Quiet Company Adventures

Winter is a great time to do preventive maintence and install upgrades. One of the recent ones is a digital antenna with an amplifying hub to push boosted signals to each of the LED TVs. Installed the ICOM M602 and have disconnected the hold down brackets from behind the four Navagation touchscreens.

The engines have been cleaned and wiped down and look great. It is amazing if you keep things clean they don't get dirty. The engine couplers to their shafts have been aligned and are within 2 to 3 1000s of an inch of the spec (which is good). I have changed the heater hoses from the port engine to the plumbing hot water heater. The hoses enable the engine to heat the water whenever we are underway.

The previous owner had change some hose run locations which were good improvements but he did not epoxy the left behind screw hole which present no real harm to the boat but I'm always about doing it the right way and I just couldn't stand seeing them even though there were on maybe 10 1/8 in holes I epoxied them closed and they disappear and look like the hole was never drilled.

Have been installing a new audio system on the Flybridge. Installed a Fusion MS RA70N which is NEMA 2000 ready if want to connect it to the N2K network onboard. I also installed a 360W Fusion Active Tube Subwoofer. It fit perfect behind the flybridge helm station. I connected the Bose Marine speakers and it sounds great. The Sub has a remote control I mounted behind the held dash so it and the subwoofer are protected from the rain. We will have to watch how we pressure wash the Helm area so we don't spray the sub.

I also have now installed a new Balmar charging control system. It consisted of a MC 614 external regulators on each engine and a Centerfielder II combiner to enable the charging system to better utilize the Balmar Series-60 100 Amp alternators to charge the 12 Deka Promaster 6V Deep cell Flooded batteries that make up the charging system. This addition was quiet challenging but with the exception of one wire on the wrong terminal the install was good. It was complicated by my wanting to take advantage of the alternator's internal SmartRegulators as a backup. To do so you have to wire in a double throw toggle switch in the ignition circuit.

The next project was removing the flybridge table support post so they could be blasted and powercoated so they are again like new. That project went smooth although you have to remove a few ceiling panels in the pilot house and watch cabin to access the through bolt fasteners used to secure the table to the flybridge floor (the Pilothouse ceiling. It was great to clean up the marginal calk job around the post.

Another project I completed is to remove the starboard mounting block used to raise the Genset off the floor of the engine room. I replaced the hard blocks with natural rubber mounting blocks to lower the Genset and reduce the transfer of vibration from the Genset to the boat. An added benefit of lowering the Genset is it is no longer wedged against the engine room ceiling also reducing the vibration transfered to the boat. I'm hopeful to lower the DBs in the saloon as a result. Quieter is always better and this should reduce the decibels even more.

Tha batteries that power the Windlass and Bow Thruster are located under the master cabin bed. This put the batteries closest to the highest amp load on the boat the Bow Thruster. The batteries are AGM batteries that are designed to be used in airplanes and closed living spaces. I purchased four 6-volt Amstron AGM Deep-Cell batteries to replace the 5 year old batteries that came on the boat. The replaced batteries went to Viv's brother Jason to add additional batteries to backup his solar generation at his house. I will be surprised if there isn't substantial life left in the old batteries given they seldom receive enough load to drain the below 75% of their capacity. At 5 years of use on the old batteries, running vital equipment like the windlass and bow thruster, I would rather change them to soon then have a need for power and they have failed. At 68 lbs each, my nephew Scott (with more than adequate muscles, the change out was not that challenging.