Back to the dock from the Haul out 2026

Getting Eximius back to the dock from Playboy Marine.

Despite the drizzling rain, and delay due to a train stopped on the tracks at Griffin Road, we arrived at Playboy Marine around 08:45 for a 09:30 splash time.

The Boat lift team were keeping the machine's engine cool as it was suffering an overheating issue. They had splashed a very heavy Diesel Fuel barge first thing that morning and that only made the overheating a bigger issue. They were confident that we would splash but perhaps not on time.

They raised Eximius off of the blocks so that the Patagonia team could complete the Anti-Foul paint on the underside of the keel and then left the boat hanging in the straps for about a half hour allowing the paint to dry before splashing.

Well, that all went well, we finally splashed around 10am. While hanging in the slings, I boarded the boat and verified no leaks, so they dropped the aft most sling and gave the instruction for us to reverse out of the slip. Easy peasy.

Once out of the slip, we turned East and headed down the Dania Cut then North towards 17th Street Causeway bridge, we were headed for the Pump-out facility on 14th Street.  We made a perfect 180º turn in the canal to go alongside the pump out jetty Port Side too.  Nobody to watch, that's how it is.

We connected up the pump out hose and activated the pump. Nuttin! We ran the pump twice but the tank level indicator stuck at 1/2 full. So we're figuring that there was either a blockage or a leak in the hose connection. We decided that we would go out 3miles next week for a dump run.

Perfect departure from the Jetty, we sprang the bow out and easily cleared the dock. At the East end of the canal, we turned North and joined the Intracoastal waterway ( ICW ) then onwards to Los Olas Blvd Bridge.

We were expecting the bridge to be under maintenance and that only 1 span would open as per the NM notice a week ago.  The bridge was fully open.

With the pedal down, we made it to Sunrise Blvd Bridge, Oakland Park Blvd Bridge and Commercial Blvd Bridge. 

Once past Commercial, we heard a Security notice on #09 that there was a Barge blocking the canal where we dock.  By the time we got to the canal, the barge had left and we docked without incident.

We were Pooped! This has been a long week, commuting daily to Playboy and working pretty long days. So we quickly secured the boat and headed home.

Before we left Playboy, we did notice how much of the Blue dust was laying on the boat, but by the time we got back to the dock, most of that surface layer of dust and airport grime had washed off ( the air port is about a 1/4 mile from Playboy ).

Nothing broke on the trip back to the dock - this is a good day.

Total cost for the stay at playboy and the work on the hull was under $4,000, plus a few incidentals - hull polish, cleaning cloths etc.  That leaves some money that we budgeted for the Haul out left for a few other projects - any excuse!

See you on the water.

note.Engine Electrical Harness Revisited

The Engine Electrical Harness

I'm in the process of replacing the Engine Alternator External Regulator. The existing regulated is a dumb backup from the previous system, the new Regulator is a Balmar Max Charge MC-618-H

I'm playing with the idea of keeping the old regulator and all of it's wiring to serve as a backup if the New Regulator fails ( it won't be 'new' for long :)  )

However, a supplemental reason: I'm planning on replacing our 'House' batteries. Currently we have 4 x Trojan T105 225ah 6v Batteries with a total usable 12v of 225Ah( 50% of 450Ah ). The replacement will be a 300Ah 12v LiFePo4 battery which has a usable capacity of 90% or 270Ah at 12v. (Note, the 225Ah  of the current Flooded Lead Acid Batteries is  actually much less because the voltage of the batteries drop significantly as the remaining capacity drops)

Therefore, the Regulator must have a choice of "Lithium" Charging Profile and that means that the backup regulator must also have a "Lithium" option.

With that clearly in mind, I need to address the issue of switching over from the Primary External Regulator to the Backup External Regulator ( using an internal regulator is not an option for the safe operation of LiFePo4 Batteries)

If the backup Regulator was the same as the Primary, the switch over process could be as simple as moving each of the terminal connections from the Primary to the Backup - the Backup being already programmed to the same settings.

There's more complex ways to manage the switch from Primary to Backup regulator, but it's just not worth the effort. I figure that switching over the regulators would take all of 3 or 4 minutes and having to make any moves inside of the engine bay would take a lot more time and involve a lot more steps.

Ok, decision made. I'll remove the old regulator.

