Paint it black

Fathers day weekend found me spending two days getting the anti foul paint on the bottom. Saturday was spent scuffing the bottom and welding anode studs in place. Sunday had me power washing off the scuffing dust, taping the water line, and rolling on two coats of anti foul. This is one of those jobs I'd been blowing off and avoiding, but she can't go in the water without this bit of work and it is now off of the list.

The week before, my bud, aluminum sail boat builder, and artist Brian Russel ( THE ART OF BOATBUILDING ) was in town to dedicate a sculpture he built, and stopped by to check on progress. While he was on my site, he gave me a hand installing the saddle for the 10" hydraulic bow thruster. Having another set of skilled hands makes a difference sometimes, and getting the thruster saddle in position while another person is inside working the bolts is a big help. The saddle is a permanent part of the bow thruster which is bolted to the tube and sealed with 5200. The saddle is not meant to be removed as are the other components of the thruster. The thruster leg, and the motor, are fastened to the saddle. The thruster is a 10" hydraulic unit producing 15 hp of thrust. The thruster is powered by a live PTO driven straight off of the Twin Disc transmission.  It was built and designed by Key Power Inc. and it's been nothing but a great experience dealing with Jim at Key Power. The component castings are excellent, as well as all the machining. All the parts are machined on five axis CNC machines and it shows by how well everything fits. Having the bow thruster installed now makes the front of the boat water tight, and it's checked off of the list. It's amazing how little space the hydraulic thruster takes up.

The last part of the water tight work was getting the prop shaft installed along with the drippless shaft log seal. I went with PYI on the shaft seal, and we'll just have to see how that works. The installation was pretty straight forward with no issues at all.  I will say that the bilge is filthy, as is the rest of the boat. There's a good two days of cleaning that needs to be done.

I had ordered the control cables for the throttle and transmission, and Washington Marine had some cables on their shelves that were longer that what I had measured, but told me to see if they could work. The next to nothing price they were going to sell me the cables for was worth trying to make them happen, but in the end, they were too long. The correct length cables should be in by the end of the week or early next week, and once that happens, I'll get them installed.

There's lots to do before I can order up the travel lift to make the 1500' carry to the river, so I'm going to keep telling everyone I have a list that I keep working off of, and keep checking items off of my fictional list.

Cheers