Alberg 30 "Gaelic Sea"

[Captain Smollett]

Looks like I will finish that delivery in the next couple weeks... the boat is headed to the Sheraton docks right across from your current slip.

You guys still going to be nearby?

We will be in the area...depends on when you get here if the boat is here or in the boatyard.  We probably won't haul before 1 Sep or so.

After the haul-out, we are likely going to be in that marina...but that will be next year some time...unless a LOT changes here at this marina.

You should still have my cell phone number; if not, PM me.

[Captain Smollett]

Our Power out 40 hours (MUCH less than I was anticipating), though we do have friends that are looking at Thursday at the earliest.  We rather enjoyed the warmth of candlelight.



New Bern was not hit too terribly bad on the whole, given the western edge of the eyewall was only about 20 miles or so to the east (per radar image on Saturday, anyway).  One part of town, which happens to be the area where I anchored my boat, got hit a LOT harder than we did here...2--3 miles away as the crow flies.

Even at that, I've thankfully seen very few homes with wind/tree damage.  We have several friends and acquaintances with waterfront property whose homes got water intrusion.

One coworker of my wife lives in Aurora and they got blasted...she said driving back toward New Bern, each mile was lesser damage.  She's essentially describing the very steep decreasing gradient of wind speed from the eyewall over land, and the eyewall did not miss her by much (if really at all).

Docks at our marina were essentially destroyed.  Before the storm, they evac'd C Dock, but A and B remained quite full since they essentially moved C dock boats to vacated slips on A and B.  The fixed portions of A and B lifted pilings completely out of the ground.  Yesterday the marina staff would not let those of us who left to return, and today, they've ordered all liveaboards still in the marina out (no electricity).



In that picture you can see the pilings sitting ON the ground.  I saw one slip piling leaning at about a 30 deg angle and the boat it was tied to sitting crosswise in the slip.  I was told, but did not see myself, that two finger docks on A dock were broken loose.

I was told this evening that A Dock was 'destroyed.'

One boat on B dock sank.  I asked the owner of this boat on Friday if he was moving out, and he said he did not have an anchor suitable to anchor out in a storm.



One furler unfurled and the sail is shreds.

High water mark at the marina was just inches shy of the parking lot - that's over a 2 ft seawall and up another 1 foot or so rise above the highest I've seen the water.  The seawall is just the other side of the sidewalk.



Another marina just upstream from 'ours' had a dock completely destroyed and a boat sunk.  They have a boat yard, too, and at least one boat was blown of the stands.  The other boat yard in town, the one everyone tells me to run to for a hurricane had three boats blown over, with one of those taking out the boat next to it.  I had three friends in the yard (two in the water and one on the hard), and they all fared fine.

The ONLY damage I have personal knowledge of for anchored boats is shredded sails.  Two boats in the city anchorage appear to have drug, but they seemed to have been neglected in terms of preparation for the storm.  Several friends and acquaintances anchored out and fared just fine.

One sail boat was partially sunk and blown against the high rise bridge concrete piling.  I don't know if she was anchored or what...no clue.

I've seen two boats essentially in trees,



one in the marsh  (well aground),



lots of destroyed private docks, but lots that fared fine, too.  It seems MOST of the dock damage around town was 'surge' related, and it seems to me quite a variability in the 'set' of the pilings.  Some held, some didn't.

One friend had his Boston Whaler on the trailer in his yard.  Sunday morning, the boat, trailer and all, were gone.  It was found a few houses down.

My boat did fine at anchor...stayed right where I put her. 





The two x's are Friday, before the storm (east wind), and Monday morning (0.5 knot downriver current, 180 deg ish from how she laid on Friday).  The X's are separated by 265 ft (per Chart Navigator), which is double the anchor rode I had out.

I will post a separate 'anchor' thread outlining what I did, what I did GOOD, and I did NO-SO-GOOD, etc. 

Here she is riding in about 30 knots with gusts still mid-40's at about 17:00 on Saturday afternoon.  Low fidelity cell phone pic, but you can see the white blob on the river,



And if I zoom in with The Gimp,



She was about a quarter mile upriver from a yacht club, and the folks hanging out there during the storm said they'd been watching her the whole time, and that it was just amazing how she stayed right there.  A few times, they thought she was gone, but it was just that the rain was so heavy, they lost visibility...each time it lightened back up, there she remained.  Yea Manson Supreme!!