All that leaves is the method of connecting in the New Regulator to the Alternator, here's another crest to overcome.

When I rebuilt the engine harness in 2016, was it really that long ago? Yep! Six years ago, there's been a lot of water under the keel since then. Well, in 2016, I built a really nice engine harness and nicely labeled the wires in the engine bay, including transparent heat shrink tubing. Guess what! The labels are unreadable today! Six years being close to the engine heat and dust have made it impossible to even guess what the labels read. 

The original ( to us ) engine harness was wired to a 'chocolate block' type terminal block. The terminations were not done well, the wires were burnt, not the correct colors nor sizes. The new engine harness wires were contiguous from the Engine Control panel to as close to the engine that I could get them, in some cases they went directly to the Alternator.

Now I realize the benefit of a terminal block in the engine bay. The most likely area of wiring failure is very close to the engine, especially for the smaller gauge wires. So I'm going to install a terminal block.

Each wire will be correctly terminated with heat shrink tubing and I'll have a printed image of the terminal block so that wire recognition will be easy.

Then I'll run wires from the terminal block to there destination. That should result in a very clear, clean and with protection from the Vibrating Engine.

OK, decisions made. Now to draw up the wiring schematic.

With the diagram completed, it pretty much matches the diagram from Balmar except that I only show the two connections to the plug on the back of the Alternator, because - I did make the connections for the Internal Regulator. I will add a backup external regulator to use if ever the Balmar fails.

The install went pretty smoothly. The Balmar is installed where the old one was located.

The Wiring harness runs through a grommeted hole in the shelf into the engine bay and is secured to the engine bay aft bulkhead ( I know, there's not really a bulkhead, except on the port side there's a 2" corner of the port side bulkhead.) It's secured with a couple of tiewraps.

The cables for the Battery Temperature Sensor and Battery Voltage Sense were easy to run. The remaining wires are on a terminal block ( I have updated the terminal block in the diagram) 

This has been in place now for two years, working perfectly.

See you on the water.

Deck Leak by a Stanchion

We found a leak at the base of a deck Stanchion

Peggy noticed that one of the Port Side Stanchions on our Catalina 34 was 'wobbly', I checked and it was beyond 'wobbly' it was being held in place by the lifelines, the deck screws were loose! 

Checking out the cabinet above the Nav Table, I found signs of a leak from beneath the stanchion. I'm not surprised as I'm pretty sure the PO had done some deck repairs in that area.

Step 1. Seal the area to stop further leakage. That involved just simply covering the rim of the stanchion base and the screws with Butyl Tape while I figured out a plan on fixing this.

Checking the deck surface, there was no sign of any soft deck in the area.

Of course, any boat owner has nightmares about the 'soft deck' issue especially on a 38 year old boat, but we have taken care of Eximius and regularly look for issues before they become nightmares.

The plan:

Regular readers of my blog know that I always start with a plan, I kinda obsess about it for a while until I have the plan written down ( the source of most of my blog posts. )

• Remove the stanchion 
• Remove the screws and the backing plate
• Clean up the underside of the deck and determine the extend of the damage.

Well this was a surprise!

The area around that stanchion has a very thin layer of plywood undercovered with a single layer of fiberglass matting. That's it.

To say it was originally a nasty piece of work is an understatement! There's pieces of glue from the original sealing of the top deck to the hull.

In this picture, the camera is looking up, the nut shown in the top right is actually one of the hull to deck bolts.

Accessing this area is not easy when the Nav Table and the cabinets are installed, it would not be easy even then, but Grrrr!

I was able to clean up the entire area using sand paper, scrapers and Acetone. It's still not pretty but I should be able to reinforce the area.

With the threat of rains, we are in SoFla so that's always a threat, I needed to protect the area from on the deck.

I sanded down the area on top of the deck and prepared to repair the hairline cracks around the edge of the toe rail and deck. I also applied some gelcoat to the surface of the scupper which is just a few inches aft of the stanchion base, I'll have to apply at least three coats of gelcoat ( Thanks for a quick delivery Jamestown Distributors ).

After a first coat of Gel Coat a I used Butyl tape to cover the 5 holes in the deck. The larger hole is for the Air Vent in the base of the stanchion which is used to vent the holding tank.

