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Category Archives: Repairs

Maintenance and Repair Items

After a day of stripping and scraping, Sea Eagle has her new Home Port.

After a day of stripping and scraping, Sea Eagle has her new Home Port.

The application to change Sea Eagle’s documentation was sent to the USCG on Tax Day (4/15/13) and we did not get the “official” document back from them until October 4th (10/4/13). That took almost six months! Geez!

I had to remove the old home port of “San Francisco, CA” from the transom and sadly discovered that it had been painted on. Oh Bother! I tried removing the lettering with Lacquer Thinner and then Acetone (which eats fiberglass up) and neither had any effect on the paint. Tough Paint!

A trip to West Marine and a spray bottle of paint stripper brought some success, but it took seven hours of stripping, then scraping, then scrubbing, then rinse, repeat, before I was able to finally remove all of the old paint. Whew.

The new vinyl lettering was relatively easy to install, especially since we had a nice sunny afternoon, which was pleasant after our 35° F morning. Sea Eagle’s newly documented and official Home Port is now Olympia, WA.

Here is the original home port of San Francisco, CA that had to be removed.

Here is the original home port of San Francisco, CA that had to be removed.

Two new Wallas 40dT diesel furnaces installed in the Engine Room.

Two new Wallas 40dT diesel furnaces installed in the Engine Room.

Sea Eagle was purchased with two Wallas Diesel Heaters (D40’s) that had been installed by Nordhavn (PAE) when the boat was commissioned. During the purchasing and survey process, I was lead to believe that they simply needed servicing and were functional, so I pulled out both furnaces and took them up to ScanMarine in Seattle for service. ScanMarine inspected both units and informed me that they were not salvageable and in the strongest terms possible warned me to inspect my exhaust system for a splash riser.

Both furnaces had ingested so much salt water through the exhaust that they were corroded into a mass of gunk inside. That meant having to purchase two new furnaces for 6 more BOAT units! OUCH! The forward unit that heated the staterooms only had 27 hours of run time on the furnace and it was now nothing more than a high priced brick.

New Wallas Thermostats were installed to replace the old round units.

New Wallas Thermostats were installed to replace the old round units.

I returned to the boat, checked the exhaust tubing and sure enough, it ran straight down from the through hulls to both furnaces. There were no drip loops, splash risers or anything done to prevent the intrusion of salt water. I was appalled that the heater installers had failed to even follow the minimum requirement of a 12″ splash riser at the through hull (required by Wallas), so had wasted two $3000 furnaces. It’s hard to get good help these days.

After the shock wore off, I installed the two new Wallas furnaces (40dT’s). Having the power, fuel and ducting already run (although some of the ducting was also wrong) helped immensely, but replacing and re-engineering the exhaust tubing was quite a job. It took me a couple of days to get the new thermostats installed, new exhaust installed/insulated and everything up and running.

The good news is that I like the new Wallas DT units much better than the older D units. They bring in fresh air and heat it, helping to keep the boat dry. I had Wallas heaters on all three of my dive boats (including the Dive Charter Boat) and always marveled at how well they would defog the windows even with 14 dripping wet divers huddled in the cabin.

This is the PAE installed exhaust tube (1 of 2) that runs straight down from the through hull to the furnace.

This is the PAE installed exhaust tube (1 of 2) that runs straight down from the through hull to the furnace.

This is the new exhaust tubing run at the same location, showing the Wallas required 12" splash riser that was never installed.

This is the new exhaust tubing run at the same location, showing the Wallas required 12″ splash riser that was never installed.

Replacement Steering Ram with new Autopilot Pump.

Replacement Steering Ram with new Autopilot Pump.

We moved Sea Eagle from the shipyard in Richmond back to Sausalito after three long weeks of work by the yard. As with all boat work, it never goes quite as smoothly as planned. KKMI replaced the steering ram and installed a new/improved Steering Pump, but wired it up backwards and didn’t test it.

Prior to leaving the dock, I tested the backup autopilot and the rudder hard locked while the autopilot began alarming. Fortunately it was an easy fix (after a bit of head scratching). The trip back to her home slip was mostly uneventful, although I did loose steering (and the rudder locked hard port) as I was entering the breakwater. Another one of those fun, OH Sh*T boating moments. I was going slow enough that I was able to back out into the bay, which was good since I could not go forward due to the locked rudder.

Again, it was an easy fix and we were tied up in the slip, safe and sound in no time.

I spent the rest of the day trying to figure out how the yard had gone through all 400 gallons of water and run the water pump dry (and HOT). I could tell there was a leak somewhere, and could hear the bilge pump running every 15 minutes, but it took me a while to figure out the hot water tank relief valve was leaking and the discharge was plumbed to the deep bilge, completely out of sight.

I found a replacement valve at a hardware store the next morning and enjoyed the peace and quiet of no water pump and no bilge pump for the rest of the day! Isn’t boating fun?

Our First Trip on the Sea Eagle happened over the Cinco de Mayo weekend. We flew down to San Francisco on Thursday and met our good friend Jeff Carr on the boat, then went bow to stern, opening every cabinet and drawer to see what was where. During the inventory process, we found and added many items to our list of “repairs”. After dinner, Jeff headed for San Jose and we spent a restless night on board.

On Friday morning, first light, the black water holding tank backed up (this was only the 2nd flush of a toilet). A quick bit of troubleshooting determined the tank was completely full (100+ gallons). We spent the rest of the morning buying tools, marine supplies, etc., for the boat and then Scott changed the transmission oil (which was cooked) and replaced the leaking transmission filter.

We called in a pumping service to empty the holding tank and it took them almost 2 hours to pump all of the sh*t out of the boat. Add one more item to the list of repairs! All the (new to us) Navigation systems were fired up and afte much “head scratching” we figured we’d be able to semi-navigate without falling back to the laptop or Ipad.

Jeff Carr and Ela Schmidt braved the waters of Sausalito Yacht Harbor

Jeff Carr and Ela Schmidt braved the waters of Sausalito Yacht Harbor


Saturday morning, Jeff Carr returned with Ela and after some breakfast, we fired up the Sea Eagle, dropped the lines and headed out into San Francisco Bay for her maiden voyage! The calm conditions made departure and threading the needle of the breakwater very easy for Captain Boyd’s first time at the wheel (actually a jog lever on the Sea Eagle). We headed for the back side of Angle Island and dropped the hook in 50′ of water to mark the anchor chain. Red, white and blue chain markers were inserted into the chain at 50, 100, 150 and 200′ before recovering the anchor and heading off to play tourist at Alcatraz.

The wind picked up considerably as we approached Alcatraz (37 knots) and the girls were getting a little green around the gills. When we turned to head for the Golden Gate Bridge, we had a water coming over the bow and the VHF was busy with emergency calls to the USCG from disabled sailboats in the Bay. It was QUITE the first voyage for the crew, but the Sea Eagle is a veteran, with 17777 miles under her keel already and handled everything with a “ho hum”.

Back at the dock and Captain Boyd made a perfect landing in a very narrow slip (no room for bulky fenders). One of our boat neighbors came over to congratulate us on getting such a large boat in the small slip during such a windy day. They were floored when Scott remarked that it was his first time driving the boat and his first time driving a single screw vessel. You can bet there will be some serious dock bashing in Sea Eagle’s future! 😉

Safe and Sound at the dock, the crew celebrated the Sea Eagles safe Maiden voyage (for a minute) and then donned dive gear to install the prop zinc and clean the keel coolers. It was quite a successful day and we hope there are many more like it!

The fog begins to roll over the hills of Sausalito.

The fog begins to roll over the hills of Sausalito.