Random B31 ramblings

[In Memory of Vicroy]

Me & the Bride spent the past several days at the camp doing what us retired people do best....very little.....actually doing a lot. I paid some well-needed attention to my B31, Another Joy which stays at our back yard dock. Over the years I've picked up a lot of tips and useful info here sorta in passing, so I thought I'd describe a few things I did in hopes that some of the Faithful may find them helpful or avoid chasing their tails.

First, I discovered that the raw water intake on my Phasor 6.5 KW genset was too small - half inch vs. the required 3/4". The half was okay for the old genset (a Phasor 5.5, and its predecessor, the dreaded Farrymann 4.2), but when the bonehead boatyard installed the new 6.5 after the Katrina fiasco, they forgot to read the install manual or just were too lazy to do it right. The boat has had very limited use in the 4 years or so since I got her back after the storm, and the 6.5 would stop for no apparent reason now and then. I finally figured out recently that any little restriction in the raw water flow - a little clog in the sea strainer, a kink in the hose, etc - would cause an overheat and the hi coolant temp shutdown would do its job. The good news was that the thru hull, seacock, and sea strainer all had 3/4" pipe threads that had been reduced to half inch i.d. via reducing nipples. The intake nipple on the 6.5's raw water pump is 3/4" and the installers had added a short length of 3/4" hose just before it, so they must have known and just been lazy or crooked, or both.

So I ordered new 3/4 pipe thread X 3/4 hose barb bronze nipples from Hamilton Marine, a supply of new all stainless hose clamps, and some very heavy duty 3/4" four ply hose - way better hose than the auto parts store heater hose. A problem arose when the reducing nipple exiting the seacock would not budge. Whacking the wrench with a hammer just turned the seacock on the thru hull - not a good thing. Tried holding the seacock with another wrench and whacking some more, but the damn nipple would not move. Probably put in before the days of teflon tape. So I quit before really making a mess, like twising off the seacock. The offending nipple had a one & 1/16th six point hex between the pipe threads and the hose barb but all I had was a short socket that size that was not deep enough to catch...so retreated to fight another day. Went to Pep Boys this past week and for 6 bucks got the proper deep six point socket and broke out my trusty half inch air impart wrench. Properly armed, I attacked the problem Thursday, holding the seacock with a pipe wrench and using the other hand to operate the impact wrench - which I had already checked to make sure was in reverse (ask me why I checked that) and it took all of three seconds to cleanly spin the damn nipple out of the seacock. I then installed all my new plumbing and hose and the genset pumps water like it never did before. Remember the impact wrench and deep socket trick.

Then it was time to button the boat back up, clean up the grease smudges, broken hose clamps (the installers had used auto parts store clamps with carbon steel screws) and time for ole AJ to get a deep cleaning since we planned to take a bunch of camp neighbors to the Prop Stop on Sat. for Swamp Burgers and Worm Buckets. The Prop Stop is a bar on the Tickfaw River that you can only get to by boat and is famous for its rum drink, the Worm Bucket, and also for its well endowed, if mostly artificially enhanced, scantily clad ladies.

I first hosed the boat down, then mixed up a potion of Clorox, M-1 house cleaning detergent, Super Clean detergent, and a little Dawn liquid with about a third of the volume of the above added in water. I mixed this in a pump up Hudson sprayer and started at the top, the top of the half tower with the radar and other antennas that were crummy with dirt and mostly mildew. Spray, wait a minute or two, then gently hit with a soft brush and hose off....do a small area at a time and work your way down. I used the same potion sprayed on the Strataglass but used a soft wash rag to loosen the dirt, then hosed well. My enclosure and cockpit sun shade are made from Stamoid fabric which is awesome stuff...now going on 8 years old or so and supple as new...and I had it sewed with Gore-Tex thread so the clorox won't hurt it. Took a few hours but she came out like a new penny. The Imron paint still shines like new.

Noticed during the scrub-down the boat had a good population of dirt daubers, spiders, and wasps. One of the Faithful - think it was Hi Pockets - put me on some Death Powder you mix up with water and spray that kills all that stuff and more. Its called Cygone and I bought it on line. Sprayed the whole boat, paying attention to get the spray behind the side panels and up under the gunnels, under the f.b.seats, under the console and anywhere them ole bugs make their homes. Killed them all, and the stuff is supposed to last 3 months in areas out of the direct weather.

After the deep washing I cranked up the old Cummins 6BTAs, which I try to do every week, then shifted them into forward and reverse to turn the shafts and avoid stress fractures in the shafts. Hmmmm, the port engine won't shift into forward, feels like something is binding....long sotry short, I keep a long spount transmission funnel in each engine box to put oil in the gear if necessary and I'd stuck the port funnel down behind the engine and it's spout had gone between the gear and the shift lever on top of the gear. My favorite kinda problem, remove funnel, put somewhere else.

