17 December 2015

2016 Winter Campaign

Winter is Coming

The end of the sailing season is often the beginning of the major maintenance season.  The boat must be prepped for the New England winter.  I was pleased to learn that winterizing the outboard engine is not terribly complicated.  I read the manual a couple of times and took notes, then watched some  DIY YouTube videos, and reviewed the procedure over the phone with Ric.  He had coached me through it in person last year, but this time I was flying solo.  Taking advantage of the mild temperatures in late November, I flushed the engine with fresh water for a good ten minutes, pulled the spark plugs (looked good), and sprayed in some fogging oil.  I removed the propellor and gave the shaft a thick new coat of 2-4-C grease, and changed the motor oil in the lower unit.  This last job proved the most challenging, and required trips to several different stores to acquire a specific grade of marine outboard engine oil, an extra large screwdriver, a siphon pump with tubing, and some cat litter.  Getting the old oil out was easy; let's just leave it at that....

Experts Agree: Lube your shaft liberally......

There is some work that needs to be done on the mast and the rig.  I wanted to take the mast down off the boat, so I bought a couple of sawhorses at Sears to use as a mast cradle.  This will allow easy access to the mast, shrouds and stays, jib furler, spreader bars, halyards, and internal wiring.

Originally, I designed this elaborate rack based on PVC pipes and joints.
But then I said 'screw it,' and just bought a couple of plastic saw horses

Finally, it was time to build the frame for a winter tarp.  Perhaps one day I will concede defeat and have the boat shrink wrapped.  But for now I try to economize by using plastic tarp as a winter cover.  Last year, the PVC pipe frame that I rigged held together (mostly) throughout the winter, but only just barely.  This time I incorporated parts of a wooden frame donated to me by my neighbor, Captain Kirk, when he cleaned out his basement.

Piao wearing her "hoodie"

Using wood elements for the center beam, I screwed the beam into several supporting wooden pillars.  I added a couple of 2.0-inch PVC pipes as support posts in the cockpit, accessorized with curved joint attachments at the top, and then lashed on some 1.5-inch PVC pipe to create the A-frame.  I used some three-strand line to lash the beam to the stanchion bases for added support.  I hope it will help to keep the frame in place.


To minimize waste, I also reused some of the less robust 1.0-inch PVC pipe from last year's frame.  I set them up as secondary braces, which I tried to reinforce by joining at the foot.  My design plan here anticipates that weight on the tarp cover will push this foot bar against the stanchion base and the toe rail, where it will stop firmly and (somewhat) snugly.  You think?


Only time will tell whether I engineered -- and constructed -- a decent tarp frame.  Piao sits in a more exposed position in this new spot, and will take a Nor'easter broad on the starboard beam.  Let's hope my tarp and frame hold.

Off-Season Projects

There are a number of improvements I would like to make to Piao during this off-season.  I have been very fortunate to connect with Ed, of Buzzards Bay Yacht Services, who has taken an interest in my interest in the boat.  I met Ed through my buddy Ric, the PO, who had highly recommended him as a standup guy and a outstanding rigger.  He is a sailor himself, and a circumnavigator; he moors his boat in Sippican harbor.  Ed had worked Piao when Ric had owned her under a different name, and Ed had done a small job for me in my first season, involving adjustments to the jib furler.  I bumped into him a couple of times at the Fairhaven West Marine in Fairhaven over the last year, and he recognized me.  I always asked if he might be available in the Fall to help me out with a few things, and he graciously affirmed.  Now he has become my unofficial Boatswain.

Ed checking over Piao

Ed came by the house and took a look at the boat, inside and out, while we chatted.  He asked me about the Tibetan prayer flags, hanging on the back porch.  They come from a fifteenth-century Tibetan Buddhist temple above Ringha valley in the northwest highlands of China's Yunnan province.    Turns out Ed is also a climber, rock and ice, and has summited several high peaks, and has plans to climb in the Himalaya.

