A change of Patience

This post is just a tad over due.

They say the happiest day in a boaters life is the day he buys his boat - and  the day he sells that boat is the saddest (and or happiest again).

Patience Two is no longer my boat due to a long list of reasons and decisions made in the past. I hope the new owner gets as much joy (or more if possible) from her and Mary and I did in the past five years.

On to happier times. I can't be boat free, it's not in my nature. When we decided to give P2 a new home Mary and I were already looking for a replacement. We do of course still intend to retire from this rat race and go cruise down south for a couple of years.

Our replacement, we decided, needed to be a heavy 40ish foot center cockpit sailboat. We figured we'd look over the winter - maybe charter one or two out of Florida and maybe come next spring we'd buy one - after we scoped out all the various makes and models. It was a nine month plan - which for me translates to oh - nine days.

Here's our new boat.

It's a 1987 Irwin 38 Center Cockpit. It's immaculate, it's exactly what we wanted in a cruiser.

So, the happiest and saddest day of my life happened so close together I don't know if I'm coming or going.

When you find what you want - why keep looking for the next best deal?

Now you know why I name my boats Patience. We are still noodling the new name for the Irwin - I'm favoring Patience Too (she'll be the third Patience).

She doesn't have a lot of add on's or upgrades which to me is perfect. I'd rather not take out (for instance) a 20 year old radar installation and put in a new, modern HD radar; I'd rather just install the new system  (half the work).

She needs an autopilot, updated sensors (speed, depth, wind sensors), solar, maybe a generator, and maybe a refridge upgrade - but she sails like a locomotive on a track. We made 5.1 kts at 45 degrees off the wind - in all of 8 knots of true wind speed. I'll take that in a cruising boat and sail happy.

The good part is - you faithful readers (both of you)  get to laugh at my sweat equity as I post the process.

I'll heave up a few more photo's in the coming days.

Diesel everywhere.

Our first Yacht Club raft up 'attempt' this year began with a triumph and ended in a triumph, even though it included two tows and a mechanic visiting our boat.

Going into a narrow creek, and therefore on the motor, the motor RPM's fluctuated up and down. We've had that happen so many times because of a faulty fuel pump in year one that we have the drill down pat.
Mary goes to the bow and clears the anchor, I seriously consider when and where to drop it every second of our progress while my stomach knots and twists around the sudden influx of acid. I undo the jib furling line just in case I have to sail it out.
Last November the filter clogged and shut us down as I was docking - I'm pretty sure that the sailing that day had stirred up more gunk, it was a bouncy sail.
I found a spot in 4 feet slightly outside the channel, turned up and we executed a perfect emergency anchor job and set just as the engine went to sputtering rough at only 500 RPM.
Five minutes, filter off, changed and restart. No bleeding necessary with our Westerbeke's electric fuel pump.
Engine runs at 500 rpm, rough as hell. Oh oh, same as it was before the change of filter (which was indeed full of gunk).
Called for a tow from a Yacht Club sailor still heading into the raft up. Figured I fix it there and get down to raft up goodness.
A buddy with the same engine type comes over, we trouble shoot the heck out of it. Bleed large shooting gushers from every where and eventually 'nail' it to a bad # 1 injector, it's running rough because it's not firing - and floods if I try to get it over 500 RPM on just the two.

Tow BoatUS to the rescue.

I pulled the injector and took it for a test. It was fine. I called around for mechanics, certified ones ya know - because I'm thinking fuel rack injector pump. Eight *&^%47 weeks. I call 'other' mechanics and get a 'tomorrow' deal.

Three guys show up, one can spell diesel. He basically teaches the other two how to bleed a diesel while I watch. Says the problem is my pump is vibrating and causing flow issues. I believe him because he gets the engine to idle smooth for a minute. I pay them a reasonable amount and they leave.

Later, I get the proper sized bolt and secure the pump. Engine runs rough at 500 RPM.

I'm hanging about upside down in my engine and transmission area (where the filer is) and staring about in utter frustration. I notices my secondary 'engine mounted' filter says 'change every 250 hours' - I've got 280 hours on the engine. It can't be the problem here because i AM getting fuel to the injectors, but I change it anyway. Didn't fix the problem.
Back to hanging upside down and staring. Then I notice a ring of pearls at the very top of the glass bowl on the filter. At first I think  "how pretty, I've never noticed that before". Then I smack myself on the forehead.
I removed the filter and put the O ring on properly so air didn't get in between the bowl and the filter element.
One tow (895 bucks, but cost me nothing as I have insurance)
One mechanic for 200 bucks a hour -
and one priceless lesson to slow down and get it down right.

And another lesson - if I touch something and a problem occurs I probably caused it.
Occams Razor and all that.

So a month later, Mary is complaining about diesel smell. I smell it too. Normally since our engine is in the cockpit between hulls we have NO diesel smell at all. Now it's all about hot diesel smell. A quick look shows I've got a pool under my engine - there are hoses going to both hulls from the engine compartment, one for engine cooling water, one for the hot water heater take off.