Several large cypress branches (and one smallish hardwood!) were massively tangled around the anchor lines.  You can make them out in the zoomed image.  It proved to be quite an athletic endeavor to free these in the 1 knot or so current the next day.

Here she is as I approached on Sunday,



She looked, and felt, aground, but that proved an artifact of the limbs tangled in the anchor line.  And the water aboard.

The only problem I had was failure of my primary bilge pump and unknown to me (the primary keeps water from getting to it), the wires had broken on the secondary.  Water in the cabin came about 10" above the cabin sole (the floorboards were floating).  Hooking a freshly charged spare battery to the operational secondary (and repositioning it) took an hour to pump the water out...that's a Rule 1500, plus the 100-150 or so gallons I initially hand bailed with a bucket.

Had I been aboard, I could have attended to the pumps (or used one of the manuals) and kept the water out.

Other than "a bit" of water inside, no other problems for the boat.  I sounded 9 feet where she was today, and since she was only a couple of inches down, she was was still afloat. VERY sluggish feeling, but still afloat.

This morning I moved her back to town, the so-called "city anchorage," to wait her next step.  The boat yard I wanted to haul in got hit pretty hard, and are presently 'offline,'  We'll see.

So, which is better for a boat...marina slip, hauled at a yard or anchored out?

Of our three docks, the one that fared best was C, which had only two boats left on it.  A Dock had all the 'big boats' and was the most damaged.  Coincidence?

[Godot]

Is good.  I survived Irene at dock (for me, practically a non event, fortunately); but I'm always interested in what others do in different situations.  After all, next time I might not be in such an excellent location.

[s/v Faith]

Glad you made it though John!

  The USCG boat right across the River (where I was) registered a gust of 121 mph.

Just a 'SailFar' note; the bridge John had to go under was '45 high... Hurricane hole? SaillFar boats only thanks.

[Captain Smollett]

Just a 'SailFar' note; the bridge John had to go under was '45 high... Hurricane hole? SaillFar boats only thanks.

;D ;D

And chalk one up to CCA era low aspect rigs, too.  Many modern 30 footers with high aspect rig would not have cleared that bridge.  Coming back into town yesterday, I had 2 feet or a little less between my anchor light and steel.

I like options.  Options are very cool. And Carl Alberg gave me a TON of 'em.  I become more amazed in what he put into that design every single time I have that boat under way.

Thanks, Carl.

(Note: However, Carl's original design for the A-30 was for a taller mast and a fractional rig.  I think it was the folks who commissioned the design wanted a masthead rig, and the mast position was already fixed, so the only way to do it was to shorten the mast.  This past week, I was the lucky recipient of that accident in the A-30's ultimate design).

[Captain Smollett]

If this were an article needing a "snappy" title to grab readers, it accureately enough might be any of the following:

"One of the Stupidest Days of My Life"
"When a Hypocrite Takes the Tiller"
"SINO: Sail Boat in Name Only"
"Luck Favors the Prepared, and Sometimes Smiles on the Others"
"No One Thing ... A Series of Poor Judgements"

This is an account of the recent delivery of my boat to the boat yard where she will live for the next few months.  It was a 14 hour (about 60 nm) trip, so not really "big" by any stretch; this is doable in a single day (obviously), but I planned two with an overnight stop at an anchorage I had heard a lot about but had never visited.

The short version for anyone not wanting the gory details:

Day 1: about 29 miles, 8 hours underway, followed by a 1.5 hour dinghy ride.  Sails up and drawing for about a 15 minute motorsail.
Day 2: A 1.5 hour dinghy ride to get back to the boat, then about 28 miles in 6 hours.

Navigation Philosophy of This Trip:

(Disclaimer: I don't claim to have some sort of monopoly on this info/experience, as I know this is essentially the philosophy of most sailfarers).

Part of the "thesis" of this write-up is to outline the application of, and practice of, 'traditional' navigation techniques.  The GPS was used only as the following:

Compass for the dink (I did not have a hand bearing compass with me)

Ship's compass course calibration to account for current set and the compass being "off" on some courses (I think anchoring from the cockpit is a good idea, but it does introduce a large junk of steel near the compass).

Speed Log (speed over ground)

Record of Track to make the 'pretty chart pictures' below.

Clock

The GPS was NOT used to sail directly to waypoints entered into the unit.  That is, all course steering was done via either (a) following a compass course (sometimes for a period of time) or via visuals on navigation aids / shore features where visible/useful.  Also, my GPS is a non-mapping kind unit.  To use as a 'chart plotter' to show where I am on a chart, I need to interface it to my laptop (with SeaClear II).  The laptop was not aboard, so I had no real time chartplotting capability, and no 'real' reference to position in regard to depth.

