Tonight’s sunset at Anacortes Marina really lit up the sky above the boat houses. Gorgeous!
Our plan was to get varnish on the exterior teak and then, weather permitting, start on waxing the cabin and hull. As soon as we finished varnishing the cap rail, fog and mist set in. It lasted 4 days, and ended with a thunderstorm on Sunday night. We got the varnish supplies put away, but have not been able to get started on the waxing.
The solenoid for the superwinch, mounted in a waterproof box on the starboard aft railing of our flybridge.
A wider angle view of the superwinch solenoid mounted on the starboard aft railing of our flybridge.
Another rainy, cold and gloomy day! Heavy rain and gusty wind at times today, but a few breaks allowed Jim an opportunity to get started on the wiring for the electric winch. Today he mounted the solenoid for the Superwinch.
The solenoid is the interface between the battery and the winch. It controls the winch operation. The remote control is connected to the solenoid, allowing the user to operate the winch using the remote.
We found a Pelican-like waterproof box at West Marine for housing the solenoid. The box is made out of polycarbonate and measures 6”x5”x2”. Jim fastened it to the starboard aft railing on our flybridge, near the mast and just above where the dinghy is stored on deck.
The next step will be to run the wiring that will connect to the battery and battery charger.
There was a break from the rain this afternoon, giving Jim enough time to get the new electric Superwinch mounted on our boom. Wiring comes next.
A new cap on the Webasto expansion tank fixed most of the problems of leaking coolant.
The self-tailing manual winch mounted on the boom has been used for hoisting and lowering our dinghy.
Jim removed this manual winch from our boom, and will be installing the new electric winch in its place.
Yea! We are able to use the Webasto heater again. Heat is a good thing! But when the system got hot yesterday, some of the coolant leaked. Turns out that the pressure relief cap on the expansion tank has worn, so we replaced it with a new cap. That helped the bulk of the leaking, but today we noticed that there is still a bit of coolant overflow, which we will have to address by adding an overflow reservoir…another project!
The first step in installing the new electric winch on our boom is removing the existing manual winch. Jim got the manual winch off yesterday afternoon, but work time was cut short today due to rain. We’ll resume this project when we have a bit of dry weather.
Cruising With Phoenix 