SAILING MAREDA

Tuesday, 28 April 2015

Toilet Talk: How to Change a Toilet Valve and Thru-Hull Fitting

A mere 48 hours before Spray was to undergo a 6-hour inspection and put into the water, we discovered that the toilet evacuation valve was stuck.

In English: stuck but good. In French: stuck from Chez Stuck.

It was stuck last year, too, so tried the same things that worked the last time: WD-40, a hammer, cleaning with long tube brush, and vinegar. But this time it didn't work. Web forums suggested progressively aggressive chemical treatments: vinegar first, then Coca Cola (note: apparently Lite and Zero are no good for this), and if all else fails, hydrochloric acid (10%). We tried the Coke, I’m embarrassed to say, and decided that the acid was just over the top. It was time to admit defeat and change the valve.

The first challenge was to remove the old valve without damaging the thru-hull fitting. Sub-challenge 1: procure appropriate tools. The local mechanics loaned Patrick a manly man’s wrench, and I loaned him my hairdryer. Both were essential to unscrew the first locking ring and tug off the hose. The real test was trying to get the valve assembly off the thru-hull. After about 15 minutes of grunting and sweating with both the wrench and hairdryer, it gave way. All of it. Thru-hull included.

After an animated debate about how to proceed, we agreed (read: I won) that we shouldn't mess around with something that is a possible safety risk and decided to call a pro. The mechanic assured us that we hadn't done anything wrong and that it is exceedingly rare to be able to remove the valve without unseating the thru-hull as well.

This morning, he came to our rescue, 24 hours before inspection and splash-down. To our surprise, he began by cutting into the thru-hull seating from the OUTSIDE of the boat, which now makes perfect sense to us. If you look at the bottom locking ring on thru-hull fitting from the inside of the boat (that hexagonal ring at the bottom of the thru-hull fitting now corroded to a light green in the photo above), there’s no way to get at it with a wrench because it’s counter-sunk. The only way to remove the assembly is to cut small sections in the outside ring, then take a hammer and hefty screwdriver and peel away the little sections. Once that is done, the assembly can be removed from the inside of the boat.

While the mechanic took the assembly back to the shop to pry off and clean the elbow from the old valve with more tools we don’t have, he loaned us a heat gun (having scoffed at my hairdryer) and we were charged with extracting the top joint fitting from the evacuation hose. After a startlingly short time, I smelled burning rubber and before I could voice my concern, Patrick cried victory.

Still smokin !!

The rest was relatively simple. The thru-hull was fixed into the hole with a generous amount of Sika 291 and the new assembly was screwed into place. This manoeuvre required two people, though: one to screw the assembly from the inside of the boat and another to hold and block the thru-hull fitting from the outside to keep it from turning. The inside of the thru-hull has two ridiculously small bumps that are supposed to help you grip and hold the fitting, but we can report that they are only mildly useful. The last step is to reattach the to the fitting and tighten down the hose clamps. I was afraid that Patrick’s antics with the heat gun had deformed the hose beyond repair but apparently it was used to such abuse.

The procedure lasted 1.5 hours and cost about 160 Euros. We’re thankful that it could be done in time for our rendez-vous with the water tomorrow and we realize that even if we had known what to do, we didn't have the tools to do it well. But next time, I assured Patrick, we can try it ourselves. (Note to self: Christmas present for Pat is a mega-wrench and a heat gun. Well, maybe just the wrench...)

Inspection tomorrow !

The 2-boat Two-Step

Spray News

Old joke:

Q: “What’s worse than finding a worm in your apple?”

A: “Finding half of a worm in your apple.”

My life lately:

Q: “What’s more stressful than not selling your old boat before buying a new one?”

A: “Selling your boat contingent on the results of a 6-hour inspection.”

