Since it’s been a while, I wanted to provide a few updates as to what’s been going on lately. Here’s what’s been going on regarding the bilge pump, the hour meter on the outboard, the mainsail and roller furling jib.

For those who read the post about my bilge pump problems; after some investigative  troubleshooting, I discovered it wasn’t actually the pump that was the problem. Rather, it was a battery problem.

I recently moved back to my primary slip after occupying a temporary slip. I was in the temp slip due to low water levels on the lake. While at the temp slip, the slip power was, shall we say, very unpredictable. Apparently during that time, my battery had discharged significantly. So after moving back and plugging in, I guess my battery wasn’t fully charging and didn’t put out enough power. It was powering the bilge pump, but not giving it enough to push water up the necessary rise to discharge it.

Thanks to my dock friend, Trey Bull, I found a good source for a new battery at a reasonable price. Battery installed, and now I have bilge water discharging like it’s supposed to!

Oh, and here’s an update on the hour meter I installed on the outboard motor. After 7 hours of use in about 11 months, the battery died. Yes, the battery that was supposed to last 20,000 hours. That’s more than 2 years by my calculations! I’ve ordered another one to replace it, so hopefully the new one will last longer. Good thing I’ve got my trusty spreadsheet that I used as a backup to keep track of everything. 🙂

Last update is concerning sails. I removed the old mainsail I had installed and replaced it with a much newer main that I had stowed on the boat. I hadn’t been using the newer one since it had a rip. I repaired the rip [in a very unconventional way, which I’ll post about later] and now it’s safe to use. I gifted the old one to my dock friend Trey Tabor, who has the same boat I do, but needed a mainsail that would actually fit. He’s helped me with so much stuff around the boat, so I figured it’s time to repay. I’ve also removed the roller furling system I installed a year ago. The last couple times I went out sailing, I noticed a small rip in the sail that ultimately caught on something during a tack and became a larger rip. My plan is to repair the rip in the same manner I did the main. In the meantime, I’m using hank-on jibs, which I actually have been enjoying. The roller furling jib, in theory, should be easier to use but I’m starting to wonder if it really is. Sure, it keeps me in the cockpit so I don’t have to go forward during hoisting or dousing, but when I’m rolling the jib in I have to have both hands occupied and it’s really a balancing act keeping tension on the jibsheet while pulling in the rolling sheet at the same time. I might just keep using the hank-on jibs for the foreseeable future.

I plan to begin working on the interior soon. I’ll try to keep the posts coming more frequently, even though it may not be as much information. I think that’s probably a little better than a super long post like this one!  🙂

 

Mike