My depth sounder was aboard, but not hooked up to either power or the transducer.

Course-to-steer was estimated from a paper chart..."from here to there looks like about 120 degrees True, so about about 130 degrees Mag."  I have a course plotter, but did not use it.  Distances on the chart were estimated using 'human digit dividers' and finger thicknesses and such as compared to the lines of latitude (on the chart I was using, each minute was drawn, so I had a handy 1 nm reference).  Again, I have a pair of dividers, but chose not to get them out.

Several times, for example to make sure I was avoiding shoaly areas, I ran Ded Reckoning runs of 1-2 minutes to a half hour.  In these cases, I estimated a "safe distance to run a given direction" from a known point (such as a Navigation Aid), computed how long I needed to go from my speed (usually very rough 'in the head' calculation) and timed my run.  For timing, I used either my cell phone clock to the GPS clock.  Or just counted "1 one thousand" for however long I needed...

I hope to show that these crude methods for getting courses and distances proved adequate in THIS context.  What I would like to also say is that this style of navigation required a TON of concentration and CONSTANT double checking.  I had several runs of 1-2 hours on one compass course, and even within that window, I was continuously looking for 'updates' to position.  I did several "eyeball" triangulations on marks that I COULD see (even when out of sight of the 'target' Aid to Navigation), shore features when I could see them, etc.

I can see why so many folks prefer GPS chartplotting and having the sounder on constantly.  I'm not criticizing that style of navigation.  What I did for two day was hard work and mentally exhausting.  It was exasperated by the fact that several Aids were missing or damaged (so as to be difficult to identify).  Some of these marked shoals and other hazards.  If you are used to doing eyeball navigation, NOT being able to see a pilotage feature you hoped/expected to rely upon can be quite disconcerting.  Many of these, though not all, were listed in the LNM, which I did NOT look at before embarking on this trip.

The problem I see with 'practicing' electronic navigation as a matter of course, even if 'traditional methods' are known by the skipper, is exactly the reason most folks seem to take the easy way.  What I mean is, if/when the GPS (or sounder, or both) fail, doing it 'the old way' is so much more difficult that I fear, at least for ME were I to NOT practice it as a matter of routine, I would NOT be up to the task...especially if other things were going wrong.

A good pair of binoculars is worth their weight in gold.  I REALLY like our set, but they are not image stabilized.  Image stabilization might make things 'easier,' but again, I'd hate to build a reliance on such and have it fail when I was used to it.   Using any pair of binoculars in the seas I had on the 3rd is going to be tough.

03 Sep, 2011:

This day was a Comedy of Errors...or at lest, a comedy of delays.  It turned out okay, but could have been really bad.  I will remember this day as one of the stupidest days of my life, insofar as I made not one, but a series of very poor judgments that could well have ended catastrophically.  I remain amazed at this phenomenon...even when we know better, and KNOW inside we are making a bad choice, we do it anyway.  I also remain convinced that it is often a series of such mistakes, each compounding the last, that leads to what we call "accidents," rather than any one single thing standing on its own.  It's humbling to reflect on this from the safety of this computer, and hopefully, learn from it.

Got to the boat early to do preps for leaving the marina permanently.  Needed a couple of things from West Marine, and since they did not open until 9 am, the XO decided to go there for me while I left to get to the boat at 7.  I thought it was an early start.  I did not leave the dock until a touch after 11:30.  Get chores done, getting the holding tank pumped out, even short dock-talks with friends/neighbors add up, and finally pulled out from the dock nearly two hours after I had planned.

Coupled with that delay was the decision, to save time, to NOT bend on the sails.  I had hoped to sail/motor sail, but there was no wind and the forecast was for "light and variable," at least for town.  To my mind, at the time, it didn't make sense to take additional time sitting at the dock.  I had planned on a six-ish hour trip and had fuel for 10 (in emergency mode, as some of that would be fuel for the dink).  If it took 6 - 7 hours to my anchorage, I'd be there 1.5 hours before dark and should have no problem getting back to Oriental by dinghy, where I planned to get picked up.

The late start was to be the first of my "mistakes" for the day; not having the sails on and ready to go, while probably neutral overall, was the second mistake that I am counting.  It just would have been easier/nicer to have the sails ready to go rather than trying to deal with that underway.  Thus starts the trajectory of a day mismanaged that culminated in a very dangerous and unprofessional "stunt."

