Port Washington (Part 2) NY USA

Getting the propeller shaft straightened took longer than expected.  Not the boatyard’s fault as they had to wait for it to come back from the workshop before they could refit it.  Tuesday was supposed to be the refit day so we planned to stay at the yard and not travel into New York City.  However, the shaft was finally delivered so late in the day that refitting it had to be delayed until Wednesday.

The shaft, stern gland (L) and gearbox (R) back in position with
the Aquadrive shaft laid out ready to connect (R)

Work started early at 0715 on Wednesday.  First off they fitted the new cutlass bearing and then slid the propeller shaft back into the stern tube.  After that they refitted the gearbox along with the new stern gland that we carried on board as a spare.

The glass fibre repair on the bottom of the keel (L) completed earlier in the week.
The propeller and rope cutter refitted (R)

Once the middle bit of the driveshaft with the Aquadrive was installed, the team moved outside to reassemble the propeller and rope cutter.  It was great news for us that BV was all back together and that very soon we would be free to move on again.

The 77ft motoryacht ahead of us in the launch queue

The only slight brake on things now was the tide and a 77 ft motorboat.  It was neap tides so we could only be launched in a tiny 45 minute window at high water, first thing (0730hrs) on Thursday but the yard already had a 77 ft motorboat booked for launch during that period.  So, we got to stay an extra day and expected to be launched on Friday morning.

Instead of moping about in the boatyard we went out for lunch with Alan and Kate Richards, family friends from Guernsey who are visiting their daughter, Amy, in New York.  They very kindly drove out from the city to see us and we had an excellent lunch at Thyme, a bistro in Roslyn, the next town southeast from Port Washington.  It was lovely to see them and to hear of Alan’s trip home from Antigua (where we’d last seen him) in his yacht, Far Fetched, and also to catch up on the latest news from Guernsey too.

Talking to the yard staff when we got back from lunch, we discovered that the delaying in launching BV had actually proved fortuitous for us.  The strong overnight winds had pushed lots of water out of Long Island Sound and messed up the expected tidal depths.  The morning tide had been 2-3feet less than predicted and they had only just managed to launch the motoryacht; we would have been stuck in the mud.

Our turn to launch came on Friday morning when the tide was closer to the prediction, albeit it still a bit low.  Our original plan had been to complete afloat checks on everything that had been worked on before an early start on Saturday to sail through New York City.  Sadly, the weather forecasts are not playing ball and are predicting very strong winds for the period when we want to be at sea between New York and the Chesapeake Bay. We compared notes with Richard and Julie on Escapade who are also in Port Washington and both crews concluded that the best option is to stay in the relative shelter of Port Washington to sit out the strong winds before looking to move on mid-week.

So, when we launched we knew that we’d be moving out to the anchorage and had drawn up a list of maintenance chores to tackle.  The launch itself went okay although we both always find it tense.  There is so much that can go wrong, such as when the brakes failed on the travel hoist and it started rolling onto our rigging!

The shoal of fish surrounding BV

Once in the water we carried out some basic engine checks, temporarily picked up a mooring buoy to wait for the fuel dock to come free and then topped up with diesel.  Whilst we were waiting a huge shoal of fish appeared and almost totally surrounded BV.  They swam just below the surface with their fins sticking out of the water; it was quite a sight.

With the fuel tanks topped up we moved to the anchorage and set about our chores.

Back at anchor in Port Washington

Nicky winched me up the mast to carry out a rig check.  This wasn’t something we had planned to do here but having had the travel hoist push gently on the backstay it seemed a prudent move [Ed: and, anyway, we would have needed to do a rig check before the long passage south from Chesapeake Bay, so it just means that the check’s done a little early].  I inspected all the stays and their connections, including a full inspection of the backstay from top to bottom (never the easiest task).  Happily, I found nothing amiss.

Whilst I was up there I took the opportunity to check and remake the AIS aerial connection which has had a very beneficial effect on the number of ships we can pick up.  We’ve had this problem before and I really don’t like the solderless connection on the bottom of the aerial; easy to fit it may be but it just isn’t robust enough.  Time to look for a new AIS aerial with a better connection I think.

Extracting the old antifreeze/coolant

With the work on deck complete, we started work on engine servicing items.  We had already changed the impeller and the anode while BV was on the hard but we hadn’t carried out the antifreeze/coolant change.  Though this had also been due we wanted to use a coolant flush in the system, for which the engine needs to run for about 20mins, and it’s not easy to do that when the boat’s up on the hard.  So with the system suitably flushed and rinsed a few times, we added the new antifreeze/coolant and took the old (and the rinse water) ashore for disposal. Hopefully this winter we’ll be far enough south not to need the antifreeze properties of the coolant, but it needed changing and it does have the beneficial effect of helping to protect the engine from corrosion.

3D jigsaw puzzle fun

The only ‘pain the bum’ part of that job was getting out and re-stowing the Pela oil extractor in the corner of the aft lazarette.  I dug it out [Ed: no patience required] and Nicky replaced it, along with the pile of other yachtie gubbins stored in that lazarette [Ed: lots of patience required!].

With the engine fully functional again we took another look at the propeller shaft.  Straight after we’d launched, and whilst we were manoeuvring in the bay to get fuel and to move to the anchorage, we’d checked that the engine would produce full revs and that the propeller vibration had been cured.  However, I had spotted that there was some movement in the propeller shaft where it comes into the boat through the stern tube and the stern gland.  We’ve never previously had any movement in the shaft there, even after we had run over the log, so it’s a concern.  The slight wobble in the shaft suggests that the it is still not as straight as it should be. Whether that’s due to something not being connected up properly or because the front of the shaft has been bent during its refitting, eg when driving in the securing pin, we don’t know.  So, sadly, after the weekend we’ll be back at the boatyard getting the wobble checked out.  Let’s hope it’s something that can be corrected with the connections and that it doesn’t end up with BV having to be hauled out again or we’ll end up weeks behind our planned timeline.

Port Washington, New York, USA