Category Archives: Repairs

Bushy Bridle & Shaggy Shackles

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After sitting in the same spot in Spaanse Waters for 6 weeks we have unwillingly acquired new sea life on everything that is below water.  That would include, the props, zincs, freezer plates, bridle, shackles, anchor chain, and hulls.  Luckily our bottom paint is holding up “pretty” good. We had it painted with Sea Hawk red in December at Grenada Marine so it is holding its own against the freeloaders who want to claim the bottom of our boat as their new home.  However, the other items are suffering immensely.  Since we are in pretty deep  (@ 8 meters), silty, unclear water with a decent current and lots of wind, we have not had many opportunities to clean the bottom.  Matt made a few attempts and came back up covered in tons of little tiny shrimp crawling in places that you don’t want critters.

On of our folding props completely covered in hairy growth.

We recently purchased a new power washer, as the motor on the old one decided to stop working – no telling how old it was but it served us well.  Matt decided to try a different approach to cleaning the bridle, shackles, and anchor chain.  He lugged the power washer to the bow, attached the hose and started attacking the chain with vigor!  It was a slow process that he had to repeat on each side of the chain, for every link of the chain.  As the chain cleaned up, he slower raised the chain to access the next several links.

Matt cleaning our anchor chain.

Attacking the growth with the power washer.

Cleaning the anchor chain to get to the bridle.

One link and one side at a time.

Partially cleaned anchor chain.

As you can see, the hair is so bushy thick is about 5-6″ in each direction making the circumference about 1′ all around.  You cannot even see the shackles in the center (they are attaching the bridle to the anchor chain)

Our bridle is attached to the anchor chain with stainless steel shackles, but you can’t even see them.

Unfortunately, the rest will have to wait until we get to cleaner, clearer, shallower water – hopefully within the next week as we plan to move Sugar Shack to Fuik (pronounced Fowk with a heavy “O”) Bay or Klein Curacao.

What’s Worse?

  • Cleaning the bridle daily or weekly?
  • Cleaning the bridle when you’re ready to leave?

Electricity

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We bought the boat in 2010. It was 9 years old then on its original batteries. That’s along time for batteries. 7 years is a great car battery. We never plug into shore power, all electricity has come from solar or engine alternators.

This trip I noticed the battery voltage getting weak in the wee hours on those late/middle of the night boat checks.

Seeing voltage down near 12.1 is not bad but less than ideal. One night I saw 11.9. Time for concern.

Today ran the Honda generator. Mostly all bulk load, 60 amps going into the bank. Voltage is up to 12.3 early eve.

Will need to run generator again. Seems the little Honda is out producing the master volt alternators, need more data to back that up.

The one thing that it helps quantify it is the house bank switch on the port side is being a little finicky which might cause some loss of current during charging.

Beautification and Maintence

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As sugar shack is a boat, there is always something to do, maintence or repairs or modifications to make her more home. These last few months in St Lucia were no different. The difference between us and full time cruisers is we go back to work and let someone else take care of the chores. And trust that they get done correctly. Rodney Bay marina is run by Edwin, who used to run the yard, and always took great care of us and have definitely earned our trust. The new yard manager is Frederic and he is no different. They are always available to answer emails and questions and to make sure things get done on time/budget/schedule. Thats not to say its always ahead of time, but its is island time after all.

This trip, they hauled the shack out of the water and put a fresh coat of Island 44 bottom paint on her so she should be good to go for a while. This time Christine wanted red so the bottom of the boat changed from blue to red, course most is underwater so you will only see it when swimming at anchor.

While she was out of water they also washed/waxed and polished her, so we should just have to rinse her off a bit and be underway after getting some provisions and gasoline for the dingy.

We also had some wood work rejuvenated, the teak on the sugar scoops should be updated and the few places that were varnished revarnished. We were going to have the cockpit table redone as well, but waited a little too long to start that project and it wouldn’t be done in time for us leave the island. We shall see how that work turned out, we got photos of the polish and bottom job along the way, but never asked for or received the wood work photos.

We also had a cap tube filter installed on the freezer. We had a dickens of time tracking down the right guy to do that work. Finally when I was there in February, I made contact with Prudent, the expert, as I was just about to leave for the airport. We had the boat put back in the water 3 weeks ago, so that the freezer work could be done, Prudent is a super nice guy and eventually got the work done, yesterday morning. So much for leaving it running and testing it out as our original plan was, but hopefully the educated guess of what was up with the keel cooler and capillary tube will go well. The boat has to be in the water to use the freezer and refrigerator as they use the ocean water to cool off the compressed gas that makes the freezer cool.

A little more than an hour till touch down, its along way down, but the water is blue and the bahamas water sure is beautiful.