To recap the recent events as of late:
Couple weekends ago, I met with Matt, the previous owner, and picked up the 9.9 HP Mercury Extra Long Shaft outboard to go with the boat. The only downfall was that he hadn't found the fuel hose to bridge the tank and outboard. No worries, I'll go grab one from Wal-mart to play with it in the meantime. See, he told me that the motor had been looked at before, but he really didn't seem sure that it would be running 100%, so I thought I would just give it a look over. Imagine my surprise when the standard Mercury/Mariner fittings sold on the shelf, do NOT fit a 1988 Mercury outboard. They also sell the male fitting. Which, strangely, ALSO won't fit the female fitting they sell. So that was a bummer.
Then the weekend of the 7th, I was able to meet up with Matt again, to hand over the remaining balance for the actual boat purchase, sign the registration, and officially take ownership. Matt found the hose a couple days later and offered to mail it, so that was a nice bonus. Unfortunately the weather here has been unseasonably cold for the time of year and I haven't had any time, or daylight, to mess with it. That should change this weekend, when we might, MIGHT even hit 60 degrees! Woohoo, right?
So now it's a week and a half to go before the season opens. What do I have left to do?
Refit the masthead sheaves. To this end, I've ordered a new pair from Ballenger Spars, which was quite literally the ONLY place that I found the exact size needed already listed, without having to commission someone to create them special. And to that end, they were actually cheaper than most "close enough to work" sheaves that I found elsewhere. Whether or not they get here, that's the interesting question. Now, on the one hand, if they DO get here before next weekend, well then it's a party. I can replace the two missing ones with the new ones, and have free use of the spinnaker block and halyard for it's intended usage instead of it being tied up keeping head sail duties under wraps. Now, if they DON'T, well, the mast has been rigged with the aforementioned block doing duty and I'll just keep that orientation until I can climb up the mast and make the swap.
Mast Wiring. Right now, the mast wiring is nearly non-existant. The mast wiring on these boats come up through the deck-mounted mast step, and is sealed in the liner in the cabin. Unfortunately that means that if there are any breaks in wiring, you can't just pull new wire through the old. Now in my case, new wiring for the steaming light HAS been run, and plugs in (sort of) outside the mast. This is a very common way for things like this to be run, so that isn't the issue. What is, however, is the fact that the existing steaming light is absolutely destroyed. It's some form of LED fixture which has exactly nothing left minus an LED board dangling off some wooden bung.
As far as I can tell, it's the only wiring in the mast right now. The masthead has no anchor light, no VHF antenna, no anything at all. So in that spirit, I've ordered up a new LED anchor light, and a cheap steaming/deck light. It's sort of a Forespar knockoff, but it's cheap enough that I don't mind taking a risk on it. The only complaint that people have in the reviews I've read, is that when the wings are curved to match some mast angles, it could potentially deform the fixture enough that it could compromise the way things line up. My thinking, is that it's a plastic/composite fixture. A little heat should allow that to be formed without hardly any issues. Guess we'll see.
The anchor light is just some cheap all-round LED that should at least do something. My original plan was to just hoist a lantern, which I'll likely still do. But for fifteen bucks, and I already have the wire, why not throw on up anyway? Maybe I'll get lucky and this one will actually work, unlike the last one I had on my other boat.
