Redundant, but useful

If you have an extra chartplotter, why not use it? Ms. Bettencourt has a perfectly good Garmin 546s plotter that has provided excellent service. It replaced a Garmin 192c  a few years ago only because the newer instrument offered a depth sounder function and a bunch of other desirable features.

The dashboard instrumentation was functional, but that big Humminbird fishfinder in the middle was old and sometime flakey.




It also bugged me a little that the 546s has a depth sounder feature that duplicated data from the fishfinder.

So I pulled the old fishfinder out yesterday and installed the Garmin 192c in its place.

This closeup (right) of the 546s shows that instrument's depth and subsurface structure display, with the boat parked at our dock.








And here, surprise, is the reason I think having two chartplotters in front of me is a good idea: It's not redundancy for backup safety.

It's because I can zoom one in for near and zoom the other out for far. One plotter can show me where I am in larger scale and the other can show me what's to come.

By the way, there's another layer of  GPS redundancy on the dashboard. The Standard Horizon VHF GX 1700 radio's channel selector display also shows course over ground, speed over ground and geographic coordinates.
.

Full Beaver Moon...

... on the Savannah River at Augusta

7:09 p.m. EST

Slow and steady...

The Beaufort to Charleston and return cruise was concluded last week, with Ms. Bettencourt splashed off the trailer and back into her home river without incident. The weather was perfect, though a bit lumpy going through the wide and shallow Coosaw River on the outbound leg. For the most part, it was sunny and not too warm.;

Charleston is a great destination. My friend Major and I took a water taxi across Charleston Harbor to the Patriots Point maritime museum. We toured the retired aircraft carrier Yorktown (left) and a World-War II submarine, among other exhibits.


Beaufort to Charleston is about 60 nautical miles by Intracoastal Waterway. Tides and currents can be rip-roaring. Our run from Beaufort to Charleston took Ms. Bettencourt about 11.5 hours. At one time, speed over the ground was reduced to less than 3 knots by a frothy opposing current in Elliott Cut, just south of Charleston Harbor. The return trip was a little faster -- 9.5 hours. The whole excursion required only a little more than 10 gallons of diesel fuel.

Charleston City Marina, on the Ashley River, was our base. Ms. Bettencourt was dwarfed and surrounded by high-dollar yachts.





Our end of this finger pier was in a sinking condition, but stable enough. At least they parked us close to the showers.

We felt pretty good about Ms. Bettercourt's teak brightwork, until we got a closer look at the sailboat parked behind us.







Overall, it was a nice trip. We got a lot of compliments on the boat, the machinery performed without fault and we had plenty of time to flesh out ideas for a couple of more cruises.

Ms. Bettencourt's next voyage will probably be up the St. Johns River from a point near Jacksonville, FL.

Packing for Charleston

My friend Major and I will haul Ms. Bettencourt tomorrow and trailer her over to his house for loading and final checks before departure. We plan to leave about 0900 Tuesday and to return Saturday.

Notable events since the last post include replacement of both 12V batteries, one of which was 8 years old and the other 7. They still worked, but why take chances?

I also replaced the push-button intermittent switches on the dash that control the engine glow plugs and the horn. And, since I was into the electrical panel, I also replaced skimpy 18 gage wiring in the glow plug circuit with 8 gage wire. That change has made a BIG difference. Before the re-wiring, a cold start might require 30 to 45 seconds of glow plug current. Now, I'm consistently getting strong starts in 15 seconds.

Did I mention the horn? Oh yes, I not only replaced the horn button and the wiring, but also the whole danged under-powered electric squeaker.

I found a neat single-trumpet air horn on Amazon for an irresistible price. It came with a little compressor that  fit nicely under the dash. It is now possible to hear Ms. Bettencourt a mile away.









So here's the plan for this cruise: We will trailer to Beaufort, SC, launch the boat at Lady's Island and spend the night in the Beaufort Downtown Marina.

At Ms. Bettencourt's 6-knot cruise speed, it's an 11-hour run up the ICW from Beaufort to Charleston. So we will be leaving Beaufort before sunup Wednesday, running a few hours in the dark so as to arrive in Charleston Harbor about dusk.