Yes, the good news is we have potential buyers for Spray. The stressful news is that the sale is contingent on a thorough inspection, both in and out of the water. Of course we know that Spray is in excellent shape and we have verified that everything is in working order (oh okay … there’s ONE sticky seacock in the toilet that we’re treating liberally with vinegar, but that usually does the trick.) But knowing that everything is ship-shape doesn’t stop me from waking up in the middle of the night wondering what an expert might find that would sink the deal. One more week of waiting and wondering…

Mareda News

The sail maker finally agreed to agree with the rigging expert about the Code D furling line system earlier this week. This has taken weeks to resolve. I’m now hopeful that we’ll have a really nice system set up for light downwind sailing (e.g., bliss).

Our new battle is over how to best rig the boom for a 3^rd reef point on the mainsail. In 2 years of sailing, we only used the 3^rd reef twice on Spray, and both times this situation lasted less than 15 minutes before we went to bare poles. But still, heading off without a 3^rd reef seems a bit foolhardy. This means …heavy sigh…another round of slogging through animated exchanges between the sail maker and the rigging specialist.

Did I mention I just found a great new recipe for Ginger Mint Juleps? With everything else going on, I almost forgot about the Derby!

Staying on top of these things takes a LOT of time. The dealer mentioned that a new Sun Odyssey 379 was coming to the boatyard this week to be outfitted. The owner lives in Paris. Patrick and I were astounded that anyone could manage a boat from a distance like that. The dealer said, “Most people just order the standard version and we don’t have any modifications to deal with.”

I hadn’t thought about it, but we do seem to have a lot of special orders. Here are our non-standard modifications:

1. Code D Gennaker + rigging hardware (including spinnaker pole)

2. 3^rd Reef in Mainsail + rigging hardware

3. Rocna anchor and Kong-type articulated mooring shackle

4. 40 meters of chain (standard = 28m)

5. Cockpit arch with 2 solar-panels and dinghy davits

6. Wireless Internet antenna mounted on arch

7. Television and antenna

8. Electronic barometer / weather station

9. Duplexer to use VHF antenna for FM radio reception

10. Tri-color navigation lights on top of mast

11. Rigging hardware for boom brake (boom modifications and cleats)

I have episodes of guilt-mixed-with-panic about how much this is all costing, but then Patrick reminds me that we spend 6-7 months living full-time on the boat. It’s not a vacation home, it’s our PRIMARY home. And maybe next year we’ll even rent out the land-based home while we’re away to replenish the sailing kitty. But that’s a headache for another day.

The Code D Conundrum

On Facebook, I've been whining lately about our Code D problems. The Code D is a small (65 m²) furling spinnaker that we’re having custom made for Mareda, which will allow us to have sail power in light winds from about 60° off the bow to full downwind sailing with a spinnaker pole. The problem is not with the sail itself, but in choosing an appropriate tack point.

The Sun Odyssey 379 comes with a reinforced tack point designed for an asymmetrical spinnaker. Perfect for the Code D, right?

“Right”, says the rigging specialist.

“Wrong”, says the sail maker.

The furling line, the line that goes around the furler drum of the Code D and allows you to roll up the sail, is the problem. It’s called a “continuous line” because it’s a single closed loop. It is typically very long to allow you to reach back to the cockpit, but can quickly become a gnarly mess. According to the sail maker, the line must be 1) perfectly straight with no angles between the drum and the cockpit, and 2) under permanent light tension to avoid kinks in the line. This all makes good sense. The problem is that the tack point on the SO 379, like most boats, is directly in front of the genoa furler, and there is no way to lead the Code D furling line from the drum to the cockpit without going slightly around the genoa furler, creating an angle.

A furler drum and continuous line.

Herein lies the rub. Literally. The sail maker says the friction associated with such an angle will cause the furling process to become too difficult. He says we must have a new stainless steel tack point soldered onto the secondary bow davit, which will place the Code D to the side of the genoa, rather than in front of it, and give us a straight angle-free line between the furler and the cockpit.