And then in direct contrast, I ordered LMR-400 VHF cable to run up the mast, and to tie into the existing whip antenna that I found in the boat to mount. There are variations of VHF cable qualities, but in most threads I've read, the 400 seems to be at the, if not the top of the list for quality and signal loss in practical boating applications. That is to say that yes, there are physically better choices but the cost/weight/etcs hit a point where it isn't beneficial to sacrifice towards. The existing VHF radio that was mounted, was just run to an eight foot fiberglass whip mounted on the stern, but there IS a VHF barrel connector on the deck for the mast, just missing the cable run from there through the cabin to the radio. So at the very least, the cable will run from the masthead antenna to the deck. I plan on using the old radio for the time being, and then I might upgrade it next year. If you're curious as to just what kind of differences there are between the cable choices, here's a good chart:
Attenuation of Coaxial Transmission Lines in the VHF/UHF/Microwave Amateur and ISM Bands
| Cable Type | 144 MHz | 220 MHz | 450 MHz | 915 MHz | 1.2 GHz | 2.4 GHz | 5.8 GHz |
| RG-58 | 6.2(20.3) | 7.4(24.3) | 10.6(34.8) | 16.5(54.1) | 21.1(69.2) | 32.2(105.6) | 51.6(169.2) |
| RG-8X | 4.7(15.4) | 6.0(19.7) | 8.6(28.2) | 12.8(42.0) | 15.9(52.8) | 23.1(75.8) | 40.9(134.2) |
| LMR-240 | 3.0(9.8) | 3.7(12.1) | 5.3(17.4) | 7.6(24.9) | 9.2(30.2) | 12.9(42.3) | 20.4(66.9) |
| RG-213/214 | 2.8(9.2) | 3.5(11.5) | 5.2(17.1) | 8.0(26.2) | 10.1(33.1) | 15.2(49.9) | 28.6(93.8) |
| 9913 | 1.6(5.2) | 1.9(6.2) | 2.8(9.2) | 4.2(13.8) | 5.2(17.1) | 7.7(25.3) | 13.8(45.3) |
| LMR-400 | 1.5(4.9) | 1.8(5.9) | 2.7(8.9) | 3.9(12.8) | 4.8(15.7) | 6.8(22.3) | 10.8(35.4) |
| 3/8" LDF | 1.3(4.3) | 1.6(5.2) | 2.3(7.5) | 3.4(11.2) | 4.2(13.8) | 5.9(19.4) | 8.1(26.6) |
| LMR-600 | 0.96(3.1) | 1.2(3.9) | 1.7(5.6) | 2.5(8.2) | 3.1(10.2) | 4.4(14.4) | 7.3(23.9) |
| 1/2" LDF | 0.85(2.8) | 1.1(3.6) | 1.5(4.9) | 2.2(7.2) | 2.7(8.9) | 3.9(12.8) | 6.6(21.6) |
| 7/8" LDF | 0.46(1.5) | 0.56(2.1) | 0.83(2.7) | 1.2(3.9) | 1.5(4.9) | 2.3(7.5) | 3.8(12.5) |
| 1 1/4" LDF | 0.34(1.1) | 0.42(1.4) | 0.62(2.0) | 0.91(3.0) | 1.1(3.6) | 1.7(5.6) | 2.8(9.2) |
| 1 5/8" LDF | 0.28(0.92) | 0.35(1.1) | 0.52(1.7) | 0.77(2.5) | 0.96(3.1) | 1.4(4.6) | 2.5(8.2) |
One thing that I AM excited about though is something my brother and I stumbled across in some searches for a project he's working on. One thing that I always see threads on forums about, is some sort of wiring connector at the mast. Most are somewhat flimsy 4-pin connectors or something, and frankly, the one I ordered for the Ex 26 I had, ended up being pretty poorly built. Now, you are free to point out the price. And I will be the first to admit that yes, it was very cheap and likely the main reason for failure. But if I'm honest, there are quite a few very similar ones, and I've seen them sell for upwards of thirty dollars. For reference, what I had was:
And every time I look for a waterproof deck connector, I always find the same kind of deal. I was almost resigned to using a trailer wiring plug. But when we were stumbling across other things unrelated, we found a company called CNLINKO, that manufactures waterproof connectors for various applications, including optical and USB. My brother ordered one, and was very impressed, so I decided to order a 1/4 turn locking 4 pin combo that I'm looking forward to seeing, in the following style:
Oh, remember that whole "I have nice shiny new batteries" thing? Let's revisit my Excalibur 26. Two nice GC2 golf cart batteries, and a Renogy Solar 100 watt panel and PWM controller. I've already mounted two new batteries on this boat, but I've only had a little 5 watt panel sitting out on the cockpit seat to feed them through a brand new Victron 75|15 controller. There's nothing drawing on the batteries right now, nothing is hooked up. But it won't be long before it's being used, and that little panel MIGHT be able to veryyyyy slowlyyy try to top batteries off over a week that I'm not there. But why tempt fate, right? I ordered a new HQST 100 watt monocrystalline solar panel, extension cables, and a waterproof deck seal connector. I fully intended to go with the Renogy again, and to be completely fair, I've read reviews comparing the two with mixed results. They have great reviews on this as well, and as one comment pointed out, these are manufactured by Renogy for distribution by HQST. This panel is about twenty dollars cheaper, so they must have skimped somewhere, you would think. But the problem is that there are reviews where people have purchased both panels and found them to be virtually identical. There are also a couple that maintain that they are in fact, NOT the same panel, and these are inferior. So, while I do plan on a second panel before the end of summer, I figured I'd at least give this one a go, and see how it compared to the one I had before.
All in all, it's shaping up to be a pretty good last week of preparation. The idea is to have all these things in for next week, and since I have the first week in May scheduled off, next weekend will be all the actual boat work and final prep, and then launch the next week and... who knows!
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