July 30, 2010.

Somebody asked me for a better picture of the material I’m using to make the frame for the windows in our dodger. It’s called “h” channel and we bought it in 8 foot lengths and cut them to size. The slot of the h comes in various widths. We bought the ¼ inch slot to accept our glass. When we install the assembled frames into the dodger we’ll glue and screw through the flange around the perimeter of the window.

This week at work was a little, read that as very little bit more pleasant as the temperatures finally started to ebb a bit. 88° beats the hell outta 98°anyday.

Late last week we had a guy call and beg us to get his boat going as he wanted to entertain business associates over the weekend, so “Bob” and I ran down there to have a little look see. It turned out that there was a little hole rotted through the exhaust system just before the mixing elbow.

This part of the exhaust is a cast 90° turn that lives between the turbo and the mixing elbow. We called the guy to report our findings and to tell him that the part is at least a week away. He responded with…please, please, please…I’ve got to be able to use the boat this weekend, is there anything you can do.

“Bob” finally succumbed to the pressure and told the guy that even though its against his better judgment we could probably jury rig it well enough that he could putt-putt around the river with his associates. BUT, and theres a big but, whatever happens don’t run it up high enough that the turbo charger spools up. At the time we didn’t realize that the guy and his buddies worked at Idiots R Us.

So the weekend has passed, the parts been ordered and the captain calls us on the phone. He thinks his turbo charger has shit the bed. When asked “why, what happened?” he responds with “Well, it was all going fine so on the way home I opened her up a bit and all of a sudden there black smoke coming from the engine room. It seemed to start when the turbo kicked in”

The turbo is fine but he blew the temporary repair all to hell and the hot exhaust gasses decided to take the newly opened shortcut as they were leaving the engine. So instead of going through the exhaust system the exhaust forced its way through the hole and into the engine room. The captain says he backed off it but the hole was open and he made the command decision to keep on driving the boat all the way back to the slip. The problem with that decision is that now everything in the entire engine room was coated with a fine patina of sooty black exhaust residue.

As a result Pablo and I spent almost 6 hours a piece scraping, vacuuming, spraying and wiping EVERY surface in the engine room. Every little stinking nook and cranny in the entire engine room. Both engines, the floor, the ceiling, the hot water heater, the generator, the batteries….everything. We had to clean our way in, do the ceiling and then work our way down and back out. I wore one of those head to toe tyvek suits and by the end of the day I could have passed for an anal swab at an elephant clinic.

We used a shop vac, some special high dollar soot gathering sponges (which sucked), Spray Nine, 409, Greased Lightning, Simple Green and 9 rolls of paper towels.

And joy upon joy, when I got home I found out that we’re having refrigeration issues……Crap.