Monday 12 November, Norfolk VA: Re-sealed stern window, flushing the generator with anti-calcium solution, and dinner with OCC members.
Chop chop, out of bed, it’s Monday! New week starts and we have lots to do. Coffee is sipped in front of the laptop, with Glen eagerly checking the weather forecast. Which now shows a good window for a departure on Friday. And with the ears glued to the SSB, we hear Chris Parker confirming Glen’s findings. Ok, that’s good, we now have a firm timeframe.
First thought: what else do we want to buy online while we are still here? 🙂 Haha, I know, like we need to add more to our already almost full storage space and sink Cloudy’s waterline yet further!
Now that we can roughly estimate our arrival in Antigua, we tackle the task of arranging shipment and customs clearance for our-soon-to-be-new-monster, the Parasailor. Sounds to be a pretty straight forward process, but mandatory for us to be already in Antigua when the sail arrives in the country. Which shouldn’t be too difficult to plan.
Bright day again, and activities move outside. The leaking master cabin window is today’s priority. It’s gonna rain like hell tonight, and unless we want to sleep in the junk room (forward cabin!) we’d better take the leaking window off, clean it and reseal. Taking it off is a relatively simple job, unscrewing the 26 screws from the inside of the cabin. And when it comes off, we see how it was previously sealed. We suspect it has been removed once more previously, because it doesn’t look like a factory job. The sealant peels off like a strip of tape in some places, and like a gooy paste in others. So we hope can’t really tell what sort of sealant that was.
Glen spends a bit of time masking the gelcoat around the frame, cleaning the aluminum frame of the window and contemplating on what would be the best option we have for a successful re-sealing. The rubber sealant strips that we have on stock may do the job, but is a bit too thick and too firm, so it can’t be rounded very well at the corners. So that is out. Next idea is to put a thin film of vaseline on the gelcoat, and then sikaflex on the aluminum frame in. The vaseline would prevent it from getting stuck firmly in place, and we can remove it if need be.
That decided, we have a plan. And a small tube a sikaflex. We hold our breath as Glen squeezes it on the slot along the perimeter of the aluminum window frame. Not only because we don’t want it to accidentally get over the edge, but because the tube is so small, that it might not be enough. In the end it is enough, but only just. With the last squeeze we cover the last bit, at the joints of the frame. And we put the window back into its hole no problem. This was the cool job, both by precision and by the outside temperature. Then the inside job, putting back the 26 screws and tighten them in place. Sticky sweaty fingers, small screws and an allen key to tighten them…make this job a hot one, rushing to get it tightened down to squeeze out the excess sikaflex before it hardens.
On the outside the sikaflex is indeed squeezed out all around the window, which implies a good seal has been made. Glen wipes off the excess then removes the masking tape. And the result is good, a perfect clean job. Now we are waiting for the rain, to test the result. Looks like we won’t have to wait for too long, the dark clouds are gathering above us quite fast.
Next big job is in the engine room. Flushing the generator with anti-calcium solution. For this we bought a small electric bilge pump which we placed in a large bucket. With the impeller removed and the housing put back on, the normal intake hose from the thru-hull is fed into the bucket, and the hose that normally “T’s” into the exhaust is connected to the bilge pump in the same bucket. Thus the fluid is circulated the opposite way to the normal flow. With the bucket full of hot water plus the anti-calc liquid, we circulate it around the generators raw water system for a few hours.
In the evening we are invited for dinner at Gary and Greta’s. Quite a crowd we are now, since three more boats have docked here. A house full, literally! And we spend a pleasant evening in their company, enjoying the nice food which Greta kindly prepared again for us all, while hearing from the experiences of other fellow cruisers. We are certainly happy for signing up to OCC ( Ocean Cruising Club), we’ve had such great help and hospitality from the port officers, and we’ve met very interesting fellow OCC members.
Back at Cloudy Bay, moment of truth: has the window been leaking after all this heavy rain? Of course not, bone dry inside. Wonderful, waterproof master cabin again. Well, at least till we forget the hatch open and Glen washes down the decks (which we quite often do forget!).
Before bed, Glen gets rid of the anti-calc solution down the toilet (it will anti-calc that too hopefully!), flushes the generator raw water system with fresh water, installs a new impeller and declares the generator to be anti-calc’d for another year! Tomorrow he will do the Volvo.
In the meantime it looks like the cold weather has caught up with Glen, as he goes to bed with a slight temperature and very runny nose!