sailFar.net

Katie Marie is a 1967 Pearson Ariel, hull #422 of 440 made. 1967 was the last year of 5 years of production for these Carl Alberg-designed boats.

(http://www.sailfar.net/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/normal_katie.JPG)

By the way - There'll be a *ton* more posts in this thread, eventually. :) In fact, I'll be moving most of the content from my old site into here. I didn't mean for this to seem like a brief one-liner intro topic, I just posted a quicky to start off, and then went on to other things.

What I'm saying is that I encourage y'all to do with your own threads as you will. Fill them up with content, pics, musings, design ideas, poetry, or whatever. It's your space to express yourself, your boat, your Plans, your dreams. Go for it!

That's what I'll be doing. :)

First, I've gotta make sure that sailFar gets a good launching. ;D

Have a great day!

Captn K,

     Your boat is a beauty.  I am looking forward to reading more in this thread. 

     I imagine you are quite busy keeping up with all of the enthusiastic sailors who have joined your site.  Thanks for your efforts.

She's the gleam in my eye. :)

Yeah, busy lol. :) Was out of town most of yesterday, and see now that everyone was really busy here! :D Cool! Wish I could respond to every post - but it is getting too busy to do that, and still have a life, right? ;)

Santa brought me some hardware. Soon the mast comes down for a refit with new spreader bases and LED nav lights, and quitened wiring. I think that while it is down I will fix the strongback on my main bulkhead, and do some related modifications there. Was going to try to be sailable in January, but it might be Feb before she's ready to bear the stresses again. We'll see. It's all part of the Plan, so I'm OK with it, and can hop rides on friends boats in the cold meanwhile. ;D

Hey Capnk, I am going to drop my mast in a month and am planning all the things I want to do while it is down.  Do the LED light draw less power or last longer or what.  Also, what is quitened wirering?  I am going to put all three haylards inside the mast, replace my windex, replace spreader sockets, and install a VHF antenna.  Cheers.

The LED's both draw less power, *and* last longer, since they don't have bulbs to burn out. The 3 watt all-round white LED has a 50,000 hour lifespan and is USCG certified for 2 mile visibility. If it makes it 1/10th of lifespan before needing servicing, I'll be loving it. If it makes it half of that 50K hours, it'll be a family heirloom. ;)

By "quieting the wiring", I mean that I am going to put foam pipe insulation around the wires in the mast to keep them from clanging away like they have been for the past 8 months. :) Some people use zip-ties to do the same, but pipe foam can be installed without pulling the wires out (or re-running them), and on my last boat, after being in there for 3 years, the foam was still dry as a bone and looked brand new. It wouldn't be much, but it would also provide some float in the case of roll-over, too.

I forgot to add the VHF antenna to my list - I'll be doing that too. Already have the Windex. :)

Kurt,

  Been thinking alot about my interior.  Your 'gimp' drawings have got me thinking about the merits of 'hard' stowage, vs my current 'soft' scheme. 

  Wonder where your thinking is right now on this, if you are still planning on lots of cabinets...?

  What you doing with your interior right now?

Currently, I am very involved in being undecided about what exactly to do. ;D

AAMOF, once I stop posting here this morning, I'm switching the interior the rest of the way over to trying a setup like Franks and yours; stowage up front, and using the original Ariel counter area for the galley, leaving room for an athwartships double and a sea berth (w/footwell in the bottom of the cockpit locker) on port side.

I'll definitely be going with "hard" stowage, for reasons of optimal space utilization, and for as "wide open" of a feel as possible. Also, I did some thinking and calcs concerning positive flotation ("boat as a lifeboat" thinking), and (IIRC) we need about 55 cubic feet of flotation in an Ariel to keep her from sinking. It would be interesting to replace all the interior wood with FRP sheet PU foam to that end. It would probably be a year or more before I began to really get into that, though I will experiment with the concept before going whole-hog on it.

I'm still using large bins as my primary stowage medium. It makes it easy to shift the overall configuration around, and all the "stuff" sorts itself out: frequently used things wind up in the easier-to-get-at bins. I pulled a sack full of "clutterstuff" out the other night, because it felt like space was running low. That freed up two bins-worth of space, which is the reason for the change I am going to make this morning, once I wake up the CrewDogs and make them go out on deck. :)

Hi all!  ;D I've been busy! So has everyone here - which is GREAT!!! :)

I have been doing lots of computer and canvas work, but have also managed to squeeze in a little of my favorite - boat work!

Katies gelcoat is 40 years old and looks like dooky on her topsides. I think that UV and general exposure has caused it to shrink, so everywhere not protected by nonskid has the appearance of crackle-paint, with the cracks going all the way through the gelcoat to the glass fibers underneath.

I pulled Katies brightwork around the cockpit for its annual varnishing, and have been working on the gelcoat in the cockpit area. I plan to have it done before I replace the brightwork, so that my "porch" is a pleasant looking place to spend time this year. :)

Right now I have it primed with high-build 2 part epoxy primer. Planning to sand that out later this week, and catch all the little stuff which is still showing, hoping to get paint on late week or early next.

Also, I've decided how I am going to do her interior, and have started the process of working on that - and I hope to start building it in after I get the cockpit painted... It should be a bit of a challenge, living aboard during that process, but I should be able to pull it off...

I sure wish the CrewDogs could use sandpaper! ;D

Wow Capn that is a lot of work good luck I'm sure it will be worth it.  Send pictures.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

This morning it looked so nice out I thought I'd leave it out.

