We arrived back in Clayton last Sunday and tied up at the Union Street Dock. Yes, dock, not docks, as in there is only one. This is not really a marina and only has a dozen or so slips, the wooden pier is in rough shape with loose boards, no WiFi, and the bathrooms are bare bones. But it’s home for now and it’s free while we have work done on the boat. It’s actually a pretty nice spot, location wise. We have a wonderful view of the St. Lawrence and can sit on the back deck and watch freighters come and go. We get great sunsets. And, we’re just a short walk to town.
We had hoped that getting here on Sunday would mean work the starter replacement could begin Monday morning. Tim figured that it would be a two day job at the most, so we ought to be back rolling on Wednesday. Well, it is now Saturday and we’re still here.
For those of you who have noticed that my blogs have been a bit sparse, you may realize this one is a lot chattier. Yes, it is. Our visitors are gone, we are not cruising, chores have been finished, I’ve shopped all I can afford to, so now it’s time to blog again.
Back to the starter issue. Our man, Heinz, who told Tim he’d be able to remove the batteries so we could access the starter and replace it, has had some issues of his own. His wife was in the hospital, then family came for their annual summer gathering and he has other jobs that haven’t gone as expected. So, Heinz did not get started on Monday as we hoped, nor Tuesday. Heinz showed up on Wednesday and with his helper and Tim, the 3 of them were able to lift the two 160 lb batteries out of their box. The next step was to get the box out of the way. This is where things went south. The fiberglass battery box was glued to a board with 5200, a super strong adhesive. Then the board was screwed to two vertical plywood braces that had been fiberglassed to the hull. Once the board and battery box were removed in one piece, the men could see that the plywood braces were rotted out. The wood would just flake between your fingers.
We had to reinforce this support before we could put the batteries back in. The starter? Oh, replacing that was a piece of cake now that the battery box was out of there. That was the easy job. Heinz cut us some L shaped supports out of white marine plastic board. I could easily climb back in the battery box area, so Tim and I were able to bolt the new braces onto the old fiberglassed supports, screw the board onto the new support structures we built and then silicone the battery box back on.
That was a full day project. Now it’s just a matter of getting the muscles back to put the batteries back in the box and hooked up again. We scrubbed the boat top to bottom on Friday while we waited again for Heinz. Nope. Now it’s Saturday and still no sign of him.
Don’t tell Heinz, but we’re not too upset about him not showing up the last couple of days. We like it here. Clayton is a cute town- good food, a brewery Maggie can go to, and this weekend they are having a benefit poker run with all kinds of go fast boats for Tim to ogle. And, it’s supposed to start raining and continue for 5 days. If we are going to sit on the boat in the rain, this free dock is as good as we’re going to get. And it’s free. We’re really OK with this. 🙂
Oops, I wrote too soon. Heinz and buddy just showed up. The batteries are now back in their box and hooked up. And the engine starts right. Wheeee! Hmmmm, does that mean we need to leave?????