Just a note to celebrate an amazing morning sail I had today. With both my young sons in school, and myself free of work, and the prospect of some sun and wind, I headed out. Although the 15 knot winds never materialized, I was able to ghost along at a leisurely 3 knots in the variable 5 to sometimes 8 knots of wind. Going back and forth between Friday Harbor and Shaw Island on such a glorious day, by myself, was magical. There were seals aplenty, and a sea lion on the channel marker. I'm reminded that a mere step away is another world.
Or, as my favorite poet E.E. Cummings said so well: There's a hell of a good universe next door, let's go!
Fair winds and peace to all my fellow sailors out there.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Learned to eye splice double braid
As anyone knows who has wasted time reading any of this blog, I love to fix things and learn new skills. In order to replace our old wire main halyard I decided to learn how to eye splice double braid to put the eye in for the halyard shackle. I got a copy of the Brion Toss eye splice video from the local library (after asking them to buy it, which they fortunately did) and saw it was just a procedural problem. His method uses various tools, like a special fid, that I don't have, so I searched online for a more low tech approach. Sure enough, found one that doesn't require a fid or anything else not on every boat. http://www.swinginonastar.org/index_files/DoubleBraidEyeSplice.htm
Happy to say it worked great on my very first try. It took me about 90 minutes and lots of head scratching to make sure I didn't ruin it, but I didn't.
Doing this eye splice was one of the more pleasing things I have ever had to do for the boat. It is always fun working with rope, and these splice are really elegant things. Knowing that they preserve close to 100% of the strength of the rope, and are less prone to catching on things, makes it all the more satisfying.
After doing the main halyard, I had to eye splice the new traveler lines for where they attach to the end cars and this also worked great. Way, way better than tying knots in these traveler lines.
Brion Toss has a great recommendation for how to determine how much of the rope to bury in the splice. You take the diameter of the rope, say 3/8, convert it to 16ths, so 6/16ths, and then take half of the numerator and add it to itself, so 6 plus 3 gives 9, and that is how many inches of this diameter line you should bury. Way easier and more elegant than multiplying the diameter by 22 or other such methods.
I finished the splice by taking heavy thread and sewing through the neck a few times and wrapping the line around to seize it together.
Happy to say it worked great on my very first try. It took me about 90 minutes and lots of head scratching to make sure I didn't ruin it, but I didn't.
Doing this eye splice was one of the more pleasing things I have ever had to do for the boat. It is always fun working with rope, and these splice are really elegant things. Knowing that they preserve close to 100% of the strength of the rope, and are less prone to catching on things, makes it all the more satisfying.
After doing the main halyard, I had to eye splice the new traveler lines for where they attach to the end cars and this also worked great. Way, way better than tying knots in these traveler lines.
Brion Toss has a great recommendation for how to determine how much of the rope to bury in the splice. You take the diameter of the rope, say 3/8, convert it to 16ths, so 6/16ths, and then take half of the numerator and add it to itself, so 6 plus 3 gives 9, and that is how many inches of this diameter line you should bury. Way easier and more elegant than multiplying the diameter by 22 or other such methods.
I finished the splice by taking heavy thread and sewing through the neck a few times and wrapping the line around to seize it together.
New Harken traveler installed!
I've finalized the installation of the new Harken Big Boat traveler and boy is she a beauty. Far more beefy than the old Lewmar unit she replaced and with better pulley ratios.
I've 
attached some photos of the installation for those of you considering doing the same. 
My
experience with sailnet ended up being positive, though it took them about 2 weeks longer to get it to me than they had said. You have to cut the traveler beam yourself to the specifications of your deck, and this was easy to do with a good hacksaw blade. Just have to make sure the cut is perpendicular the length of the beam. I've included a shot of the new backing plate and nuts. This installation took two 4" 5/16 hex bolts. The pilothouse is strongly reinforced here and I filled the old bolt holes with thickened epoxy before drilling the new holes. It is solid fiberglass in this area. Beneath the backing plate I added some thickened epoxy to make for a flatter mounting surface.
Amy and I really like the look of the red control line as it contrasts easily from the mainsheet and plays off the red and black color theme of the Harken.
I've 
attached some photos of the installation for those of you considering doing the same. 
My
experience with sailnet ended up being positive, though it took them about 2 weeks longer to get it to me than they had said. You have to cut the traveler beam yourself to the specifications of your deck, and this was easy to do with a good hacksaw blade. Just have to make sure the cut is perpendicular the length of the beam. I've included a shot of the new backing plate and nuts. This installation took two 4" 5/16 hex bolts. The pilothouse is strongly reinforced here and I filled the old bolt holes with thickened epoxy before drilling the new holes. It is solid fiberglass in this area. Beneath the backing plate I added some thickened epoxy to make for a flatter mounting surface. 
Amy and I really like the look of the red control line as it contrasts easily from the mainsheet and plays off the red and black color theme of the Harken.
Another great trip to Jones Island State Park
Our favorite local destination is Jones Island State Park. A gem of an island located just north of Yellow Island and west of Orcas, it offers safe and easy anchorages, amazing hikes, nice second growth forest, big open fields for frisbee with the kids, and surprisingly few other people. It only takes an hour from our slip in Friday Harbor and so it is an easy half-day trip.