S/V "Tina Marie" Cal 2-27

I'm curious how your final int plan idea ended up captain???

Quote from: CapnK on April 05, 2006, 08:36:25 AM
I sure wish the CrewDogs could use sandpaper! ;D

Try attaching sandpaper to their tails with a weighted block, then talk nice to them, give them snacks, promise them the ball.... their little tails will wag, wag, wag and then you will have some helpers!  Just a thought.   :D  Let us know if it works!   ;D

Dave - Will do (on the pics)! BTW - Happy Birthday! ;D

PD - I WISH! :D

Frank - I'll do up a graphic soon to show, but the plan for right now is to keep the starboard berth pretty much as-is (except for building in seatback stowage, making it a little narrower), build in some cabinetry portside (for galley & food stowage) just aft of the factory drawers, leaving about 2.5' of space between them and the usual Ariel countertop aft. This space will serve as a seat, and as I plan to extend the foot of the berth there under the cockpit locker, it will be the head of my sea berth. Also, using a spacer across the middle of the cabin, I can have a wide, V-shaped athwartships double, head-end to starboard.

Forward, in the V, I'll have cabinets on both sides, with a 2' wide, 6' 3" long "channel" in the middle which will allow access to chainlocker, and also could serve as a berth in case of a guest. For about a month I've had my "fixed" stove up in the V, portside. Since it is only a step or two to anywhere in the boat, spreading out my "galley" like this works fine, and the forehatch is a great vent. I may go with that configuration. I'll have my gimballed one-pot stove aft, for meals/beverages in rougher conditions.

I'll also be carving out some of the main bulkhead, in order to open up the interior for air flow & make everything look more open. Still figuring out exactly how I want to do this, what materials to use to beef up the structure. I'll make the bottom half of the doorway slotted to accept boards which will make it possible to coffer-dam off the v-berth area in case of flooding.

When I work up a graphic, I'll post it. :)

Adrift - Zen *used to* have an Ariel, then he had some sort of 'crisis', and bought a bigger boat.

;D

Well, this post has been a long time coming, I'm glad to *finally* have this project underway...

I dropped Katie's mast this morning. Need to replace a spreader bracket, stop the clangy-wires, install an LED anchor light, give the whole thing a good going-over and refurb where necessary, and, if I can, shore up the sagging strongback semi-permanently. So here are the pics showing how we got the stick down...

Being too cheap err, frugal (yeah, that's the ticket! ;)) to get hauled out for the mast dropping, I made a ladder crane, an idea I had seen posted elsewhere on the 'net. This allowed me to drop the mast at the dock. I was interested to see how hard it would be - supposedly, the Ariel spar weighs 88#, but let me tell you this - that 88# must be with every extra piece of hardware removed from the spar, including rivets and cleats. :) It sure seemed a lot heavier than that!

I used a 20' extension ladder (which gives about 16' of useable height), rigged it up, stood it next to the mast, and guyed it out fore n aft. Before putting the ladder up, I put my handybilly on the top rung of the ladder, which gave me a 3:1 purchase for lowering the mast. All went well, except I could have used another 2-4" of hoist - there is a stainless stell tube for thru-deck wires which my arrangement just couldn't quite clear when the mast is lifted. I'll be fixing that before the re-hoist. These pics will show you the rig (bigger versions of the pics in the Gallery). Worked good! :)

(http://sailfar.net/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/normal_IMG_4144_web.JPG)
Ladder crane up and ready.

(http://sailfar.net/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/normal_IMG_4146_web.JPG)
Close-up of top of crane.

(http://sailfar.net/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/normal_IMG_4148_web.JPG)
I used my boom, lashed to the bow pulpit, to spread the foreward guy lines some. Tip: Give some thought to how you route these lines, they'll need to allow the mast to drop all the way down.

(http://sailfar.net/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/normal_IMG_4150_web.JPG)
Mast down at last. :)

You need a good gin pole system on your boat.  Dropping the mast on the Pretty Gee is really simple compared to what you have to go through.  I just installed a modification to the mast-lowering system two weeks ago that the manufacturer is probably going to adopt.  :D

As for LED-masthead lights.  They're great.  Who made the unit you have?  I have an Orca Green Marine unit on my boat.

Gin pole? No thanks. I'm more of a single-barrel bourbon man, myself... ;)

Eventually I'll install a hinged base on the mast, there is a nice one for Ariels out there, it's just pricey.

The LED is made by Innovative Lighting, sold at BW, it's a 3 watt LED designed to be an all-around white light for power vessels. I think I've written about it elsewhere here. I'd like to get one of the double-row-LED ones which Craig/Faith posted about, the ones made in Fiji, but I already have this one on hand.

The strongback is coming out, for sure. After some messing about, it is coming out much easier and cleaner than I thought it would. Spent an hour pulling melamine off of the bulkhead, yanking screws, etc..., should have it all the way out in another hour or two. Going to make a low-profile replacement of epoxy/foam sandwich while I have the mast down. That'll allow me to take out some of the bulkhead, and open up the cabin interior quite a bit. Might be a couple weeks before I get the mast back up, but this seems to be the way to go...

Maybe, if it takes long enough, I'll be able to get one of those Fiji lights before the mast goes back up. :)

Good Job CapnK, I wanted/needed to do that to my Ariel, before I had my "crisis"  ;)
I wondered how well it would work.

