Our Home-Built Trawler - Sept 22nd -

The first day of autumn already.

Here are two more shots from our first outing with the boat yesterday.

Just leaving the dock. . . .

Looking serious at the helm. . . . .

We got rain overnight and. . . great news!. . . .the boat didn't leak a drop. Not from the door, not from the hatch or the windows and not from any of the through bolts! She was dry as a bone.

Today, the forecast was nasty. Lots of rain and pretty strong winds. We figured we would stay tied to the dock.

When we arrived at the boat, although it was overcast, it wasn't raining and there was no wind at all. So we took her out again to get more time on the 'break-in' schedule for the motor.

The engine hummed just like a new one should. We slid along leaving hardly any wake.

That's the back of my head in the pilothouse. He he.

We met with a strange sight. A squirrel swimming across the channel.

And a majestic sight. . . a big hawk or eagle (hazy through the window screen).

Cormorants on the point.

And one on the wing.

We took Helen Back into the seaway.

I kept the RPM below 2000 for the first hour of operation. After the hour meter had clicked over from '0' to '1', I could give her a bit more throttle.

Here she is at 3100.

It was still quite calm as we were heading back in. Through the day we got some rain, but not much wind.

Back to work:

We took some tools back to the shed and cut out the starboard side settee 'divider support' from a template that Donna had previously made up.

We interrupted this work because I was anxious to install the ACR (automatic charge relay). I got the wiring started, including the recommended 'off' switch, attached in the ground wire, but nothing's ever easy. It's not connected yet.

We need to order two 40amp fuses to be connected where the power wires meet the battery terminals.

In the meantime, we're not too worried about the depth sounder draining our big, fully charged deep cycle battery.

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