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I can confirm that the RV-26 I have gets warm to the touch even with cooling water running through it. I assume that it is because the new engine I have puts out a lot more power and therefore runs the V-drive harder. Walter’s specs say that 75hp (diesel) is close to the limit that an RV-26 will handle. When asked about running the RV-20 dry in the past, they have claimed that it can’t be done, but experience has shown that with care it is possible with some engine configurations. If you run it dry, I suggest a temperature alarm on the V-drive to warn you before it goes up in smoke.
When my RV-26 eventually has problems, I plan to send it back to Walter to have the cases replaced and a rebuild done. I rebuilt my old RV-20 once and don’t want to do it again. It was a bear to get the torque settings correct.
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Rich Carter
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Linus
It is rust. It’s hard to believe that iron could expand that much, but it does. I assume that it combines with the salt in seawater to make up some of the mass. You are correct in your assumption that the V-drive fails from corrosion and not wear. The replacement unit I bought has an oil cooler inside the cooling jacket, so it will clog more easily and be more difficult to clean. Cleaning is on my to-do list, but I may not get to it this year.—
Rich Carter
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Alan
The SGC-2000 is a fine radio for its intended use. It has several
weaknesses that could be improved. The power-talk model (with Digital
Signal Processing) solves some of these. You can tell if you have the
power-talk model because it has a large dial on the frontpanel. The
standard model doesn’t have the knob, so it has no tuning knob. Without the
tuning knob, it is very awkward to use in the ham bands. You have to tune
the radio by punching in the frequency directly or using the up/down button.
The radio lacks some features that would be considered bare necessities for
a ham rig such as RF gain adjustment. The receiver sensitivity is not very
good, but it is OK. It has a high noise floor. Without the DSP power-talk
head, the radio has no filters, so it is hard to hear a weak signal. I
bought a power-talk head at a flea-market a few years back and swapped it
out so my radio has the DSP unit.The antnna tuner is very good. If you chose to replace the radio, I suggest
that you keep the antenna tuner.Rich
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Odd. Mine are all exactly the same. Then again, Pearson never made two the same.
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Rich Carter
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Alan
Do you need tips for how to buff scratches out?—
Rich Carter
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The pin in the middle is likely a modification done by a previous owner.
See https://www.pearson424.org/plumbing/tt-cockpitdraingclog.html—
Rich Carter
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John
The coupler is worth keeping. I would also suggest keeping the radio and adding a decent ham rig. The marine radio would be used for the marine bands and the amateur radio would be used for everything else including reception of wefax. The coupler should be usable with the second radio if you add an ICOM such as an IC-706.If you want someone to look at the radio and see if it is serviceable or worth repairing, send it to me. I don’t charge for this kind of thing, but you’ll have to pay for shipping in both directions.
If you chose to add a second radio, there are an lot of options available. The most cost effective way to do this is to buy a used ICOM IC-706 on ebay (approx $400). If you want to remove the marine rig and replace it with a ham rig, I would suggest getting something that is stable enough to use on the marine bands. If the coupler you have still works, a replacement ICOM makes sense. It would be difficult to find a used 706 with a high-stability oscillator (pn CR-282). You would probably have to buy this new and add it. Contact your local ham radio dealer to ask them if this fits the radio you plan to purchase. You should be aware that you are on shaky legal ground using an amateur rig on the marine bands, but I know a lot of folks who do this.
Here’s a link to a free SGC publication that has lots of information about mounting SSB radios on boats.
http://www.sgcworld.com/Publications/Books/hfguidebook.pdf—
Rich Carter
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As John said, this is a little like religion. I’ve owned a few dozen HF radios over the years. One of my hobbies is restoring them. Each have advantages, receiver performance, ease of use, filters, band coverage, operator interface, frequency stability, and optional features. None of the marine radios that I’ve owned or seen can compete with a good HAM radio, but HAM radios are not type-approved for use on the marine bands. There are some marine radios that are type-approved for amateur use, but this is not the same thing. I keep two HF rigs on the boat, and ICOM-706 and an SGC-2000. The 706 is a decent radio, but is not outstanding. You can buy a good used one for about $400. The SGC works OK on the marine bands, but is really not a very good radio. The matching tuner is nice however. Some folks use their amateur radio on the marine bands. This is technically illegal, though some amateur radios have stability specs that are as good as the marine radios.
