June 29, 2010

Last night I put together a serving mallet and tried it out. It went together just as I had envisioned it, only took about an hour, and cost me almost nothing. It was built almost entirely from scrap lying around the shop, with the exception of a cheap paintbrush I had to buy only because I didn't have an old one I could scavenge. The paintbrush handle became the serving mallet handle, and the concave base was cut out of a scrap of 2" PVC pipe. A couple of wood screws countersunk from inside the base and screwed into the handle held it together. I cut the reel ends out of some left-over 1/8" plywood using a 3" hole saw. The axle for it was just a 1/4" bolt with the necessary nuts and washers to make it work. The hole in the paintbrush handle was just the right size for the bolt, so mounting the reel to the handle was a snap.While my humble tool was unquestionably crude compared to some of the elegant traditional serving mallets made by the old time sailors, I'd be happy if it simply did the job. So I gave it a try. Although initially in my first attempt I made the classic mistake of serving with the lay of the rope rather than against it ("Worm and parcel with the lay, then turn and serve the other way."), my serving tool was working. I tuned it a bit by filing a a round notch in the edge of the lower lip to guide the line , and I still need to perfect the line tension by adjusting the turns around the handle and base. Nonetheless, it worked; it was easy and almost fun. In terms of technique, I need to improve the way I finish the ends to make them a bit cleaner; the bulk of it between those pesky ends takes care of itself almost automagically. Pretty neat! I was unsure if the little reel would hold enough line to serve the length I needed, but there was plenty. Although I used non-traditional materials, I'm generally happy with the result and I think it will do the job.

Here's a drawing illustrating traditional worming, parceling and serving:

A couple of things to note in this picture: There is no reel on the mallet handle for storing the serving twine and automatically swinging it around the main line with the mallet handle, so a second person would be needed to bring the ball of twine around as the first person rotates the mallet. To serve against the lay of the main rope, the mallet handle would rotate around toward the viewer from its current position.

June 28, 2010

During the week I tried my hand at worming, parcelling and serving line. It's part of my experiment with my anchor snubber/bridle. One of the reasons I made it out of three-strand line was to try using this old traditional method of chafe prevention to protect the line where it goes through the hawse holes in the bulwark. The worming was simple enough, and I used the recommended friction tape for the parcelling. The hardest part was finding the old-fashioned friction tape. I had to stop at that point because it was clear that I would need to use a serving mallet or board to make it feasible to serve the line. Since you can't exactly pick up a serving mallet at Home Despot or Worst Marine, I would have to make one. After doing some head-scratching for a few days, I think I've come up with simple approach to putting one together that, although crude, should work. Stay tuned. I'll also post photos of the process for those who haven't a clue what worming, parcelling and serving is.

The weekend was a confirmation that sailing is indeed only for people who don't know how to sand. Even though it was the second hottest day of the season, I had to prep the bow this weekend so it could be professionally sprayed while I was down in LA visiting Carol next week. I also needed to scribe the water line before it becomes invisible after the yard sands down the bottom paint during my absence. My first challenge was finding scaffolding to get me up high enough to reach the area I had to sand. Although the yard has plenty of stands and boards, they all seemed to be in use. I finally found one stand and a couple of boards back in the North Forty, and begged another stand from a neighbor. Once I got the scaffolding up, I masked off the area to be sanded, mixed up a batch of two part acrylic glazing compound, affectionately known as Bondo, and filled the dings on the starboard bow. While the filler hardened, I went around the hull and scribed a series of short lines to mark the waterline using my little battery powered Makita circular saw. It was just the ticket.

For the next six hours I sanded, filled, sanded, filled, sanded, filled, and then sanded some more. First 220 grit, then 320. It got so hot that the Bondo would kick off before I could get up the scaffolding and fill the dings with it. I finally had to stick it in the store freezer for a while just to cool it down enough to use it.It was hot, sticky, dusty work, but I got it done. A shower and change of clothes helped a lot. I was glad I had air conditioning in my truck as I began the 90-minute drive to Sacramento where it was 101.

