The final fix

OK so the key mechanical and electrical systems are now looking good, now on to the other areas of the yacht. With time running very short job priorities had to be set. Keeping in mind the existing wear and tear, the below is the list on jobs that were done:

• Sail repair - The genoa needed the last half of a foot replaced on the Leach due to root
• The diesel heater failed and needed electrical engine replaced along with several other parts. This cost around £400 which we later regretted as the unit was 15 years old and was still a little on the sad side even once fixed.
• Clean the water tanks with agua-clean chemicals to remove algae. This took several treatments as the tanks had not been used much in the last year.
• Test the water heater on both shore power and by heating via engine
• Check the rigging and Nav lights. Up the mast I go to check all the fittings and steel wires for cracks or fraying
• Replace the genoa sheets and the main halyard.  Halyards should have minimal stretch and for sheets this is not so important (and these are much cheaper) all from super well priced Jimmy Green.
• Fit a dual gas regulator able to take both propane and butane. This was very important for us as some countries only use one or the other
• Repair spray hood and replace plastic windows in spray hood. The spray hood was very old the clear plastic was milky and was hard to see through. A quote to repair minor tears, replace clear windows and some stitching was around £700. ARGG no thanks, so Tia’s mum lent us her standard sewing machine and 8 hours later the repairs were done and windows replaced. (this was completed a two days before leaving, the pressure was on)
• Painted the engine bay. For this we used ‘International’ bilge paint which was of fair quality. The prep work of de-greasing the scrubbing the engine bay prior to painting took much longer then the painting. The idea of this was so that I can easily see if a new oil spot or similar appears against the shiny new white paint. (however it stays white for only a few weeks)
• Paint inside lockers. Tia did most of these, loads of scrubbing (washing detergent works well as it dissolves grease). We used ‘Dulux’ outdoor acrylic paint, which is holding up against the damp conditions. We got this idea from an article in PBO yachting magazine.
• Sand and oil exterior wood. We only had time to do the doors to the main and rear cabin. No varnish was used as we didn’t want the wood to be slippery. Later we changed our minds as the wood started to fade over a few months. More on this later
• Replaced all cabin lights with LED lights. This would save us a lot of money over the course of one year charging batteries. LED lights will use less than 0.1 amp compared to circa 1 amps for old school lights. Over one year the cost really adds up. The details about real cost per amp when charging via an alternator would take a whole blog post on it own.
• Memory foam mattress topper was ordered for front cabin and aft cabin mattress replaced and covered. Total was around £250. Tia and her friends made the covers for the aft mattress as quotes to do this were not pleasing to the wallet
• CD player that we could plug our Ipod was installed. This was a JVC unit which we are very happy with
• Replace water pump as the old one decided it had done enough
• The gas cooker had some problems with main oven and nearly burnt all the hair off my head. Turned out to a corroded gas pipe inside the cooker. The engineer from www.gasboat.net sorted this out for a good price. Very happy with the work
• Replace carbon fresh water filter
• Paint bathroom doors a lovely shade of green
• Send the Epirb to be serviced and tested.
• Sent the Liferaft to be serviced. £400 well spent in our minds. Hopefully we will never need to use it
• Tia made some new Curtains that better matched the colour scheme. (It does look so much better, a womans touch made all the different)

So all done and dusted. Ready to leave, bon voyage, no more things to fix... right?

We have 60 red wires which are all  going into mysterious places behind the power distribution board, hmmm so what does what....

One of the things that made me very uncomfortable when looking at this was the thought of losing all power to our yacht and 2am in unsavoury weather and not knowing where to start. So an investigation into what every relay, switch and wire was used for, needed to be carried out for safety reason and peace of mind. In our case this is what we found out:-

• ·         The main feed from the domestics to power distribution board was not fused. 
•  Several devices were not individually fused or wired directly to the domestic battery bank. 
• A good 10% of the wiring either went nowhere or was not connected to anything. 
•  In some cases the black wires were used for both the positive and negative wiring. 
•  The power distribution was a spaghetti mess and could benefit from a tidy and from several junction boxes to contain some of the wire joins. 
•  The current alternator was of too low an output to run all the electrics and charge the batteries at the same time. 
• A list of the types of fuses, switches, wire gauges and relays could be created for spares

Once the job of wire tracing was over I could get on with the list of jobs to undertake (thankfully the contortion to trace all the wires in tiny places didn’t last too long).  This is the list of jobs we completed before we left;

• Fuses, fuses, fuses for everything and anything that was un-fused that consumed power. 
• Several wires and connections had to be replaced which were suspect. 
• Junction boxes were added to tidy up wiring in power distribution board. 
•  An 80amp alternator was installed (special attention must be paid to the wiring from alternator to the batteries as voltage drop can dramatically increase charging times). 
• A Sterling multistep regulator was fitted to modify the alternators output. This enabled the charging system to operate at bulk, absorption and float modes. I cannot over emphasise how much different this makes to reduce our charging times to our domestic battery banks. The device in only £90 pound. 
• A battery monitor was fitted so discharge and charge rates could be monitored. 
• A 300Watt Stirling inverter was installed that we could charge both our laptops. 
• All cabin lights were replaced with LED lights.

