A Word Or Two About Zincs

Whatasnoooooooozeeeee...zincs. You know, those lead-like devices that attach to the bottom of your boat and prevent metal components from dissolving due to galvanic action.

Recently we had a spate of winter-related warm weather and sped (a loose use of the word) over to the beach along which we sometimes anchor. And since the water in the Florida Panhandle tends to be pretty clear during December I was able to determine, be laying on the swim platform and looking down into the drink, that the two big beefy zincs on Betty Jane's transom were somewhat chewed up but still lively. This was good news, of course, and yet I didn't sleep as well that night as I might have.

Despite the wafty sound of wavelets sleepily lapping the hull, I kept wondering about the zinc on the propshaft. Was it in as good a condition as the two big transom-mounters? I really didn't know because I'm not able to see the darn thing from the swim platform. And despite the balmy, sunny weather we'd had during the afternoon (my wife BJ took the photo here as we idled in toward the beach), there'd been no way I was gonna jump into the water with my fins and snorkel...not then or even in this lifetime...not in December.

So a few days later I dialed up the folks that periodically scrub Betty's nether regions (while wearing the appropriate scuba diving-type clothing) and asked them to check on the propshaft zinc soon. Just in case.

Lucky course of action. My propshaft zinc was gone for all intents and purposes and had to be immediately replaced, else some prop or other damage might occur.

The moral of the tale's easy to get a handle on...just because the easy-to-see zincs on your boat are hangin' in there doesn't mean the hard-to-see ones are also. Check one...check all!

Otto Returns (With A fishy Reference)

So yeah, last weekend was cold here in Northern Florida. Real cold. But I took Betty Jane out for a little spin on the high seas anyway and, in the process, learned just a little something more about my Simrad AP28 autopilot.

As noted earlier amongst these dodgey bloggy entries, I've been getting good results from the Simrad's AUTO mode--I mean Otto (my groovy nickname for AUTO mode) will keep Betty on course with the precision of an arrow in flight if properly employed--but the NAV function has been acting like it was "broke down," as we say in the Sunny South. The NAV function, by the way, is supposed to sync the pilot with a positioning device--mine is a Garmin 3206 GPS plotter--so that the vessel--Betty in this case--steers herself through a pre-programmed route.

At any rate, who knows what motivates a guy like me? Maybe it was the slowly improving weather that afternoon. The sun had come out, turning the shallows around Shell Island all yellow and aquamarine, and the air was fresh and salty. The ambiance was positively inspirational, I guess. "So why don't you give this NAV mode one more try...see if you can get it to work," said I to myself.

What happened next was interesting. I'd been making two egregious and fundamental mistakes, apparently. First, I'd been doing a lot of slanderous grumbling about the NAV function in question, an entertainment choice that had consumed valuable time, annoyed my wife, and shifted my attention away from where it shoulda been. And second, I'd not bothered to read the manual that had been so nicely packaged with the unit, a goofy oversight I tend to repeat with all new electronics purchases if I have the opportunity.

But hey! I wouldn't want you to get the idea that I eventually DID read the manual that day or have even read the manual at the time of this writing. Nothing could be further from the truth. What I'm getting at here is that by moaning and groaning a lot, and then by failing to read the manual, I was able to prolong my ignorance by weeks, perhaps even months.

But hey again! What's a few weeks or months of slanderously grumbling ignorance, especially when stacked up against what I actually learned by playing around rather unconsciously (or was it intuitively) with the unit for an hour or so. What did I learn?

Hitting the NAV key does not engage the NAV function until you secondarily hit another key on the NAV screen itself. And when you hit that key...bingo! The cursor on the little ol' GPS screen starts following routes with wonderful (dare I say fantastic?) accuracy.

I came home Saturday evening so enthused by my whopping discovery that I was absolutely and stubbornly resistant to the notion of leaving Betty for home the next day. This behavioral quirk was exacerbated by the fact that the weather had warmed even further, thus allowing my wife BJ and I to keep Betty's door and windows open so the night-time breezes could blow through (see photo above). Nothing beats watching an old movie on AMC in a cheery teak-clad environment that's warm, well-lit and out-of-doorsy, sort of.

BJ suggested we do the video below to capture the sad essence of an impending departure after yet another serious, sans-manual electronics triumph. I added a fishy warning based on personal experience.