Slow going... which isn't all bad.

[Scudrunner]

It’s been slow going getting Legacy ready for retirement. Being landlocked, away from marine supply stores and having to rely on online/unseen ordering has certainly slowed things down, COVID didn’t help either. But slow isn’t so bad either, it gives me more time to organize my thoughts and plans for retirement in 12 months.
Here are a few projects in the works:

Installing the radar mount, radar and anchor light mast (took more time due to getting the right wiring).

Removed the old (relatively new) macerating head, tank and plumbing. (Anyone interested in the head?)

Install the new C-Head (shorty). (This too took longer to receive due to COVID)

Remove the mast mounted galley table. The plan is to put a memory foam mattress in the V-berth and dine in the cockpit area with a pedestal table. (Anyone interested in the mast and table?)

Install the two 400-watt solar panels, wiring and isolated battery bank for refrigerator, inverter and any add-ons. Install the 50-watt solar panel for the two engine/house batteries.

Remove bench seat and install pedestal seats. (Anyone interested in the bench seat?)

Sanding and painting will have to wait for Spring.

Install diesel heater. (Backordered for months)

Everything is to make the boat more comfortable for long term and single-handed cruising. The area where the old holding tank was is a good topic for discussion. What do you think… auxiliary fuel tank, battery bank refit, storage for totes, water tank or jerry cans?

[WillieC]

These are great projects for an A25! We are hammered here in the PNW with a Nebraska winter storm. My winter prep was insufficient because we don't plan for this prolonged cold snap. I found frozen water (not yet solid, fortunately) yesterday so I had to scramble to heat the boat up. We'll see how bad it is come spring.

Madly working, at retirement pace, on rehabbing the hardtop this winter, incorporating radar and minor rewiring, like you mentioned. Keep us posted on what you end up with on the vee berth. That is high on my list as well this winter. I just don't like the cost of foam, which I can get over...

We are pondering switching over to a porta-potty with MSD fittings. Especially if the Jabsco suffers freeze damage. Fingers crossed. I think our holding tank is 13 gallons, which proved to be the limiting factor in our trip to Desolation Sound. Pumpouts are non-existent up north so that is on the list as well. Removal of the holding tank is tantalizing for all kinds of things.

For auxiliary fuel we use five gallon jugs. Two of those with the original 20 gallons will get us a LONG way. Jerry cans are easy to keep clean, too. The port side under the settee holds an aux potable water tank which is a great addition. We carry a jug for drinking and cooking and use the on-board tankage for washing. We keep it sanitized but prefer fresher water for consumption. Brushing teeth with beer is such a waste.

Carry on! Post pictures of your projects. I get all kinds of ideas here. Thanks!

[DesertAlbin736]

"These are great projects for an A25! We are hammered here in the PNW with a Nebraska winter storm. My winter prep was insufficient because we don't plan for this prolonged cold snap. I found frozen water (not yet solid, fortunately) yesterday so I had to scramble to heat the boat up. We'll see how bad it is come spring."

I heard about the PNW getting hammered! In the 49er gold rush country of Northern California along I-80 between Sacramento & the Nevada state line the Sierras got a record 193 inches of snow (Donner, party of 50!). I-80 was closed down from Placer County all the way to the Nevada state line. Placer county includes Auburn where my sister lived from 1997 until she moved to Eugene, OR a few years ago & then moved again last year to Fort Collins, CO. Best thing for winterizing the engine in WillieC is to hook up a hose & bucket & run some non-toxic RV antifreeze through the raw water system & HX. Or drain it completely. Engine should be OK with antifreeze in the block on fresh water side. Drain your fresh water tank(s) & plumbing. Flush some RV antifreeze through the toilet plumbing.

"We are pondering switching over to a porta-potty with MSD fittings. Especially if the Jabsco suffers freeze damage. Fingers crossed. I think our holding tank is 13 gallons, which proved to be the limiting factor in our trip to Desolation Sound. Pumpouts are non-existent up north so that is on the list as well. Removal of the holding tank is tantalizing for all kinds of things."

