Tempering the tantrums

I leave for the states on Monday, but we’ve been hard at work in Madrid…trying to micromanage some contractor work on the boat.  Neither one of us likes being micromanaged, but we’re trying to wrap our heads around how a project that was anticipated to take 2 hours has now ballooned into a project that is requiring a special order and will now take more than a day.  We tempered the tantrums after we remembering that this is the way it is on boats.  Sometimes.  Mostly when you don’t want it.  And when you feel a little time pressed.

We thought it would be great to have a contractor help with just a couple of items (to keep our costs low – we try to do most of the work ourselves) that would save us a bit of time – plus, they are pros, so things should be very well done, right? We wanted our new PSS seal to be installed – this involves removing the propeller shaft, and it was not something I wanted to tackle on my own (and it needs to be done before we relaunch, which will happen before Justin arrives).  Our contractor said, “no problem”, but this week, we had a message saying that the contractor felt like the shaft had quite a bit of electrolysis.  This was not good, but it’s not something that jumped out to us before, so our guards went up immediately.  We called to discuss, and were eventually swayed that the shaft needs to be replaced.  We approved the replacement, especially given the “approximate” dollar figure that the contractor gave (which wasn’t too bad).  We then found out that they had to cut the shaft because they had a stuck set screw from the split coupling, but in the meantime, Justin had been checking around to get other opinions on the project.  The opinions he heard loud and clear was that the contractor should not be using a slide hammer to remove the prop shaft (which is exactly what we had heard him say he would) because this will damage the thrust bearings in the gearbox.  Great.  What to do, other than call the contractor back again, and confirm that, yes, a slide hammer was used, but in the “3,000” prop shaft pulls he’s done, he has not had an issue.  We hope ours is not the first.  So, what to do except to give him something else to do while he’s messing around with the prop shaft that he’ll need to make sure is properly aligned?  We’re going to have him install our new engine mounts, too.

It’s possible that we’ve forgotten just how exciting boat projects can be.  I think I have suppressed some of the memories that are now reminding me of the headaches that we’ve had in the past.  For example, one time, Justin was sure that we needed to torque the heads on our engine because that was a proper thing to do to maintain the engine well (I do this sort of thing, too – read that we “should” be doing something to do it properly, but all that happens is that I properly screw it up).   We bought a torque wrench, and we rowed it on out to our boat at the time, Earendil, where we were living aboard on a mooring ball off the Coronado Bridge in San Diego.  I can’t quite remember if the setting was wrong or the wrench was the wrong one (some are in inch-pounds, some are in foot-pounds), but Justin torqued the head right off the first bolt he went at.  I assure you, it was exciting – being on a mooring, away from the dock without an engine and realizing how much fun it would be to drill out the bolt.  We did manage to put it right, but that 5 minute job ended up lasting a few days.  I can’t remember how many times a 5 minute project exploded into many, many, many more hours, but I suppose boats might just exist to remind you that there is no such word as “efficiency” on a boat.  Better to just hit the stumbling block, relax, open a beer and contemplate, perhaps?

We better make sure we have plenty of beer on the boat, I think.