Last day of August

Just a quick note to bring you all up-to-date.  Lulu's back at the boat cleaning up after our day of work and I need to get back down there soon.

Today was pretty productive as boat work goes.  We got both of the

 headsails all finished.  Here's a picture of our snazzy new Spin-Tec furlers:

We also got the life raft and the stern pulpit bolted down.  Now this may not sound like a big deal to you but you probably aren't aware of what goes into such a job.  Take the liferaft for instance:  First, since it's being bolted down to the deck, all of the overhead covering material (pine bead board) has to be removed where the bolts will come through.  This is not just to hide the bolts but it's also for a secure attachment.  Imagine if you tried to bolt something to the outside of your house by running a bolt through the outer wall and the sheetrock and then tried tightening the nut on the sheetrock.  Wouldn't work too well.  Same thing on our boat.  The overhead is backed up by 1/2" styrofoam insulation.  Tightening a bolt against the overhead would simply crush the beadboard and the insulation before it even began to be secure.  So all those boards had to come down.  And since Lulu was taking boards down anyway, might as well take the ones that have to be removed to install the staysail tracks port and starboard.  And, since at least the first quarter of the beadboard is tongue and grooved together (before I wized up and removed the tongues), almost all of the boards have to be removed before we can get to the ones we need.  So, a big job.

Lulu got the quarter berth cleaned out and straightened up.  This is the area we commonly refer to as "the garage" because it's where everything that doesn't have another home gets stashed.  Another big job since you have to crawl into and out of it.  Imagine cleaning your garage on your belly.

Our friend Steve, from here at the marina, gave us a ride into town to get some groceries, lumber and propane.  [sidebar:  What was with the post-war parents naming all their baby boys "Steve"?  I don't remember a lot of other Steves in school (Steve Schmidt and Steve Shaw are the only ones that come immediately to mind), but now it seems like whenever I'm with other men of around my age, at least a third of them are named Steve.  Weird.].

Okay, that's about it for today.  Best get back to the boat.  Things are shaping up nicely for a Saturday or Sunday departure.

OK, so we won't make our August 31 goal...

I swallowed my pride and paid for another week of moorage yesterday.
There is just NO WAY we can be out of here (responsibly, anyway) by
tomorrow. So our new goal is to leave by next weekend (Labor Day
weekend). We have a very good chance of making that goal.

Today we got both headsails bent on. It went pretty well all-in-all.
The yankee (our large headsail) ended up being a couple of inches
long, even though we thought it might actually be a little short. I'd
like to blame it on Spin-Tec's instructions but the fact is that we
measured the actual length we needed so we screwed up somewhere.
Since the furler's foil keeps the luff straight, there's just a tiny
little jog near the foot of the sail. Not enough of an issue to worry
about. Someday we'll be working on the sails again and we'll take
care of shortening the yankee then. We had to experiment a little
with block location to get the furling line to wind up on the drum
(or, as Lulu calls it: "the bobbin") without trying to climb the
headstay but we eventually got it. Sure is nice to just be able to
roll or unroll the sail.

I spent the remainder of the day working on several projects and
completing none. Lulu was bust down below rearranging stuff. Last
night she made sandwiches for dinner. I requested some clam chowder to
go with. Well, all of our canned goods are in this deep pit behind
the stove. The opening in the top of the pit is about 16" long but
only 6" wide. It's virtually impossible to reach the bottom without
climbing on something. So, back when we were first stowing our canned
goods I came up with the brilliant idea of loading the canned goods in
those old canvas Safeway shopping bags and then tying a tag to the
handle telling what was inside. Impossible to reach the bottom of the
pit and pull out one can of something but relatively easy to pull out
a bag at a time. Or so I thought. Turns out that it's pretty easy to
manipulate the cans inside the bag when you're lowering the bag into
the pit. But when you're hoisting the bag back out, the cans resist
all attempts to be rearranged enough so the bag can clear the
opening. At first I watched Lulu struggle for awhile while thinking,
"Geez, woman! What is so hard about pulling a bag out of a hole?"
Then, being the helpful kind of guy I am, I offered to take over.
WHAT A PAIN! We ultimately got our can of clam chowder out but we
resolved to do something to fix this situation.

