I only had one thing left for the season on my boat to do list I started in the spring: check the zincs on the boat. After seeing that the bottom didn’t really need to be painted when I had it painted in Juneau, I decided to skip the bottom paint this year. But zincs- you wanna check the zincs to keep your boat metal from eroding.
The weather and tide looked okay on Thursday, so I figured now was a good time. I headed to the harbor a little after 5 am and got the boat over to the grid about 530 am. About an hour after high tide. There was 3.5 feet of holdover water, and the high tide was only 8.5 feet in 6 hours.
I was maybe a tad late. The bow sat on the forward grid cross member already, but all seemed fine. I made sure I didn’t have the prop shoe over a grid member, and started tying off to the pilings. I hadn’t done this in 20? years when I’d paint and zinc my troller the Dutch Master, and Kurt always either helped me or advised.
The thing I most remembered that I didn’t want to have happen was for the boat to tip over away from the grid pilings when the tide went out. We used to fill garbage cans with water on the side of the boat tied to the pilings to be sure it leaned that way. The tug is a lot smaller than the troller was, and all looked okay in the dark.
I felt the boat tilt towards the pilings as the tide continued going out, and I thought: all is well. None of the lines were over tight or slack. Then, the boat heeled hard over. Uh oh. What I hadn’t remembered to do was to square up the boat parallel to the pilings, and to keep the boat snug up to the pilings by adjusting the lines as the tide went out. Eventually the boat heeled over to the pilings at a cockeyed level. Then I smelled diesel in the dark.
Dawn was coming and soon Daniel from the harbor dept. was looking down. He started telling me what I shoulda done, and I stopped him mid-sentence to ask if I was in peril now, as we could go over the proper technique later. He said “I’ve seen worse”, which actually gave me some comfort. He then saw the diesel dripping out of the vent for the starbard tank – the side we were leaning in on. So, that was the smell. He said get a stick and put some electric tape on it and shove it in the little vent hole, which I did. I also shut off the valve on the little hose that goes between the tanks so the port tank wouldn’t keep draining down to the starbard tank. Problem solved for now.
As the tide continued to go out, I heard a crack. The starbard rail was now leaning hard over on the piling (instead of the piling just keeping the boat straight up and down, if it was tied up right), and I could see a bend now in the side rail. And a crack in it. Yikes. Dan said it would probably be a good idea to get off the boat and stay off so I wasn’t making anything worse: more sage advice.
I think we were both thinking the only real issue was if the keel skidded underneath, over towards the port side of the boat, on the slimy cross members, and kicked the boat away from the pillings and all the way on its side….. which would be a disaster. I hoped that wouldn’t happen..
The tide was now below the keel on the grid, so I could get to work. I got a little relief when I saw that the boat tilt was really worse than it looked – the keel was sitting almost fully on the grid, and not just on the keel’s edge. Whew.
I put on my ancient waders and as I expected, they leaked pretty good. But not so bad I couldn’t work in them. I looked over the situation and worse case scenario described above, and thought the boat would clear me if it kicked sideways, as long as I dove down below the level of the grid members… Not exactly textbook safe, but the keel sitting pretty flat on the grid gave me a little more comfort. Still, I wanted to spend as little time as necessary under the hull.
Luckily, I’d got the tools and new zincs all together last night, so I was ready to go. I replaced the prop shaft zinc and the rudder zinc in less than 10 minutes. The teardrop zinc looked okay (as Louie at the yard in Juneau told me it did last year, so this will now be a third year on it), but something didn’t seem right. The zinc was screwed horizontally to the keel below the prop shaft. Just what was it deflecting electrolosis from? The thought passed.
I removed barnacles at the waterline along the stern among the swim step stays, along with a handful of barnacles in the exhaust coming out the stern. Then I scraped the moss at the waterline along either side of the hull with my fingers. This was another 10 minute job. All done, I thought. Now just to monitor the boat and wait for the tide to come back in. It was now about 20 minutes before low tide.
I went home and had coffee and did some errands and checked on the boat periodically. About an hour and a half later it hit me: I’d seen a bonding wire in the photos I take of the haulout every year down to that teardrop zinc, and the wire was gone! But good job in my older age to know photos are important! Let the scrambling begin….
I dashed back to the boat. The tide was rising, but it looked like I still had maybe an hour to work, albeit working up to my armpits. I saw where the nut below the propshaft housing had held the wire before. I backed it off and pulled out the remnants of copper wire. I ran home and grabbed some copper ground wire I had for the house electric, and some copper brake tubing from a brake job on the truck, then back to the boat.
I backed off the nut and tried the copper wire. Too thick. Then I tried the copper brake tubing, and it looked like it might work because I could mash it down and get a good bite with the nut. I backed off the nut to mash it….and dropped the nut! I was up to my chest in water. I finally thought I saw it and dived down for it….but only came up with mussels and a waderful of water. Panic time.
I assessed the situation and thought: go get a nyloc nut, get a battery-sized starting wire with crimped eye ends made, and hope for the best. I set the crescent wrench to the size of the nuts still on there for size, and headed to the hardware store. They had nyloc nuts that looked about right, and I bought one. Next to the auto store to get wire with eye ends. They had wire, but no eye ends big enough for both the bolt and the thick wire. I dashed out with the wire and on to Chets, where I should have gone first! They had the eyes, and Karl crimped them on for me, and out I dashed again. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a better business than Chet’s.
Craig is a great place for an “emergency” like this, since the stores are all about a block from each other. And, everyone understands if I tell them I’m racing the tide.
I got back to the boat and didn’t bother with the waders. I was already soaked from diving for the nut, so just walked in up to my chest again and got to work. The nyloc nut fit (my first real win for the day!), and I cranked it down with the eye of the wire under it against the forward nut on the stud bold. Unfortuately the nut was too thick for the nyloc part of it to bite, but I’ll hope for the best. (I ordered the right width nyloc nuts as soon as I got home, as I didn’t see any at the hardware store, before I forgot – another bonus of maturity).
The screw holding in the zinc had a big phillips head – and it looked a little stripped. I couldn’t back it off with the screw driver, and only had dykes pliers with me, but luckily they worked! Win number 2. I backed it right out. Next, though, I saw I’d measured from the wrong end of the scrap of wire I’d used to measure for length before I took off for the store, and the wire was way too long. So, I wrapped it first under the, gap in the zinc to the rear, and then wrapped it around the forward tab, to shorten it up so there wouldn’t be slack in it as the boat ran. I started the screw in. Uh oh. I only got it in part ways with the dykes, but then it didn’t want to turn anymore. Next, I grabbed the pipe wrench I’d brought, and that wasn’t much help. I couldn’t turn it with the screw driver, either. Water was rising…
I decided to go for broke, and try the battery drill driver with the fattest phillips bit I had for it. It might just strip out in place, but worth a try. It cranked it right up tight….before it stripped like crazy. Win number 3!
So, back to the ranch. I put the tarp in the back over the front seat, jumped in and drove home. I stripped off all my wet clothes at the door and right into a hot shower. Oh, that felt good.
I headed back awhile later, and the boat was already starting to float. It had righted up just fine, and the “wow” in the side rail from leaning on the piling returned to normal! Just plain lucky, like I generally seem to be. But I need all that luck when so many jobs seem to go sideways.