Twenty minutes of wringing diesel into a bucket cleans it all up. I found no source of leaking so I figured it can't be leaking because then air would get in and the engine would not run. I attribute the pool (a half gallon or so, it's got a pan to collect in under the engine - and no drain) to the bleeding done over the last month while 'fixing' the O ring issue.
Another "I touched it, so it's broken" episode.

We motor and sail home. Another, larger pool of diesel. Five minutes later I find that fuel is running out of the secondary on engine filter. Naturally when I first looked I didn't have the pump running so it wasn't leaking. Just as "naturally" I had touched the filter so it must be the problem.

I took it off, I put it on, I tightened it with channel locks. I ran the pump, it didn't leak.

Until the next time I went out to sail.

Turns out not only do you have to have the O ring, you have to have it on properly. This one, instead of going inside  the filter and compressing against the ring - goes outside and is compressed by the retaining ring.

The next day I'm at a party and explaining this to a friend - a 7 year old girl standing nearby and listening asks me "how long have you been sailing"
So I say "almost nine years"
She says "shouldn't you know how to do that by now".

I know if I touch it, have some one else check it.

I know not to tell stories like this to 7 year old girls.

Have a good day, and watch what you touch.

Cockpit upgrades

Wow, it's been a while. Sailing season does that.

Here's what I've been doing...
Soft Deck makes an EVA foam pad non-skid, it's 1/4 inch thick, soft underfoot, doesn't heat up and according to Practical Sailor is actually better than traditional non-skid for not slipping, easier on skin, knees, buts, and such.
I got two large (47 x 84 inch) sheets of the straight cut grey, cut them up and stuck them down. You have to ask for sheets this large, the web site doesn't list them.

The good news is the stuff cuts and shapes easily - even my wifes rotary cutter (think pizza cutter) for sewing slices right through.
The bad news is what that might spell for the longevity of the product.

Here's the pictures.

The center hatch is running against the 'grain' on purpose - call me a rebel, call me artistic.
Someday I'm going to work up the courage to either bevel or round the corners with a finger plane.

105 bucks a sheet, took me 1.5 sheets with no piecing. My cockpit sole is 48 x 86 inches.

Heavy Metal Upgrade Part II

The weather, health and natural procrastination forces finally lined up in a row and I got busy doing the installations I've carefully planned all winter.
First I installed the jib control car set up with the 3:1 block system. This was a easy upgrade that will allow me to control the forward and aft position of the jib car; used to set tension on the clew of the jib and help shape the sail by thereby putting tension the leach (back of the sail) it either holds or spills wind from the top etc.. Not complicated in practice, but hard to explain. A simplistic view is you move it forward when in light air/downwind - and pull it back when going upwind (purist take note, I know what it's for, this is for my landlubber readers).

Then the deck plan/ line routing change (the other 6 hours of the day)

The overview - shift one deck organizer (3 line) from the stack of 2 I have on the port side over to the starboard side and use it to lead the Boom Vang, OutHaul, and Cunningham back to the helm station.
This entails fabricating new teak blocks to both raise the lines off the deck and position the organizer so that it is level, not to the deck, but to the line itself.
That also means installing a new 3 position line clutch at the helm, ditto on a teak block to make it level.
On the port side I originally didn't bother with the teak blocks, so really this meant making four blocks, all of them individually shaped and angled to ensure the best possible fair lead of the lines.

After a lot of careful measuring - which means I took a piece of paper and held it to the coaming and then drew a line marking horizontal and level - I came up with a angle of 12 degrees. There is a reason I call my woodworking items "made by I".
Simple fact - over a four foot distance the human eye can detect deviations of as little as 1/16 of an inch from true. I've got a book case that proves it.

I've also got a jig I made a couple years ago to cut tapered table legs for a walnut end table set I made. The jig, simply stated holds one end secure and has a sliding clamp for the other end that lets you adjust the line of cut by as much as 6 inches. The whole jig then slides on the groove of my three hundred pound cast iron topped table saw. Extremely accurate, smooth cuts result.

I didn't use that.

I love my hand tools. I cranked out my vise, my hand saw, smoothing plane and block plane.

To make a long story somewhat less boring, I then made the blocks again using actual measurements and my precision powered tools.  Then final shaped them with the planes.This is what the line clutch looks like installed and "loaded"

 Note the Jib control car and it's clutch to the left. The red/white line is the cunningham, the blue is the outhaul and the vang is the dark blue/purple on the outside. The out side has the fairest lead - and the heaviest load, hence the vang on it.
For what it's worth -  the line clutch is level to the horizon (minus the bounce of the boat etc.. It's actually level, really it is.
This is an overhead view of the starboard side. You can see the organizer forward directing the lines back aft. The Cunningham line on the inside is interfered with by the end car of the jib controls. All boats are compromises. In this case the choice was maximum jib car movement or a bit of minor interference on the least loaded line. I couldn't move the organizer outboard (to the right for the land folks) because I had to be able to fasten it below.

 Sharp eyed folks will see that the outhaul line is actually white at the organizer and then attached via a sheepshank to the blue line.
A sheepshank knot is the simplest and lowest profile (size) knot to attach two same sized lines together. I got lazy and decided not to messenger a new line through the boom and back. The outhaul line only needs 6-10 inches of play so this is fine for now.

