Month: August 2016

Today (Saturday) I am excited and looking forward to next week.  The reason?  On Thursday this past week, the mechanic brought my starboard engine back and started the reinstall of the motor into the engine compartment of the Misty Lady.  And YES I did take some pictures.  Tried to take some movie clips but evidently need more training on that.

Thursday morning arriving at the yacht center, with coffee and bagel in hand, I noted that the folks there had the huge forklift and the little forklift placed next to the Lady and ready to do the task of hoisting the engine up and into the port galley window!  So as I arrived at the site of the Lady’s dry dock block space, I saw that all was ready, just waiting for the arrival of the motor.  This is the scene:

The little fork lift will be used initially to load the additional parts into the galley area.  If fully configured, the engine would be too big for the window.  So things that sit on top, like the turbo charger, the oil cooler, the coolant tank, etc must be installed after the engine had been positioned within the engine compartment.  Note the large forks in the right side of the picture.  These belong to the huge forklift that will be used to actually insert the engine through the galley window.

Next step is for the two yacht center technicians to remove the actual window, frame and all.

Note that in the first picture the window is still in place, and in the second picture showing both of the yacht center techs, the window has been removed.  Ready for the engine insertion now.

The diesel mechanics arrived with both the renewed engine and the old seized engine on a trailer.  The seized engine is in a shipping cradle and will be sent back to the originating company and eventually remanufactured.

The old engine is covered in plastic and you can see the new engine all white and ready to hit the seas with us.

Carefully they lift the new engine with the smaller forklift and then settle in and secure the engine in the forks of the very large forklift.  This is a very careful operation, because the engine weighs almost 2,000 pounds and any slip up can cause a huge problem.

The engine is now secured to the large forklift and the two yacht center folks direct the forklift operator in raising the engine up to the level of the galley window and then gently moving forward slipping the massive engine through the window opening.

As you can see in this pair of photos, there is very little room and all movement must be done with extreme caution and care, otherwise the forks could shove the engine through the side of the boat and there goes the entire farm

Finally, the engine is removed from the forklift and hangs from an “A FRAME” device which will be used to lower the new engine down into the compartment and onto the motor mounts which will hold it in place.

As said earlier, there is very little room for lowering the engine down into place.  It must be tilted with the transmission down and the front of the engine up.  Then “shoehorned” into the correct position.  These two pictures show effort that took more than 20 minutes just to crank the two chain connections and lower the engine without hitting a hatch brace or the outer bulkheads.

At this point then engine is settled onto the two front motor mounts and is still suspended from the A Frame device.  On Monday, the diesel guys will return with the replacement motor mount, install the top components of the engine and connect the hoses and wiring.  Once this is completed, they will then put in the oil (much more than for your car by the way), the antifreeze and check the circuits for the system.  The gauges and other small units will be installed and then the starboard engine will be ready for sea trial.

The port engine is having some minor work done, with the fuel system processors, the raw water impellor and new gaskets for the manifolds.  The diesel mechanic doing this work anticipates he will be completed by Tuesday afternoon.

IF all goes well, on Wednesday morning, the Misty Lady will be lifted off her blocks by the ginormous TravelLift moveable crane and hauled over to the launch slip.  The Lady will be gently lowered back into her native habitat, the WATER.  We will then prep her for travel, start her engines and take her into the South River (Edgewater, Maryland) and head down river toward the Chesapeake Bay for her sea trial.

The sea trial will probably take about 1 to 2 hours, but could be less.  When we return, the Lady will be berthed temporarily in a maintenance slip to allow the yacht center crew to replace the hatches that were removed and seal them up, then reinstall the cabinets, the settee and other items that were removed to do the engine work.  All of the new appliances, stove, dishwasher, refrigerator, etc will be installed and connected.

We will do an electrical wring out test to ensure that all electrical connections were fully restored.   We will fire up the air conditioners (there are four of them) to ensure that they are still functional.  The heads will be tested to ensure that water can be applied and the units will flush properly.  All lighting will be checked and the new integrated electronics will be tested again.

Our satellite television will be connected to DISH and we will then be able to have television working when we move on board.

The flooring people will come out and finish the work that was halted when we had to tear up the galley floor, the fabricator will bring out our new bridge settee cushions and the graphics guy will put the graphical name for our yacht on her stern/transom.  We will have the fire suppressant system evaluated and updated and new locks placed on the outer doors.

We anticipate all these things will consume the better part of two to three more weeks. Then, as the sun begins to light up the eastern horizon, we will cast off the lines,  fire up those two Cat diesels, and slowly move out of the yacht center, into the South River.  We will utilize our new navigation system take a heading for the Chesapeake Bay.  Our plan is to be into the Bay, out of the river before the majority of other boaters wake up and start the crazy quilt of running full out.

The old Captain and the First Mate will settle in on the Lady’s bridge, sip a cup of real coffee made in our own coffee maker and watch the landscape flow past our yacht.  It will take us about 10 hours to make the run down the South River from Edgewater, into the Bay then down to the mouth of the Potomac.  From the confluence of the Potomac and the Bay, we will then have 95 nautical miles to our permanent berth home at the Capital Yacht Club on the Washington, DC waterfront.  We will do a running commentary as we move down the Bay and up the Potomac along with photos when and as we can take them.

I will try to update this blog starting next week on a frequent basis and let you all know the status of the Misty Lady’s return to the Seas.

Stay Tuned

 

 

Well folks, today is Thursday, the 11th of August, and while I never expected we would still be in the Gingerville Yacht Center, Maryland, at least now we can see the end of this long tunnel.

Tomorrow I will pick up a component of the exhaust system for my starboard engine and drive to the Eastern Shore town to deliver this part to the guys working on it.  After speaking with the primary diesel guy last evening, our plan is to re-install the engine in the Misty Lady’s engine room next week.

The specialists who work at the yacht center did an install onboard yesterday, they placed and hooked up our new stackable washer and dryer.  Picture below:

While there is still some fine tuning of the installation and some panels to replace, the installation is essentially in and functional.  Of course while we are still in dry dock none of the appliances could be operated.

Earlier, the yacht center techs had applied two coats of anti-fouling paint to the Lady’s bottom to keep the little sea critters away as much as possible.  The hull now looks a pretty blue instead of the speckled white and blue from before:

 

So as you can see, she is still on dry land but the current plan is to put the engine back into her engine room next week, around mid week.  We will then put her back into the water using that huge TravelLift machine and then take her out for a sea trial to ensure that the engine will perform as designed.  When we return from the trial ( between a half hour and two hours), she will be docked in a slip where we will do the final tasks to get her ready for the voyage down the Bay and up the Potomac River to her home.

Charlotte has a business meeting at her Philadelphia office starting on Monday and running through Thursday.  My plan is to have started the process of putting our personal effects on board and having her help with the final tasks (along with the not so much fun of loading the Sea Cats into the kitty carriers and taking them down to the boat).  My big thrill for the day that momentous day will be to pour a cup of coffee from my own coffee maker and sipping it slowly while the Sun begins to arise that morning.  Then approximately one week after we have the engines prepped and cleared, we will cast off all lines, fire up both of our diesel engines and point the Lady’s bows east then south.

As these next few days come about, I will be trying to take enough photos of the re-installation, the final flooring installation, the galley table and settee install and the look on this old man’s face as we move into the South River, then into the Chesapeake Bay heading toward the mouth of the Potomac River.

Stay Tuned, it gets exciting from here on out.