SO WHAT DID YOU DO WITH OR ON YOUR C-DORY TODAY??

Finally did as others suggested and bought the snap tool to put up my camper canvas from inside the boat. Amazing how much easier that makes it. Found it at West Marine in Tigard for $19.95 and worth every penny. Finally got to talk to Dave of King Marine Canvas last week and he said to leave the top up and it should stretch but that has not been my experience so I did some adjustment to the stainless bows and will see how much better that makes it.
 
Last day of vacation...took Da Nag out on Lake Crescent.

Looks like I've got me a boat dog...Yogi's second day on board, and he seems quite content with his latest digs.

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I had the drum brakes removed from the trailer, and had Kodiak disc put back on the original axle, as well as the other. The shop added the little solenoid that hooks to the backup lights on the truck, to lock out the brakes when backing up.

Gordon
 
Love the boat dog photo! I hope to be taking a picture like that myself sometime next year when there's a puppy likely to show up in our house.
 
Today - Not one damn thing ! Butttt ....

Made it to the home place Sunday evening and as normal nothing works as planned.

The plan was to come home, move the RV out of the shop, put Fan-C-Dory in its place, cross load the two, then... Well the RV had a flat, got that changed, and the van moved out. Then the boat (trailer) was ~6'to long so had to build a pony wall with a notch so the trailer tongue would stick out (the shop building now looks like a BIG trailer with the tongue sticking thru the door). She had to make a run to the dermatologist - her car had a dead battery (my battery charger shorted out on this trip). Pushed her car out and got it jump started and her on the way to her appointment & new battery. Now starting the cross loading.

Our numbers for this summer - We spent 75 days, 118 engine hours and 531 GPS miles on the canals, rivers and lakes of N.Y.. 14 days, 23.9 engine hours, and 135 GPS miles on Table Rock Lake in Missouri. We drove a total of 5341 miles, with 3004 of those towing Fan-C-Dory. That gives us a total of 89 nights spent on-board, and at least 141.7 hours at the helm and LOTS of locks, most of them locking up. Will we do it again - probably not to this extent !
 
By now it was yesterday, but anyway, with the help of my good neighbor Paul of the JC Lately, I started replacing the bunk carpets on the SleepyC trailer. Got to be more involved than that right....yup :!: The monel staples would not go through the Craftsman stapler, so my wife got a nice new electric staple/brad gun. The carpets were stapled onto the boards from underneath, so the trailer may get new boards too. See the thread on Trex for Bunk Boards

http://www.c-brats.com/viewtopic.php?t=12280&highlight=

Hey, what's a fella to do?

Harvey
SleepyC
 
Well today I will be splicing in new wiring after replacing the horn. Day before yesterday was customizing the wiper arms so that regular auto wipers could be used. I had the old 1998 model wiper arms that wouldn't accept anything I could find. This involved a trip to the auto salvage yard to shop for some old arms. I got lucky for a change and came home with an appropriate arm that could be ripped apart and used to fit the old lower portion of the existing arm. Took a little drilling and grinding for the first one, but it worked pretty good.

I'll take photos if anyone is interested. Little Dawg
 
We picked up a carpet runner for the cabin sole and a lightweight doormat, which I cut in half, to put on the dock beside the cockpit.
I drained the carburetors, more important than ever with todays adulterated gas, and siphoned the fuel tanks dry.
FWIW, even though the carbs were drained last fall the first time the boat was started this year the port motor stalled at idle and ran terribly at low throttle settings. I put some Techron gas additive in the fuel tank and ran (sputtered) the motor about five minutes at low settings. The next time the motor was started (two weeks later) it ran perfectly.
 
Installed a new VHF antenna. When we pulled the boat out at Bellingham I forgot to lower the antenna and drove under some trees on the way to the fresh water rinse area. :oops:
 
Milehog":q0muo8on said:
When we pulled the boat out at Bellingham I forgot to lower the antenna and drove under some trees on the way to the fresh water rinse area. :oops:
Click to expand...

I've come close to doing that there also......fortunately, I was able to swerve away from the trees just in the "nick" of time. Maybe I should start carrying a chain saw on the boat with me..... :mrgreen: hmmm, or maybe I should just lower the antenna when I arrive at the dock.
 
Went out on calm seas yesterday- took the dogs with me.
It was a great day to be on the water.
Cruised up to Ventura for lunch, but there was no room on the docks, so I returned to Channel Islands Harbor and had lunch there.
 
I made the jump to 14" wiper blades from the original 11.5" and adjusted
the Pantographic Arms to give the best coverage. :D

My repaired and upgraded RayMarine SmartPilot CPU was received
Thursday from the factory. I installed it Friday and reset the 'Dealer'
parameters. It looks very good. Now I have to take the CD25 out when
the tides are reasonable and the Lower Ches. Bay is relatively flat to
swing the fluxgate compass for the autopilot system.

