Before I bought Latro, I had it surveyed to find any and all things that are wrong with the boat. This is a lot like a home inspection only a bit more thorough as it requires a sea trial as well. The surveyor goes through every inch of the boat, looking for leaks, malfunctioning equipment, missing equipment/functionality etc…

After the survey was completed on Latro, one of the findings revealed that the packing gland required replacement. What is a packing gland? The gland nut allows packing material to be compressed to form a watertight seal and prevent water leaking up the shaft when the tap is turned on. The gland at the rotating shaft of a centrifugal pump may be packed in a similar way and graphite grease used to accommodate continuous operation.

The previous replacement resulted in the wrong sized material and the gland nut being tightened too tight. This causes everything to heat up which could lead to scoring of the prop shaft and other very inconvenient failures at the most inopportune time. Below is a video showing how to replace it. Enjoy!

I’ve been staying on the boat now for about 5 nights. Each night I sleep aboard, I hear a new noise, I learn something new about the boat and I get a little bit more adjusted to my new space. The past couple of nights, with the exception of last night, I learned that it can get pretty cold in the marina on a boat with no heater… Since I am bascially camping, I’m not sure why that didn’t dawn on me. But it finally did when I woke up in the middle of the night with my dog begging for entry into the blankets and with me shivering like I’d just walked a mile in the frozen tundra. Yesterday afternoon, i fixed that little problem. I picked up an electric indoor space heater, set it on the navigation station, set it on low and let it run. That provided plenty of heat through the night and into the morning. 35 dollar fix! Making it sooo much easier to climb out of from under the warmth of the covers.

I am surprised at how much space there is aboard this boat. It’s really incredible. I packed nearly all of my kitchen from my apartment into the galley on the boat. Granted, I don’t have a LOT of dishes and/or pots and pans but I have enough that I could comfortably cook and entertain 8, and it all fit on the boat. Amazing.

Today I’m working on finding an efficient way to stow my clothes so that they stay clean, and dry. 🙂 It shouldn’t be much of a challenge unless we get a ton of rain. It takes a little creativity and some spatial recognition to figure out how to make it all fit but its totally doable!