Chapter 123: I Have Screws Loose

Now, many of you, I know, realized this long ago. We must be crazy, after all, to do what we’ve done. But I am referring, not to my mental state, but rather to physical screws. They’re loose. And they cause problems.

We’ve had:

• A screw come out of the bimini bracket while underway, causing it to shake like crazy.
• A nut came loose on the bus bar for the fridge and freezer, causing both to malfunction. It cost us $250 to have the tech say “Hey, that nut is loose.”, tighten it, and go on his way.
• The boat smelled like sewage. Why? Because the fitting around the tank sensor was loose. That was pleasant!
• The infamous nut on the fuse block for the alternator came loose, causing a true “meltdown” of the fuse block, producing smoke, and taking several years off of our lives.

• Another nut, on another fuse block came loose (after I thought I checked it), resulting in the fuse shifting ever so slightly in the holder so that, of course, it got really hot. This time, nothing melted. It just smelled hot. You better believe we didn’t stop till we found it.

• A mainsail car lost it’s clevis pin because, you guessed it, it came loose.

• We got a soaked V-berth mattress because the foredeck hatch leaked. Why? Because the screw holding the latch was loose.
• This past week, our fridge went out again. Why? Because a compression fitting in the tubing came loose and all the refrigerant leaked out. Did I check all the fittings? Yes. Did I miss that one? Also yes.

In short, stuff is loose. Why? Because boats move. All the time. There is rocking and pitching and rolling and yawing. Plus there’s the vibration from the engine when it’s running. Stuff comes loose. I’ve pretty much abandoned the mantra I learned from my grandfather: “Don’t over-tighten it!” I’m over-tightening. I’m sure I’ll pay for it later.

What else have we got? Well, our windlass is broken. You know, the new windlass we got to replace the original windlass. Actually, the windlass isn’t new, it’s rebuilt, but it’s new to us. Anyway, it’s been gradually getting weaker and weaker over the last couple of months and then last week it started making ominous noises. Fortunately, we are now at a marina in Grenada where there is every marine trade imaginable, so someone came to take a look. Turns out, there was no oil in the case. It must have leaked out. Why? Probably because SOMETHING WAS LOOSE! I had gone through the manual and it doesn’t even mention checking oil levels-excellent documentation. The good news? it’s fixable.

On the other hand, our air conditioner, which broke when we were in the Dominican Republic in April, is working again. Turns out, one has to clean out barnacles and marine growth from the water lines to the unit or they get clogged and the unit won’t work. Who knew? I didn’t. Until now.

Kim and I are going to take a couple weeks off blogging at this point. We’re getting ready to head stateside for a week to go to a family wedding. Upon our return, we’ll be hauling Meraviglia out of the water for a couple of weeks to perform some maintenance. We need to touch up the hull where we had a close encounter with an uncharted wreck and we’re going to install a new propeller. More boat work!

Fun!!

Hopefully we’ll be back to sailing in early October. Stay tuned!