Joe, When you burn Freon using propane, you produce Fozgene(sp) gas, which extremely deadly. Not sure if it the same with alcohol but would imagine it is. But at least you could see the flames. Lol. Doug Mountjoy Sv Rebecca Leah C&C LF39253-208-1412Port Orchard YC wa. -------- Original message --------From: "Della Barba, Joe via CnC-List" <[email protected]> Date: 1/8/20 13:06 (GMT-08:00) To: [email protected] Cc: "Della Barba, Joe" <[email protected]> Subject: Stus-List Painful and/or lingering decisions
I have a LOT of dumb ideas to pick from! Long ago when we had an alcohol stove and you had to open the cockpit locker to pump the tank pressure up, I got the bright idea to run a hose around into the cabin and connect a Freon can from an air horn to the hose. It worked great, you pulled the horn valve until you saw the pressure you wanted, it took about 10 seconds to get 10 PSI. What I had not counted on was the Freon had some sort of chemical interaction with the alcohol, it made the flames burn green and the smell was awful. About 30 seconds of it was enough! Not alcohol awful, I mean awful to the point I think it would have killed you in an enclosed area awful if you were dumb enough to hang around. A more expensive one: The original A4, after thousands of miles of use, had finally got so bad it was pretty much unusable. Out it went and we found another one for sale on Long Island in “great condition”. We drove all the way up and found it not exactly “great”, sort of a mix between great and found at bottom of a river by divers looking for a dead body. Should have left it, but I really needed an engine and it was cheap. It actually worked OK for a while but soon developed all kinds of issues. That one eventually came out and the next one that really was great went in. That A4 was rebuilt by ship’s chief engineer as a hobby while his ship was in drydock. I bought it within 8 hours of his ad going up. Joe Della Barba Coquina C&C 35 MK I www.dellabarba.com From: CnC-List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Dennis C. via CnC-List Sent: Wednesday, January 08, 2020 3:36 PM To: CnClist <[email protected]> Cc: Dennis C. <[email protected]> Subject: [EXTERNAL] Stus-List Painful and/or lingering decisions I'm sure most of us have a story (or two) about a boat related decision we made that we wish we'd done differently. Many of them probably involve "cheaping it" or doing something in haste. Some are painful; some are just lingering "shoulda woulda's". One of my "lingering" ones is having my Navtec hydraulic backstay adjuster rebuilt by someone other than Lew Townsend out in Seattle (Lew was on extended vacation and I was impatient). Went to boat this week after a couple weeks absence and the backstay was slack.....again. The adjuster had eased an inch or so. It holds fine for day sailing or a race but eases ever so slowly over a couple weeks. One of my painful decisions was installing a Lewmar line adjustable genoa car system. While it works "okay", it doesn't adjust as easily as a Harken system or perhaps a Garhauer system. Perhaps sharing some of your stories will save others from similar regrettable decisions or, at worst, give us a chuckle. Dennis C. Touche' 35-1 #83 Mandeville, LA
_______________________________________________ Thanks everyone for supporting this list with your contributions. Each and every one is greatly appreciated. If you want to support the list - use PayPal to send contribution -- https://www.paypal.me/stumurray