The ladder thing is interesting!
:o

I have to admit that I used a friction grab on a nylon sling about a foot below the spreders when we did ours (with a frame that hangs out over the public dock, not a ladder). The prusack type knot means the mast has a slight tendency to tip in the direction you want it to go anyway, and this does wonders for control, it also got me that extra foot of lift.

I am not sure about guying onto the boom like that, I am sure it is way within tolerneces...but I would worry about maybe introducing a new stress point.

Hmmm...a ladder...brilliant. Definately food for thought.

Now, did you use the ladder crane to put the mast back up, too?


Alex.

CapnK,

Your spreader socket disease must be contagious.  I stepped the mast today to take someone out for their FIRST TIME on a sailboat (he has bought a small sailbote but want to do some learnin' first).

Got the mast up and what did I notice?  Bent Spreader  >:( .  Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be the base, which seems to have gotten torqued 'downward' somehow.   Grrrrrr.  Did Katie Marie get too close while I was down there?   ;D

We did get some nice mid-summer shake-n-bake in; I think we had 15 total minutes of wind in the whole time we were out.

Glad to see you finally got the mast down and can get that work done!!

Zen - It worked great! My fellow liveaboards met the idea with some skepticism at first. Later yesterday, after they'd helped with the mast lowering, they agreed that it went really well and easily, and was a good idea. :)

Fortis - The sling idea sounds like a good one, especially to get some extra lift if needed. I used a loose gasket made of line which slid up the mast and lodged under the tangs when I raised the ladder (which also helped keep the ladder from trying to fall into the drink). Turned out that it had too much extra slack in it - I would have had 18-24" of lift (which would have been plenty sufficient) if I'd made it tight, so that's what I'll do when I put the stick back up. I lost 12" or so of lift because of the slackness. Doh! :)

AFA the boom, good point, I should explain for others who might try this.

I gave it a good deal of thought prior to using it in this manner, here is what my consideration led to: The boom as I used it doesn't take much of a strain at all, since most of the forces involved are compressive on the ladder. Additionally, the ladder is leaned forward a bit, so that the guylines which run aft to the genoa cars are the ones which took up the strain when picking up the weight of the spar. I don't know how easily you can tell from the pic, but the load points on the boom (where the lines are tied off to, and the spots where the boom contacts the pulpit) are all only about 36" apart, and the boom extrusion itself is way overbuilt for this boat (Ariels carry the exact same rig as the Tritons, their older brothers which displace almost 50% more than the Ariels), so I thought it was well within the strength capability of the extrusion to handle what strain it did get. Last, I aligned the boom extrusion so that it would take any load from the lines in a direction in which the boom cross section was strongest, and, at the points where the boom contacts the pulpit, there is a layer of padding to spread any point load.

Hope some of that makes sense. :) I'd be careful and a little more reluctant if using a boom from a newer boat in this manner, since more modern rigs are made so much lighter than these 40 year old components. (In fact, one of the selling points of the Ariel to me was that the rig is so oversized, being basically a transplant from a ~50% larger boat. Pearson's expediency of that time is something I much appreciate - I've read of many cruisers who, before embarking on long journeys, oversize their rigging. On Ariels, that particular detail has already been done for you, at the factory no less... ;) )

I will be using the ladder crane to rehoist the mast when I get to that point.

John - Ouch! Been there, got that tshirt. :) Be sure to take a good look at your mast, checking to see if the force which bent the spreader base down was enough to have caused it to dimple the mast. My CP23 had a problem like that, I wound up installing a socket with a larger base, figuring that it would put stress out beyond the dimpled point when under load.

OK-  I am impressed!!  You boys are pretty darn smart on this site. 
What a clever process CapnK.  Amazing what we can come up with when we chose to be frugal.   :D
Looking forward to progress reports.  Molly looked like she was overseeing the whole project and was comfortable with lying under the ladder.   :)

Last Sunday I was, as ever, contemplating the boat, and more specifically, my interior and overall plans for the boat.

When I first dropped the mast and cut away the bulkhead a bit ago (pic below), I'd planned to construct and install a strongback straightaway. Gradually, as I tried to come up with what would (for me) be the 'bestmost' way to do that, I realized that I needed to give more thought to the overall interior before making the strongback, since it will all be tied together. Everything in these boats adds to or takes away from everything else, I know. So I've held off on the strongback while I figured out my overall plan, which was close to being fully conceived, but not quite.

(http://sailfar.net/images/IMG_4199_web.JPG)

One thing I will do which quite literally will tie the exterior rigging into the interior plans is to go to hull-mounted chainplates. I want them to be easily inspect-able and maintainable from the inside of the boat as well as the outside. Since interior stuff will be all around (and maybe over) the attachment points, I knew I had to finish my interior concept and place them within it before constructing anything.

SO... that leads to last Sunday, and interior thoughts, which I'll get to after another bit I want to add in here real quick...

A couple of weeks ago I got in touch with James Baldwin, 2-time circumnavigator aboard the Triton "Atom" (http://www.atomvoyages.com"). He's a really nice guy. I spoke with him about his voyages, boat, collisions, and unsinkability. I told him of all my plans regarding my construction with the ultimate goal of unsinkability, and he is of the opinion that it will all work. ( Kewl! :) ) Until last Sunday, though, my design was unbalanced. I had good lockers planned for everywhere but the port berth, which I plan to use as my primary place of rest.

The 'default' berth is just under the waterline, and keeping that area open in case of a hull breach would allow a huge space for water, taking away from flotation *and* balance, if the boat were flooded. It would also be a 'light' area of the boat, so I had to counterbalance it with a near-equally empty area in the v-berth to control heeling. Not very efficient, and efficiency is an important consideration for what I am trying to do. I need to use every possible part of the boat.