Well, to make an already too-long story a little shorter, we
ultimately ended up moving the cans to the cupboards behind the settee
seatback where they are much easier to get to. We shoved our foul
weather gear in the pit behind the stove. As a bonus, this little
move managed to help relieve our list to port a little. We've got a
lot of canned goods.

We got rid of some stuff yesterday and got most of what was left
stowed. You know how in the old days the officers on a ship were the
only ones who knew how to navigate? This helped to minimize the
chance of mutiny. If the crew mutinied they wouldn't be able to find
their way back to land, not knowing the art of navigation. Well, Lulu
has that same kind of insurance. She's the only one who has any idea
where stuff is on this little boat. You'd be amazed how easy it is to
lose stuff on a 28' boat.

I think all our big jobs are at least started. Should be able to
finish them up in the next couple days. Not sure what the weather is
supposed to do this week. Guess I'd better start paying attention. It
was sort of nice in Newport for awhile today but this afternoon the
wind piped up and things got kind of cold again (as usual). I'm
thinking about submitting a new slogan to the Chamber of Commerce.
Something like "Newport Blows". Think they'd go for that?

Well, time to tie this up. It's just about time to tuck into Lulu's
tuna casserole. Life is good.

Geez! What happened to the waterline?

After being back at the old home place for almost a week longer than planned, we're finally back at the boat for good.  Came over with a carload of stuff. The good news is that it all fit on the boat.  The bad news is that it's crammed into places like the engine room where it can't stay.  Most of the stuff will have to be jettisoned.  The hard part is deciding on which individual items to toss.  Each item was packed for a good reason but the fact is, we don't actually need any of it.  It would be easier, in a way, to just toss out a box at a time.  But what if that box has the French knife in it?  Or that book on learning celestial navigation?  Or the sextant?  Or the Brion Toss rigging book?  Or the vitamins?  Or the wifi antenna?  Or....?  And yet, every one of those things has to have a place to live along with all the stuff that was already on the boat.  OY!  Well, we'll get through it and in the process we'll donate a lot of stuff to the Freecycle box up at the marina laundromat.  Hopefully we'll remove enough to be able to see the waterline on the boat again.

We're not going to make it out of here by the end of August as hoped.  Now we're shooting for next weekend.  Before that we have to bend the sails on, rig the roller furlers, bolt down the new stern pulpit (railing), install the new hatch, install the ventilation components for the composting toilet, rig the lines to the windvane, bolt down the liferaft holder, install some padeyes to tie everything on deck down, and, now, install a new engine control lever.  Seems I lost my footing and stepped right down on the old one and broke it yesterday.  Fine!

Gave our car away to Lucas yesterday so we are now on foot (or public transportation) if we want to go anywhere.  First on the agenda today is a 6 mile round trip walk to Englund Marine to purchase the aforementioned engine controller.  Fortunately, we like to walk and it's good for us.  Then we'll move the dinghy to the starboard side deck to see if we can eliminate that ugly list to port.  Then we'll start bending the sails on.  Throw in stowing or tossing the stuff in a couple of boxes and today will be about shot.

We're really enjoying knowing that this is really our home now and that we should be underway within a week.

On a more somber note, if you've a mind to please read this link from our friends Greg & Jill, and if you feel it's appropriate, send in an e-mail for them:   http://www.svguenevere.com/aaron/casesummary.html

 

Sail mods..how hard can it be?

Says right there in that old article I saved from a long ago issue of Cruising World: "Beginning with only basic sewing skills, this author converted his hank-on headsail to work with new roller furling gear.  Here's how you can do the same thing".  How hard can it be? 

Lulu started with our staysail because it's the smaller of the two sails she has to convert.  They neglect to tell you in the articles just how hard it is to wrestle a sail through a sewing machine.  And this is our small sail.  And it's a full-blown Sailrite sewing machine.  I can't even imagine how hard the wrestling match with the yankee sail is going to be.  

To be fair, many of the problems associated with this job are directly related to the sewing machine.  First, the needle pierced this leaf spring leaving a jagged thread-eating hole.  Why?   Who knows?  We ordered a new part (and a spare) from Sailrite but didn't want to waste a bunch of time waiting for it to arrive so I finally fixed the piece with some J.B.Weld (don't leave home without it).  Got the repaired piece in place and adjusted so the needle wouldn't hit it again and Lulu started merrily sewing away.  For about 2 minutes.  Then, some other problem was causing the thread to get frayed and break.  We dove into the sewing machine manual to try to figure out the problem.  Never really isolated one problem as the definite cause so we went through the whole needle height/stitch timing/rotation timing/gib hook placement procedures.  Got everything adjusted just so.  

