Dove and replaced prop zinc

I had Aeolus hauled back in fall of 06 to do a bunch of work. She was hauled at Schooner Creek Boat Works in Portland, Oregon. Among the many things done there, I had to get a new prop shaft because the old one had been so badly worn by the stuffing box. It was deeply grooved, which was partly to blame for the unfixable heavy dripping of the stuffing box. This photo is of the old shaft and zinc, but gives the idea. I went ahead and installed a new PSS dripless shaft seal system to avoid a similar thing ever happening again, besides liking a dry bilge. Of course, at the same time I got a new zinc put on the 1 1/8 shaft.

Well, I noticed this fall that the zinc was largely gone and hanging on by a thread. Not sure what is normal, but a year seemed like a good life for a zinc. Knowing this was coming up, and having no other reason to haul the boat as the paint was still good and all through hulls were new, I decided to do it myself. For safety sake, I want to be able to dive on the boat to clear fouled lines or whatever, and so asked my brother in law, the family diver, if he had any old wet suits laying around I could buy from him.

The guy floors me by sending me a brand new, arctic, full hood wet suit by Pinnacle. It is almost a dry suit it keeps you so dry. Thick and lined, yes, lined, with Merino wool!! I am not yet a certified diver, but grew up in the water and have no problem snorkeling and doing all things aquatic. As an action forcing event, the last time I started the diesel just to bring it up to temperature, the old zinc finally just spun off entirely. Time to do it.

So on a day that started at 20 degrees and rose to about 35 by the time I got in the 40 something degree water, I changed the zinc. Of course, Aeolus is right at her mooring and the prop shaft is maybe only 2 feet underwater so it was in no way technically difficult. However, even dry and fully protected in my amazing suit, the skin around my diving mask nearly froze solid and my ungloved hands were not too happy either.

All said and done, the shaft has a new zinc, I have new confidence that I can dive all the way under the boat and do just about anything that can be done from the water, and I had a ton of fun doing it.

Some projects to date

Since it would be ridiculously time consuming to attempt to describe all my previous work on Aeolus in any meaningful detail, I will simply provide an incomplete list of projects to date. I'll add a few pictures to make it real.

• New prop shaft and repitched propeller from 16X12 to 16X10 to address the otherwise healthy diesel not coming up to full RPM.
• New PSS dripless shaft seal to replace the old stuffing box.
  
• All new batteries, including two Trojan deep cycle 115Ah house batteries and a Trojan starting battery. This project included all new ABYC battery cabling, proper tinned lugs, and the installation of 400amp fuses to protect the battery cabling.

All new mast wiring using big ABYC boat cable. Old stuff was nasty and cheap to start with. While mast was down, I replaced the anchor light, and removed all bolts on the mast and used lanocote on them. Found minor corrosion on all bolts. Tightened all mast steps.

• All new standing rigging using Hi Mod fasteners on all bottom fittings and some swaged and some Hi Mod up top depending on the fit requirements. Many of the original fittings were undersized relative to the size of the acceptable clevis pin, resulting in point loading. Now, all pins fit their respective holes and everything is solid. Got the rigging from Rigging Only and assembled all the swageless myself, according to directions, which was super easy.
• All through hull valves have been replaced. Most were nasty and completely inappropriate. Two bronze gate valves replaced. Two PLASTIC gate valves replaced and so on. All new valves are Marelon.
• Removed and rebedded all cleats. Nothing had ever been removed since 1989 and had not been super well bedded even when new.
• Removed and rebedded all shroud fittings. Forward lower shrouds have small but adequate backing plates.
• New mainsail from North sails using 7.8 oz premium NorDac. Had existing genoa cut down from 150% to 135% and had a sunbrella UV cover installed.
• All new running rigging and new halyards.
• New DC sub panel to relieve load on existing panel. Upgraded wiring and connections throughout.
  
• New wood heater pad on cabin top to replace old split one that leaked. Photo is of old pad. New one was fabricated from very high grade marine plywood and I glassed it all around and painted it a gleaming white. Inside, I packed insulation around the heater pipe to prevent radiated heat from splitting the wood as happened on one on a friend's boat.
  

A little history to start

To begin this blog about our Gulf 32, I suppose I should provide a bit of history about her and our time in her company. She is a 1988 vessel, and was commissioned and purchased new in Portland, Oregon. Her original owner put a considerable amount of money into outfitting her for ocean cruising, including a Lofrans Tigres windlass, roller furling, radar and many other necessaries for serious voyaging. From what I was told, however, she was barely used by this first owner, and instead lived a boring life tied to a dock somewhere near Hermiston, Oregon up the Columbia river. Her second owner, who we purchased her from, also lived in Oregon and kept Aeolus on the Columbia. He said he took her out the Columbia bar and up to Vancouver Island several times but that was about it.

We came along in June of 2006 and were thrilled to find a Gulf 32 right in our then home town. We had seen one once and fallen in love, and I had been looking everywhere for one and getting despondent about them all being in Florida or San Diego and far away from Oregon, when this one appeared on the market. After the usual extensive survey and evaluation process, we agreed on the price and my family took ownership.

I could tell right away that she had suffered from benign neglect, which on a sailboat beats the pieces out of abused neglect. Everything was oldish and original, but barely used. All the running rigging was ancient, the sails original, the standing rigging original and almost all routine maintenance had seemingly not been performed in some time. The diesel had 500 original hours on it, which fit with the engine condition and compression checks. In short, she needed a whole lot of maintenance, repair and updating but was otherwise in fine structural shape. The perfect sort of boat for a DIYer like me and a low budget family like mine to find.

We kept her in Portland while we lived there, and when we moved to our new home here on San Juan Island we brought her up north.