Quick mention of 2 other "wishes" I've had for the boat: a dinette w/table (for comfort and usability, a la "Braveheart" (http://pearsonariel.org/discussion/showthread.php?t=531")), and an interior seat where I could see out the cabin deadlights when belowdecks.

I'd thought about the dinette a while back, but had pretty much decided that it was out. I plan to use the area under both cabin berths for water tankage (bladders) and flotation, so I didn't want to cut part of that out for the footroom needed if there was a dinette.

As far as the seat, I thought I might be able to, at some point in time, add a mount somewhere for a pedestal seat, like those you see on a bass boat. Maybe not the best solution, but a possibility...

I hadn't considered either of these in quite a long time.

But the brain works in mysterious ways, and that leads (at last) to last Sunday, when I realized I might be able to have a dinette *on top of* the current port berth, a dinette which would also convert into a berth. By making it to the height of the current counter top, it would be plenty long enough for sleeping, would give me storage underneath the ends *and* a footwell, without the need to get into the area where my water tanks and flotation will be. Eureka! ;)

I tossed the idea around in my head this past week, and did some measuring. It seemed like it would work, so yesterday I got busy and slapped together a proof-of-concept dinette/berth. I disassembled the proof-of-concept v-berth storage bins :), and used those pieces to make up a not-pretty, but working, version of the dinette idea.

It is great! :) Sitting at it, the view out the deadlights is perfect, and there is enough room for 2 people to sit across from each other comfortably (if not expansively). I had my dock neighbor, who is 6' 1" tall, try it out, and there was plenty of headroom for him.

The 'table' part drops down between the seats to make a normal Ariel-length single berth (which has a more-level view out the companionway). I did sit up a bit quickly this morning and hit my head on the underside of the sidedeck (not too hard, though, thankfully), but I imagine that I'll learn not to do that pretty quickly. ;)

Right now this is just roughed in, but it works. I have a bunch of ideas to make it much more polished in its final form (fiddles for the table, folding seatback for the after seat, etc...). It helps solve a few problems, and gives me those 'wishes'. The storage underneath the ends allows me to balance the boat better, and will provide more closed space which can be sealed against H2O ingress to add to the overall flotation. I have the table hung from the overhead at it's outer end for support, instead of from
underneath as was done on "Braveheart", and I'll probably keep that element of the design.

Enough babbling, here are some pictures:

(http://sailfar.net/images/IMG_4239.JPG)

(http://sailfar.net/images/IMG_4241.JPG)

Good place for chartwork, too, right?  As I recall, your boat did not have a 'chart table.'

Very cool, Kurt.  Keep the ideas and solutions coming and keep 'em Creative Commons, too.  I'm soaking it all up for the future!

;D

Quote
Very cool, Kurt.  Keep the ideas and solutions coming and keep 'em Creative Commons, too.  I'm soaking it all up for the future!

Too late Captain Smollett!   ;D  Kurt already copyrighted and patented all of his ideas, thoughts and works!  ::)

Actually Kurt, it looks like you have a good thing going on in there!

(We need a whistling and a "high five" smileys here!)



Edit by Captain Smollett: fixed quote tag

Gotta love the 'open concept'.....looks WAY bigger!!  Keep the pics coming as it progress's

Kurt,

  Man, I REALLY like the idea of the dinette, and the execution is great (maintaining the settee).

  I can not do that on board Faith, as I need both berths for my queen berth.

  Couple questions;

How does using the counter top as a foot well affect it's use as the galley?  I know you don't stow stuff there any more (I am still using your old teak organizer, thanks again) but what about the stove?  Will there be a cushion that fits the berth, and if so, where will it go when you are making dinner?

  How do you think the comfort of the berth will be being higher from the center of roll?  Do you think being up higher will make a difference?

  I hope your mock up checks out, it must be really nice to look out the cabin windows sitting below.  ;D  (There is a Pearson 300 in my marina, it has a dinette that allows you to look out the cabin windows, I have always admired that about that boat).

John - Actually, I am suing a guy down the dock who *stole* my idea of storing a bicycle on deck as a deterrent to thieves. The gall of some people!!!

I told him he could use my intellectual property if he paid me a mere $15 month (that's *only* $0.50 per day!). However, he went ahead and used my ideas without paying (he said other people did it before I did - pfft), so after he ignored my Cease and Desist letter, we started the court case.





::) ;D Of course, I am kidding. But it's not too far-fetched, these days. ;)

Anyway, yep, it's a chart table, too, although I'll also have plenty of big flat areas for that on top of the many lockers.

Quote from: s/v Faith on December 03, 2006, 10:54:27 PM
How does using the counter top as a foot well affect it's use as the galley?  I know you don't stow stuff there any more (I am still using your old teak organizer, thanks again) but what about the stove?  Will there be a cushion that fits the berth, and if so, where will it go when you are making dinner?

  How do you think the comfort of the berth will be being higher from the center of roll?  Do you think being up higher will make a difference?

