Category Archives: We need…

Information or parts we’re in need of

Details

Posted on by under Projects, We need...

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Last minute details. The minutiae, always more consuming that one would expect. When we compared the worm gear on the old windlass motor to the one on the new motor, we noted they were in very different positions on the shaft. After installation of the new one and using mirrors to observe the engagement point in the gearbox, we determined that the new one was correct. This could also explain why, on occasion, with the old one in place the windlass used to latch up and literally it appeared that the case being pushed apart. That’s a story for another day…

It seems with every project we also “run out” of the spares we’ve cleverly stashed aboard the boat. Yesterday, while I was making new gaskets for the case covers, I used the last of the gasket materials except for the roll of thick cork. For 4 years, I’ve kept a “top-off” quart of Amsoil gear lube handy on a shelf in the galley. Pulling it out, as well as the spare stashed away under the storage bed, we discovered that the 1/2 gallon of gear lube we had aboard was just barely enough to fill the windlass gear case. Not that we needed additional gear lube in the last 4 years, but I feel a little uncomfortable with no extra aboard. Amsoil must be ordered, so we will have to wait until the Bay area to manage that one.

Speaking of spares, I calculated our fuel needs for the trip North and note that we probably have only 2/3 of the fuel necessary (if we motorsail) to make it to the good fuel prices at Pillar Point Harbor outside the Golden Gate. That wouldn’t be a biggie except we’ve managed to give ourselves a time crunch of a couple things to attend to here in SoCal and then a couple things to do in the Bay area. Hopefully the winds are good and the seas are calm so we’ll sail more than the usual expected on the North-bound passage.

Today, David and I work together to get the spare windlass brake installed, so the old one becomes the spare. It is a different design than the original and David spent a couple hours yesterday trying to get it installed without success. We’ll hope that four hands makes quick work of it. Other little things need to be “tied up” including the “put away” of many projects, installing the blocks that replace the foresail sheet horse…oh and that means I must make two thump-pads from our old 1/2″ lines so the blocks don’t beat at the canvass-covered decks. Other things? Washing all the bedding in the large marina washer/dryer–can’t forget that one.

Finally!

Posted on by under anchoring, living aboard, News, We need...

Happy dance! The windlass motor arrived yesterday. May 10. Our cel-phone purgatory of the Fiddler’s Cove Marina is about to be over! Today I’m finishing up painting the sides of the bowsprit so David cannot install the windlass motor until tomorrow. Big day tomorrow. We should be able to leave San Diego if it tests good. We’ve promised a friend that we will attend an event on Thursday evening. The plan is to tidy up all the little projects between now and Thursday, do the event, sail up to La Playa for a weekend of anchoring and then leave the harbor Monday morning, May 20th. A full 5 weeks after we thought we’d be leaving. Just glad to be able to go.

We purchased a winch chuck for our V28 angle drill and that was going to be our “back up” windlass if the motor didn’t arrive before next Friday. So glad it did though. Happy sigh.

The boat’s a mess with things strewn all over the place–seems to happen when we’re in a slip for more than a few days. Today is the Navy Yacht Club San Diego general membership meeting and there we’ll be picking up a new burgee (our old one is pretty pitiful) and paying up our dues for the upcoming year. After the meeting, David is hitching a ride with a friend to visit Fryes to pick up a new scanner/printer for the boat. Our old one can print from our computers, but now that I’ve updated my computer and have Windows 8, we have no drivers for the scanner to work on our computers and expect none are forthcoming from Kodak, the printer manufacturer. Fingers crossed that the new one works as advertised since I’m getting a backlog of scanning to do.

A Long Slow Day and Night Brought Us to San Diego

Posted on by under Projects, sailing, Systems, We need..., Weather

So early Wednesday morning April 3rd, we did finally make it into the wave lee of Santa Catalina Island. With the wind and waves blocked it took only about 15 minutes to untangle the light air sail and hoist it again. As we passed the Isthmus (Two Harbors), I picked up a Sprint signal and called San Diego Yacht Club to see if they could accommodate us with a reciprocal slip on Thursday through Sunday. Yes, they could. So, now all we needed to do was locate friends Bob and Monica before their daughter Sarah’s rowing competition on Friday.