The third mistake was psychological: didn't want to stop in Oriental..wanted to make it to South River.  It's a bit further 'down the road,' and I've spent enough time in Oriental.  I wanted something different...something 'more adventurous.'  Setting a goal is fine, but on the water, goals must be flexible.  That was another mistake.

The first couple of hours was uneventful enough.  I throttled back to save fuel but still maintained 4 - 4.25 knots over ground.  This was a sad show of just how dirty the bottom of the boat must be.  At that throttle setting, I should have been at 5 knots or at least over 4.5.

As the breeze filled in from a favorable direction, I decided to bite the bullet and bend on the Genoa.  Catching the beam-on winds with the genny would give me a nice lift to the 4.0 the iron jib provided, plus I was due to make a turn to bring the breeze a bit broader off.  I also figured if it stayed settled, I could always bend on the main and get more area up.  I was willing to work a little for any extra fraction of a knot, but had no delusions that I'd be sailing sans engine.

What's that saying about a schedule being a sailor's worst enemy?  Yep.

Oh, picture this:  I was bending on the genny, working on the foredeck that is, with no lifelines and no bow pulpit.  I got to test my "I don't mind working on the foredeck' stance that I rant about.  I did wear a life jacket, so I if I did go overboard I could merrily stay afloat while watching the boat motor away from me.  I had my harness and tether...but chose not to use 'em.  The line I planned on using for a jackline was a tangled mess on the side deck next to the cockpit.  Why rig a jackline at the dock?  There was no wind and the water was like a mirror.

Luck favors the prepared, and I sure made my own luck in my lack of preparations.  I would have deserved anything that thankfully did not happen.

Anyway, mere minutes after raising the sail and expressing great joy at the additional boat speed I was getting...and having sail up on the boat at long last...the wind shifted dead on the nose and built.  And built.  And built.  It probably topped out at 15 knots or so, so it does not sound TOO bad.  But for some reason, two things happened that killed my boat speed.  First, as I rounded bends in the river, the wind stayed on the nose.  This river is wide enough that it should not so effectively "channel" the wind like that.  Second, the wind, though not excessive, built some of those nasty, steep sided white caps the Neuse is known for.  Remember this afternoon on "medium small" in winds and seas lighter than what I was having off Flanner Beach.

Motoring head-on into that garbage took its toll...my boat speed hit 2.0 knots a few times, and I was HAPPY to keep it at 3.5 knots for any period of time.  So much for making good progress and having any cushion of daylight at the end of the day's trip.

Well, that was not a cushion at all, really.  I was looking at a long (1+ hour) dinghy ride to my pick-up.  I was eating into time I really needed.

And it did not let up...the winds stayed on the nose and the seas stayed "up," for quite a while, 3-4 hours, though after about 2 hours it did seem to be settling down into something a little better.  By the 3 hour mark, I was probably sitting on 3-5-3.8 knots more than under 3.5...I rejoiced over every 0.1 knot over the ground.

What was fun was getting the sail down.  By the time I realized that the wind was going to stay on the nose no matter my 'ideal' course, the bow was pitching about four vertical feet on the larger seas.  Again, this is not extreme, but no pulpit, no lifelines.  That said, while it was a bit of a roller coaster, I never felt insecure up there, and I credit that to being "used" to working on the foredeck and denying the "rather stay in the cockpit" mindset we read so much about.  So much of being effective is mental preparation.

This section of the trip was further complicated by the number of missing Aids to Navigation.  It was not really a super complication, as it's not really hard to stay in the middle-ish of the river, but still...having made the trip up/down the river several times, those Aids are like familiar landmarks on a road trip.  It became more of a fascination with the concept of reality vs expectation than any real cause for concern navigation-wise.

By the time I got past the Minnesott and approach Oriental on one side and Adam's Creek on the other, I knew I was getting light on time.  I had three options:  press on for South River, detour to Adam's Creek or head into Oriental.  The latter two options would save me an additional 7 ish miles (at a mean boatspeed now of about 4.3 knots, nearly two hours).  Going into Oriental would mean no dinghy trip except for 100 yards max from the boat to the dinghy dock.  Adam's Creek represented a few miles up the Creek to find the anchorage I would prefer..plus, the dinghy ride back to Oriental.