Craig - I'm think that, kind of like in 'Braveheart', I will be moving my sink over to starboard, where even now most of my galley work is done. I want to move the sink because I am also (pretty sure about this) going to remove most of the stairs/counter under the c'way, replacing them with a retractable ladder, or one mounted to the side. I drew it up that way on one of my posts on the Ariel site, you might remember it (Edit: I did the dinette-adding to this pic last week... :) ):

(http://sailfar.net/images/interior_bw1.jpg)

And ladder up:

(http://sailfar.net/images/interior_bw2.jpg)

Being higher seems to make a little difference, but not that much - the top of this new berth is (only) 13.5" above the old one, maybe 8" above the at-rest waterline. I don't think it'd work as a good sea berth, without some substantial lee cloths. ;)

I'm actually planning to make a removable canvas cot-style 'hammock' that will mount low and in the middle of the boat for my sea berth (on bars that attach to the cabinets either side). This idea came to me because in almost every sea tale involving small boats and big storms, the people in it wind up sleeping on the cabin sole. So I thought it might be a good idea to go ahead and have a slightly more comfortable accommodation for that eventuality. :D

Quote from: Frank on December 03, 2006, 09:25:59 PM
Gotta love the 'open concept'.....looks WAY bigger!!  Keep the pics coming as it progress's

Frank - it feels a lot bigger! :D I dig it. 8) Will do on the pics, whenever I have anything of significance to show.

As SOON as I saw your reply, before I read it.... I remembered the galley being on the starboard side (insert sound of slapping forehead here).   ;D

 Yes, I think that would work out quite nicely.  I really do like this set up, and it also addresses another problem that you never really hear much about but that I have experienced / thought about.

 You are at anchor, waiting on a wx window to make a passage... it is raining.... you have been there for 2, 3, 4, days.... I think sitting at a table playing cards beats the heck out of laying around in a berth all day.  Or better yet, the ability to go back and forth between the two.

Good Ideas. Looks the my Islander arrangment.

I wish I had thought of that when I had my Airel.  :'(

The port-side dinette remains, is in use daily, and is quite the cats meow, and so has earned a keeper-spot in the final plan. It is sleep-able, but - a couple weeks experience have shown that it is rather nicer to have a horizontal pad which doesn't need setting up when the eyes get droopy.

This, with mulling over flotation equations, and fiddling with the interior, took me down other lanes of thought, so 'tis the v-berth where I have been sleeping, and will do so when not at sea.

I slept on 4" thick cushions on top of 11" high plastic storage bins placed in the v-berth area while I tried this theory out. Worked well, except the side-deck has too much proximity when one is lying on their, well, side. A few days ago I quicky-built in a berth at an 8" height, and that has proven much more comfy, so the entire v-berth area will be elevated approx. 8" above the original level when finished. Under the cushions will be lockers with gasketed, sealable lids. Going with the center pole for mast support.

Starboard side hanging locker is coming out, and the whole counter and cabinetry along there will be shifted forward into that space. One of the buggers which has been plaguing me is what to do with the space in the extreme aft corners of the settee area. Hard to get to, tucked under the side deck and forward cockpit seat corner. Have been planning on removing the under-companionway stairs and sink, opening that area up and as noted before in this too-long thread, using a ladder for access to/from deck. Another bugger has been the porta-potti, which I plan to keep in lieu of a head and the associated plumbing. So.... I'm going to try for a small enclosed head/hanging wet locker to starboard of the companionway, potti on a slide out-shelf. If they can do it in a Flicka... ;)

Here's a drawing to help visualize some of this.

(http://sailfar.net/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/normal_interior_base2_web.jpg)

Here's more-or-less where I'll be putting foam and sealed lockers in order to make this boat float in case the sea gets in. Blue lines represent 1" thick foam panels with luan plywood skins, skinned and tabbed in with glass to seal it all completely. Solid blue areas will be solid foam, glassed in. Anchor locker is getting split in two horizontally, the area where the rode will lie will be sealed off from the boats interior, and will drain directly overboard a la Geoff's "Uhuru" (http://pearsonariel.org/discussion/showthread.php?t=325) and Frank/Adam/Howards #50 (http://pearsonariel.org/discussion/showthread.php?t=1239).

I'll be reducing the area where water can lie within the boat, nearly filling all bilge areas and sump with foam - my thinking is that if there is seawater aboard, I wanna know about it, and get it overboard. Also, less space for seawater means more space for floaty foam.

Same for under-bunk/locker areas; basically, wherever there is a V formed against the hull, I'll put a foam floor in to make the bottom level at least partly.

Also, I have been playing with 3" thick piece of test foam directly against the hull, seeing how much *usable* area I lose with that thickness. It ain't much. If I can go with 3" thick from the stringer down, all the way through the boat, that will give me 48cu/ft of the the estimated 55-60cu/ft needed to float the boat if she gets holed.

(http://sailfar.net/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/normal_ariel_line2a_web.jpg)

CapnK-

While the idea of positive floatation is a good one...just make sure that the foam isn't going to be part of the problem in the case of a holing.  If you can't get the foam out of the way and get to where the actual hole is, then patching it or sealing it, even temporarily, is going to be a problem. 

uhmmm,  Can I point out one small thing?

The thing about foam is that they float as you correctly surmised.

However, where you have them located may be less than ideal.

Of course if your intention is to have the boat float upside down, well then I'll leave it at that.

But I would suggest you locate the foams as high on the boat as possible, not on the bottom of the boat.  This way it would do you more good, contribute to positive stability and in general keep the boat more or less upright.

QuoteThe thing about foam is that they float as you correctly surmised.

However, where you have them located may be less than ideal.

Of course if your intention is to have the boat float upside down, well then I'll leave it at that.

  I don't think this is really an issue... There is still over #2500 lower then all but the very bottom of the foam in the bilge.  She might be a little less stable, but with a D/L that is in the range of 'a very heavy displacement cruiser' I think she will be ok.