Note those little dings in the lower left of this picture. That's signs of the previous repair by the PO.

Now the chance of rain getting in was pretty well eliminated for the short term.

Continue with the plan

• Make a fiberglass backing plate larger than the stainless steel backing plate, 
• Glue with resin to the underside of the deck and let it cure
• Redrill the holes
• Apply Butyl tape all around the top of the deck where the stanchion mounts
• Re-mount the stanchion with shorter bolts ( so that I can use a socket to tighten them ).
• Secure the SS backing plate in place and torque down the stanchion. All done.

• With the Fiberglass panel in place, next was Drill through from the topside
• 
  
  
   I marked the location of the new holes which would put the base plate of the stanchion about 1/8" from the corner of the toe rail and deck. I'm hoping that this will allow deck water to run behind the plate rather than build up until it's the height / depth of the plate.

Did my best to drill the new holes vertical but didn't quite make it. The SS backing plate would not align with the bolts in the holes, just couldn't get all four bolts to ling up.

Ended up oversize drilling of the holes by 1/16" and that worked.

Had to cover the area with additional Butyl tape in order to keep it all water tight while I drilled out the backing plate.

Back the next morning and it took another hour to get everything aligned and all of the nuts and spring washers in place

Finally tightened down on the nuts while keeping the heads of the bolts stationary, between Peggy & I, we managed to get all of the bolts tight. Lots of the Butyl tape squeezed out from under the Stanchion plate and the Stanchion was now really firm.

I'll go back to the boat on Saturday to re-tighten the nuts and trim off the rest of the Butyl tape. Moving the Stanchion base that 1/8" off the toe rail has left a groove of close to an 1/8' inch.

Also reconnected the holding tank vent pipe to the underside of the Stanchion base vent connection.

Result so far, very pleased! That area should not suffer any leaks for a good while or two.

While at the boat, I replaced the Water Separator Fuel Filter, cleaned out the Raw Water Strainer and checked the Raw Water supply thru hull. All's clear.

Updated the Service history spread sheet.

Brought my repair tools home.

See you on the water this weekend.

Paul

2026 Haul Out

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.

Back at home, I drilled out the new Cockpit Lighting Panel to house a switch.

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.

Replacing Catalina 34 Diesel Fuel Tank. part 3

We have our new Tank

Roland from Carr Enterprises called on Monday advising that our tank should be ready on Wednesday Morning, so we booked a hotel in St. Pete FL for Wednesday night - it's a 4.5hour drive from our house.

Tuesday, he called again, confirming it's ready.

We headed out of the house at 8am, stopped to fill up gas and sandwiches then on the road. We arrived at his business address around 2:15. The new tank was waiting on a dolly and sure looked good!

The old tank is bare Aluminum, the new tank is painted with Black Epoxy. The welds on the new tank are really good. The tank was pressure tested to 4psi.

Note the Earthing strap on the aft top end of the new tank is much beefier than the old tank.

Also, the vent outlet on the new tank is a brass elbow fitting compared to the old tank with it's bent vent tube.

Everything about the new tank is an upgrade. Really pleased.

Today I'm going down to the boat and a final cleaning of the Inside of the hull, remove the old fuel hose ( to replace it as the old is probably infected with diesel bug).

I stopped at ACE Hardware and purchased the fittings to connect the new tank to the originals. Basically two 3/8" to 1/4" brass connectors. Took about 10 minutes to find them but all's good, they are ready to install.

I'll be able to install the tank on Monday. WM did not have the new fuel hose in stock, but it is available online. I'll order that 3/8" hose and the new propane connecting hose for the other project in progress right now.

All of the new fittings are installed using PTFE tape.

Right now the tank is ready to install. Not difficult, I anticipate going to the Boat on Monday morning to do the install.

I do want to put a strap to hold the aft end of the tank down to the supporting shelf, the front end has a mounting brace should be easy using a right angled electric screw driver.

About Carr Enterprises

From the outset - I'm not sponsored in any way by Roland or Carr Enterprises - I typically review the companies that I use in regard to projects on Eximius.

We had the option to ship the new tank from St. Petersburg Florida to our home in Margate Florida or drive over there, about a four and half hour drive. Shipping would be cheaper because I'm 76 and did not look forward to driving there and back in one day so the journey had to include an overnight and that was about $300 and we had used up a lot of our travel points during our trip to see our granddaughter's skating event, so this was an actual expense. But it also had the benefit of giving us a date night in St. Pete, worth it!

