Tanks out. Gross out.

Hello people of the world. If this is your first visit to the blog then I would recommend reading the previous posts before you continue. After you read those other posts this post will make more sense and you can see how much my posts have improved over the last 8 days. 27 visits on day two of the stat tracker. Site traffic is up 200% in one day!!! If this trend continues by the end of the 30 days we'll be rolling everyone on the planet (do the math if you don't believe me). If you first-timers disregarded my advice at the beginning of the post and are still reading........nice.

Dan Jr. and Clay started in with the crowbars and freed the tanks from the boat first thing this morning. Ropes, blocks, pry bars, and 4 workers were need to dislodge the tanks from the boat. Then once the tanks were pulled up we tipped them to the side to pump out the rest of the diesel fuel (I subcontracted that job to one of my employees the thought of diesel makes me want to vomit). After the tanks were totally empty we tied ropes around both ends and lowered them off the boat and onto the floor.

Photographic proof that the tanks are indeed on the floor of the shop. Also pictured are the parts of the deck that were removed yesterday. The scum line that you see on the tanks is where the foam was attaching the tank to the hull. The foam ended up being the toughest part of this job so far. All the foam was drenched in fuel, water, and slime. Even though the foam had been softened by the fuel it still was very tough and could only be broken out in small pieces. Dan Jr. and Clay deserve all the credit in the world for sticking to this job, I worked on other projects as soon as the tanks were on the floor (pictured). After using the vacuum to pick up all the water/fuel they used flat bars to break up the foam. I was going to bring the crew out to lunch today but after 30 min of playing in that scuzzy foam Dan and Clay reeked and we would have been kicked out of most dining establishments. I can't even explain the foam without using profanity and even then I don't think that words can do the odor justice. So..... If you are interested in getting a sample of the diseased foam please leave a comment that says "I need to know what that foam was all about" and your address and I will be happy to send you a small sample, for 6 dollars.

As you can see we have plenty of samples and most of them are in mint condition, limit one per customer. Supplies are limited so act fast, all sales are final, satisfaction guaranteed.

In other shop news I put a radar stand back on a 40' Wayne Beal after John (our welder) had shorted the aluminum stand. The owner had been having troubles getting the boat in and out of buildings and even transporting it over the road. Now with the shorter stand these problems should be eliminated. The entire crew was involved in the tank circus in the morning but afterward Jeff focused on the arch on the 38' Northern Bay. Pictures of a completed arch should be available by the end of the weekend. John began fabrication on a stainless steel 8" exhaust port. Someone brought us donuts for break, which we all appreciated.

Post number 9 in the books. Three pics (so lazy), by post number 23 it will be all pics no words, then maybe when I have nothing left, video post. My favorite part of these posts is the forced comments that I make at the end, I hope you are as uncomfortable reading them as I am writing them. The boat stuff should be enough.

Of the 16 unique viewers to this blog, 1 from Brazil and 1 from India. I thought that was cool so I decided to share. Its probably just a computer that scans all the blogs in the world gathering information on people to use against them when they least expect it. Or not.

So easy to destroy a boat.

This would be the worst time to walk into the middle of the operating room. All the plywood has been removed and the crossbeams have been cut to get to the leaking stainless steel fuel tanks. Everything under the deck is coated with a fuel/soot/slime mix, clean up begins tomorrow. This deck probably took a long time to build its a shame that we removed it in two days. The fuel tanks have been drained but they are tied into the boat with two-part expanding foam. Foam is no match for a crowbar so the tanks should be dislodged early Friday morning. There are stickers on the top of both tanks with the company's name that built them along with this, "Satisfaction Guaranteed", the owner of the boat should be contacting them about the two leaky tanks. I didn't include the name of the company that built the tanks because I wouldn't want anyone pointing out all my mistakes.

The wet exhaust was simple to cut out, the hole in the hull will need to be patched. I had the welder look at the exhaust elbows and after he stopped laughing he made a plan for routing the new stainless steel dry exhaust.

All the fuel lines have been removed from the tanks and labeled, however some of the lines might need to be replaced depending on their condition. So far so good, nothing unexpected, but problems are certain to develop, they always do. I am addicted to using commas, I use them way too much, and I usually use them incorrectly, react to my statement.

In other shop news: The support arch on the 38' Northern Bay was submitted and given the green light. Full speed ahead on the arch in the morning. Because the owner lives in Georgia I drew options of what I thought the arch should look like and sent him a picture via the interweb. He then printed the picture and drew another line and sent it back to me. How did decisions ever get made before the internet? That arch decision would have taken 2 weeks and 6 postage stamps.

