April 6, 2013:
I fired up the outboard to run/clean it some more. I figured that letting the gas/Seafoam mix sit for a week or so would be good and would really clean the sludge out. I guess I was a little too right.

It started right up and ran great for about 40 minutes. Then it started slowing down. By the time I hurried out of the boat's cabin and to the outboard it was just above an idle. It tried turning the throttle up and down, but it just slowed down and died. I could not restart it. With the cruise getting closer and outboard shops starting to get backed up, I called around and found to my surprise that the Tohatsu dealer could get to it in a day or two. It took a couple hours off work Monday morning and delivered the motor to them.

They called me on Thursday when it was ready and said the problem had been the carb needed a good cleaning. My amateur guess is that the Seafoam loosened years of crud and sent it to the carb, which couldn't send it on and clogged. The repairman said the motor now ran “like a sewing machine” and he had adjusted the idle down a bit, but high enough that it didn't die when he shifted it into gear.

I put the motor back on the boat and was happy when it started on the first pull. Now, what's next on the To-Do list?

The following post was originally posted on March 30. Somehow, I deleted it a week or two later and have had to reconstruct it.

March 30, 2103.

Since my last post, there was a discussion of my outboard issues on a Catalina 22 forum on Yahoo.com. One post to the forum described a cleaning process using a product called SeaFoam. (Thanks, Don. By the way, great name!) It involved dumping a bottle of SeaFoam and a treatment of Sta-Bil in a 3-gallon fuel tank full of high octane, no-ethanol gasoline, then running that mixture through the engine for several hours. The idea is to give the mixture time to dissolve and burn off the accumulated varnish, sludge and other crud from the fuel system and carburetor.

You may recall that the issue with my outboard was its refusal to start, so my concern was whether I would be able to get the engine started at all. As I thought about it, and read the various suggestions for getting the engine to start reliably, a thought occurred to me. The ideas all dealt with using the external gas tank. But the 4hp Mercury/Nissan/Tohatsu is kind of unique in that it has both an external gas connector and an internal tank. I was using the internal tank, which is gravity fed. But the tank is only a couple of inches above the carb. That's not much gravity-induced pressure to move the gas. So when I hooked up the external tank, I did everything just short of standing on the pump bulb. Gas was going to get to the carb, by golly!! Sure enough, the engine fired with the first pull of the starter. It ran beautifully.

Another point: I have often heard from experienced sailors that you shut down the engine by disconnecting the fuel and letting the engine run until it runs out of gas. But a call to the local Tohatsu dealer brought a different response.

The lady I spoke to said you should only run a small 4-cycle dry at the end of the season, before long-term storage. She said to always use 100% gas, never any with ethanol, and add Sta-Bil. Turn off the engine by pulling the kill switch. The lack of ethanol and the added Sta-Bil keeps the gas from gumming up your carb. She explained that the small fuel pumps often have problems clearing air from the lines when you try to start the engine after running it dry. I guess that's why the company doesn't recommend it.

I let it run for about an hour and a half before I had to head for home. The recommendation was to run it for 3 hours, but I was out of daylight and needed to get home.  I killed the engine with the kill switch. I'll try starting it this weekend and see what happens.

April 13, 2013

Late last week I bought a Bimini on eBay. When I arrived home on Thursday there was a large package by the front door.

Hot dog!

Like a kid Christmas morning, I tore into it. Now, a reasonable person would take it to the boat, or at least the harbor, before putting it together. So, I'm not always reasonable.

I cleared space in the living room and started inserting sections of tubing. It quickly became obvious that this thing was bigger than I thought it would be. I was a a bit concerned that I'd ordered the wrong size.

Now, this Bimini has aluminum tubes to support it when it is furled. As I was turning it to try to get more room to open it, one of the tubes swept across the fireplace hearth and shattered a little class container that my wife had placed there. It had scented oil and several of those reeds to diffuse the scent. The room became heavily scented as the oil ran down the hearth and across the wood floor.

I had yet another occasion to see my wife's “What on Earth are you doing?” look. But, since the matter was cleaned up quickly, I wasn't in trouble long.

A friend met me at the boat Friday after work and we tested several locations before finding one that seemed promising. It was quickly apparent that the aluminum support tubes wouldn't work. There wasn't a position that would work both furled and open. I removed the tubes and will have to buy nylon straps.

Today I drilled the holes, applied the sealant and installed the mounts. Tomorrow, the Bimini will be installed.

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.