Category Archives: geekery

boatbuilding, geekery, LOGBOOK

Rocky’s Boatyard Trip

This month we did our annual haul out and bottom job down at Rockys boatyard on the North River in St Mary’s. It is an interesting  place.  If you love color and shape, along with some unique smells and some unique, smelly chartacters, it is worth a visit.


This is Rocky, the owner of the yard, in his 1930 ford pickup. Rocky has a “way”  with machinery.  His entourage always includes a couple of helpers and a couple of mutts that follow him from one job to the next.  He is usually driving a forklift or a crane or a hyster, or a tractor.  Sometimes his “supervisor” comes along when he is not in grade school.

A den of outliers. And out right liars. lol.

 

Some folks are still doing it the old fashioned way.

This is cool. A homemade vacuum. There is no end to the contraptions that evolve in a DIY yard.

Here is a feller building a catamaran from polyethylene pipe!  Cant wait to see the finished product. This is a view of the bows. The boat is upside down at this point.

He’s got it all figured out- weight, bouancy, payload.

Yeah, I’ve tried. And Ive TRied

OK this is a sad one. She belonged to our friend Terry, who along with his shepard, Liza Doolittle, lived for years at Morningstar. We spent many fine afternoons together.  Bon voyage, Terry.  You can be happy to know she has a great new owner, working hard to bring her back into shape.

A James Wharram. Thousands of these polynesian inspired cats have been built and sailed worldwide.

Here is a close-up of the Wharram rudder. Note the lashings. Simple.

Fixer upper 🙂

 

 

I have many more, but afraid I am bogging down my computer. 🙂

 

geekery, LOGBOOK, outings

DRONE FOOTAGE

DockingWave Bye   Gold Reflection Sailing

These three vids were taken during a sunset charter.

“Gold reflection sailing” , is coming up the Frederica River  under  a double reefed main, with a full moon flood tide.

“Wave bye” was after the sails were stowed, holding position head to the current under power.

And for the geeks-  “Docking” was in a crosswind and a following current. Boards down in the current makes it a piece of cake.

Special Thanks to Jake Jackson for the footage!

These are big files, so  give them a second or two  to load

 

geekery, LOGBOOK

Some Upgrades

 

The 9.8 Tohatsu XLS  have been  amazing,  faithful performers. After Six years of continuous service, the decision was made to change and upgrade to the 9.9 version.  The 9.8’s have  the largest hp available in that size and weight range. The only slightly heavier 9.9 block is identical to the 15 and 20 hp versions, which use different ECU’s ,. so an upgrade in power, if needed,  is possible without the added weight.  In our case, the 9.9’s give a noticeable increase in thrust and speed (they throw a slightly larger prop than the 9.8’s).  So far we are very happy with them. .


Another big plus is the ability to flush,  using the side mounted hose ports. We rigged a permanent PVC pipe with attached garden hoses so all that is needed after docking is to  shut down and raise the motors, connect the hoses on engine (easily accessed on the side) connect the PVC pipe to the dock, throw open the valve, and flush both engines at once.   This is way quicker and easier  than standing on your head while monkeying around with an earmuff, and running the engines dry ( 9.8’s were carburetor  versions) while flushing.

The new and improved swim platform gives about another 10 sq. ft of real estate. It  makes  checking/servicing the steering gear much simpler and accessible. Finally, now I have a reliable, quick way to deploy a boarding ladder (half of a Wagner aluminum painter’s ladder from home depot) with a simple cleat tie off at the top, and a permanent attached large boat fender tied off on the bottom rung, to keep the thing at the proper angle when boarding. MOB pole, throw ring, and strobe light will now be accessable  from the helm.

 

 

Notice the work float underneath. Five sheets of 2″ pink foam board from home depot, held together with ratchet straps. Works great! It is light,  and can be stowed up forward on the tramp.  I can now scrape the water line and below,  to  the length of my arm, about 2/3rds of the surface area, without getting in the drink.   I do  hate getting in that water!

geekery, LOGBOOK

Back on Track

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We have been trying to solve a recent recurring problem. The sail is not sliding up and down the mast as easily as it did when it was new. It doesnt hang up every time, and sometimes it is worse than others. We have always been able to get it up at least to the second reef point. Usually it just takes a little fiddling, letting it down a bit and re hoisting till it goes on up. It doesnt hang up coming down. The mast is about 45 feet long at the luff. It has a male track with a small amount of bend, and a joint in the track just below the Tangs, which is about 3/4 of the way up.The joint is kept in column by a spline that is screwed in with very short, small, metric, fine threaded, flathead screws. The question up to now has been whether the problem is with the track, the cars, the sail batten tension, the bearings, or something else.

This is the suspect car. If you move it from side to side with your hand, it moves a bit more than the others. This is the car that seems to be hanging up. We pulled the car and replaced the bearings. it still wiggles and it still hangs uo.

This is another view of the car in question. Note how it is out of alignment with the others. This was done by pulling it over by hand.

