Boats, boats and more boats

We decided to make the trip to Annapolis a two day event. It is about 100m run up the bay and at 8.5 kts, it is a long day. We have done it in the past but there was no compelling reason to do so this time. Besides, we were in a late afternoon thunderstorm pattern and we like to be tucked in somewhere before they hit. Our option was a 50 mile run to Solomons MD and a much more tolerable trip. The weather forecast had a big dome of hot humid air settling over the area and it was nice to be in before the most intense heat of the day.For part of the trip we had temps in the low 100's ugh!

The night before we left for Annapolis,  this Osprey landed in a tree outside of our kitchen window with a big Striper in his talons. Frankly, he had a better meal than we did...Jeannie was quite jealous of his catch!

This time of year when we depart Indian Creek for the Chesapeake Bay it is not uncommon to see the menhaden fleet out fishing. They come out of Reedville which is just north of us.

This is a really big commercial fishing operation that supplies fish protein and oil to multiple industries. You may not be aware but somewhere in your recent past you've probably came in contact with a product that had a component of menhaden in it. We drive to Reedville and for $5 get a ice cooler full of them and use them as crab bait for the season.

We saw a total of five ships out working as we went by. They have smaller boats, which you can see along side, that once the nets are deployed, the smaller boats bring the other end around so the catch is enclosed totally in the nets. Then the nets are hauled in.  They frequently use spotter planes to find the schools of fish. There is an annual catch limit which I think is 2m pounds?

When we have nice calm seas and it is not too hot outside, Jeannie pilots the boat and I get out my rags and polish and work on keeping her clean. It is really quite pleasant work that I enjoy. Much better doing it while running with a bit of sea breeze and some motion than sitting tied up in the hot air.

We always see a diversity of waterman when out on the bay, the majority are crabbers. But this guy was different, first he was in deep water, probably 90+ft very atypical, second he used a winch to pull up the traps. Something you see with the NE lobster men. Had us scratching our heads....

The Bay is a big place and often there is little commercial traffic. The tugs on occasion and commercial deep draft vessels in the shipping lanes.

At the southern end of  the Potomac where it meets the Chesapeake Bay  there are traffic separation lanes to separate vessels both north and south bound. Not only is the water deeper here but the current can really rip as the tide out of the bay joins with the tide out of the Potomac River. If you have an opposing wind it can stir things up quite a bit.

In this case we met up with a tug pulling a red flagged barge (fuel), Tug Jennifer Turecamo being overtaken by a large car carrier ship MV/Talisman as they begin to enter the separation lane. You can see them on the chart plotter with names, thanks to our AIS.

A slightly different view on radar. Seabright is centered over the + and the tug and commercial carrier are to our port. Both are lining up for the lane and for the larger ship to overtake the tug. The tug was traveling about 8kts and the larger ship was traveling 19kts. You can see the green outline is the location from the AIS transmission and the overlayed red is the radar reflection. This gives us quite a bit of navigation information which is both visually and numerically displayed. We know both ships' names, their speed, direction and range to us for example. This is the type of display we would see day or night. Looking at it critically you can see we are all well separated and aware of each others' course and speed (SOG, COG).

We met up with our good friends Ray and Susan Cope. They stopped by during an east coast trip visiting family. We were docked at the Annapolis City Docks "Ego Alley". Their boat is our sister boat Copeing. They were headed back to FL to begin a north bound trip up the east coast.

We were also visited by our good friends Malanie and Fred Azar along with their family.

Stephen and his girl friend Steph Olsen

...and Brian and his girl friend Annamaria Monmaney.

We had a wonderful time aboard and later went out for a great dinner with good friends and their wonderful family.






On Saturday morning we moved over to Eastport  for the Outer Reef Open House. They have  great new office in a well placed location at; 

222 Severn Avenue
Suite 20
Annapolis, Maryland 21403

Geoffrey White the sales associate is a great guy and was a fine host.  He invited us to dinner at his home that Saturday night for a tasty baked salmon.


We had a delightful time meeting many interesting folks during the open house and talking one of our favorite topics... boats...What fun!!

  

Electronics

I just added the electronics layout in the boat section.  I am increasing the technical information about Seabright and will be adding more in the coming days.

running

Check out our track as we go up the Bay, go to current location

Getting ready to go

We plan on traveling up the Bay for a short weeks trip with stops in Solomons and Annapolis MD.
We are attending an open house for OR and hope to meet up with some friends, Ray and Susan Cope.

However there  were a bunch of maintenance things to get done before heading out, 53 to be exact, Wheelhouse technologies helps me keep tabs on the scheduled maintenance. So for the past week I have been earning my keep and doing the list.