Major will conn the vessel while I start the 1000-watt Honda generator and fire up the microwave for coffee and a power breakfast.

Meanwhile, Ms. B is scrubbed down, fully fueled, ready to haul out and roll. The weather forecast appears to be promising. It should be a good trip.

Home again

Ms. Bettencourt's lengthy overhaul -- May 19 to August 7 -- has finally concluded. She's back at her dock, sparkling white inside and out, and ready for her next trip.

My friend Major and I plan to trailer the boat to Savannah sometime in October, then cruise to Beaufort, SC, Charleston, and return.

Dates will be set soon.






Meanwhile, we have a new  cruiser in the neighborhood. She acts like she owns the river.

It is unusual to see alligators in this part of the Savannah River. This one has been hanging around my next-door neighbor's dock for about a month. She appears to be about six feet long from snout to tail tip.



I think this one feeds on fish, turtles,snakes and -- perhaps -- an occasional dismounted wakeboard rider.

(I have noticed that the wakeboard and water ski traffic has diminished considerably in the last few weeks).

Moving along

My friend Paul came down to the warehouse with me yesterday morning to help haul Ms. Bettencourt out on the pad for a scrub down.

A lot of sanding dust came off in the wash. Next, I'll be masking the window gaskets, rub rail and assorted fittings in preparation for spot priming.

The boat looks kind of strange to me without its teak cabin top rails, anchor platform and forward railings.

Paul Creighton photos

Also on the list of stuff to do is touching up various scrapes and dings on the hull. That big scrape is from running over a wing dam downstream last April. The only damage was paint removal. The hull is 8 mm thick in this area. The gelcoat under the antifouling paint was hardly scratched.



(You can click on a photo to see more detail).


The weather forecast is for some (relatively) cool weather over the next few days. I hope to get a lot done during that period.

Too much heat, too little light

But work is proceeding on Ms. Bettencourt's topside paint job anyway. Light is a problem. The one-part epoxy Interlux primer and Brightside finish coat paint I will be using cannot be applied in direct sunlight. There are no functioning overhead lights in the building. I have found that if I arrive on the jobsite before 9 a.m. EDT, I can get only barely adequate working light on the boat's starboard side.

Here's what it looked like in the old building at 0840 on a recent morning. Both 12-foot roll-up doors were open.









Outside the building at about the same time of day looked like this. East is to the right in this photo. This patch of shade was largely gone by noon, at which time the temperature was 91F. Humidity is usually stifling by this time of day too.

So, surface preparation work continues inside. The Interlux Surfacing Putty seems to be working well as a filler for deck and cabin tops imperfections. It does not shrink too much and is relatively easy to sand.



Because of the light situation, I often find myself working with a shop light in one hand and an electric sander or a paint scraper in the other. This technique is a little dicey when standing on a ladder, but I am making progress nevertheless. Most of the pre-painting work is complete.

One early morning in the next few days, I expect to hook the trailer up and haul the rig out into that little patch of transitory shade. That will give me a space to hose off the sanding dust and inspect the work in better light. While it's outside, I'll scrub the spots on the hull that need touch up painting.

After that, the process will be to paint outside while the shade lasts, then push back into the inside bay where the day's paint can dry overnight. Then pull her out the next morning, paint in the shade, then push her back -- for as long as it takes to finish the job.



Work days will be short, so I have no idea at this time how many in-out-in cycles be required.

Did I mention that this building is unoccupied? It is at the end of a long dead-end road with a levee on one side and dense river bottomland jungle on the other. It is a spooky place to work alone.

Which is all the more incentive to get 'er done.



.

If anyone has been curious ...

... about the inactivity on this site, here's an explanation: Ms. Bettencourt is on the hard in an unused warehouse not far from the river. The cabin tops and decks need to be repainted. Over the last couple of months, I have stripped off  her deck rails and hardware and sanded all loose paint from the weather decks.

Much of the exterior teak is in the shop at home, getting refinished (ever so gradually).

The average daytime temperature around here for the last month or six weeks has been in the 90s. Motivation to work diminished as temperatures went up. Also, it is lonely in that warehouse and I can only listen to NPR on my portable radio for so long. Those are my excuses, and I'm sticking with them.

