sandr081

I'd been really anxious to get the diesel engine going. Even though its a sailboat and you don't really need an engine to travel, you kinda need it to get on and off the dock. Its also an important system in the boat from an electrical standpoint. Since we wont have a generator right away, our main engine will be the main charging system for our D/C power supply while underway and abroad. Aside from this, I really wanted to get the engine going simply to hear the old diesel engine spin up some rpm's and produce some man made power! Plus I really wanted to go sailing!! So on to the wiring....  These are the new engine gauges plus a key switch and buzzer with idiot light for high temp and low oil pressure.   This is the back side of the new engine panel I built. The wire harness is color coded because that is the way you do it. Here you can see what the engine panel will look like once installed. Engine Tach, Oil Pressure, Water Temp, Key start switch, Glow plug button and ...

Digging deep into the bowels of this old boat has been an unbelievably interesting experience. Since I was working on the motor and planning on re-installing it after some cleaning/painting work, I figured it was a good idea to get that area of the bilge as clean as possible. The access to this area is greatly reduced when the engine is in place, so it was crucial to expose and remove anything unwanted at this point. A view from the companionway looking down, way down into the bilge. A bucket of material removed from the lowest depths of the bilge. Yes, that is a 12" pipe wrench! More and more things kept being dug up from the bilge depths,  it was scary! There were many, many pounds of debris removed from the bilge area below the engine. I believe this was due to an area aft the engine room, under the cockpit lazarette, where a hole let things fall into the bilge.  Among these things were nearly a dozen screwdriver handles, two pipe wrenches, a pair of glasses that appear to ...

I'm not quite sure how to start this... Basically, Lindita sat in Bluewater Bay Marina static for a about 2 months before I was able to return and begin the restoration process. In my head, I was going to have her ready in a couple months, sail her down to Abaco before our wedding, and sail off into the sunset with my bride and start our new life together...  thats not quite how it worked out. I returned to Niceville in late November after delivering my bosses boat back to Abaco. They were down there for a week or so, boating and enjoying a break from north Alabama in the early stages of winter. I spent a couple weeks doing some maintenance on Annie Lee before being graced with a little time off to begin our sailboat restoration project. This being only my second boat i've ever owned, the first one being a 23' daysailer I bought for $500 and sold for not much more, I had great expectations of how fast I'd work through these projects. Like I said before, I thought I'...