Closed Captions (CC):
Today I'm back in the aft cabin working

on the batteries. There's nothing wrong

with the batteries or hopefully there

shouldn't be but there is a potential

for something to be wrong with the batteries

Ever since the great battery meltdown of

October 2019 we've been doing a lot of

research, been sending a lot of e-mails

back and forth and basically one of the

situations that could have potentially

caused the battery meltdown was the fact

that they're not getting balanced

charging caused by unequal lengths of

battery cables. So as you can see we've

got option number one for wiring the

batteries this way

then there's option two

then there's option three

then there's option four

We're going to go for this one here

simply because it's

the easiest for us to actually make

happen given the space that we've got

where our batteries are stored

We have three domestic batteries so this four

connection bus bar is perfect for the job

the power will come into here and each

battery will connect to these plugs

Today I'm gonna put these in situ then

we're going to start disconnecting all

of our cables from our batteries, see

what lengths we've got, find out the equal

ones, find out the uneven ones and it

might even require me to make a

little trip into town to get them made

smaller larger or whatever

So we'll see how we go hey?

Well here we are at the end of

the job. The bus bars have been installed

here, this is the negative bus bar, this

is the positive bus bar. The cables we

had made all exactly the same length

have all been attached to the bus bars

and attached to the batteries so now we

have what is probably one of the best

methods for balancing your batteries

when they're getting a charge.

Now I know some purists watching will probably

comment why we have black cables running

to our positive connections on our

batteries. We are on a Greek island and

you work with what you've got locally

Someone else may also point out that you

shouldn't really use wing nuts to

tighten down the cables to the batteries

and again I reiterate we are on a Greek

island you work with what you can get.

I am going to order in two battery

desulfators and we'll attach those to

the bus bars and those desulfators will

send a nice electronic pulse out through

through the batteries and they'll shake

off any sulfur build up on the plates

inside and hopefully extend the lifespan

of these batteries. One desulfator for

the house domestic batteries and one

desulfator for the starter battery

I've just spent the last hour sending e-mails

back and forth with the very helpful Tom

at Exalto Bearings in the UK and the

upshot is that it looks like we've been

caught in the vortex that is the

imperial and metric sizing. Anyway the

very helpful Tom at Exalto has said what

he's going to do

he's going to raise a new invoice

because they do have imperial

measurement bearings as well which I can

then pay online from my bank

he will then mail the forty four point

four five millimetre bearing to me and

then once I receive that I can mail the

other one back to him and he will raise

a credit note and deposit the money for

that one back into our bank account.

It's gonna take a little time obviously

because covid-19 is still around, the

couriers are overwhelmed with work and

there are fewer flights flying, so

we'll see how long it takes but things

are in motion and the cutlass bearing saga

looks like it's gonna get solved

pretty soon. Thanks Tom

After a great email conversation

with Tom at Exalto UK

we can see that the new bearing was

shipped on Tuesday the 12th of May

it arrived in Brussels on the 13th and it

also arrived in Athens Greece on the

13th and was forwarded for delivery to

us here in Limni. It is now the 18th of

May and it's still not arrived but we're

hoping it should arrive sometime this week.