OK this is the track. This photo was taken aloft, right about where the thing seems to be hanging up. There is a scored place, a scratch on it, not in the side grooves, but on the face, The screws are in tight, and don’t seem to be protruding enough to catch on the car. The track is otherwise in alignment.

What we have done so far: gone up the mast and checked the joint in the track. It seems to be OK. It happens to be at the deepest point in the mast bend (It is bent fore and aft by tightening the diamond shrouds, which are swept back)

So, today we eased the diamonds about one thread on the turnbuckles.

This car is at the first batten which is a fiberglass rod, which is tensioned from the leech end with a big flathead screw. So today we backed off the tension on the batten till there was none.

The car bearings are torlon 1/4 inch. We removed the car, and replaced the bearings. I couldn’t tell any difference in the appearance. They all seem to be round without any flat spots or scoring.

To be continued.

boatbuilding, geekery

Stanchion Bases

Its time to beef up the 1″ fiberglass rods that were glassed through the deck. I am bringing the handrails up to USCG standards for a Certificate of Inspection and documentation. The new handrail height will be 39 1/2 inches above deck, with an aluminum handrail. Right now they are 36 inches with para cord as the lifelines. New lifelines will be 1/8″ dyneema on 4″ spacings. It should hold Mike Tyson and Andre the Giant!

This latest project is to fabricate some nice looking bases that will glass into place above and below decks. I finally found the perfect molds- these kiddy horns from amazon. the flanges were the exactly right size, and as a bonus I now have some new boat party paraphanelia!

Some notes: After waxing the molds, I thought that I would be able to use peel ply first to get a nice surface. Disaster. So I skipped the peel ply. It is very difficult to cut the fabric to fit the whole inside circumference without wrinkles in one go. In fact, it is much easier to insert widths of fabric about 2/3rds the diameter, and then overlap with another piece. Since I wanted the finished side to be on the outside of the coves, the horns were used as female molds. lighter fabric works best. I used 9 oz uni first then some scrap 20 oz triax, but the triax is very messy by the time you get it cut that small, wet it out and lay it in there with a tongue depressor. Biax tape would be better.

Once cured they popped right out. I rough trimmed the edges with some large tin snips. It’s easier to do that when they are still green. Next operation is to cut to correct height, so that the stanchions will fit (shown), then slip them over the existing stanchion rods, fill with structural bog and set them into place.


boatbuilding, geekery

Hokule ‘a

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She’s been sailing all over the Pacific for 40 years, since being built in Oahu, and now is working her way up the Eastern Atlantic coast as part of a promotional tour.

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The book made a big impression back in the seventies. Hokule’a joined a fleet of other odd craft built in different places around that time… some made from balsa, others of papyrus reeds, The Irish had their Oxhide boats. All these modern projects had the goal of demonstrating how ancient cultures might possibly have traveled great distances around the planet. Multihulls were still a novelty, and Hokule’a did her part to help make them popular.

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Note the long steering oar. A simple solution, but it takes some muscle. She probably balances much better though, with those crab-claw sails up. Forget that in this winding river. Definitely not an upwind boat, she is more at home in the “blue desert”, running downhill with the trades.

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These photos were taken as she headed North, passing under the Macay river bridge (the same spot we splashed The Spirit of St Simons!). Another remarkable piece of history plies the same water that has seen so much throughout the years.

Hokule’a’s website has many more details and a gps tracker.

Thanks to Max for the heads up and to Harrison for the cool photo.

geekery

True Virgins Make Dull Company add Whiskey

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If your boat driver’s license has expired “beyond grace”. That means that in order to renew it, you must go back to square one and re- submit all the paperwork, and re-take the dreaded exam. Some folks say it has gotten harder since I took it last century. Anyway, I have been installing a compass in the boat, which prompted some of the schooling from my earlier years to bubble back up. I guess it would be a good thing to write some of it out for practice, since I will be re-taking the test. One thing I learned at sea school and did not forget:

“True Virgins Make Dull Company add Whiskey”

As Father Guido Sarducci, of Saturday Night Live fame would say, “and that’s all-a you need-a to know about-a that”.

OK, but if you are curious or masochistic, read on.

The nautical chart shows True north and Magnetic North on a thing called the “compass rose” (see above photo). It is a circular pattern with the degrees of a circle and a few other things marked on it. Compass roses are put there to help you figure out which way to steer the boat. They are scattered about on the chart in convenient places for quick reference. First, you have to realize there is a difference between true headings and magnetic headings. You might know one, but need to know the other. The Compass Rose shows both.

The North Pole, is located at the axis of the Earth’s rotation, on top of the world. Its direction is known as True North

The Magnetic North Pole, is a different thing entirely, and is located several hundred miles away from the North Pole. At present it lies somewhere inside the arctic circle. A magnetic compass only points to the magnetic north Pole.

The Variation is the the difference in degrees between True North’s bearing from an observer, say a sea traveler, and what a magnetic compass would point to- the Magnetic North Pole. My brain hurts already.

