Wed 26 May, HHN day 43: Setup air conditioner. Hydraulic outhaul piston installed back inside the boom, mouse lines threaded, and boom ends back on. Then a big thunder storm.
Very hot and humid all day today, a climate that I just don’t seem to get much done in. It just saps my energy. Outside is bad but inside is terrible, even by midmorning. I must get my living environment cooler somehow.
With the water turned back on in my row of the yard (I guess my hole digging punishment is done!) I rig up a hose into the engine room, where I make just a trickle of water flow into the air-conditioner cooling circuit. And very soon I have the cabin cooling down. Wonderful. I could stand in front of that A/C vent in the saloon all day!
Our A/C cooling circuit drains into the cockpit drain, so outside you would not even know I have water running, because it is gently cascading down the keel and silently into the gravel. With the inside of the boat cooled and humidity reduced, it was such a pleasure to come in for breaks in the cool air.
Outside, I am focused on getting the outhaul piston installed back inside the boom, for once and for all time!
First, I touch up the paint where I had opened the end of the hydraulic cylinder. Then, lined up on 2 trestles in line with the boom, I feed the mouse lines through the sheaves in the carriage and up to the other end of the boom. I discover that 4 lengths of the boom is quite a length of mouse-line!
And last task before sliding the hydraulic cylinder back in the boom, is to attach the 2 new hydraulic hoses. In theory this can be done with the outhaul cylinder already inside the boom. But in practice it is almost impossible to get a spanner on, to tighten them.
These new hoses only have air in them at the moment. After all the work to get the air out of the hydraulic cylinder yesterday, it seems a shame to now attach air-filled hoses. So I devise a way to fill them with oil. Holding them vertically on the ladder, using a jam-jar and small funnel, I pour the oil into the open upper end, while the end near the ground has a closed valve on it.
I’m right in the middle of this operation, concentrating hard not to spill any hydraulic oil, when Paul rocks up in his hire car. When I explain what I’m doing he looks a bit puzzled. Pffff, what does he know about hydraulics, let me concentrate please, because this one hose is taking ages to fill.
“So, let me get this straight” he starts. “You are pouring in fluid into the top end, and it flows out the bottom end. How does that fill the hose with oil?” After a couple of tut-tuts, I explain there is a valve on the bottom end.
“Well, I don’t think the valve is working” he says. Then I look down. And sure enough, the oil is coming out the bottom as fast as I put it in the top! Bugger! Turns out the guy in the hydraulics shop did not tighten the valves on the ends of the hoses! I could have been up that ladder all day throwing hydraulic oil down the hose.
So we go to plan-B. Paul’s plan (he’s actually quite smart for an Australian!). We remove the valves entirely, and with Paul holding one end in each hand and the hose dangling as a “U” in front of him, I successfully fill from one end. But not without “accidentally” spilling some on his hands, just for being a smart-arse!
Once full, the valves go back on then we install the hoses, now full of oil, onto the outhaul cylinder. Like everything, first time takes some thinking. Trouble is, with most of these jobs, I don’t plan on there being a second time!
With hoses on and mousselines in, the gooseneck end fitting is attached to the outhaul cylinder and pushed in to its final resting place. Finally, it is just the boom ends that need bolting back on. I complete bolting the goose-neck fitting, but while installing the aft end of the boom a thunder storm is suddenly upon us and I run inside for shelter.
And that is the end of my outside work day. Doesn’t feel like I achieved much, but in this heat it’s tough to keep at it.
All evening the rain pelts on the shrink wrap, in waves of thunder claps and lightning flashes.
And I am reminded it is exactly a year ago that we had a massive thunderstorm (one of several) while in the Gulfstream passing North Carolina. That’s when we did our horrible accidental gybe which broke so many things. Well, at least sitting here in the yard with the mast and boom laid down on the ground, there is no chance of a lightning strike, nor accidental gybe!
Early evening I pluck up just enough enthusiasm to finish my Houdini painting saga in the void at the stern of the boat. I apply a second coat of the so-called sound dampening paint.
Now I just have to wire on the new quick-connect electrical fittings to the auto helm linear drives. And then I can close up the aft bilge and get my big bed back again. I’m really looking forward to that, because our mattress in the aft cabin is a special one – much comfier than the foam mattresses in the rest of the cabins.