With the cooler WX coming I can now plan to do some work inside the
forward cabin; such as, wiring in momentary switches for the wipers
and a terminal strip for the comm data lines. I may even have time to
add a H2O filter and windshield washer system.

Now, for that fall cruise around the L. Ches. and its rivers.

I guess I must have my projects to give me purpose, goals and identity.

As I write this, I am awaiting the time I have to leave to go to a
celebration 45th anniversary lunch at a local 'grill-your-own' steak house
with some friends. As of 1309L, today it is official for the "I do" statement.

Art
 
I moved the Raycor filter/gas-water separator out from the starboard lazarette to the transom wall. Basically just moved it from the inner to the outer side of the same wall but I feel a lot better getting that fuel system out from where a battery and a lot of switches/relays are located. Plus, it will be a whole lot easier to change filters. I noticed when doing so that some of the hose clamps were not particularly tight so I tightened all of them and double clamped wherever possible. Next will be an evaluation of whether some kind of protective shield is needed for the now exposed filter.
 
For the last few weeks I've been entertaining myself watching my next door neighbor have a dock built. The guy building it is one of my other neighbors brother-in-laws who recently retired from the Navy and went into the dock building business. He's a nice fellow but in some ways out of his element. In the last month he's hired four different crews to help him and none have satisfied him. This particuliar dock is 800+ feet long with a boat house at the end. Just last week he punched a hole in his pontoon work barge while putting it in his brother-in-laws boat lift for the night right where the lifting straps were he also had a 1,000 weight he uses to drive the pilings down. The four inch lifting strap cut right through the fiberglass pontoon like butter. Anyway he fixed it with some woven roven and resin. This morning I was walking down my dock to check my crab traps and here comes the dock builder in a panic. He said someone had stolen one of his 35' pilings he had floating in the ICW for several days haphazardly tied to a piling. Something just didn't sound right so I lowered my C-Dory and began searching for the piling. After about and hour I found it washed up in the marsh grass about a mile from the dock along the ICW. It was a miracle no one hit it. Anyway after about two hours of watching him try to tie a rope to it so I could drag it back to his dock (he obviously wasn't a BM in the Navy) site we finally got it back. I'll be spending the rest of the day cleaning up the mud he tracked in and out of my boat but at least we don't have a 35' piling floating around to kill someone. All in all it was a fun morning.
 
Marvin,
Maybe you could sell tickets to this show and have the profits pay for
some fishing gas. Some pixs :photo would probably win an EMMY. :beer :cigar

Art
 
You know Art I left a lot out. When they tried to patch the hole in the pontoon they had some sort of vinyl sheeting they first tried to patch it with. The hole/crack was about 18" by 4" wide they took this vinyl and put silicon on it and screwed it to the fiberglass pontoon with #12 x 1" stainless sheet metal screws. The guy who was in charge of this repair (my neighbor) is captain of a huge ocean going tug for Crowley. Wish I had gotten pictures of the repair in progress. They've only got 6 more pilings to put down but i'll try to get some pictures. Actually I may profit from it the guy is suppose to put down two 30' pilings for me for a floating dock. He told me today he would do it for free for helping him retrieve his piling. Good thing after watching this act I'd hate to pay for the entertainment.

The Dream Team

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Marvin;
The dream team is sure working in some 'skinny' water. Judging by
the length of the pier in the background, it looks like an expensive
access to nav'able waters.

Let the games begins.

Art
 
The pier cross's about 600' of marsh before getting to the ICW. Pilings in the photo are 20 footers. At this point they are about 400' from the beginning. They pretty much sink on thier own for about 8 to 10 feet then they drive and jet them down another 5'. Around $25,000 in material to go 800 feet plus labor. My dock is 760' long and I built it in the 6 days 10 years ago but had about 30 of my buddies helping.
 
Friday morning I got a call from a gentleman in the area who had been to the Sequim Bay State Park 09 CBGT, and had a look at the boats but did not actually get on board. Now he is looking at an 05 Cruiser that is across the country and is interested in a closer look at one so we met Bill at John Wayne Marine and gave him the chance to get a closer, more specific look at a sister ship to the one he found. Had a nice ride out to the Strait, and got to make a new friend. Here's wishing Bill luck on his cross country purchase.

Today, I spent some time dialing in the radar bearing correction to where I am confident now that if I find a return I want to head for, when I get there, it will be right in front of the boat.



Harvey
SleepyC :moon
 
I took out the "little boat" for a nice afternoon run on Lake Washington. This is the first time I've ever ridden or driven a 16'. It feels so different than the 22' Cruiser.

It feels like it sits real low in the water, kinda like a sports car. The boat felt great and the motor sounded and performed great as well. This is also the first time I've run a 2-stroke motor. It seemed very strong. The throttle was really tight, needing very little movement to go from 3000 rpm to 4000 rpm. All in all, it was a very successful maiden voyage!

Question: Do all of you who run carbureted motors run your carbs dry each time?

Peter
C-Dancer - 2005 22' Cruiser
TBD - 1989 16' Angler
 
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