Week Four

Last week I spent a lot of time cleaning out bilges. I also got to spend a couple hours in the fabrication shop replicating a kelp cutter for a stabilizer. I removed the transmission from the engine I pulled out of the gill netter a couple weeks ago. One of my favorite jobs this week was doing some small systems installs. It consisted of installing a bilge pump and engine room blower fan, plumbing and wiring the two systems, and installing through hulls. The bilge pump was in a challenging position to mount due to the engine oil pan interference as seen in the picture below. The last thing I did for the week was flushing out the keel cooler on the gill netter with some barnacle buster to maintain optimal heat transfer. I am quite amateur when it comes to basic wiring so this week I learned more about 12 volt systems and how they work.  I logged 32.31 hours last week for a grand total of 109.2 hours.

Fabrication of the kelp cutter alongside the original.

Finished product

Engine room blower motor install.

Bilge pump install

Keel cooler flushing