Just for those land lubber types (and maybe a new sailor or two) that is wondering what all these things are for - and why I want them at the helm station (where I sit) here's a simple explanation:

The main halyard bring the sail up and down - and is the primary way of tensioning the luff (front) of the main. It's not very efficient at that because the rope is some 60 feet line and it stretches proportional to it's length, it also has a lot of force on it so it's not convenient to adjust. For the reason a guy named Cunningham invented a system where a simple cringle (metal grommet in the sail) about 2 feet up from the bottom, with a rope through it that you can pull DOWN on will allow you to tension the luff simply, faster - and with less effort. You make it tighter going up wind - and looser going downwind (so it catches more air). Same deal for light or heavy air (weak wind, strong wind).

The outhaul is used to pull the clew (back bottom) of the main sail back to tighten the foot (and therefore 'bag' or curve of the sail - or to loosen it and create more bag; mostly in the bottom third of the sail. Again, upwind (tight), downwind (loose); and same deal on light and heavy air. In light air you want a curved "baggy" sail to provide power over speed. It's far better to be moving slow than to not be moving at all :)

The vang pulls the boom downward independent of the main sheet - sometimes you want the boom held down, but the main sheet loose because you need the boom angled way off to the side (for instance going downwind with the wind behind you. You want the boom held down so it's not bouncing all over the place in rolling waves (bouncing disturbs sail shape and spills air). Pull on the vang, and presto chango you are speeding along and not clanging and banging.

The port side organizers and clutches hold the port jib control car and the main halyard and the first reef line - so all lines to raise and lower the main are in one spot. I don't have a single line reef system; the reefing line pulls the back of the sail down and secures it to the boom; for the luff to be held down when reefed I need either to go forward and put the grommet on a hook at the mast, or a separate line run back from that grommet (much like the Cunningham, but beefier) to do the same thing - pull down and hold down the luff, when reefed one does not want a baggy sail for any reason.
I choose the separate line.
Generally when it's time to reef (make smaller, shorten etc..) a main sail it's not time to be farting around on the front of the boat.

Here's a sample clutch line block I cut on the first go around, this is before planing, smoothing and final shaping. I didn't think to take a picture prior to install - the block is actually shaped in 3 dimensions (fore, aft, and side to side). 

I now return you to your regular broadcast channel.

Or, go sailing.

New Season begins

I'm sorry it's been so long since my last post. Winter has that effect on me.

Patience Two survived the relatively mild winter with absolutely no problems except those caused by our most recently arriving neighbors.
A pair of mature Great Horned owls moved in sometime in December and staked out a perch on my mast head most mornings and evenings.
Owls have a nice digestive system, somewhat akin of snakes. They swallow whole, poop steaming piles of nastiness and regurgitate bones and  fur balls. By the pound. Along with stomach acid.

If they weren't so much fun to have around I'd be shopping for a pellet gun.

Anyway.

We bent on the sails last weekend so the boat no longer looks naked and forgotten at the end of the dock. All of the winter-ization coverings and such have been stripped away, the first round of scrubbing and shovel duty caused by our winged friends is done and the engines and other boat systems have been prepared and tested. Ready to sail.

My upgrade to the boats systems this spring is to rip out our 'came with the boat' Raymarine VHF - a full sized DSC (Digital Select Calling)equipped Ray 54 model that for all intents and purposes was obsolete when installed because it only excepted NEMA 0183 version 1.5 as the input to it's DSC module.
DSC when used in conjunction with a  MMSI number (a individual ID) is like using a VHF for a phone call on the water, it is one boat to another (or selected group) with built in encryption and identification. When it is used in GPS input the Lon / Lat, speed and course of the calling units are displayed.

What that means is when you send an emergency call to the coast guard, or any other unit they KNOW where you are, who you are - and you can program in 'types of distress'. You can push a button, know the call is made and then go fight the emergency with the surety of mind that they WILL find you.

Without GPS it's not exactly optimal now is it?

So, the Admiral got me a Standard Horizon 2150gx with AIS over the winter and added a RAM Mic to the pot as well.

The with "AIS" is the over the top addition. Intrepid readers can google AIS - it's a automated id system, that, like DSC  when it has a GPS feed works like radar - it plots the sending unit on a radar like screen and tells me who they are, where they are, and where they are going. It only works for 'ships' - freighters and such that are required to broadcast AIS signals.

The SH 2150gx is the ONLY VHF radio that does this - I'm amazed no other product has this feature STILL. At 327 bucks it's price is in line with other high end VHF radios that don't have AIS.

A AIS receiver as a standalone is 500 bucks. Icom and Raymarine are missing the boat on this one.

It is a tad bit larger than the Ray 54 - but it does accept a signal from my GPS - as well as output a signal to my laptop, a PA system with a programmable fog horn and other neat features.
Running the wires was a snap - just a couple hours of pulling and pushing and such to get it done. Installing the RAM mic was bit tougher as the end of the cable is a one inch connector that required  a lot more room to lead. All said and done, three hours of work and it's up and part of the boat.