Serene Dream floats again!

Saturday, March 16

My crew, Robert, met me at the boat this morning.

Earlier in the week, I had slid the mast rearward on the support so I could plug the wire into the port on the deck. With that I place, I was able to fix the little light at the top of the mast that lights the Windex at night. Now, all mast lights are working.

We raised the mast without incident and launched the boat. I climbed aboard, lowered the keel about halfway for some stability, installed the rudder, and prepped the outboard. The outboard was flaky last season and just wouldn't run. Over the winter I replaced the fuel filter, the fuel lines and eventually figured out the fuel pump was shot. I replaced it, too. The motor ran great in a bucket when I was testing it, so I was sure it was ready to run. I poured fresh gas in the tank, opened the fuel valve, set the choke, and pulled the starter. About the third pull it fired up and ran.

About 2 seconds.

No matter what we did, it wouldn't start again. We opened the throttle, closed the throttle, opened the choke, closed the choke. Nothing worked. After about15 minutes, we'd had enough arm and shoulder exercise for the day. We finally gave up and paddled the boat to the slip.

As we were gliding past other boats heading to the slip, several members of the boat club asked if we were going to race. The club decided that since the water levels have been erratic the last couple of years, leaving our harbor completely dry by mid-summer, we couldn't afford to wait before starting the racing season. We have water in the lake so let's race!  Today was the first race of the early season series. In view of all the items still on my to-do list, I passed on trying to race. In hindsight, that may have been a good choice. Oklahoma had one of its rare, almost windless days. The fleet kind of drifted around the course. The lake was like a mirror.

  

Notice the little ripples near the shore, but nothing out on the lake.  The boats have barely enough breeze to keep the spinnakers from drooping.

Once in the slip, I took off the motor's cover and started playing. I pulled the fuel line from the carb and had Robert pull the cord. A drop or two of fuel spurted from the line. He pulled again and a strong stream of fuel sprayed out. I reconnected the fuel line and within 2 or 3 pulls, it started and ran. We ran it for several minutes, and then shut off the fuel valve to stop it.

Now I'm puzzled. Was the fuel system unable to push the fuel to the carburetor when the starter is pulled? If so, where's the problem? Since the fuel pump is new, I'm thinking the carburetor is partly plugged. I'm planning to take off the fuel line at the carburetor intake and spray gobs of carb cleaner into the fuel intake. I'll let it set a couple minutes, then try to start the motor.

Somehow, I've got to get to the point that the motor will start and run reliably every time before we go on the Northern Gulf Coast Cruise.

New trailer

Last weekend I bought a used trailer for Serene Dream. Unlike the old one, I believe this one was made for the Catalina 22. Now it was just a matter of moving the boat from one trailer to the other. Simple, right? Launch the boat from one trailer then back the new one down and load up. But that's not what I did, for several reasons.

First, I've never had my boat on the new trailer, so I wanted to be sure everything fit and there was no risk of damage to the boat. Second, it was getting late and I didn't want to fight a new trailer in deepening dusk. Finally, at this time of year and in the southern middle of the country, the water is pretty darn cold. Not like up North, perhaps, but not something I was willing to wade around in.



So we used the boat club's hoist. The photo above is of the boat on the old trailer, about to be lifted by the hoist.

Now, the last time I had the boat on the hoist was a year ago and there were several other members of the boat club assisting. I didn't recall using different length straps for front and back. So we hit the "up" button on the controller. The result was . . . the boat was nose-down by about 20 degrees!!  (See photo below.)  It looked like it might slide right out of the slings.  Very scary.

Well, no problem. I pressed the "down" button and - nothing happened! Did we pop the circuit breaker? I pressed "up" and the boat moved an inch or so. I pressed "down" - still nothing. Time for frantic calls to the guy who maintains the hoist. No answer. I left voice mail. At this point I'm envisioning my boat hanging in the air, perhaps until the weekend. That's not comforting with a forecast of wind in the 20's. (As I write this the next day, the wind is 17 with gusts to 30!!)





Finally a member of the boat club said there is a safety lock right up at the hoist motor that needs to be reset. Here is my crew resetting the hoist. Notice the "nose down" angle of the boat.

But we got the boat down, put the correct strap around the stern and raised the boat. Swapped trailers and voila!




And here she is, sitting pretty on the new trailer.

What am I doing??

This blog is to chronicle the preparations to both Serene Dream and us for a short cruise along the Intracoastal Waterway.

Serene Dream is a 1978 Catalina 22 sailboat with a swing keel and a pop-up cabin top. While she sails well enough, I have a To-Do list that is fairly extensive.  In the weeks to come, I will be documenting the repairs, upgrades and outright SNAFUs as we get ready to trailer the boat south.