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| Tivoli Looking Good @ OPC |
The evening before we left Palm Beach for St. Louis we
hooked up with Clayton and Deanna, owners of N50 Tivoli, who were docked next to us at OPC. They were just wrapping up their own Yacht
Tech punch list, and headed north towards Maine for the summer. As always it was fun to meet other Nordy
owners and learn from their experiences.
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| Danielle Wake Surfing Behind Their Tige Boat |
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| Nick Wake Surfing at Lake of the Ozarks |
But while we were away from Ghost Rider, and now having returned to Palm Beach, we’ve also been
getting a lot of work done on the boat courtesy of James Knight’s gang at Yacht
Tech. We have a lengthy punch list, including:
· R&R the wing engine’s stuffing box…after 8
months of mucking around with multiple adjustments in a vain effort to cool it
down, in the end the boat had to be hauled out and the wing shaft pulled, engine
lifted, followed by modification and repacking of the stuffing box.
· Re-wire the engine room intake fans to the
battery bus bar (vs. a single battery) and install a new inline 24V converter.
· Repair / rewire the LinkPro battery monitor
gauge & reconfigure for our 24V system.
· Replace the raw water pump on the generator; it
had an intermittent leak at the rear seal; it also turned out the impeller was
starting to come apart, too, and we were careful to
retrieve the missing chunks from the heat exchanger.
· The slow transmission oil leak at the base of
the dipstick turned out to be a worn out crush washer which was replaced.
· We also decided to address some minor plumbing
issues with the fresh water system (low pressure at a couple of faucets –
replacing with new assemblies.)
· Strip & repaint the bottom….the latest
ablative coat was simply not adhering to the previous coats of bottom paint
(see pics); bottom line (I suppose that’s a pun) is that bottom paint is a
consumable that needs to be periodically replenished; the soda blasting, however,
is an expensive procedure & hopefully never needed again.
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| Peeling Bottom Paint |
Most of these items are getting knocked out efficiently, but
as I write this the boat is still up on jacks in the boatyard for all the
bottom paint work that needs to be done; getting all the players and supplies
coordinated for that has been like herding cats. Plus the weather is not cooperating – all
this rainfall is not conducive to quality outdoor painting. We are guessing at approximately a week’s
delay as a result. Even that may be
optimistic, but a revised departure date of 18-Jun is the current plan.
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| Bagging the Bottom to Prep for the Soda Blasting |
In the interim I’m contemplating an addition to my “bucket
list”….while we’ve made good progress with acquiring the right vessel and
pursuing the desired adventures, am wondering if operating that vessel for at
least a period of time without an open
punch list might also be achievable.
Once in a while you have to howl at the moon and tilt at a windmill, right?