The rigging specialist says that this is baloney. (Oh, alright, he’s French and he didn't say “baloney” but that’s what he meant.) According to him, there are simple ways to reduce the angle and pieces of rigging to reduce friction, such as the fancy little thing called a double fairlead, made specifically to keep furler lines from tangling and kinking. When placed on one or more well-chosen stanchions, the angle is minimized and the lines stay separated. In addition, a couple of cam cleats can be used to block the line in place and to keep it under tension.

Double fairleads on the stanchions to avoid tangling.

Cam cleats to block the line and keep it under tension. Photo from Doane's Sail Magazine article, 2012.

We mentioned this to the sail maker. He said “I’ve seen it a hundred times and it never works.”

I've searched the sailing forums in both French and English to find threads that discuss problems with gennaker furlers and haven’t been able to find anything that suggests people are having difficulties with the continuous furling line. I've looked at videos showing furling spinnakers, gennakers, and code sails, and they all seem to use the system described by the rigging specialist. The principle rigging companies, Selden and Facnor, both suggest using double fairleads and jammers.

We sent a video to the sail maker. He said “I don’t trust videos.”

And no one seems to be able to show us an example of this set-up that either does or does not work.

Anyone out there have experience with this ??? Charles Doane has a nice article in Sail Magazine from 2012 that addresses many of these issues, but I’m sure our sail maker would simply say “I don’t trust magazine articles.”

From the ground up

Now that Mareda has arrived (!!), the outfitting has begun in earnest, and we have to make some firm decisions about equipment. This is in stark contrast to the decisions we've made up to this point, which mostly involved flipping through the catalog and saying “Cool ! Let’s add one of these !”

**note: I'm taking lots of photos of the commissioning process. See our Facebook page for all the latest photos and updates !

Starting from the ground up, we've been thinking about anchors and chains this week.

The standard offer for the SO 379 was a 16kg Delta anchor with 28 meters of 10 mm chain and 40 meters of 18mm line. (That’s a ~ 33 lb anchor, ~ 85 feet of 3/8” chain and ~120 feet of line). This all seemed a bit light to us, especially for anchoring in the meteorologically-capricious Mediterranean. At one point, I tried to convince myself that with a swing-keel we could get closer to shore and wouldn't need so much chain, but for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on, I decided that this was dumb.

From technical reviews and personal testimonies of friends, we knew we wanted a Rocna anchor. With Mareda's length of 11.3 meters and weight at just under 7 tonnes, the Rocna sizing charts suggested that an anchor of 15kg would be adequate (where “adequate” is based on tests in 50 knot winds with associated surge and poor holding conditions). The chart indicated that 8 mm chain would suffice for our boat with such a Rocna anchor. For the SO 379, 10mm chain and windlass is standard, so we felt good about being over-spec’d (if that is, indeed, the case).

But no one said anything about the length of chain required. The basic rule (which of course has many variations) is that you want to put out a length of chain that is 4 times greater than the water depth at high-tide. (Example: moor in 3 meters of water, put out 12 meters of chain). This all depends, of course, on the conditions in which you anchor. An interesting rule-of-thumb I saw recently: winds of Beaufort 3 = 3 x chain length; winds of Beaufort 4 = 4 x chain length, etc., etc.

After searching through numerous web-sites and talking to friends who know the Med well, we decided that 40 meters of chain was the minimum for the Med. If 40m is minimum, I thought, why not go for 50, just to be safe? When I mentioned this to Patrick, he turned on his best sarcastic voice and said, “Yeah, great ! and Hey! Why not 60? Why not 75? What the heck… let’s make it an even 100 !”

Slinking back to my office, I started thinking about it. Why not more? That’s when it dawned on me that there must be limits, real limits, based on weight (and not on snitty, financially-motivated comments from one’s husband). How much does all that chain weigh? When does your boat start to become nose-heavy? And what about the windlass? If you've deployed 100m of 10mm chain, is your windlass strong enough to pull it up?

Easy stuff first. 10 mm chain weighs 2.25 kg / meter, giving us 112.5 kg for 50 meters.

