Yayyyy!!!! We did it. More on that later. One of the owners guests and a captain from another boat talked me in to going out as it was the guests last night in Key West. We went to this crazy bar. Some lady was playing a guitar with a little too much distortion and the music quite frankly wasn't that good. What was great about it was that she got the whole crowd involved. It was a little dirty but good fun. She followed guys in to the bathroom while playing on her wireless guitar and microphone. Then she made the guy come out and dress up in girls underwear and dance around the bar for tips. Quite hilarious. We all got a good laugh and she even made me sing at one point haha.
I got up as usual this morning and cleared out the aft laz. The electrician was busy with another job so I got to work by myself. It was lonely down in that hole. Todays task was to run all of the wire, establish a ground connection, re-bond the system, and pray to God it worked. My working platform was just high enough for me to squirm around on but not enough to roll over. There was no room to sit up straight and now that I lay in bed I am pretty sure that I will have bruises on my chest tomorrow from laying on the top of the water tank all day. I ran fish tape, pulled wires, cut, crimped, heat shrank, and repeated. All in all I ran 100 feet of red wire, 100 feet of black wire and 100 feet of green wire, for six different units. Finally the electrician showed up after a long day on another project and at 1830 we got to work. It wasn't until 2200 that we were ready to test the lights. Everything was hooked up and we double checked our work and checked it again. The moment of truth. We turned on the breakers, turned on the stereo and flipped the switch for the underwater lights...................................no buzz.....................trim tabs indicators stable...............all ten lights on..................holy shit guys I think we did it!!!!!!!! The owner has been dealing with this issue for years and I have been involved personally for a little over a month now and have been through a few electricians that gave up. We flipped the switch for the underwater lights; off, on, off, on. We knew that this wasn't "good" for the lights but we wanted to test the system to the max. Not even a hiccup.
I have to say that this is probably a bigger accomplishment than the bow thruster project. The bow thrusters just took so much time waiting for parts and waiting for mechanics. This project took a mental and physical effort, and every bit of it. The electrician and I spent hours on the phone with anyone who we thought could help. We ran through possible causes, tested them and went back to the drawing board. It truly took a full effort from everyone on the project. The owner was so happy with us he gave us both a little token of appreciation and made sure that we both knew that he was proud of the work and the effort that we put in to this project. It made me feel good. As a one man crew I am always working as fast as I can to keep up and keep up to standards. When the owner tells me that I went way above and beyond expectations it will always put a smile on my face, and motivate me to continue to work hard.
I was granted a day to sleep in tomorrow and I think I may just take it. My body is exhausted and even the noise of bands and fun coming out of every live bar in Key West wasn't enough to stop me from finishing this project. I have no intentions of doing anything but getting a good nights rest, and I don't think it will be hard to do. Tomorrow will be tough as the soreness of the crazy positions I forced myself in to over the past week set in. I will sleep sound and wake up happy.
Here are some pictures of the project:
Jason working on the conduit
Jason up on the water tank
Squirming back to the underwater lights. Careful to not hit any of the Hynautic or davit pump hardware on your way up. (lower right hand of the picture)
The tight squeeze on top of the water tank where we spent literally 4-6 hours at a time on top of. (30+ total hours of labor down there)
The underwater lights behind the water tank. The space from right to left in the photo (water tank wall to transom wall) is roughly one foot wide and top to bottom is roughly an arms length.
Sound Waves Out
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