At the dock.

Day 14

End stay at rental. Finish stowing some personal things and moving aboard. CA has a complete plan for this, making it easy for me to move the heavy things where and when she tells me.

Start provisioning for the first month or so. When the shopping cart is full, she heads back to the marina to start stowing.

Put the first of four coats of varnish on main hatch. Switching from Epifanes to Petit Captain's Varnish. It's simpler to apply.

Test-run engine. After 48 mins, he can't get enough fuel and dies. Gloom, despair, agony on me.

Okay. Okay. Remain calm. Start at the tank and work forward.

1. Check fuel pickup. Blow air through to hear gurgle in tank. That’s clear.

2. Primary was changed yesterday. Time to change secondaries.

   Videos on replacing a Delphi 296 filter are shabby. Maybe there’s 3 minutes of fumbling for the right tool where an edit would eliminate the wasted time. Or there’s a sidebar on the tank vent line or tank cleaning. Or an intro showing the old filter sawn in half.

   Essential points lost in the videos: - There's a large round-profile o-ring on the inside. - There's a tiny round-profile o-ring on the mounting bolt. - There's a square-profile gasket (sometimes with blue dot) that fits into the housing on the top. Don't twist it. Check carefully. - There's a square-profile gasket (with no marking, or a yellow dot) that fits the bowl on the bottom perfectly. It's slightly smaller. - 1/2" wrench for the mounting bolt - 9/16" wrench for the bleed screw

   Before the final tightening of the mounting bolt, twist the filter to see if it’s turning smoothly against the gaskets.

3. And change the injector pump oil (why not?) and bleed the whole system. Again.

Here's the filter we use, FWIW. I needed the "HDF296" to update my inventory of part. Mr. Lehman needs two.

Test run. Today, we got 1h 30m without any problems. The batteries were fully charged, so I shut him down.

Steaming light and red-green forward lights are both out. Need to find out if it’s bulb or wires.

Bilge pump is running hourly. Need to find the water source. Yesterday, I tried to pump the last of the standing water under the float switch, but failed.

Day 15

Pulled up the cabin sole to locate a source of water for the bilge. No drips. CA checked everything she could see. I think the bilge pump cycles because Rule pump has no check valve. When water’s right at the float switch, very little goes overboard; a great deal runs back down the hose.

Filled both water tanks. An empty take takes about 25 minutes; dockside water is about 4 gallons per minute, here. Important. Bring something to sit on while on deck, reading. Change the water filter. I don't want to jinx things, but the fresh water system is working beautifully.

Second coat of varnish on main hatch board.

Another HUGE provisioning run. Another full shopping cart. Many heavy bags of cans.

Ran the engine for about 90 minutes. Flawless. Flawless. This includes 30 minutes at 1200 RPM pulling against the docklines to create a workload.

Changed the running light (we had a spare 25W bulb.)

Today's obligatory run to West Marine: replace the old oil-change pump. After 15 years, it had finally stopped developing a vacuum and wouldn't suck. I've repaired it many times. (It was a more-or-less annual ritual to take the pump apart and reassemble it.)

Today didn't have a really big job: no rebuilding the fuel system. There was plenty of frustration when the pump wouldn’t work and I could not pump the last of the water out of the bilge. Otherwise, things are proceeding toward getting off the dock before Christmas.

Tomorrow

Up the mast to replace the range light. This is big.

More provisioning. This isn't stressful. It's grocery shopping writ large.

Small things. More varnish. Try again to dry out the bilge.

Risky things. Test run the engine. What if he won't stay running?