Getting close?

By Mike Jastrzebski

We’ve been in the yard for ten days now and we’re beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The bottom is painted–that’s good but we did find some blisters. We chose to put off fixing that problem until fall. We’ve had friends do the job in the summer here in Florida and they had problems with the blisters drying out to repair them. The humidity and rain can be a problem. We plan to have the boat in northern Florida or even Georgia by then and the yards are much cheaper up there.

I finally was able to finish drilling out the stainless steel bolt in the shaft coupling, now I’ve discovered a small set screw I missed under the grime and this also has to be drilled out. It also needed an allan wrench and when I tried to get it out it bent the wrench. Hopefully that will be done by later today and I can then pull the shaft and repair the torn stuffing box hose.

As for the engine. We’ve cleaned out the carburetor twice and found water and junk both times so I took another 18 gallons of gas from the tank, installed a new Racor filter, and hope we will be able to run the engine without problems. I am also going to sit down with a friend, Steve, who is a mechanic and learn how to rebuild the carb. That way if there are future problems I can take care of it myself.

Our trip to the Bahamas is dependant on our solving the fuel problem. If the problem persists I will have to pull the fuel tank and install a new tank. I checked around to see about having the tank pumped and cleaned and the price is around $500.00 and they couldn’t get to us right away. I can install a new tank for half that and feel confident that we will have fixed the problem.

So wish us luck. If all goes as planned we’ll be back in the water within the week and on our way to the Abacos a week or so after that, assuming the trial runs go well.

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