I did work for a couple of hours early this morning before knocking off around 10 to pick up friends and make it to the Fourth of July barbecue at the American Legion Post. This morning's work consisted of repairing fiberglass injuries on the cabin tops. I am using a product that's new to me: Interlux Surfacing Putty. It goes on easy enough.  Yet to be determined is how easy or hard it sands and how much it shrinks when it dries.

If things go as expected, I'll be back on the job tomorrow. I hope to finish the surface prep and priming in another week or 10 days.

The light in the warehouse is very poor, even with the two 12-foot roll-up doors full open.

 It may be necessary to pull the rig outside to see well enough to apply the top coats of paint, then to push it back into the warehouse quickly after each coat so the finish can dry in the shade. This work will have to be done between sunrise and about noon, after which the warehouse shadow on the outside area in which I will be working will give way to blistering hot direct sunlight.

The  target date for trailering the boat to Savannah is July 28.

That may be optimistic.

Marooned (probably forever)

Army Corps of Engineers divers were at the New Savannah Bluff Lock and Dam this week. They spent most of a day underwater around the lock wall on the Savannah River side of the lock.

U.S. Army Corps of  Engineers photo

There has been no official word on findings, but a person I know who is close to the action said the engineers she talked with sounded "really worried."

The lock was closed indefinitely Thursday. There are currently no plans to repair and re-open the lock. Augusta's river access to the sea is closed.






I went to the Augusta Ports Authority meeting Thursday and no one seemed to be particularly concerned.

Sighhhh....

Not since Sherman seized Savannah

Here’s an epochal development in the history of Augusta that seems to have completely escaped the attention of our political leaders and local media:

For the first time since the capture of Savannah by Union forces in 1864, Augusta’s river access to the sea is to be cut off. And this time, it sounds like it will be permanent.

On May 8, the Army Corps of Engineers posted a notice on its “Balancing the Basin” internet blog, http://balancingthebasin.armylive.dodlive.mil/2014/05/08/nsbld/ The post begins with the following paragraph:

“The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Savannah District and the City of Augusta, Georgia, will close all access to a portion of the New Savannah Bluff Lock and Dam on May 15 due to safety concerns with the aging structure. Operation of the lock will also end May 15.”

The Corps of Engineers drawing at right details problems with the downstream end of the lock wall. You might want to click this image to enlarge it.

In addition to closing water access to the Port of Savannah, this act turns Augusta’s part of the Savannah River into a skinny 13-mile-long lake.  This lake is impounded only by the aging, and now officially unsafe, dam that no one seems to have any plans to repair.

Three major consequences come immediately to mind:

•  Water supplies for the cities of Augusta and North Augusta, plus all the industries along the reach from Augusta to the dam are threatened by unabated deterioration of the dam.

•  Prospects for a revival of river commerce to and from Savannah’s growing port are extinguished.

• River tourism, including development of Augusta as a large pleasure boat destination for vessels using the River between Augusta and the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway at Savannah is no longer feasible.

Then there’s the matter of all the large boats moored between the dam and the end of upstream navigable waters. 

By my count there are more than 50 such vessels with lengths between 34 and 60 feet parked along the river between Gum Swamp, SC, and the Augusta Marina. These boats live in the water. They are too big to trailer.

In the past, many have gone to marine facilities in Savannah for major out of the water repairs and maintenance.  In the future, out of water maintenance and trips to the coast will have to begin with expensive boat moving contractors using cranes and other specialized equipment.

These vessels are effectively marooned.

All of these developments should not come as a surprise to our political leaders. The U.S. Congress, in the Water Resources Development Act of 2000, authorized the Corps of Engineers to rehabilitate the lock and dam and turn it over to local governments for operation. At that time the cost was estimated to be about $24 million. The money was never appropriated.

Since then, it seems to me, our political leaders, both locally and in Washington, have done nothing to get the money and start the work to fix the lock and dam. I am hopeful that this week’s lock closure will be a wake-up call for citizens and decision-makers to get a process started to save our access to the sea.

Yesterday, a friend who will be 98 years old next October, told me when he was a boy, well before the lock and dam was built, it was not uncommon to be able to walk across the Savannah River at 5^th Street during summer droughts. “It was just a trickle,” he said, “you could jump across it.”

