On Board with Mark Corke

On Board on the radio

I recently was a guest of Craig Petersen on his popular show, Tech Talk. If you are interested you can hear it by clicking here and following the link.

We discussed a number of topics from the cost of boating to the latest innovations but there was so much more that I wanted to talk about but as is always the case we ran out of time.

Enjoy.

Cutless Bearings- part two

After getting the old bearing out you would think that getting in the new one would be a piece of cake and it should be but some things can thwart you. Firstly make sure that the interior surface of the bearing carrier is clean clear of dirt debris and other obstructions. Clean up the inside with some bronze wool or fine abrasive paper making sure that the inside of the carrier is totally clean and shiny. Check especially at the edges and around the holes where the sets screws screw in as any slight burr will prevent the bearing from sliding in.

There are all sorts of contraptions for getting the new bearings into place, some costing hundreds of dollars but the best method in my book seems to be making something up using some threaded rod, a few washers and a couple of nuts such as that shown in the photo above. As you can see the bearing is to the right of the picture and is just starting to be drawn into the bronze P bracket. I much prefer this approach to hitting it with a hammer, things happen more slowly and there is a lot less chance of damaging anything. Another point is that the P bracket does not take kindly to being hit, a force for which it was never designed to withstand.

In an effort to make the bearing slide in more easily I like to place it in the freezer for few hours. The naval brass shell readily cools and the lower temperature makes it contract ever so slightly. Today it is 85 degrees out and is ideal for this operation; the P bracket is warmed in the sun and expands and the frozen bearing should slip neatly into the carrier. I read on a forum recently that someone was suggesting lithium grease - don't. Lithium is higher up the galvanic scale and will cause corrosion in short order. Much better is to use glycerin as a lubricant it will not damage the bearing or bracket and washes off harmlessly as soon as the boat goes back into the water.

On a closed end carrier such as those used on power boats I still like to freeze the bearing but in this case there is fewer options and the gentle tapping of a mallet with a block between to prevent damage to the bearing shell is the way to go. The obvious change here is that the casing is supported against the back of the boat so tapping with a mallet is far less likely to damage anything than would be the case with the P bracket.

When all is complete you can reinstall the shaft which will surprise you as to just how snug it is to fit through the new bearing, here again a little glycerin or dish washing liquid will speed things along. Finally don't forget to reinstall the set screws, don't over tighten just enough to snug up against the bearing and prevent it from coming out when the prop shaft turns.

Cutless Bearings

Changing out the cutless bearing on a boat is one of those jobs that most boat owners approach with dread. You know that it is coming up and you have to do it but you convince yourself that the existing bearing isn't really all that worn and it will do another season. The fact is though that most boat owners with inboard powered boats wait far too long before changing out the bearing. A worn bearing allows the shaft to wobble slightly or a lot depending on the severity of wear resulting in strain on the drive train and engine and a vibration that is hard to ignore..

Now I can't pretend to look forward to this job any more than the next person but as I was cleaning up the prop and replacing the shaft anode I noticed that there was a definite up and down movement that was not there when I performed these very tasks last year.  So the bearing would have to be replaced so I set to it. In the end it was not as bad as it could have been and probably took me a little over and hour from start to finish.

Changing a cutless bearing consists of two distinct but connected tasks, getting the old one out and getting the new one in. Nine times out of ten the best course of action is to remove the shaft. There are all sorts of fancy pullers and so forth on the market that suggest that you can do this without removing the shaft but in my opinion and experience these often do not work, the bearing is corroded into place and no amount of pushing is going to get it to budge.  The easiest kind of bearing to replace is generally a sailboat with a p bracket. After removing the shaft you can get to both ends. Remove the blade from a hacksaw pass it through the hole then reattach it to the saw frame. Very carefully saw through the bearing shell only being careful not to cut into the p bracket itself. The bearing can then be collapsed in on itself  as shown in the picture below.