Ok, back to Carr Enterprises. The business was actually much bigger than I expected. Looking at Google Maps and digging into the location, I thought it was going to be a small Mom-n-Pop business. I got that wrong!  The facade does not give a clue about what is inside. 

They have several machines about this size that can do all sorts of metalwork, mostly on aluminum but also Stainless Steel, our tank was a small job for them. Their welding area can handle it all. 

While Roland gave me the tour, he showed several tanks that were being made for the Coast Guard, they did not have tops on the tanks. Apparently, the CG have to inspect the tanks prior to them being closed up. They pressure test all of the tanks to ensure no leaks - pretty important!

The employees all seemed to be busy and that is a good sign in today's environment.

Roland was really helpful when it came to the design of our tank. I provided the dimensions and he spotted a mistake which I checked and corrected. He also commented on some features such as the Diesel Return tube is best if it runs to the bottom of the tank ( our old tank had no tube in the Diesel Return fitting ) as this would reduce aeration of the fuel, that sounds good to me. Also the grounding wire connections would be more substantial ( our old tank had skinny grounding tabs), again this sounded good. Roland also asked me to confirm the sizes of the hose connections. I did, they were correct and he would ensure the new tank had the same size connections which would ensure we did not have to make any adjustments on the boat.  

Finally, Roland suggested I consider the Black Epoxy coating ( after an acid wash ) for the entire tank. I would like to think that the boat will last for another 38 years then I think the extra tank protection is worth it, even if I would hit the 100 trip around the sun before then. So I went with the Epoxy coating.

The tank is made from 1/8" ( 0.125" ) aluminum.

I'll hold off posting this till the tank is installed. 

The label is on the top of the tank, I'm hoping I never get to see that label again and took the photo just so that I do not have to remove the tank in order to see that label.

One thing that Roland did advise was that the Return hose connection is normally 3/8" ID but Eximius has a 1/4" ID hose connection, and that I would need to get an adaptor. I did, a quick visit to ACE Hardware provided me the exact item. Here it is installed.

The quality of the tank looks to be excellent. Roland did say that he used to make a lot of tanks for Catalina Yachts, but not anymore. We all know why! ( Catalina Yachts is effectively history at this point - but perhaps that will change )

I'm very impressed by the facility and the people that work there. Roland told me that he makes tanks for all types of businesses as well as for the Marine industry. My experience with him and Carr Enterprises has been outstanding.

The tank included a new Fuel Sending unit. I'm not sure if it will calibrate to our existing fuel gauge on the engine control panel, so I'll add the first few gallons of fuel to the new, empty tank, gradually so that we know how many gallons are left in the tank when the gauge stops indicating 'E' ( empty ) and we'll also note the volume of fuel added at each step on the fuel gauge.

One difference that I'm going to implement on the new tank is the provision of a Terminal block for the fuel sender wiring. At present, I have to cut the wiring in order to remove the tank. Again, I hope never to have to remove the tank again, but if I do, then I would rather not cut the wires. So a simple terminal block with ring terminals on each of the two wires will avoid that.

The wiring is simple.

Fuel sender has two wires: Black - Ground and White - Positive for the fuel gauge.

The terminal block is held to the side of the tank by 3M VHB Double sided tape. 

The new hose for the fuel tank to the fuel filter / water separator has not arrived yet. But I was able to complete the wiring for the fuel sender / gauge connection. The Terminal block is mounted to the top of the tank with some 3M VHB double sided tape. Worked great and there is sufficient room above the terminal block to be able to use a stubby screw driver to reach the terminal block connecting screws.

Cross that one off the list.

The new hose should arrive on the 17/18th. Finger crossed they (WM shipper ) don't lose this one too.

Finally got the hose and installed it, well, on the tank end! The hose clamps had not arrived yet. But they did arrive on Sunday, so we're good to go for the final part on Monday.

Attach the new hose with the new hose clamps then start to pour fuel into the tank from 5 gallon cans. I'll put a gallon in then turn on the engine system so that the fuel pump works, we should see fuel enter the bottom of the fuel filter/water separator. Then we'll monitor the fuel gauge as we add more fuel. 