June 21, 2010

During the week I put together the anchor bridle/snubber. I had ordered some three-strand polyester as a compromise between elasticity for shock absorption and less stretch for less chafe and resultant heat build up. It will be an interesting experiment. I lashed the midpoint of the line around a heavy cast stainless steel thimble, wrapped the line and thimble near the throat to prevent the thimble from twisting out, and whipped the ends of the line using a sailmaker's whip. I still need to do the chafe protection, but that had to wait until I had it on the boat and could see where it came through the hawse pipes in the bulwarks.

I went to Napa on Saturday because my buddy Jim would be there working on his boat and it would be fun to get together for coffee, lunch and beer breaks. I also wanted to do some more electrical work. I wanted to have the VHF, nav lights and anchor light working before I brought Circadian upriver to her berth. I respliced the VHF antenna and power cable and tried it out. It wouldn't power up. My volt meter told me power was getting to the connector at the end of the power cable, and there didn't appear to be any obvious fuse or breaker on the radio. It worked fine in South Carolina, and I had brought the radio back with me and kept it inside since. I didn't have the manual with me, so it was a bit of a mystery. I decided to try cleaning the contacts in the connector. Eventually that did the trick. A radio check later confirmed that the radio was working and the antenna was functioning.

Next item: the anchor light. There was not a dedicated breaker for an anchor light, and no spare breakers. I decided to use the breaker in the cockpit panel that was currently used for a hardwired portable spotlight, since the accessory outlets available on another breaker would accommodate the spotlight just fine. I had to do some reconfiguring and run a new power cable to connect to the anchor light cable coming from the base of the mast. In the process, I tidied up the wiring behind the breaker panel. I'll have to wait until sometime when I'm aboard after dark to see if it's working, unfortunately.

Next item was the nav lights. I rewired and remounted the stern light, and it worked. Not so lucky with the bow light. The socket basically fell apart in my hands when I opened up the fixture. I got a new socket, put things back together and then had to make some adjustments to the stern light. The socket bracket on that then self-destructed. Sigh. Discretion being the better part of valor, I decided to give up. Well, not exactly. It was obvious that both those lights ate a lot of saltwater, and the weak link seemed to be the socket fixture. The connections were flimsy and susceptible to corrosion. In coming weeks I'll put together a fixture and led bulbs embedded in silicone that should prove more durable. I had thought about embedding bulb and all in a block of plastic, but the casting resin shrinks as it cures and I think that might create problems.

Before I left, I had a brief chat with the yard's painter. I had decided to bite the bullet and have them repaint the bow where the anchor chain had scarred the new AwlCraft LP hull paint.I found some left-over paint in an unlabeled can that seemed to match the hull paint. If it in fact was left-over hull paint, it would be AwlCraft and the right color. During the week, the painter tested it with some hardener and it worked. So, next week I'll be sanding, filling and prepping the bow and scribing the waterline. They can spray it during the following week. I'm also going to have them lightly sand the bottom paint, a job that is toxic, backbreaking and thankless. My focus in the next three weeks will be on doing the things that will let me get Circadian back in the water by the end of July.

That was about it. While I didn't make much progress on the boat, Jim and I managed to solve many of the world's most intractable problems with just one beer and a few extended conversations.

June 14, 2010

Now that the new cockpit sole had replaced the old stained carpet, it made the rest of the decayed, corroded and worn cockpit accessories look even worse. The crude cockpit table grated on me and was singularly insufferable. While the cast bronze folding bracket that supported it was definitely cool, the table itself was obviously crudely fashioned in haste. It was a poor use of what was once a nice piece of teak and holly veneered plywood. Sadly, due to neglect and rough treatment, the veneer was beyond salvation. Besides, the shape was ugly and a cockpit table should be built of material that can stand abuse and neglect without showing it. So, with measurements taken last week, after work on Friday I stopped by Tap Plastics and bought $38 worth of light tan Starboard. I was up early on Saturday morning to get started cutting the pieces. Strangely, my beloved Inca saw was non-op. When I jiggled the plug to see if that was the problem, a pop and mini lightening flash told me the plug was toast. Oddly enough, while there was enough juice to disintegrate one tab of the plug, the breaker didn't blow. I now had another errand to add to my Saturday list: buy a heavy duty replacement plug. I spent the rest of the morning handling my errands and going to my Tai Chi class. By evening, I had fabricated a new cockpit table. Not perfect, but close enough. I was already tired and hadn't even been down to the boat yet!

