6 Months Away from Spruzzo! Maintenance Awaits!

We left Greece in December last year and had tickets purchased to return in January, but I got a contract for my YourCIO business (which was more fun than I expected). We decided to stay with my dad in Kitchener until the end of May. Suffice to say I need to monitor my weight more closely when I’m back in Canada I definitely eat too much and exercise too little.

Back to Greece in May (we did a stop in Cologne, Germany which was amazing …the old town and the museums were all excellent). The boat needed to come out of the water for about a week. I expected that the bottom needed re-painting and I needed to service the propeller bushing/washers and replace the C-drive oil which I had never done before.

After my first night on the boat (wonderful sleeping on the boat) I woke up and went to the espresso machine….and realized I had forgotten where the grinder was. I have made coffee 3 times every morning (twice for me and once for Victoria) every day when we are on the boat, which has been 9 or 10 months of the year until now. This was weird. Eventually I remembered where I store the grinder and all was good.

The other interesting thing I’ll mention before getting into the boat maintenance, is that Victoria and I looked at 3 houses in the area. Two were over an hour away (too far) but one was only 15 minutes out of town, had a plot of land with olive trees and a garden, and was relatively new. It was a 10 minute walk to the nearest small (non touristic) town. It had a gorgeous view of the surrounding mountains (it was on its own little ridge), was not too expensive, and I could have built a workshop…..but it was just too remote and you couldn’t see the water. Turns out we need to see the water.

If you are not very curious about boat maintenance I suggest you skip the rest of the post 😉

I came back to the boat a week before Victoria to get the boat ready to come out of the water for maintenance. The first thing I had to do was install the replacement fresh-water pump. The previous replacement had failed by not stopping pumping (there is a switch that shuts off the pump when the water system reaches the proper pressure). I did this in literally 5 minutes since I have removed and replaced this pump many times already trying to fix it before.

I had water! I was back on the boat! Life was good! The boat was in good shape. I had lost one fender over the winter and I had to vacuum inside. I noted that the front-toilet was not draining which was a bit odd. I took it apart and the plastic impeller broke (probably just from age) but I’m pretty sure the problem is the hose from the toilet to the holding tank is plugged….I couldn’t feel an opening with my finger and it is almost certainly clogged with calcium phosphate (Ca₃(PO₄)₂ which forms from urine and seawater (some people convert their saltwater toilets to fresh water to stop this from happening).

I ordered a service kit for the toilet and when it arrives I will remove the clogged hose (I think I have reasonable access) and either remove the deposit with some acid (carefully) or just get a new hose.

The day before Victoria was to arrive my newly installed water pump stopped working. This was the second failure of a new pump. The previous one would not stop pumping and this one would not start! (It worked fine for a few days). To say I was frustrated is an understatement. These pumps are about 300 euros and are considered good quality. The best-in-the world Italian solid brass pump costs about 1200 euros…..and I was now considering buying one of those….except I wasn’t sure I had space and I would have to re-plumb the water hoses so this would be a very big job.

I also found a cheaper water pump on board that I tried to install but the ‘fast fitting’ connectors, which looked the same, would not connect. I went to a good chandlery in Elunda to get better connectors which I did, but I also dropped off the broken pump for service (not sure this will work since I didn’t have the receipt any longer) and also bought another identical pump. If the broken one is serviced I will have an identical spare on board plus a cheaper one that I can now also install.

So the boat comes out of the water. First time for me taking Spruzzo out so a little bit exciting.

I had to remove the 2 backstays for the mizzen mast (mast is still supported by other stays so not a big deal) and it turned out to be an easy operation. The boatyard guy has a remote control for the sling-crane and he does this all the time so he was an expert. He put it in a cradle by himself in a few hours.

Turns out the bottom didn’t need repainting…..just a sanding and a touch-up (we have bottom paint that might last 10 years and still looks ok), but the hull was dirty and I needed to replace the rudder anodes (easy) and service the propeller and C-drive (never done before so an adventure). I also had a few chips out of the rudder that needed patching….someone I was helping to dock last year pushed my poor Spruzzo onto some rocks and a few flakes came off. This was traumatic when it happened.

The anodes were easy: screw off and screw the new ones back.

I had the propeller bushing/seals kit from Amel which cost 300 euros.

But first I had to remove the propeller. There was a 40mm nut on the back of it. I bought a 41mm wrench for 42 euros(!) which is quite large and not easy to find. I could not budge the nut with my full weight. Put on bolt-loosener liquid….wait….still no luck. More liquid….wait….still no luck….used a mallet on the wrench (it was probably 40cm long so I had good leverage)…no luck. I was exhausted and didn’t even have the stupid bolt off.

Next day I decided to try heat.

I saw this somewhere and decided to buy it for just this purpose. I heated up the nut for about 30 seconds and it came right off. I felt a bit stupid for not just doing this right away but live and learn.

Now to remove the propeller. There is a special tool for this, but I had a quite large (15 or 20cm long) gear puller with 2 claws that is meant to pull friction fitted gears off of shafts. No dice. It seemed like it was not quite large enough to get a good grip on the back of the propeller. I asked the boatyard for help and they said they would loan me their prop-puller.

When I went back to borrow the puller, they had already loosened my propeller…..I asked to see their propeller-puller…..I don’t have a picture but it was HUGE!!!! It looked like it was a meter long and would take 2 guys to hold it and probably a 3rd guy to tighten the pulling nut at the end. Anyway you need the right tool for the job.

With the propeller off it turned out to be relatively easy to drain the 8l of oil from the C-drive (it was milky so it was time to change it), remove the old bushing and pull out the old lip-seals. I actually have a lip-seal removal tool (recommended for this job) so pulling them out was easy. (Note the trend that with the right tools and good access nothing is that hard.) I filled the new lip-seals with grease (there are 3 of them) and inserted them with the recommended facing (first 2 facing inward, last one facing outward)..pushed them in and inserted the new bushing….all seemed to be fine. I then replaced the 8l of synthetic gear oil (10l cost me 110 euros!) and it all looked beautiful. Put the propeller back on and I’m set.

The last thing I needed to do was patch the chips on the rudder. One was very small but the other was a bit larger and needed to be filled in. I think epoxy (along with cement) is a magic material…..you mix it up, wait and you get stone. Epoxy is quite thin when mixed and I have powdered fiberglass to make it thicker and stronger and able to cure on a vertical surface.

Here is the larger patch. I sanded it after I took the picture but I didn’t make them perfectly smooth this time I’ll do that next time the boat is out.

Finally the boatyard cleaned the outside of the boat so it is now shiny. We still need to fix the gelcoat at the very back from where I removed the original TV-antenna…maybe we will do that in the fall.

The two other things I still need to do besides fixing the toilet is replacing the main-sail outhaul. It is a special non-stretch non-squishy line that broke last year and I did a repair at anchor which more or less worked but I needed to buy the correct line from Amel. 14m of this magic rope was about 150 euros! Anyway I have already fitted it but it needs to be quite snug so the pulley system works.

I’ve also noticed that the light on my mizzen mast has stopped working. That was one of the first things I fixed when I first got the boat …..maybe the light has just burned out.

Anyway it is getting quite hot here….supposed to be 37C for a few days starting tomorrow…..very glad we have AC but I want to fix the toilet and start sailing!