Saturday morning, I gathered my goodies together for the trip - ladder, the LED bulb for the mast light, as well as my Total Boat fairing compound and such, and loaded them in the car. After a quick glance at the web cam assured me that there wasn't any work happening around the docks, I hopped in and began the drive up. It was a nice day, no jacket required, and a good amount of people trying to get some boat bits tied up prior to launching this year, and I increased that number by one upon arrival. The build replacement took me the better part of about three minutes. One screw at the base, then two more to remove the upper lens cover to allow the base to lift up enough to access the bulb base, plop the new one in, and then reverse the procedure. Unfortunately, I can't test anything with the mast not up, but I'm fairly certain it was just a bulb issue. Either way, as long as the steaming light still works, that's what matters. I don't usually kick around in the dark but you never know.
I also wanted to try to test out using my panel connector idea for the outboard battery cable. Like a fool, I didn't think it through ahead of time. I did, but I didn't. It's a relatively small outboard, only 15 hp. And the battery cable looked plenty thin, probably about 8 gauge. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that at the time, and envisioned them being smaller. So my panel connectors are only 10 gauge. However, there's only about a foot and a half of total small wire in line, so maybe it'll still hold the current? The motor has always started quickly using the electric start, so it doesn't need to sit and crank, so perhaps, just perhaps it'll work. Alas, I won't know until the boat is in the water. The starting battery, alas, is dead. BUT! Hey, I thought, I have a plan for that!
I have this little solar panel and it's original charge controller and everything. My idea was to use this disconnect in the cockpit, to do double-duty. The battery runs to the back of the connector mounted near the aft section of the port side seat. From there, I have the matching plug on the end of the outboard cable. I also have a plug I intended to put on the end of the wiring from the charge controller, so that I could just leave the little panel out in the sun, unplug the outboard, plug in the panel and trickle charge the battery. Unfortunately when I did a test run of the panel without messing with plugs, the controller never lights up. This could possibly be why the end of the wire from the panel itself had been cut off - maybe they had it just wired direct. At 5 watts, it's hardly in danger of frying a battery in short order, but who knows what they had done. All I know, is that it didn't work when I hooked the controller up. I decided to abandon messing with it until it's in the water. And pray that the small section of slightly smaller gauge doesn't interfere with starting. Either way, I'm searching for a better more robust wiring solution. Same concept, better material.
That was really all I accomplished up there this weekend, I was only there for a little less than an hour. Five hours of driving for one of work. Well, at least the light is ready for when they put the mast up, assuming they don't destroy it upon stepping the mast this year. So, I came home and decided to wait.
I have a week left to do work things before I have a few weeks off. It's a rare event for where I work, between seniority and other factors that a person in my position can snag more than a week off, and most of the time the only available weeks are either pre-Summer, or.. October. Usually I aim to take a week off towards the tail end of April or early May to hopefully enjoy the boat early in the season prior to weekend duty. Unfortunately timing has not been on my side the last few years. We had the flooding the one year that delayed launches by many weeks, which negated my taking time off. I should also mention that in my job, our vacation time must be scheduled in the fall of the previous year. So for example, my week in May? I chose that in September. It makes it a challenge, because really, who knows when they want to take a vacation NEXT YEAR? It's annoying, but you do what you can do. Last year, I was able to take a week off, but the boat didn't go in until afterwards due to the Covid delays. This year, as I said though, I was able to schedule my first week off, and then fortuitous circumstances allowed me to secure two more weeks, so I have the first three full weeks in May to myself.
I had a pleasant surprise this morning, seeing some more boatyard activity on the camera. The guys were splashing a sailboat. I expected it might be a little extra windy, but there were a good number of guys on hand and the mast went up fine. Surprised that it took the better part of an hour to get the mast up, and I saw the boom go on afterwards. I usually do that part myself, but after the boat was tidied up, it went off to parts unknown.
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