This time we took advantage of some rare sunshine and brought along a good friend for the ride. We sailed for a while but were going into the teeth of a max ebb current which reduced our SOG to about 1.5 knots in the slight and variable 10 knot winds. Alas, at least we got to raise the sails and use the new traveler. Wow, is it pretty to look at and works like a dream. I'm sure the first time we use it something more than 20 knots will surely show the benefits of the 4:1 ratio and smooth bearings.
We anchored in the south cove as the wind was from the north and after going to shore did a lot of sun lounging on the beach. The boys are always happy, as all kids would be, playing on the shore. We try as much as possible to afford them a Huckleberry Finn childhood.
The hike around the west side was especially beautiful and the boys and I took advantage of the extreme low tide to explore some smallish coves/caves in the north cove. Couldn't have had any more fun than playing tag and walking logs and just being boys.
This time we took advantage of some rare sunshine and brought along a good friend for the ride. We sailed for a while but were going into the teeth of a max ebb current which reduced our SOG to about 1.5 knots in the slight and variable 10 knot winds. Alas, at least we got to raise the sails and use the new traveler. Wow, is it pretty to look at and works like a dream. I'm sure the first time we use it something more than 20 knots will surely show the benefits of the 4:1 ratio and smooth bearings.
We anchored in the south cove as the wind was from the north and after going to shore did a lot of sun lounging on the beach. The boys are always happy, as all kids would be, playing on the shore. We try as much as possible to afford them a Huckleberry Finn childhood.
The hike around the west side was especially beautiful and the boys and I took advantage of the extreme low tide to explore some smallish coves/caves in the north cove. Couldn't have had any more fun than playing tag and walking logs and just being boys.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Secondary fuel filter change and she's spotless!
I changed out my engine mounted secondary fuel filter today and brought it home to do a biopsy and see what was inside. It had 150 hours on it. I have a primary Racor 2 micron filter upstream, and so I thought not much should get through. Sure enough, that filter was spotless after 150 hours.
And, I have been running a high % biodiesel these past 150 hours and know that it has been cleaning out my old 70 gallon diesel tank. But none of that gunk made it past my Racor. I thought these pictures would be fun for some to see. The line on the filter element is from my hacksaw blade!
Final resolution of the temperature sender saga
On 3/15/08 I posted a story about my tribulations with getting both my temperature gauges to read properly. I am overwhelming happy to say that I have finally solved the problem and the answer was somewhat outside the box.
Where I left off in the previous post was that I was contacting Cook Engine in Portland, Oregon to return, yet again, the incorrect sender they sent and hope to have them send the proper one. Well, when I spoke with them the following Monday the lady told me that she would refund my money and then basically just wanted to get rid of me. No "let's solve this problem together" or "we'll get to the bottom of this". No, just go away please. I told her I had found one source online for the "proper" 1/4 sender and she said to just go with them. Being fed up with being sent the wrong stuff from Cook, I agreed, and ordered the sender online.
It came, I hooked it up to my multimeter and got it warm and guess what, it did not match the resistance needed for two stations!!!!!!!!!!! Just to be safe, I took it down to Aeolus and put it in and warmed her up and sure enough, it didn't work.
This is when no amount of Fuck, or Shit or Goddamn or any other colorful angry language begins to express the amount of frustration or despair one momentarily feels...
Being a persistent SOB though, I said, "OK, screw it, Teleflex makes a 3/8 dual station sender and I have two new Teleflex temperature gauges that are rated to work with their sender and so by god I'm going to go that route".
While down in Seattle I got the 3/8 NPT (very important it is NPT!) tap and the appropriate 37/64 drill bit and when I got home I drilled and tapped the old 1/4 hole for the new 3/8 sender I got from Fisheries Supply in Seattle. There is just enough clearance in the housing to safely accommodate the larger sender.
I took it down to Aeolus today, started her up, and unbelievable, both gauges came up to operating temperature. I'm so relieved it is indescribable.
Where I left off in the previous post was that I was contacting Cook Engine in Portland, Oregon to return, yet again, the incorrect sender they sent and hope to have them send the proper one. Well, when I spoke with them the following Monday the lady told me that she would refund my money and then basically just wanted to get rid of me. No "let's solve this problem together" or "we'll get to the bottom of this". No, just go away please. I told her I had found one source online for the "proper" 1/4 sender and she said to just go with them. Being fed up with being sent the wrong stuff from Cook, I agreed, and ordered the sender online.
It came, I hooked it up to my multimeter and got it warm and guess what, it did not match the resistance needed for two stations!!!!!!!!!!! Just to be safe, I took it down to Aeolus and put it in and warmed her up and sure enough, it didn't work.
This is when no amount of Fuck, or Shit or Goddamn or any other colorful angry language begins to express the amount of frustration or despair one momentarily feels...
Being a persistent SOB though, I said, "OK, screw it, Teleflex makes a 3/8 dual station sender and I have two new Teleflex temperature gauges that are rated to work with their sender and so by god I'm going to go that route".
While down in Seattle I got the 3/8 NPT (very important it is NPT!) tap and the appropriate 37/64 drill bit and when I got home I drilled and tapped the old 1/4 hole for the new 3/8 sender I got from Fisheries Supply in Seattle. There is just enough clearance in the housing to safely accommodate the larger sender.
I took it down to Aeolus today, started her up, and unbelievable, both gauges came up to operating temperature. I'm so relieved it is indescribable.
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