Whe

When we brought the boat back from the yard I noticed that one of the engines was running a bit hotter than normal at WOT (wide open throttle). So I cleaned the sea strainers, which were not bad. After that I cleaned the heat exchangers using a small steel rod that I ran through the tubes. There was a bit of small grass that may have been the problem.

Here is a close up of the exchanger. Fresh sea water flows through here and the engine coolant surrounds the tubes and the heat is transferred. Much like your car but using seawater instead of air.

The sea water is pumped from a sea chest through a Groco 3000 sea strainer to a water pump and into the exchanger. Then out the boat.  My engines run a bit cooler than most diesels, I average about 165 and at WOT a slight increase to 170 or so.

I changed all of the zincs, which are sacrificial anodes to take any stray current. I do this about once a qtr. You can see how the new zinc sits in the heat exchanger.

There a total of two on each engine

Here are the old ones that I took out, you can see they are spent. They did there job!

There are zincs on the heat exchanger for the ZF transmission. You can see the head facing to the right between the the water intake hose and the first oil in hose.

Next up was the zincs of the heat exchanger for the hydraulic system, you can see the bolt head sticking out of the right side.

Included in changing all of the zincs was to clean the sea strainers for each unit. That requires closing the Groco sea strainers. This is the port strainer valve, a Groco 3000 coming into the sea chest. This pic is looking down at the top of it as it enters the sea chest.
There are a total of 2 3000, one 1500 and 3 1200. Each one to be opened and the wire basket removed and cleaned and replaced.

The past few days I changed 7 racor fuel filters, you can see then as the 6 of them if you look closely, they are tall and white.

A look at the port engine after all is done and put back together












Almost all of the chores are done and tomorrow is general clean up and provisioning. We are looking forward to a fun trip.

Finally out of the yard and home

We sat in the boat yard for almost 2 months, most of that time was waiting on a replacement board to fix our ailing Trace 4000w inverter. The board was to have been made in a Canadian subsidiary where the Trace inverter is now housed. It is no longer made for the marine industry, rather it was retooled for renewable energy industry. So parts are hard to come by even though this was still under warranty. As our frustration grew, the independent  service center reached out to the US domestic supplier of Xantrax and, voila, they sent a brand new Trace inverter. In four days it was delivered and installed and so far doing quite well. Hats off to Pablo of Lamplighter Marine Electronics in Palm Beach.

We traveled home on the July 4th weekend, our local independence from the yard. With Jeannie and me were our two nieces Becky and Sarah and their husbands Joe and Brian. Some additional crew members included Becky and Joe's 2 oldest children, Shannon and my godson Aiden.

It was not a particular long trip; longer by boat than car. Beautiful weather and scenic country side were a real treat.

Anyone who has cruised with us in the past knows first hand the harsh truth that life aboard is work work and more work we are hard task masters ..right?
We do not supply the sun screen, well maybe sometimes...

Building on that working theme, everyone must master all of the basics, at least enough for me too feel good about pontificating on various gadgets.

Here is the beautiful Great Wicomico River a few miles before entering the Chesapeake Bay.

Cap'n Brian did a great job of helping us navigate the mouth of the river.

Heck, even the younger ones got a chance at the wheel...in the A/C of course.

We were quite the crowd, I would point out that the guys were all clustered around the gizmos, where else I ask you?

A great run on the 4th of July weekend

A chance to run her up on WOT and see how the temps and pressure do. After sitting in the yard for so long it was a pleasure. As a habit I always run at WOT and record the results believing you will start to pick up small problems before they become big and it  allows you to burn off any carbon build up in the cylinders.

Unusual for us, we had lots of hands to help with the docking. 

Getting ready to come in to our Kilmarnock home dock.

Back in the slip and setting the lines and shore power.

Joe and Aiden preparing to depart.
Nice trip on a beautiful holiday weekend and we truly enjoyed having guests and crew. It helped make the trip a real celebration.














Now that the boat is back I have on the list about 53 (yes exactly 53) maintenance items to attend to and get to them quickly. We use a service called http://www.wheelhousetech.com/ which helps us keep track of not only maintenance and repair issues, but it also keeps our inventories and all equipment that is aboard. Quite a handy tool.
We are planning a trip up the bay in a few weeks so the pressure is on to get everything ship shape.

A new look

 With the help of our talented daughter Katie,  we have started to revamp the look and feel of the web site. In part to make it feel more like we want and in part to improve the functionality of the blog. To that end the layout is better and more information can be presented in an organized fashion that is clear and simple to use. We hope you like the result.
In the next few days and weeks we will be adding more content and details. Check back when you can.

Comments and suggestions are most welcome as well as anything may interest you.