Change of Attitude

As a homage to the great Maya Angelou who died this week, I’ve decided not to complain about our current situation.  Angelou said “If you don’t like something, change it.  If you can’t change it, change your attitude.  Don’t complain.”

So this is my story, with no complaints.

This week, we have been blessed with multiple learning opportunities.  We had intended to test the new mainsail and our night-time navigational equipment with a 24-hour, non-stop sail.  The weather was perfect and we were psyched to test the boat and ourselves.

The wind was blowing a stiff 20 knots with gusts to 25 directly in the nose.  Great stuff for testing the mainsail, we told ourselves.  Curiously, no other boats were headed out and we had the loch to ourselves. The loch master mumbled something about being courageous, chuckling to himself. 

We found a wide spot in the river and hoisted the sail to the 2^nd reef point.  We tightened down the sail as much as we could and looked up in horror (wait...does that sound like a complaint?  maybe I should say "wonder"?  "amazement"?).  It was a big scoop !  The reef points in the main sail weren't positioned forward of the pulley sheaves in the boom and we couldn’t tighten and flatten the sail.

Sheaves too far forward on the boom to tighten the sail.

Reef number 2, with sheaves in front of reef point.

Reef number 2.  Sheaves need to move back at least 25 cm.

The river was narrowing and a decision had to be made.  I won the short-lived debate and we promptly turned tail and headed back to the loch.  “Back so soon?” the loch master inquired.  While we were describing our new discovery to him, another educational opportunity presented itself: When entering a loch with a considerable water level change, block your wind generator so that it isn’t spinning dangerously close to the cement walls and, if you have the choice, tie up on the opposite side.  No real damage was done and it was a good lesson learned.

Later that evening, dockside radio (e.g., gossip) informed us that two guys sailed out earlier in the morning to test their new mainsail, and they came limping back home 5 hours later with their sail ripped in two.  Old lesson confirmed:  discretion is, indeed, the better part of valour. 

We made a call to the sail maker, who gave us an appointment…3 days later.  While this was initially disappointing, we later realized that it was a stroke of good luck since our battery charger (shore power 220V to battery 12V) chose this exact moment to die, or rather, stop regulating anything.  Of course we didn’t notice it immediately.  The batteries simmered at 15 volts for at least 24 hours before we realized something was amiss.  After adding more than ½ liter of de-ionized distilled water to both service batteries, we called the electrician.  Note to self:  always have battery water on board.

Fortunately for us, the electrician gave us an appointment the next day and also installed our auto-pilot computer that had been sent off for repair over a month ago.  It was during this visit that we learned:  a) that the battery charger (a 20+ year-old German model) is beyond repair and a new French model (lighter, sleeker, more powerful) could be ours for a mere 350 Euros after a 10 day delay; and b) that our GPS antenna is not doing its job but the internal antenna gives great results.  Note to self: always travel with a small portable battery charger.

The visit with the sail maker presented not only new learning opportunities but also prospects for personal growth as we struggled to come to terms with what he said we had to do.  The short version of this tale is that we have to move the 2 reef-point sheaves for the automatic reefing system further down the boom and add two new stainless steel appendages to the boom gooseneck to make the new sail work.  This will involve learning a set of new skills including, but not limited to, soldering stainless steel, riveting, precision circular-sawing, and how to carefully remove and re-set 20 year-old pulley sheaves that, we’ve since discovered, are obsolete and thus irreplaceable. Note to self: there’s Xanax is in the medicine cabinet.

Our obsolete sheaves.

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Magellan FX324 Map GPS receiver info

About the antenna…

When we bought Spray, she was equipped with a now-obsolete Magellan FX324 Map GPS receiver.  The signal was very feeble and an electrician told us the antenna was dead.  We ordered a new antenna (about $150) and were told we were lucky to get one because they weren’t making them anymore.

It worked well for about 1.5 years and then we started having problems again.   The time to first fix could be anywhere from 15 minutes to 4 hours.  We moved the antenna around to different locations and repaired frayed wires, but results were very sporadic ;  good for a couple of weeks and then out again. 

