J/30 Class Association Forums J/30 Forum The Boat, Sails and Equipment Ananda's Refit

Yesterday I got the news that my engine had arrived at H&M in Sausalito, ready for installation, and that I could bring the boat over whenever. My schedule is pretty busy for the next couple weeks, but lucky I'd decided to work from home that day. I took the afternoon off and with the help of my friend Tim, we slipped the lines at 2:30 and motored out across the bay.

Leaving San Francisco astern:


The engine ran just fine wide open for the hour-long trip (delayed a bit by the passage of a car carrier that we decided not to challenge for right-of-way).

Entering the Sausalito channel:




As we came into the Sausalito channel a row boat came out of one of the marinas, heading across our path. I throttled back to idle to let them pass, and I noticed white smoke (steam) coming out the exhaust. This is normal I presume (hot engine + less cooling water = more energy transferred to that water). However, the water coming out had turned a blackish color, which I wasn't expecting. I mentally went over how we would drop anchor if the engine quit on us, and powered up to 50% throttle for the 3/4 nm remaining. The exhaust water turned back to clear, and we had no further problems all the way into Clipper Yacht Harbor and the H&M dock. I've never seen that discoloration in the exhaust water before.

But, I don't have to care, as this will be in the boat by next month:




There was no coax in the mast when I bought the boat, and all running light 12V there has been replaced as well. No foam, either - the yard put the cables in a flexible sleeve/conduit in the mast.

I have a theory: there's a small line tied to an eyelet at the bottom of my mast. I thought it was a messenger line, now I realize it could be used for tensioning the wires in the conduit to keep them from slapping, or something. So I'm going to ease that and see where it gets me.

Inspected the engine installation this afternoon! What follows are far too many pictures of it:









The new Racor filter:


And raw water strainer:


The engine control panel is all digital:


And the throttle/shift control is much nicer too:


Unfortunately, when trying to align the propeller the engine shop discovered that the cutlass bearing was pretty much shot, so tomorrow I'm taking the boat across the bay to the boatyard for a haulout and fix.

so jealous, I will have to be content with a rebuild of the old tractor engine. Yours certainly is shiny...

Yeah, hopefully I can keep it shiny!

Ananda lying contentedly at rest at the KKMI docks after stretching her legs (sails up for the first time in 6 months):



Our track for the day, as logged by AIS:



We raised sails off of the Sausalito ferry terminal and sailed pretty much the entire day without tacking or gybing. We had one stop at Pier 1.5, the public dock in San Francisco to pick up a tardy crew member who missed our morning ride up to Sausalito.

I did have one thing go wrong - while trying to figure out the rigging for the new bowsprit with the spinnaker partially hoisted in its sock, it got sucked into the water and we came to a dead stop mid-bay as it became a sea anchor. We got it hauled back aboard though, with the only casualty being one of the blocks on my bobstay actually came detached.

All in all, an excellent day!

I notice you have one of the engine air ducts closed ... how are you handling air to engine.

Nice plot. Good to see your input to site.

v

Actually only one seems to be connected. The intake on the port side is open and connected to a duct that leads to the engine space. The symmetric hole on the starboard side is covered with a deck plate and has no duct underneath (it's been closed since I bought the boat).

roger, roger ...
the original goal was for one vent to face forward to channel fresh air into the engine compartment ... and the duct was wire tied so that it fed low into the compartment.

the other vent was facing aft with the duct wire tied to something high to vent the hot air out of the engine compartment.

I am thinking that perhaps the aft vent doesn't really need a duct in the original model. The engine cover is a lot smaller in the 500 series.

But the idea was to get forced cool air in, and then vent the hot air aft.

Vic is correct. It also keeps diesel and oil smell out of the boat by circulating air through just the engine compartment.

I'm jealous, Alex! really nice job. I'm looking at a similar rewire on Koesh 'though I probably won't add the radar. With all the additions, what are you doing for "house" batteries? Did you add some capacity?
Doug
Koeshtkah #380

Doug,

Indeed. I'm upgrading to 2x200Ah AGM batteries. I had a lot of trouble finding batteries with that capacity which would fit in the boat. Eventually I discovered Mastervolt makes a "Slimline" battery which is narrow, and thus I plan to lay these on their side, one on port and one on starboard, back under the quarterberths.

I actually picked up the batteries on Saturday. Here is one of them:



They weigh about 120lbs apiece - not easy to move around! I still need to figure out how I'm going to strap them down.

I also took delivery of another new piece of equipment for the boat that I'm looking forward to trying out: