That Wonderful Sense of Victory

Sowell Family's Travels on Gijima
Skipper: Tim Sowell Admiral Tracy Crew Sean & Alex
Wed 15 Sep 2010 04:11
That feeling of facing a challenge or many, and then working through them
and then resolving and testing with all works is a wonderful fulfillment
feeling.
Today was a good day, with the jobs layed out:
1/ Electronics to be installed:
Initially the chart platter went in, and radar but they did not turn on,
found the power connection corroded slightly and cleaned and tightened and
all working.
Then the Single Side Band unit was installed always a physical struggle due
to location and cramped quarters, well it powered up world receive but would
not transmit, it appeared not to be tuning. Fiddled no effect, so called
Gordon West who as usual just answered and said it will be this connector
and this is what to do, (his service is just fantastic). Sure enough I went
back uninstalled redid the connectors adjusted some pins and YES it worked.
2/ Washing machine we have continued to have an increasing amount of issues
with the brackets holding the electric engine under the drum. This time I
had them extra reinforced and then went to see why this was continuing to
break, found that one of critical bolts holding the shock absorber for the
drum was corroded and stripped so while we thought it was tight, it would
only last one spin cycle. So installed new bolts all around and locking nuts
and bolted back together, we have done two washes and all working.
Now back to doing charts of Costa Rica, and enjoying a beer as a sense of
achievement, we also got our new mosiquito net back, looks stronger and
better design with sumbrella on top, we are going to have some ventialtion
sections put in, but it came in at 1/4 the cost of California.
So all in all we are making good progress.