Late Post

Hey better late than never. Or something like that.

I hope everyone enjoyed the video I posted Saturday. Jane never did show us her lovely maracas. I am still disappointed in that. I like percussion instruments. Not even a peek at her tambourine. Who invites someone to play with their maracas and then does not bust them out?

Friday I was up late. Really late. I was hanging out with some friends and did not get home till 2 AM. I got to sleep at around 6 AM, and had to get up at 9 AM to go to the Miami Summer Boat Show. It was a small show compared to the Miami International Boat Show (which claims to be the largest boat show in the world), but big for a "small" show. LOTS of nice shit there. Glacier Bay had a really sweet power catamaran that I saw, but I did not have $208,000 on hand. I could have probably talked that price down a little bit.

But whatever. That is not what is important.

On the way home from the show, I got hungry. And a little thirsty. So I met up with a friend for chicken wings and beer. When I got home it was around 9 PM. I pretty much went straight to sleep. Chicken wings make me sleepy.

I was at the show for at least 8 hours. I had to stand in a booth to hand out information for 6 hours and then spend a few hours walking around looking at shit. I wanted the company that makes the LED underwater and courtesy lights I want to get to me there. But they were not. They suck. But I still want their underwater LED lights and cool three color LED courtesy lights.

In other news - I solved the mystery of the boat bilge. You see, the new boat has TWO bilges. This means two bilge pumps, and two automatic float switches. After buying the boat I discovered that the pumps did not work in automatic mode. Something was wrong. The port side pump just would not work in automatic mode. The starboard side not only would not work in automatic mode, but the helm lights started to do funky things. Like flash on and off and stuff. But they both worked fine in manual mode.

Now usually you just remove a hatch and get access to the bilge pump. No problem.

EXCEPT with the new boat, thew bilge access hatches are on the sides of the splash well. And there is a solid fiberglass bulkhead blocking access from behind the pumps. From the access hatches, it was VERY HARD to reach the pumps. The hatches were too small, and the distance too great, to make it comfortable (or even possible) to work on the pumps in the bilge.

And thus the mystery. How the hell did they install the pumps in the first place? Did they put the pumps in BEFORE they put the top of the boat on? Sure did look like it. And how do I get to the things? Cut a hole in the bulkhead? That was idea number 1. I can get to the back of the bulkhead easy. So cut a hole in that, and getting to the pumps would be easy. Then just install a round hatch where the hole is and be done with it.

But today I was looking at the problem again. And upon careful observation I noticed that the pumps seemed to be mounted on some sort of plate, and not directly to the hull. So I reached in and grabbed the pump housing. A little pull and I could feel something ripping loose. Turns out the pumps are mounted on a fiberglass plate, which was attached to the hull by some weak sealant. Strong enough to hold everything in place, but not so strong it could not be broken loose. The plate peeled right off the hull, pump and switch in place. The power wires were very long, hanging from a screw off the bulkhead and neatly coiled and held in place with nylon straps. A few snips and the wire was uncoiled, giving more than enough slack to pull the pump, switch, fiberglass plate, and everything clear out of the bilge and into daylight.

Turns out that the BOTH float switches are bad, and the connections are also bad. The pumps work fine. So I need new float switches, and I need to redo the connections. Then I need to goop the fiberglass plates back into the bilge. Then everything will be working the way it is supposed to.

This post will remain in place until Tuesday. Seeing as how it is all late and stuff.