So Sat. morning the camp neighbors were supposed to show up at 11 to load for the Prop Stop outing. I'm reading the paper and see an article that states, effective midnight Friday, the Parish President of the camp Parish has closed all Parish waterways, including the Tickfaw River, to boats due to high water and potential wake damage. Called to Sheriff's office to make sure its not a hoax perpretrated by the owners of Sun Buns, a Prop Stop competitor. No hoax, all waterways closed until Monday at least. The water was a little high, but been that way dozens of times without closures. So Coonass Plan B - boil crawfish and crabs, eat and drink all afternoon at the camp, day salvaged in spades.

The flooding here is blown way out of proportion by the national media. Most of what's flooded is suppoed to flood because we have several very large floodways that were built after the Great Flood of 1927 to keep from flooding good stuff. Most of what you see on TV are camps flooding in the floodways, where the Corps of Engineers has a flood easment and any structure has to be permitted and the owner sign a waiver acknowledging it is in a FRICKIN' FLOODWAY and is gonna flood when they open the FRICKIN' FLOODWAY....the media's tear-jerking storyline that these po' people are being sacrificed to save Baton Rouge and New Orleans is a pure fanasy. They are in a .....did I say FRICKIN' FLOODWAY? The Bonnet Carre floodway above New Orleans that diverts a lot of river water 6 miles into sea level Lake Ponchartrain is also doing its job. Persistnet southeast winds are keeping the extra water (325,000 cubic feet a second) from draining from the lake to the gulf through some small-ish passes and therefore the lake level is about two feet above normal, thus the Tickfaw River closure. The impact of the flooding in La. is minimal and expected. The volume of water coming down the Mississippi River is greater right now than it was in 1927 and if it were not for the floodways, we would be in deep doo-doo.

Well, guess if you read this far I didn't bore you too much?

UV

[John F.]

Thanks for posting the B31/boat cleaining tips. Sounds like you had a great day. Enjoy. I hung out at my friend's Tiki Bar on the Chesapeake--nice view, cold ones, other adult beverages. Not bad...

[Harry Babb]

So Vic.....what are you trying to tell us??? If I understood correctly.....these folks are in a FREAKING FLOODWAY???......LOL....

The media is doing what the media does, O SO WELL.....The media had the general public believing that Alabama beaches were knee deep in oil when in fact oil came ashore in large quantities only a few times and was cleaned up shortly there after......

Then there is the media and national elections

Speaking of cooking and partying......what's the chance you will share your recipe for Gumbo?

I know the first part........YOU start with a Roux.....then?????

hb

[TailhookTom]

UV, always great to get your wisdom, and tales of the day -- nothing like a good day cleaning and followed up by enjoying friends and family!

[Rawleigh]

The recent tornadoes will divert the media attention away from the flooding for a while.

[In Memory of Vicroy]

Harry - gee, gumbo? I'll have to think on that one...oh yeah, I know how to make gumbo. I'll try to put it up today. Right now the Bride has me pulling frickin' vines outta azeleas, most of which look suspicously like poison ivy. I'm about to catch the vapors.....its in the 90s and slightly humid, like fog-your-glasses humid. I'm trying a new method of killing the vines since its almost impossible to pull them up by the roots....follow them all through the azeleas until you see the stalk go into the ground, then cut it off about a foot up, take a knife and scrape the bark off then spray it with a stong solution of Round-Up...the drunk who does the gardening segment on one of our noon TV news shows says this works. We shall see. I will faithfully report.

I'll do the chicken & sausage gumbo and maybe the seafood one too. Harry - can y'all get the Savoie's roux in the jar over there?

UV

[TailhookTom]

UV:

What's better, work or killing those vines in the Azeleas in the humid weather?

Tom

[Harry Babb]

Vic
I will have my honey check on the roux that you spoke of......

I heard that the roundup will work very well if you apply it to the freshly cut end of the vine trunk. The guy that told me that said that the plant will form a healing film over the fresh cut within minutes.....I believe that he told me to apply the Roundup within 3 minutes after cutting.

Believe me....I am not a gardener.....I am more of the grass mowing monger.......in my opinion if I can get the lawn mower on top of what ever gets in my way.....the mower better be able to chop it up.

One of my tennants once got pretty upset with me because I ran over one of their shoes.......I politely told them to either keep it picked up or mow you own freaking grass.......end of story

hb

[Rawleigh]

Vic: Cut the end off of the vine, put a plastic sandwich bag with a little roundup in it over the end of the remainder of the vine and rubber band it in place. No chance of getting it on the bush, you don't have to trace the vine and it gets a good dose of roundup.