Once you then reach this point the battle is won and the bearing can be pulled out, often with some vice grips.

On a closed end bearing shell such as those found on a power boat things are a little more complicated. You cannot use the hand held hacksaw as the inboard end of the bearing housing is up against the deadwood or skeg. I have had much success with a sawzall and a fine metal cutting blade but you have to be very careful. Things happen very fast if you do not pay attention and you can cut into the housing easily.

Part two will follow tomorrow and will look at getting the new one into place.

i2Systems lights update and other stuff

Some time ago I did post on the new i2systems lights which I like so much but because they were so new the manufacturer had not released the pricing and I promised an update in due course. Well Tom Zampini for i2systems sent me an e mail so I can now reliably tell you that the price for a 12 inch section  of S1200 is $69.95, a 48” section is $324.95 and  intermediate lengths are priced somewhere in between these two.

While we are on the subject of corrections and pricing as it were I have to tell you that i am still awaiting confirmation of the BEP systems monitor that I recently had the privilege of testing and that will be along just as soon as I am able to wheedle that from the distributor. Incidentally I apparently got the name wrong. It is called the the BEP 80-600-0021-00 but frankly all those numbers are just plain confusing so I'll just stick to calling it the BEP systems monitor.

One of the reasons that I have not been posting here as regularly as I would have liked is on account of all the surveys that i have been doing. During the course of surveying  boats which I enjoy tremendously you get to see all sorts of things from the downright dangerous and scary to the things that should have been attended to but just got overlooked. The picture above shows something that falls into this latter category. The boat was in very good shape for her age  but the bonding cables were all attached to a wooden block under the cabin sole. Now there are several things wrong with this picture.

1 There should never be more than three terminations to any one terminal post.

2 The block was wood and was often soaked with salting bilge water, promoting corrosion in the cables.

3 There is a live cable for the bilge pump (the red one) very close to the terminal. If the bilge water reaches that high then the salt water being conductive could well lead to a short of the pump or almost worse stray current could find its way into the bonding conductors eating up the anode on the outside of the hull, discharging the batteries and leading to all sorts of other maladies.

  The fix is simple one however, renew the bonding cables and connect them to a bus bar well clear of any errant bilge water. Remake the crimped connections to the bilge pump using waterproof connectors so that stray current cannot find a way to ground.

Removing old anti fouling

One of the questions that I get asked more than many others is...

" What is the best way to remove anti fouling?"

Scraping and sanding seem to be high on the list judging by the amount of people that I have seen doing that lately. It does work but it is slow, tedious work that raises lots of highly toxic dust. Without proper extraction equipment and a good quality respirator a shortened life span is a distinct possibility. For this personal environmental effect alone I would never consider dry sanding.

So what are the alternatives if you need to remove a huge buildup of anti fouling and get back to the bare gel coat.?

You can obviously go down the road of soda blasting and all the other expensive professional removal tactics but what are the options if like me you want to do it yourself or do not have an unlimited budget.

One option is Peel Away. This is a chemical process that has a low toxicity and a low almost imperceptible odor in fact in contrast with the alternative of scraping and sanding it is almost pleasant. You can get in from such places as Fisheries Supply for around about $65 per gallon. I have used it myself at times in the past and really does work. Although I have used it I have never taken any pictures of the process so I am indebted to my good friend Glen Grauer for those shown below.

 

Basically the system consists of two complimentary products. The chemical, shown above and a paper which can best be described as a little like Tyvek.

The stripper is applied to the surface and the paper is pressed on. This paper sticks to the chemical and is left in place for 24 hours.

 

The paper is then pulled off and discarded.

 

Then you use a scraper to scrape away the old anti fouling which as you can see here works almost like magic. As long as you follow the instructions it really does work as advertised. Glen had never used the product before and was amazed as 5 or 6 layers of anti fouling just simply slid off the boat with almost no effort. It is guaranteed not to damage the gel coat and can be used on other painted and varnished surfaces with no ill effects to the underlying structure.

