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 Great Lakes Shipwreck Preservation Society

Dedicated to Preserving our Shipwrecks and Maritime History
"From Prevention to Preservation"

HomeRV Preservation Work Weekends 2019


2019 R/V Preservation Work Weekends




                          



The summer project season is fast approaching!  Would you like to help in preparing the R/V PRESERVATION for an exciting season of fun and interesting projects. We are working on some still-in-progress items and include a number of improvements for the new season. Please review the "To Do List" and "Dream List" see if there is anything that you could help with. 

To learn more about the RV Preservation Work Weekend and to view the "To-Do-List" please click on this link. 

   
R/V Preservation Work Weekend      


RV Preservation Work Weekends 2019 Photos


We invite you to join with us and get to know the R/V PRESERVATION and more people in the GLSPS. We'd love to share a weekend of boat-work and camaraderie.  With the R/V PRESERVATION and Phil's camper, we can usually house up to six volunteers at a time!

Registration

This event is split into multipal days of the week or weekend.  Please register for each day you are able to attend so we can plan a headcount, tasks and sleeping arrangements.  We will also need to know your skill-sets, so we can assign a task to you.  


Please join us for the learning, rewarding and comradeship you can only receive from an event like this.

GLSPS Board of Directors
Ken Knutson - RV Preservation Chairman
kknutson@glsps.org 
612-578-1551



Closing Report:

The launch this year was horribly delayed by this year's rather wet climate.  The boat needed a lot of painting outside.  The cabin area, bow pulpit, roof and other small areas which were all outside.  Every time we traveled up north to Duluth to work o the boat we had either both days of rain or at least a day and a half of rain or just in-climate weather to delay the painting.

We finally caught a break on Memorial weekend where we had two days of sun and one day of driving rain.  In fact it snowed on Sunday of the Memorial weekend.

We did however get most of the inside work done on the maintenance of the two diesel engines including oil changes, all filters changed any oil leaks we found and cleaned up the engine bilge since it is an engine room and it will be the dirtiest bilge of the entire boat.

We also changed both alternator belts.  We conclude that the tightening mechanisms of the belts on both alternators will need to be re-designed.  They are still the old design that make it almost impossible for anyone to change.  Only the very experienced technicians can actually be able to change them.

We did a few upgrades on things such as the Navigation lights.  The bulbs were all changed and LED bulbs were installed.  All connections cleaned as well.  (As corrosion around wiring is a norm on all boats).

The biggest upgrades for the boat this year was the safety equipment.  The GLSPS Board of Directors approved to add a AIS (Automatic Identification System) to the vessel.  This equipment transmits a signal to all commercial shipping vessels to let them know what we are, who we are what we use the boat for, the cargo (passengers) coordinates, direction and speed.  This way the large commercial vessels can actually see where we are at whether we are moving or anchored at a dive site.  It's a great safety piece of equipment which will make the GLSPS Research Vessel just that much safer.

During the shake down cruise we noticed the the collision Radar System wasn't working anymore.  It is an old system from the 1980's and it finally failed on us.  

Now we didn't have Radar and it would put quite a damper on many of the projects scheduled this year including transporting it to Silver bay Marina where the boat is kept over the summer and is closer to the main leg of our projects.  It was not scheduled to be replace just yet!  

On the shake down cruise this year we had a passenger and former Board Member Dale Koziol riding along.  He saw that the Radar wasn't working and realized that this was a major piece of safety equipment.  After departing the Marina he secretly checked on his donations capability and found out he could make a substantial donation (for tax reasons) to the GLSPS.  So he filled out the request and was able to get us additional funds to be able to purchase a new radar system for the vessel.  

THANK YOU to Dale Koziol and his wife for making such a generous donation tot he Great Lakes Shipwreck Preservation Society!  We all appreciate him making the donation and realizing how important and essential a radar system is needed for the safety of running this boat.

The radar system was research by Tim Pranke, Ken Knutson and Phil Kerber and we collectively decided to purchase the Gamin GMR XHD Dome and 1042xsv Display for the RV Preservation, which best fits our current needs and for any future safety equipment and compatibility.

The unit arrived in a few days and Ken Knutson and Tim Pranke installed the new radar unit June 8 - 14 before we departed the Duluth area for Silver Bay.  The AIS System was also installed by Ken K.  All the on-board equipment is NEMA 2000 net-workable.  This will make the vessel very safe for on-water travels both day and night.

Otherwise the work weekends when fairly smooth.  The delay actually worked to our advantage since it gave us more time to finish more of the painting projects this year.

To learn more and see the detailed list on the tasks that were performed and completed, please click on the link above to go to the project page.

The vessel is now ready for the busy 2019 year of projects.  To view the list of tasks performed and completed on the RV Preservation in 2019, click here.

Please take a moment to look through the 2019 Project Schedule to see how you can participate in a project or two.

Have fun and be safe


Phil Kerber
GLSPS President
pkerber@glsps.org
https://glsps.org
612-720-2825  

Ken Knutson
GLSPS Boat Chairman
GLSPS Board Member
kknustson@glsps.org

Tim Pranke 
GLSPS Co Boat Chairman
Access Committee Chairman
tpranke@glsps.org