Almost learned the hard way

[Kevin Henderson]

Tinkering around the boat today still investigating my Xantrex system woes (See separate thread  )  While making some electrical observations I decided to tackle my ST 4000 Auto Pilot Issues (Also a separate thread  )
I began to unthread the actuator assembly attached to the wheel.  Feeling as though it was not unthreading smoothly and needed a little effort, I broke out my trusty channel locks and a rubber strip and began to put pressure on the Assembly.  To my utter amazement, something suddenly sprung loose and all I saw were little tiny gears, o rings and various other assemblies scattering themselves throughout the cockpit    Even worse, a small metal assembly rolled on the cockpit in subsequently deposited itself into one of my thru hulls that drain water from the cockpit 
Fortunately the piece wedged itself a couple inches down the line and I was able to extricate it from the Thru hull.  I managed to assemble the various parts and after carefully reassembling I discovered the error of why the auto pilot was not working and corrected it.  Thereby fixing my Auto pilot problem.   

The morale of the story????  Always always always cover those thru hulls before beginning any work around the cockpit that may swallow a loose part rolling around. 
I could have learned the hard way... but this time I didn't 

[Ron Volk]

Okay I'll bite, what was the problem?

[Ron Hill]

Kevin : Had to explain the same principle to a GrandDaughter. 
She was putting on earrings over a sink that had the stopper UP!!  Butterfingers, and you know what happened.      A thought

[scotty]

OK, so yesterday I went down to the boat and washed it.  Except I left one of the port-holes open.  Opps!  Got a little wet, but no big deal.  I guess I flunked that intelligence test.  (I was swimming in the shallow end of the gene pool).

[Stu Jackson]

OK, so on our last cruise I got the dinghy inflated and the outboard on the dinghy with our Garhauer motor lift (sweet piece of equipment).  Spent the day tooling around, motor on and off many times. Next day, motor wouldn't start.  At all.  Many, many pulls on the cord.

Looked down, kill switch lanyard was on the sole of the dinghy!  Best thought?  When docking the dinghy the night before, I'd used my left arm to grab the dock, lanyard got pulled off and fell into the dinghy.

Engine started right up!   

[Steve Sayian]

A guy in my club was lifting his dinghy engine up onto the rail without having a safety line attached between the engine and the boat and the engine lifting bridle let go...good by engine.  Like Ron's story of the earings...

[Mike and Joanne Stimmler]

Another note on scuppers(but not the four legged variety)

We were sailing from Dana Point to Catalina and my crew was goofing off throwing grapes at each other when I saw one rolling towards a scupper. Well, I jumped up off the helm seat trying to grab the grape before it went down the scupper and my head hit the Uniden wireless ram mike that I had clipped to the split back stay and off it flew into the ocean. First thinking it was a lost cause, I remembered that it was a floating waterproof model and looked back and there it was floating behind us. At this point, I'm glad it was white and not black because I don't think we could have seen it. After doing a u turn and making a few passes, we were able to snag it with a fishing net and all turned out well. There is now a holster for the mike and grapes are banned in the cockpit.  

[waterdog]

My Scupper will swallow grapes, full cobs of corn, left over steak bits, cake, cookies, beer and anything else that spills on the cockpit floor...   

[lazybone]

Someone should do a write up on how to install a macerator connected to the cockpit scupper.

[Indian Falls]

Why would you ban Grapes???

"Grapes don't kill Uniden wireless ram mikes... people do"

[Mike and Joanne Stimmler]

But grapes plug scuppers and the Uniden wireless ram mike survived.