Where I took the Admiral on our honeymoon

Ruf Notes:
Ringha valley is a rather special place, and still home to several traditional Tibetan farming families.  Legend has it that when a monk, out three years on pilgrimage accompanied by his goat, came through the area, the goat refused to go any further.  The monk recognized a sacred place and built a temple, which became one of the five most important Tibetan Buddhist temples in Yunnan.  It was visited by "Great Fifth" Dalai Lama, the powerful seventeenth-century religious and temporal authority credited with unifying Tibet after centuries of civil strife -- the guy who undertook construction of the Potala Palace in Lhasa.

Ed seems to appreciate what the boat means to me, and asked if I intended to hold on to it for a while.  He made a few suggestions, and we agreed to a work-plan that began with him hauling away my mast back to his workshop.  He checked the CDI jib furler (which proved to be in good condition) and confirmed it was the appropriate rig for this boat.  The mast lights work fine; both steaming and anchor are new LEDs put in by the PO.  The terminal connection, that joins the wiring a base of the mast, has corroded away.

"Oh, so that's why the mast lights don't work."

Ed will install new wiring and run a longer VHF cable through the mast, then fix all that inside with sponge-pads to stop it from clanging on the aluminum mast when the boat rolls.  The new wire and cable will be led through watertight glands bedded in the cabin top and down inside to a new terminal block on the forward side of the port bulkhead, above the portable head.  Ed will also wire up the VHF base station that I mounted in the cabin, and install a small cabin fan that I bought last spring but never mounted.

To be Replaced: mast light wires and VHF antenna cable; this deck fixture will disappear

Ed will replace the boomvang bail that snapped this summer while I was over by Woods Hole, and he is ordering me a pair of additional cleats that will mount on the genoa track -- something a little larger and more robust than the cleats mounted on the cockpit coaming where the jib sheets live.  These will give me somewhere to tie off a preventer line or a spring line.  He will upgrade my old and overloaded four-fuse panel to a new six-fuse panel.  I have been giving some thought to installing a second battery.  At present, there are a number of power-consumption units sharing the one battery: the outboard motor, lights (cabin, running, steaming, anchor), the GPS chart plotter, radio, fan, 12-volt A/C outlet (usually charging phones and other devices), and soon there will be a bilge pump added to this.  Perhaps a second battery might be a good idea; I will consult further with Ed about this.

In the spring, Ed will install a transducer (depth-finder) that is compatible with my Garmin 441s chart plotter.  I asked Ms. Claus for this as a Christmas gift.  "You don't need that!" she scoffed.  "Just assume that outside the harbor the water is deeper!"  Rebuffed, I gave my adult offspring some not-so-subtle hints about what to get Dad for the holidays.  I confess to being a bit apprehensive of any thru-hull device: it makes me nervous to put a hole in the boat.  I know these things are supposed to stay in place, but I also know that sometimes they leak or even fall out.

Airmar P319 Plastic Thru-Hull Transducer
Merry Christmas to me?

On what I hope was an unrelated note, Ed advised me to put in a bilge pump.  Ric had told me the boat "didn't have a bilge," but actually it does.  Well, sort of....  Reviewing the O'Day 23 in an issue of Good Old Boat magazine (Jan/Feb 2004), Gregg Nestor called it "an almost nonexistent bilge," and went on to warn: "any significant amount of water that finds its way below will quickly rise above the cabin sole and slosh about the interior, soaking anything not protected by watertight containers" (p.8).  Taking a quick peek inside the storage compartments recessed in the cabin berths, Ed confirmed each has a tube that drains into the very small bilge beneath the cabin sole.  So far, when occasion warranted, I have emptied this using a hand pump.  But Ed urged me to put in a small electric pump.  "There are lots of reasons why you want to have that."

