Sorry Everyone for the long delay on a update with us. Between Family emergency’s, weather, work and family get togethers there has been little to no time to write. I would like to mention that I did write almost the whole post about finishing the decks but upon uploading photos, the internet on the boat cut out and it didnt save what I wrote. That is very frustrating. I now have good internet and am writing in a word processor to avoid all future problems as much as possible. On to our projects

While Shannon was away with family for a week I decided to tackle re-caulking the entire deck and teak pads of Prism.

Using my technique that I developed on the first pad, I went to work for two full 14hr days of cutting and cleaning all the old sealant out of the grooves and making deeper grooves(approx ¼” deep). After the back breaking cutting I used the die grinder with cone tip to cut out all the random areas that still had sealant on them. After that I used masking tape to mask all the grooves to make clean up easier and so I wouldn’t have to worry about sanding so much after the sealant dried.

Word of caution to anyone doing this project, cooler days are better. I found out with the port side that while I was trying to pull the tape after I puttied each line the TDS was curing and slightly pulling the thin top film when pulling off the tape. This was happening extremely fast (under 10min). I had to switch tactics and start pulling tape when I got ¾ of the way done to minimize this effect. All was going well until the last groove I saw some dark clouds coming over the city. I pleaded for it not to rain because I wanted to finish the whole deck that day. No such luck, Rain came in hard. Barely had time to get plastic over the deck. Sadly this freak downpour ruined 99% of all of my tape masking on the starboard deck and forpeak. It rained on and off for another day. I then pulled the ruined masking off (about an hour of work wasted) and re-masked again. I then didnt start caulking till around 6pm to get away from the heat of the day so I wouldnt have the issue of the TDS curing on me. Caulked to 11:50 at night.

I am pleased with what I have right now. It started raining again before we left ( I had work) so as of right now the decks still need a final sand to bring the raised spots down. I will update when I am done with many pictures. Total time invested so far is around 60hrs and about $500 worth of tools and materials. Check out the Timelapse video to kinda get an Idea of what went on.

Shanny got stuck on her train when trying to get back up her to Tacoma from Cambria Ca. Instead of the already long 27hr ride she was stuck on the train for two more days. She would have been stuck longer but I intercepted the train down in Portland, Or and picked her up in the morning. When we got back we tackled reattaching the deck hardware I pulled off to caulk the decks. We then moved on to figuring out the wiring in the rear room. Looks like we didnt snap any before nor after photos of the hardware, whoops.

In the process of doing the wiring we pulled many runs of wire that no longer where connected to anything, some that where hot as well. real Safe… We replaced the run of wire that comes from out shore power plug to a cut off switch that had been cut up and was in sad shape. During this I got the wild hair to check on my impellers on my engine. I have two, one raw water and one for a bilge pump feed that is driven by the water pumps main shaft. Then I moved on replacing the zinc anode that is in the engine.

There was nearly nothing of the old one practically. Ran the engine, ran great. After turning off the engine I have a drip coming out of the weep hole on the bottom of the raw water pump. Crap. I read that either the impeller hasnt seated all the way or that the seal is going out on the pump. We have a lot of motoring ahead of us in the next month so we will see what it is. I drained the pump so no water could seep anywhere. Looking at new water pumps for the 3qm30, they are hard to come by and boy are they expensive! At around $750 I’m not liking my options. I then did a deep dive into how much other parts cost for the 3qm30 and the news isnt great. Parts are very hard to come by and they are super expensive. Shannon and I looked at each other and made the decision that we need to re-power. The way we look at it is that this engine is 30 years old, thats pretty old for anything marine. The engine runs like a top but with parts costing so much, if we have 2-3 failures of major components we will have $4-6000 invested into a 30 year old engine. I re-powered our previous boat Tara with a beta marine engine and it was remarkably strait forward. I like the idea of not working on my engine in remote areas as much as possible. Plus being able to get parts for it at any tractor store. It will be smaller, will have more hp, lighter and will be more fuel efficient. We dont have the budget to buy a new engine right now, but we are planning on selling our paid off 2010 subaru forester, buying a cheap Jeep Wangler(Shanny’s favorite car) and using the remainder to buy the engine. I think I should be able to sell our sweet Yanmar to someone that already owns the 3qm30 for spares, it is worth more in parts than it is complete. Looking to get $2000 out of it, spread the word. We will then have to invest around $12000 I think for the engine and all the components that will need to be changed when changing the engine.

Currently we are up in Shaver Lake, Ca. Staying with family up here for the 4^th and getting to relax. Updates will come when we get back to the boat on the 9^th. We need to finish putting our radios back together, finish wiring the solar panels, sand the decks, get new windows and sew them into the dodger, finish stripping the vertical wood in the cockpit, Buy new chain and sell our old CQR and chain. Did I mention I bought a Spade S120 anchor…. I’m very excited.

Cheers,

Jon & Shannon