Silicone Caulk that Doesn't Set--Not Good

In the immortal words of John McEnroe—"YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING!" Some of the GE Silicone II used on the three starboard side salon windows didn't harden. Fortunately only the most aft window had to be redone. For the purposes of full disclosure the silicone used was beyond its expiration date, and yes, I did know it. But everyone knows that caulk goes bad by hardening in the tube. Guess I'll have to modify that heuristic:old latex and polyurethane caulks harden in the tube; old silicone may never harden.

Since I was already playing with the windows today, I reversed the opening direction of the salon's port center window. Now the sliding pane is the most forward pane and slides aft to open. This was done to better accommodate the air conditioner's exhaust hose.

There's some unexplained rust-brown water in the forward and mid bilge. In a newly painted forward bilge (the bilge from the bow to the engine room bulkhead) a little brown water worked itself up through several hairline cracks in the bilge's bottom. Wipe the water away and several hours later a little more appears. The same colored water, but in greater volume, is in the mid bilge (the bilge aft of the engine room bulkhead extending to the dam under the refrigerator). The aft bilge has nothing but clear water in it. I suspect that the water has been in proximity to the iron ballast--thus the rust brown color. Like the bulwarks, it doesn't surprise me that water got into the ballast's sealed space. The question now is, how to get it out. With the hopes of draining it I drilled two two 3/8" exploratory holes in the keel. Both went through about an inch of fiberglass before hitting dry metal. Rather than continue guessing where the water may be, the next test hole will be down through one of the hairline cracks.

 Cleaned the dinghy. Sanded and epoxied the dinghy's oars. Nylon tied the dinghy's gas line and sounder wires together. Filled the dink with air. The new patch appears to be holding. Gallons of water were drained from the dink's bilge. I suspect that it's rain water that found it's way below deck. When not using the dink for extended periods it would be best to remove the plug (it's the plug on the outside of the dink and low on the transom).

With the davits' falls all the way down to the dink, I could see an alarming amount of wire deformation on the port davit. The deformation was just below the turning block. This is also about where the starboard davit's wire broke. I'll bet this length of wire is usually just off the winch drum when the dink hits the water. It's then getting crushed each time the dink is raised. We need to replace the wire soonest.

Replaced the pencil zinc in the Cummins' heat exchanger. Removed the heat exchanger's end cap to make sure that none of the old zinc was blocking the tubes. Cleaned the end cap put a new o-ring around it's retaining bolt.

Removed and re-bedded the two studs which connect the Diver's Dream Zinc to Nellie's bonding wires. Ground a slot in the port forward fuel tank's cap to receive a deck key. Didn't like the result--it's still too hard to open. A proper solution is to remove each tank's inspection plate and replace the 2" caps and receivers with real diesel deck plates. It'll have to wait until we get Nellie to Maryland.