Practicing Our New Skills on the Water & Removing Birds Nest from Boom

For a few weeks we have been taking classes on Navigation/Piloting and Engine Maintenance with the US Power Squadron.  These classes are held on weeknights via zoom meetings where we dial in from our office or dining room.  This weekend we had a couple of days with very little wind and we decided to use the weekend to "study up" so to speak.

We left right after work on Friday and were a bit surprised to hear that the restaurant at Osprey Point was suddenly closed.  That turned out to be fortunate as a friend recommended Cafe Sado which we had been passing but never stopped at before.  It turns out this is a very nice place for Thai food and sushi.

I resumed my early morning walks on Saturday morning just after sunrise.  Osprey Point is beautiful at this time of day.

First thing after breakfast, we set about invading all the mechanical spaces on Seas The Day to identify the parts we have been learning about in the Engine Maintenance course.  Let's be honest, while I want to learn about engine maintenance, I have zero interest in actually doing engine maintenance.  

The 425 has a "filter locker" which houses the sea strainers (at the bottom), the primary fuel filters for the generator and engine and the coolant reservoir for the main engine.

Filter locker

Primary fuel filter and sea strainer for the generator

Coolant reservoir, primary fuel filter and sea strainer for main engine

Secondary fuel filter is mounted on the engine

Coolant reservoir for the generator is mounted inside the engine room.

Transmission, stuffing box and seacocks in the rear engine room

Generator oil dipstick is behind an access panel.

Main engine side access... emergency shutdown at top, oil dipstick at bottom right (silver ring)

I did check in with Wade (Gratitude Marina's manager) to find out what gets done as part of winterization and de-winterization processes at that yard.  Here's what I found out.

Mr. Reiner,

Engine oil and filter are changed in the winter, Coolant concentration is check and adjusted if needed, the raw water system is the winterized with -50 antifreeze. In the spring engines are looked over for obvious issue’s, fluids and belts are checked. Fuel filters and impellers are changed and engines are started. We let them come up to temp and check for any issues. After this if we are ask we will take her out on a short sea trail and deliver to her slip. Impellers should be changed yearly. We like to change oil in the fall this way if there is an issue it can be handled over the winter and also leaves the engine sitting with fresh clean oil. Belts normally get changed when they show wear.

 

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to call.

 

Wade Hague

Service Manager

Gratitude Marina

Moving on to navigation class, while stilled tied up at the dock, I double-checked that all the compasses are reading the same.  The main magnetic compass and the autopilot display both aligned (and both matched our hand bearing compass).

With all that established, we departed.  I had made some copies of the selected page in my northern Chesapeake chart booklet and we practiced taking bearings, 2 and 3 point fixes, some 60D=ST calculations

The water was like glass, so the relatively slow drift with the current allowed us to take our time... our movement wouldn't show up on the small scale chart on which we were working.

After a while we headed over to the spot on the bay where the Ever Forward was stuck last week.  I wanted to see if there was any "evidence" and there was!  You could find places well off the channel where the depth sounder was reading much deeper than the mid-20s expected outside of the channel.  These locations seemed to match the position where she was aground.

Curiosity sated, we headed back across the bay to return home.  As we were heading north to enter Swan Creek, I noticed a familiar shadow way across the bay near the stacks by the entrance to Baltimore.  Checking my chart plotter, it was indeed the Ever Forward!  She had her hull inspection outside of Annapolis and must have returned to Baltimore for the cargo that was off-loaded.  Here she's departing from Baltimore and nearing the same turn where she ran aground.  She was taking the turn slower (10 kts instead of the 13 kts she took it last time).

I kind of wished I had hung around the East side of the bay a bit longer to see that.

As we returned to Osprey Point, we noticed the huge amount of yellow pollen floating in the water.  It was really visible on the rocks at low tide where it made interesting patterns.

After a wine tasting party on Steve and Abbey's Tranquility (a Beneteau 50), we set about trying to clean as much of the pollen off Seas The Day as possible until we lost light at day's end.

 Sunday morning was just a lazy day.  I did my early morning walk, then I puttered around some odd boat jobs and wrote this blog post while Vicky took a few calls from Chinese colleagues.

Osprey Point was very tranquil on Sunday morning.

That was up until I went out to fill the water....  

Suddenly I was startled by the sounds of rattling inside our boom and the swish of a bird taking off in flight.  I looked up just in time to see the bird rush out of our boom to safety.  Clearly there was a nest.

I poked around the end of the boom a bit and pulled out a few twigs.  Vicky came up to help and was able to get out some more.  But here is where I met the determined Vicky I've heard so many people talk about.  She kept at this for several hours.  Many times I thought "OK, we have it", only to hear her tell me that there is more in there.  I looked around and found her walking up and down B-dock asking for advice and collecting hangers and borrowing part retrievers to try and snag the nest materials.

Later (Vicky's operation was still going on) I was sent to Village Hardware to procure a small hose nozzle and some stiff wire.

It took a hose in the tail end of the boom going full blast, Vicky ramming 18 ft of stiff wire into the mast and pulling it back out as I tilted the boom down (to fill with water) and then up to dump it towards the mast repeatedly.  

We eventually pulled out enough nesting material to fill a bucket along with 3 eggs (2 cracked, one OK).  We apologize to the birds for destroying their home, but this was a safety issue from our point of view (we didn't want a jammed outhaul keeping us from bringing in the sails).

This shows the size of the entry hole

My head is too fat to be able to see down the boom, but 
Vicky could easily see the nest inside.

You can see the bucket is already full and she's STILL pulling out nesting material.

Look at all the nesting material on the deck that never made it to the bucket.

After the operation Joe, our dock dockmate, coached me on how to use rigging tape to close off the entry holes.

I treated Vicky to ice cream in Rock Hall and another stop for sushi at Cafe Sado on the way home.

Oh... we both got significant sunburns... can't forget to stop an operation like this and apply sunscreen!