:)

More explanation - I've tried to think of most everything, so I appreciate this back and forth. :):

Most likely, due to the surface areas covered, a hole poked in the hull will be inside of one or even several of the lockers. In that case, it/they will be able to be dogged down until an outside repair/plugging can be effected. If the leak is constrained to that area, unless there were vital supplies in there, it could be left alone until port was made. If the hole is above the stringer, then changing tacks will raise it from the water and make it more accessible for repair.

I spoke with James Baldwin about damage to the hull of his Triton "Atom" when he struck a large tree, and again later a motionless fishing boat while he sailed along at near hull speed. He said he was very impressed by the strength of the hull, by how little damage actually occurred. The Ariel has, in essence, the same hull. If something penetrates that, it will still have to poke through 3" of foam and another skin of glass to make it all the way to the interior. I'll have plenty of substrate to attach a quick patch to, also. I think it'll be alright. It just needs to buy me the time needed to get some kind fo fix on it, just well enough to make port somewhere, working on it on the way there if need be.

------------

Just because there is foam inside won't make her any less stable or more tippy than if she had wood, stone, or lead inside, instead of foam (if it is the same amount of weight of whatever material, it wouldn't matter). Though I am replacing wood from inside with foam, and that foam *is* lighter, she'll be loaded for cruising, so any inadvertent overall lightening of the boat will be a wash anyway, I think.

AFA her remaining upside down, you have to sort of keep the above in mind; until she is pretty much full of water, the interior foam will have no affect, even if she is rolling over and over (Heavens forbid... ;) ). The foam and lockers won't be able to have an effect on her flotation until she floods.

The ballast in an Ariel is 2,300# of lead. Poke that up into the air any appreciable distance, and it is gonna want to fall over, rotating around the fore/aft axis of the CG. This boat has an 8' (max) beam, 25' of length, and her ends are drawn in nicely - so she's not a stable shape upside down. I think the only way you could get the boat to remain upside down would be to catastrophically and thoroughly flood it at the exact moment it was perfectly upside down. (Heavens forbid *that*, too! :D ) Then you'd have to hold it pretty still, I bet. ;D At any rate, I will take steps to keep that from being able to happen - storm shutters on the deadlights, bluewater-worthy forehatch, etc... - so I think the odds of it are pretty low. If it happens, well, it must just be my time to go Home, and there isn't much I can do about that. ;)

It is more with a 'common' sinking scenario in mind that I'm designing this 'system': she gets holed to the point that water starts flooding the hull. Filling from below/near the waterline, she'll settle as she takes on water. Any water which does get into the open interior (ie; past a sealed locker) will be constrained to the narrow 'well' in the middle of the cabin, which will keep it from being able to slosh across the entire boat, making her rolly. The 'well' is 3'+ deep, I will have an accurate idea of how much water volume that is soon, but just looking I would say it is +/- 200 gallons. I will also be able to put at least one baffle into place in the well to help restrict fore and aft water movement. She will be able to take less water on that a similar boat, and, until there is quite a lot of water, it will be able to be controlled to a large degree.

If the foam were placed higher, say just under the deck, then the deck would be awash when she stopped sinking, making it nearly impossible, if not plain impossible, to bail her out at sea. I am trying to make it to where she will float with a slight freeboard, probably about 10-12". If conditions are just hellacious when she gets to that point, I'll just have to hang on until conditions get better, then start drying her out. (Man, that would be ***scary***!)

Since I will have little area for water to be inside the boat without it becoming very obvious, I will be able to be proactive towards getting it out as soon as it starts to come in - ie; no "Oh Sheet - the floorboards are floating!!!' moments. By then, it might already be too late.

Last will be a macking big manual bilge pump - a Whale Gusher 10 (17gpm @ 70 strokes/minute), minimum, though I'll give a hard look at the 30 (31gpm @ 70, 2 chambers) if I hit the lotto between now and when I put it in... ;D

Speaking of holes - have any of y'all ever seen the idea for what is basically an umbrella to patch a hole with? You stick it through the hole into the water outside the boat, open it, and let water pressure push it back against the hole, sealing it off. Can't recall where I have seen/read that, if it was real or just an idea somewhere... Might even be from a scifi novel, since it would work the same in space... ;D

Tristan jones, and (i think) in Hal Roth's ??? books.  I know for sure it was in Tristan Jones 'One hand for yourself, one hand for your ship'.

I think you would want the handle out in space though...  ;D

I'll buy that, but for some strange reason, I'm very uncomfortable with the idea of filling all the bilge and sump areas with foam.

Part of that I guess is the memories of removing rotten waterlogged foams from other boats and part of it is having water everywhere except the bilge where it will be much harder to pump/bail out.

Proper checking of the bilge is part of good seamanship anyway and should be done at least daily while underway.  Beside which, if I do have a leak, I want the water in a deep bilge and not on the sole where it can do more damage to the various wood bits up there.

If you do get holed, well it should be pretty obvious to you that you hit something and you should check it out anyway instead of letting it "catch you by surprise"!  If you cannot tell that you have hit something while sailing at "full speed", you shouldn't be sailing or even be out on the water in the first place except as a guest of a competence sailor.  (Somehow I don't think this apply to you!)

As to being able to tell if you hit something or not, it can be pretty hard to tell sometime when in rough seas and the waves slapping on your hull tend to sound/feel like something hit your boat, but in time you'll be able to tell the difference.  It help to listen to the boat.

