Categories
The Skipper

Winter on OMOO

There’s alot going on under the snow!

Hershey works on his winter projects on OMOO. His current job is installing a new hold down to his battery bank. This space lives under the stern berth king size bed. With any boat project, it means folding his 6’4″ frame into 4’6″ places.

The Skipper’s pride and joy comes from designing performance and safety enhancements on OMOO.

The crew at Maple Bay Marina are battling the snow, making access to OMOO safe.

This back saving contraption to assist with lifting the batteries is a block and tackle attached to the rope secured through a port hole to the handle on the table in the cockpit, making it easy to lift approximately 80+ lbs of each battery. (left). Whew! That was a run on sentence!

During the last melt down of one of the batteries, acid bubbled out the top. This destroys the wood. This has happened twice, in spite of regular checks to top up the batteries with distilled water. As batteries age, they deteriorate. Both times the super smeller on Sideways Sally detected the problem!

The metal hold down for the strap over the batteries needs to be through bolted to the sides of the battery box.

The anchor for the hold down strap, which sits in position to be used. In the adjacent compartment (left) side of the battery box is the charger/inverter for the boat.

The black strap inside the yellow outline is attached to the brackets and now functional.

WARNING: For safety reasons the wood compartment for the batteries should be encased in fiberglass and epoxy.

2 replies on “Winter on OMOO”

I need to quit complaining about artic air mass over the north end GOM. And, need to give up the excuse it is too cold to do any boat projects. Thanks for the block & tackle battery lift tip. I have 8x85lbs to install. The higher lats sailing is not for me. Nonetheless, a very good read about some REAL sailors. Ciao.

Yup, I hear you. NWP is breathtaking beautiful and rugged. The air and pristine wilderness is second to none. Cold now, but not in summer. I continue on my quest for a boat to join in the south pacific for some “warm winter sailing.” My plan to return to Australia has again been thwarted by the evil omicron. (WA closed boarders again)

Leave a Reply