One bigger concern looming over the horizon is the cracking that spiders across the cabin top, especially around the foot of the mast.  Ed tells me that this is very common on boats of Piao's age, and much to be expected.  Still, I don't find that particularly reassuring.  Water is getting in there, even if only a little.  I noticed that these cracks are the last areas of the deck to dry in the morning's moist air, and I am worried that colder winter temps will freeze that moisture in those cracks and expand them, threatening water damage to the wood core inside the fiberglass.  That would be really bad.  So this is a near-term concern, and will be a necessary repair in the not-too-distant future.  In the spring, Ed will come by with a moisture meter and take some readings to assess the extent of any damage and begin to estimate costs of repair.

Spider cracks around the mast base (and around the stanchions)


Don't Injure Yourself

Meanwhile, I have a few DIY jobs to keep myself busy.  First of all, I have been thinking of adding a tiller extension.  I need to replace the audio device that provided very effective avian deterrent (but lasted only one season).  It was great to go the entire season without a single drop of bird shit on the boat -- such a difference from last year.  Some of my mooring neighbors did not appreciate the high-pitched sound the motion detector emitted, but they don't offer to clean up the fecal droppings the terns, gulls, and cormorants otherwise leave on my boat.  In addition, I want to install hooks in the small wet locker abaft the port settee, as well as in the dry locker on the starboard side between the V-berth and the main cabin.  I need more secure shelving in the cabin (where too much stuff still gets tossed around and ends up on the cabin sole when the boat heels sharply), and a secure stowage space for a second anchor (so IT won't get tossed about in a similar manner, with potentially graver consequences).

I definitely need to fix the half-assed way I (mis)rigged the outhaul on the mainsail.  Fortunately, I found on the Interwebs a diagram from the manufacturer that details the parts needed to rig the outhaul and that illustrates how it should look.

Above: Correct Way to Rig the Outhaul

Below: Greg's Way to Rig the Outhaul

I had rigged the outhaul in this matter to make room for a reefing system.  The outhaul leads from the clew, through the two blocks, and then runs forward to a cleat on boom.  I also need to fix the reefing system that I installed.  It, too, is a little half-assed.  A reefing line (red and white) runs from a dead-eye on the boom, through the reef cringle, back around the block on the boom, and then forward to another cleat on the boom.  Forward, at the mast, a second line leads from a similar dead-eye on the mast, through the reef cringle, down to a block at the base of the mast, then out to the halyard fairlead on the forward starboard cabin top, and back to the clutch at the cockpit.  


New outhaul (red, white, blue) and new reefing line (red & white)

Three problems with this: 1) it still requires me to go forward a bit to reef the mainsail, 2) it does not pull the mainsail down in snug and tight manner, and 3) the forward reefing line is pinched a bit by the handrail as it passes around the fairlead.  This last problem derives from the fact that the reefing line must be 3/8" in order for it to be secured by the clutch, but this diameter is too wide to run smoothly between the outside of the fairlead and the inside of the handrail.  So, my plan is to sand down, ever so carefully, the inside of the handrail just enough to permit the reefing line to run smoothly.  The only alternative I envision is to move and rebed the fairlead, and I don't think I will be doing that anytime soon.  Last spring, I bought a single-line reefing system kit from Barton, but was too lazy to install it properly.  This winter I will try again more earnestly.  It will require drilling some holes in the boom and mast, something I shied away from in the past.

The lifelines also may need replacing: they are as old as the boat, and the plastic covering is cracked and yellowed in many places, showing signs of rust.  But that could get expensive, so first I would like to try to clean them up and refurbish them.  The January 2016 issue of SAIL magazine describes a DIY project to strip away the plastic coating and soak the metal lines coiled in Ospho rust treatment (see Mark & Diana Doyle, "New Life for Old Lifelines: How to take years of wear off your lifelines," Sail, 47[1]: 54).  I will give this a try.

Don't think I should trust my life to these lifelines

I desperately want to get new block for the boomvang.  Ed asked why, so I held up the block to show him.  "Oh," he said.  I do not like jam-stop in the existing one.  It is a real pain-in-the-ass to use.  He agreed.

I do not like this, Sam I Am....