I have no doubt that, without some organized and passionate intervention to repair the structure, the lock and dam will continue to deteriorate to eventual catastrophic failure.

“Just a trickle” of Savannah River at 5^th Street could be in our future.

Ms. Bettencourt, however, is free to ride her trailer anyplace I care to pull it. However, I am saddened by the river closure and the likelihood that the trip we made from my dock to the sea last month will be the last such voyage for the old girl and for me.

Fault finding

Ms. Bettencourt has been having some problems with her navigation lights. Finding and fixing these faults teaches many lessons in logic and troubleshooting.

For example, the two LED lights atop the mast stopped working. Logic, assisted by expert advice, led down this torturous rathole:

• Must be the LEDs, though both failing at the same time is unlikely.

• Perhaps it is the wiring inside the mast? Remove mast and bring it to the 12-volt power supply on the shop bench. Apply power. LEDs light up. Wiring OK. Re-install mast.

• Think about it for a week. Involve two experts who agree it could only be the switch. Order $8 switch that winds up costing $31 due to rush air shipment from California. Install new switch. No change.

• Think about it for another week. One expert says wiring polarity is reversed. Logic says that since the lights worked last summer, how did polarity get reversed? A ghost technician? 

• The other expert says it's a  fault in the wiring between the switch and the fixture.

The instrument to the left, by the way, is a very old 12 volt power supply given to me by a friend about 15 years ago. It's a handy tool for on-the-bench troubleshooting.







After another week, I begin to close in on the obvious: The two quick-connect fittings for the mast -- the male fitting on the cord from the mast and its mate in the top of the boat over the windshield. Removing the weather covers on both fittings revealed nothing obvious. But, since all six wire ends were exposed and accessible, why not make sure?

I removed each wire, one at a time, and tinned them with solder, then restored and re-tightened each connection. And it worked -- kind of.

The two masthead LEDs together comprise the anchor light, and they burned in response to that position at the switch. The other switch position, for running lights, is supposed to illuminate the forward masthead LED, the port and starboard running lights and the stern light LED.

Whoa! No stern light. So, here we go again.

• Check to see if there is 12 volts to the stern light fixture. No. 

• Check fuse. OK. 

• Check splices between switch and fitting (remove part of aft cabin floor and hull liner to do this). Remove 1972 splice block and make new connections. No joy.

After a few more days, I remove the stern light fitting and take it to the bench in the shop. Application of 12 volts from the bench power supply directly to the LED gets zero result. Hah! Bad LED! Locate, order a new LED.

The next day, with nothing else to do while awaiting the new LED, I put an incandescent bulb in the stern light fitting as an additional test. No light! So, I disassemble the entire light fitting and in the process discover the positive contact is badly corroded. Fix that. Clean the other contact for good measure, reassemble and

...the incandescent light works. (That's the dead LED in the foreground to the right of the light fixture).








So now, I have reinstalled the fixture, reconnected the various splices and reassembled the aft cabin hull liner and floor panels.

Logic tells me that, when the new LED gets here, it will work in this fitting too.







We'll see. I am not too confident. My kind of logic has proven quite circuitous.

If it's in the logbook...

...it must be true. Oh, well, that's probably right. My brother Paul and I were too busy piloting and going over events of the last 50 years to spend much time fabricating log entries.

So, today it is blustery and rainy in Augusta and I am reading the logbook, re-living the trip and looking for numbers to calculate fuel consumption. Entries are interesting, in a minimalist kind of way. Here's the whole voyage, according to Ms. Bettencourt's log (with events I didn't enter italicized in parentheses):

April 11, 2014

0930 Underway downstream on the Savannah River with Paul.

1100 Arrived at Lock and Dam. (Called lockmaster on cellphone. He forgot his keys and had to go home to get them. Tied up at the courtesy dock to wait. Walked around in nearby swamp. Tracked black mud into the boat).

1220 Cleared lock. (Idiots fishing off lock wall cast lines over our bows and cabin top. Paul climbs on deck with pocket knife and cuts same. The water level is very high and the current as fast as I have experienced on this part of the river. Paul takes helm while the Captain starts lunch).