A different electrician had a look at our GPS this morning and, like the first, deduced a problem with the antenna.  After my ear-piercing squeals of protest, he gently explained to us that the Magellan FX324 has a built-in antenna and that  ** YOU DO NOT NEED AN EXTERNAL ANTENNA IN A FIBERGLASS BOAT.**  The external antenna is only needed for metal boats (aluminum, steel, etc.).  The Magellan documentation does mention the presence of an internal antenna but they insist you must have an external antenna (Magellan brand, of course) if the GPS receiver is located inside the boat.  To test this, we simply disconnected the antenna from the back of the GPS, which resulted in a strong first fix in less than 2 minutes.  With the antenna cable attached this morning, it took more than 4 hours.  

We will keep the antenna cable ready to connect in case this strange new method ceases to work for some reason.  I’ve now tested our external antenna-less GPS several times throughout the day, trying to sneak up on it or catch it unawares, but it gives a strong fix, every time.  Bewildered relief.

About the power / data cable…

A blog reader contacted me several months ago to ask if I had any documentation for the data / power cable pins of the Magellan.  I looked through the user’s manual but didn’t find anything.  I tried searching the web for this information in both French and English.  Not only did I not find the information, I found several forums where others were asking the same question.  I asked our electrician if he had a pin-out and he promptly directed me back to my user’s manual, where the information was hiding all along.  I was looking for a circular diagram of the cable pins and the information is listed as a simple table.  Sorry for the delay.

Without further ado, here it is:

FX324 MAP Description                               FX324 MAP Wires
Power 10/36 volts                                          Red
Power 0 volt                                                     Blue
RS232 Reference                                            Green
RS232 Input                                                      Black
RS232 Output                                                   White
RS422 Reference                                            Orange
RS244 Output                                                   Yellow 

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Supersized !

When the sail maker came to measure our mast and boom for the new mainsail last week, he informed us that our mast was almost 1 meter taller than the typical Dehler 34 (12.4 m instead of 11.8 m from the top of the mast to the boom).  When he told us this, I rushed home to look up what happens to a boat’s stability when a taller mast is added.  After being initially horrified, I calculated that the increased sail area was only about 1 square meter and so I decided not to worry about it (too much).  So imagine my happy surprise this afternoon when we discovered that our keel is 10 cm deeper than the typical Dehler 34 specs as well !  We’ve been supersized !

Apparently, the Dehler Top models from the early 1990s were available in standard or performance versions, although I’ve never seen it mentioned in the docs.  I have seen other Dehler 34s of this generation with a draft of 1.80 m instead of the 1.70 m mentioned in the specs, so we’re not the only ones. 

It’s a bit disturbing that we’re only just learning about all this, but I am relieved that the taller mast has been balanced by a deeper keel.  Thankfully, I always use a generous under-keel-clearance safety margin (called more simply in French “the pilot’s foot”)  of 30-50 centimeters, depending on swell conditions, so we’ve never grounded because of those additional 10 centimeters. Oh, we’ve grounded for other reasons…

Crispy new mainsail !

And now on our supersized Dehler 34 we have a crisp new mainsail!  It has 5 full battens, which are round instead of flat with tension adjusted by a simple set screw.  The sail maker told us to sail for 30 hours and then adjust the set screws and wrap them with Teflon tape.  We had to move the cleat and pulley along the boom for the third reef point because the 3^rd reef on the old sail had a “non-orthodox” spacing, according to the sail maker.  Patrick is now a pro at riveting.

Battens adjusted by simple set screws along the leech.

The sail is fitted with Rutgerson mainsail cars (look like little black Volkswagen Beetles) and we followed the advice of the sail maker and put a bolt at the bottom of the mast grove to act as a stop for the mainsail cars.  The system we had before consisted of two split pins fit into holes in the mast with a small length of dyneema cord between them.  It was pretty rickety and needed to go.  

 

The mainsail car stop with VW Beetle traffic jam when the mainsail is furled.

We took advantage of this sail change to change the nylon washers in the boom gooseneck.  We didn't realize how necessary that was until we had a look at the old ones.

