Been re-running rigging on deck and deciding what we really need. Our prior boat had a boom vang, which is a system of pulleys to allow you to choose the position of the boom by pulling it down versus the wind in the sail pulling it up. We needed it on Rosa because there was not really a good way to control it due to the main sheet being mounted at a single point. Hot Sauce has a track across the entire boat for the main sheet to be attached to at any angle you like. A little car with a line to a winch controls the side to side positioning on the track, while the main sheet controls the tension up and down on the sail. The vang is attached to the boom about 4 feet from the mast while the sail is attached at a single point at aobut 18 feet from the mast. There is a 6:1 block setup led to a winch to apply enough force to honk that puppy down(blue line and blocks in pic). Looks like a good setup for destroying some hardware to me.
On our other boat Rosa, the boom vang ripped free from the boom in rough seas about a week and a half into our initial cruise, and after being more securely attached, broke the boom in half in Venezuela, necessitating some complicated repairs in the city of Valencia. Good sightseeing, and cultural exchange, but depending on the kindness of strangers to help with such stuff may not always be the best plan. It will save some weight, clear some space and maybe bring a few coins if we can sell it.
We have scheduled a local craftsman to build us a dodger for the boat on the 1st of August(sort of like the one in this pic). A dodger is a stainless bow/canvas rig with clear windows which goes accross the aft end of the cabin house over the companionway and provides shelter for most of the cockpit in rough weather. High on our list if we are to go down the west coast as it is cold and windy out there. We can remove the front windows in warm weather allowing the breeze to come through, but still have shelter from the sun.
The dodger folks tell me we have too much junk on our decks for this to work well, and we concur.
There are currently 7 winches on the deck by the companionway, some of which have no apparrent function. This is likely an evolutionary process like we are going through, with all the prior stuff still in place. To put a dodger on the boat, we need to rearrange, and eliminate some of this clutter, so there will be a way to attach the dodger to the deck and still use the necessary hardware.
All of this leads up to some decisions about everything on the deck. We are going to replace the winches with new self tailing winches(the shiny chrome beauty in the pic). The old style only work if you keep tension on the loose end of the line to help it grip the surface of the winch while you turn the winch with a winch handle. Most of the time if it is loaded up, it is a two person job to crank in a sheet or raise a sail. Shorthanded, we just don't have the luxury of a large crew to help with such stuff, not to mention the room and board that would go with such help. The self tailing winches use a clamping mechanism to hold the tail and strip it off the drum as you crank merrily along. These were not available when the boat was built and my not be considered necessary by a racing crew. Shorthanded, they can make a big diference in a lot of tasks.
So we bought two larger self tailing winches for the genoa sheets, and a nice electric one to be used for the main sheet and the raising of the sails.We are having some brackets made to mount the primaries(genoa) on the outer edge of the cockpit, clearing up deck space and making room for the dodger. When we raised the sail on our sea trial one guy cranked the winch, one tailed the line and another helped by pulling the halyard down at the mast. Now it will be done by one person sitting in the cockpit pushing a button.
The new cushions were scheduled to arrive Tuesday, we called to be sure and they told Joan it would be at least a week longer before they were ready. Not the right answer. After some discussion we were told that the bottoms were done and they would expedite the arrival of the seat backs by weeks end. We were tired of sitting and sleeping on the worn out cushions, so off to Seattle to shop, talk to a boat yard about building us a new daggerboard, and pick up the cushions. The first few items went according to plan, and we stopped at an Indian restaurant a couple of blocks from the cushion place for a delcious indian meal. Next stop the cushions, as per the usual the seamstress hadn't planned on bringing them over until the end of the day. GRRR, oh well back to the ferry for another cruise to the island. The ferries are really cool the first time you ride them, but as general transportation, they kinda suck. You have a schedule, but you also have traffic and other interruptions, so if you are a few minutes late, its's a 50 minute wait for the next 50 minute ride. If we take the ferrry to the city, it always turns into an all day affair. That and the $14-$18 each way to take your car along.
Been rowing back and forth to the dock since the motor quit working last week, it's been tedious. I took the carburetor apart and identified a nickel sized diaphram which was cracked, causing the engine to run roulgh, not idle and sometimes be hard to start. Local dealer wanted $52 for one, so I ordered one from Al for $40 and decided rowing would be good exercise. Ran out of water in the tanks, and had to run 7 gal. jerry jug full rowing in and out 1 at a time to replenish supply. In the midst of all the struggle with the motor, Joan realized that the 10 hp on our dinghy is pretty hard for someone her size to crank. Well, thanks to the wonders of the internet and craigslist, I found a pretty cool little hard dink with a pretty new 5hp motor on it just up the road at Kingston. Another day down the tubes as we went to check it out and eventually buy it.
It weighs about half what the rubber ducky weighs and still holds as much or more stuff. The part for the big boy came in on Friday, so I will get it going and try Craigslist to move it off the dock.
Lots of new toys have arrived this week. We had an interesting time trying to track the packages when one set warned us of a weather event in Minot, ND impacting our delivery schedule. Why exactly would you send our stuff there? These questions beg answers, as we waited two days to find out when to go pick the stuff up and then Fri. morning it was magically on the truck for morning delivery. We took off early to go up to port townsend to try and get mounting brackets made for the two new priamry winches, buy some high tech LED lighting for the boat and talk to the guys who make daggerboards in Port Townsend, couldn't nail down the board or winch mounts, but it is in the works for next week. Then we grabbed lunch in Kinston, and took a ferry over to Edmonds, just north of Seattle. Traffic was awful, but we made our way down to the cushion place, where everyone in the store personally apologized for the delay and gave us a whopping $47 off of our $2100 order for the inconvenience. More bumper cars on the freeway to arrive 5 minutes late for the ferry. Sigh, the car is kind of un comfortable stuffed full of cushions which are about half a foot to long to stay behind the seats. Back to BI and the Chandlery to pick up the goodies and back to the town dock with the dinghy because we can unload the car on a ramp next to the boat and not carry it down 1/4 mile of docks to the usual spot. Did I mention that it has rained most of the last two days. Still quite a relief to get everything out to the boat and haul the old cushions off to the dumpster.
Long last day of a long week. Oh, nevermind that, you don't get days off if you don't have a job....
1 comment:
Nice!
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