Eximius is on the Hard
It's time. Eximius needs a butt wipe and a check that all's well below the waterline.
Our plan was to Haul out at Playboy Marina in Dania, South Florida today, Jan 6th 2026 at 09:30am. Our buddy boat, Spruce Goose was scheduled to haul out immediately after us. We're both Members of the Hillsboro Inlet Sailing club and have helped each other several times in the past few years.
To get to Playboy for 09:30am, we needed to leave our dock at 06:30-06:40am so that we can make each of the bridge openings as we motored South to the Dania Cut. Mike (Spruce Goose) has two more bridges than us so he planed to leave his dock at 06:00 in order to make the 06:15 14th St Bridge opening.
It seems we both left our docks on schedule as we met up waiting for Commercial bridge to open at 07:00am, so the planning of the past few days worked out just fine.
We both motored through Commercial bridge, current was starting to flood against us but easily managed.
Shortly after passing the bridge, Peggy noted steam coming out of the exhaust and the engine temperature climbing over our usual less than 150º F and the exhaust was dry, not spitting the cooling raw water from the heat exchanger. This normally means we have picked up something into the Raw Water inlet or that the Raw Water Filter was blocked. We moved to the middle of the channel and shut down the engine so that I could check both of those possible issues.
With the engine off, I went down to the cabin and into the head. The water filter is in the cabinet under the head sink. I shut the Raw water thru hull and unscrewed the Raw water filter from it's housing. It had some debris, but not enough to stop flow.
Next I eased off the two hose clamps that secure the water filter hose to the Thru hull. I keep an 18" pipe snake nearby that cabinet, with the hose removed, I pushed the snake down into the tube of the Thru hull and then opened it. Some water came in, not a lot. I used the snake to clear any obstruction - AT LEAST - that's what I thought I had done.
After putting everything back together, Peggy re-started the engine. Still no wet exhaust! Grrr. It could be the Raw Water Pump Impellor.
AT this point I felt that the fix would take more time than I had just floating around in the ICW. So I went forwards and quickly dropped 40' of anchor and chain.
Then I quickly put my tools together to change out the impellor and pulled a new impellor out of my engine spares box.
Four screws and the Oberdorffer pump cover plate was off. The Impeller looked great! With the cover off, Peggy did a quick engine Start - n - Stop and I could see the impellor turning without issue. Again, I put everything back together and asked Peggy to restart the engine - again, Dry exhaust. Peggy asked if I would double check the Thru Hull. It only takes a few minutes, so I went through the process again spending a little more time trying to clear anything in the tube using the snake.
Ok, let's try again before calling for a Tow from Boat US ( we have the towing package ) .
Peggy restarted the engine which had dropped to around 150º F and we watched as the exhaust spat out a healthy amount of water. Cool ( sorry couldn't resist that Pun ). I hauled in the anchor and Peggy got us underway once more.
During all of this, Spruce goose kept going for the next timed bridge opening of Oakland Park Blvd Bridge and we agreed that he should take the first haul out time of 09:30am and I'll do my best to catch up. Had we needed a tow by Tow Boat US, they would not have had to stop waiting for the bridges, so we should have been able to get their on time.
We made all of the bridges but had lost a half hour. Mike pulled out at 09:30 and called us to let us know he was on the hard and blocked up. So we pushed the throttle and got to the Playboy haul out at 10:15 and the team and boat hoist were waiting for us.
Peggy has always had difficulty climbing over the front of the boat to get ashore, but the haul out team eased Eximius over to the Port side and Peggy was able to easily climb the gap.
With Peggy ashore, the Playboy crew moved the boat onto the hard and started pressure washing the boat below the waterline.
First thoughts - looking good!
The Ablative paint has ablated especially at the waterline, but no blisters, hardly any barnacles - that would be expected as the company ( Poseidon Marine Services ) only cleaned the hull less than two weeks ago - like every month.
I headed into the office to get the paperwork signed with Lisa the Office manager, we remembered each other from our past visits to Playboy - most of the crew seemed familiar.
Once the pressure washing was complete, they moved the boat to it's temporary home, blocked and lowered the boat on stands, each chained together, then the boat lift crew moved off with the lift.