Changing the nylon washers on the gooseneck should probably be done every year, eh?

While Patrick was riveting, I occupied myself as best I could with odd jobs.  One thing we hate is loud shouting back and forth between the helmsman and the crew when trying to set the anchor.  We've worked out a series of hand signals to avoid this, but inevitably, Patrick forgets our color-scheme to indicate the length of chain going down and has to scream back to me "What's orange again??" thus destroying our silent manoeuvres.  Last year, I decided to write the instructions on the inside of the chain locker hatch, which worked beautifully.  I re-wrote the instructions and added the color codes for the anchor line as well as the chain.  Now I just have to see if the ink holds.  Curiously, white board markers seem to work better than permanent markers.
 

Chain instructions (in french)

We’re on a waiting list to get into the water, but we should have splash-down by the end of the week.  We’re also still waiting for our auto-pilot computer to come back from Raymarine but would be happy to head off with the more powerful replacement the electrician loaned us.  And then we’re off for a solo (well, duo) 24-hour non-stop shakedown cruise!  Weather permitting, of course…

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Offhore fears-du-jour

I sat down and had a long chat with myself yesterday (note: a big mint julep does wonders for fine-tuning one’s inner voice).  What is it that worries me about our first solo multi-day offshore passage?  Do I think we’ll be caught in a storm?  That the boat will fall apart under the strain?  That we’ll hit a floating cargo container and sink?  That we’ll be smashed in the night by a fishing boat?  That we’ll be struck by lightning and burn?  None of the above (although it’s funny how that list of disasters effortlessly sprang to mind…):  it’s the fear of being incapacitated with sea sickness. 

On a three-day offshore passage, if things start getting rough, there’s nowhere to hide.  Statistics show that even during the “settled” weather of June and July, it is not rare to have force 7 winds with stronger gusts and 3 meters or more of swell in the Bay of Biscay.  Experience shows that even short-term weather reports can be wrong in this area. 

Even in perfectly acceptable weather conditions, the Bay of Biscay is very lumpy. The bay is exposed to the full force of the Atlantic and prevailing winds, unimpeded for thousands of miles. Over half of the basin is a mind-boggling 4550 meters deep (around 15,000 ft).  Steep canyons connect the abyss to the 200 meter deep continental shelf near the coasts (and in the case of northern Spain, very near the coast, only 12 kms away in some places).  This means that water coming into the bay with the winds and currents gets shoved up onto the continental shelves, where it piles up and then sloshes around trying to find space to spread out.  When a storm rolls in, this can create some of the most ferocious seas found anywhere.  The most dangerous area is right at the shelf break where the water first starts piling up.  In bad conditions, the best strategy is to head for the deep water areas and to avoid the more agitated shallower zones.

Patrick and I have both experienced sea sickness before, although never on Spray.  What gets to us is not the rough stuff that comes head-on but those long offshore swells that roll you relentlessly in a corkscrew motion from the stern quarter, exactly the kind of swell you should expect on a downwind run in the Bay of Biscay.

We have enough experience to know how to avoid sickness: staying warm is the most important for us, and over the years, we’ve had to change our definition of warm and cold.  In general, the instant we feel a hint of coolness anywhere, it’s time to add another layer without delay, even if we don’t actually feel cold.  I’ve had unfortunate situations where I began to feel cold in my hands or arms 10 minutes before the end of my watch and decided to just stick it out.  Big mistake. 

Patrick is more susceptible to sea sickness than I am, but has the advantage of being able to bounce back immediately after he is sick, or at least until the next wave of nausea hits half-an-hour later.  He has been known to eat a big hunk of slimy camembert cheese right after being sick!  (Did I mention he’s French?)  I, on the other hand, don’t get sick as easily, but when I do, I often go down and stay down.  I’ve learned that a lot of my problems are blood-sugar related and as difficult as it is, I have to force feed myself with non-sugary food right after an incident if I hope to stay vertical.  Crackers and soup (prepared in advance and waiting in a thermos) are the best remedies I’ve found, providing not only quick calories but warmth. 