Medium stuff next: The windlass (Quick Aires 1000 W) has a working load of 120 kg. Its maximum working load is more than double this, but we don’t like pushing electrical / mechanical devices into the red zone, do we? So 50 meters of 10mm chain is getting quite close to the working load. Add a 15 kg anchor and we've gone past it. Granted, the situation where you would have 50 meters of chain and the anchor hanging through the water column all at once is rare and you could push the beast hard for a short period of time, but you just never know, do you?

Hard stuff now: When does the boat start to get too nose heavy? As with most hard questions in life, the difficulty lies in defining the question. What does too nose-heavy mean? The only advice I could find on this was “sail the boat with the weight in the nose, then move the weight to the center of the boat and see if she sails better.” Humph.

I’m still a bit at a loss as to how to approach this one. The standard equipment for the SO 379 gives 79 kg versus the 112.5kg we want. The difference is peanuts, right? Let’s just assume (because I like the answer I get when I do this) that the architects have given us a safety or performance margin of 2 relative to the standard weight they propose, which means that we could go up to 158 kg without getting too nose heavy. Since we’ll be well under this mark even with 40 meters of 18mm line attached to the chain, all’s well. With time, I’ll convince myself that I feel comfortable with this.

In the end, we decided to go with 40m of chain and 40m of line. Patrick triumphantly pointed out that this was the decision we had come to before I did all these calculations. But what else was I supposed to do with a cold rainy afternoon? (I’ve had other rainy-day inspired fits of calculations, including rudder angles and hull speed. It rains A LOT in Brittany…)

So our principal mooring will look like this:

Rocna 15kg anchor
Articulated Kong junction between the anchor and the chain
40 meters of 10mm chain
40 meters of 18 mm line, connected to the chain with a splice directly onto the chain (if the 18mm strands fit through the 10mm chain links… to be determined shortly).
A double bow roller, which the Jeanneau dealer says has been reinforced after the first models had problems.
A snubber
Depth marks on the chain and an “aide memoire” of what the marks mean in the anchor locker. I think I’ll stick with my spray-paint technique. You have to re-apply the paint every year, but it’s quick and easy to do.
The 2^nd anchor: a 12 kg FOB with 10 meters of 8mm chain + 20 meters of lead line. I’ll attach another 20 meters of line to that when we go into the Med. After 2 years of sailing around northern France, the Channel Islands, and northern Spain, we've never needed the 2^nd anchor, but then again, we've never had a boat we could beach before, either !

Our high-tech chain depth indicator system.

Our memory aid of what those colors mean !

Isn't she lovely ?

Mareda has arrived ! She was delivered to the shipyard Saturday morning, still swaddled in her transportation packaging.

Okay, we admit, saying she’s lovely at this point may be a bit like new parents crowing over their beautiful newborn, when to the rest of the world the little creature is the spitting image of Winston Churchill. But because we know what she’ll look like (more or less) when she casts off her cocoon, we can feel the beauty potential throbbing like a new heartbeat underneath all that plastic.

Over the next month, the shipyard will install the balcony, life lines, mast, electronics, anchor and chain, a stainless steel arch with davits, the bimini, the lazybag and jacks, and the sails. The rigging specialist will advise us on modifications needed for the Code D and the sail maker will make his measurements to begin making it.

Eagle-eye Patrick has already noted a problem, though. Evidently, someone had difficulty parking her and the starboard rudder foot has several dings and pits. We’ll need to make sure the rudder alignment and joints are still okay, and of course insist that this disgraceful blemish be repaired. Let the fun begin !

It's that time again

It’s spring and that means Haz Mat Pat is back !

Scraping and prepping the hull for its new coat of anti-fouling bottom paint and cleaning off the winter grime that has accumulated up top is an annual event, and one I usually enjoy. Getting the boat ready for the water again during the first almost-warm rays of spring sun makes me positively giddy. But this year, my giddiness was damped by the realization that I was getting Spray ready for someone else’s cruising. (That “someone else” still has yet to materialize, but it’ll happen soon enough…).

