The Rudder Saga Continues
I'm sure everyone is mightily tired of hearing of boat maintenance woes, but the latest on the leaky rudder shaft is too good not to share. We had 2 techs working most of last week, from Monday afternoon until yesterday afternoon (they didn't work the weekend, though), removing the rudder and reassembling things such that they would stem the slow dripping leak where the rudder enters the hull.
It was a learning experience for all of us, quite painful to be paying the boatyard for their learning curve on our boat. We had instructions from the factory for how to remove the rudder, but everything just seems to take way longer than you'd think or hope. We did find some problems with the fiberglass tube where the rudder enters the hull and we did a better job at sealing things up than the factory did originally!
We did have to manage some issues, like the lead tech wanting to go home early on Friday. We needed to lift the boat to have enough room to get the rudder shaft up into the hull and the TravelLift had 2 other boats ahead of us, it was 1:30 on Friday, and the guy who runs the TravelList was still at lunch. We got the tech to agree to stick around for an hour and sure enough inside 30 minutes the other 2 boats were done. Of course the tech was then grumpy for the next couple of hours, given he didn't get to start his weekend early.
At any rate, Monday they finished up the last bits of the installation, and true to form the TravelLift wasn't available until close to 4:30PM, closing time. No way we were going to spend another night on the hard, and we got them to drop us (slowly and gently) into the water. I jumped below and found the leak was just as bad as it had ever been! We theorize there's a microscopic crack in the fiberglass tube that will require the entire process be repeated, only this time we'll have to replace the fiberglass tube.
That makes for 2 boatyard employees working pretty much full-time for 5 days. Take your favorite auto repair shop hourly charge (slightly reduced as these guys aren't as "highly trained") and do the arithmetic. All for nothing, other than the learning process. Oh, and next time it'll be more difficult to disassemble since the techs were extra careful to use *lots* of marine adhesive in the futile attempt to stem the leak.
Needless to say we were seriously deflated. After sleeping on it overnight (with the boat in the water) we decided to postpone another attempt at a fix. We measured the leak to be about a cup of water an hour, which isn't too bad. Still, it's got to be fixed sometime since if both bilge pumps failed and we weren't around to check it could conceivably sink the boat. Besides, it'd really be nice to have a dry bilge.
Yesterday morning we moved the boat to a mooring in the Annapolis Harbor where we continue to monitor the leak. We need to stick around for a couple of days to retrieve packages we've had sent care of the boatyard. Once we have the packages, the plan is to head out to Maine and try to enjoy the rest of the summer. Further plans beyond that are up in the air.
This boat repair stuff has gotten ridiculous. Here's that list of things we've had done or done ourselves to the boat in the past 2 months:
tighten rudder packing & locktite screws (I did this - didn't help)
remove, repair, and re-bed rudder packing and bearings
fiberglass and epoxy aft holding tank (small leak, seems to be fixed)
new forestay and jib furler section; rework jib halliard at masthead
new jib sheets
new outhaul
rework running backstays
install permanent preventer
replace tri-color/anchor masthead w/LED version (low energy)
install 1 1/2" PCV on outboard tiller
change oil & oil filter main engine (twice)
change oil & oil filter generator
bottom cleaning (dumb - a month later we had the bottom painted)
replace zincs (also dumb, a month later we could have done it ourselves)
remove, refurbish, reinstall Spurs line cutter
new transmission dipstick (plastic threads were cross-threaded)
clean A/C raw water strainer (removed a plastic bag and lots of leaves)
top off refrigerant in reefer (at least in the future I can do it myself)
remove refrigerant forward A/C (compressor was over-charged)
intall quick disconnect fitting reefer compressor
repair/PM on genoa and mainsail (main in Lauderdale, genoa in Annapolis)
fins on outboard (makes the dinghy plane better)
change gear lube on outboard
rebed 3 hatches (they are now dry in a downpour!)
replace refrigerator & freezer gasketing (better energy efficiency)
salt water washdown valve replacement
re-seal mast boot and re-tape
new bottom paint (next time we do this ourselves)
clean level sensors in aft holding tank (a delightful job; not!)
replace valves on forward and aft Vacuflush toilets (paid for this - well worth it!)
clean boat speed paddle wheel
update radar firmware
It was a learning experience for all of us, quite painful to be paying the boatyard for their learning curve on our boat. We had instructions from the factory for how to remove the rudder, but everything just seems to take way longer than you'd think or hope. We did find some problems with the fiberglass tube where the rudder enters the hull and we did a better job at sealing things up than the factory did originally!