A Magnetic compass will always point to whichever direction the magnetic pole is in. However, it will only point towards True North, if and only when the North Pole happens to line up with the Magnetic North Pole. It could even point to a southerly direction. For instance, If a traveling person was way up in the arctic, and happened to be exactly between the North Pole and the Magnetic Pole, his magnetic compass would point to the Magnetic Pole- due South! You can see this with an orange or a tennis ball or something, and a couple of pins. The Variation for the travelers location in that rare case would be 180 degrees. To find true north, he would add 180 degrees, (the variation) to his magnetic compass heading.

The Variation of a given area on the chart, is printed on the chart inside the compass rose. It also “varies”, depending on where you happen to be on the Earths surface, in relation to these two poles. To make matters even more complex, the variation changes from year to year, in small increments, because the magnetic north pole and the magnetic field of the earth wanders around. The Magnetic North Pole is at the axis of the earths magnetic field, where it exits the Earth in the Northern Hemisphere, and it is not fixed in one place like the True North Pole (the axis of the earth’s rotation) is. The magnetic pole is affected by the Iron composition of the Earth’s interior, which moves around because the Earth’s core is liquid below and the Earths crust floats on top of it. In geologic history, the magnetic poles have even flipped. That would be a real calamity if that happened again, which it probably will ( and if it does, Virgins will no longer be dull company).

So, for example, the compass rose on your chart might have something printed in it like “Variation 3 deg West, annual increase 5’, 1999’ “ . The annual increase is the amount of change, measured in degrees, based on past history, of the actual physical location on the Earth of the Magnetic North Pole, each year, since 1999. Now, this is where the “add whiskey” comes in.

True Variation Magnetic Deviation Compass add Westerly

So, moving left to right, TVMDC, just like it reads, you always add (+) westerly. If the Variation is 3 deg W, you add that to the true heading to find the magnetic heading, OR, now get this, if you are reading it right to left, i.e. Magnetic to True, you would SUBTRACT the westerly variation, so if your magnetic reading is, say, 000 deg., and you want to know where true North is, then subtracting 3 deg, would give you 357 deg- the bearing of True North.

Stated differently, the “Variation”, is a number that is applied to the True heading to find the magnetic heading, or applied to the magnetic heading to find the true heading. If you know two, you can find the third with this formula. Add westerly variation going left to right, subtract Easterly variation, going left to right. OR subtract westerly variation going right to left, ADD easterly variation going right to left. The annual increase of the Variation mentioned above should also be tallied up and applied to the number. If the annual increase is 5’ when the chart was printed in 1999 and it is the year 2001, then add 10’ (two years). Year 2005, add 30’, etc. Needless to say it gets trickier and more important as you go north because the relative positions to the observer of the two poles (the Variation) can become more and more pronounced as one gets closer to them.

This stuff is often inconsequential in the real world, but it depends on where you are, and how much the variation is, and how accurate you need to be. A half degree (30’), is negligible in most circumstances on a small boat. You couldn’t physically steer with nearly that much accuracy. A steering error of one degree will put you one mile off course after about 57 miles.

Ready for some whiskey?

Not so fast. What about Deviation?

So, Variation then, is a corrective number applied between True North and Magnetic North, that is used to find the bearing of the other. Using the formula above, all you need are two values and you can calculate the other. Just remember to ADD Westerly, or Subtract Easterly, when moving left to right.,or vice-versa moving right to left in the equation.
The Deviation, is the same kind of number, between the Magnetic and the actual Compass bearing, (TVMDC), that is applied to one, to find the value of the other.

Magnetic compasses are affected by all things ferrous, whether it is the earths iron ore deposits or a sack of nuts and bolts left carelessly on the bridge deck, and also by all things electrical, since electrical fields are really the same as magnetic fields. Depending on the amount of Iron on the boat, and electronics, and their proximity to the compass, any of these can have a disastrous effect on the accuracy of the instrument. In a perfect world, without any local interference, a Magnetic Compass would give a bearing from an observer to the Magnetic North Pole. End of story. But every Boat is different. The distribution of iron implements, fasteners, rigging, chain, radios, etc will uniquely affect the compass. So, just as Variation must be applied to compensate for difference between True North and Magnetic North, Deviation must be applied to compensate for the difference between Magnetic North, i.e., where the compass should be pointing- Magnetic-and where it actually is pointing- Compass due to local interference, or stuff on the boat.

A Deviation table is printed up on a Compass Card, by a compass adjuster, who “swings” the instrument, after it is installed, by tweaking the adjustment screws found on the compass. The screws are supposed to allow the adjuster to calibrate for Deviation, which he usually can do, but sometimes he cannot, and so he prints up a card that shows how much to add or subtract from any given heading. Usually it is divided up into the different points of the compass. It might say for instance, N,+2, NNE-1, NE-0, ENE+1, etc. The closest relevant Deviation number, taken from the Compass card, supplied by the compass adjuster, then is also plugged into the equation TVMDC, and the same rules apply- ADD westerly going left to right SUBTRACT westerly going right to left.SUBTRACT easterly going left to right, ADD easterly going right to left.

Cheers.

update Jan 2019