Category Archives: Projects

All the various things we’re doing to get Mahdee into shape

Ready, Set to Go?

Posted on by under interior, living aboard, photos, Projects

A big cyclonic wind system in the NE Pacific is making for a tiny period of S or SW winds before they turn to westerlies. We may have a few good travel days next week for the beginning of our trip to the North.

So, we’re checking things off the list and making ready to leave. Just in case. Sunday. What does that entail?

Friday, Beryl gets her shots and her health certificate. We dig out her harness and lifevest so she can practice wearing them again.

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Brenda goes over the sails and rigging to make sure everything is in good order. Sewing, OK, one of the HiMod fittings has unexpected corrosion pitting upon inspection–not OK.

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David installs new equipment–in this case, it’s a new radar mount and a B&G 4G radar on the mainmast.

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We also get to install all the stuff that we’ve been procrastinating or that is is just finally showing up here–two custom Garhauer blocks for the running backstays; the amsteel lifelines that I’ve been avoiding the final install of; several misc. electrical bits and pieces–for example we’ll have a 12V light in the stateroom for the first time. Up until now it’s been flashlights, hocky-puck battery lights, or a 120VAC shorepower light.

We buy dozens of things we don’t need but “just in case” we can’t get them. The list? Well, we hit Trader Joe’s today and it was: dark chocolate; granola bars; Basmati rice; curry; goat cheeses (cheddar, brie, Gouda); wine; our favorite coffee; three dozen eggs; blondie mix; our favorite pasta; two six packs of Hansen’s sodas; and a dry salami. The trip to Costco happened last week and the “fresh veggie” trip will happen late the day before we go.

We finish up a variety of projects that really need to be put away before sailing. Today that means putting all the parts back onto the main saloon table that David made and I’ve been varnishing; it also means that FINALLY David will be forced to put away all of his toys ahem, tools that have been covering every horizontal surface of the boat (inside and out) for the last two weeks.

Beryl is helping me layout corbels to support the drop leaf main saloon table
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How big of a board is too big?
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This place is truly a mess when David is in the middle of a project like the saloon table.
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Tomorrow, the highlight of the day will be to cut the latex foam (in half) on two queen size mattress toppers and make them into mattresses for the twin-size pilot berths that sit outboard and above the main saloon seats. Once David’s tools are out of the way, I will be able to get out my sewing machine, put it on that new main saloon table and make a lee cloth for the starboard pilot berth. That’s needed since it looks like we will have a guest aboard for the first portion of our northward trip. It would be bad if she fell out of the berth and sustained an injury due to the lack of a lee cloth.

After the toys tools are stashed away by David, I can begin the “stash and lash” process in earnest.

Other last minute stuff? Find a local gas station of the “Rotten Robbies” chain to buy kerosene for the stove and gasoline for the Honda EU2000; determine if we’re going to jerry-jug another 80 or so gallons of diesel onto the boat from a gas station (usually cheaper than fuel dock prices) or if we can easily and inexpensively fill up at a local fuel dock near here. Let’s see, what else? Empty the compost from the composting head, clean under the engine and replace the diesel “diaper” in the engine tray (so we can see if there are any leaks or spills); check all the navigation lights and engine fluids. Oh, and keep our fingers crossed that the new C-Map chart chips we ordered show up before we leave.

Little by Little

Posted on by under misc, Musings, Systems, The Crew

We might as well start with a look at the sort of scenery I’d like to be viewing along about now–Mildred Island, ah, it was so peaceful and pretty last fall.

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Now lets show a what I am seeing right now–yep, that’s a Dyneema core-with polyester braid splice underway (New England Rope Endura Classic) and Brion Toss’s Riggers’ Apprentice laying on my feet. I’m splicing lines for the running backstays.

Oh, yes, that’s right–forgot to mention, it’s raining outside and David is puttering around all over the place inside so my rigging station is our bed–safely out of the way. The upper running backstays are Amsteel Blue and very easy to splice but the lower portion uses the funky braid-over-high-tech line which is a little harder to splice. And to think–it’s all so the lower portion will look very “traditional” and classic rather than high tech!

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The running backstays are interesting. We did some “quick-it-will-work-for-a-while” runners when we rigged Mahdee in 2009. It’s time to return them to more like what they were in the 1939 rig design. Originally Mahdee had running backstays with her 1931 gunter mainsail and the design was modified in 1939 when her mainmast was spliced to support a Bermuda sail rather than the gunter. She had no fixed backstay back then. The runners were removed by her owner in 1953. At that time, her owner installed a boomkin, shortened the boom and used a fixed backstay.

Her running backstays were not placed back in service until the 1960’s when she was raced for a while. Presently, she has a single upper runner and an “A” lower part that comes down to two chainplates on the deck. She is supposed to have an upside down “A” as the upper portion of the stay–attached to the top of the mast and lower near the triatic stay. We are installing that upper loop “A” with my new 3/8″ Amsteel Blue line and the lower loop “A” with the Dyneema/Endura Classic in 1/2″ (12mm).

No one seems to make a block exactly like that which Mahdee originally had (see the drawing below) to connect the two loops. Modern running backstay cascades use similar loops but most now rely on low friction rings. We could use that sort of system, but the polyester braid cover on the Dyneema really should have a sheave not just a low friction ring.

I discovered that you can connect two blocks head-to-head with something called an “upset shackle” so we may be doing that rather than fabricating specialized blocks. Initially David was going to just make a suitable wood cheeked stacking block to match our other wood blocks but we quickly realized that we’d not be certain of the load capacity of such a block set and they do need to be very strong.

