in place.  The feeds to and from the boat 120V breaker panel will be re-installed next on the left side of the terminal blocks.

Now, if the inverter should fail again I can by-pass it quickly by disconnecting those right side cables and installing these jumpers:

The tool on the left is one of the better investments I made.  It is a hydraulic crimper and allows me to make those battery terminal connections at each end of the 8 Gauge wire.

In another cruel twist, we had a problem with the charging on the port engine after we left St Augustine.  Remember, I spent a small fortune getting the charging systems working on both engines and had new alternators installed on both,  After noodling the issue for a few weeks I came to the conclusion that the mechanic who worked on the boat in St Augustine must have done something to cause the problem.  It was just too coincidental.  Since we had added new exciter wires to the alternators back in Portsmouth I figured the port exciter wire had to have been cut or dislodged which would have resulted in no charge.  I dived down on the port engine yesterday to trace the wire,  Bingo!  He had pulled it straight out of the crimp connector.  Another nagging problem solved.

Sorry for the tech nature of today's post.  Not really, it's my favourite bit.