Shakedown Cruise

 It's cruising season, so I decided to take my boys plus Papa out for a Father's Day overnighter in Mission Bay for a 'Shakedown Cruise'.    We got underway Saturday AM from Point Loma Marina, sailed up to Mission Bay, and Anchored at Mariner's Basin by about 4PM.   

Goal for the weekend was to have fun while testing out all the cruising gear.   I had just re-installed the furling jib after the folks at Quantum Sails gave the jib a 'refresh' and replaced the Sunbrella-UV cover.

The Magma camp stove, galley oven, and anchor gear all worked well.  On a side note, I finally found a really good communication scheme with hand signals during Anchoring over at Tom Cunliffe's youtube channel.  

After dinner at anchor, we watched the SeaWorld fireworks on Saturday night and hoisted the Anchor on Sunday AM just after low tide.  

We also picked up my former shipmate Mike L at the Mission Bay public dock for another able-bodied sailor on the trip home.  We were back in the slip by 330 PM and rewarded Mystic Star with a good fresh water washdown for her efforts.

Side note - Watch your depth and anchor drag circle in Mission Bay Mariner's Basin-  This 38-footer next to us had to wait for high tide to float off of the minus tide we experienced in the early AM :

$750 for a clock? More like $20

The 'nautical' clock on board was non-operational when I bought the boat... no big deal, I thought.

A running joke amongst boaters is that if you put the word 'marine' or 'nautical' in front of a product it multiplies the price by 10x.  

It's a 'nautical' clock by Weems & Plath, very nice model with a bell mechanism and everything.  After replacing the batteries and cleaning the battery terminals, it still did not work.  A bit of research revealed that Weems supports its products and repairs its products.... all you have to do is mail it in for evaluation.

I did so and Weems offered to fix it for $230 plus $20 shipping.   

I researched the price of the clock new, and the replacement unit is around $750.  Similar replacement clocks wihout the bell mechanism run for under $200.   So there was no way I was going to fix this quartz-bell clock for $250.

Fortunately a bit of resarch on eBay and clockparts.com revealed I can purchase a replacement quartz mechanism for about $20.  

Removing the old movement was pretty straightforward.  Pry off clear front glass, unclamp the hands from the movement, and lift the face of the clock off the casing.   Then undo the 3 phillips screws and the movement comes off.  

  Original face and movement.  Movement is now scrap/e-Waste.

I bought the lowest-profile movement I could find at clockparts website.  Ideally you put the shaft through the face and fasten from the front using the retaining nut...

Unfortunately there is very little space between the face and the front plexiglass on this weems housing.  There is no way to fasten the movement to the clock using the front retaining nut....So some improvising with epoxy putty was necessary.   I won't be able to check it through airport security, but it's solid and it works like a champ:

Here's what it looks like re-installed in the original casing:

For those curious, here's the Bill of Materials from clockparts.com (less epoxy putty):