[Rhodes22-list] Commissioning

[DCLewis1 at aol.com]

Bill,
 
I don’t think much went wrong.  The boat was in good shape.  We  did have a 
dead batt, but there were 2 batts aboard so we could use the other  one to get 
started.  We lost a little time changing out one batt later in  the day and it 
took a little while initially for Elton to figure out that it was  just the 
one batt and not something in the wiring.  Actually, there is more  to it: 
turns out that the lid on the batt compartment was routered to  accommodate the 
specific batt that was provided by GBI.  After Elton  figured out it was just 
the batt, and not the wiring, and after we changed the  batt, we found out that 
the posts of the new batt had a different configuration  than the posts for 
the old batt; so he took the lid off  the batt  compartment to take back to 
Edenton, they’ll router or drill new holes, mail it  back to me, and I’ll 
install.   It was the classic daisy chain, you  find a problem, diagnose it, fix it, 
which leads to another problem, etc.   It all took a fair while to get it all 
sorted out - perhaps a couple of  hours.  But there’s a lesson here for the 
board, all batts are not the same  because the posts are different, you guys 
probably knew that.  
 
There also may be a problem with the toilet water inlet valve on the boat,  
right now it’s stuck open, Elton is going to do some checking at GBI to see  if 
there’s a fix.  We spent a little while on that , not a lot, it’s  
unresolved.  I'm a little antzy about leaving that valve open, but Elton  said it 
wouldn't be a problem.  Certainly, no water was coming in.
 
Beyond that, I thought it just took a long time to get an R22 up from it’s  
trailer.  I’m new at this, I have no baseline.  I see PT posted he  does it in 
30 minutes, I’m amazed.  Maybe it’ll go faster next time (a lot  faster, 
easily x20 faster).
 
We lost more than an hour in West Marine.  Shopping took a bit of  time, of 
course, but far and away the biggest problem was they couldn’t get  their 
checkout system to work right and some products weren’t marked so no one  knew what 
they cost.  It took a while.  Time in West Marine  shouldn’t count against 
launch time, but it’s time.
 
After we initially splashed we probably spent an hour, certainly less than  2 
hrs,  in the harbor while Elton talked us through a few loops.  That  shouldn’
t count against launch time, but it made for a longer day.
 
Also, there were some unique “first time out” things, like getting the  
numbers affixed, getting the docking lines right, etc.  You guys probably  have 
all your docking and mooring lines sized, spliced, taped, from year to  year.  
We fumbled around a lot, it's still not the way we want it.
 
But it just took a lot of time.  Elton’s methodology, for the most  part,  
was to tell me what to do and I’d do it (or try to do it).   That was a slow 
process, because I wasn’t at all familiar with the components,  what came next, 
where it attached, etc.  It took a while (hrs).
 
I’m really amazed at the launch times you guys report.  At the end of  our 
commissioning I said to myself “I never want to do this again”.    Elton told 
me he thought people on the board commonly did the sort of thing  we did 2 to 3 
times a year as they trailered their boats, I was skeptical.   Given the 
launch time reports on the board, he’s likely correct.

Again, the delivered boat was in good shape and at the end of the day  we 
were glad to have it in the water. 
 
Dave