As you know I make sea jewelry out

of beach finds and silver wire and I've

recently been making resin jewelry as

well which I'm really enjoying actually

it's it's a fun creative process and the

last few days I've also been putting

some resin on some new pieces like this

piece of sea urchin which has got a

little freshwater button pearl on it

too so that's really pretty and the

other thing I've been experimenting with

is little photocopies of a painting that

I did of a sea turtle and I'm embedding

it into a resin painting and then sort

of adding a wave effect so this is going

to be a nice little

for somebody. So I'm just going to show

you a little bit of the process that

goes on with making these resin pieces

I don't use the epoxy resin I use UV

resin because it dries quickly under UV

light and it means that I can make it

sort of when we're on the go and I don't

have to wait for 24 or 48 hours while

the epoxy resin's fluid and you know if the

boat's moving I don't have to worry about

that at all. So without further ado let

me show you some of the process, it's

quite involved. I build the UV resin up

in layers because it sets better that way

I add either the painting or pieces

of shells or other things that I find on

the beach into the resin. Sometimes I use

paint to create waves or a little scene

in the background and then I just build

up the layers on the top, on the back and

around the side to create really

a pretty finished piece

You can see how long it's

been since we visited here, we've got

cobwebs and a nice little spider living

in the top there but if you look down

here you can see that this anti foul

paint just comes away quite easily. Now

if we just slap a load of anti foul

paint on top of that then it's just

not gonna stick on it's just gonna

come apart - that's how easily it comes apart

So what we're gonna have to

do is strip quite a lot of the current

anti foul back, this is down to the

primer so if we can get it down to the

primer that's great, there are some spots

and I'll show you around the other side

So here on the starboard side we can see

that this is the primer and there are

places here where the primer's

disappeared completely

so again - there are places where we're

gonna have to take it right back to the

iron keel itself.

So quite a big job that

we'll have to crack onto soon because

I reckon this is probably gonna take us

a good week maybe a bit more and we'll

need to order in some epoxy filler and

epoxy primer as well

as our anti foul paste and of course

some special Sikaflex that we can seal

the hull and keel jointl with and still give

us some flexibility in that joint

Yesterday we did some scraping away of

the peeling and lifting paint and primer

and we've realized that the job was

obviously going to be a lot bigger so

this morning I went into the local

hardware store in Limni and bought some

angle grinder flat pads and I was a bit

dubious about them at first but boy do

they shift paint! Absolutely brilliant!

Thanks for the lead on that Ant

What's basically happened is

over the years the maintenance has not

been up to standard on the the keel and

I can see as I've been digging through

here, you know the

patchwork things they've

been doing. So I've taken certain really

bad places right back to the actual

metal of the keel, there are parts that

are still quite solid no no signs of any

flaking or lifting, so we've left them as

is and basically just keyed out all of

the bits to the keel where necessary

So all that work I did yesterday picking it

off with my trusty little blade

was all for nothing

Now tomorrow I'm gonna once

this all dries up I'm going to lie down

underneath here and do the underneath of

the keel bulb as best I can

considering it's still mounted on chocks

of wood and then once that's done we can

give all of these areas a light sanding

to get rid of the oxidation that will

happen in the 24 hour period between now

and tomorrow. The iron keel will

start to oxidize and if we put the

primer on top of that oxidized layer

then the primary won't stick so we're

going to give a light sanding and then

slap the epoxy primer on all of these

exposed bits of metal and that is the

beginning step for now

Before I bring

you up to speed with what stage were at

with the keel let's just talk about the

elephant on my forehead which is this up

here. Let's just say it was one ouzo

too many and then walking back home

through a darkened boatyard and leave it at that

no Aannsha's not been beating me up!

So anyway with the keel

we've stripped back

all of the bits of anti foul and

the epoxy primer that was basically

coming away from the surface of the keel

and as you can see there's quite a few

bits and pieces with a film of a surface

of rust now growing on it so before we

actually begin the whole treatment of

applying the rust inhibitor or rust

converter and then the epoxy primer and

then the epoxy filler and then the anti

foul primer and then the anti foul, we're

going to obviously treat the rust as the

Step 1

Before we do that we will be sending it

back again to get rid of the surface

rust giving it a good wipe with a damp

cloth to remove any dusty residue and

then of course treating the rust so here

at the yeah the front of the keel is

probably where you can see the worst of

this surface rust

So that's just a

little wipe with the finger and you can

see the surface rust. Now the reason

we're going to put the rust inhibitor or

rust converter on this is because the

cast iron keel is a very porous surface

there are lots of little indentations

that are faults from the original casting

process and in order to get in there and

get at all the rust we really need to

paint this rust inhibitor on. In our

stockpile of goodies we do have this Sea

Stuff rust remover which is a spray-on

type but what I'm actually going to be

using as far as I can or as much as I can

is this Axton which is a Spanish rust

inhibitor or rust converter which we

got when we were in Spain so we'll paint

that on as best we can and if we need to

we will use the other stuff too. Our epoxy

primer is a two-part primer as most

epoxies are and I did buy this in Greece

and this should be enough to cover all

of these surfaces where I've bared

back to the metal, so we'll get started

on that soon

A big thank you to

Murray Westenskow go for upping your

Patreon pledge, thanks Murray

You're now an Executive Producer and

that means you get your name in the

credits at the end of every video

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Until we see you next week stay

healthy and thanks for joining us on

Sailing A B Sea