We needn’t have
worried about this morning’s weather – it was pretty nice from sunrise on, with
the temperature rising to nearly 80 degrees.
The marina was quite a bit busier today than yesterday, and it looks as
though there will be several more boats staying the night.
Our water tank was
still 3/4 full – around 150 gallons – so Erin
is running several loads of laundry through the washing machine, and we’ll take
nice long showers too. When the tank
gets fairly low we’ll fill it with Refuge Cove water, which doesn’t have the
tannin color that Sullivan
Bay
I spent some time
crawling around in the engine room, checking fluid levels and repeating the
transmission/gear oil process from a couple weeks ago. The transmission is leaking ATF at a fairly
low rate, but it’s leaking into the reduction gear box. The transmission ends up at the add level on
its dipstick after 30 or so engine hours, and the gearbox is a little above the
full mark. I put about a half pint into
the transmission, and pumped some out of the gearbox, adding some fresh 90 wt
gear lube. The reduction gears are made
by the Walters Co, and although they’ve had 90 wt in them for at least the last
20 years, I recently read on the Internet (so it must be true) that all Walters
reduction gears use 30 wt oil. If it’s
true, then I can worry a bit less about thinning the gear lube oil. The transmissions are Borg Warner, and I know
for sure, since I read it in my Borg Warner model 73C maintenance manual, that
this transmission can run on either ATF, or 30 wt oil if the rpm does not
exceed 3000 rpm. So, maybe I should look
into running both the gearbox and the transmission with 30 wt oil, and then
occasionally pump the overage in the gearbox back into the transmission. Tada!
Earlier today a
huge ketch came in for fuel and I spent some time talking to its captain, who
couldn’t have been any older than his late 20’s. The boat was 76’ long (80’ including the
flagpole, he added) and was built in Australia Sydney
to Hobart
group of owners who take turns using it, with him as the
captain. He gained his experience
crewing on another sailboat. I asked him what kind of ticket he needed, and
he has the 100 Ton Master license, same as me, although he also had to get the
TWIC card from the TSA. He said that was
held up for a year and a half because of something he did back when he was
15. Some of the owners take the wheel
from time to time, but he prefers to operate the winches himself, what with the
20,000 lbs of tension they can employ while adjusting the sails.
Not much else to
report on today, other than a couple of excursions up to the store.
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