Nov 14 - decking

This is the most physical work that I've done in a long time.  Once Sandy was up, I headed over to Home Depot with the Skiff trailer and loaded up 20 2x6x12' pressure treated wood.  The damn things are heavy and once home, I had to carry them to the backyard as well ... one at a time.  12' boards were going to give the the least wastage and this isn't enough to finish the job; it's just getting started.

My first project was replacing the decking on the crank hoist.  It's been treacherous as I have to step in just the right place for the boards not to flip out on me.  I use that to get to the back of the boat to attach the muffs to rinse the motor.  Once I got the old wood off, I realized that the triangular "arms" are just about rusted through in places.  I suppose that a permanent job would be to replace the entire thing but I wasn't prepared to do that yet.  It will hold out for a while and the wood will hold it together if the metal pieces do finish rusting through.  It won't precipitously fail ...

Of course even before that, I moved the miter saw to the dock along with many other tools.  I was going to be working on this in-place. 

When I got to the far side of the crank-hoist, the only way that I could get to it was from the back of the boat, so I lowered the boat to do the work.

The first time we were out in the boat I noticed that the voltage displayed on the gps/depth finder fluctuated from 12+ to 13+, which seemed odd.  My two Mercs run a steady 14.3.  My cars run 13.7.  Hopefully there was nothing wrong with the charging circuit !  The second time out in the boat the voltage was steady at 12+.  That's not good.  Basically it says that there is no charging.  By the time we were back, the voltage was about 12.3.  Not good.

So ... I'd swapped batteries, the new one in the front for the old one that was being used for cranking, and brought the old one inside the house.  Before that, I'd tried charging the old one and it wasn't charging.  Was that a symptom or the problem ? 

Once the boat was down in the water to work on the deck, I cranked up the motor ... it was steady at 13.something ... whew !  I hadn't really expected that I'd have to replace a battery right away but knew that the one at the cranking station was old -- he'd told me that ... and the one at the front was brand new.  Ok, we're good.  The one at the front is used for the trolling motor.  I can still use this one but will likely swap it for a brand new one or perhaps the one that's in the Hydra Sport now, which is older. 

Batteries batteries; I have more marine and/or starting 12v batteries than I can count, it seems.  Let's see -- one in the garage (new, destined for Hydra Sport), one in laundry room (the problem battery), one in Skiff, one at UPS upstairs, one in Hydra Sport.  That's five here in NSB.  Up north I have one for the Whaler, for the Bayliner and three in UPS's.  That's not counting the two for the 3&4-wheelers.  Of course I'm not counting the three cars, the DR trimmer, the alarm systems ...

Back to the deck.  Once I finished up the crank-hoist deck, I started on the main dock deck.  It takes more time getting the old boards up than it does putting a new one down.  The old ones are nailed down with big spikes and, at the edges, from the side as well.  Underneath the boards are sound but often the top edge of the board is pretty chewed up from all the nailing, so I'm side screwing pieces of wood in places to the existing wood so that I'll have something to screw to, so to speak.  It all takes time.

The boards are heavy and awkward but it's been good not having to piecemeal them in place.  Working from the far side, I only got about six or seven pieces in place by the end of the day and I'm just about at the point where I will have to start piecing.  Perhaps I could make another trip to HD and pick up a few 14' boards ... that's an option.  I wouldn't need very many of them and that section would be finished.  I'll look at that this morning before I get underway.  I've now used 9 of the 20 boards that I brought home. 

Supper ... Sandy prepared a great mixture of veggies, chicken, antipasto and other sauces.  It's unusual for us to eat that sort of thing; more like dining out !

Onward ... time to get Cassie up.