I also want to install a couple of blocks that will allow me to rig a preventer, and run the line back to the cockpit.  I had read that it was unwise to shackle such blocks to the base of the lifeline stanchions, since the load could be heavy enough to rip these right out of the deck.  There are some real horror stories on sailboat website user forums.  But Ed believes that the load on my mainsail is likely to be small enough for the stanchions to hold, provided they were well bedded.  That brings me to the stanchions.  When spring comes, I plan to rebed all four lifeline stanchions and replace the two fixed blocks for the jib sheets, all of which show signs of water penetration.

Bases for stanchions need rebedding....

Fixed blocks for jib sheets need replacing and rebedding

Looking down the road, I have a couple of more ambitious rehab projects that include replacing the plywood hatch covers for the storage bins recessed in the berths, and even replacing the bulkheads -- the port-side in particular is starting to show black discoloration (mold?) from water damage where it meets the cabin sole.  I am also nursing plans, still in their infancy, to redo the galley area.  For now I will be satisfied just to fix manual sink pump and the sink drain, restoring them to working condition. I picked up a used dodger and bimini for $30 at a local church sale last summer, and would like to see if I can get them mounted.  I dream of pimping out Piao into a pocket cruiser with a small but functional galley, head, and berth that could serve as a cramped but comfortable home for a single-handed sailing.  Then I'll head up to Maine one summer, or down the ICW.  I have a standing invitation to fry oysters in Savannah.  The Admiral said she will go anywhere with me, as long as she can meet me there via other modes of transportation.  "Who wants to spend all that time just simply getting to some place?" she asked.  Well, I do......





My newest t-shirt

On the Hard

Winter Berth

Piao has a new spot on which to winter-over on the hard.  Fed up with the cacophony of vines and natural undergrowth of brush in our backyard, the Admiral hired a landscaping service to rip it all out, lay topsoil, spread wood chips, and seed new grass.  For a little extra, he also created a streetside gravel bed where Piao could sit for the winter.  The boat used to sit next to the garage, which necessitated the haulers driving across part of the front yard, which always left deep ruts and last time damaged the lawn irrigation system.  The new site not only removes a clump of Japanese Knotweed (a long-time nemesis of mine) but also offers easy-access for the transport carrier and to nearby outlets for both power and water.

Piao's new winter berth

My neighbor Henry, on the other side of the property, thinks I made a big mistake.  He believes it was better when I stored the boat alongside the garage.  It is more convenient to access tools, he argued.  It was also more convenient for him to watch and come over to chat while I work on the boat.  You see, he used to own an O'Day 23 just like Piao.  He doesn't like Obama very much....


Haul out
7 November 2015

This year, I had the Brownell guys block the boat up a bit higher, to give me better access to the centerboard, which retracts into the shoal keel.  The boat only draws 27" with the centerboard up, and 5'4" with it down.  This is great for scooching in close to shore for temporary anchorage and beach exploring.  The retractable centerboard is also much more forgiving than a fixed keel during bathymetric explorations of unmarked rocks around the shallows and shoals of Buzzards Bay.

Piao arrives at her Winter Crib....

The centerboard needs to be cleaned (and maybe patched up a bit?), then repainted with ablative.  I want to check the attachment point for the line that runs up through the boat into the cockpit.  Last winter, in its old spot alongside the garage, Piao sat high enough for me to lower the centerboard only an inch or two.  This year I got it a bit higher.  The Brownell guys advised me that I would probably need a couple or three (or four) new 18" blocks by next year.  They said they could sell them to me, but suggested I might find them cheaper elsewhere.

I still won't get that centerboard all the way down, but this is progress....

With Piao (hopefully) secured 'high on the hard,' my first task was to service the outboard motor in preparation for the coming winter.  Once again, I discovered that the marine environment had caused the padlock on the motor mount to seize solid.  Looks like I will need to go knock on Henry's door after all, and invited him to come over again with his Sawsall.  But other boating neighbors advised me that I could simply leave the outboard engine mounted (and covered) for the winter.  I will replace the mounting bracket in the spring, with Henry's assistance, and next year I will be sure to grease and lube the Masterlock liberally and frequently throughout the sailing season.


