After couple of fluorescent tube decided to stop working, we decided to upgrade the couple fixture with modern looking one.
First upgrade on Hotel Catalina!
After the trip back from Long Beach, another quick trip out in the Santa Monica bay and the situation of our very tiny way to our slip, we realized it was one of the first mandatory upgrade.
This upgrade was actually planned even before to bring the boat back from Long Beach, my first order ever for Hotel Catalina, and definitely not the last for sure 🙂
I decided to buy it on Catalina Direct, I realized later it was maybe not the cheaper place to buy the part, but I am very happy to send business their way for what they do.
Thought it would be an easy job, but not at all! Had a hard time to remove cleanly one of the old handle.
I started with the throttle handle and it was done in less of 5 minutes! What an easy job 🙂
Now let’s take care of the clutch handle! What took us over four hours to get it done, with a long list of tools tested against it.
Finally we had to use the dremel, to get the work done and be able to extract the screw.
Now some anti-seize lubricant, and hopefully next time someone will be looking to remove the handles, it will be a bit easier!
Ressources
Since day 1 we own the boat, the sherwood water pump was leaking a bit, it was never the top issue but always something bothering me. In this article we are going to go through:
It took few hours to go through this work, but everything was pretty straight forward.
Here couple of pictures from June 2016, 2 weeks after we took delivery of Hotel Catalina.
Based on this pictures we can saw this leak has been there for a while by the rust we can see on the engine.
It has been now over 1 year we own the boat and it’s time to tackle this pump leaking and clean the rust on the engine block.
Here are few of the options to complete this task:
After looking online I found a very good deal on the N202M-908 at pump and parts online. Let’s go with this solution!
Here is the invoice for the pump:
This step is unrelated to the water pump, but it was way easier to complete since the water pump was not in the way anymore.
New hose installed!
Now time to fill the radiator with new coolant! Last time was replaced was last year during the heat exchanger failure.
The service from https://www.pumpsandpartsonline.com/about-us was very good! Few days after the order I received the part as expected.
It’s the first time I try that, I decided to pick white to be able to see if any leak happens in the future. The result is pretty good looking. Next time I have a chance to remove the belt, I will definitely do more painting.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/112455220825
Our Catalina 36 came with a very rusty danforth anchor. So it’s time to upgrade to a rocna 15 bought on defender.
As soon as the rocna 15 showed up, it was my surprise to realize how big it is. After a lot of research let’s upgrade the bow roller!
I decided to get the bow roller from catalina direct few other options who could have been a good fit:
Not easy to remove (suprised? :)), it looks it has been there for a very long time. Used 2 x 15mm wrenches to get through it.
I had to order longer bolts to match my setup.
close with some monel wire.
I didn’t get a chance yet to anchor since it was installed.
Few weeks ago we bought a dinghy and an outboard to explore the marina. Now the question is where do we store our outboard?
Our outboard engine, a honda 2hp is pretty small and lights, so I thought we could save with the inexpensive rail mount motor bracket from seadog line bought for less of $20 on ebay.
As you saw it, the sea dog looks very unreliable. So I decided to order the “better bracket” from Simple System Marine.
The Simple System Marine product is 10 times more expensive, but you can see where went the cost, it seems overkill for an outboard we only paid $300. But at least I feel confortable to leave the outboard on the rail and I feel safe about it.
After multiple run out of fresh water and no way to check the tank, I checked the options available to monitor our water usage.
In my quest to get as much as possible on the network through NMEA2000 the kbox and signalk. I looked only to devices with an open API or compatible with NMEA2000. One of the only option available on the market looks to be the Maretron TLM 100.
The hardware setup is pretty straight forward:
As soon as it was done, I was happy to see the device on my B&G Zeus 2 MFD, through the KBOX in canboat.
But no way to configure it easily like I was able to do it with some other NMEA2000 devices through the B&G Zeus 2 MFD (Airmar and Navico so far).
Contacted the maretron support with no success, so far no answer and it looks for now my only options would be to buy a Maretron MFD device or one of their gateway to use their free software, not sure I want to invest in this knowing I am not sure I will add more of their devices in the future…
So far not very happy with the investment, definitely need more open standards in the marine industry.
When we bought Hotel Catalina 6 months ago, we realized during the survey our genoa was very tired after discussion with the previous owner he agreed to give us a discount for this and give another used genoa supposed to be in a better shape, so we wanted her and we took our chance on this.
Unfortunately both genoa happened to be very tired.
Few sails later with both genoa we decided it was time to upgrade.
After some research, we found http://www.hydesailsdirect.com/. Having a high production boat and a good feeling when I called Judy at Hyde Sail Direct, we decided to go this route and order our new head sail!
So it was time to order a new sail, it took around 6 weeks between the first conversation and the time the sail showed up.
Most of our navigations since we bought our Catalina 36 18 months ago have been day sails in the Santa Monica bay. This year in plan to adventure a bit further. For convenience purpose it would be great to be able to have a charting software at the helm!
Right now our charting applications of references has been weather4d 2.0 running on an ipad and our b&g zeus 2 at the nav station. To get the ipad running for few hours at the helm we need to bring power there.
To perform our usb power requirement I decided to get a “marine” dual usb charger out of amazon. The reviews are positive, it has a dual socket delivering up to 2.1A and it even shows the current voltage!
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B076FF2G9G/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
The plan is to install the usb socket on the navpod(I think I have the GP1300 model) and take advantage of the remaining space.
Draw the hole to perform.
Use an 1″1/8 hole saw to cut the navpod after a first drill at the center of the circle.
Hole done! Trying to understand why DeWalt decided to paint their hole saw in yellow! 🙁
Now the hole is completed, let’s check what is the source of 12V available in the navpod box. Right now we have 12V bringing power to:
Not very convenient to take the power from there, should I install a terminal block in the navpod? Any advices?
For now I am going to crimp this 12V source to these 3 devices. Long term I will need to update that. Not sure what is the best way to do it yet. Bring 12V from the DC panel?
As soon as the power is there, everything is working correctly!
In the process to install the TLM 100 inside our aft center water tank (https://www.sailinghotelcatalina.com/water-tank-monitoring-with-maretron-tlm-100/), I dropped a small piece of plastic inside the tank. It’s how I became interested about inspection port.
My setup was based on this blog article:
Knowing I am a huge fan of http://www.goodoldboat.com/, this article was perfect for me!
Right now I have been using the inspection port to check the state of the tank (since the TLM 100 has not been very helpful so far) and also to clean it.
