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.