Retired from newspapers and television, currently sailing Thelonious II, a 1984 Ericson 381.
"Thelonious" (Christian Williams)
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Note: The Raymarine SPX-5 wheel pilot has been supplanted by the Raymarine EV-100. See here. Installation is similar.
Joshua Slocum’s Spray would sail for hundreds of miles without the captain touching the wheel, but an Ericson 32-3 under power will pirouette like a drunken ballerina if you...
The first wire-snaking job was the transducer cable. A pleasant two hours, sort of, screwing cable clamps at arm’s length. Perhaps you have someone to help you? I did a swell job running the cable and then attempted to join a 6-pin connector to an 8-pin connector. Huh? You gotta be kidding me...
Ready to go– almost.
There’s a dockside test in which the SPX-5 system moves the wheel. Pass. There’s a sea trial test, in which a couple of slow two-minute turns calibrate the fluxgate compass. Our deviation was 1 percent, well within range. Pass. Then the SPX-5 does a series of zigzags of...
Three sewing machines compared (video). Select "Watch on YouTube" for high resolution.
Why bother to learn to sew?
Sewmanship, as Popeye and I likes to call it, is a manly art dating way back. On the other hand, a stock sail cover on the Internet doesn’t cost much more than the Sunbrella...
The first sewing project was a cover for a wooden pram, to be supported using the mast as a ridge pole. I measured the boat and allowed for a 2-inch hem for shock cord under the gunwales. After studying instructional videos at Sailrite.com I purchased #18 needles and V-92 thread for my Singer...
When it comes to providing shade for the cockpit, a cover connecting a stern Bimini to a dodger is most popular here in Los Angeles. Many modern wide-bodied boats have both those appendages, which in order to provide walk-under space can begin to resemble a new cityscape in Dubai and give even a...
There are many solutions to the hard dinghy storage issue. You see dinghies on the foredeck, on davits off the stern, canted over the transom, lashed to swim platforms, suspended from the bow like sausage, hung from the mast vertically as if they'd made a terrible mistake, left home in the...
[How to remove a bubble in compass fluid is here ]
Ritchie Compass Diaphragm Replacement
Obtain a new diaphragm and additional fluid, if needed, from Ritchie in Massachusetts. I am told that if you have an existing bubble, chances are good the problem is an aging diaphragm, and of course any...
E32-3
Portlights and Veneer
The opening ports on Thelonious were by Bomar. They were mechanically sound, but the lenses looked like Lebowski had dropped a bowling ball on them. In addition to cracks and crazes, they were fogged. Bomar lenses, unfortunately, cannot be changed out.
No replacement unit fits exactly into the...
E32-3
Pedestal Rebuild
Photo guide to step-by-step disassembly of pedestal steering: http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoexchange/showthread.php?14133-Yacht-Specialties-Pedestal-Disassembly-with-Photos
This took longer than expected, often felt like the dive-into-the-bilge-to-repair-the-batteries sequence in the movie...
My black Kenyon boom was in pretty good shape, just a few dings and a bit of bubbling around the SS fittings. But the outhaul car was frozen in the track and the outhaul and topping lift gear were jammed deep inside. In my garage the end caps came off easily, and after probing inside with a 2x4...
Thelonious was purchased in November, 2012, in Marina del Rey, CA, after a brief flirtation with a Grand Banks 36 in San Diego. On a sea trial there, on the flying bridge of this stately motor vessel plowing at 7 knots under the hum of twin Lehman 120 diesels, I imagined myself a tugboat captain...
The 27-year-old deck hatches didn't leak, sealed well, and the hardware was in good shape. The only problem was that the acrylic lenses looked like they had been in an auto accident--shot through with deep crazing resembling shattered safety glass. It turns out that the hatch acrylic is a...
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