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Davits, Heat, and Great Weekends

CP has been wandering the Delta and the true boat experience has been in full force. After the last three weekends, the master head toilet pump died, the Davit Crane stripped the wire rope, but otherwise the boat has behaved. For $130 one can replace the electric motor and the pump for the Jabsco electric heads. Other than the joy of dealing with a used head it was an easy fix all in all.

The dingy davit decided to jump the pulley and strip to the last 3 strands while suspending the dingy above the water. We were able to get it down and I have been able to fashion a great tow harness. Interestingly, I've learned a lot about the davit crane's lift tolerances. The motor is a Rule V33SR that is rated to 3300lbs on the first coil down to 1800lbs on the fourth coil. The as shipped wire rope is rated to 2100lbs as well. Published numbers for the davit are 750lbs, but it looks pretty safe to be a bit heavier but I am not a lawyer and will not take responsibility for your choices. This is a classic moment of your mileage may vary. The way the wire rope is retained is that the final loop's bitter end is secured by an allen screw. To remove the entire rope, just spool the wire rope all the way out, remove the hood over the motor, remove the motor bolts and the power leads and slide it out. Then you can easily remove the allen screw and thus the wire rope for replacement or whatever.

My hard decision is whether I want to go to 2:1 by attaching the hook back to the davit or not. The Rule manual states that that adds 85% to the pulling power of the various loops and it certainly adds a larger margin of safety.

Otherwise, the boat has performed flawlessly. In fact Spence and I were worried last weekend as we couldn't come up with what broke. Luckily we both remembered that I lost an oar lock nut due to vibration...

The weekend previous was freakish however. It was just H, E, and I, and my was it hot. It was 113 and what was really weird was that it was humid and stayed around 95 at night. We ran the Genny and A/C from 10AM Saturday to 11PM Sunday. It was wonderful watching the boat perform so well in such a hostile environment.

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