Fri Jun 10 2022
Anybody not remember that killer album by Pink Floyd? Well, we’re not on the moon, but we are now on what sailors refer to rather disparagingly to as a “stink pot”. Yes, we’ve temporarily gone to the dark side, but when JollyDogs went on the hard and we shopped for short term housing around Port Townsend it quickly became apparent that not much was available, and what was available was prohibitively expensive. Our good pals John and Becca from SV Halcyon had recently returned from French Polynesia and after being outbid for multiple power boats, they had finally nailed an old industrial boat. They let us know that some friends of theirs from their time in Panama were returning from a round trip season in Alaska and were going to offer their older trawler for sale. Just for a lark and to educate ourselves we had a look, and darned if we didn’t decide the boat would be a great temporary home. As well, after our damp adventures in the North Pacific, we had decided that if we did try and explore Northern British Columbia and Southeast Alaska, a motorboat would be the best option. Next thing we knew, we were the owners of a 1988 Offshore Yachtfisher named Sunset, a 48’ floating motor home.
She’s actually quite comfortable, and compared to some other boats in this size range reasonably fuel efficient. With her monstrous Caterpillar 3208TA engines (that’s turbocharged & after cooled), at 1400 rpm she’ll make 8 knots and burn something like 4.3 gallons per hour. She’ll go a bit faster and make a lot more noise if we push the throttles forward and engage the turbochargers, but nobody wants to burn that kind of fuel. These engines have a lifetime determined by how much fuel has run through them rather than total running hours, and the way we and several previous owners baby them they ought to last 10,000 - 15,000 hours without any major issues.
She was slipped at Pleasant Harbor Marina down at Brinnon, a lovely and protected spot by the National Forest down South in the Hood Canal, but we were able to get a Winter sublet on a slip at Boat Haven in Port Townsend, allowing us to continue overseeing the repairs on JollyDogs.
We departed Port Townsend May 1st and began a short shakedown cruise as we meandered North towards Canada. We uncovered several problems and I’ve beavered away here and there as we have chugged along, fixing or improving various systems on the boat. We also had the incredibly horrible transition from LiFeP04 house batteries back to old 8D flooded lead acid house batteries. Cave man style!
Anyway, the washer / dryer now works. So does the oven. So does the diesel furnace. The dinghy is running well and the outboard appreciates the oil change and lube. The flybridge and saloon steering station instruments are working well with even the ultrasonic weather instrument checking in. Almost all the non LED lights are in the garbage as I transition everything to very low energy use lighting. The engines got new 10 micron primary and secondary 2 micron fuel filters with plenty of spares in case rough seas stir up any gunk in the fuel tanks. The Northern Lights 8 kw generator got a full inspection, an oil and coolant change, a new raw water cooling pump, a refurbished alternator and the fuel system doesn’t seep diesel anymore. The thru-hulls have all been lubricated and exercised, and all the raw water strainers (main engines and genset) are now easily opened and inspected. Both the Cats and Northern Lights diesel got a coolant additive for corrosion protection.
While we were in Wrangell a few days ago I had the pleasure of removing and rebuilding the forward head holding tank top cap, the thing with all the in/out plumbing fittings. That’s a pretty nasty job, but it’s now fully refurbished and “ready for action”. Over the past 2 days I’ve refurbished the windlass wiring and foot switch; now we can reliably weigh anchor!
Heck, I even put new blades on all four of the windshield wipers! As they say, there are two seasons in Alaska, “wet” and “white”.
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