1240 Paul hits submerged wing dam. (Wham! Eight-knot momentum carries us over the pilings. Potato chips and trail mix join the mud mess underfoot. Captain springs to helm, pulls throttle to idle and shifter to neutral. Machinery and rudder appear to be undamaged. Bilges dry. Captain steers back to the channel, while Paul says something about changing his shorts).

1815 Anchored in 14 feet of water at Little Hell Landing. (Opened engine access port and placed foil-wrapped yeast rolls on top of motor about an hour earlier. Hot buttered rolls went very well with dinner. Trail mix for dessert).

April 12

(Honda 1000 generator starts on first pull. Strong coffee and toasted English muffins with orange marmalade for breakfast. Paul opens a new bag of trail mix).

0850 Underway downstream.

1030 Burton's Ferry and Highway 301 bridges.

1620 Stokes Bluff Landing. (We slow and ease toward the beach to get a closer look. Bathers seem to flee as we approach. They must not recognize us as relatives. Paul shoots many photos as we withdraw).

1900 Anchored in South end of Cutoff #6 on the Georgia side of the River. Depth 20 feet. (Pitch-black dark with fishing boats moving about. Deployed anchor light. Microwaved lasagna for dinner. Found the Oreo cookies. Life is good).

April 13

(Checked engine oil, coolant and alternator belt. Adjusted shaft stuffing box. Added 10 gallons of diesel fuel from on-board jerry cans).

0920 Underway downstream.

1102 Passed under the unopened SCL Railroad bascule bridge at high tide with 3 feet to spare. (Put the VHF antenna down and had Paul on the roof just in case).

1145 Passed under the unopened Highway 25 swing bridge, vertical clearance 8 feet. Proceeding through Port Wentworth and Savannah Harbor to the Wilmington River and Thunderbolt, GA,

1450 Docked in the basin at Thunderbolt Marine. (It is a custom at this marina to deliver hot donuts to transient boaters on departure mornings. The dockmaster asked how many people Ms. Bettencourt had aboard. First, I said "six," then settled on three, thus assuring a 6-pack of Krispy Kremes for breakfast tomorrow).

April 14

0750 Underway for Beaufort, SC, beset by a swarm of biting 'no see-um' gnats. (Insect spray, prudently packed by the Captain, leaves dashboard littered with little black bug bodies. Weather radio announces a gale warning, so Captain elects an inside route through Calibogue and Port Royal sounds).

1445 Beaufort Downtown Marina. Tied up at Fuel Dock awaiting turn of the tide to move into a nearby slip.
(We meet my friend Major and his wife Linda who have graciously hauled Ms. Bettencourt's trailer to Beaufort for a return trip by road).

1615 Memorable stern-first berthing. (Captain miscalculates. A plan to belay a bow line with a strong wind swinging the stern about into the slip was thwarted by contrary current overpowering the wind. Ms. Bettencourt was jammed sideways, threatening to spear a sailboat with her anchor. Major, Paul and two dock hands achieve control.  Captain administers first aid for barnacle scrapes Major receives from a piling).

April 15

0930 Underway for Lady's Island boat ramp. (It is raining torrents, but the current is in the right direction for a departure without drama. Major and Linda are at the ramp with the trailer and loading is wet, but otherwise uneventful. With the boat out of the water, we note a few wing dam dings in the hull's antifouling paint -- wing dam dings? -- but no other damage. There was also a snarl of monofilament fishing line around the propeller shaft, which yielded to my pocket knife).

1320 Launched from the North Augusta ramp into the Savannah River.

1355 Secured at Ms. Bettencourt's home dock.

(Trip statistics: Another 250 nautical miles or so under the keel. The fuel burn was 0.52 gallons of diesel per engine running hour, a number somewhat better than Ms. Bettencourt's usual 0.68/hour rate. All the Oreo cookies were gone. About 1.5 pounds of trail mix remained. It was still raining).


Note: For a closer look at our cruising area you may wish to consult NOAA charts 11514 and 11515 for the Savannah River; Chart 11512 for Savannah Harbor and approaches; and Charts 11507 and 11518 for Calibogue and Port Royal sounds and the Beaufort River.

