Work Day on Pachuca

It's been a day of activity on Pachuca.

At 8.30 AM Noel arrived to start work on polishing the boat's stainless steel fittings.  Noel has been cultivating me for some work since my first day in La Paz.  Shortly before I departed for Seattle he volunteered to watch over my boat and twice telephoned me at Arnold's home to tell me that all was OK with Pachuca.  Call me a soft touch, but he is a nice man, raising a boy and girl, and can use the money.  He worked hard until noon and seemed to take pride in his work, with justification.  He will return tomorrow to finish the job and if his charge is OK (He quoted only 50 pesos which must mean that he misunderstood the scope of the job.) then I'll engage him to polish the hull after our return from cruising the islands.  I feel uncomfortable hirng people to do hack work that I've always done myelf but maybe it's time that I got used to it.

Old Controls Removed

Joel showed up at 9 AM for the serious work of installing the new Volvo engine controls.  Things went very well until the very end, which I'll explain later.  Before Joel arrived I removed the old controls and the teak facing in the cockpit, which revealed our first good break: the teak facing concealed only a round hold for the levers rather than a large open rectangle. This meant that we would not have to do any fiberglass filling.  I got Joel's OK to fill some holes with epoxy, given that it would take 2 or 3 hours before area would be cut.

Gear Cable (Actually a Steering Cable) That Failed

Joel used a jig saw to cut the required rectangle opening and by lunch the levers were in position for drilling and bolting down.  Joel was about to pull through the old gear shift cable and I suggested that he use it as a pull-through for the new cable.  He opened the door leading to the below cockpit area and looking at the wall of batteries realized immediately why we'd have no hope of threading the new cable by hand, so the pull through tactic it was.

Joel at Work with Jig Saw

We needed to be absolutely sure the direction of the gear lever movement for forward and reverse.  I telephoned Mark in Port Townend for advice and was told that he was expected back in 20 minutes.  Joel then made the obvious suggestion of simply starting the engine and see how the propeller moved in both gear position.  This worked fine, except that I forgot to give Joel my song and dance about having recently installed the alternator and maybe it should be double checked.  We started the engine for the first time since mid November and it ran fine, with no problem from the alternator.

Standard Volvo Single Lever Throttle and Gear Control

At the end of the day we were tantalizingly close to completion: the levers were bolted on, the cables were threaded through (the throttle cable was already in position from the old setup), and the throttle was connected.  Unfortunately I could not find a tiny connector by which the gear shift cable (which is identical to the throttle cable) is connected to the gear shift lever.  Annoying as this is, I'm not beating myself up too much over this because that material went through several hands before I stored it for future use. In the scheme of things I would not have noticed a tiny component for hooking up the gear cable.  Anyway, Joel hopes that he will find something suitable in his workshop tomorrow morning.