I COULD call me crew and have them pick me up somewhere else.  I COULD stay on the boat and not have to dinghy anywhere after anchoring.  I COULD have made better choices.  I CHOSE to press on for South River.  This was a BAD CALL, and though it worked out alright, I cannot deny that it was a bad decision.  I don't believe the merit of a decision is based on the outcome...it's right or wrong at the time it was made. This was a bad decision and I KNEW at the time it was a bad decision.  Why did I do it, then?

Emotional decision making does not work for me.  I WANTED to get to South River.  I did NOT want to anchor at Oriental.  This mistake, coupled with the next bad decision, could have easily gotten me killed.

Making the leg from Oriental to South River "funner" was the missing marks on G7 (a shoal marker); the piles were there, the mark was not.

I pulled into the South River anchorage (a beautiful spot, by the way, and one I hope to revisit with my crew in the not-too-distant future) around 19:30, with less than 30 minutes of true daylight left.  I got the anchor set and stuff stowed in 'record time,' and hopped in the dink.  

The day's run:

[Captain Smollett]

03 September, 2011 (cont.)

Hopped in the dink a bit before 20:00, meaning I had already been "working" for 13 hours.

The sky was red with sunset and I knew I'd have SOME twilight left.

It was not enough, of course....over 7 nm on a dink going on average about 5.3 knots (I hit 6.1 once for a few seconds with a following wave) takes almost an hour and a half.  I had no lights on the dinghy.  So, there I was, crossing a body of water that is cut by the ICW and full of nighttime fishing boats, in the dark (only a crescent moon) with no nav lights.

In a word...stupid.

And I knew at the time it was stupid.

Still, I risked it.

I realized quickly enough (when a small fishing boat on the shoals temporarily put their running lights on to make sure I saw them...they probably could HEAR me more than see me if their engine was off) that the "Color Flashlight" app I have on my phone could work as SOMETHING to signal other boats as to my presence.  I could make the light red to show a red sidelight, green for the other, and white for a stern light.

It worked!  The boat killed their running lights seconds after I showed them my "red."

I did this a few other times with other boats...leaving it off until I 'needed' it to conserve the battery.  I was constantly switching the color red, green, white, depending on the most immediate situation.

The worst was that I ran out of gas more or less in front of an approaching commercial vessel, several hundred feet long, and not unlike the one Charlie reported on recently.  I got fueled up and sorted out who/what he was (I did NOT like seeing white over a red/green combo from an unlit dinghy at night), and which direction he was going.  I showed him my "light" as best I could and motored off the track as best I could.  

Oh yeah, did I mention that I left the VHF on the boat, thinking at the time that I won't need it for a 'quick dinghy run across the river'?  Stupid mistake number...what number am I up to, now?

I could not even call that guy bridge to bridge!  

While I was not really "scared" in that circumstance, I was cussing my own judgment for the evening.  I could not believe that I had put myself into that position, and so strongly with not one but MANY poor decisions.  If he ran me over, he would have never felt a bump, and it would have been in no way, shape or form, his fault.  Blame rests on my shoulders for even having a 'closer than it should have been' call, which in reality was not THAT close...but close enough.  Closer than I like, given the "Rule of Tonnage."

Anyway, to the punchline: I made into Oriental without further incident, showing my improvised lights as needed.  I did not know it was really working for anything, but I had to do SOMETHING.  On shore, my wife said she could, in fact, see the light from quite a ways off, and she had a pretty strong feeling that the 'erratic' light she saw was me due to the behavior of the light.  She could even tell it was green or white.

The only downside was that it KILLED my night vision, but oh well.  I tried to preserve it as much as possible.

Coming into Oriental was a bit nerve wracking since the entrance is a 'choke point' and the Saturday night boat traffic was heavy enough for my taste.  This included a tow boat pulling in a disabled power boater.  I was particularly ashamed at having such a gross breach of seamanship in full view of pros like the barge captain and the tow boat skipper.  Oh well.

Also, about halfway across, with about 3 miles to go, the GPS started giving me "battery low" messages, and I knew the battery on my phone was getting dead in a hurry running that flashlight.  Neither died, but I sure hate using/relying on such electron hungry tools.

[Captain Smollett]

04 September, 2011:

Well, I exercised a little better seamanship the second day.

Upon arriving back at Oriental, I saw s/v Saga, sailfar-er "Cruise", anchored in the harbor in a picturesque setting.  (I had seen her the night before, also, but not a good photo op).



Hoped in the dink, and after breezing by to introduce myself to Cruise, heading back across the river to the anchored boat.

