1. Rebed leaking water tank deckfill, suspect diesel deckfill, and waste tank deck pump-out. This was a half-day project!
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| The leaking water tank deckfill, before rebedding; the cabinet shelves below were black and moldy from years of moisture. |
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| Balsa core removed around the forward water tank deckfill; we used a router to cut away the core, filled the hollow with West System epoxy, then redrilled and rebedded the deck fill fitting. |
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| Curtis uses the winch handle to remove the diesel deckfill for rebedding. |
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| Sue's smaller hands were able to get up, in, and around the diesel deckfill bolts from below. (More stovetop yoga!) |
2. Plane the sticking
forepeak cabin door (and the door to the head). Not that we really need the privacy, but when guests come aboard, they might appreciate being able to shut doors.
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| Curtis holds the door to the forepeak while Mikey planes off about 1/8". |
3. Inflate and set up our 9'6" Achilles HPIF (high-pressure inflatable floor) dinghy. A 5-hp Nissan outboard (4-stroke) came with the purchase of Cilantro.
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| It's fun to have an inflatable dinghy that bounces off hard surfaces like a big fender. No wonder they are popular with cruisers. |
4. Replace broken bow and deck light and install radar reflector on main mast.
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| Jon (with Donna assisting) goes up the mast in the bosun's chair. |
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| John took our Groco toilet to the shop and installed a rebuild kit to replace leaky gaskets and valves. |
6. Manufacture an ultra-strong mount for the autopilot hydraulic ram and install the ram, tiller arm, and rudder feedback unit. Curtis had already installed the autopilot computer, cabling, transducers, and instrument displays.
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| Mikey uses his plasma cutter to fabricate a mount out of 5/16" stainless steel for the autopilot ram. |
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| Mikey installs the hydraulic ram mount aft of the engine and forward of the rudder. |
7. Do autopilot calibration and seatrial. The autopilot has to "learn" Cilantro's hull shape, rudder movement, steering action, and other parameters. Unfortunately, the computer froze up during the autotune portion of the first seatrial, and we had to abort the procedure. The following day, after Curtis changed the order of connection of some of the components, our autotune was successful. The only portion we could not complete was the wind calibration procedure, because our wind transducer at the masthead (of course, the most difficult to reach!) has stopped communicating. We hope it is a loose connection rather than a failed unit, but at any rate, we'll probably tackle the wind issue after we come back from cruising. Our analog Windex at the masthead gives us wind angle, and we'll estimate wind speed.
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| Winsor Baker, electronics consultant, helps us with the autopilot calibration process. |
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| Simrad AP24 autopilot display screen during the autotune portion of the sea trial; the autopilot is steering Cilantro in a series of slow S-curves while we watch. |
