Atlantic Yacht Basin Marina (Day 42, 43 and 44)

Tuesday, May 26th

Air temp 70, water temp 74, winds calm

Not moving the boat today

Around 8:30am I walked to the marina office and talked to the General Manager, Jesse.  I told him I thought we had a bent prop and we had a spare but it wasn't very good.  If possible, I would like to purchase a new / rebuilt prop a little bit larger then have the boat hauled to put it on.  He was very helpful and called the local propeller place - Wildcat Propellers.

After a few more calls and coordination, I purchased a used propeller that would be delivered tomorrow.  Wildcat would "tune up" the propeller which was included in the $950 price.  The only problem was it was for a slightly bigger shaft size than Second Wind.  Our propeller shaft is 1 1/4" in diameter.  This propeller was 1 1/2" which was easily fixed by installing a sleeve or bushing inside the propeller that was designed for this purpose.  The sleeve would be ordered overnight and we would have that tomorrow too.

Dean and Sue (s/v Autumn Borne) and Pete and Bunny (s/v La Bella Vita) motored over from the free dock around noontime for fuel and water before leaving for Chesapeake Bay.  We chatted a bit then they went through the bridge and lock heading north.  They were only going to Old Point Comfort (about 15 miles - just before Chesapeake Bay) then planned on heading up the bay to Deltaville area tomorrow.  Bon voyage mes amis.  We'll see you again soon.

Laura and I got used to the busy boatyard life as we walked around and I got re-acquainted with the yard.  I had kept my 42' trawler here for the winter in 1997 and the local broker sold it for us the next Spring.  That was my last boat before purchasing Second Wind in 2006.

We walked about 1/2 mile to the grocery store or a few items we forgot a couple days ago plus some chicken they had on sale.  It was a nice walk on a beautiful day.

We grilled chicken for dinner and relaxed most of the evening.

Wednesday, May 27th

Air temp 64, water temp 74, winds E @ 5-10

Not moving today

We took our time this morning since we were waiting for parts.  Just before noon I walked up to the office and talked to Jesse about our schedule.  He called the propeller guy and they had our new propeller rebuilt and were just waiting for the sleeve.  Should be in shortly.

Around 1pm the prop and sleeve arrived.  But, the travel lift was in use for a boat survey.  The survey is a pre-purchase inspection by "experts" that is supposed to find the major things wrong with the boat so the buyer knows what they are getting.  Part of the inspection is to have the boat hauled out of the water so the surveyor (inspector) can check the hull and running gear (shaft, props, rudder, etc.).  Problem for us was this could take a little while.

The survey was done around 2pm.  Their boat was put back in the water and we waited a bit for them to leave the slip before motoring around the boatyard island to the travel lift.  I had a printed sheet for the lift-guys which showed where the straps were supposed to go on Second Wind.  Another problem we found was this lift could only move one of the straps forward and back.  The other strap near the cross-beam was fixed.  This prevented them from lifting the rear of the boat in the normal spot but they used a place where we had been lifted before without problems.  Now the front strap would not quite go out far enough to be forward of the keel and it's associated sloping bottom.  They were afraid that the strap would slip on the sloping keel and they first time they tried lifting the boat, it did slip a little. Note that this lift is plenty big enough for our boat.  Second Wind weighs about 21 tons and this lift is rated for 60 tons.  Funny that we never had these problems before.

Here are a couple pictures of the new propeller and sleeve.

Top picture shows the gold colored sleeve sitting next to the prop.  Below, the sleeve is inserted which lets the prop fit snugly onto a smaller shaft. 

When they finally felt comfortable with the lifting strap positions is was about 3:50pm.  Jesse told me the crew normally leaves at 4pm for the day.  Was it OK to do the lift tomorrow.  We were not in a huge hurry so it wasn't a big deal.  They moved the boat out of the lift and tied it to a dock where we could hook up to power for the night.  See ya in the morning!

Thursday, May 28th

Air temp 74, water temp 74, winds calm

Only went for a short (1/2 mile?) ride today with the boat

Today we were up early as we heard the travel lift going around 7:30am.  After my exercises and a quick breakfast, we were out of the boat right around 8am and the marina crew was ready to go.  It was raining on and off.

No big problems today as they lifted our 41,000 pound boat out of the water.  Here's the boat in the travel lift.

The mechanic was able to get the old propeller off without too much work - sometimes they are really stuck on.  The new sleeve and propeller fit well with just a little work.  Here's the end result. You can just see the gold-colored, bronze sleeve inside the new prop.  Everything fit together well.

They put the boat back in the water a short time later and we went for a ride to check everything out.  The boat felt very smooth and went about 1/2 knot faster for the same engine RPM (because of the slightly larger propeller).  The next few days of motoring will tell how everything works together.

Here is the old propeller.  The blade sticking up is bent in the middle.  Pretty sure that was the problem.

I had the marina take our old propeller to the prop shop to rebuild it.  I'd like to have a good spare just in case we hit something else down the road.  We're supposed to get it back tomorrow but we'll see how that goes. 

Weather looks good right now for leaving on Saturday for maybe the Deltaville area which is about 1/3 of the way up Chesapeake Bay.  Because of Tropical Storm Bertha, the weather here seems to be changing daily.  We might have to just move when we can and sit at anchor when the weather is bad.