At this point, a fair question is "why not just stay on the boat."  I thought about it, the XO thought about calling and suggesting it, but it wasn't done.  What can I say?

I *DID* need to go ashore to get fuel, though.  Since leaving the boat at anchor was always part of the "float plan" for this trip, I did not bring enough fuel the first day for both days.  What spending the night on the boat could have purchased, however, was not doing that dinghy ride in the dark.

So, the dinghy ride was 3 hours round trip.  



Notice how much "cleaner" the daytime track is.  This is the view from the dink on the way out...nothing like the feeling of being on open water in a 9.5 ft open boat.



Got to the boat and underway with no mishaps...just a bunch of oozey mud brought up with the chain.  South River is a nice anchorage.  There's TONS of room in there.

Toodled out of the anchorage, stayed due north out of the gate to be sure clear of a shoal, and eyeballed the chart for a heading to R6.  Followed that course and over the next leg, slowly made adjustments to cut the leg over to R4; that's why that part of the track (the first long leg) looks a bit curved).  We hear a lot about how rough Pamlico Sound can get.  This is what I saw Sunday morning, and you can see why, again, I did not bother putting any sail up.



I never did lay eyeballs on R6, though there is nothing in the LNM about it being missing.  Picked up R4 in the binoculars and ran what was roughly parallel to the (imaginary, since R6 was not there) line between the two to gain clearance around.  

This guy came around R4 a few minutes before I got there, and this was a similar vessel (tug pushing a barge) to what I saw last night on the dink...in the dark...without my showing proper lights.  Recall that for a few minutes, I saw white over red/green (though he was still a bit off, any time seeing white over red/green makes me nervous).



The next leg was another compass course with the heading eyeballed from the chart.  Ran that leg until getting R2 and NR (Neuse River Junction) in sight through the binoculars.  Cut the shoal between them (chart read 9-11 ft and I chose to trust it), heading for the entrance to the Bay River.  At G1 of the Bay River, met a USCG work boat, and dodged farther north to give 'em plenty of room...man that thing was plowing up some water making way.

Navigation of the Bay River was mostly straightforward, but I was cautious to not run mark-to-mark, since they mark bends and that can get me aground.  It's important to pass a mark, keep a heading for a time, then start the turn to the take the other one a bit wide.  The hardest one to find was G5, as it was completely lost in the woods behind until I was fairly close, but fortunately, staying center river is a pretty good strategery.





I do see one error in the recorded track;  my shown track is wrong between R8, the white private aid, G9 and R10.  I passed that White Private Aid with it to starboard and threaded through that section.  Oh well...other than that, the track looks pretty accurate based on what I remember doing at the time.

[Captain Smollett]

I should point out, too, just for completeness, that a window of opportunity opened for this trip that I did not realize I had.  I basically planned this trip Friday, less than 24 hours from leaving the dock.

Schedules and sailboats don't mix...

[Captain Smollett]

Nice thing about having a "shop" to work in (for a change) is actually getting work done on rainy days.  We've had 3 solid days of rain with more due to come.

Yesterday, I got a wooden ladder built to take to the boat yard.

Today, I got the LopoLight LED Bow Light Combo dry fit to the pulpit.

The stock A-30 has separate side lights mounted on the deck.  Though I could have 'dropped in' replacement LED's,

(a) I wanted to get them higher (and more forward)...out of the way of the headsail when on deck and less protrusions to snag lines

and

(b) I liked the idea of a single fixture.

So, I had a small stainless plate welded to the 'nose' of the pulpit, and mounted the LopoLight Combo Light there:





And for those that had seen Gaelic Sea's pulpit with the damaged stanchion, you'll notice in those pictures that that has been repaired as well.

One of the best 'contacts' one can make while doing a boat restoration is a good welder.  The dude I go to has custom fabricated several parts for me now, and he does GREAT work at a reasonable price.   ;)

[Captain Smollett]

Haul-Out/Refit Update:  The things you find when you REALLY clean a boat.

Some may remember that we had some under waterline plumbing issues that needed addressing.  Well, I finally chose to tackle it.

The issue was that a PO had plumbed the cockpit drains and deck drains together, in this weird crossing pattern with misaligned "T" fitting, and, well, yes, it WAS as complicated as this description is starting to sound.

I prefer the cleanliness of KISS designs, even in the boat's plumbing.  So, I set about ripping all that stuff out.

