Thursday, May 10, 2018

Boat Repairs in Solomons

—Blogpost written by Bob



We pulled into Zahnizer’s Marina at 10 PM last night, Monday, May 7, in complete darkness. We were in a bad place emotionally after dealing with a lot of seawater coming into the boat and believing that we somehow broke the prop strut and, in turn, the transmission failed. We imagined that we would be spending several months here getting everything fixed and at great expense.


Tuesday, May 8



The sun was shining brightly when we woke at 7 AM. I took a nice hot shower and had a cup of coffee before going into the marina office at 8 AM. The service manager explained to me that this is their peak season for boat work and it may take a while (hours, days, or weeks?) for them to get to us. About 9 AM the assigned mechanic (Glen) showed up at our boat to look at our problem. He relatively quickly discovered that the (bronze) key in the shaft coupling had sheared and broken into two pieces—this what prevented our propulsion and believed to have provided most of the vibration that caused the leakage into the boat.



This small sheared and broken bronze key
caused a lot of the problem we experienced.


After cleaning up the coupling and checking the condition and dimensions of the shaft and coupling, he decided to order a new coupling and cut a new key from stainless steel material. The plan is still to haul the boat and look at the strut and propeller for possible damage.


We had a great lunch at Solomons Pier, riding there on bikes supplied by marina. During lunch we discussed many of our plans that have to change because of our needed boat repairs.  We are still up in the air on timing. We “took it very easy” in the afternoon.



Our view from our outside table
at the Drydock Restaurant.


We had a fantastic dinner at the Drydock Restaurant, right here at the marina.  We both had blackened salmon (on a bed of spinach and red beets) which was done perfectly. We shared a chocolate lava cake with vanilla ice cream for dessert.


Wednesday, May 9



It was a surprise to me that today is Wednesday—I thought it was Thursday—so, I gained a day! It is nice to be retired!

My big project today was painting the dinghy bottom with a Petit-brand water-based, anti-fouling paint (intended for inflatables). We hauled the dinghy up onto the dock near our boat and cleaned the bottom with soap and a stiff brush—this took most of the morning. Then, we went to West Marine using the marina’s bicycles and got the paint ($75/quart). Along the way, we stopped for lunch and picked up a few provisions for the next couple days. By the time we got back to the marina the dinghy was completely dry and ready to paint. I taped off the area to be painted (it was previously red) and then painted it using a wide brush to apply the heavy (black) paint—it has nearly 44% cuprous oxide. By 2:15 PM, the dinghy painting job was complete.  We will allow it to dry overnight before re-launching tomorrow.


Our rigid hull inflatable dinghy laying upside down
on the dock after being painted.


The area around the water line, the area where the previous paint was thin on the very aft bottom of the tubes, and the area where we had marine growth (green slime) got two coats of paint. It looks great now—I hope it lasts for six to nine months.

By 2:30 we unanimously declared it happy hour. Maggie made frozen strawberry daiquiris, the consumption of which we thoroughly enjoyed while relaxing in the cockpit.

This is exactly the type of break we needed, even though it was forced upon us by our boat problems. We are in a beautiful area at a perfect time of year on a perfectly sunny spring day.

Our schedule for the next two weeks is completely turned upside down and we have to re-schedule everything we previously scheduled, even picking up our new kitty, but it doesn’t matter in the overall scheme of life—it’s only a schedule.

Today, we doubled our time to be spent in Hartge’s cottage (to two weeks) this summer and our annual haulout time (at Hartge’s Yacht Yard) so that we can pull the mast and do the necessary re-wiring. This will also allow us to do preventative maintenance on the standing rigging (its integrity has concerned me despite a recent rigging survey).


Our dinner: A Mexican stuffed sweet potato.


Evening in the marina.


Thursday, May 10





We woke to another gorgeous spring day as the sun started its ascent into the sky and the cool spring air began to warm up. It is very quiet and still here in Zahnizer’s Marina before anyone starts work for the day.  A light breeze blows out of the southeast, not a typical direction for this time of year. (The prevailing wind would be somewhere between south and west. Later in the morning, the wind shifted to the southwest.) 

Today we plan to wash all our enclosure windows of the salt they have accumulated over the past six months or more. We also expect the new shaft coupling to arrive today, and possibly get installed.  We'll see what the day brings...

I completed several small projects on my summer “to do” list this morning and ordered our new water heater—it should be waiting for us when we arrive in Baltimore.

As soon as the new coupling arrived, the mechanic installed it, adjusted the shaft seal a little, and changed the transmission fluid.  Then we got hauled out of the water to check for problems around the prop.  The shaft and prop looked great--this was great news!

The prop, shaft, and cutlass bearing looked fine--no 
entanglements like we expected.


The cutlass bearing was showing little signs of wear, probably caused by the excessive vibration--we'll replace it during our haulout this summer.  So, we are good to go!  The entire problem was caused by the sheared and broken bronze key and the sheared off set screws on the coupling.  The key and set screws were upgraded to stainless steel.


s/v Rainy Days is brought back to the
slip after her short haul.  You can
see her brown mustache from
our recent ICW travels.


We need to stop in at Hartge's Yacht Yard in Galesville first thing on Monday morning to have our autopilot's linear drive removed to that I can send it back to RayMarine for repairs. So we plan to stay here a couple days and then travel to Galesville on Sunday.  Our next blogpost will cover our travels from Solomons to Baltimore.  Stay tuned...

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1 comment:

  1. Such good news! We've been thinking of you and keeping our fingers crossed the repairs were not major.

    ReplyDelete