These charts may be found at: http://www.nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/staff/BookletChart.html

The first cruise of '14

...in photos shot by my brother as we went down the Savannah River from Augusta to Savannah last week, then to Thunderbolt, GA, and Beaufort, SC. (Click a photo for enlarged views).

You don't have to look very hard to find wrecks on the river. Here's the hulk of a once very nicely restored Chris Craft that disappeared from the marina a couple of months ago. Apparently, it didn't survive a trip over the dam.

A houseboat went missing in Augusta about the same time, but this one isn't it. This vessel looks like it has been in the water a much longer time.

And here's the old steel tugboat Tomochichi, abandoned at Augusta in the 60s, raised and restored in the 70s and abandoned again in a sinking condition sometime after that. She's been yard art at a river home a little north of Port Wentworth, GA, long enough to grow through-hull trees.

The Georgia Power nuclear plant near Waynesboro is adding two new reactor units.

Ms. Bettencourt's 3-cylinder Kubota engine, upon which we heated rolls to go with our dinner the first night out. (If you wrap rolls tightly in foil, they will heat to butter melting temperature in a hour or so of running time and they won't taste like diesel fuel).

A memorable sunset in the anchorage at Little Hell Landing.

Piling wing dams. High water levels made many of these structures, built in the 1930s to help scour river channels, into dangerous submerged obstacles.

A double row of pilings extends underwater from these end posts to the nearby riverbank.

Either a darned big dragonfly or a shrink-wrapped helicopter.

Ocean vessel Arthur Maersk brings containers to the Port of Savannah, assisted by two Moran tugs:

Ms. Bettencourt, hanging with the big yachts at Thunderbolt Marine.

"You again!" the dockmaster said when we arrived the next afternoon at the marina in Beaufort, SC.

"Every time you show up here it rains!"

Paul Stokes photos

The front passed through Beaufort the following morning, with rain slowing only briefly while we loaded Ms. Bettencourt on her trailer.

The boat's back at her dock on the River behind our house now. Planning has begun for the next cruise, probably southward from Savannah in the fall.

Into the wilds! (Finally)

We'll be shoving off from Augusta in a few minutes, bound for Beaufort, SC, via the Savannah River and Thunderbolt, GA. The Savannah riverbanks between here and Savannah are largely uninhabited. No People. No convenience stores. No ice. No groceries. No repair parts. Should be fun.

We will be anchoring on the river two nights before transiting the Port of Savannah to the Wilmington River and thence to Thunderbolt Marina for another overnight before jumping off for Beaufort.

There may be cellphone coverage, in which case we will activate the wireless hotspot and post an update later today or tomorrow.

"Vorsicht mit der Gelben Gefahr."

That statement, or something like it, has been attributed to Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm-I. It was taken to mean at the time that the West should be wary of oriental powers; that European nations should "...beware the yellow peril." Presumably, he was referring to the growing  military power of Imperial Japan.

But we have a different kind of yellow peril here in Augusta, Ga.: Tree pollen. The stuff is everywhere. It has been wafting down like fine snow all week. And, though this is an annual event, no one can predict when the blizzard will end.

There are even pollen trails on the Savannah River. The photo at right shows a procession of  yellow blobs drifting past our gazebo, headed toward Savannah. (Click on the picture for a closer look).
















I have rinsed Ms. Bettencourt twice this week. The boat is still yellow as a gourd. Horizontal surfaces inside are also gritty, but accumulations have slowed since I shut down the solar ventilators.

Meanwhile, preparations continue for the Beaufort, SC, cruise which will commence next Friday. A systems check on the boat yesterday revealed a fault in the navigation lights. The problem turned out to be a double-pole, double-throw on-off-on toggle switch that I can't find locally.

West Marine's warehouse in California had one, which is now on its way to Augusta by (expensive) air freight. It is to arrive Wednesday.

Also, it is always a bad sign when you step onto your boat and the automatic bilge pump starts pumping. Such was the case this morning.  A search revealed that water formerly in the fresh water tank was now in the bilge. I found and fixed a plumbing leak in the pressure water system and refilled the tank.

So, the plan now is to hose the pollen off  Ms. Bettencourt one last time after the final loading Friday mid-morning, then head off down the river to make a noontime date with the lockmaster.

I fear we will  find ourselves in a fog of the yellow stuff most of the 200-mile trip to the coast.

