Springtime on Kent Island: 4/30 - 5/2

—Blogpost written by Bob 

Friday, April 30

Strong northwest wind (15 to 18 knots) dictated our activities for the day.  The sun was shining brightly but the wind kept the outside temperature in the low to mid-60’s, which with the high wind made it feel quite chilly.

A scene of the marina in the morning
from the parking lot before
heading to Annapolis.

We planned to drop off some things at our storage unit in Annapolis this morning and on buying a replacement winch handle for our forward port cabintop winch at either Bacon’s or Fawcetts.  It seems like salt water exposure over the past five years ruined the internal spring that locks the winch handle into the winch.  

After visiting our storage unit, we stopped by Bacon’s to look at winch handles.  I found a 10-inch Lewmar Titan which matches one of our other winch handles and it was priced roughly equal to the one I found online—so, I bought it.

LEWMAR Titan 10-inch floating
winch handle.

After a quick stop at West Marine for a few onboard essentials (bilge cleaner and water treatment fluid), we went out to lunch at Lemongrass II, making today the fifth day in a row that we’ve gone out for lunch.

By the time we returned to the boat (between 2 and 3 PM) I was running on empty, still experiencing the fatigue from my recently completed radiation treatments.

Saturday, May 1

Twenty-five knot winds between 11 PM and 2 AM kept me from sleeping much last night. When we got up this morning we noticed that our dinghy had blown off the dock and was lodged between our boat and the dock.  Fortunately we had tied it to the dock a few days ago, anticipating the fact that high wind could blow our 100-pound rigid hull inflatable dinghy away.  It was a real chore getting it back onto the dock.

My first task of the morning was to work on sharpening some of our kitchen knives, starting with the one on which I recently replaced the handle.

Sharpening my rebuilt kitchen knife with
a diamond wet stone. (I remember
my Dad sharpening knives using
a sharpening steel--he always
made it look so effortless.)

Since there are no boats close to us being on a T-head, I worked on the sharpening in our enclosed cockpit in my underwear!  (Because I've been fading quickly in the afternoons, I started on my boat projects early in the morning.)

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The next task on my agenda was to tear apart the 2-speed self tailing winch on the forward port cabintop and lube it but the wind kicked back up to about 15 knots (around 9:30 AM) and I decided to put this task off until tomorrow when the wind was supposed to decrease to almost nothing and the temperature was expected to reach a high of 83 degrees.  (I went back to sharpening knives.)

Poor Lola didn't get much sleep last night
as result of the high wind.  An afternoon
cat nap was required.

Sunday, May 2

The wind had died and the sun was shining brightly from the get go today.  I got caught up on my sleep last night and I felt great, ready to tackle the winch service I planned for today. 

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I watched an excellent YouTube video on servicing a Barient 23 2-speed self-tailing winch (which is similar to the Barient 19 I have to service today).  I don't plan to remove the winch from its mount and, therefore, do not plan to do a complete rebuild but rather only do the necessary lubricating to fix the problem I had experienced previously.  (To remove the winch from its mount I thought it would require that I drop a section of the headliner in the main salon to gain access the the heads of the bolts--I didn't want to do this today because of other pressing projects.)

I disassembled the winch without any difficulty.  Upon disassembly I noticed excessive aluminum corrosion of the drum internals which prevented the needle bearings from moving freely.  In fact I had to drive out the bearing cage with a mallet.  (The space between the needle bearings was actually filled with the aluminum corrosion.)  I believe this was the major problem all along and it took a lot of time to clean up the corrosion and to free up the bearings.  I did end up removing all the components of the winch--a complete rebuild as opposed to the partial rebuild I had planned on doing.  After lubricating all the components, I reassembled the winch but  I couldn't get it to seat properly--I needed to lower the drum by about 1/4".

By this time, my fatigue was kicking in and I didn't feel that it was wise to continue the job today but rather disassemble everything again on another day and try to solve the problem when I felt a little sharper.  I also ran out of winch grease at the end of the reassembly.

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We expect rain tomorrow and I had planned on removing our auxiliary diesel tank to investigate the leak issue and develop a plan for dealing with it.  Stay tuned...

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