We also aren’t too proud to take motion sickness medicines.  We generally take a ½ dose if we think we might need it and a full dose if we’re sure.  We have some scopolamine patches on board but have never used them.  The list of secondary effects scares us more than being sick.

All of this experience is helpful, though not particularly comforting.  Our previous offshore passages (the English Channel and the Bay of Biscay) have been done with 4 or 5 crew aboard.  You do what you can to avoid being sick, but if you are sick, there’s always a helping hand available.  Not so this time.  It’ll be just the two of us and neither of us can afford to go down for long.  A friend told us recently that the most important thing for a couple crossing Biscay is to make sure that the person not on watch gets sufficient rest.  Easier said that done, I'm sure.

The only comfort I can find at the moment is a big fat waypoint I call “Plan B”:  We can make it from our jumping off point in France (Ile d’Yeu) to the Spanish coast at Santander in 36 hours and then do another 16 hour hop on to Gijon.  Two hops instead of one isn’t so bad (although Patrick is thumping his chest, saying “One hop or not at all !”).  If we assume the weather bulletin is reliable for at least 24 hours, that means we would only have to gut out something unforeseen for 12 hours before getting to a safe haven.  After our storm experience from last summer, we were both pretty wet, cold and tired after only 5 hours, so having to cope for 12 hours seems pretty daunting. 

And you know what the worse thing of all would be?  A perfectly smooth passage.  How would we ever know what we were capable of?  I’d have to relive all this anxiety the next time we planned a long passage!  This reminds me of Monty Python’s The Holy Grail where Sir Galahad (Michael Palin) pleads, “Let me have just a little bit of peril ?” 

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Biscay Bound

In one month and one week (although remaining staunchly uncommitted to an actual date), we’ll be heading off across the Bay of Biscay to explore the Rias of Galicia in northwest Spain and the north coast regions of Asturia, Cantabria and the Basque country. 

On the tourism menu:  the Rias (estuary inlets cut deep and wide into the rugged granite coastline), protected islands (one hosting a beach considered to be one of the most beautiful in the world), an inland visit to the UNESCO World Heritage site at Santiago de Compostela, and numerous wild anchorages, small villages and fishing ports dotted along a steep coastline whose geological features have earned this coastline the designation as a UNESCO GeoPark.      

On the sailing menu:  a 3-day crossing of the notorious Bay of Biscay, another shorter overnight crossing for the return trip along the coast, coping with frequent fog, dodging a dense fishing industry and numerous mariculture sites, getting weather reports and port information in a language we don’t master, and rounding several impressive capes and headlands, some with disconcerting names like “the cape of death.”  The good news is that the currents and tides are diddly-squat compared to those of northern Brittany.

Since returning from our shakedown cruise, we’ve spent most of our time fixing things on the boat (still waiting for new mainsail and repaired auto-pilot), studying and refining the cruise plan, upgrading our navigation software (new MaxSea charts, double of everything on a 2^nd backup computer, installing navionics on the smartphone), and pulling together all the bits and pieces needed for 4 or 5 or 6 months on the boat.  The daily activity helps keep the anxiety at bay, but I do have to admit that it is present as a light undercurrent most of the time. These last two years on Spray have taught us the importance of experience-and-confidence building by tackling smaller goals that are just a bit outside our comfort zone.  Last year, I was quite anxious about sailing around northern Brittany and the Channel Islands, especially after an experienced sailor friend said “What?! You guys are going to tackle THAT zone for your first solo cruise ?!”  Today, if you told me I was leaving for northern Brittany tomorrow, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it, and yet it’s some of the most difficult sailing in Europe.  I am, however, anxious about our upcoming cruise and the 3 day crossing in particular, but I also know it represents a major stepping stone for us and one that is necessary if we hope to go further in the future. 

We crossed the Bay of Biscay several years ago, crewing for Guru Bob in a small 24 foot open cockpit boat, sailing from south to north against the prevailing winds.  It was rough.  I felt like I deserved a tattoo afterwards.  This time: a 34-foot offshore boat with a hefty dodger, sailing north to south on a downwind run (we hope). It’ll be fine.  Really.  