Here's a shot of PART of ONE SIDE worth of fittings.  This is not everything in the chain, and most of this was below waterline:



Basically, the gist is that we had a through-hull fitting (old style), a screwed on ball valve (old style, not flanged), a short piece of hose, a reducing fitting, another piece of hose, a T, etc.  All below waterline.

The reducer and the T were not "marine" components.

In fact, I almost cried when I realized what this was:



That's the reducer, but...well, it reduced too much and the hose must not have fit properly (must not have been able to tighten the hose clamp enough), SO....the person wrapped the undersized hose barbs with ordinary electrical tape (!) to bulk it up, installed the hose and tightened the clamp.

:o

Again, under the waterline.

I do have to say that it did not leak (much?), but, but, it's just wrong.

Why not just use the CORRECT fittings and hose?  Yes, poop from Lowe's IS cheaper than marine grade, but, but ...   ::)

Not once, but twice this was done.

Moving aft, after cleaning out the laz, I inspected the through-hull fitting with the attached hose from the bilge pump.

Again, after a layer or two of size changes for the hose to get things to fit, I saw this little gem of marine engineering:



Now, if you look closely there, you can see what was done.  The hose, even after the adapter to increase its size, did not fit the existing through-hull fitting.  So, we once again made a trip to the local hardware establishment and got an ordinary pipe coupling.

And simply caulked it to the through-hull fitting.   :o

Admittedly, this one was above the water line, but again....just wrong.

If it had failed, it's close enough to the water line to have flooded the boat in ANY kind of waves...

I thought I had found all this second-rate stuff on the boat.  Sad that I'm still getting surprised.

[Captain Smollett]

And on the subject specifically of cleaning the boat out, I remain completely amazed at just how much stuff/junk this boat can hold.

Just cleaning out the two cockpit lockers (previously PARTIALLY emptied) and the lazarette, I generated enough garbage to fill a large contractor bag so heavy I could hardly lift it.  I mean literally hardly
lift the bag.

Included in this was about 5 lbs of rust I scooped out with my hand.  This was from an old anchor chain that had sat in there for years (chain previously removed)

That's just what I threw away!   :o   ::)

Among the items kept (all in those three aforementioned lockers, and this does NOT include the stuff already removed from the cockpit lockers):

3 Sections of VERY large diameter (1 inch or nearly so, I'll to measure it) dock line, one 30 ft, one 60 ft and one 70 feet long.

Two extension cords (one what thrown away)

Three Type II Adult PFD's

A small mooring buoy, inflated

Two buckets of miscellaneous tools and fiberglassing supplies

An old furling headsail from another boat

About 7 pieces of miscellaneous line, various sizes and lengths

A box of various supplies, such as two quart size 2 cycle oil, funnels, etc.

A third shore power cord

A small container of SS screws, washers and nuts

Each time to the boat in the yard over the past three weeks, I've brought back an SUV load of stuff (some garbage, some keeper). What I've KEPT has probably totaled equivalent to 4-5 large rubber maid size container fulls at least.  Well, more than that counting our containers of clothes and food that were already "organized."

The boat is not empty yet.

No, I'm convinced that 30 feet is PLENTY large enough for a family of four to live (and cruise) on...if the junk is kept at bay.

You simply would have to see it to believe it how much has come off this boat.  Anyone saying 30 feet is too small is defining that differently than "available volume."  The issue is "how is the space used" not "is there enough."

Just plain WOW.

[skylark]

That is truly frightening.

[Oldrig]

Have you looked closely at the wiring?

[Captain Smollett]

Have you looked closely at the wiring?

Yes.  One of the first big projects I did was install bus bars and redo some of the wiring around the distribution panel(s), and other has been redone as needed over time. 

I've still got a few additional wiring related things that need doing.

Most of the issues seem to be really really shoddy glass work; this latest bit with the plumbing was a real surprise.  I just NEVER expected to see that.

(On the bilge pump through hull, I've even looked at it before, and I don't know, I guess with stuff in the laz I just did not notice that's what it was.  I've got to eat some culpability on that, since I did not pick it up the first SEVERAL times I saw it...)

[s/v Faith]

I recall thinking that the cockpit drains were awfully slow (even after I would clear them out).

Now I know why.  :o


Wow, good thing you have a good haul out cycle before going too far off shore!

[Captain Smollett]

Way back when, I found a resume from a PO of this boat...with all kinds of boatyard experience listed and a cover letter to a new yard hoping to get a job.

Now, *IF* (big if, I have no idea) he's the guy that did all this stuff to THIS boat, God help anyone for whom he has worked.