Now, the above paragraph plays down how hard it was to actually do these things.  Sailrite includes these two cheesy little fifty cent screwdrivers with their $900 sewing machine and then tells you not to use them for some of the maintenance. Huh?  Well, I have a pretty nice complement of tools (although most of them are at the boat) but the tools required to reach some of the machine screws and socket head set screws put my collection to shame.  There is almost nothing on this machine that you can reach with a normal 6" screwdriver.  Even stubbies are too big for some of the most basic jobs, like removing the plate that covers the feed dogs.  You need an offset screwdriver, which I have but which is at the boat.  Next best candidate: my SOG multitool with the screwdriver sort of bent over.  Either that or the driver from one of those 4-in-1 screwdrivers and a 5/16" open end wrench to turn it.  And even that didn't work in a bunch of the spots!  And the set screws!  I swear they built this machine from the inside out, tightening things as they went along and then covering them up.  I would love to see what the techs at Sailrite have in their toolboxes.  And, as if this wasn't all bad enough, we had to take the machine apart and put it back together at least a half a dozen times yesterday and again today.  Finally, late this afternoon we found what may have caused all the problems in the first place:  a loose set screw that allowed a bushing to drop and let everything go all loosey-goosey.  After finally locating the set screw, findng the appropriate allen wrench and then holding my mouth just so, I managed to get the bushing back in place.  With my fingers firmly crossed, I can say that we've had no problems since (and that's been nearly 3 hours with an hour out for dinner.  Wow!

Lulu just finished sewing all the sacrificial Sunbrella on the foot and leach of the staysail. Tomorrow: the luff tape and then, if there's time, start on the yankee.

So, if you run across us in a faraway anchorage somewhere and you have a ripped sail  please don't ask us to fix it.  If, on the other hand, your Sailrite sewing machine is giving you fits, we just might be able to help.

About that "Open Boat"...

I know that we told a bunch of you that we were going to have an "Open
Boat" in Newport sometime before we left so that anyone who wanted to
could come over and get a close-up look at our new home. Well, it's
not going to happen. Just not enough time left to plan it. However,
anyone who would like to drop by is more than welcome. We'll be back
at the boat in about a week. I'll post the actual date when we get
there. Please fell free to stop by and take a look. I'll post more
detailed info about where the boat is when we actually get back to her.

Back on the hill for a week or so

Communications may be sparse for the next week. We're back at the old
home place (now referred to correctly as "Cody's house") to get some
big projects done. Before we left the boat on Sunday we managed to
get the second Spin-Tec roller furler installed. I've now lost count
how many times I've been up and down the mast. The steps really do
make climbing it no big deal. And, the climber's harness I bought
yesterday from Oregon Mountain Community should make the whole safety
issue much easier to deal with. I spent yesterday in sweltering
Portland spending way too much money. Amazing to come out of West
Marine with, essentially two shopping bags and be $700 poorer. But it
was all stuff we needed so I guess that's the way it goes.

Lulu spent yesterday recutting the staysail. Have to install luff
tape where the hanks used to be and sew a piece if sacrificial
Sunbrella along the leech and foot of the sail so that, when it's
rolled up, the sail material itself isn't exposed to the damaging UV
rays of the sun. Today she has to re-do some of what she did and
maybe get started on the jib.

I will spend the day in the shop building the engine access hatch into
the cockpit sole (which I brought home). Also will finish up the
sliding hatch and the dorade for ventilating the AirHead.

An aside to you dirt-dwellers out there who don't speak "Sailor": The
two sails on the front of the boat are usually attached to a long
cable ("stay") that runs from the point of the boat to the top of the
mast or thereabouts. The sails are usually attached to the cable with
clips known as "hanks". To change a sail, the sail must be dropped,
removed from the cable, stored in a bag somewhere and then the new
(larger or smaller) sail is "hanked on" to the stay. With roller
furling, the sails are attached to a piece of aluminum ("foil") that
has a track along it's edge. The foil is installed is such a way that
the stay runs inside it. That's what we were doing last weekend. The
sails are modified with a piece if fabric that has a small diameter
line sewn in ("Luff tape") which can then be fed into the track and
which will then hold the sail in place on the foil. Then, instead of
lowering and removing the sail, it is simply rolled up like a window
shade. Roll it up partway and you have a smaller sail. Roll it up
all the way and the sail has been nicely stored without taking up any
valuable below-deck stowage space.