Big smiles after having survived a rough crossing of Biscay in 2010.

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Anatomy of a Shakedown Cruise

Day 1:  Put the boat in the water at Arzal, with typical last-minute crises.  Electrician diagnoses problem with auto-pilot computer.  Sends it off to be fixed, installs a temporary one for our cruise.  Diagnoses potential problem with GPS.  Suggests repositioning the antenna so that it is not sitting below the out-board motor.

Day 2:  Winds force 5-6 from east but no swell; Head 30 miles west to the port of Crouesty for meeting with the sail maker.  Discover that mast is not 11.8 meters as documented but 13.40 meters !  Will have to reposition 3^rd reef cleat and pulley on the boom for new sail, and reposition the “stop” in the mast track for the mainsail slides.  **addendum:  the sail maker came back a week later to re-measure when he realized that our mast was significantly different from the standard Dehler 34.  The luff length (P) is 12.4 meters, where the normal length is 11.8 meters.  The mast height from the top of the mast to the deck is 13.4 meters.  Normally, the idea that someone has fiddled with aspects that upset carefully calculated stabilitiy ratios would bother me. Suprisingly, though, this news comforts me.  I've been whining since we bought the boat that she's simply too physical for me... it's very difficult to hoist the mainsail alone and we have to reef pretty early in the game to avoid excessive heel.  Now I know why.  This extra 60 centimeters gives us 1 square meter more of sail area than the standard Dehler (mainsail area = P * E / 1.8 where P is luff length and E is foot length of 4.10 meters).  This is great news for light winds sailing (whatever the hell THAT means when you live and sail in Brittany).  At least I no longer feel like a whimp for reefing early.

Day 3:  Head to Port Louis 35 miles west to pick up Guru Bob.  25 knots of wind on a broad reach.  Test 1^st then 2^nd reefs and genoa furler.  Head door breaks a hinge after being (accidently) left open at the precise moment that a big swell hits the boat.  Temporary auto-pilot seems to work okay.  Hear message over the VHF that the military will be firing into the sea in an area loosely defined by a mysterious polygon vaguely marked on our charts.  Whatever it is, we seem to be in the middle of it just as the wind dies.  Motor out of the polygon at a determined-yet-dignified clip and head to port.

Day 4:  Motoring out of Port Louis with me at the helm, wishing to make a gracious arc to position the boat perfectly between the channel markers, Spray lurches to a halt.  Stuck in the mud.  Test full reverse (worked) and head out in light winds to a small mooring area called Port St Nicholas no more than a gap in the cliffs on the south side of Groix island.  Test windlass and anchor. Test cockpit table and corkscrew.  Bob and Patrick fix head door. Test masthead mooring lights. 

St Nicolas Port, Groix Island.  Cockpit table and corkscrew work beautifully.

Port St Nicolas, Groix Island.

Day 5:  Winds force 4-5 on a beam reach (re-test 1^st reef) for 27 miles to Houat Island.  Auto-pilot does not work when motor is on.  Moor at Beg Salus beach (re-test windlass and anchor).  Inflate boat tender and test out-board motor (sputters to life after 10 minutes of cord yanking and air/fuel adjustments).  One oar blade is missing a button for the spring latch that connects it to the aluminium poles.  Houat is beautiful as always.  Neighbouring boat badly anchored with no one aboard drags its anchor and comes to rest at Spray’s side.  Fenders deployed.  Test righteous indignation when owners return.

The Grand Plage, Houat Island.

The port at Houat (nice, but not deep enough for us...).

Scenes from Houat.

Scenes from Houat.

Scenes from Houat.

Day 6:  Meet up with our sailing association for a 2-day rally; head back to Port Louis for the evening.  Light winds.  Test sailing wing-and-wing with poled-out genoa. 

Sailing wing and wing with poled-out genoa.

Day 7:  Rally moves to Concarneau, 30 miles west.  Winds vary from nil to force 5.  Race against new RM 12.60 for 3.5 hours; even match.  (We’ll get ‘em with our new mainsail the next time…).  Notice small leaks in front cabin coming from worn-off silicone seals at the base of two stanchions.  Temporary fix.

