We knew we would get some crazy weather again about sunrise today. I woke up after 7:00am to strong winds and a rocking boat. Checking our weather sources, it sounded like a repeat of last Friday with gale winds and tornado watch until 8:00 am. On Friday, we had the engine running and Dave was outside watching for any problems with our boat or other boats. About 7:30, the winds really kicked up and I panicked. Time to wake up Dave. He could tell it was rough out there. BUT within about 10 minutes, the worst was over. I felt stupid for waking him up. But he was ok with it. And I guess I had more confidence in our boat, because I didn’t bother to back the dry bags today.
Dave took on the project of replacing the bolt on the Lehr motor mount while listening to football. The old bolt was a stainless steel bolt in an aluminum bracket. The stainless steel bolt had broken because of corrosion. And it was locked in place in the aluminum in two places. So Dave had to drill it out with his DeWalt drill. He has been happy with DeWalt. The batteries are rechargeable and can be used in our shopvac, jigsaw and drill.
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| workbench for new bolt from the threaded rod |
Today he took the 3 foot threaded rod to his “work station” over the garbage can in the galley and cut the rod to the size bolt he needed. If he cuts it outside, the metal dust settles and ends up rusting in the cockpit. He first used the jigsaw, but realized he needed a metal cutting blade. I heard him say to himself “that would have been handy to know yesterday” (when he was at the hardware store). So he changed to sawing it by hand with a saw blade. He likes his Stanley saw blade holder. It is shorter and lets you get into small places. After sawing the bolt to length, he used our Hanson tap and die set to clean the threads and remove the burs. Then he used a grinder to remove the sharp edges. Our galley became a mini machine shop. Now I see why we have all these tools on board.
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| machine shop |
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| hand saw |
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| tap and die kit |
The bolt was frozen into two separate places on the transom mount, so he had to move on to drilling out the other piece. When he placed his new bolt he covered it in Lanocoat to keep it from corroding and freezing up again. This was another thing that was good to notice here vs in the Bahamas. Luck of a Fool!
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| broken bolt frozen in to mount |
Tonight we ran the generator and water maker again. Dave isn’t happy with our electrical system on the boat. He is noticing the lights on the panel for our generator are dimly lit. So he is going to check into that before we leave. He is hoping it is just some loose connections, a 5 minute job, but you know how that goes. By the time you get warning signs of a problem, it is usually a bigger project.
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