As our leaving date quickly approached we found it necessary to prioritise what was looked at and fixed. Although we managed to complete our key items there was much more I would have liked to checked and tested, yet we had no such luxury based on our time scale.  Once again the lesson learned; whatever your estimated time scale  – double it!

Engine Failure – Maiden Voyage

Once you take the leap to purchase a yacht, we all know there is a big list of jobs that should be done before you sail it anywhere. When you first step aboard your new boat there should be an audit stating the contents of what is aboard – check everything! You need to find the location of all safety equipment, sea cocks, gas cut off and familiarise yourself with the boat’s electrical systems.  Unfortunately in our case we had no handover or audit and, no matter our insistence of a more thorough viewing, had only sailed the boat for 45mins with the owner aboard before we bought it. Not much time to understand the idiosyncrasies of a ‘new’ boat.  So then why did we buy her? Simple -she was a diamond in the rough. Well under her value in price, excellent survey results and well over three quarters of the equipment we had planned to buy already installed... too good an offer to pass up.

Once we had her we had to move her ASAP from the current location to Harwich, some 3-4 hours away. To get to her from London in the first place...No problem. We just needed to take the tube, then train, then another train, then a bus, then a long walk and finally a 10 minute dingy ride to arrive where she sat anchored ready for the sail on the next day. We arrived at sunset and had little time to do all the checks required for the 6am start the next day to catch the tide. So assumptions were made and, most regrettably and stupidly, some checks left out.... bad idea.

After casting off our mooring buoy and motoring the unfamiliar yacht out of the river mouth we heard an unwelcome sound. A very loud screeching ensued akin to a jet engine which was followed by an overpowering smell of burning. The engine immediately went off and the sails came out ready to sail our way out of the densely sand banked area we were in and past the other challenges on the east coast of England. To top it off the weather decided to blow up to a force 7 which made the sailing more exciting.

THE CAUSE; 

In the rush on a Sunday morning we did not check the raw water sea cock to ensure it was  open to cool the engine. With no sea water to take the heat away from the engine through the heat exchanger the coolant boiled dry. The sea water is also used to cool the exhaust gases as they go through the exhaust system. Without either of these actions taking place a fair amount of damage was done.

THE DAMAGE;

• Firstly my pride ;) 
• The  imprellor needed replacement (thankfully we had planned to do this anyway) 
• Nearly every rubber component in the raw water system needed replacement; 2 elbows for heat exchanger, many meters of reinforced exhaust hoses and siphon hoses. 
•  Replace water cooled muffler and as it had partly melted from the heat 
• Thermostat failed and needed to be replaced 
• During the process of replacing hoses found the exhaust elbow needed replacement (£150)

·         Get Travis the amazing mechanic to check cylinder pressure on each cylinder to see if there was any damage (very lucky it was ok). Oil pressure was also checked as the gauge was faulty. Oil and filters changed.

·         Our credit card says there are several other small cost as well

·         We were very lucky that the cylinder head did not crack

LEASONS LEARNED;

• Not every sailor thinks the same or would leave their boat in the same conditions i.e. I wouldn’t have closed the sea cock in the first place. Lesson ... don’t assume. 
• No matter what the circumstances check everything possible that there is to check and familiarise yourself with all the systems before setting off for the first time. Next time I will be up at 4am on a winters morn if need be.

How to fix a boat.. step 1

Looking back to late 2010 I have put together a list of our maintenance tasks.  The costs are all in £GBP and please note that some are approximations as many of the receipts were far too wet to read.

The Maintenence fell into three categories:-

1.       Known tasks with a cost similar costs to our estimates

2.       Known tasks that had cost A LOT MORE than our estimates

3.       Challenges that appeared and were not budgeted for

Known tasks with a cost similar costs to our estimates

•  Good quality tools that one would need to fix a fair sized diesel engine. This included:-

• Cordless drill, sander, woodworking tools and bolt cutters – around £200-300  (go amazon)

•  Ply wood sheets and hard wood planks for general repairs – around £50
• Gas regulator that works for both propane and butane plus several new fitting to connect to USA gas bottle standards - £60
• Servicing ‘Main’ sail - £25
• Replace sulphated Bow Thruster batteries - £240
• Battery Monitor - £100
• Replace of :- 3x Fire Extengishers and 1 x Fender - £60
• Solvents, mastics, greases, resins, oils and paints -  £240
• Toilet full service kit - £25
•  300W inverter - £60

Known tasks that had cost A LOT MORE than our estimates

As we only bought our trusty yacht 6 month before we left UK  we left ourseleves with oh so much to learn about and do research on, especially for novices like us (Tia - Little to no experience of practical boat maintenence, Jarvis - Some experience but mainly 'quick fix' work on charter yachts).