Headed to the Rally briefing at Concarneau (wine cups in hand).  Merci pour la photo, Ginette !

Day 8:  Light winds; afternoon sail to the Glenans Archipelago.  Tentative mooring on the east side of Penfret Island but a badly-placed steel mooring buoy blocks the protected near-shore area.  Moored north of Saint Nicolas Island.

Temporary mooring at Penfret island, waiting for a wind direction change that never came.

Catching up with family while moored at Penfret.

 

Day 9:  Head back to Lorient area, Port Locmiquelic to drop off Bob.  Light winds.  Test spinnaker !  (Dang!  Wondered what colour that thing was…).  Missing swivel shackle for one of the spinnaker sheets.

White and blue.  Who knew?

Day 10:  Two days of very light winds forecast.  Pick up a new crew member, Jacko, and head to Port Tudy on Groix island.  Run out of cooking gas; change bottle. 

Day 11:  Day ashore; rent scooters and visit the island. 

South coast of Groix Island.

Patrick and Jacko at the Hell Hole cliff, south coast of Groix Island.

Vroom! Vroom!

Day 12:  Special weather bulletin announces strong gales for the next 2-3 days.  Decide to head into the Morbihan gulf about 40 miles away to hunker down at Ile aux Moines for the duration.  Winds moderate for the trip over.  Problems with GPS:  it takes more than 1 hour for first fix.  VHF not turned on until GPS gets a fix, since a very annoying alarm goes off when the vhf doesn’t get position information from the GPS.  Whilst re-crossing the infamous military polygon of this area, we notice a boat with a siren speeding towards us.  He pulls up beside us to tell us that we need to change our route to head south of the Birvideaux lighthouse to get out of the firing zone.  He was very kind about it… I’m sure they had been trying to contact us on the VHF.  Hear explosions and are buzzed by fighter jets all afternoon.  Dock on floating pontoons at Ile aux Moines in the gulf.  Jacko decides to take the ferry to shore to sit out the gale at home.  

Security Boat for Gavres Firing Range

Day 13:  Day at dock.  35 knots of sustained wind with 47 knot gusts.  (As a salty friend says, “It’s blowin like a whore house on pay day !”)  We’re relatively protected on the pontoon docks but it’s still howling out there.

Day 14:  Gale warnings extended.  2^nd day at dock.  Reading, cleaning, small repair jobs, low bandwidth internet.

Day 15:  Jacko rejoins the boat and we head back to home port of Arzal.  Winds down to force 5 with gusts to 6.  Coastal water is a lovely jade green after the storms.  Passed the lock at 4 pm, offloaded the boat, then Spray is pulled out of the water at 5 pm and settled onto her cradle for the next 2 weeks.  All’s well below (except for the blasted tell-tale mud clinging stubbornly to the base of the keel from my Day 4 misadventure…) 

Heading home, post-gale.

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Splashdown with a Sticky Seacock

Spray was launched for the beginning of her 2014 adventures yesterday.  It’s impossible to be blasé about your boat going in the water when each launch has its own last-minute crisis.  This time:  a stuck seacock.

Just before heading home the night before the launch, I looked around the boat to make sure everything was ready to go.  Clever girl that I am (irony) I decided it would be a good idea to close all the seacocks.  All closed but one:  the toilet evacuation valve.

We tried WD-40. 

We tried gentle and then not-so-gentle tapping with a hammer. 

We tried cleaning with a long bottlebrush from the outside (note: wear eye protection for that one…).  

We gave it another big dose of WD-40 for the evening and went home, defeated, to think over our next move.

We believe that if something hasn’t gone through your body first, it has no place in a sea toilet, so we knew that paper or other “foreign matter” couldn’t be the culprit and reasoned that the blockage must be some sort of dried seawater scum.  Patrick and I both headed to our computers and checked out the various French and English blogs on the subject, then met back to compare notes. 

The winning solution seemed to be to plug the exit hole with a wooden through-hull plug and then fill the evacuation tube with vinegar to let it dissolve whatever is blocking the seacock valve. 