Thanks to one of my subscribers now I'm tracking the traffic to the blog (using Google Anayltics). Nine views today, very strong. I would take the time to list you all individually here but I wouldn't want to embarrass anyone. My goal for the next 10 days is to get the number up to 30 views. So tell your friends.

Also, I think that I am using the "Labels for this post" box incorrectly. I've been labeling them number 1, number 2, 3, 4, etc... I think I'm suppose to be labeling them with words that say what the post is about (boats, fuel tanks, motor, etc) Good thing only nine people are looking.

24 Hours Later.

Change of format, straight to boat talk. Dove right into the 36' Calvin project today removing all the hatches and deck plates within a mater of hours. Once the hatches were removed the amount of water saturation had ruined the plywood around the hatches in the deck. Since the entire deck is being removed the rotten plywood won't be an issue.

After the hatches had been removed Clay started around the outside of the deck with an edge cutter to cut through the top layer of glass. After the outside edge had been cut he started cutting 3 ft squares and peeling up the old fiberglass. Once he was half done with the fiberglass removal, Jeff started to remove the plywood. The plywood removal presented a small challenge of getting the resin out of the screws. Because the screws that were used on this deck were Phillips head (x - head) instead of slotted the resin has a tendency to stay with the screw instead of being pulled up with the fiberglass. The solution was to take an old Phillips head screwdriver and a hammer and pulverize the resin (and ruining the screwdriver).

The entire deck should be removed by the end of the day tomorrow. We also had to remove a fuel tank under the stern of the boat (not pictured) and pump out all the fuel in the stainless steel fuel tanks before we could remove them. Using a 12 volt fuel pump we pumped all the diesel into 55 gal drums, there was about 80 gal of fuel in the tanks. During the fuel pumping process I tried to save time by not clamping the hoses to the pump and ended up getting covered with fuel. Face, eyes, hair, pants, sweatshirt, etc..... covered. After getting 2 clamps we completed the removal of all the old fuel. I can still taste the fuel. Lesson learned but the punishment didn't fit the crime in that case. The kid that was helping me didn't get any fuel on him and proceeded to laugh at my misery.

In other shop news the boat that received the new motor (pictured) is done and has been moved outside. Another old boat (not pictured) has been moved into the shop and I will be getting the repair list in the next couple of days. The steering issues that I talked about a couple of days ago are still unresolved. The 38' South Shore that we phillycladed on Sunday is going to get some minor fiberglass repair tomorrow and it was 45 degrees today. After 3 weeks of arctic air I felt like mentioning the warm weather was necessary. Our welder modified a stainless steel rudder for a local lobsterman. The boss left for Daytona yesterday, so I guess I'm in charge for the next week.

So how do you like the new format? Two pictures, shorter posts, no obsessing about the blog at the beginning of the post. This is by far my weakest effort to date, I'll be better tomorrow.

I should sub-contract out the rest of these posts to a professional writer. They would be much better and infinitely more interesting. 7 posts in 7.75 days.

More work is always good.

Biggest complaint about the blog so far: the titles to the posts are awful and unoriginal. I can't disagree, I will try to spend more time coming up with puns and word play in the titles. For the time being you'll have to get by on the great content. You will be happy to hear that the number of people following the blog has risen from zero to .........zero. With all the effort that I am putting in there should be more followers. My comfort level with people even being my "followers" isn't very high so lets just call them fans.

A 36' Calvin Beal (pictured) arrived at the shop today and the timing couldn't be better. The "new engine" project (see post #2) will be finished tomorrow so one repair is concluded so another can begin. This boat was originally finished at Fraser Performance and built for a lobsterman in Maine, the boat has since changed hands and fishes out of Rhode Island. The boat is in good shape but the list of things to fix is slightly major.

1. Remove all deck hardware
2. Remove deck
3. Remove fuel tanks
4. Remove wet exhaust system
5. Build 2 new fiberglass fuel tanks (130-160 gal)
6. Build 2 lobster tanks under the deck (500 - 750 lbs)
7. Build new stainless steel exhaust.
8. Build new deck (plywood, fiberglass, sand, and gel)
9. Reinstall hatches and add two new Anchor hatches (24" X 40") for the lobster tanks
10. Make a lobster tray out of aluminum that will fit into fiberglass pipes attached to the lobster tanks under the deck.
11. Everything else

Eleven things, not a big list but some of the tasks on the list might take a couple of days. We are hoping to accomplish this job in 4 weeks. However, once the deck has been removed I will have a lot clear picture of what this job is going to entail. Tomorrow we will start ripping up the hatches and hopefully by the end of the day the boat will be dried out.