I guess it's because I've dealt with so many "DPOs" "work/repair/modifications/upgrades" that I tend to take the viewpoint of "keeping it simple".

If it was me, I would just forget the whole idea of using foam as you proposed, instead I would address your concerns.

One, I would have collapsed heavy gauge bags on the overhead of the V-berth, lockers et al connected to a manually operated medium sized tank of compressed air or CO2 thats easily reachable from the cockpit area to keep the boat afloat in case of a potential sinking. test it once to make sure it work and the tank is big enough to fill them all, then use a vacuum cleaner to re-collapse the bag ("repacking") and refill the tank.  Use this in combination with "watertight" lockers and bulkheads.

Two, I would use "removable foam panels" to cover the areas that need insulating to keep the boat comfy and prevent/reduce dew condensation on the hull.

If you do get holed, those "umbrella" plugs you referred to may work if there is enough loose 'fabric" on the edges to cling to the hull.  The thing about using "plugs" and "hull cloth" (typically sails, a good reason for keeping that old sail on board) is that they don't really stop the leak, but rather they slow the leak down enough so the pump(s)/bailer can easily keep up with water removal and give you a breather and time to deal with all the other things that's happening at the same time.  "Holing" your hull is actually a pretty rare occurrence though.  Yes it does happen, but not as often as one might think.

BTW, If you do get/use those "umbrella" plugs, make sure the handle part is strong and has a hook or eye on it so you can tie it off to something inside, water pressure is not going to be enough to hold it in place.

Your best bet is to have a properly equipped life boat and a grab bag to put in it for when the worst happen. (Another whole subject.) Because if your boat does somehow get filled with water, even if it's still on the surface of the water, it's gonna be miserable, thus the need for the life raft/boat (a good reason to choose your dinghy carefully).

Bottom line, considering the displacement of your boat, the foam is not going to help as much as you might think and will just make it worst later on.

It sounds like a good idea on paper, but in reality, it's not IMHO.

The other problem with having the foam up high is that it would be shifting the CG upwards, which will affect capsize stability, and that is probably more detrimental than having it down low, where it won't come in to play until the cabin sole is awash.  Also, didn't realize you were glassing over the foam in place, as it sounds from your description.  That basically makes each of the foam areas a crash bulkhead of a sort.  With the foam down low, it will be much more likely that the boat will be sailable in the case of a hull puncture. 

My only question is whether you will have sufficient buoyancy to prevent the keel from sinking you.  Seawater weighs roughly 64 lbs. per cubic foot.  You have to compensate for 2300 lbs. of keel... which means you need about 36 cubic feet of foam. 

Kurt,

  I was thinking about this while working on Faith today. 

  The area under the cockpit might be used for two purposes.  What if instead of foam, you bought a much larger water bladder then you would ever want to fill up.

You can not put more then a hundred pounds or so here (although the Atomic 4 was much heavier).... but what if you had a great big watter bladder... say like the size of an old water bed.

  Let's say you had the standard drain at the bottom, and fill and vent lines at the top.  Fit a valve to the fill and vent lines, and fill the bladder with the water you wanted to carry here (lets say 20 gallons).  You then inflate the remainder of the bladder to completely fill this space.  That should gain you the last few cubic feet you need to keep the deck above water.

  You would have to make this space friendly to a bladder, but I do not think it would take too much.  Some one might split hairs and talk about the effect of the water moving back and forth (slosh) with the movements of the boat.  I doubt that will be a big issue anyway, since the space is confined by both of the cockpit liners (it will be kept in the area directly under the sole).

  Even if you elect not to do this, you could use the same method on the bladder you are planning to put under the settee's.

  Just a thought...

 

Also;

Adrift said;

QuoteSeawater weighs roughly 64 lbs. per cubic foot.

  This would really only matter if you were trying to lift the water above the level of the surrounding water (which would not be the case in a flotation situation).

 

Good stuff here... much food for thought.

Doug - oh ye of little faith... ;) There is much unsaid in what I have posted, I have put well over a year of thought and research into all this, & it's hard to relate all that thru this medium. I think most of the background discussion was in other threads earlier this year when you weren't around as much.

The whole point of this is to *not* have to carry a 'drift-around-and-hope-to-be-rescued liferaft'. This concept is called "boat as a liferaft". If my boat sinks and I jump into a rubber tube raft, I have only that raft and whatever is in the ditch bag to subsist upon until Fate determines whether I get rescued or die a long, slow death adrift. I will not be carrying an EPIRB - I would not ask anyone to risk their life because of *my* choices.

OTOH, if I can construct my boat so that it will only sink *some*, then I have everything on/in the boat to help me to survive, repair the boat to some level of functionality, and hopefully get myself to land in a manner not at the whim of wind or current.

More info on the thinking behind this: see Adrift (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0618257322?ie=UTF8&tag=sailfarnet-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0618257322).

Some of your points: The solid foam areas aren't that large, they are in the very V parts of the hull, basically small, unusable space. Prior to foam going into any area which will be under long-term hydrostatic pressure, I will coat well that area of the hull with epoxy resin, since it is the most impermeable of resins. Foam then put into these areas will be all-epoxy coated on all sides. I will use polyester only on the parts that aren't subject to osmosis.