We noticed the same cruise ship that we’d seen anchored outside of Santa Barbara two nights ago and which had provided a light show for me whilst David battled the jib last night was right there at Santa Catalina Island. They were outside of Avalon Harbor. As we slowly passed Avalon we wondered if we’d be seeing them again in San Diego. While in the calm lee of the island, David re-laced the foot of the foresail since the lacing had managed to chafe during the big fight the sail must have had with the horse traveler in the dark of the night before. He also rigged a line to the base of the fife rail to mount the middle foresail block on. This would enable us to hoist the foresail.

Re-lacing Foresail Foot

The Lounging Beryl

While Edith (the autopilot) did her thing, David and I enjoyed the sunshine on deck mid-ships and Beryl stretched out on a charthouse seat and lounged in the sunshiny day. We were all lazy in the warmth of the Southern California sun.
The sun set upon us and we were still far from San Diego but slowly making our way there. Early Thursday morning, David dealt with a crazy tangle of commercial, fishing, and military traffic which defied reality. For a while, he just drifted in the kelp off Point Loma trying to figure out which of the giant ships was going to win the game of chicken they seemed to be playing around marker buoy SD1. Welcome back to San Diego–the traffic scramble remains. Once in the harbor, I steered towards the range markers while David stowed away the jib and hauled fenders and lines out of the forecastle. Military ships, cruise ships, whale watching and fishing charter boats–they all were there to get in the way it seemed! Not watching the AIS, but rather focused on some nearby Navy ships and their tugs, I was taken by surprise by one of the huge cargo ships that looks like a sitting building, not a ship underway. This one even had buildings and cars painted on the side–to blend in while in port–and it certainly did! I’d forgotten how if you line up those range too lights early, you end up on the South side of the channel and must pass over to the North side. All was well but it just reminded me of how congested San Diego harbor is.

Once in San Diego, that weekend of April 5 through 8. we had great fun with Monica, Bob, Sarah, Monica’s sister and brother-in-law and some assorted friends. We attended the rowing competition to cheer on Sarah’s team and we ate out at favorite, and new restaurants. We also enjoyed linking back up with other sailing friends in San Diego. The USCG and NOAA did us the generous favor of calling a gale warning for the inner and outer waters from Point Conception down to the Mexican border. Why generous? Well, in San Diego one cannot anchor without a permit unless there is a small craft advisory or worse (like gale warning) preventing small craft from exiting the harbor. San Diego is rather skimpy with the permits, so we were happy to anchor-sans-permit in a calm, sheltered area of La Playa Sunday night and Monday night. On Tuesday, we’d arranged to visit the Fiddler’s Cove Marina, home of the Navy Yacht Club San Diego. We would be on the visitor’s dock there for a week or so visiting with friends.

Upon bringing up the anchor Tuesday morning, we decided we should take apart the windlass and discover why it was behaving in an intermittent fashion and perhaps take the motor, while we were at Fiddler’s, to an electrical shop. So, when we arrived at Fiddler’s Cove, removing the motor was one of the first activities we did. Then a kind friend drove us to drop of the motor at a marine chandlery that would send it to Broadway Electric. Then, a week ago, we learned that Broadway couldn’t do the job–it was a rewinding of armature needed and maybe more. They’d have to send it to Arizona or Washington state to be fixed. Delivery time? 3 weeks at the soonest. Cost? 75% of a new motor. So, I called the windlass manufacturer with the question of how long to get a new motor? Well, ours is a 32V motor (we run at 36V) and those are “special” and not stocked. They’d have it in a week and they’d ship it to us about 3 days after they got it. Ground shipping from Connecticut adds a week. So, we’d have a new windlass in about 2.5 to 3 weeks. We ordered it a week ago and our fingers are crossed that it will be here in closer to two weeks rather than three.

In the meanwhile, we set to work on misc. boat projects and made a huge order of (optics) parts for our consulting work. The boat projects have resulted in the need to buy more boat parts. Seems natural. The order of work-related parts has resulted in the need to order more of the same. It is an iterative process it seems. David has spent the last couple days dis-assembling and re-assembling the optical breadboard and soon we’ll be back in business collecting data for analysis. Once the equipment is all set to go again as well as the windlass put back together, we can anchor at will and find our way back up the coast to the Bay area where we plan to be hauled out in May at Napa Valley. Why do I wonder about that actually happening on time?

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