Ah, the Desolation Sound cruise! Good memories there! Hope to get back up that way again next summer, fingers crossed that Omicron doesn't cause the border to be closed. Scarcity of pump out stations in BC was one reason for installing our 20 gallon holding tank in La Dolce Vita. If careful we can go five, maybe six days between pump outs if we can't get to an offshore location where it's legal to drain the tank overboard through the Y valve. At least Lund wasn't too far of a detour from Desolation to find a pump out station. Really enjoyed that dinner we had with you guys at the hotel restaurant, along with everything else. Let's do it again! We're hoping our Flagstaff friends will be able to come along once they get their Southern Cross 31 cutter repaired & transported up to Anacortes or where ever they can find a home port with a suitable yard for off season storage on the hard.

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Composting heads are a good idea as long as you have the solar panels to help run the vent fan 24/7 which isn't much of a problems since the fan is very low amp draw. But you still have to dispose of urine separately. My concern has always been the amount of space available in the already cramped head compartment, especially for a big guy like me.

"For auxiliary fuel we use five gallon jugs. Two of those with the original 20 gallons will get us a LONG way. Jerry cans are easy to keep clean, too. The port side under the settee holds an aux potable water tank which is a great addition. We carry a jug for drinking and cooking and use the on-board tankage for washing. We keep it sanitized but prefer fresher water for consumption. Brushing teeth with beer is such a waste."

We have those too if needed, inherited from previous owners. This past summer on the Erie Canal was the first and only time we've ever bothered taking them along. We started out with the main 20 gallon fuel tank gauge reading 3/4 but had neglected to top off the tank at a gas station on land. We had planned to refuel at the fuel dock at a marina in Tonawanda at the western end of the canal, but it was crowded so we just kept on going. We had brought the two yellow 5 gallon diesel jerry cans along but hadn't filled those up beforehand. We got to Middleport, NY & tied up to a stone wall, took our empty jerry cans, seen here stowed on racks on the side decks,....

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... and proceeded to load them onto a small folding two wheel hand cart we normally use to go grocery shopping for provisions, then took off on foot heading for the nearest gas station that sold diesel located six tenths of a mile away down Main Street.

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We got a couple blocks from the dock when an old guy stopped & offered us a ride to the gas station which we accepted.

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We filled our cans & the old gentleman gave us a ride back to the boat. The only "cost" for the transportation was the old man was a chatterbox & chewed our ears off with his life story for an hour or so, which we didn't have the heart to cut him short.

This was the sum total of our boat fuel costs, since we aborted our trip at Lake Onondaga, halfway along the canal for a total of 176 statute miles.

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We ended the trip with the fuel gage reading 5/8ths after first siphoning one can into the tank & later the other.

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[dkirsop]

I have gotten into the habit of blowing out the fresh water system with compressed air as part of the winterization program.

[WillieC]

If it is going to be this cold here, we might as well move north. Bellingham got down to 5F.

I think I caught the cold just in time. Yes, I get the full winterization deal, we just haven't had to until this year. I drain tanks and empty pumps, but I forgot the seawater strainer and the head... and the foot pumps at the sink. Which is gonna get me first, senility or climate change? The melted snow over the cord tells me the breaker hasn't tripped. Yet.

[SalishAire]

Since we haven't finished the cockpit cover we've been trying to keep the 10" of snow out of the cockpit with a no-longer-fits-right boat cover that came with Hyacinth with moderate success. We have a 400 W heater in the front cabin and a 100 W heater in the aft cabin that will hopefully see us through the storm (oh darn you had to remind me about the sea-water strainer under the floor - hopefully it being full of salt water will be enough). Clarice moved us to a composting head so no worries there (we figure that urine being sterile it wont damage more than a spittle of seawater if it needs to go overboard). In the mean time Hawaii next week and hopefully my toes will get warm before we come back and sew the cockpit cover before heading to the SW in the Airstream. - I guess this sort of fits the definition of winter projects. Looking forward to the Inside Passage to Alaska beginning late May with a lot of work and testing to do before then.

[WillieC]

It's the prolonged cold that is killing us. I left northern Illinois decades ago and it's like I never left.

You might be alright with the strainer. Especially if you have some heat above. Did you lift the floor boards? Then again...Hawaii sounds nice!