The blocks will be leathered because they can touch the sails so they will happen to look pretty traditional. With the leather, it really doesn’t matter if the blocks are traditional wood or another more modern design and material. There are two makers of really lovely (and strong) wood blocks I’ve been in touch with as well as one sheave maker (in case David really wants to make blocks). It could go either way but I’m leaning towards just buying off-the-shelf blocks and upset shackles at this point.

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Progress? I completed the splices installing the four 3/8″ thimbles in the upper backstay loops, did one of the lower backstays but stopped short of finishing the other one because I was getting sloppy. Tomorrow–finishing the other lower, and adding a couple Turks Heads to decorate the whipping required on the braid-over-Dyneema eye splices.

What does Beryl think about life aboard these days? She’s just happy when the laundry basket is empty and she can stake a claim to it. Unfortunately for Beryl, this is an older picture and our laundry basket is full-to-overflowing today.

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Yes We’re Still Blogging

Posted on by under interior, misc, News, photos, Projects, Systems, The Crew, wildlife

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Beryl is dreaming of far off places; I really think she’s ready to get back out to sea where she can happily chase her toys as the winds and waves push the boat side to side in the perfect pattern to roll her favorite balls, strings, and straws across the worn teak sole. We remain in a serene marina environment, enjoying the mild weather and doing projects.

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I’m starting to get notes that say “what’s up?” from several people. Those made me realize I’ve not updated the blog about our goings-on for over a month! Why? Well, many of our projects are amazingly ordinary, small, and boring!

In early January, David completed his project of making cabinet doors for some key shelving areas; I then varnished them and he installed them. Here’s a pic of the doors about to be installed. Suppose I should take a shot of them after the fact, too. Or perhaps just let our readers wonder how it went…

We are preparing for our northward progress this spring–what that means is we finally got an EPIRB (great deal at the end of 2013 with rebate from ACR) and we purchased a Simrad broadband radar system with B&G Zeus chart plotter. We’ve pulled, out of storage, the radar platform the previous owner had and are trying to figure out how to install it on the mainmast without putting the radar in harm’s way of the foresail gaff boom. There will surely be an interesting tale of the installation once the radar arrives here in about a week.

I’m also replacing the temporary (going on 3 years…) rope guard lines (aka lifelines and breast lines) with Dyneema ones as well as going over, with David, every inch of rig and rigging replacing any shackles or other things which seem worn or potentially under-sized. I ordered a total of 28 thimbles for the various guard lines–that means 28 splices I’ve got to do. I’ll be really good at the Mobius Brummel splice by the time that project is done! A strange combination of new and old with those guard lines–I’m using very traditional looking bronze pelican hooks combined with the Dyneema. All the parts haven’t arrived so that project is just a pile sitting in the corner right now.

A couple weeks ago, we took off the mainsail so I could put replacement batten pockets onto it (new RBS sail battens ordered via Sailrite), David sanded and then I put 6 coats of varnish on the boom. It hadn’t been varnished since 2010, so it really needed it in some spots! We then bent on our “spare” mainsail–this meant changing some hardware on the boom to fairlead the reefing lines. That means I’ve got more cleanup and varnishing to do. Sigh. It also involved seizing on all the slides on the sail’s foot. The sail previously had a thimble system on the foot where one tightened up a wire running through the thimbles and matching thimbles on the boom to manage the outhaul. That system was designed for booms without a sail track.
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That spare sail is interesting–it is a Watts sail made decades ago for the 75′ 1958 Rhodes ketch Kamalii (Kamali’i) to serve as a spare mizzen sail during ocean races. It was never used. So, brand new Dacron that is decades old. It is also heavy 13 oz material. Our other sails are 10 and 12 oz. The sail may only last a season or it may last a long time–we don’t know. We purchased it from Minney’s in Costa Mesa, CA and had sailmaker Skip Elliott of Elliott/Pattison in Newport Beach take out the roach, shorten the foot by about 8″ and add a single reef. The sail had no reef to begin with. We had the reef placed high where our second reef is on the other main sail. We literally never use the first reef on that sail as we’ve discovered that in heavy winds the mainsail quickly overpowers foresail, staysail and jib combined.

Skip Elliot immediately recognized the sail while it was still in the bag when we took it to his shop–it turns out the lovely hand stitching was unique to a particular sailmaker that Skip knew from long ago. He said “that sail was made by Albert and will have number 7175 on it, it belonged to Kamalii and I saw it as part of a sail survey I did for the boat many years ago.” He thought the sail was well worth the work to make it fit Mahdee and that it would last quite a while.
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Watts sails must be quite recognizable to people “in the know” and it seems that would not include us, the Mahdee crew. Kamalii’s sail number must also be quite familiar to people as well. While we were putting the sail up at the dock, one of San Francisco’s Master Mariners came along the dock and said “That’s a nice sail–made by Watt’s, huh?” and “7175, that’s a SoCal number–is it Kamalii’s sail number?” Go figure. I then spent 6 hours painstakingly snipping the threads to remove the sail numbers from the sail! We have no intentions of racing Mahdee but I’m beginning to think we should put her sail number on her mainsail. We’d have to research it and discover which is her earliest and proper sail number. We have seen photographs with 188 and 288. A three digit number rather than today’s four.

Perhaps instead of longing for ocean passages, Beryl is just watching the birds near the boat. In any case, the migrating birds are enjoying the sunny days as much as we are.

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