First Fill

New hose clamps installed, check tightened all of the hose fittings.

Turn the engine control system on and heard the fuel pump running. 

Watching the fuel gauge, I poured the first 5 gallons into the tank, the gauge barely moved off of Empty. Added a 2nd 5 gallons, as I poured it in, the fuel gauge moved up to almost the 1/4 Full mark.

While doing this I kept a watch on the water separation cup on the bottom of the Fuel Filter/Water Separation unit = nuttin! Let it run for a few minutes - nuttin! Duh! Turned the fuel cock to on at the top of the new fuel tank. Fuel quickly filled the filter unit.

I let the fuel pump run for 20 minutes, that should be plenty of time to bleed any air out of the fuel system. Next it was time to start the engine. It started 1st time. I let it run for another 20 minutes and it did without any issues. Shut everything down - done for the day. Back tomorrow to work on the Propane system completion.

At this point I feel confident that the updated fuel system is good to go. We'll add more fuel this week and keep track of the fuel level gauge status as we fill it.

NEXT DAY.

While down at the boat today, I ran the engine again for another 30 mins. All's good. Still need to add more fuel but for now I can mark this in the Done Column.

See you on the water. 

Paul

Fixing our Propane Hose!

Replacing our Propane Tank Hose.

The broken hose is really just an indicator of the health of our Propane System, so we decided to fix it.

Step one is to remove the Propane Tank Containers. Ours consists of two large GFP tubes to house the tanks and a third PVC tube that houses the Regulator and the Solenoid.

There's several butt joints in the Solenoid wiring inside that third tube and readers will know I detest multiple electrical wiring butt joints.

The 3rd tube is held onto the two larger tubes with 2 large stainless Steel hose clamps, but as I could not remove the regulator and solenoid without cutting the solenoid wires, I elected to remove the entire assembly.

• Remove the 9lb Propane tanks ( one was empty curtesy of the broken hose fitting ) 
• Cut the wires to the Solenoid inside the 3rd tube.
• Unscrew the 4 nuts on the lower mountings where they attach to the lower rail of the sternrail .
• Unscrew the 4 nuts that secure the stainless steel U bolts to the top rail and lift way the entire assembly.

Took a total of about an hour, most of that time was trying to keep a balance while holding the wrench and the fittings not wanting to drop anything in the water.

There's a lot less hardware on the stern now. I'll refinish the tubes and put it all back, cleaning the sternrail first.

Maybe it's me, but it sure seems that it's getting more uncomfortable moving around on the boat.

Not sure if you can see it, but the Swim ladder needs new steps, lower down on the priority list but they will get some TLC in the spring.

Upcoming projects:-

• Remove the broken Radar Reflector ( on the mast ) 
• Replace the Standing Rigging.
• Refit the Propane system ( with new hoses )
• New Dodger/Bimini and Bridge piece

Ok, with the tanks at home, it's time to refinish the containers.

I sanded down the containers with 80 grit and cleaned them with soapy water and then Acetone.

They look awful! But not very different than when they came off of the boat.

I decided to use Petite EZ-Poxy Modern Polyurethane Topside Paint, Med White.

It takes about 16 hours till re-coat time.

They are looking good after just one coat but I'll apply a second coat Saturday afternoon.

Still contemplating whether to paint the 3rd tube that contains the Regulator and the Solenoid.

Gave up trying to clean the PVC small tube, 1st coat of the Polyurethane is done as well as the 2nd coat on the larger tubes.

They are looking good, may not need additional coats.

Ok, now for the bigger issue!

When I removed the Regulator, Solenoid, and Pressure gauge from the smaller tube, I was surprised by the connection route. The Hose from the Propane tank was connected to the pressure gauge then the Regulator and then the Solenoid. The output from the solenoid is the supply line for the propane cooker in the cabin.

I thought that was wrong, so researched it ( yep, googled it ) and their does not appear to be an across the board correct route. However, google AI does suggest the best location is in the high pressure section of the plumbing. ie. closest to the tank connection.

So, I'm replumbing my setup so that route is: Propane Tank - Solenoid - Regulator - Pressure Gauge - Output to System. This would allow me to turn the gas off before the regulator so the gas flow is prevented closest to the tank within the restrictions that exist without exposing unnecessary hoses to possible damage from contact with other rigging on the boat, Lines, Fenders, etc. 