We did have to manage some issues, like the lead tech wanting to go home early on Friday. We needed to lift the boat to have enough room to get the rudder shaft up into the hull and the TravelLift had 2 other boats ahead of us, it was 1:30 on Friday, and the guy who runs the TravelList was still at lunch. We got the tech to agree to stick around for an hour and sure enough inside 30 minutes the other 2 boats were done. Of course the tech was then grumpy for the next couple of hours, given he didn't get to start his weekend early.
At any rate, Monday they finished up the last bits of the installation, and true to form the TravelLift wasn't available until close to 4:30PM, closing time. No way we were going to spend another night on the hard, and we got them to drop us (slowly and gently) into the water. I jumped below and found the leak was just as bad as it had ever been! We theorize there's a microscopic crack in the fiberglass tube that will require the entire process be repeated, only this time we'll have to replace the fiberglass tube.
That makes for 2 boatyard employees working pretty much full-time for 5 days. Take your favorite auto repair shop hourly charge (slightly reduced as these guys aren't as "highly trained") and do the arithmetic. All for nothing, other than the learning process. Oh, and next time it'll be more difficult to disassemble since the techs were extra careful to use *lots* of marine adhesive in the futile attempt to stem the leak.
Needless to say we were seriously deflated. After sleeping on it overnight (with the boat in the water) we decided to postpone another attempt at a fix. We measured the leak to be about a cup of water an hour, which isn't too bad. Still, it's got to be fixed sometime since if both bilge pumps failed and we weren't around to check it could conceivably sink the boat. Besides, it'd really be nice to have a dry bilge.
Yesterday morning we moved the boat to a mooring in the Annapolis Harbor where we continue to monitor the leak. We need to stick around for a couple of days to retrieve packages we've had sent care of the boatyard. Once we have the packages, the plan is to head out to Maine and try to enjoy the rest of the summer. Further plans beyond that are up in the air.
This boat repair stuff has gotten ridiculous. Here's that list of things we've had done or done ourselves to the boat in the past 2 months:
tighten rudder packing & locktite screws (I did this - didn't help)
remove, repair, and re-bed rudder packing and bearings
fiberglass and epoxy aft holding tank (small leak, seems to be fixed)
new forestay and jib furler section; rework jib halliard at masthead
new jib sheets
new outhaul
rework running backstays
install permanent preventer
replace tri-color/anchor masthead w/LED version (low energy)
install 1 1/2" PCV on outboard tiller
change oil & oil filter main engine (twice)
change oil & oil filter generator
bottom cleaning (dumb - a month later we had the bottom painted)
replace zincs (also dumb, a month later we could have done it ourselves)
remove, refurbish, reinstall Spurs line cutter
new transmission dipstick (plastic threads were cross-threaded)
clean A/C raw water strainer (removed a plastic bag and lots of leaves)
top off refrigerant in reefer (at least in the future I can do it myself)
remove refrigerant forward A/C (compressor was over-charged)
intall quick disconnect fitting reefer compressor
repair/PM on genoa and mainsail (main in Lauderdale, genoa in Annapolis)
fins on outboard (makes the dinghy plane better)
change gear lube on outboard
rebed 3 hatches (they are now dry in a downpour!)
replace refrigerator & freezer gasketing (better energy efficiency)
salt water washdown valve replacement
re-seal mast boot and re-tape
new bottom paint (next time we do this ourselves)
clean level sensors in aft holding tank (a delightful job; not!)
replace valves on forward and aft Vacuflush toilets (paid for this - well worth it!)
clean boat speed paddle wheel
update radar firmware
posted by Ken at
2:03 PM |
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