September 25, 2014

It might be a bit ironic that I would be bring back a cold from the rather sad visit to Des Moines where Carol’s father was laid to rest.  Nonetheless, I managed to get a few more coats of Cetol on the stern rail and take care of a few other little projects this week. 

I added some rub strakes to protect my newly refinished rub rails from chafing dock lines as well as added a couple of more cleats that can run along the genoa tracks.

To finish connecting up my heavy cast stainless Danforth anchor to the rode I had to get one more Crosby high-tensile galvanized shackle and have a machinist drill out the hole in the shank a couple of millimeters in order to accept the new stainless shackle.  He noted that the metal was tougher than the usual stainless, which led me to do a little research.  The anchor was obviously cast stainless steel, but it still got some surface rust and was magnetic, unlike the 316 stainless for most marine use.  I learned that for castings, more iron is used in the alloy.  This ferritic stainless prevents cracks in the casting, is less susceptible to crevice corrosion and can be as much as twice as strong as non-ferritic stainless.  This anchor might drag, but it’s never going to bend or break!

A dockmate friend who is a welder welded up a handle for a brake for the Hydrovane that allows me to set and lock the vane for a wind course.  It’s just an “L” shaped handle welded to the adjustment screw on a large hose clamp, but much simpler and less intrusive than the cable system suggested by the manufacturer.  I also got a short length of 5/8 aluminum rod to insert into the receptacle on the Hydrovane to use as a tiller so that the vane rudder can be used as an emergency rudder.  It needs a little grinding and filing yet, but that will be a small job.
The last little job I did was to add a jumper between the neutral and ground on a pigtail connector that will be used ONLY to connect my new Honda generator to the ship's shore power circuit when used in lieu of shore power.  Good practice is to to connect the ground and neutral of an ac circuit only at the source, in this case the generator.  (When connected to shore power, the two are usually joined at the breaker box on shore.)  The ground is normally not carrying any current, but if there is a fault and a tool handle or something becomes "hot," the ground will carry current and a short will be created with the neutral, saving anyone holding the handle and blowing the breaker.