We took an end of March/early April road-trip to the boat for boat tasks while it was still on the hard. Next road trip will be one-way!
We went with a long to-do list. Some things HAD to be done while the boat was out of the water, so those came first:
- Anodes on the prop shafts, trim tabs, and transom. Also the engine anodes were replaced, although that can be done in the water or out.
- Careful measurements of props to ground, of keel to ground, of water-line to ground, of bow pulpit to ground. This lets us calculate how far under the water the prop actually is. The prop is the lowest point on the boat, so we want to know how deep the water needs to be.
Other tasks included:
- Installation of new VHF radio.
- Installation of AIS (Automated Identification System) that will let our boat transmit location and see location of other boats
- Installation of NEBO – a boat log tracker/share location piece of electronics
- Installation of Actisense gizmo that should let our old auto-pilot talk to the not-as-old chartplotter
- Installation of Victron shunt that lets us see how many amps are coming out of the house battery and what the state of charge is
- Put shut-off valve on the fresh water tank
- Took out old (circa 1999) radio/casette player near side of bed and installed USB chargers
- Installed wireless doorbell – to communicate from flybridge to the salon. One ring means “Hold on, there is a wake!” – Two rings means “Come up here, please.”
- Installed new starboard transmission cap and filter.
- Took a lot of miscellaneous tools and other stuff and found space for it.
- Removed the built in vacuum cleaner to free up some storage space.
- Measured bimini for future solar panels.
The building the boat is in remains a steady 54 degrees. But outside was a different story.
It was a cold trip, with cold winds blowing snow around and blizzard warnings for on the way home. We dipped south to cross through South Dakota because Interstate 94 in North Dakota was closed due to blizzard conditions. It was fun to see some new territory and wildlife.
We saw hundreds of pheasant, swans, sandhill cranes, antelope, deer and one lone coyote. We got an Audible subscription and listened to Corrie TenBoom’s “The Hiding Place”.