I truly thought I could not be surprised anymore; before, most of the stuff could be categorized as "ignorant."  These new discoveries are purt-near willful negligence.

I just hope whoever did it no longer owns a boat, is not within 200 miles of anyone else's boat, doesn't even THINK about boats ....

I will say the path is an interesting one.  All of this is forcing me to make sure I do The Best Job I Can Do (tm). It's a karma thing; this boat deserves a full reversal of her fortunes.  Not sure I'm up to THAT task.  She's like a whipped dog or abused horse.

I've got to earn her trust...one step at a time.

[Captain Smollett]

Tackled a neat little project today.

The original A-30 had the lifeline stanchions mounted in a slight 'depression' molded into the deck.  Here's a shot from last May after the stanchion base was removed that shows how the base-deck interface is a "low spot:"



I've never liked that arrangement; instead, I prefer the newer approach a lot of guys are doing: deck hardware is installed on small "pads" that are used to raise the hardware so that it is NOT a low point where water can accumulate (and stay for a while).

The first step in making this improvement was to glass over the depression.  Into the depression, I laid in several layers of 6 oz cloth with epoxy and then faired over to make it smooth with the deck.

But,that introduced another problem...how will water "get around" the base and pad...fore and aft of the stanchion base, the deck right along the molded in toe rail is lower than the non-skid on the deck...not just lower because it's not non-skid, but molded lower.

So, today I finally 'solved' this problem.  I set the stanchion base and riser pad in from the toe rail a bit, then routed in a 'gutter' to make a free channel between the base and the toe rail.  I used a Dremel tool with a drum sander to rough in the gutter, then hand sanded to finish smooth.

It turned out better than I figured I could do.  Shown here is the faired smooth area of deck and the 'gutter' along the toe rail:



(It looks better than this picture seems to show...I had to sand away some gelcoat to get to good glass underneath, and that's faired over...in the picture, it looks like that's still exposed, but it's not).

And here's how it will look when assembled:



Again, the pictures don't do it justice...maybe after it's all painted it will look better.

All that's left is:

Drill oversized holes
Fill with epoxy
Drill proper sized holes
Epoxy in riser pads
Epoxy in backing plates (3/8" Garolite)
Bed and Install Base

Also installed two of the four riser pads for the pulpit bases on the bow pulpit, and next time out will epoxy in the other two.  Then it will be backer plates for those bases and the pulpit will be done,

Once the riser pads for the two foremost stanchion bases and the pulpit are in place, I've got one more round of sanding (did what should be the last batch of fairing today as well) before...

I FINALLY get to start "finish" work on the foredeck!   ;D  I'll epoxy in my play sand for non-skid, the prime and paint.

YAHOO!!   ;D

(This has been a LONG time coming)

Once the pulpit is in place, too, I'll get to start finishing the mahogany anchor roller...got the main piece rough cut, but need the pulpit in place to "finish" to make sure things line up properly.

It's a LOT more fun putting things together ....

[Tim]

Oh Great! Now another project for the Ariel  >:(

I am never going to get to the painting  ::)

Looks good, definitely an improvement.

[Captain Smollett]

I keep finding silicone on the boat, and I keep finding damage nearby.  Coincidence?

Part I:  "Silicone is NOT filler"

The foredeck had a mounting base for a spinnaker pole, though where it was and the angle it was, the pole could only have been about 4 feet long.  But I digress.

I'm making a custom whisker pole, and the jaws that I bought don't fit in the existing base.  It needed to come off anyway so I could 'complete' the foredeck restoration.

When I removed it, I found another one of those 'molded in' depressions, like mentioned above for the stanchion bases.  The only problem was that the pole bracket was larger than the depression.

What was done?

Why, fill the whole enchilada with silicone, that's what.  

24 grit on an 11,000 rpm angle grinder got rid of it (along with the gel coat under it) and got me down to bare glass.  Today, I glassed over the depression and will fair it tomorrow.

(2) "The Case of the Delaminated Forehatch Cover

My boat came with one of those solar powered vents installed on the forehatch cover.  It doesn't work (though possibly could be fixed), and I've never liked it anyway.  The dang jib sheets almost always get tangled on it during a tack.



I finally decided to remove it and glass over the hole.



It was thoroughly bedded with silicone.



And yes, it leaked.

And yes, the forehatch cover IS delaminated because of it.

DIE, Silicone...DIE.    >:( >:(   ;D ;D