The plan is looking good. West Marine has advised that the new hose ( tank to solenoid ) is awaiting pickup and I have figured out what adapters I need to get from the local hardware store ( ACE ). I have my work set for this morning.

Ok, the propane system refurbishment is done.

Here's a pic of the modified Propane system before fitting into the Propane Housings.

It took 5 trips to the local ACE Hardware before the job was finished. Note the shiny new fittings. The old fittings were not compatible with the new layout ( the old had the gas flow from the top to the bottom. That's a new Regulator and new Solenoid and all new fittings except the lower T.

All ready for install on the boat.

The smaller tube houses the Propane control components. The refinished mounting looks a whole lot better.

I bolted the smaller tube to the large ones and eliminated the huge Stainless steel hose clamps that previously secured them together.

The whole system is temporarily mounted on a couple of pieces of 1" tubbing just to make sure everything fits.

I had a short piece of stainless steel 1" tubing but only one, so I used a piece of PVC tubing for the lower rail.

This worked out really well, enabling transporting the entire setup down to the boat.

At the boat it was pretty easy to remove the tubes and remount the assembly onto the rails over the transom.

Only one hitch - because the outlet of the tank system is now at the top of that lower, 3rd, tube, the hose from the boat to the cannisters is too short. 

I checked the routing of the hose inside of the aft lazarette, but it was originally installed pretty tight, no slack at all. So I'm just going to add an extra hose extension on the outside between the top of the boat and the connection at the tank assembly. EZ solution.

The new hose should arrive on Monday, we'll be down at the boat finishing off the Fuel tank project. So looks like we'll go to the boat both Monday to finish the fuel tank project and Tuesday to finish off the Propane project.   Knocking them out !

Of course, the next project is sitting on my work tables in the garage - new Standing Rigging.

Gotta keep busy, doing my stuff and work that brings in some money to help pay for all of this.

I'll post this on Tuesday, hopefully to report that the Propane system project is complete.

Quick update

Took the new hose to the boat this morning, totally screwed that up, neither end fits but not worth the cost of the return. I'll give it to the club's flea market in January.

Looking at it carefully ( always a good idea ) I realized I only needed to use a 6" nipple to the hose fittings on the exterior connection.  A short drive to ACE hardware and the helpful folks found a solution. Back to the boat and five minutes of boat yoga later, all done. Only thing left to do is put the Propane tanks in their holders and leak check. I'll go back to the boat in a couple of days to install the propane cannisters and complete a leak test before signing off on this project.

Stay tuned - I'll report the completion on this post.

See you on the water.

 

Replacing the Standing Rigging on our Catalina 34 Sailboat

Replacing the Standing Rigging.  ( Part 1 )

Our biggest job on Eximius in the ten plus years we have owned her.

Eximius is insured by Geico - BoatUS and the policy is due to be renewed in May of 2026, they sent us a letter advising that we needed to have a Survey done before the renewal.  Our plan is to have the boat out for it's semi annual bottom refinish during a haul out in January 2026, so it sounds like a good time to get the Survey done, if not during the haul out then at least shortly after.

The Standing Rigging was inspected two years ago but has not been changed out during our ownership, and most rigging companies seem to suggest that standing rigging should be replaced around the 10th year. Our rigging still looks good but more on that later.

Having made the decision to replace the rigging, my first quote was from a local rigging company, they are 'the' company in South Florida, we had them do the inspection two years ago and we have purchased several running rigging products in the last 10 years, including replacement blocks for our halyards and reefing lines just a few months ago. Their quote was over $15,000. That did include un-stepping the mast, replacing the standing rigging, re-stepping the mast and tuning the rigging. The only additional cost would be the storage of the mast at the marina while the work was being done.

My next option to consider was Synthetic rigging which I really like. I have replaced all of the lifelines on Eximius with Dyneema, that was in 2017 - Eight years ago and they are still holding up. That was a full DIY job and was definitely not an expensive option.  The Quote from the Synthetic rigging company was for a DIY job but they would supply all of the rigging materials. That was just over $6,000 and quite honestly, I was sorely tempted to go that route. Among other things, we could carry a complete set of the standing rigging as spares and barely hit the total weight of the Stainless rigging.