Holidays approach!  This year we went with a nautical theme.  The Admiral repurposed some Halloween pumpkins, spray painting them white and arranging them to resemble a snowwoman standing out by the mailbox.  Behind her we put the spare hard-shell dinghy.  That seemed a bit odd to me, so I went out and found a little plastic Santa, which I wired upright on the middle thwart.  Then I decorated the dinghy with lights: blue for the bow wave, and white for the trailing wake.  The neighbors approve.


Season 2 Recap

15 December 2015

The season came to a close all too soon, and I neglected to post updates.  Now it is the middle of December, a clear day in the lower sixties, amid an unusually mild autumn for New England.  Many around these parts have been feeling a bit apprehensive as winter approaches, still nursing wounds from last year's record-breaking blizzards.  We have enjoyed many warm and pleasant days this Fall, although today a NWS advisory is posted across most of southern New England: winds west, 20-30 mph, gusting 50, strongest 1200-1600 hours.  Out on the water, near Abel's Ledge at the head of Buzzards Bay and the western approach to Cape Cod Canal, my 'PredictWind' app forecasts winds 19-22 knots, gusting 29-32kts, with 4-foot waves at 5 second intervals -- what I call a real "Yee-Ha" day for little Piao.


Piao on her mooring, after an autumn sail in late October

This year, Piao logged a five-month (24-week) season: splashing in on 23 May, and hauling out on 7 November.  Her 28 voyages covered a little over 300 nautical miles (10 voyages, 100-plus nm single-handed).  She spent over 135 hours underway (and another 50 hours at anchor), with about 20 hours (15%) under power with the Mercury 9.9hp outboard motor.  That was less than half the engine time of Season One, but still much more than I would like.  Going forward, I will make a much better effort to be more diligent about recording engine hours (and other items) in my logbook.


Shortest voyage of the 2015 season: 10 June
(picked up the Admiral at the dock, and returned to the mooring, where we sat and chilled all afternoon)

With the season now behind me, I sit at my desk feeling wistful and regretting that I did not find more time to be out on the boat, although I think the Admiral would say that I was out there a plenty.  In her first season, Piao logged nearly twice as many voyages.  Yet, to be fair, I have been putting in more time on the water, 'messing around in boats' other than Piao.  Once again, we only took out our 14' tandem kayak, Tiffany-May for only a single day of paddling (sadly, that makes two years in a row when we used it only once).  But we have done a good deal of whaleboat racing with our team ("Polar Oartex") at Whaling City Rowing -- winning several competitions, including the annual Snow Row (March), Buzzards Bay Open Water Challenge (June), Minots Light Roundabout (September), Slocum River Challenge Regatta (September), and the Mass Bay Open Water Challenge (October), along with a second-place finish at the New Bedford Working Waterfront Whaleboat World Championships.  

"Polar Oartex" pulls into the lead during the 2015 Snow Row in Hull, MA

Nantucket Sleigh Ride!
Our whaleboat being hauled back to the marina after a race, compliments of TowBoatUS

WCR also participated in the festivities surrounding the visit of the barque NRR Sagres to New Bedford, rowing out to welcome her and to see her off upon departure.  The Admiral rows Oar #4 (Port Aft) on the "Oartex" team, under the moniker "Seawolf."  While I will row with alacrity at any oar, and often was assigned to Stroke (#5) Oar, I have been coxswain and boat-steerer for the "Oartex" competitions.  The team nicknamed me, "Bucket Bastard," because I make them train pulling a five-gallon bucket behind the whaleboat.

