Tag: repair

Proteus is our child…

By: Noah D.

What on earth have we been doing for the past month of silence on this blog?

Everything under the sun. (Well… whenever there is sun.)

IMG_4410I’ve installed the new AIS and VHF splitter (which required running a second GPS receiver, a new NMEA cord to the helm chartplotter – I had to wait on it to come from the USA – and the physical installation of the units in a tiny little space) and I found how much a mess the nervous system of this boat is after 20 years of build-up. (And whoever did it was insane.) I dismantled one toilet entirely to unblock a blockage and partially disassembled the other to install a proper anti-siphon… which proved to me that I have my Dad’s iron stomach. New LED navigation lights are also installed… the old ones stood full of water half the time. However, now the green side has a decidedly blue hue, but they are super bright. Also, we installed all new LED interior lights and red night lights after two fixtures decided to go out completely. Lynn has been up the mast twice: once to retrieve the lazyjack halyard that broke during the Celtic Sea storm… and then again a few days later because I dropped it and it ran 20ft up the mast. And speaking of lazyjacks, we got everything restitched and I rebuilt the track on the side of the boom (that had also been ripped off in the Celtic Sea). The whole cockpit enclosure and dodger has been removed, treated, restitched, and reinstalled… we had a dodger window blow out during a storm. We have two new halyards and a clean bill of health for the rigging after a survey.

What do we have left? Our generator is still not running right. Some of Ireland’s best and brightest mechanics have been working on it and there’s still something amiss. It’ll come around…

Also, we’re going to have the boat lifted out briefly for a bottom spray before our trip south. It is amazing how much crap grows on the bottom of a boat in 6 months… even with good anti-fouling!

Finally, we’ve been out for a little sail up the coast from Kilmore Quay to Arklow. And we’ll be in Greystones before too long to be close to Dublin for final provisioning and picking up our new companions for the Big Trip south.

Expect the updates to come more frequently as we begin our adventure. I hope you’ll stay tuned…

Return to the Quay…

By: Noah D.

At long last, we have returned to Proteus. We were gone exactly one month. To the day. We left to spend Christmas with family; after all, we were unable to go home for Christmas last year due to my university work and Lynn’s job. All was not all quiet in Kilmore Quay, though. Since we left, there were a number of pretty severe storms and “Weather Bombs” including one that peaked at Force 10.

IMG_4244Considering that the only damage was a blown-out vinyl window that was already a little weak with UV-damaged stitching, I think we came out okay. No wonder all the rest of the boats in the harbour are completely stripped down!

Completely unrelated to the storms, there is always something that you come back to that you didn’t expect: thankfully there was no extra water in the bilge, but the Webasto/Airtronic heater didn’t come on. Since the temperature hovers around freezing most nights, this was not something to shrug off! Must fix. Press the button and… no go. Fiddling with it a while, I figured out that the pump had run dry – no fuel in the lines. Lo and behold, it turns out that there is no need to prime these pumps: they will re-prime themselves after turning the system on and off a few times. And by “a few times” I mean… like… a dozen. We were slightly concerned that we would be sleeping under two quilts and a duvet until I got it fixed, but enough Google-ing and you can fix anything! These heaters are really amazing. They’re super smart and it almost seems like they self-diagnose and repair.

But, really, there’s not much else out of place… besides the fact that everything is impossibly messy and cluttered. Such is boat life sometimes…

Otherwise, over the next few weeks, we will be working on various and sundry systems. Needless to say, we’ll be having a canvas repair person out. And the genset needs some work. And we’ve got a new AIS to install and such, so please stay tuned. The count-down to our Big Trip across the Atlantic is less than 40 days away.