It's about time for the monthly off-season update to the blog. The risk of freezing in the mid south has passed so I took a field trip to Lake Cumberland to visit my boat.
I left Oxford early Tuesday morning (4/9) and drove south finding spring blooms in Kentucky and 70° temperatures.
I arrived at Conley Bottom Resort in the middle of the afternoon, loaded up a dock cart, and headed to the boat.
It's a bit of a hike to the boat from the car and my boat was actually about as close as you could get. The first bow sticking out of the covered slip at the right edge of the picture is me.
I was told there are about 1200 slips at this marina and by Michigan marina standards, this place really isn't the greatest. In this part of the marina, there's nothing more than the boat slips. I had to travel to the campground maybe a half mile away for a restroom/shower building. That said, they are awesome dock systems.
Every year I see people swimming off boats in marinas and sometimes caution them about the hazards. Comments are usually of indifference or ignorance. This place has their liability covered. People are killed every year from electrical shock in these places.
So the mission was to clean the winter grime off the boat and de-winterize all the systems to see if there were any problems to address before I send the boat north. I didn't get actual ownership of the boat until after it was winterized in November so had to trust that the seller had taken proper steps to prevent winter damage.
Step 1 was to purge the antifreeze from the fresh water system and check for leaks. There are five faucets, an ice maker and a water heater that the system feeds and amazingly enough, no leaks!
I'm really beginning to like this boat.
Step 2 was to start the A/C and heat system. It's a heat pump kind of device that uses lake water to feed it. Again, no leaks and everything functioned normally...miracles still happen!
So that was Tuesday and time to kick back and enjoy the evening.
On Wednesday I got the bucket and "Boat Zoap" out (yes it's called Zoap). Time to scrub the grime and mildew off the exterior. The fight with mildew is a big minus for me with everything in the southern climate. That's not much of a problem in Michigan. A couple hours of scrubbing, and mission accomplished.
With the exterior all cleaned up, it was time to make this thing MINE. First to add the Michigan registration numbers.
Most of these boats are documented. A guy near me said he didn't like the look of numbers on his boat. In reality, they're using the system to avoid some tax expense and it has nothing to do with appearance if they're being honest.
The other item was to remove the old port city from the transom.
Oddly enough, the seller was from Oxford as well. The only problem is it was Oxford, Ohio. I would have just removed the "Ohio" but that left the city off-center so I got rid of it all. I was real tempted to remove the name as well, but left it for now. That's a decision that's still an indecision.
The end of another day and time to enjoy the evening.
Thursday was a big day. I brought the big 7.4L V-8's to life. Once more...no problem. They fired right up, pumped water, and ran smooth. I love the fuel injection. Just like the car, turn the key and go. If repairs are required someday, that might be a bit more expensive. The last item to check was the generator. So I got down in the bilge to start that from the switch on the generator and zip, nada, nothing. Dead battery??? I know nothing about how this is all wired so finally decide maybe the main engine ignition circuits need to be turned on. I flip those breakers, press the start switch and presto...the generator comes to life.
IT ALL WORKS!!! Every last thing I touched works...except the horn that I know needs replacing or repair. That was a big relief after a winter of unknown.
I've driven this boat for maybe two minutes during the sea trail and definitely nowhere near the dock so I was a little apprehensive to take the boat out alone. Friday, I just couldn't wait any longer and I untied the lines and off I went.
You'll notice the hatches on the bow open. That was because the CO detector was blaring in the cabin and I needed to air that out. Idling at the slip and the slow ride out of the marina apparently sent some CO into the cabin. There's warning signs on the cabin hatch to close it, but who would ever read a warning sign? The detector quit once I was moving a little and all was well.
I ran a couple miles up the lake (river) at various speeds. There was too much debris in the water for me to be very comfortable with running on plane too far so it was mostly a slow ride. The great news is the vibration I experienced at the sea trial wasn't noticeable during this run. Whatever was out of balance in November, has improved. That was a surprise.
The boat ran and handled perfect. I've heard all along that the control of inboards are amazing and that was my experience. I backed this 12' wide boat into the 14' wide slip and never touched the dock. Beginner's luck I suppose.
So I'm done with the prep and ready to have the boat shipped to Michigan...
Unfortunately, as of this morning, Michigan isn't quite ready for the boat.