Sole, as in cockpit sole: This is how sailors refer to the "floor".
So I'm putting an opening in the floor of the cockpit so I can gain
easy access to the engine room. A "floor" on a boat is actually
something else and is involved with the actual framing of the boat.

Dorade: This is a kind of vent that is baffled so that, should sea
water enter the vent, very little, if any of it will make it's way
below decks.

End of class.

Up the mast and can the fish

Got a call from Englund Marine yesterday morning. Our rigging was
ready! I headed to town to get it, hauled it back to the boat, spread
it out on the dock and measured it to see if it was right this time.
Well guess what... IT WAS!

So my job during the afternoon was to climb the mast a couple times to
install the upper ends of the stays and then, after installing the
lower ends, start endlessly tweaking the turnbuckles to get the mast
to stand nice and straight without tightening the standing rigging so
much that it poked a hole through the top of the cabin. It was a
beautiful day and, with the new mast steps in place, climbing aloft
wasn't scary at all. Lulu tended my safety line from the cockpit and
it all went pretty smoothly. I did find a couple wee problems:
During mast step installation, I apparently lost the ability to count
and measure. I somehow forgot to install the last climbing rung on
the port side. This makes the 2 top rungs (the "standing" rungs)
pretty much inaccessible. I plant to fix that today. The other wee
problem is with the safety harness set-up. Having nothing else to
use, I just used my offshore safety harness. Well, I tell ya, I'd
sure hate to be hanging vertically from that thing for any length of
time. I'd probably strangle myself. So, I need to buy a rock
climbing harness on my next Portland trip. Today we'll use the steps
in combination with the bosun's chair to add the missing rung and to
do some tweaking on the ends of the spreaders. The main thing is, I
was very reassured to find out how natural and unscary it was to climb
aloft using mast steps.

When Lulu wasn't tending my safety line, she was down below canning
tuna. Decided to buy a tuna and try canning on the boat to see how it
will work out. With only two of us aboard, much of the meat from the
tons of huge fish we're going to catch would mostly be wasted. Only
so much fridge space and no freezer. So, she broke out our trusty
Presto pressure cooker and loaded it with 8 half-pint jars and away
she went. You have to process tuna for a LONG time (like an hour and
forty minutes after it reaches pressure) but she ran two batches
anyway. Could've canned 16 jars but we only had a dozen. That left
enough fresh tuna for a tuna satay over rice last night and who knows
what tonight.

Today's big job is to install both furlers. Not as nice out today as
it was yesterday but hopefully it at least won't rain on us. I'll try
to get some photos of the bosun's chair in action. This is the last
big job before we go back to Silverton for a week to get the rest of
the stuff done that we need to do there.

The end (beginning) may just be in sight

Seems like things are beginning to wrap up and we may very well make
our self-imposed deadline of getting started south by the end of
August. Let's see...what's been happening?

Windvane: We got hauled out at River Bend again yesterday. Seems
like we were just there. My Dad and my uncles Norman and Felty came
along as crew. A saltier bunch would be tough to find. Wouldn't be
surprised if they were all sporting gold rings in their ears and
tattoos next time I see them. Our only job in the yard was to check
the butt-end of the boat for damage from our collision and to
basically re-mount the windvane. Both projects accomplished with 2
hours to spare before the tide was high enough to go back in the
water. The vane, now installed correctly, is once again as solid as a
rock. I'd just as soon not test that, though.

