Loopy Kiwi at last

On friday our fellow 453ers, Bert and Hilary, made the trek from Harrison Township to visit us here in Kenosha. They have been living aboard their Silverton 453 for a couple of years (check their blog www.wetooktheplunge.blogspot.com), and were instrumental in our final decision to settle on that model for our loop boat when we visited them during the boat buying journey. Bert knows his 453 inside out and his nickname is BertGyver, after the character in the 80's TV series MacGyver, played by Richard Dean Anderson, and who could build a Saturn 5 rocket out of a hollow log with just his trusty Swiss Army knife. So, not only was it a pleasure to catch up with them again, but it was an opportune time to use his knowledge and expertise to help us out with coming to grips with our own vessel.

So....come Saturday morning, the first thing we tackled was the errant "I won't work on cold water cycle" of the washing machine. First we opened a panel under the taps which gave us "feel" access to the hoses. They are quite long and lay at the bottom of the machine before they ran upwards again to where the connections were obviously made to it. We could not feel any kinks in the hose down low so we undid the hold down studs and slid the washer out from the tight space to get a look at the hoses at the back to see if the cold one was kinked any where. This is what we found:

As you can see, the connection elbows point upwards and the hoses come from below. The cupboard cieling is the same level as the varnished moulding, so that was also pushing the cold hose flat. The only reason why the hot  hose let water in was because it was on a slight angle and was not as badly kinked. This was obviously done at the factory as you could tell the machine has never been removed before. QA at Silverton must have been absent that day. Obviously the previous owners never used it either, as it can never have gone properly! We loosened the connections, spun them around and it workes fine now.

The next project was the name. Bert had just had their boat done and while he got the graphics people to put his on, he told me that he had done that kind of thing before so away we went. Following is a visual essay of the proceedings:

And there we are, all legal and legit, well we are after I put the $22.50 annual CBP decal on this morning. The next project is to get the flagpole up before the 4th of July celebrations. We still have the smaller Loopy Kiwi signs for each side of the flybridge to get up, but I will leave that until we are on a higher dock and I can reach them.

Bert and Hilary left for home today and we really hope we will catch up with them again on our travels. They are intending to head down to Texas to live at around the same time as we  head to Florida. So we went off to get more stuff (not Walmart this time), mainly to do with the flagpole, and on the way back we ran into the Kenosha Independence day parade which stopped us getting back to the marina for an hour and a half. Still it was interesting watching the pipe bands and school bands, and all the Politicians plugging for votes. When we got back to the boat, I decided that it would be easier to get some of the stuff we can't find in the stores off Amazon while we have an address to send it to, so a few items (including a 48.5 Stainless Steel CQR anchor for under $500) are on their way. I also ordered my Roland "Cube Street" amplifier on friday as they are on back order from the factory until mid July and some were available from Amazon (although not at such a good price as I was quoted locally). I'm a little squidgey about buying a guitar online, though....but they are at really good prices.

Still hot and sunny, but not as bad as last week

Till next time.