On the bright side: We shouldn't run out of water for coffee and the lights might be working.

A Major Rigging Job

My friend Major is a rigger without peer. Ms. Bettencourt needed a canopy to shade her forward cabin top this week. The grab rails need refinishing and the varnish work cannot be done in direct sunlight.

Major came over yesterday and turned  an 8 x 10 reflective tarp and 75 feet of light line into a very serviceable work space.

I think the man is part spider. Click on this photo to get a closer look at the web he wove on the forward end of this job.

A roller stand from my woodworking shop was used as the main tent pole.

A couple of sponges cushion sharp edges to preserve the tarp.

The whole rig is acceptably nautical from a distance.

And, restoration of the rails has begun--in the shade.







Loading for next month's cruise is proceeding on schedule. Ms. Bettencourt is fueled to capacity and all the safety gear has been double-checked and re-stowed.

The high today was 77F. A few days with highs in the 40s are expected next week, but we're optimistic springtime weather will return by the time we leave in a couple of weeks.

If not, we'll go anyway.

Preparations begin

Winter has not entirely relaxed its grip on our town, but more than a few sunny days have stirred the lethargy lately and started us thinking about Ms. Bettencourt's next cruise.

The view from the end of my driveway,  photo at right, was anything but tropical a couple of weeks ago.

(Click the picture to see ice everywhere).





But today's high will be in the 50s and we had two days in the 70s last week.

So we are setting plans in motion.  My brother Paul, from Memphis, and I will leave here about the middle of next month, bound for Beaufort, SC, by way of the Savannah River. We'll spend two nights at anchorages on the river then overnight in a marina at Thunderbolt, GA, near Savannah. The next day we'll go to Beaufort and overnight there, then trailer the boat back to Augusta. It should be a good trip.

Ms. Bettencourt has been getting a lot of attention in mechanical areas. The oil, oil filter and fuel filters have been changed. I have also gone over the battery charging and starting circuits, and have removed, cleaned and tightened connections from the alternator through the starter motor to the batteries. Dielectric grease was applied at all connections. One failing battery post connection was discovered and replaced.

My friend Major and I hauled her out of the water on the trailer a few days ago, marking the first time the boat has been out of the river since June. A thorough check of the underwater gear showed the prop, shaft, cutless bearing, zincs and rudder bearings are OK. The hull looked pretty good after a scrub down. Unfortunately, the topside area is not so good.

The boat is sitting on its trailer at  the Ports Authority now, awaiting its turn for a slot under the shed, where there is sufficient shade to allow more cleaning, paint touch-up and some tedious work masking, sanding and re-varnishing cabin top grab rails.










If we can't get a commitment from the Ports Authority for a covered work space by Saturday, I think we'll re-launch and try to rig a canopy over the boat at my dock.

That could be a spectacle.

Boat biscuits!

A major handicap faced by small boat chefs has to do with the lack of an oven. This means there can be no biscuits. This is a serious deficiency, particularly in Southern waters, where biscuits are required for proper breakfasts.

Miss Bettencourt's chef has found an answer to this persistent problem.








My Friend Ralph and I drove over to Columbia, SC, last week where we found a long-coveted implement--a three-legged camp Dutch oven. This thing is a wonderful tool.

A few accessories are needed, such as a charcoal starter chimney (left) an old pizza pan and some long tongs for coal handling.





This setup, on the gravel in our driveway, produced the above basket of perfect biscuits with about 18 minutes cooking time. Of course, there are many arcane, non-intuitive techniques involved in cooking with a Dutch oven. It helps to have a Dutch oven cookbook or access to a good website, such as this one: http://www.dutchovendude.com/dutch-oven-recipes.asp

WARNING: Don't try this on the boat. Burning charcoal aboard involves big time fire and carbon monoxide hazards -- dangers to be avoided at all costs.

Ms. Bettencourt's chef will be Dutch oven cooking and serving at shoreside picnic sites along our cruise routes, not on the boat.

Next week's creation from the Ms. Bettencourt Driveway Test Kitchen will be a dish entitled The Huge Dutch Oven Tamale.

The chef's daughter has prepared salsa. Ralph is bringing tortilla chips. Our friend Paul will provide dessert. Dia will be out of town.

