Sailing with a friend!

I went sailing yesterday with our new friend Will on his Hunter 30. Weak wind, but a good experience for me to see how the lines and sails work. Got up to a blistering two knots! Made me much more confident that yes, we can do this.

Our front yard in Charleston

The Airhead is in, the Airhead is in!

I successfully cut a hole in the boat, installed the fan, and sealed it up. Rain test showed that it does not leak. More importantly, we have a fully functional toilet! It'll take a month to see how the composting thing works. But here is the final head installation:



And this is the fan install. Note the sleeved wiring!



So, one major project down and done!

Editing: Looks like I reposted the AirHead victory. But the wifi at the marina is sketchy at best, and it looked like Monday's post didn't take, many failure messages. Well, I'll leave 'em both up, what the hey.

Update on Repairs and Life on the Sovereign

Well, Mike has been very creative in fixing problems on the boat. He has finished the AirHead installation, installed the fuel pump and raw water strainer, and put up the safety netting so the cats will be a little less likely to fall in the water.
We had a really rocky night last week with the waves pounding us against the T-dock. It lasted from early afternoon until about 4:30 a.m. I woke up when it stopped and checked to see if we were still tied up to the dock. Mike did not get to sleep until around 1:00 a.m.
He was afraid that we would lose a cleat and be floating away. No - we are fine and the ropes and cleats looked just the same the next morning. I think that we will be a little less nervous next time the weather turns.
I'm really glad we got the gold membership from Boats US. We've been cycling a lot of money into West Marine.
I've successfully cooked omelets, soup, garlic toast, and shrimp and sausage jambalaya on the Coleman propane stove. Our new best friend, Will, is a live aboard and he likes my cooking. We had a fantastic St. Patrick's day dinner on his boat. Danny, who has been living aboard for 30 years, is a new friend with lots of useful information. Will grilled steaks and served a delicious pasta and we told jokes and laughed a lot.
I do have just a bit of boat envy. Duane, our neighbor for the moment, has a gorgeous boat with a galley to die for. Ah well, Sovereign will be there someday. Until then, my little galley is just fine.
Katie
Note: for those considering living on a boat, stop considering and do it now. Even the problems that you have to deal with are nothing compared to the joy, good sleep, team building, and good people that you will meet.

AirHead Installation

The scary part was cutting a 3" hole in the side of the boat. Once that was done, the rest was fairly easy. I'd already routed the exhaust hose up through the shelves to keep it mostly out of the way and allowing just the minimum bend radius. Wiring in the 12VDC to the fan was not a problem, either. Here's the fan mount, up and running:


After a goodly bit of vacuuming--lots of fiberglass dust--we finally have a fully functioning AirHead composting toilet:


So, we are one step closer to enviro-friendliness!

Beware of Contractors Bearing Gifts

As Katie said below, there are still problems with the boat, but at least it's home...or within sight of home.

The tow home was cold and exciting, probably a lot more work keeping our boat lined up behind the tow vessel than just steering it in a reasonably straight line would have been. Good practice, though, and good exercise. And we do now have power and water and urinal facilities.

The engine is all kinds of clustered, thanks to our former contractor who will remain nameless (I'll just call him Harry Lenderson). It ran and idled fine after a bit of work bleeding the lines two weeks ago. Then...Harry stripped the threads in the primary filter housing while "tuning" it, so we had to replace that. At his suggestion, I disassembled, cleaned, and reassembled the secondary filter; now it leaks air. And Harry then removed a hardline in order to bypass said secondary...and took it with him; it's gone. He also broke the fuel pump by continually futzing with it; that piece is on order, too. So the engine can't run right now.

When it does run, it bogs down and stalls in forward gear...apparently because the zinc collar Harry installed is too large and binds up the shaft in one direction. So we get to pay a diver to remove it, then a machine shop to grind it down (though I could likely do it myself if I had access to a bench grinder), then a diver again to put it back on and hope it fixes the problem. Then we can swing about to our actual home slip and throw a welcome mat on the dock.

Despite all that, I'm very happy. I sleep very well on the boat, and I smile a lot more. All these problems shall pass...to be replaced, of course, with new ones, but hey! C'est la vie afloat, right? It's all good.

Almost Home

We finally moved to the Charleston City Marina and almost made it to our slip number. It is a long story but there are a few more things that need to done before she can cruise on her own. The contractors (not the Charleston City Boat Yard) broke or did a poor job on several necessary items and we ended up having to have her towed to harbor. We have a new fuel pump on order through Superior diesel and then we have to get a diver to go in, take off the zinc collar, and have someone grind it down so that it doesn't hit against the propeller shaft when she goes forward. We are at the end of our dock and have started meeting the neighbors. It is a quiet little neighborhood but the people are helpful and friendly. As Greg at the boat yard said, liveaboards have to help each other because no one else will. So, friendly advice, it is better to pay $85 an hour and get quick and guaranteed work than to pay $60 an hour and have more things broken than fixed.
We both kinda of wish we could stay at the end of the dock. The dolphins love to play near where we are and watching them is great fun.
The Charleston City Marina is convenient and the dock hands are very helpful. They let us borrow a splitter so that we could hook our 30 amp to the 50 amp at the end of the dock.
Oh - the AirHead is in. It isn't completely installed yet but can be used for #1. That is very helpful since the bath house is about a 5 minute walk. Mike says that I'm losing weight already!
Lots of walking and the natural pilates of the rocking boat seems to be doing the job.
We are back in Knoxville trying to sell more things. The Miata sold yesterday, thank heavens. Now we have to get someone to buy the house and our timeshare.
Oh - we are getting the best sleep on the boat than we have had in years.