For instance, the upholstery for a boat is supposed to have a high synthetic content to resist mould; which is something cotton basics fabrics are no good at however the cost of some of these materials are around £90 per meter which for us was a major shock to the system and would heavily cut into our budget. So, after much researching we decided to go for heavy duty upholstery cloth used in couches for £10 per meter. This was cotton/polyester mix which is not ideal yet seems to be working out brilliantly as we have no mould or deteriation on it after it repeatedly getting wet throughout the trip. A good airing once in a while works wonders.

Below is a list of other costs that were unexpected....

•  LED lights to replace standard lights for cabins - £130
•  After servicing our Genoa we were told the edge of the 20 year old sail was mouldy and either, the sail needed replacing or one foot of the luff needed to be replaced – ouch! We choose luff replacement for £800 to repair
•  Servicing our Epirb – £142
•  Servicing our Life Raft which we were told will not pass an other servicing (eep). The company told us a lot of the cheap ones on the market will fail the servicing tests and need replacing after few years. A scaring thought – £450
•   Replacement mattresses and upholstery for front and aft cabin. This part required a lot of research to get a good price and the right materials – £90 for fabric and £173 for the foam
•  Stainless steel bolts, screws and fittings. A bit tip to anyone considering doing thins... Go nuts and buy buckets of good stainless steel bolts and screws.. it will save you a lot of hassel. I ended up spending loads of time and money buying little packs of 5 screws or bolts for a few pounds each time. I have seen some varied bolt packs with 1000 bolts in them on ebay for low price – £50-100 
• After chating to our mechanic about what things would could be done to optimize the engine and check critical components before heading off for a long cruise lasting a year this was the list of things that applied to us; Get injectors serviced, adjust tappets, replace faulty oil pressure sender, replace gear box oil and filter, replace oil filter and oil, check cylnoder compression, replace several suspect engine bolts (one can not find metic bolts in the Caribbean) . Some of this I could do and some our trusty mechanic had to do. - £500

 Challenges that appeared and were not budgeted for

• Anything that had an electrical engine in it,

This included diesel heater, water pump and blower fans. The cost on servicing and replacing half of components in the diesel heater was very pricey. – around £500

• Our oven was not working properly:-

(the oven only did low heat) and it nearly made my head bald after I tried to troubleshoot it as it exploded in my face due to one for the main gas lines had corroded - £80

•  Rewiring of instrument panel and domestic batteries.

Most  wiring was suspect without fuses - £50- 80

• Electronic charts and Pilots

We thought that had everything we needed for the trip as the owner decided to include them, yet we needed to buy several extra. - £200

•  First time we used the boat we erm...... didn’t open the correct sea cocks *e’hem*

So... the engin over heated and I had to replace anything rubber and plastic from the raw water inlet to outlet - £200 in parts

• A few things that missed being picked up on the marine survey included:-

Solar panel regulator faulty and deck light problems - £80

In the Beggining...

Let me take you back to august 2010 - This was when we started planning our initial maintenance budget. and well...hummm at that time your guess was as good as mine ;)

When we were looking to buy our yacht and prepare for blue water cruising we struggled to find resources on how much money would be required to prepare her, and what would need to done and ,based on that, we are hoping that this may be a help to someone else in the same situation.

To  help give you an idea of what work we are capable of and what we needed a professional to do below is a overview of my maintenance abilities:-

• Comfortable with wiring and fair understanding of electronics
• Basic to intermediate mechanical abilities (mostly from fixing my super budget old cars)
• Good woodworking and general maintenance

After doing some research, which involved mainly picking our favourites numbers, reading some tea leaves and consulting our crystal ball, we come up with a budget of £5000 to be our total to make Croc Bones sea worthy.

At the first stage we had our shinny new (old) yacht... and ok she was not yet shiny, but very soon to be. The initial maintenance fund we set out was to include:-

• New Dingy and outboard
• Biminy
• Allowance to replace a electronic navigational devices if found to be faulty
• Replacement of several ropes, such as the main halyard, main and Genoa sheets
• Replace/Recover upholstery and mattresses 
• Upgrading charging systems
• General engine maintenance and small repairs
• Minor sail repairs
• General Maintenance

This was the starting point but looking back it seems that the crystal ball betrayed us as we went a little over our initial guestimation....