Trivia: The owner of the boat had to travel 14 hours (by water) to get the boat to Rockland, Maine. He arrived today at 2pm. Did he leave really early or really late??

Actual work that happened today: New Motor Project: filled hydraulic tanks, non-skidded the forward floor, installed the stereo, cleaned boat and prepared for transportation. 38' Northern Bay: met with a fabricator from Nautilus Marine Fabrication to plan for the SS rails (bow rail, hand rails, ladder, and radar arch) met with a woodworker from Hewes & Company to make a plan about teak trim, more sanding and gelling on flybridge. Along with the 36' Calvin (pictured) arriving another boat was delivered for repair.

I have no evidence to support my theory but I'm quite sure that these posts would be much better if i didn't write them at 11:30 at night. Tomorrow look for a post around 5pm, then post a comment if you like it more than these late night ramblings. I will always play to the crowd.

24 is the number of posts left and the number of posts left is 24.

Will I be able to quit........

Steering Issues

One of the things that I tried to accomplish today was to order the steering system for the 38' Northern Bay. You would think that this would be a simple task, it was not. Let me first say that Kobelt is an excellent company and all issues that I ran into were my fault. Again let the record show that Kobelt rules and I would recommend their products to anyone. 95 percent of our boats are fitted with Kobelt control heads and we've always been happy with the performance.

So the steering system for the 38' Northern Bay was never really set in stone. The brand of manual steering system wasn't decided on until very recently. Anyway, once the owner decided on going with Kobelt he contacted the company and talked with Don Zane. All the important information was provided: size of vessel, size of rudder, speed, desired turns of the wheel, etc... (putting etc at the end of the list would fall into the "glossing over things" category)

I contact Mr. Zane to check the status of the order and he tells me that he already has a quote ready to rock. During our conversation I hear that the boat speed is 22 knots. The top speed of the boat will be closer to 27-29 knots and I ruin everything by telling this to Mr. Zane. "Well that's going to change a few things let me work the numbers and get back to you." (anything in quotation marks is just an approximation of what was said)

Within minutes I receive two faxes: one with the original quote and the second quote with the longer hydraulic cylinders and different helm pumps. Through another phone call with Zane he assures me that the first system that he quoted won't work for this boat. Fine. the second quote is only 350 dollars more and should be just the thing were looking for. I call the owner and explain the changes: how the longer cylinders are needed for added torque and the variable helm pumps will give the user adjustment. "The first quote had fixed helm pumps on it, and I don't see the need for variable." (that was the owner of the 38' Northern Bay, again not really what he said)

For the rest of this I'm not going to explain myself at all.

The longer cylinders can't be used with a fixed helm pump.
Call the owner on Friday, tell him all the details, we'll get it solved by Tuesday.
Zane is leaving for a boat show on Wednesday.
On Monday the owner calls Zane to order the parts, speeding up the process by paying with credit card.
The parts don't get ordered and I'm back on the phone with Zane.
A measurement of the lazzerette show that the longer cylinders won't fit.
Shorter, but larger cylinders are quoted, with larger helm pumps.
This quote is 2400 more than the previous quote.
I call the owner, then call Zane, then I call the owner, then Zane, etc....
Compromise to the 3rd quote cylinders, and the 2nd quote pumps.
Rethink my original measurement of the lazzerette.
Accomplish nothing.

It is possible that the equipment on the second quote will work, a couple of modifications might need to take place but I'm confident that in the end things will work out. I would like to again throw my support behind Kobelt and thank Mr. Zane for his time and patience.

Actual work that happened today: 38' Northern Bay: fiberglassed the inside and outside of the benches on the flying bridge, sanded some of the fiberglass work that we did last week, started building the arch for the back of the wheelhouse. Boat with the new motor: tied up more loose ends (speakers, lights, cables, oil pump, oil crank case, heater hose manifold, etc....(3 times))

Two post in one day, back on track. Are these posts getting longer? I don't read them so I really have no idea. Boat from Rhode Island arriving tomorrow, needs lots of work. This almost guarantees stuff to blog about for the next 25 days.