Here’s a rambling update in the writing-instead-of-financial-advice-or-psychological-therapy vein.
I recently had a bit of a setback in my sailing adventures when I ran my boat into a big rock and damaged the keel and potentially other parts of the hull. I’m resolving my best path forward...
This is a long post about a short cruise with a twist at the end.
Getting out of the Bay and up or down the coast some distance has been on my punchlist for some time. It wasn’t a perfect time, but I don’t suppose it ever is, so the second week of February I took a couple of days to head...
High Voltage
I headed out for a day sail this week and was motoring about 50 yards out of my slip when my remote radio mic on my helm began beeping at me and flashing a “HIGH VOLTAGE” warning. Having blown a fuse in a Standard Horizon head unit during my electronics upgrade, this seemed like a...
With the purchase of my boat I inherited an under-sized whisker pole that I subsequently sold. Nevertheless I wanted to learn how to set a pole for a headsail as part of a wing-on-wing downwind, tradewind, get-from-California-to-Hawaii-and-back journey. On Craigslist I could not find any...
Summary
I replaced the aged stainless steel cable lifelines on my boat with Dyneema synthetic lines. The total cost was around $600 and I learned how to eye splice a single braid rope. It took a total of about 8 hours to install the lines. The most challenging part was to make the lines the...
Summary: Adding new cleats or attachments to a mast is straightforward with the correct size tap set to match your fasteners.
As part of my summer haul-out I added a topping lift line to the front of my mast as well as a spinnaker halyard. Both of these lines end at the base of the mast and...
Summary: I completed my final installation of my Aries wind vane and went for a test sail. The vane performed largely as expected, better in heavier wind and more poorly in light wind.
Where I left off last month, I had cut the struts on my wind vane to fit my boat and done a test fitting. A...
Summary
After some research and some comments and suggestions from others, I wound up buying a used Aries wind vane that I found on eBay. I modified the lengths of several of the aluminum tubes that comprise the vane support structure and was able to make the unit I purchased fit my boat...
Summary
I’m working on installing an Aires wind vane that I bought second-hand on eBay. I’ll write more about the vane later, but first a brief note on the backer plates that I fabricated to support the points at which the wind vane frame bolts on to the transom of the boat.
I did some...
Slip Flip
Have you done a slip-flip? Spun your boat by hand in your marina/berth so that instead of being docked bow to the pier, you're stern to the pier?
I did it a few times this week for work at the stern of the boat, in essentially still air. Process:
1. Tie a line longer than your...
Neither boasting nor weeping. Merely an accounting, mostly for my own notes. Hoping the admiral won’t ever find it. I had guessed at the outset my expenditures would be 50% of the purchase price and with the attached to the boat stuff, I am at 63% of purchase.
Hopefully the cap ex next...
I’ve had a few days out now, with my self-installed Sailtrack. I can confirm that the sail raises and drops more easily than it did before the installation.
I do still have to winch the last 25-35% of the sail at the raising. It’s easier than it was before.
On the way down, the last 25%...
What's a sideliner you ask? It's like a headliner, but a sideliner covers the diagonal side portion of the interior of my boat's cabin. I had removed these pieces of vinyl fabric in the process of troubleshooting some leaks. I later determined that the source of my leaks were the leaking main...
In the process of replacing all the standing rigging on my boat, I had the wire forestay/jibstay replaced as well, with a new cable fitted into my Harken Mark 1 Furler. I have added some tension in my initial “dock-tune” and it seems to be working well enough.
Given that the furler both...
Summary
The Colligo standing rigging I ordered for my boat was difficult to get pinned in the initial set-up, but seems to be working just fine. I attribute my difficulty partly to my own inexperience and partly to the vagaries of using Dyneema line as rigging.
Introduction
I left the...
It started with my haul out on July 21st and ended on October 21st, 2020 and all in all I had a very good experience at KKMI Richmond. I had expected at the most my project would last three weeks, so to last three months has been a frustration, but I have only my standing rigging supplier’s...
Summary: I shaped, decorated, and encased in fiberglass, an adult-sized(!) wooden skimboard. On a strategic basis, my key lesson was to be thoughtful and well-planned about the components of a lamination or surface treatment. On a tactical basis, I learned (again) that beautiful things are...
Summary
By the internet-testimony of their customers, the companies listed here seem to produce quality products, based on the positive reviews one finds on-line. Prices for a new unit range from $3,500 to $7,500 and up.
Introduction
I wanted to purchase and learn how to use a mechanical...
At present I have two GPS antennas - one dedicated to the AIS that does not share location data with the network, and the second self-contained unit. I had originally planned to copy @footrope’s antenna installation on the frame of his dodger. Craig helpfully pointed me to the same special...
After a successful morning of electronics-wrangling, I felt emboldened to take on the task of re-bedding a portlight fixed window. I believe that my windows are original to my boat, and in an ideal world I would like to replace all of the ‘glass’ that has become crazed with superficial cracks...