BEP systems monitor

Now that I have sort of got the workshop into some sort of order I have been able to make a start on some of the many jobs that have been on the back burner. During this past week I have fitted the  BEP 600 - DCSM which from now on I shall simply refer to as the Systems Monitor. 

At first glance it simply looks like a fancy ammeter and voltmeter but it does so much more than that. Depending on the way that the systems monitor is wired it can monitor a couple of battery banks, including voltage, amps and capacity remaining. It can also  monitor tank levels when connected to a compatible sender unit, monitor any systems in operation and is also capable of watching over one or more bilge pumps. This last feature could be very useful to some as the monitor can be interrogated and will tell you at a glance how often the pump has cycled on and off.

The unit also has a visual and audio alarm function, so say the house battery bank is getting critically low an alarm will sound alerting you to the fact that the batteries need to be charged up.

Back in the day before electronic navigation electrical systems on boats were pretty basic, there may have been a few cabin and navigation lights all running from one battery and that was pretty much it. But now multiple battery banks are the norm along with a plethora of other electronics and electrical circuits. Underlying all this is an essential need to keep the batteries in tip top condition for without battery power the best electronics in the world add up to nothing.

One of the best aspects of the monitor is just how clear and easy to read the display is. When I powered up the unit for the first time I have to say how impressed I was with the brightness and clarity of the almost 3 inch display panel. Offering both day and night modes it is fully dimmable from 0 to 100%. For the sake of the pictures the display is turned up to maximum brightness. I wear glasses for reading but even when I switched the unit to self diagnostic mode the small characters were easy to read.

While on the subject of the display the legend at the top of each page can be custom set. Compare this picture with the one above now that I have added the name of this blog into the bar at the top.

 

Connecting up the unit is pretty straightforward, the wires connect into a couple of terminal strips at the back of the unit.

I ought to mention that the oblong black thing at the bottom of the this picture is a USB socket which is used to update and save user settings.

So up to now this is all good. What is not so good is the manual which although contains all the user information that you could possibly need is lacking in one or two areas. Firstly I think that the front of the book should give a good overview of the unit, it's main features and capabilities. The Raymarine installation and instruction booklets I have always thought have done very well in this regard. Secondly there is no template for the cutout that needs to be made into the helm or dash mounting plate. Sure you can always take measurements from the unit itself but here again the likes of Raymarine do a good job in providing this for you. All that is needed is a paper template on one of the blank pages in the instruction book which could be cut out with a pair of scissors. This all may sound pretty basic, which it is, but taping a paper template in place before cutting out a hole allows one to sit back in the helm chair visualize that the monitor will be in the correct position and show where mounting holes have to be drilled.

All in all though these are minor points, the system monitor is a great piece of kit which has the potential to replace a whole host of other stand alone gauges on board, it  is easy to read and set up and the on screen functions and menus are intuitive easy to understand and easy to get to grips with after just a few minutes of first powering up the unit. I love it and highly recommend this unit.

Saving wet electronics

OK so I am sure that I am not the only sailor that has dropped a cell phone in the water from my pocket whilst bending over to tie the boat to the dock.

Assuming that you can get the phone back, I managed it with a kids fishing net attached to a boat hook as the water was not too deep, what do you do next or is a waste of time? 

If the cell phone or other electronic device was dropped in salt water you need to rinse it thoroughly under the faucet, I know this seems like the wrong thing to do but trust me you need to get rid of the salt crystals. Remove the battery if you can as this makes cleaning out the inside easier. Shake off as much of the excess water as you can then pat dry with paper towels. Finally bury the phone or other electronic device in a clean dry bowl of rice and leave over night. The rice will attract and absorb most if not all of the remaining moisture left in the device. With luck the phone or other electronic device will have survived and lived to ring another day.

Even if you manage to dry out the equipment it would be wise to get it to an approved service center asap so they can take it apart and check the inner workings.