morse cable – The Gray Route

Reasons to celebrate

No more Morse problems!

April 12th 2019

Today the mechanic came to inspect our work on the morse cable. After a thorough examination he concluded that we had done an excellent job. Jay!

And the restaurant was open again (during low season it is only open from Friday to Sunday) so we celebrated by having dinner there. The owner of the restaurant still remembered us from when we bought the boat. They too live on a boat, and like to go on extensive trips with their camper van, so she was curious to learn of our plans for the upcoming trip.

Tonight was ‘Harbour night’ here in Noordschans, a monthly get-together for all the regular berth holders organized in the restaurant. This evening they invited someone to talk about fire prevention and the workings of all the different fire extinguishers aboard boats. It turned out to be not only a tasty but also a very educational dinner. Interesting facts we learned: a regular powder extinguisher (ABC extinguisher) only spurts for 15 seconds. So you better have a steady aim…

And some boats have a capped hole in the staircase, which can be used to aim the mouth of the extinguisher through in case of fire in the engine compartment. That way you won’t have to open the engine compartment, allowing more oxygen to enter the space, aggravating the fire.

It has been nice here in Noordschans, the people here are all very friendly and make time to help you. It also felt rather special because we bought our boat here and tomorrow this is the place where our adventure will really start.

Because tomorrow we will leave for Willemstad.

The tinkering trip

The mysteries of a Morse cable

April 10th 2019

Day 3 of our transmission cable episode. Nothing to be found on the internet about how it exactly works, so how to know if we’ve installed it correctly? We only found some cryptic mentions like “it needs to fold open equally on both sides.” What does it mean?? Nothing to it but to wait until the mechanic has time to check our handiwork.

Although the Morse cable project is on hold, we got lot of other chores done today. We’ve fixed the contact for the auto pilot, added the mandatory extra hose clamps on the through hole hoses and installed an extra fire extinguisher (all necessary for the insurance). We’ve already dubbed this adventure the tinkering trip…

We concluded the day with a well deserved glass of wine, some cheese and dried sausages in the cockpit. This feels like a proper vacation!

Captain Fluffy, our helping hand

More Morse troubles

Disconnecting the morse cable and connecting new fuses.

April 9th 2019

We spend the remainder of yesterday afternoon and a good deal of this day to figure out how to pry the Morse cable loose. We found out that both ends are held in place by a split pin or cotter pin. Thing is, it looks like it isn’t supposed to by pried loose. You can reach the one that is connected to the transmission, but the end that is connected to the Morse throttle control is almost unreachable. There is only 5 mm space to reach behind with a pair of very small pliers to unfold the split pin.

After a lot of wriggling, cursing and desperation, the split pin finally came loose. Now we could determine the length of the cable and buy a new one at the marine store. We also ordered a prop shaft grease pump which they didn’t have in store anymore. According to the mechanic it was something that needed to be done as well.

The fun side of boat work -especially if you live on the boat- is that with every job you have to do, before you can even start, you have to reorganize the whole content of your boat. In this case everything had to be removed from the quarter berth for the end of the morse cable that is attached to the morse lever, and the complete cockpit locker had to be emptied to reach the end that is attached to the transmission. The space in a boat is limited, so you have to stack everything somewhere else, on the couch for instance which means you can’t sit anymore. And at the end of the day, even if you’re not finished, you have to put everything back, just to take it out again tomorrow to continue. Captain Fluffy is the only one who enjoys this daily workout…

We also test started the engine today, and it failed again. So although the day was almost over we decided to dive into the faulty wires. After a thorough inspection we concluded that not only the connector was corroded, the whole fuse it was connected to and the wire running to and from it were totally green and needed dire replacement. So we cut away the corroded wire and replaced the fuse. Turn the key and…Vroooom! It started in an instant. Success!

We always knew we had to give our engine compartment some tender love and care, especially the whole electric circuit. We have always found excuses and postponed it because the engine felt like a looming, growling, unfamiliar creature, something to keep a respectful distance from. It really helped to have an expert to examining it and that he clearly explained what he was doing. It’s still a big slightly unfamiliar creature, but less threatening now and with a lot less growl.

Crash course Diesel engines

Learning how to service a Volvo Penta MD11C

April 8th 2019

This morning the diesel heater started without complaints, so it probably was due to the heat in the engine compartment that it wouldn’t start yesterday.

Despite gloomy forecasts the day turned out to be nice and warm again. The morning was quite relaxed, and we had a superb lunch of confit de canard in the cockpit. After lunch the mechanic found the time to service our engine and turned it into a crash course in Diesel engines. Since we are complete novices and want to prevent another ‘eventful day’ on the water we paid close attention to what he explained.

We learned to change the oil and oil filter, how to change the fuel filters, how to clean the air filters if necessary and the correct way to measure the oil level. We also learned that we shouldn’t have waited much longer with servicing the engine; there was a big tear in the impeller and there was almost no oil left in the transmission. The malfunction yesterday was indeed caused by a rusty contact, so he changed that as well. Later on he took us to the workshop where he explained everything we couldn’t see properly when he was working on our engine with a demo model. We’re really grateful for this crash course, it helped a lot. Especially because the engine in our boat is so boxed in that with some of the jobs you can’t see what you’re doing, and you have to rely on touch.

He also explained how we could start our engine manually if we were in dire need. Our boat came with a hand crank. We have tried it, we turned the crank until our arms fell off, but nothing happened. So we de-rusted it, painted it again and stacked it neatly far far away.

The trick is to open the levers for the compression chambers, so that there’s no compression. Then you start swiveling, and once you have gained momentum you quickly close the levers and -hopefully- you’ll get a spark. In theory that is.

Our mechanic also discovered that the Morse cable , the remote control cable for the transmission, was almost worn through. Something that needed immediate replacement. He didn’t have time this week to do it, not because it’s a difficult job, only a very fiddly one. So he thought that we might be capable of replacing it ourselves, and he would come and check later in the week if we had done it correctly.

No time to relax anymore, how to get the freakin’ thing loose?