We are starting vacation again WoHooo! But let me take you back a few months to update you on what is been happening to the good ship Imagination....
First we had to move our solar panels. The winter winds almost tore them off the Bimini structure.
Then we had to fix the autopilot. When we would set a course the boat would wander.
Also, I wanted to update the electronics. I had bought a chart plotter with the boat and never put it in.
But, we had a breakdown of sorts. The riser pipe, part of the exhaust system of the boat had corroded and was leaking both water and exhaust.
The solar panels were put on an arch on the back of the boat. The arch took about 8 weeks to fabricate and can be used for davits, to haul up a dinghy, and to support a radar system in the future. The arch people were great to work with. The guy who installed the solar panels, not so much.
The auto pilot and electronics upgrade was a bit of a pain as the chart plotter that I had bought had problems talking to other equipment. The guy who ran the wires was great Terry Willis is a wizard and understood what I wanted and how I wanted to do it. We now have a functioning autopilot, chart plotter at the help and navigation station, that has AIS, ship anti collision software, and weather.
The riser pipe had us sitting for 6 weeks waiting for the part. Swan Creek installed it. The wait caused a build up of marine life on our prop. Last weekend we took the boat out and the engine overheated. Lee came over and hauled the boat to scrape the bottom eject the barnacles.
Also, this summer we have been chasing a problem with the oil pressure light. The light would come but we would have oil. After a shut down and restart the light would stay off. I need to change the oil switch and put in a oil pressure gauge to see if there really is a problem. This I am doing today the first day of our vacation so that I have confidence in the boat for a week! This should only take an hour. ( Famous last words! ) We also need to sea trail the boat to see if everything is working correctly.
Now on to work!!!