Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Sadler Point Marina - More prep work, no genset yet

I never get used to all the palm trees - and the variety of them

Today was another day of preparation for the new genset. It's much bigger than the old Panda and so modifications have to be made to the starboard locker. I've got to have room to service this thing so they are moving the exhaust muffler to the aft locker and cutting the shelf in the starboard locker so it will hinge upward when I need to change the oil or the impeller. It's somewhat of a shoehorn fit. I was determined not to get another genset from Panda or from any manufacturer with the same one lung, German diesel engine. That left a series of choices that all started at 6 kw and I  bought the Kohler version with three pistons.

A tall pole, a bird nest!
So we watched the preparations today which consisted of careful measurements on how much the shelf had to be cut back and the installation of the remote, digital control panel in the galley. No longer will I have to venture into the aft cabin when guests are on board to start the genset. Sometimes I had wanted to get a head start on warming up the cabin but couldn't until the aft cabin was publicly functional. Now I can start as soon as I get up.

Hopefully, tomorrow's the day for the new genset...
There is so much fine tuning to do on Wednesday that it's doubtful that the genset will be installed then but there's still hope if they can do all the prep work soon enough. We also have to wait for high tide which isn't until 4:00 pm or so anyway, we're sitting in the mud until then. I noticed that with the old genset out, the boat sits perfectly level - no longer does it have the starboard lean we've lived with since we bought the boat. Of course, with the new genset that's even heavier, we'll have the lean back but then we're scheduled to get some ballast on the port side to address that problem. So we're progressing. It's looking like Friday now until we can continue our trek north. 

0 comments: