Christmas Cruise

We departed from Goole Boathouse in bright sunshine.  The snow fall from Boxing Day evening and Moonshine's icy decks had thankfully melted.

We ventured to Sykehouse Lift Bridge just an hour upstream of Goole.  The snow here had not melted, and extra care was taken whilst mooring up. Moonshine's new LED lighting proved to be a godsend using little battery power, and subsequently her new batteries and heater came into their own overnight as we awoke Sunday morning to another very keen frost.  

      

                                                                                                                                                          

 

A small job this last week was to make a kick guard for the port side aft seating backrest.  This was made from an offcut of Silvertex and incorporates a thin batten at the top to tuck down the seat back, and a heavier batten at the bottom to hold the fabric in place.  The old seat back had suffered a lot of scuff marks from shoes, and since we now have new upholstery this needs to be protected.  This has been made so it is removable and also the battens can be removed for cleaning if necessary.

 

 

This weekends short cruise has been a good test for the new engine mounts recently fitted, which will give us added confidence when we next venture tidal to Hull hopefully weather permitting in a few weeks time.

 

New Boat

The new Sunbrella canopy in Dune was fitted on Thursday.

Also the new Silvertex cockpit upholstery in Champagne was fitted.  It is hard when choosing a colour scheme based on small swatches of fabric, but we had a little help courtesy of photos from another Hardy Seawings 355 Ibis which is for sale at Essex Boatyard www.boats.co.uk. Moonshine's new look is in our opinion outstanding and we are really pleased with the finished job, the transformation is like us having a new boat...just don't mention the blue fenders, that subject is an air of contention at the moment!

 

A small job this last week was turning the void space under the forward bed into useable storage. The boards were painted, the void space carpeted out, a removable hatch lid made and the cushion covers were taken home and washed.  Perhaps things that we don't need to get at that frequently would be best suited for that part of the boat, as it means disturbing the bedding to get at it.

 

 

The out drive trim pumps have both been  refitted after removing them last weekend for stripping and repainting and new ATF  was put in the reservoirs after installation.

 

 

 

We only have 1 saloon door lock key on Moonshine, and that to obtain spares would be a sensible thing to do.  Therefore 3 Mobella key blanks were obtained from www.keytrader.co.uk . We didn't realise that our key was not the correct key and that a locksmith would not be able to cut from it.  Therefore the correct coded key was obtained from eBay after obtaining the key code from the inside of the door lock...top boat security I know, and had we known this we would have just purchased the full set from eBay originally. Anyway, the new key blanks look better quality than the new key, so now we can just take all of these to a local locksmith for them to cut. But talk about taking the long way around!

 

 

We have had Moonshine now for one full year as of the 21st December, and over the last year she has come on in leaps and bounds, I think her previous owners would hardly recognise her now.  Perhaps her original owners wouldn't recognise her at all since she was formally known as Premier Crew.

 

We have noticed that another Hardy Seawings 355 Porkys Revenge II that was for sale at the same time we bought Moonshine is at long last under offer http://www.plymouthyachts.co.uk.  She certainly has taken a long time to sell, a good 4 years we think.  It was from Porkys that we got the idea of installing a Lewmar size 1 Portlight in the mid ships cabin back in May to allow more natural light in.  Since all of the 355's had slight differences it is nice to improve on Moonshine using different ideas used on the other vessels Hardy built.    

We still have more jobs to do both mechanically and internally, but next weekend we intend to enjoy her since she is all 'ship shape' again, and are planning a little inland cruise but not sure where just yet.

Putting the pieces back together

We visited Moonshine on Thursday and refitted the lighting panels, refurbished vinyl trims and the newly powder coated aluminium trims.  The above photo does not do the aluminium trims justice as they look absolutely fantastic and raise the cockpit to that higher level visually speaking. Moonshine's original trademark turquoise trims have been replaced for black which will be better suited with the new colour scheme.  When we have time we will find the template out for the steering wheel cover and machine up a new one including the fish finder hood, as they too need a black stripe to replace for the turquoise.  Fingers crossed, the new canopy and cockpit upholstery will be fitted this coming week.

The old navy blue carpet has been disposed of since it is breaking down through constantly getting wet courtesy of Moonshine's leaky canopy.  A new black gel backed carpet was sourced from Calverts Carpets in York for £30, and cut to size.  Press studs have been fitted where necessary to secure the carpet to the floor, and the carpet has been designed so that it will not have to be removed to access the engines etc.  However, at the moment this new carpet has had to be stored while the cockpit is still getting wet...hopefully not for much longer.

Labels were recommended by the boat safety examiner earlier on in the year, and these were sourced from www.abbeysigns.co.uk in York for £14.

The engine oil and filters were changed on Friday, and the engines were also filled with new coolant to prepare her for the winter.  Filters sourced from www.inlinefilters.co.uk

Whilst in the engine room the out drive trim pumps were removed as the starboard pump was very rusty, caused by a leaking exhaust when we first took the boat over.  New exhaust rubbers were fitted last January to resolve that problem, the pump was still working ok, but now we have the time to refurbish it.  It will be cleaned up, flushed out, stripped and repainted.

Looking ahead, we have also booked Moonshine to be lifted out on the handstanding in March next year for 4 weeks for general maintainance.  We also hope to have her turbos either refurbished or replaced early next year, so hopefully when she is relaunched for Easter she will once again be on 'top form' and fly like a rocket! 

Mechanical Work

This week we purchased 4x R&D Supermounts from ASAP Supplies.  These were considerably cheaper and better isolating mounts than the previous Volvo ones.  As these new mounts were slightly lower in height, 2 sets of shims (4mm and 6mm) were made out of paxolin to increase the height should we need them. 

It is worth noting that ASAP Supplies will allow a generous discount for RYA members, alternatively it is still also worth requesting they apply a discount on large orders.

After a lot of fighting with old rusty/semi seized bolts (the raw water/sea water pumps had leaked on these prior to our ownership), the old mounts were removed, and the new mounts installed with the 6mm set of shims.

The last dregs of old coolant were drained, and the now clean header tanks were re-fitted with new stainless hose clips.  Since we were running out of time on Saturday, the 20litres of green coolant will be mixed next Thursday and the cooling system refilled.

Since owning her, Moonshine has had a persistent charging problem with the starboard engine back feeding,  with the charge light and alarm coming on on the port side.  Numerous hours of testing and swapping looms over, engine logic units over and bypassing the split charge diode one engine at a time, we have concluded that the split charge diode is faulty.  After a LOT of Internet searching and expecting to pay exorbitant amounts one was found at ASAP Supplies, 2 inputs and 3 battery banks 100amp rating, at a very reasonable price.  This needed sorting as we had disconnected the engine alarm buzzer on the port side, which in turn meant having to be vigilant in monitoring the engine gauges.  This will be fitted next week, as again we were running out of time on our Saturday visit.

We are still awaiting the final fitting of the cockpit canopy and new upholstery.  All the retrimmed cockpit panels have been returned to the boat for fitting next Thursday.  The wet bar lid which is made from a hard nylon has been refurbished.  The edges have been rounded by a router to match the other mouldings, and has been spray painted to a high gloss and now looks just like the surrounding white fibre glass. 

Bright Lights!

LED Lamps

This last week the brass coloured bezels for the cabin lights were stripped back and spray painted white.  The led lamps were then grafted into the existing lamp holders.

 

Saloon LED lighting

 

Brighter LED rope lighting

The saloon panels were refitted this weekend with the completed LED lighting.  The new lighting itself is considerably better than the old, with less battery drain.

 

Refurbished Duo Props

Last Monday Peter collected the refurbished duo props for the port outdrive from www.aewoodwards.co.uk.  So once again Moonshine visited the slipway at Goole Boathouse and the waders came in very useful yet again.  After a short test run out on the canal everything seems ok, however we still intend to purchase a new set of duo props for the start of the next seasons boating.

 

 

Engine mount/coolant and header tanks

The cosmetic side to Moonshine is nearly complete, however once again attention must be focused on the mechanics.  After our last tidal trip in October we discovered a worn engine mount.  The front of the port engine has been supported with wooden blocks and wedges to safely gain access to and remove the worn engine mount.  Now that this has been removed, this will enable us to accurately measure it to order a replacement.  Whilst this is being replaced it would be prudent to just replace all mounts on both engines.
The coolant needs to be changed for this coming winter, and by the looks of things this was in urgent need of replacing also.
The header tanks were also removed and taken home for a clean up.