Brio "splashed" in early May. It is now June 3 and she's back in the heated shed waiting for mechanical attention. Believe it or not, progress has been made. Here are a few details.
Let's start with the refurbished and repaired propellers that had been on the starboard pod. These had gotten well beaten up by the log. They went to a special metal shop where brass was added to the leading edges of the propellers to fill in the nicks and bumps where the propellers had hit the log. Once this was done, the propellers were tested with dye to see if there were any stress cracks from the impact with the log. The props passed the tests. Finally, the propellers were ground down and polished so they look like new.
Here are new propellers painted with "PropSpeed" that helps keep them slippery even as they sit in the water.
While we are under the boat, here's a fitting that goes through the hull (known as (are you ready) a thru-hull):
This is new. It is where the forward-looking sonar goes through the hull and sticks down a couple of inches into the water. From inside the hull, this is what that device looks like:
This is taken inside the engine room and looking at the "floor" or sole. While we are here, here's a photo of one of the new coolers mounted on the back of one of the engines:
Up in the salon, the imagery from the forward-looking sonar is displayed on a new display at the console so the captain and crew can keep track of what lies ahead of the boat in terms of shoaling water, obstructions or submerged logs!
The smaller black screen on the left is the forward-looking sonar display. The two black screens in the middle are the chart and radar displays. The engine data read-out is at the top between the two chart screens. The VHF radio is at the bottom. Over on the right are the throttles and the Flir control for an infrared camera for night vision and at the top, the spotlamp.
Down below, to the left of the console, is the galley with its new fridge/freezer:
On deck, at the bow the port locker has new plumbing.
You can see the new hose and sprayer inside the locker. This will make washing the anchor down much easier!
Turning around and looking aft, you can see all of the equipment on top of the house.
Behind the radar is a stubby-looking mast. We discovered that this was not securely attached. It had to be removed and new holes made for the bolts to seat properly. The base of the mast had to be bedded to make it water-tight.
Inside the domes behind the mast are a cellular call service that we will not use this year. Instead, we will have a hot-spot system from local Wi-Fi. Hopefully this will suffice since we are not going 50 nautical miles offshore this summer. The other dome has a new satellite tracking service for TV reception.
Those are the major improvements that we wanted to share with you.
But wait!!
With all of this work done, why is Brio back on land? Good question.
The hydraulic system for the starboard pod was overheating. Our pod mechanic, Charlie Murphy, believes that the seal between the pod under water and the pod machinery inside the engine room was damaged when it was hit by the log. By the way, Charlie went to Quebec to ready Brio for her trailer ride back to Massachusetts.
The only way to access the seal is to haul the boat and take the pod off to replace the seal. Brio sits inside a shed this weekend of June 3 and 4 because it is raining. Charlie appreciates a dry and warmer environment in which to disassemble and reassemble the starboard pod!
We plan for a sea trial on Monday afternoon. Fingers are crossed. We want to leave on the summer trip Tuesday morning.
Cheers,
Brio
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