Meanwhile, our Mareda is probably still in the plastic-pellet stage at the shipyard (I think they said it takes 15-20 days to make the boat from start to finish !) and our list of equipment to buy and modifications to make grows by the day.

My favourite new surprise was when I mentioned casually to the dealer that I wanted to buy a spinnaker pole to pole-out the Code D when we’re sailing downwind. It was one of those “duh” moments. Besides the pole and a few well-placed blocks, one needs a down-haul and a topping lift for the pole. It wasn't (and still isn't) clear if the mast was made with a topping lift in mind or if there are any un-claimed clutches in the cockpit for the sheets. It was at this juncture that I realized that we also needed to install a couple of pulleys and blocks amidships and cam cleats near the cockpit for the Winchard Gyb Easy Boom Brake (love that thing).

I know we’ll have many other such surprises before we’re ready to sail off into the sunset (and quite a few afterwards, too, I suspect). I’m just concentrating on remaining zen and rolling with the punches as gracefully as possible.

No more smoke and mirrors: The new French regulations

Starting in May 2015, French-flagged vessels no longer require smoke (emergency flares) or mirrors (signalling mirror) to sail offshore (> 60 Nautical Miles). These are to be replaced by an emergency position-indicating radio beacon (EPIRB) that can relay your position via satellite to search and rescue crews. This is great news. Beacons are much more precise and they can be activated automatically on contact with salt water if you are unable to reach the beacon at the critical moment. Flares are messy, only activated manually, prone to failure, and a pain to deal with. They are relatively expensive (about $200 for the formerly-mandatory distress kit), they have to be replaced every couple of years, you have to pay to have the old ones disposed of properly, and frankly, storing pyrotechnics on board always gives me the creeps.

From flares to radio beacons.

And yet, while I’m in favour of embracing proven technology that makes sailing simpler and safer, a few of the new regulations make me a bit uncomfortable. For instance, it is no longer necessary to have a magnetic compass aboard. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot ??!! I had to re-read that one several times and ask Patrick to check my French interpretation to make sure I was understanding that one correctly. The new regulations say that a GPS system can replace the compass. What if you have no electricity or batteries for your GPS? And what if your GPS burps and sputters at a critical moment as they always seem to do? Okay, sure, there are always backups and safety protocols, but still… the best back up is to have a magnetic compass on board, no? For me, the idea of getting rid of the compass ranks right up there with the rumour (sure hope it’s just a rumour) that maritime authorities around the world are questioning the need to maintain navigational buoys since everyone is now equipped with a GPS and knows where they are at all times anyway.

SPRAY's modest but trusty compass.

Several other changes for offshore sailing in 2015 include the requirement to maintain a ship's log anytime you venture more than 6 NM off the coast, the requirement for each life vest to have a waterproof emergency flash light, for boats to be equipped with a hand-held VHF radio, and to have a fixed powerful deck light on the boat to assist with man-overboard searches in the dark. I think that’s a great idea but I’m still a bit in the dark about how we’re supposed to have something permanently fixed on the boat (like a deck light) that also allows for directional searches required during a MOB situation.

They also say they are proposing a new composition for the medical first-aid kit, but honestly, after comparing the regulations for 2014 with the new ones, the only difference I see is the requirement to have 4 pairs of medical examination gloves (sizes M and L) instead of the former “1 box of medical examination gloves.”

But the new rule that is the Talk of the Docks is the new definition of the skipper, or Chef de Bord. The new wording implies that the skipper is now responsible for ensuring that the crew OBEY safety instructions given to them by the skipper. Ha ! Ha ! They have got to be joking ! The people making up these rules have CLEARLY never sailed with their spouses ! How do you MAKE someone obey when you’re 200 miles offshore and can’t just pop in to the nearest port and put them off ? The legal minds in the sailing forum discussions say that if an accident occurred because someone did not obey the orders of the skipper, the skipper could not be held responsible. If that’s the case, then why have the new regulation at all? This one is really a mystery, but good fodder for some great sea stories with the sailing buddies !

