Making Lollipop Ours – First Set of Projects for the Captain

On Tuesday, July 13th, Deb, Tessa, and I made a trip to Lollipop, arriving at bedtime. Wednesday morning, we made our first of many trips to Lowes. Luck was with us, and we found some hook racks that matched the ones mounted on the boat. We bought all Lowes had, not knowing exactly where we were mounting them all. In the end, I mounted two in the master stateroom and three in the pantry/tool room. And the final one was at the door for keys.

For my second project, I added a handheld showerhead in the master shower while keeping the original shower head. This showerhead will be great for dog washing.

For the third project, we added step treads to the steps on Lollipop. The steps to the pilothouse are steep, and the varnished wood was too slick for dogs and old folks. Another trip to Lowes and another project completed.

For the fourth project, I made changes to balance the electrical loads on the A and B buses in the electrical panels. On boats and some RVs, it is not possible to run all the appliances at once. The A and B buses are 120 volts each.  Either side can run separate items like A/C systems (Lollipop has 3 A/C units plus an A/C water pump that serves each), a household refrigerator, convection microwave, and all the usual electrical outlets for things like the coffee maker, toaster, blender, TVs, etc.  Some appliances must use both the A and B buses which adds to 240 volts.   Appliances such as stacked washer and dryer, electric water heater,  watermaker, and stovetop need 240 volts. I watched the typical current draw on each leg, and the “A” leg was consistently lower than the “B” leg. So, after lots of debating with myself, I moved the A/C water pump from “B” to “A.” Now the average current draw is much more balanced. Using the dryer, stovetop, water maker, or water heater requires turning off one or two A/C units and keeping an eye on the electrical panel to watch the current used. 

The fifth project of this trip was mounting a TV in the saloon. Again not complicated, but it required drilling a few holes in the entertainment center/bookcase for the electric and antenna cable to run and the mounting of the TV.

Project six was replacing the PC monitor for the onboard camera system in the pilothouse with a TV. The TV can do the job of the PC monitor and be a TV.  Again, no big deal, just time. Mounting is on a “RAM” mount and hooking up the antenna cable, and plugging in the HDMI for the onboard camera system.

For the final project of this trip, I replaced the starter relay on the port engine. On the journey up from Ruskin, FL, the relay started requiring a gentle tap of the hammer to get it to engage the starter. While home after the delivery trip, I tracked down the current Yanmar part number. It had changed three times since 1999 when the engine was manufactured—each time increasing in price substantially to its current price of $186 plus shipping. A quick trip to the auto parts store for an old model Ford starter relay fixed my problem for $18, and every auto parts store in the country has them in stock. Project completed in less than half-hour.

In the end, this was a very productive trip.  Deb and I accomplished many small projects that will make life aboard Lollipop more comfortable for us.