Rolling sails, and bodged up props -.^

Lots of stuff been going on in the last few days, we had are share of catastofies, and recently some great rewards (well not to bad).

It is always amazing, and never fails, that when one trys to tackle a small project on a boat, it turns into a big one. usually kind of like a tree. meaning that you start with one thing, that leads to another, or you have to stop and do some thing else, if you were to see the problems, and their fixes from above, writtin out as a picture on paper. it would reseble a Tree.

I was having a transmition problem, whe i would put the boat in forward it seemed to work alright. however, when i would put the boat in the reverse gear, all heel came sounding from the direction of the trany, clunks, clanks, skipping noises/ the whole nine yards.

so that is always not a good sign. I believed it to be that the cable was not giving enough swing to the shift lever.

the next day, i took out all the sails and then the sound panel from the engine area.

here was my first mistake- I saw the sea strainer when i was taking off the cover, and got the idea to check the strainer, a simple routine procedure. ( the mistake was getting side tracked form the orignal goal of removing the cable from the shift lever, and manualy shifting gears directly on the tranny to see if the cable was the problem.)

so i shut the sea cock, no problem, i cleanned the strainer, no problem, i went to open the valve again, CRACK! It broke! now i got a whole new bundle of problems, a broken valve leaking in the ocean. The valve being broken in the off position which doesnt permit me to run the engine. and still not knowing about the tranny.

it took a while to relise that i didnt have to dry the boat out against the sea wall, but that i could use a plug to stop the water long enough to change that valve. that was relief.

once i got the vavlve changed i went down under the boat again to pull the plug. while i was down there i figured it a good idea to check on my prop. NOT GOOD, the prop key was gone without a trance. so i thought here is another project, and one that still impared me from trying out the transmition. next day, I removed the prop and put on a new key. but another problem showed its self. the prop had been freewheeling on the shaft for who knows how long.... that made the bore on the prop larger then what was excepted with my current mounting hardware... urrr.

another two days of thinking out a solution later this being today. I finally got my prop back on, and gave it a spin, it didnt fly off so it must be on there. but i want to put on a second nut just in case. I tried that tranny, it seems to be fine without the cable. i put it back on, only with the nut on the bolt that holds the cable to the arm, a bit looser. this seems to have fixed my tranny problem. HURAHH! lets hope it keeps working.

I bought a roller furling head sail today aswell, i am going to try abd drive my boat over to the sea wall to load it onboard. then that will be next project. putting up the roller furler, should begin tomorow.

well thats whats new. in my free time i have just been doing some internet, and shearching for a spare autopilot. today i got to fire off a cannon!

so ARRR!!

Back to me peace, Nd me sunset!

Josh

the cabin went through a cleaning faze aswell durring the pondering.