Despite the tiring day Saturday, I was up and on the road early on Sunday. In retrospect, I would have to say that the theme of the day was "One thing leads to another." I had planned to see what would need to done to finish getting the standing rigging in place and do some more wiring for the radio, navigation lights and a cockpit switch for the windlass. The good news was that I found the fittings I needed to complete the standing rigging. HOWEVER, the starboard forward lower shroud was about two inches too short for everything to come together. That necessitated my determining if the mast was vertical relative to the hull by measuring from the top of the mast to the chainplates. To do that, I had to sort out the tangled running rigging. To do that, I had to climb the mast as high as the spreaders at least three times. With the lower shrouds either lose or missing, it was a little shaky and a bit unnerving. And I swear it was at least 10 feet further by the third time. After making the required adjustments and doing a rudimentary tuning of the rig, everything was finally in place. I thought I deserved some relatively instant gratification after that unglamorous job, so I mounted the new cockpit table in time to use it for lunch on board. A little PB Blaster on the folding mechanism and it worked like a charm. It fit perfectly and was handy to both the port cockpit seat and the helm seat.

By the time I had finished my lunch, it was getting pretty hot. That led to my digging out the awning and installing it between the aft edge of the hard dodger and the stainless boom gallows. There was at least a slight breeze on deck, while it remained pretty miserable below. I decided to get the wiring and new radar cable from the base of the mast into the cabin. That led to getting another stainless steel rail base fitting for the entry point at the base of the doghouse for the radar cable, which led to drilling more holes, etc, etc, etc. The handful of old wiring from the mast was a tight fit, and I wasn't able to cram it through the protective hose until I taped it all together and lubed it with soap. I was having waking nightmares that when the mast was taken down by the yard apes in South Carolina they might have simply cut the wires at the most expedient point, without regard for having to reconnect them later. What if the wires were too short or had to be spliced inside the connecting tube? There was no way that could be done and still get the bundle through the tube. Finally, after I had gotten the wires through the tube and into the inside of the cabin, I could see, much to my relief, that there was plenty of wire to allow an easy splice. I mounted the new stainless base fitting on the doghouse, inserted the radar cable through the new tubing, and put it all together. While hose clamps need to be added to ensure real security and water-tight integrity, the job was basically done. More importantly, I was exhausted from the heat, so it was time to call it a day. I spent another half hour or so cleaning up and headed home.

June 6, 2010

Carol came up for the weekend, so while we had a great weekend, not much got done on Circadian. We did get up at 5:30 am on Saturday to get to the Napa Valley Marina swapmeet on time, a great sacrifice on Carol's part that she handled like a good sport. She managed to sell the leftover accessories from my old deceased liferaft, and I sold one of the 33 lb Bruce anchors. I bought a couple of fishing lures, a nice cup-holder and the big score, a Morse shifter/throttle control.It was in nearly perfect condition and I paid only $35 for it. It even has a switch and wiring for a pilot light that indicates when you are in neutral. They go new for over $350. When I'm a lot further down 'the list,' I'll replace the corroded one on Circadian that doesn't even have gear position indicating labels.

After we abandoned the swapmeet, I gave Carol a tedious lecture on anchoring theory and a brief practicum on using Circadian's new windlass and chain-stopper. We also tried out the new headset walkie-talkies I got from Cruising Solutions. They were pretty cheap, and look it, but worked just fine. I think they'll make communicating on board much easier, safer and calmer. It's really nice to be able to talk to one another in a normal tone of voice! They're kind of hard to find, so if you're interested, you can check them out at http://www.cruisingsolutions.com/headsets

I'll have to work hard this week to try to make up for the time spent having fun! Ohhhh the guilt of it all!