So what’s the best radio? It all depends on what you want to do with your HF radio and how much you are willing to spend. If you just want to get on the marine bands when offshore, a contemporary marine SSB would work fine. If you want to keep in touch with your cruising buddies over long distances, you would probably find a HAM radio to be of more value (along with the license to go with it).
So what’s a band? Frequency allocation is done by the FCC in what are called bands. The FCC will grant use of a contiguous set of frequencies to a radio service. This is called a band. In the case of both the marine and amateur services, there are band allocations scattered in the HF spectrum. Because of the odd behavior of radio waves over long distances and the influence of sun light and sunspot activity, different bands can be used for communication over different distances at different times of the day.
So what’s the difference between marine bands and amateur bands? Marine bands are channelized much like a marine VHF radio. You dial in a channel number. While you are probably aware of the band you are working on, the actual frequency is of little consequence. Marine radios are designed for appliance operators. These are folks who just want to make a contact with another station and don’t want to be bothered with making adjustments to the radio to make the received signal sound better.
Traffic on the marine bands is usually specific to marine operations, though you may hear private conversations at times. Amateur band traffic is usually of three types, contest operations, net traffic, and private conversations (aka rag-chewing). Transmissions are done on random frequencies within assigned bands. Contests are what they sound like. You enter a contest and get points for making contacts with other stations. Points are awarded based on rules like where the other station is. Net operations are done at pre-arranged frequencies and times for a specific purpose. The marine mobile net is a good example. Here cruising folks can check in to see if anyone has left a message for them.
So what makes one radio better than another? Receiver sensitivity, selectivity, and noise suppression (filtering) are probably most important. The difference between two radios connected to the same antenna can be quite dramatic. My SGC is deaf in comparison with the ICOM-706 next to it. I can receive and copy stations on the 706 that I can’t even hear on the SGC. The 706 is deaf when compared with an Elecraft K2 I have at home.
Wefax is usually transmitted on a band that is neither in the marine bands nor the amateur bands. The transmission is in a government allocated band. The US has discontinued wefax transmissions because it cost a few hundred grand each year to keep the stations on the air. You can still receive wefax broadcasts from Canada and overseas under the right conditions. You can also receive precise time of day. Most but not all marine and amateur radios can be tuned outside their approved bands to receive wefax and time. You can copy wefax, navtex, and other digital mode broadcasts using either free software or purchased software. Although you can probably connect your laptop microphone jack directly to your radio speaker output, I would recommend buying an interface box to isolate the two pieces (approx $150).
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Rich Carter – BlackSheep #47
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Walter
I ran a 3″ diameter drain right out the back of the boat below the manual bilge pump. The hole as seen from the cockpit can be seen in the attached photo. I don’t have a photo of the transom to show the exit hole, but it is just above the exhaust hose. The fittings were purchased from Defender. I ordered two and cut the overhang and flap off the inside fitting with a hack-saw. This leaves a spare rubber flap. I used the same fitting for my exhaust system when I repowered, so there are two on the transom.http://www.defender.com/product.jsp?path=-1|51|106370|292325|314570&id=57522
The normal hose clamps that you buy for water hoses won’t work with exhaust hose. They don’t have enough strength to squeeze the hose down. You need a special clamp. The clamps are precisely sized for the hose and don’t have a worm gear cut in them.
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Rich Carter
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Thanks Peter
I can barely see the ribs in the photo. It makes sense though. Hope to see
your boat some day; looks like you’ve put quite a lot of thought and effort
into her.Regards
Rich
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Paul
I replaced my water heater last year with a force-10 heater and asked the
distributor about that option. I was told that there are reliablitly
problems with the diverter and it was suggested that I avoid it. In the
KISS tradition, I took his suggestion.The problem with having the water heater setup with a heat exchanger is that
the water can get much hotter than you are used to with a domestic setup.
