ACE Closer to Launch

Friday Michael Ahern and I worked on:

• draining the remaining lower unit oil
• removing the "Oxford, MD" decal from the transom
• cleaning/buffing the transom
• painting the rudder with VC17
• attaching the lower unit zincs

folding prop closed

folding prop open

Good view of the zincs here.

Peter and Jenny came by in the afternoon, and we managed to fill the lower unit with oil.

We also tried to string the VHF coax in the mast, but decided we wanted to flip the mast and make sure the coax does NOT get tangled with the halyards.

It was cold, but did get to 10C in the afternoon, but I had to get the bottom painted on Tanker Jones, the race committee boat at Whitby Yacht Club.



Saturday Barb came out and we worked on:

• using GO GONE to remove the decal residue on the transom
• using 2000 grit wet/dry sandpaper to where the decal was
• buffing the transom
• buffing the port rear of the hull
• changing the water pump drive belt
• tightening the alternator belt

We also managed to cleanup up a little down below.

The aft sides of the hull were in rough shape.  A Dewalt buffer with some Aquabuf rubbing compound got rid of all the bruises on her.  Hopefully we can get some wax on her.

Using 1000/2000 grit wet/dry sanderpaper on the keel/rudder viewing windows.  These lexan windows are just aft of the folding prop and just forward of the keel.  They were very crazed over and you could barely see out of them.  They look a LOT better.


Sunday I spent a few hours in the morning on the starboard side of the hull with the buffer.

It was cold with the wind howling.  I was too cold, so I went below to work on the electronics.

Was able to hookup

• B&B Zeus T8 chart plotter
• B&G V50 VHF
• Actisense NMEA 0183/2000 gateway
• backup camera on video input

I purchased a couple of 12V backup cameras off Amazon.  They connect directly to the video inputs on the B&G chart plotters.  Hopefully we can mount these on the keel/rudder viewing windows.

All of there are powered and communicating on the NMEA 2000 bus.  However, no data is coming from B&G processors through the Actisense gateway. Think it might be a configuration thing on the processor(s). Time to RTFM.

Things left to do before launch:

• finish polishing the rest of the hull
• coat of wax on hull
• grease the folding prop
• de-winterize the motor

 ONLY FOUR MORE DAYS UNIT LAUNCH