In general the new regulations make good sense and I welcome them. We've ordered an EPIRB and found some simple emergency flashlight kits for the life vests. I’m happy to report that Mareda has 2 magnetic compasses, thank you very much, and unless Spray’s the new owner (whoever he or she may be) insists on having it, I will be keeping my old signalling mirror, too. Love that little thing.

For the more curious among you, here is a link to summary of new regulations (in French, of course): http://www.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/synthese_des_modifs_pour_salon2.pdf

Guadeloupe Reflections

Guadeloupe was magical. And it was boring. Not in the short time we were there, of course, but Patrick and I could both see that “another day in paradise” would get old after awhile. (earlier blog posts and photos of paradise here and here...).

This surprised us. While planning our trip, we thought we might just fall in love with the Caribbean and decide to make it our home-base for cruising. After visiting a few ports and mooring areas around the island, we realized that we would be bored silly. The ports are just places to park the boat while making repairs or re-fueling. One palm-studded sandy beach looks very much like another, and nothing looks more like a Caribbean anchorage than another Caribbean anchorage. The natural environment can be spectacular but it never really changes.

We mentioned this unexpected and somewhat-disturbing discovery of ours to sailing friends who have sailed in the Caribbean. Their opinion was that the Caribbean was an interesting place to sail, but only for a couple of weeks. Another cruising couple also highlighted security problems that make you very hesitant to leave your boat or dinghy unattended in many areas. They said they actually stayed on board their boat most of the time and rarely went ashore together. That just doesn't sound like much fun to me.

Rather than undertake a month-long Atlantic crossing only to end up disappointed by the Caribbean and then undertaking another month-long Atlantic crossing to return home, their suggestion was to simply charter a boat locally for several weeks. How sensible. And we can say that, for the time being, it doesn't interest us at all.

Don’t get us wrong: there are TONS of sailing blogs out there (more than 50% I’d say) by people who love love love sailing full-time in the Caribbean, and the revelation that it’s not our cup of tea isn't meant to dissuade anyone. We will definitely go back to the Caribbean as island-hopping sun-seeking tourists for that extraordinary natural beauty and climate. We just don’t want to live there.

I've said it before: Patrick and I are travelers who sail. For us, no place offers more historical, cultural, linguistic, culinary and scenic diversity than the Mediterranean, with the added bonus of warm weather and water at least 6 months of the year. Maybe the sailing conditions aren't always the best (too much / not enough wind), but that’s not why we’re doing this. Who knows - maybe we’ll be disappointed with the Med, too, although we've already sailed there three times (Corsica, Sardinia, Tunisia, Lampedusa, Malta, Sicily) and loved it.

For the first time since we began sailing, our dreams and plans are coming into clear focus. When we began the blog, we said we didn't know if this would be a blog about a couple who sails around the world or about a couple who gives up sailing after a few years of testing the waters. Now we know that:

1) we will continue sailing and living aboard 6 months of the year until we’re too old to make that feasible (and then we’ll just move onto a canal barge and drift around Europe’s waterways !);

2) we will sail extensively around Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Eastern Atlantic Islands (Cape Verde Islands, Madeira, the Canaries, the Azores, etc.) ; and

3) we may sail in the Caribbean and South Pacific, but by chartering locally rather than investing time and effort in those long ocean passages ourselves. (Mom ! Stop cheering ! I can hear you all the way from Florida. How embarrassing…)

Guadeloupe Beneath the Waves

Guadeloupe has buried treasure beneath its waves. I took my new Olympus TG3 Tough Camera snorkeling with me for the first time and captured a glimpse of this beauty to share. I learned a lot about underwater photography, although sometimes too late to save the photo (e.g., turn off the flash, use a high shutter speed or take sequential rapid-fire shots when the little buggers start moving, etc.) I also downgraded the quality so that your browsers wouldn't grind to a halt while loading. Here is a small selection of what we saw...