 Rowing out to welcome the arrival of NRP Sagres

Rowing around barque Picton Castle during her visit to New Bedford

I left the Admiral ashore and had a couple of more extended stints aboard larger vessels.  My friend Bob graciously invited me to crew for him, along with Dan, a young sailor of a Cape Dory 30 with off-shore experience, as he took S/V Argon on an overnight trip from Boston to Newport, where the Tartan 4000 was to be for the annual international boat show.  I went to high school with Bob, back in upstate New York; we reconnected some years ago through Facebook, and discovered we both were living in the Boston area.  Bob introduced me to two of the most rewarding life-changing experiences: sailing and eHarmony.  He and Linda are now full-time live-aboards on Argon, and are preparing for a trip to Bermuda next year (in fact, Bob just made the trip as crew on another boat).  They have a great blog for Argon (here).  Our leg out of Boston was exciting for me, with E/NE winds blowing across the fetch of Mass Bay.  Reaching out President Roads, the big forty-footer just swallowed many of the oncoming waves, as Bob said she would, waves that would have sent things flying about the cabin aboard Piao, which is half the size of Argon.  Once we turned SE toward Plymouth and the canal, there were some good sized wind waves that we were taking on the port beam and quarter, rolling Argon far enough and often enough to spill her wind, and making sailing a challenge even after Bob rigged a preventer.  Things calmed down considerably once we were down inside Cape Cod Bay, and we arrived at the canal around midnight.  I know many people really do not like night boating, but I think I do.  It was a real thrill for me to transit the canal, especially at night, and to pass down Buzzards Bay to see the lights of New Bedford from offshore.  Funny, I have never been on Buzzards Bay when conditions were so calm and placid.  I learned that night the importance of the operative predicate in the term, 'Stand Watch.'

Seas running at Minots Light from the deck of Argon

The most memorable shipboard experience this year, however, were the three-weeks spent crew training aboard the square-rigged tallship, Kalmar Nyckel.  We were taught to wash dishes, mop and swab decks, tie knots, heave and coil line, climb rigging, stand watch, work sails, steer helm, boat check, and rehearse safety drills (Fire, MOB, AS).  It was a pretty intense and greatly rewarding period, with many special bonds forged between shipmates.  I will write a separate post on the Kalmar Nyckel experience.

Aboard the Kalmar Nyckel, working on the main yard, third from right 


One of the most challenging aspects was "learning the ropes," as they say (or, as they don't really say, since on a ship a "rope" is referred to as a "line," and most every line has a specific name that designates its intended function).  There are nearly 200 belaying points aboard the Kalmar Nyckel.  The rigging in this period-correct recreated sixteenth-century ship is among the most complicated of the Age of Sail.


Kalmar Nyckel Belaying Plan
c) Kalmar Nyckel Foundation, 2009

The captain of the Kalmar Nyckel, Lauren Morgans, introduced me to the people at SEA (Sea Education Association) in Woods Hole, MA, who run semester-at-sea programs.  Through her recommendation, I was invited to meet with the faculty and staff at SEA recently, who invited to join their January 2016 "colleague cruise" in the Caribbean (St. Croix to San Juan) aboard the SSV Corwith Cramer, a 134-foot, 270 ton, tall ship research vessel.  More on that later, too.


Brigantine SSV Corwith Cramer

So, as 2015 comes to a close, I am feeling enthusiastic and excited about the coming year.  I have lots of plans: "Small Boat, Big Dreams."  A top priority next season will be to start overnight trips.  I would like to sail around the whole of Buzzards Bay, down to Cutty Hunk, back over to Westport, or even to Newport, or one day New London.  Eventually, I want to sail her down to Long Island, and over to the Vineyard.  "Uh-uh," the Admiral shakes her head.  "I'll meet you there."

Lots of book-learning scheduled for the winter campaign, too.  The learning curve remains steep.  Nevertheless, I am getting there, slowly.  My records show I have accrued over 100 USCG-qualifying 'Days-at-Sea' towards a Captain's license.  I know my COLREGs, a bunch of knots, and a modest but growing corpus of practical seamanship.  My first year sailing with my buddy Ric, when he owned this boat, we were out one day when a situation developed.  I don't remember what it was; I only remember how Ric reacted.  "Just sit down.  You are a nice guy, but you don't know what the f*** you are doing."  That was the shortest and greatest motivational speech I ever heard.  I want to think that I am starting to understand what I am doing......



Basking in my recent promotion from Half-Assed to only Quarter-Assed....