Iron Lady Gets the Treatment

After 4 years and something over 20,000 miles at sea, it was time for Iron Lady to head to the yard for some well deserved service and preventative maintenance work. I thought a list of the work we did and the cost might be of interest to FPB64 Owners – both existing and prospective. After cruising the Inside Passage in British Columbia for the summer, we arranged for Iron Lady to be hauled at Canoe Cove in Sidney BC in late September 2014.

The following is a run down of the work we did:

1) Full bottom job including repairs to the barrier coat and three fresh coats of antifoul. Fresh Propspeed was applied to the main prop, Gori get home prop and bow thruster props. Zincs were replaced excluding the large hull zincs as they were still in excellent condition;

2) The main prop was pulled and sent out to be tuned and balanced;

3) The bow thruster props were replaced as the blades on one side had been damaged – apparently some debris was sucked in at some point. Lots of opportunities for that in BC waters!

4) The main shaft was pulled, examined for wear and rotated;

5) The cutlass bearings were checked and the aft bearing was replaced as it showed a bit of wear;

6) The PSS shaft seal was replaced out of an abundance of caution;

7 The Spurs line cutter was replaced in its entirety – note to other owners – replace the the zinc and line dampening plugs every year or two – we didn’t and ended up replacing the whole unit;

8) Replace the drive shaft torsional dampener;

9) Realign the motor and drive train after shaft reinstall – the initial alignment was checked and was well within spec after all that time at sea;

10) Adjust the valves on the main engine;

11) Replace the belt tensioners, idler pulley and belts on the main engine – all the removed parts were kept as used spares as they showed no evidence of failure or wear;

12) Remove stabilizer fins and repair small areas of debris impact damage;

13) Remove fin actuator mechanisms, re-bed and replace “O” ring seals;

14 Replace fin position potentiometers and hydraulic cylinders;

15) Remove anchor chain and reverse, spray galvanize chain;

16) Service and certify the Life Raft;

17) Routine oil changes and raw water pump impeller replacements – main and genset;

18) Change out all fuel filters including polishing system.

Some of the work was performed by my guys, Steve and Jim, such as the routine oil changes etc and they also worked closely with the good folks at Canoe Cove. Some of the work was really done out an abundance of caution as opposed to required maintenance. The tab for the above was roughly Canadian 25,000 including parts. This was really the first major work we have done in four years of cruising including a circumnavigation of both islands of New Zealand, crossings to Fiji and Tonga and back to NZ, NZ to French Polynesia, the Line Islands, Palmyra and Hawaii and onward travels to British Columbia and the Inside Passage.

All in all – pretty respectable for all that time at sea – and now she is fully conditioned and ready for more years seeing the world as it can only be seen on a very capable trans-ocean cruising machine.