B.O.A.T.

Bring On Another Thousand

This appears to be the year for systems breakdowns. We seem to have one problem fixed and another one develops. Of course this should be expected, especially on a 1984 boat.

First this season were the decks leaking. Sitting in the southern sun all the time is really hard on a boat and eventually cracks in the fiberglass show up. When the rain water seeps in, it gets into the wood decks below and makes them soggy. Eventually this leads to leaks inside, followed by mildew accumulation and possible wood damage. This problem started, and was improperly repaired, before we bought New Horizon 6 years ago. The repair yard had put new plywood down, but did not seal the joints properly before fiberglassing over it. Now the joints are opening up, causing the foredeck to crack and more water trickling in. It would be a huge and extremely expensive job to replace all the decks, so meanwhile we try to take care of each particular problem spot.

The next issue we encountered wasn’t major, but just inconvenient. Our Satellite TV receiver box stopped functioning, most likely due to the salt air. Dave brought another one back with him when he returned from Glenville. Meanwhile I watched DVDs instead, and was actually glad that I missed all the constant Christmas commercials.

During our cold snap, I noticed that the generator sounded louder than normal and that there was less water coming out of the exhaust discharge. Dave investigated and found that the impeller was cracked and needed replacing, which we keep spares of on board.

Then, as I wrote about in a previous post, the watermaker pump stopped working. Thanks to our friend Carol, who patiently waited for the parts to arrive in NYC while she was there (they were delivered by UPS at 9 P.M. the night before she left at 7 A.M.), the watermaker is now working flawlessly and our water tanks are full once again.

Now we have a new dilemma on our hands. Our household style refrigerator has ceased functioning. The past few days it didn’t seem like things were as cold in the fridge, and the meat that I put in the freezer wasn’t frozen yet. Yesterday I started checking the temperature with Dave’s laser thermometer and it kept rising. Thankfully we have a spare small apartment size fridge under our dining settee, that we use when we first get on board and have very little food. I transferred as many items as I could, cramming it all in this tiny space. We actually have to put a timer on this refrigerator/freezer, since it doesn’t have as much insulation and runs almost non-stop. Now we have to figure out how to go about replacing the large fridge, since not only will it cost at least twice as much to buy one here, but we also will need to find a way to get rid of the old one. Plus getting the old one out of the galley and the new one in its place is very difficult, because it is such a tight area. I’m sure that project will be a whole blog post in itself.

We’re still only about halfway through the season so it looks to be a high ‘boat unit’ year, as we boaters call each $1,000 we spend. So let’s go B.O.A.T.ing!


“This is the money you could be spending.”