We also learned from these helpful internet sites that we should have been thinking of this LONG BEFORE launch-eve.  I was so pleased with our winterizing procedures and never read anything about sticky seacocks in other blogs or sites on winterizing.  I’m going back now and adding this one to our winterizing list !

The next morning, with only 45 minutes till launch time, we filled the evacuation tube with vinegar and waited.  After about 20 minutes, lots of bubbling and burping gave us hope that something was dissolving.  With 10 minutes to go, I tried the seacock valve again.  I could just begin rocking it back and forth.  I continued this rocking, with more liberal squirting of WD-40, and within a few minutes it gave way and I could close it ! (and open it ! …and close it ! …and open it ! …).  We were in euphoric disbelief.  

Plugging the evacuation tube.

Double, double, toil and trouble; vinegar burn, and toilet bubble.

After this incident, the launch went more or less without surprises, which is NOT to say that it went smoothly.  The motor coughed and petered out a couple of times before belching black smoke and finally kicking into gear.  The GPS, newly fixed on the balcony and working beautifully on dry land, decided to take more than 1 hour to get its first fix, which only lasted for about 5 minutes before the GPS declared that it had lost contact with the satellites and was unable to get a position.  We fixed the mainsail and had a devil of a time with one of the batten receptacles that came apart and didn’t want to go back together again, an already difficult task made worse by the fact that we were working with a flogging sail over our heads with a capricious wind changing directions every 15 minutes, all the while slipping and sliding on the newly polished roof.  The good news is that we’re less stupid than we were 24 hours ago.  The even better news is that the electrician is coming tomorrow to look at the auto-pilot and the GPS (except he doesn’t know about that one yet…).  

In the lift.

 

...and in the water.

Tomorrow: our first night on the boat, and then, if we have a GPS, off to start Shakedown 2014 !

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A New Spring Wardrobe

The sailing season is upon us and we’ve had no serious offers on Spray, so it looks like we’ll be heading down to Spain (Galice) with her this year.  But the old girl deserves a new outfit for the trip:  we have decided to replace the mainsail !

This is a BIG DEAL.  The mainsail we have is made of mylar / taffeta and is 7 years old, which is the expected lifetime of such sails.  Given that this one has completed a trans-Atlantic voyage and spent one year baking in the Caribbean sun, it’s had a hard life and is ready to be put out to pasture. 

We'll be thrilled to be done with the SOFRAMME sponsor publicity we inherited, too.

Mainsail in profile.

The big thrill is not just that we’ll get a new sail but that we’ll get a lighter Dacron sail (light in comparison to the mylar / taffeta anyway), which will make it easier to hoist, furl, reef, and store in the lazy bag...all great things for a couple looking for less physically-demanding manoeuvres.  The mylar / taffeta sail is a real monster – very heavy and rigid.  Hoisting is a team sport and furling always requires someone to go to the mast to pull and pack.  Trying to squash a heavy, rigid sail into a standard-sized lazy bag is also a feat and I’m surprised we haven’t busted the zipper yet (although we have had to re-rivet the lazy bag runners.) 

I’m sure it’s an unrealistic fantasy, but my dream is to point the nose of the boat into the wind, let run the halyard and have the sail drop into the bag, where only a minimal amount of arranging is needed before easily zipping up the bag, all in under 5 minutes.  Surely, as far as sailing fantasies go, this isn’t asking too much, is it?

In other news, on Sunday, we visited an exquisite Beneteau Oceanis 393 (version performance 2004) as a potential replacement for Spray to take us far and wide.  Result:  Didn’t love it.  It’s impossible to identify anything that was particularly wrong with it except that it just left us cold - no coup de coeur.  One down, how many more to go?

Three more days and Spray is in the water !!  We’ve been working 5-6 hours every day to get her ready and fatigue is beginning to set in. 