Then I looked up the cost of a DIY job using replacement rigging from Catalina Direct - Wow!

The entire project was going to cost less than $4,000 including tax and shipping.

So, I spoke with Kevin at Catalina Direct to confirm I had put all of the bits needed into my cart at https://www.catalinadirect.com Then completed the order. The initial shipping for the order was $12, but I knew that was not the final number, it turned out to be $175. That brought the cost to $3,986.87. 

I placed the order on 12/10/2025 and it arrived this morning, Friday Dec 19th. WooHoo!

Time to plan the work.

Step 1: Check the inventory.

The order came in two boxes. I was impressed by the UPS driver whom did not seem to break a sweat bringing them to my door. Awkward to carry and quite heavy.

The contents were very well packaged and padded with both scrunched paper and bio-degradable chips. 

Each set of shrouds was packed inside of Large Ziplock bags and the smaller components inside an additional smaller zip lock bag.

Some of the shrouds were held together with plastic tie wraps but some were not. I was concerned about taking them out of the bags and not being able to get them back in. So I opened the bags and put my own tie wraps on the wires to stop them springing out of control when I pulled them out of the bags.

I took photos of each bag before unwrapping them in order to check that each had the correct kit of pieces - Turnbuckles, T-Bolts, Compression Fittings, etc.

Everything was fine except the Forestay package. The kit should have included a  compression fitting for the top of the stay, but instead, there was a small T-bolt fitting. Thank goodness it was not a wrong shroud.

I called Kevin at Catalina Direct, he asked me to take pictures of the kit and send them. I already had the pics so I sent them while he was on the phone. 

The good news is that the Forestay is the last item on the plan for the Standing rigging job. So a few days waiting for the shipment of the correct fitting is no big deal at all.  It does prove that it's always worth checking the received items as soon as possible when an order arrives.

Ok, moving on.

The instructions for making the Compression fittings are pretty clear - Here's a link to the instructions.

Basically, I have to remove the shroud/stay, lay it on the dock alongside the new wire and fittings. Cut the new wire to fit and make up the compression fitting.

Generally, the plan is to replace one shroud/stay at a time. 

• Secure the mast with an extra line from the mast head to the deck 
• Ease the Turnbuckle at the foot of the shroud/stay 
• Climb the mast and release the shroud then lower it to the deck, descend back to the deck 
• Disconnect the lower end of the shroud to the chainplate.
• Lay the shroud/stay on the dock and mark the new one to the correct length
• Cut the new shroud/stay and make up the compression fitting
• Ascend the mast and hoist the new shroud/stay and replace it
• Back on deck tighten the shroud.

I have a Spinlock Rig Sense tensioner, so I'll take note the tension before removing the old and after installing the new.

To climb the mast I'll be using our 'Mast Mate' mast climbing ladder which should speed things a lot compared to having to use ascenders to climb the mast.

It might work out that the lower shrouds can be replaced in pairs but I don't think I'll risk changing out both mast head shrouds at the same time. So the job will involve as many  as 7 trips up the mast not including the forestay, so perhaps eight all together.

That's the plan. I hope Peggy will be on hand to man the safety winch line and to take pictures and videos.

We're planning on a trip to Lake Boca for the New Year's Eve cruise, so more important is to complete the Diesel Fuel Tank install.  Waiting on some hose clamps, should arrive today  ( 12/20/2025), but I have some I could use temporarily if the new ones are late. So I should be able to complete the fuel tank on Monday 12/22. Just need to get the Diesel cans full and finish the job.

Part two of this post should be the start of the re-rigging. Tuesday??

See you on the water.

UPDATE - December 22 2025

While down at the boat working on the other couple of projects, I pulled the mainsail off of the mast and left it tucked inside the Cradle Cover ( stack pack ) with the intent of raising the Mast Mate.

Snag! The Mast Mate was used and the original buyers must have selected a skinny sail slug set, much too narrow for our Catalina 34. Checking with the Mast Mate company online, I found the correct sails slugs for our mast, they should be here within a week.

Minor delay, and we do have Christmas to get past.

Stay tuned as always.

I welcome you comments.

Still planning to see  you on the water ( for the new year's eve cruise )

Here's the link to the next part of this project.

Paul