Rigging: As I've written before, I ordered a new forestay and inner
forestay so I could install my roller furlers. Even sent the old
rigging along so they'd have something to measure. It was supposed to
take "3 or 4 days". About a week later, I asked about it and find out
that they were waiting for one of the fittings to come in. "Should be
here tomorrow". The next day I get a call asking for clarification on
what I was ordering. I explained. Again. Finally, this last Monday,
I get the call that the rigging was done and at the store. All
excited, I head down to pick it up. I had no idea what it was going
to cost but it ended up costing about what I expected (as opposed to
what I was afraid it might cost). Back at the marina, I decided I
really should check the new rigging out to be sure they did what I
asked. Well, they almost did what I asked. Does that count? Even
after the clarification phone call, they still cut both stays too
short. ARGHHH! So the next day I took everything back to the store.
Explained the issue, this time complete with genuine Stoder
illustrations, and then explained that now I was also pressed for
time. Well, the upshot is that the rigging is now supposed to be done
on Friday. I certainly hope so but I'm not holding my breath either.

Stern pulpit: As of last week, it was supposed to be done this week.
Tomorrow I'm hoping for a phone call that says "your pulpit is done
and it turns out that we overestimated the price". C'mon, a guy can
dream can't he?

The sail modification stuff (luff tape, sacrificial Sunbrella strips,
etc.) that we ordered from Sailrite has shipped so it should be at
Cody's when we get there. Which is very good because one of the
reasons we're headed back to the Shire is so Lulu can modify our
headsails to fit the new furlers.

So, anyhoo, we have about a week's worth of work to do at the Shire
(I'm consciously trying to refrain from calling it "home" since
Siempre Sabado is home now). Then we'll bring a big load back (life
raft, dinghy, outboard, sails, etc.) and spend the last week of August
stowing everything, tying up loose ends (including turning over the
car to our son, Lucas), and waiting for our perfect weather window to
scoot.

Except for last night and most of today, the weather in Newport has
been really nice this past week or so. Actually got warm and the sun
actually shone and the wind actually died for awhile.

WATER!

Hot damn!  Got the watermaker working.  Made 28 gallons of fresh RO drinking water from Yaquina Bay water yesterday.  My previous problems were caused by a sticky check valve inside the Clark pump, which the tech guy at Spectra explained how to fix, and a "my bad" on my installation.  I tee'd the salt water feed to the hand pump as well as to the watermaker.  This is a no-no because it gives the watermaker pump a dandy little spot to suck air.  And, if you know anything about centrifugal pumps, you know they don't like air.  Took care of that, and simplified the fresh water flush plumbing a little and she was ready to go.  Ran flawlessly for 4 hours at which time we noticed a drip from the faucet in the head as well as the one in the galley.  Took this as a sign that the tank was full and shut the system down.  So I'm encouraged.

We've been running on battery power only since yesterday at about 1:30 PM.  This includes the time we were making water.  Also been running the fridge and some, though not many, lights, the VHF, the stereo, etc.  Trying to find out what our battery capacity is in real life.  So far, it's looking good.  Once we reach the 50% mark on the batteries, I'll recharge them.  If it all works out right, I'm going to use the Honda generator for the recharge so I can see how long that's going to take.  Don't want any surprises when we get out to sea.

Here are a couple pictures of Siempre Sabado post-yard:

Update on equipment failures

Let's see, before I started whining about the lack of decent clam
chowder, I believe I was whining about all the stuff we've got that
either doesn't work, or broke, or.... After one of those nights where
you lie awake in the wee hours wondering what's to become of you,
things started improving. The folks at Davis instruments were aghast
that the sextant arrived broken and are sending me a replacement that
they had in their repair shop. The stern rail (pulpit) that I
designed and submitted to the fabrication shop is actually being
worked on and "should be done middle of next week". How many times
have I heard that phrase or one very much like it? The parts for my
forestays have arrived and the rigging "should be done in the next few
days". The repairs to the windvane are minimal and I'll be able to do
it myself while I'm fixing the installation. The guy in the boat who
hit us is paying for the haulout so I can do the repairs on dry land.
Got hold of Spectra and they temporarily fixed my watermaker issues.
I need to do a little replumbing today as I seem to be sucking air.
I'm hopeful that this project will end well but it's pretty
frustrating while working through it.

But the Frigoboat refrigerator continues to work silently and
efficiently. Had to turn it down a little as it was freezing
everything except the beer. And speaking of beer... Oh, wait, no it's
only 9 AM. Guess I should probably have breakfast and fix the
watermaker first.

