We have now had a couple of cycles of bringing the boat home, using her, and going back to Seattle for more work. I think this is working pretty well. I stay on the boat in Seattle and learn, help out etc. For this first trip back to Shilshoe, fellow Endurance owner (based in FL) Roy helped me out, which was great. I was thinking of single handing, since some Hampton people would be waiting for me, but glad I didn't. We had a couple of glitches and he knew how to solve one of them. This post will have a bunch of pics and some of them involve NAKED boat images. This isn't the marketing fluff kind. One of the most important tasks for this trip was to get the padeyes that hold the tender down installed. I think I mentioned in a previous post that through my review with Steve D'Antonio, we found that some previous installations were less than desirable. I want to stress that this has nothing to do with Hampton. Owners are free to get their tenders wherever they like. Several of us have selected Walker Bay's. The dealer subs out the bunk and padeye install. Turns out this guy just drills holes in the cored deck, squirts in some 5200 and screws in self tapping screws. Eventually water will enter the cored deck and then you live with a mess for whatever time and whenever you go to fix you have an expensive job. I refused to go that route. We got one quote from a yard for $1,800 and two days at their dock. For three pad eyes? $600 per hole? Talk about a screw job. Luckily, one of the Hampton guys knew a fiberglasser that would come to the boat. The whole job, including another minor repair, was under $700. Our Yacht Systems guys had drilled the three pilot holes. He then hole sawed up into the core, dug out the core around this hole, and then filled with epoxy. Greg of Yacht Systems installs the aluminum backing plate and tightens up the nuts. Now we have a solid structure and no possibility of water intrusion. When we were headed over to Shilshoe, Roy said "Bob, do you have a chamois mop?" "What's that, Roy?" I asked. "It's like a regular mop, but with chamois material, great for getting the dew off the decks." Roy showed me on Fisheries Supply website what I needed (Shur-hold). So my Hampton super broker Scott Hauck was kind enough to take me to Fisheries, since I don't have a car there. I picked up a few other things I needed. Here's my stuff, $650 worth. And that's with the commercial account discount. I sent Roy a copy of the last invoice page and said "I thought you were my friend?" Oh, speaking of shopping for the boat. Our faithful UPS driver, Mark, is really getting sick of our boat purchases. Seattle Hampton has a new service manager! Yaaay. The manuals for everything on the boat filled up two book boxes. He organized them all into well labeled folders in four plastic boxes. And each box has a table of contents as you can see here. Great work Hampton. For now these will live in a closet in the lazarette. Speaking of the lazarette and naked boat pictures.... I wanted to have a recirc pump for the hot water. That's the 40 gallon water heater there (combo Mahalo Maui Ale beer keg), whereas most of the sinks/showers are toward the front of the boat. I really hate wasting water. We "pre-plumbed" the recirc in Shanghai, but lets say it needed a few corrections. It took a couple of tries to get this right, but after this effort Jeff Owen of Yacht Systems totally nailed it. Instant hot water throughout the boat. And while this looks like a pretty big mess, about 30 minutes later you wouldn't even know they had been there that day. Included in the contract is canvas for just about everything on the boat that can be covered. One of Seattle Canvas Supply guys making yet another pattern. We also did a systems check-out/sea trial with David Wright from ABT-Trac. I.e. thrusters and stabilizers. It was great to learn how the totally state of the art thrusters work now. He was very impressed with how the boat ran and handled the waves we could find. Got the latest software too. We are at full speed in this picture (check out the rear view. Note that the twin disc transmission has a "sync" mode allowing you to use just the port throttle and it automatically syncs the engines. The Garmin shows we are at 20.7 knots (not sure whey they are different on the two displays?). The CAT monitors show we are at 100% load, 2330 RPM, and 50 gals an hour, per engine. Pretty awesome. We like a clean boat. Many boats in this class have a small whole house vac. We find the hoses to be a pain. You have to store them, haul them, and if you don't put them in a sock they will scratch the hell out of your joinery. So in this guest closet we spec'd an electrical outlet (out of view at top). And we have Dyson's latest V-10 cordless vac. The motor unit is sitting in it's charging stand. I'll do some velcro to hold the attachments together, but this is a SLICK setup. The little swim ladder/step on the Walker Bay tender sucks in seawater, and then slowly releases it over several days. Again, this isn't a Hampton thing. They should have maybe filled it with epoxy or something. I will at least remove the plastic caps that aren't doing their job. Maybe WB will provide a remedy under warranty, we will see. The boat and I enjoyed our evenings on the dock this week. And when we aren't watching people drill holes and perform plumbing miracles, we are out enjoying and learning Mahalo. Awesome to cruise the Seattle skyline on a nice day in our own boat.
3 Comments
Greg Stark
7/23/2018 09:46:15 am
Excellent idea to have an outlet put in the closet for a cordless vac - we also hate the built-in vacs (but of course don't have nearly so convenient a place for plugging in a cordless on our Meridian 490).
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Bob T
7/25/2018 10:44:31 am
Thanks Greg. We have one at home too, hanging in a closet, but no AC there. We just plug it in on the counter when needed.
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11/4/2018 05:42:09 am
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