Watching the water go by

“When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this - you haven't.” 
― Thomas A. Edison


We're  at the dock, waiting for the river to calm down and thinking, ever-thinking, about cruising some place where it's warmer.

Seeking to kindle some joy from past cruises, I start thumbing through Ms. Bettencourt's logbook. Instead of finding a pleasant tropical memory, I landed on this entry from November, 2013:

11/16/13
Aborted cruise with Dia (Bettencourt) and Farleigh (Jack Russell terrier) due to low RPM. Returned to dock. Throttle linkage appears OK. Fuel?

Thus began a cascade of mechanical blind corners and dead ends spanning the next three months that will eventually explain the reason for the Thomas Edison quote at the head of this post.

Follow along for awhile. Find out why my friend Hira calls me a "sequential thinker."

11/18/13
Suspecting fuel starvation. Changed primary fuel filter. No joy!

11/19/13
Checked air intake. Could be part of the problem. Burning plastic smell?

11/20/13
Checked antifreeze. Checked transmission fluid. Bled secondary fuel filter. Bled injection pump and all three injectors.

11/21/13
Under way to test after fuel system air purge. All gauges in the green, but engine speed less than 50%  normal at full power. Max RPM 1090. Max speed 3.8 knots. Shaft seal/stuffing box cool to touch. Docked uneventfully. Throttle linkage? Throttle cable? Injection pump? 

(Later)
John (next-door neighbor) calls to report the boat was making black smoke as it passed his dock. He says this is suggestive of a "dead cylinder," low compression or a bad injector.

This report triggered a lengthy worry spiral and saw the re-replacement of both fuel filters, the removal, testing and re-installation of all three fuel injectors and another trial run (also unsuccessful) with the engine fed from a jug of diesel fuel fresh from the pump at a nearby station.

Finally, I conclude I have exhausted all possibilities. Expecting the worst, I call in the Kubota engine people and, after two days, they prove that Thomas Edison was right.

12/3/13
Kubota techs find obstructed exhaust mixing elbow.

Now, with many repairs and varied tests completed, we're ready to go somewhere.  But conditions are not promising.

 The Army Corps of Engineers has been dumping a torrent from its massive upstream reservoirs at an average rate past our dock of about 30,000 cubic feet per second.

 Yesterday, Ms. Bettencourt went a few miles upstream. With her 24-horsepower diesel at full throttle, she made 5.5 knots over the ground as measured by the GPS. On the return trip she clocked 8.8 knots at the same throttle setting. This means the great volume of water moving downstream is generating about a 3 knot current.

Of course, this should not cancel a boat trip downstream. We could get far away in that direction relatively quickly. But coming home against a 3-knot current would be a v-e-r-y slow trip in a boat with a 6.5 knot hull speed.

So, we're sitting here in the cold, watching the water go by.

Probable sinkings

Sad things can happen on the water. And often sad incidents pass with little notice. Such was the case last week when persons unknown, said to be vandals, cut the docklines of a half-dozen boats tied up at Augusta's short-term parking dock on the Savannah River.

Six boats were set adrift. One, an old houseboat, was found hung up in overhanging tree branches and returned to the dock. The other five are still missing. And, here's the sad part: One of the five is the Avocet, a 40-foot 1950s era Matthews cruiser.

Avocet wasn't pretty, but she had nice lines.She was made of teak and mahogany, probably with cypress ribs. Someone had been working on her, off and on, for a long time. She needed a lot of work.

Avocet was a classic vessel; a survivor of a golden age of recreational boating.

She and the other inhabitants of her dock occupied neglected space on the waterfront. This is where one would often find boats in arrears on their marina rents. And, despite a purported 48-hour parking limit, many had been squatters there for months.

The upstream lakes are at flood pools and the Corps of Engineers is releasing water into the river at nearly 30,000 cubic feet per second.

The Savannah Bluff Lock and Dam is about 15 miles downstream from here. Ominously, a safety cable buoyed with big floats and stretched across the dam's spillway, was found to be breached the morning after the six boats were set adrift.

If wooden-hulled Avocet went over the dam, it is very unlikely she is still in one piece.

That's sad.