Clam Chowder

Why is it so freakin' hard to find decent clam chowder at the coast?
On the Oregon coast, Mo's is supposed to be THE place for chowder.
People line up to get in. Well, we've given Mo's two chances and they
failed both times. Not that they don't make a decent chowder. It's
just not CLAM chowder. More like potato and bacon chowder. Both
potatoes and bacon can have a place in clam chowder but they should
not mask the taste of the clams. In this case I think they were
trying to disguise the fact that there were few if any clams in the
chowder. Then, last Sunday I tried a cup of "clam" chowder at the
Rogue Brewery in Newport. A guy would be hard-pressed to find one
single piece of clam anywhere in the whole cup. I found none and the
stuff didn't even taste like clams. COME ON! I'm sorry to say that
the best clam chowder we've found on the coast so far is a can of
Snow's or the fancy Campbells' stuff (the kind that's not diluted)
with a can of chopped (not minced) clams added. That's a freakin'
shame. Lulu's going to make her own clam chowder on board this
weekend so maybe we'll finally get some really good clam chowder on
the coast.

On the other hand, if you want a really good bowl of oyster stew, head
up to The Sea Hag in Depoe Bay and shell out $9.95. The bowl is
almost big enough to double as a bicycle helmet, it's served with a
lemon wedge and a nice big pat of butter melting on top. Lots of
oyster crackers and an unbelievable number of oysters. The oysters
are nice little spoon-size fellas and I'll bet that 2/3 of your
spoonfuls will contain an oyster. Excellent stuff.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

Cape Horn

Just heard back from the folks at Cape Horn and they're telling me I
installed the windvane incorrectly. The instructions they provide are
very incomplete and hard to follow. I've asked them to send me a
drawing or photo of what the heck they're talking about. But, the
upshot is that I can probably fix the vane just by reinstalling a
couple of support brackets. If so, might not have to wait around to
get jacked up by the insurance guys. We'll see. It would have been
much easier to do the vane installation when we were still hauled
out. Now I'll probably have to work from the dinghy. But as I said,
"If it were easy..."

If it isn't one thing it's another!

Two successful weeks in the yard.  Siempre Sabado is looking downright gorgeous, if I do say so myself.  Got the mast steps installed as well as the refrigerator's keel cooler, the Dynaplate grounding plate for the SSB radio, and the Cape Horn windvane.  Back in the water at 9 PM last Friday to hit high tide.  Everything is going good.  Except that none of the lights on the mast worked.  Must have pinched the wires when I lowered the mast.  We need one of the lights just to be legal going back to the marina after dark so I jury-rigged a fix and we were on our way.  Getting back into our slip was a little traumatic, mostly for Lulu.  I was in ignorant bliss and couldn't see a damn thing anyway, it being so dark.  But no one fell in, nothing got broken and we didn't hit any other boats, so it was a successful landing.

Sunday morning, sitting below having breakfast when BLAM! the power boat docked next to us ran into our stern.  Near as I could get the story, he hit forward when he meant to hit reverse.  It totaled one of our stern rails but it was a piece of junk and was going to be replaced anyway.  Worse, though, is that he hit our nice new windvane.  Tough little bugger that it is, there is no visible damage.  There is, however, visible evidence of damage.  Where the vane was perfectly in line with the mast and rock-solid before, it's now cock-eyed and wiggly.  Made a call to his insurance company but haven't heard back yet.

Our forestay and inner forestay, which we're having built to accommodate our new roller furlers, were supposed to be done last week.  But, turns out that they were missing one piece but it's "scheduled to come in tomorrow".  Uh-huh, sure.

Fired up the watermaker for the first time this evening.  It performed beautifully....  for about 10 minutes.  Then it's output dropped to zilch. Guess I'll be calling Spectra tomorrow.

Bought a used sextant off the internet awhile ago.  The light in it didn't work so I sent it off to Davis Equipment for an overhaul and repair.  The usual bill for this is $40.  Got a call from Davis a little while ago and they said that they couldn't fix the light but they'd go ahead and service the instrument at no charge.  Cool.  But, when I got the sextant back today, the handle was completely broken off of it!  GEEZ!  Fired off an e-mail to customer service this evening along with a photo.

On the other hand, the new Frigoboat refrigerator is working GREAT!  The beer is cold and we've actually about doubled our capacity since we don't have to take up half the box volume with ice anymore.

Oh well, if it was easy everybody would want to do it.

Oh yeah, I overhauled the mast lights today and they are all working like they're supposed to.  Knock wood.