The Spring that Needed Viagra

Drove to the boat thinking about a new gig writing short articles for a website. Sounds like fun but it's real work and not much boat money. Even if I worked all day pumping out articles, I'd starve. I guess that's why some activities are called gigs instead of work. Here's my first article.

Anyway, having recovered from my Berlin cold and the consequent laziness bug, I got to the boat ready to strike something off my bucket list. Walking down the pontoon in long purposeful strides I noticed that Nigel the unlucky sailor had finally left for England where he plans to sell his Bowman yawl which is already listed on yachtworld.

During Nigel's 18-month stay in Peniche he had the boat hauled out at the shipyard where the yard's highly professional workers ironed out some bugs. These guys build and repair huge and small ships and anything in between, so his boat should be in fine shape.  

...as I was saying, at the boat I ran the engine in gear for a while, shut it down and then changed the oil and filter. Hardly spilled any oil this time.

Used the bag-over-the-filter trick to remove the filter with only a few spilled drops.

My highly complex oil removal kit. Cut the top part of a 5 liter water bottle, tie two garbage bags to it, slip it under the engine and unscrew the drain plug. Obviously you need a certain amount of space under the engine for it to work.

What I like about this oil-change method is that it removes practically all the old oil. I know it because even after running the engine for quite a while it remains nice and clean.

After lunch I attacked a big winch.

No way any parts were going to fall in the water with this big bucket over the winch base.

All the bearings in the order I removed them so I don't forget the sequence. If I screw up, I'll know it when I open the other big Barlow 28.

I had a hard time removing the plate holding the sprockets in place. Lot's of WD-40, a screwdriver and some tapping with a hammer got the job done. 

Each gear has two pawls. The spring on one pawl was in need of some Viagra. I tried fixing it with pliers, without much success. As I fitted it one last time to the pawl, the damn thing went "ping" and disappeared. Ain't that a bitch - it didn't have enough thrust to erect the pawl but it had the balls to fly out of sight, sneaky bastard.

Luckily I have the springs from the failed Barlow 24 that are the same size. Next time I'm going to fit the springs and pawls inside a clear plastic bag. I cleaned the winch parts with old outboard engine gasoline but didn't have time to reassemble it. It won't be long before I'm sailing instead of playing with springs.