[DesertAlbin736]

In the mean time Hawaii next week and hopefully my toes will get warm before we come back and sew the cockpit cover before heading to the SW in the Airstream. -

Swing by our way if possible when you head for the SW. Several options available for RV camping near Lake Pleasant. Definitely take you out for a ride on La Dolce Vita, maybe lunch at one of the marinas. There's Pleasant Harbor Marina & RV Resort on the east side the lake. However the main RV park with full hookups may or may not have spaces available as this is the peak season (bottom half of their home page photo) and many 'snow birds' stay there all winter. The dirt area fronting the lake (top half of the photo) has a couple of different, less expensive & more available options. One, spaces on two sides of each of the grassy squares are reservable in advance with water & power hookups but no sewer. There is a dump station on site. Second, "dry camping" in the open spaces anywhere in the crescent shaped area between the lake & the access road. The dirt area is decomposed granite, so it doesn't get too dusty in dry weather or muddy in wet weather which we've been having a lot of lately.

https://pleasantharbor.com/rv-resort/

Another option are more traditional developed camp sites that are on the west side of the lake, part of Lake Pleasant Regional Park which is run by the county parks & rec dept. It's more scenic over there. However bear in mind when we take our boat out to the lake we go in & launch on the Pleasant Harbor side because a) it's closer to home by a few miles, and b) as a veteran I get in the gate for free & pay only $3 to launch the boat whereas on the county side it costs more and they make you pay a daily fee to park your truck & trailer. Either way Lake Pleasant is 15 minutes from our house in Peoria.

The regional park campsites on the west side of the lake look like this:

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https://www.maricopacountyparks.net/par ... k/camping/

If all else fails & all campsites are booked up there's always primitive camping on BLM land off the entrance road to Pleasant Harbor, but that's strictly self contained, no amenities, which having a generator to keep batteries up would be helpful. One word of caution there, the desert soil is a type of fine clay that when saturated in a heavy rain becomes goopy mud slick as snot & even 4WD won't keep you from getting stuck. In fact 4WD will only sink your vehicle in deeper down to the axles. I learned that the hard way back in the late 1980s when I worked as a land surveyor for the power company.

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We've been going through our own cold snap here, as I write this at 1PM local time it's only 53 deg on my back patio & lows dipping down in the lower 40s. We're expecting more rain tomorrow & Friday & temps as low as 32 or less this coming Saturday night.

[motthediesel]

Wow, 5F in Bellingham? That’s crazy! Here in NNY we have not had a night of single digit temps yet. This in an area where -20F nights are not usually uncommon.
I think we need to get used to the fact that the “new normal” really is “no normal”.

Tom

[DesertAlbin736]

Ditto what Tom says. I lived in upstate NY out in the sticks between Schenectady & Saratoga from 1967 to '77 except for a hitch in the Navy. Every January we'd get a cold snap or two with below zero temps & most of the winter was in the 20s, snow on the ground until April. Great for snowmobiling. This past summer in August on the Erie Canal was so hot & muggy & rainy that after a week on the canal we gave up on our plan to go the full length from Tonawanda to Troy & down the Hudson to NYC & bailed out halfway across at Lake Onondaga near Syracuse & drove home. At least here in AZ it's hot but dry & we're set up with central A/C & a pool to go swimming.

[tribologist]

Consider one of the Chinese 5kW heaters. They are decent copies of the original heaters. I use one to heat my garage in the winter. Just mounted it to the back door. I think i paid $120 for the kit.

[WillieC]

Thanks, Tribologist. I am bookmarking your post.

[Scudrunner]

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! Thanks everyone! I've read most of all your posts that you've written over the years. I've gleaned something from each of you. There are so many things to think about doing. Another project is upgrading my Technician license to General class... Then getting an HF/SSB radio and figuring out which antenna and length.

[tribologist]

Scudrunner, You can do two tests in one day (or at least it was so in the past) . Book both General and Extra. If all go well you walk out with an Extra Licence. They you never have to worry about where in the band you are supposed to be and you can get a fancy vanity licence. I booked a Tech and General the first time.. the VNA guy had messed up the test so I walked out with a Tech licence. Second time I booked General and Extra.

K1ULF

[SalishAire]

Scudrunner: Take a look at the series of books by Terry Sparks. His focus is big ocean crossing cruisers but it will give you a very good place to start: https://made-simple-for-cruisers.webs.com/ (He also answers emails and phone calls - and since he is local even does boat visits.)