Things we’ve done:

Pressure washed and scraped the hull to remove all anti-fouling paint down to epoxy layers (this is the biggest time consumer)

Washed hull and polished

Washed deck and put on 2 coats of color protection / polish on roof and cockpit area

Miscellaneous silicone and sika touch-ups

Reconnected batteries and tested instruments

Repaired and moved GPS antenna to the balcony

Took fire extinguishers for annual check-up

Installed new crown on gas stove burner

Bought new lifebuoy and floating flashing rescue lamp

Rigged dodger, side panels, lazy bag, boom vang and mainsheet traveller

Fixed life lines in place

Had a new auto-pilot angle indicator bracket made

Mastic epoxy on a few spots on the keel

Gel coat touch-ups

Varnish touch-ups

Bought new Bloc Marine 2014 (tide tables, rules and regs info)

Refill pages of Logbook (make my own and just add sheets in a 3-ring binder…)

Things we still have to do:

2 layers of anti-fouling bottom paint

Put on the new anode

Do dock-side / dry-dock tests of pilot (zero rudder angle)

Fix new lifebuoy lamp to balcony railing

Finish gel coat and varnish touch-ups

Secure life raft on roof

Chase the air bubbles out of the fuel line of the motor

Put Spray in the water

Put on mainsail and headsail on furler

Load cushions and all equipment

Inspect and re-provision pharmacy

Food preparation / provisioning

Pack clothes, SHOWER, check the weather and head off ! 

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Batteries in, Bets off

We loaded the batteries on the boat today and rushed to test our soldering job on the GPS antenna .  We are gobsmacked to announce that it works !!  We still have to test it at sea but so far so good ! *

Antenna on the balcony.  Do you think we over-did the tie-wraps ??

The GPS satellite fixes:  7 full bars in under 1 minute ! 

*reminds me of a joke:  An irrepressibly cheery optimist drives his co-workers mad with his positive attitude in the face of even the darkest situation.  One day, one of them cracks and throws him out the window of their high-rise building.  As he falls through the air, he keeps saying to himself, “so far so good…so far so good…so far so good…”.  

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GPS Antenna (Re) Placement

Have you ever wondered what the inside of your GPS antenna looks like?  Me, neither.  Unfortunately, this week we had curiosity thrust upon us and were forced to cut into our Magellan FX324 GPS antenna. 

Our problems began two years ago when we decided to be more clever than the average sailor (uh-hum…) and install our new antenna inside the boat, thus protecting it from sea, salt, and accidents involving things on balconies being occasionally mangled. 

GPS antenna out of harm's way in the closet behind the toilet.

The placement of a GPS antenna inside the boat is hardly revolutionary and we know people who have great reception with this arrangement.  We found a snug place for it in the closet just behind the toilet which, when initially tested, worked extremely well.

After about one year, the kick-ass satellite signals we used to get diminished to the point that obtaining three full signals was like pulling teeth.  We couldn’t find any physical reason for this and of course it only happen occasionally, making it one of those mystery problems so beloved of boat owners.  Several times, after waiting for more than 30 minutes with no luck at all, I unscrewed the antenna from its wall-mount and moved the antenna outside.  Within less than one minute of doing this, we would obtain 9-12 full-strength satellite signals and all was right with the world…except that I was left standing like the Statue of Liberty in the cockpit holding my GPS antenna proudly aloft. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”  That’s only funny for so long.

As (bad) luck would have it, the fact that I un-screwed and re-screwed the antenna from its wall mount several times led the cable to split (I swear I was careful not to get kinks in the cable…), and the wires around the cable became frayed to the point that there were only a few hair-thick strands holding everything together.

Oops.

For sailing season 2014, we’ve decided to move the antenna back outside and to fix it to the balcony, come what may.  We had to cut away the frayed part of the cable and re-solder the new cable end and wires to the electrical circuit board of the antenna.  It looked so easy. 

Before and After.  Here's to hoping that beauty is only skin-deep.

Neither of us is too proud of the resulting soldering job, but we worked on it for over an hour and decided that this was the best it was going to get.  And the best part is that we don’t even know if it works yet, since the batteries won’t be reinstalled on the boat until later this week.  Stay tuned …all bets accepted until the batteries get installed. 

Spray will be in the water on 12 April !!!!  Busy busy !

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