CARVER OWNERS CLUB
This site is owned by, managed by, and exclusive to Carver, Californian, and Trojan owners.

March 2007

Headlines - Click on a Headline to see the Story

Stories

AOL recently started enforcing some interesting rules concerning spam emails.  AOL also asked (demanded) that all AOL email addresses be deleted from all mailing lists, including opt in mailing lists like those for the Carver Owners Club.  So, at AOL's request, the club will not send emails to AOL addresses.  You may want to get another free email address, such as hotmail, or yahoo.  The penalties for the club not complying with AOL's request are severe.  If you have any questions, call me at 800-540-2926.  Sorry for the inconvenience caused by AOL's draconian approach to control spam.

The club is changing our central event of the year, the Annual Chesapeake Bay Rendezvous, scheduled for June 8, 9, and 10.  This year, it will be a smaller group than usual - 25 boats is the most we can handle and only 70 people.  It will be at St. Michaels Maryland.  The cost figure includes slip rental for two or three days, depending on when you arrive. The Boat Hop is moved to Friday night in place of the welcoming cocktail party.  Saturday morning will be a series of three seminars related to boating, including one on new electronics and one on boat maintenance.  Saturday afternoon should be fun, with a series of boating contests, such as a blind dingy race.  Make sure you bring your insurance waiver forms.  We will still have the "formal" Saturday night dinner and a departure Continental breakfast.  We do not have a final budget, so we haven't determined the final cost either.  If you are interested in attending, email me at webdude@carverownersclub.com.  If the cost is not what you expected after we finalize the budget, you can cancel your reservation without penalty.

Club volunteers also hosted Saturday Nights Out in Kennett Square, PA; Newark, NJ; Oxford, PA, and Alexandria, VA.  The club thanks, Eileen Law, Joe and Diane Lipowski, Scott Gundaker, and Fran and Chuck Cipriotti for their work in hosting these events. 

We have two more Saturday Nights Out planned.  The next one is March 24 at Sarah and Gary Willoughby's house in Wilmington, DE.  Email webdude@carverownersclub.com or garywilloughby@comcast.net to make reservations.  It is a bring your own bottle event, with light snacks provided.

The last SNO of the season will be held at Harbour House Restaurant in Chestertown, MD.  This is always and extremely popular event.  It is scheduled for April 14 around 6:30 for drinks.  Again, email me to make reservations.

Another major event is a convoy down the ICW.  We'll leave Portsmouth, VA on November 1, 2007, weather permitting,   We will stay inside the entire trip.  This will be life in the slow lane, with an average cruising speed of about 12 miles per hour or 50 miles per day.  A couple of days will be longer or shorter, depending on local conditions.  We will not cruise in bad weather.  If you've always wanted to make the trip, but have been unsure of where to start, this is your chance.  Again, many considerations limit the number of boats that can join us, but it should be fun.

The annual Chesapeake Bay Cruise is cancelled.

Okay, I'll admit that getting some of the calls and emails I get can be, uh, amusing.  I sort of lost my usual calm, laid-back demeanor when I got this call.

A member found that the refrigerator on his boat ran constantly.  He decided to replace it.  A friend suggested that he try to clean the coils under the refrigerator first.  So, the member removed the front grill after deciding that he could not easily move the refrigerator from its installed position.  He vacuumed as well as possible, but it just wasn't clean enough.  He decided to take an electric leaf blower, push it behind the fridge and turn that puppy on.

Let me start out by saying that the coils were cleaned very well.  The 180 mile per hour wind created by the leaf blower blew the dust from the coils to every nook and cranny on the boat.  He said it took a couple of days to clean up the mess he created.  He saw this incident as a win-win.  The refrigerator works quite well now and the boat interior is clean.  I asked if his wife was present and he replied that that was a stupid question since he was still alive.

I start out every year with a list of projects on the boat that I want to get done sometime during the upcoming year.  Like most of my projects, I plan them better than I do them.  Here are a few projects that I did manage to finish that made my life on the boat much easier.

Replace the two handle faucets with a single lever

Our boats came with faucets that have a hot and a cold knob that you turned for water and, hopefully, warmth rather than cold or heat.  The faucets never worked well.  Patsy insisted that I replace the faucets with a single lever on/off lever.  This was surprisingly easy.  The head (bathroom) faucets needed to be a single hole. Kohler makes several nice ones available from Home Depot or Lowes.  The kitchen (galley) was a little tougher. We couldn't find a single hole kitchen faucet.  Instead we got a faucet without a sprayer and took it apart such that the water feed lines came up through the existing hole. (Patsy won't let me drill new holes in the boat.  Long story.)  I took a large washer and placed it on the bottom of the faucet, but on the sink, to help secure the faucet.  The results were excellent.  No more wasting water while trying to get the temperature right.  You will need to buy new water feed lines along with the faucets.  Most of the fittings came with the faucets.  Total cost of the project, less than $200 and about 4 hours for all faucets.  I also used the opportunity to put in line valves so I could turn off individual faucets if they need future work.

Replace the o-rings and seats in the shower faucet

I couldn't find a single lever shower faucet.  I also looked for one when the shower started leaking hot water, turning the  below decks into a sauna.  Trying to find a replacement o-ring and seat would have been fairly easy if I tried doing that before they dissolved.  Now, I replace them every year.  It's a two dollar repair to avoid a thousand dollar hassle.

Robert and Susan Janger returned from their first trip to the Miami boat show.  It's a nice article describing what the extravaganza is like. Robert said he is willing to go whenever the Club will pay expenses, but probably won't go back soon.  Here is his article, Me and Ami, like Miami??

Replacing your gasoline engines with diesels used to be prohibitively expensive.  Recently, both Caterpillar and Cummins developed new diesel engines for the boating industry, targeting boaters who are tired of the ethanol issues and high gasoline prices. I'm talking to both companies.  We're looking for a couple of interested people who might want to have both engines and generator replaced.  It appears that the costs are manageable, much less than in the past.  If you are interested in getting information about the conversion, let me know.  Right now, we're looking at about the same cost to replace the gasoline engines with diesels as replacing them with rebuilt gasoline engines.  More to come on this one.

If you have a story idea or just a story you'd like to tell, email or call me at 800-540-2926,  I'm especially looking for favorite cruising spots - where do you like to go?