It has been almost a month and one half since our last posting, and we are now into early summer. I wish we had more to show for what seems like almost full time efforts working on our now up north boat that has been formally been named Freedom. Her nickname actually is Slavery as she has been keeping us a little to busy making her livable.
Launch day was fairly uneventful. After Freedom was splashed we filled her new fuel tank with diesel and started the process of getting fuel through her filters and to the engine. As this is an older diesel and is not “self bleeding” we have to insure there is no air in any of the fuel lines. A few hours of fooling around got us to this point and we made our way to our dock. We had hoped to flush out the boats holding tank so we could cap it off as it will never be used again due to the installation of our composting head (which is working out just fine). Unfortunately, our fuel dock didn’t have the water turned on yet so that didn’t happen.
A few weeks later, after things quieted down (all the boats were launched for opening day) we motored back to the fuel dock where the engine quit on our approach. Fortunately we had enough head way to get to the dock where we flushed the holding tank and then proceeded to bleed the fuel system again. Evidently we had one of the valves in the “system” shut off which starved the engine of fuel. OK, we need to rectify this issue before we leave the dock again. A little history here: Like most Marine Traders, the boat was built with inaccessible fuel tanks located outboard and amidships. As there is no way to effectively clean the tanks or replace them with out major surgery when (not if) they start leaking, the previous owner decided that adding a few tanks on the center line in the aft part of the engine room would be a good idea. It was since I suggested that to him a number of years ago when he bought the boat. By the way, the center line tank was the one that dumped all the fuel into the bilge over the winter requiring us to replace it once again. Since the side tanks theoretically could still be used for fuel there was a somewhat complicated valving system to be able to draw and return fuel to these tanks.
Freedom is not equipped for long range cruising and won’t ever be. The fifty some gallon tank we installed allows us about twenty five hours of run time, more than enough range to find the next fuel dock when required. So, out came the valves and fuel lines to those side tanks, instead we have a simple arrangement to go from the fuel tank to our dual Racor filters and to the engine via an electric fuel pump. The electric pump is only turned on for bleeding purposes, when not on fuel flows freely through the pump.
We got our Pilgrim fix in early June as we went out to Seattle to visit our son, daughter-in-law and youngest grandson. While there we spent a half day with our friends Bill and Patti aboard their Pilgrim Sunshine, doing a few hour cruise in Commencement Bay south of Seattle.
With the boat now fairly livable, it will be time to start on the exterior, the first order of business will be to tear the teak off and re-core a good portion of the back deck. One of these days we should race our Star sailboat, which hasn’t touched the water since we brought it down in late May. It also might be a good idea to actually take Freedom out of the basin for the first time now that we have our fuel delivery problems resolved.
Dave