Another 15 minutes

This weekend the boatmotor died in mid sea and after some restart attempts the battery was dead. Not knowing exactly what was wrong we had to first replace the battery to see if it would start at all. So we bought a new battery yesterday and it started right up again and we could get the boat back home to our port. So it seemed like it was only the battery that was too old, and wouldn’t charge anymore. If the new battery will charge time will tell, but atleast the voltage gauge showed an increase during the ride home. Now we just have to clean the thing up abit and also get the fuel gauge working properly, a story continued from last season.

Today it was time to launch the boat into the water again. It has been sitting on the trailer all winter with little preparation so I was abit worried about the motor being broken. We tested the motor abit on land like a week ago and all seemed fine, but still… To my surprise the launch went extremely well and smooth, the motor fired pretty much right up, and the stereo was working! The only thing now is still to fix our wiring problem with the fuel gauge and also to clean the boats interior which was pretty much soaked with moist, and also we will polish the upper half of the boat to get it abit more white and shiny. It was a small trip from the launch ramp to the boatyard, but it was nice to hear the motor purr like a kitten. This summer could be pretty good then after all, yarrr!

Today we pulled the boat out of the water on a trailer and to the shipyard. I borrowed my fathers car, a 4-wheel drive, so it was no problem at all to pull it up. It was a beautiful day, abit windy but after a while we managed to get the boat somewhat straight. We had to wait for a while before we were let in to get the trailer, and the wait even longer to pull the boat inside, since they didn’t want any cars in the way of the tractors pulling the bigger boats (and some small ones that could’ve been pulled by hand). When it was in its place on the shipyard we noticed that it’s abit back heavy, so we have to get some better struts to put under it. Finally, after a long day, we tied down the waterproof canvas over the boat and decided to call it a day and leave the cleaning to another day. I forgot to take pictures…

Today is the last day of my 4 week holiday, it’s back to work. I have been out with the boat several days after coming home from NYC, swimming and sunbathing, the weather has been very nice indeed. The boat has not given us any problems since June, so it has been a good holiday for me. I wish I had another week.

Today I took the boat out to a popular site for anchoring with boats and went for a swim, the first this year, and some sunbathing. The water temperature was very OK for a swim and the weather was great. I also tried out the top speed of the boat, and it’s just over 40 knots (measured by GPS) against the wind, so under ideal conditions it maybe a few more knots (40 knots = 75 km/h).

The boatingtrip on midsummer’s eve started out really well, the boat was behaving beautifully for a very long time until it was jinxed and the problem with something blocking the fuelpipe occured again. So the target remains, we’ll have to try to clean the tank yet again.

It was a good midsummer’s eve anyway, we had a nice picnic onboard at a nice location. On the way back we ran out of gas about 50 meters from the gasstation, but since it was closed anyway the irony was somewhat lost. Good thing I bought another 10 liter spare tank so we got 15 liters total to get home allright.

I took some pictures of the boat though, it’s an Örnvik 570 Cabin with a 155hk outboard motor which propels it up to around 40 knots (we haven’t actually measured the top speed yet), more pictures will be added later during the summer.

After yet another testdrive last weekend the same problem came back after a while, it worked perfectly for a long time though, so the problem was indeed inside the tank and something blocking the fuelpipe. But now I just needed to get the shit out from the tank somehow. So I bought a magnet and another pump, trying to fish and suck out whatever was inside once again.

First attempt was with the magnet… I don’t claim to be an expert or anything, but I’m pretty sure the fueltank is not supposed to contain rusty nuts and bolts =), so after removing those and then pumping out some more rust particles, I feel more confident that the problem might be solved. A testdrive this weekend will perhaps give the answer.