October 24, 2009.

This season’s work has ended for Christy and me. Her job ended with the end of the power boat show while mine ran for another week.

It was during this last week that I had the opportunity to work on one of my favorite boats yet. The boat is a Nordhaven trawler in the 60 foot range. I’ve been on a lot bigger boats but this one was really cool. The boat was having an issue with excessive galvanic corrosion.

The unique (to me) thing about this boat was that even though it was a single screw boat it had an auxiliary engine with its own dedicated propeller shaft.

The main engine turned a 3 inch shaft with a propeller of about 3 feet in diameter. The auxiliary engine was a 75 horse engine connected to a shaft with a folding prop much like what you’d find on a sailboat. So he’s just tooling around with this extra engine sitting there in case he ever needs it.

The day I was working in his engine room of course I forgot my camera. The engine room was close to thirty feet long. It has this massive main engine sitting in the center that you can walk completely around while standing upright. Then further aft in one corner was the 75 horsepower auxiliary engine and in the other corner was a giant ass generator. Along one wall of the engine room was a stainless steel tool bench that ended in a fixtured wash basin.

While the size of the room and the sink were nice, what set this engine room apart was the fact that it was freaking carpeted! With all the white paint, the stainless steel and the overhead high intensity lighting the engine room resembled an operating theater more than an engine room. Did I mention that it was CARPETED?

The owner and I were down there tracing a wiring problem and I told him that I’d be serving sundowners down there. It was just that freaking nice.

It turned out that his galvanic isolator had shit the bed. The main prop was horribly pitted and we removed it so it can be either repaired or replaced. We also had to remove all 4 metal props from his bow and stern thrusters as they were severely pitted as well. The main shaft showed evidence of galvanic corrosion as well but the owner opted to risk it rather than replacing his 3 inch, 16 foot prop shaft.

But now that work is done it was time to finish up some small projects on our boat and head south. The fluids are all changed, the generators been tuned, the windlass got a new foot switch, the engine belts have been tightened, diesel and gasoline have been jugged, the new registration stickers have been applied, the water tank has been topped, the V berth has been organized once again and some last minute shopping taken care of.

As of Sunday morning……Veranda has left the building.