Patagonia Marine Services ( Members of HISC ) got to work pretty much immediately. They quickly setup an access ladder on the Stbd side of the boat. Leandro stopped by and confirmed the work to be done. Peggy & I decided it was lunch time, after all, we had been on the go since 04:00 today.
Mike had arranged for his good friend, Joyce, would pick us all up at the boat yard and take us back to our boat docks where our trucks were waiting to take us home - it was already a long day.
Wednesday Morning, we stopped at Lowes to pickup some Zep Polish remover as we planned to apply Zep again before we splash after getting the bottom job complete. The we drove down to Playboy, it took about 40 minutes all told.
Down at the boat, we could see that Patagonia had completed the sanding of the hull below the water line and had already applied the first coat of paint - it was looking good.
Time to get started on the work that we planned to do.
#1: Investigate the Rudder Post packing gland. There's a chance that it's leaking - at least there was some water in the mini-bilge between the rudder post and the PSS shaft seal.
It was dry! no indication of any leakage from the rudder tube. Move that one off the list but make a note to look for another culprit for the water leak.
#2: Check the drain and exhaust hoses and connections. They are all about 38 years old. They all looked good except one. The Exhaust hose it attached with two hose clamps to the Thru Hull. One had broken, corroded, so it and it's buddy both need to be changed out. I have spares onboard. Should be an easy task but it's not. I'm not sure of the various levels of Boat Yogas but I'm pretty sure you have to be some kind of Master Yogi to be able to reach those clamps while almost upside down, barely any space to put your leges and at least 5 points of contact are required in order to be able to turn a nut driver in order to remove and replace those hose clamps.
#3; Adjust the Auto pilot Rudder Sending unit that is attached to the Rudder Quadrant underside. Another " Hey dude, see if you can get a wrench onto that link " worse, I installed it originally - check my blog articles. But I was a couple of years younger and had a little more bend in my back.
Lunch time:
#4: Install a cockpit light in the hole that was currently occupied by the, no longer functional, Auto Pilot Control unit on the Stbd side of the Cockpit - Easy job except the hole for the old unit is about 3" around - too big. I'll make a cover for the hole and install the new lamp in that cover.
#5: Clean out the Thru hulls for the head Sink, shower sump pump and the Engine Raw Water inlet.
Done - Woo Hoo! Cross that one off the list
We're done for the day.
Next day was time to polish the hull, the contractors had completed the sanding and application of the 1st coat of bottom paint.
We use the polish stripper to wash off the previous polish that we applied 2 years ago. Then, after several rinses, we started on the application of the hull polish. By the time we had completed 4 coats, we were both pooped! My Son turned up to give a hand, but we had done the heavy work. He was able to spend time assisting with the install of our new cockpit light. We got the wiring run from the Stbd aft side of the cockpit, around inside the transom and then forwards on the port side into the port side locker.
Saturday, we went straight to work applying a couple of coats to the port side and another to the starboard. While that was drying, I worked on completing the wire run from the aft locker, through the head shelving unit, into the cabin and down into the area of the electrical control panel.
That panel continues to cause nightmares, it's such a mess, I really will get around to reworking the entire control panel and all of the wiring. Soooon!
A few more coats of hull polish and we're heading home, there's a HISC Landlubbers party this afternoon and don't want to miss that.
Sunday. More polishing, but enough. I reinserted the depth transducer, re-connected the Raw Water strainer ( that's another project ) and cleaned up the exhaust muffler hoping that we can identify where the exhaust leak is occurring.
Took twenty minutes out to replace the Heat Exchanger Zinc.
Definitely needed the change out. I'm guessing that our new dock located in more salty water is the cause.
I did peel off the label from the new zinc.
New zincs are on my list from the marine store.
That's it for today at the yard.
Looks pretty good. The panel completely covers the old hole from the Original Raymarine Autopilot control unit.
I should be able to install it tomorrow - Monday.
And, the result of this:
Ok, folks, that's the 2026 Haul out wrapped up. We splash on Tuesday at 09:30, stopping by the 15th St Pumpout facility once we pass the 17th St Causeway bridge, then it's back to our dock. We'll finish off a couple of jobs at the dock on Wednesday, then, who knows? Perhaps we'll get out on the water for a couple of nights.
See you out there.