If the engine overheats, steam can be driven out of the water heater. I see
no practical alternative. In the event of an overheating condition, at
least you can start dumping hot water down the drain for a while.Rich
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The guy who did the glass work for me originally planned to lay in vertical reinforcing strips. His plan was to cut PVC pipe in half sections and glass them over the inside of the hull. He changed his mind and instead laid-in 3/8″ of glass over what was there. The layers were done with 24″ wide cloth. Each section overlapped, so there is 3/4″ of glass added where the sections overlap. I think the reason he changed his mind was that it would have been difficult to get the PVC pipe to lay flat against the hull while the epoxy cured.
He ground down the inside of the hull using an angle grinder and coarse sandpaper. This kicked up a huge cloud of fibergass dust that got into everything even though the forward door was closed while he worked.. He then laid in the new glass over what was left. It took him about 16 hours to do the work. The bill came to about $2500. This was 12 years ago.
I thought that what Peter had done was for cosmetic reasons only. The strips were glued in to allow fastening the ash battens in place. There’s no reason that they couldn’t be structural of they were glassed over before the battens were attached. Wood ribs could be easier to attach than PVC pipe because they could be cut to fit.
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Rich Carter
BlackSheep #47
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I’ll try to remember to take photos and post them after my boat is launched. Right now, the v-berth is full of sails and stuff. It looks very much like it did before the glasswork was redone except the insides of the v-berth are white gelcoat. I had the repairs done in Bermuda just before we left for the return passage. I had them gelcoat the inside to try to keep the smell from the epoxy down. Its easy to keep clean. One of these days I plan to lay in teak over the gelcoat.
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Rich Carter
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Walter
Try to imagine having your boat heeled over until the rail is almost in the water. Then run up the face of a steep 20 foot wave and drop off the back side until everything up the forward section of your boat is in freefall. The flat section of the bow will slap against the trough on the back side of the wave. Now imagine doing that for a day or two. I saw similar failure of the tabbing on my port shelf just before heading offshore many years ago. I tried to glass it in myself, but my glasswork wasn’t good enough. IMHO, If you are serious about preparing your boat for offshore work, have more glass added to the inside hull area in the v-berth. If you just do coastal cruising, reinforcing the fasters where the v-bunk shelf attaches to the forward bulkhead is probably sufficient.—
Rich Carter
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Rodd
Tie messenger lines to the terminals of the harness at the masthead, spreaders, and steaming light. As you pull the old mast harness out, you feed in the messengers. Once the harness is out, label the messengers and cut them free from the old harness. It can be very difficult to slide the new harness into the mast. The harness will snag on any fasteners the protrude into the mast. You’ll have to rotate the mast and experiment. If you have a supply of inexpensive wire, you might consider using it for the messengers since they will be less likely to snag and won’t break. The messenger wires need not be stainless since you will cut them off and discard them. Even copper wire would do. You can crimp them to the ends of the harness and cut them off later.Buy a 50′ length of the smallest stainless cable that you can find. Bundle this with the rest of the harness and leave enough length for it to exit at the top of the mast. Tie-wraps will work fine for bundling the wire. Some folks leave the tails on so that the harness doesn’t slap-around in there. Once you pull the new harness into the mast, attach the steel cable to a machine screw at the top of the mast using a properly sized electrical terminal crimped to the cable. Make sure that you cut and crimp the cable so that it will take up the weight of the harness. If it is a little loose, the harness will stretch until the steel takes up the weight. You need a reliable crimp. I would suggest folding the wire over as you put it in the terminal. Paint the terminal to keep it from corroding. Without the steel wire, the harness will continue to stretch until some of the wires start breaking. It may take several years for problems to develop.
Don’t forget to seal the VHF antenna connection. I use self fusing electrical tape. This is the stuff that doesn’t have any adhesive on it. The plastic just sticks to itself. I then wrap this with coax-seal making sure that the second layer is longer. I then wrap the whole thing with regular electrical tape. The first layer keeps coax-seal from finding its way into the connector, but it doesn’t make a very water-tight seal. The coax seal keeps the water out, but degrades in sunlight. The electrical tape keeps sunlight off the coax-seal. I’ve never had a problem with antenna connections using this method. Radio Shack used to sell all three types of tape, but I don’t know if they still do.
I suggest putting in a second messenger into your mast. This would not be bundled with anything. This would be used if you need to run a new wire in your mast at some point in the future. Tie it off on the top of your mast somewhere. This might slap around in there, so use polyester fishing line or something similar.
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Rich Carter
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