There won't be much wood down where any water would lie inside the boat (won't be much wood in the boat, period - maybe just veneers for appearance), and any that is will be sealed with epoxy. AFA a bilge - the current bilge in this boat will hold 5 gallons, easily - probably more like 10+. That is too much. In the after part of the bilge area, I will have one narrow deep sump, with an electric pump and float switch installed. Any trivial amounts of water will go there and be pumped over. More than that amount of water in my boat? I want to see it *right away*, so I can determine where and why it is there, and take the steps ASAP to see that it stops inviting itself in. Why hide 10 gallons of water below the sole instead of 1 gallon? That doesn't make sense to me.

Foam already in place cannot fail, there is nothing to break that would keep it from serving their intended purpose. Sealable lockers are, in essence, rigid, pre-inflated bags. Collapsible airbags can have/develop holes, must be secured to the bottom of the boat well enough to support it w/out ripping the deck off, they would limit your ability to get around the boat interior and may even block you from the area needing repair. Then there are air tanks and hoses, systems and components which can leak or just plain fail. Foam is KISS. BTW - I mentioned I have thought long and researched this well: if I were going with bags, I would go with the Aussie Turtle line, they seem like the best (that's not the proper name for them, they are in another thread on the board somewhere that I posted about them).

The umbrella plug thing was just a humorous afterthought, I have not given them much consideration beyond that post. :)

Adrift - yep, something would have to poke *really* far into the boat to make it to the cabin in most places. There will be some areas with 'thinner skin', but not many, and those are mostly aft of the wide point of the hull. Access to almost all lockers will be through the top, gasketed lid, which will be able to be dogged down tight against the gasket with a quick fastener and hand tool (same fastener for all lids throughout the boat, fasteners and tool to insert them stay in a bag by the companionway).

AFA amount of buoyancy - I will strive for an excess of that needed to float decks awash when the boat is loaded for cruising. :) I am hoping to have the lions share of that be simple foam, and let the watertight locker space push me well over what is needed.

Craig - I was only planning on foam in the far after part that is so hard to get to. I was planning on the forward area being stowage, but maybe a waterbed bladder that could be partly filled with "emergency" (or "last resort') water for long crossings... Hmm, good thought.

BTW - I need to talk with you about sink and cockpit drain design, an Idea you might like/be able to use on Faith...

QuoteBTW - I need to talk with you about sink and cockpit drain design, an Idea you might like/be able to use on Faith...

  Timely.  Was talking about this yesterday.  I have bought a new marlon seacock for my haulout planned for 2 weeks from now........ 

  Was thinking about running just the sink drain to the seacock, and running the draiuns aft ala Ebb....  I really appreciate his desire to have no holes below the static waterline and would like to reduce the number myself.

I dunno, for some reasons I am still uncomfortable with this concept, but I understand what you are trying to do though so I will support your efforts here.

I looked at http://www.pearsonariel.org/document/Fact1.htm and it gives the displacement of the Ariel at 5120# which translate to 80CF of air needed to keep the boat on the surface of the water.  A little more is needed to get it high enough so you can bail the boat out once the "leak" is repaired. And of course you have to account for the "cargo" you're carrying!

A note on the foam, what kind of foam are you planning to use?  I ask because the most common foam people seem to think of are the "foam in a can", not realizing the foam it produce are of the "open cell" kind, meaning it is easily water logged (like a sponge).  So a lot of care is needed here.  I realize you intend to close off the foamed areas, but still...  Probably better to use a "closed cell" foam, like Styrofoam.  Styrofoam has it's own set of problems though.

Another thing to realize is that one CF of foam is not equal to one CF of air, so while one CF of air can support 64# in salt water, one CF of foam will not.  The exact amount needed varies depending on the type of foam used.  So you need to add the weight of the foam to the flotation calculations.  And yes, foams, even of the same type, comes in different weights.

Lot more thinking and research needed here (by me mainly) although I realize you have already put a lot of thought and research into this.

I tried to google this, but there's too much information to wade though in the few minutes needed on this post.

I seems to recall someone already tried "the boat as a life raft" concept a few years ago to do the same thing you are doing, but I'm not able to find it via google (granted, I only spend about fifteen minutes looking).  Not sure what the end result was though.

I'll follow this with interest!  ;D

Don't laugh, but I've been thinking of filling the keel void with a slurry of foam and ping pong balls.

You can get ping pong balls on ebay for $15  a gross.

You may resume laughing now.

Quote from: Cmdr Pete on January 03, 2007, 08:23:40 AM
Don't laugh, but I've been thinking of filling the keel void with a slurry of foam and ping pong balls.

No laughing here.

When I was in school (Webb Institute, Bachelors of Science Naval Architecture & Marine Engineering '82), I recall an exercise calculating the strength of ping pong balls and the bouyant efficiency. IIRC, some salvors pump ping pong balls through large diameter hose to raise sunken boats and ships.

I wouldn't doubt that ping pong balls are a good way of adding buoyancy that can conform to strange shapes fairly well. The only disadvantage of ping pong balls, that I can see, is that many foams are more resilient to crushing damage and will rebound more successfully than would ping pong balls.

there is always the inflatable plug. Based on something used by plumbers that need to seal off lines running form the main to the house BEFORE the meter tap.
The plug looks like a deflated condom of VERY heavy armoured rubber (so not exactly ultra thin for full sensation), there is a hose and a pump. The thing gets shoved up a pipe Or allowed to flow down) and then inflated. It forms a very tight seal and has the strength to be inlfated in a hole made of shattered glass.

I often thought the larger of the two (for 3inch to 7inch pipes) might be a usefull thing to throw into the emergency bag of the boat. It has the advantage over traditional wooden plugs that you can manuevre it into some tight spaces and angles before inflating, and once inflated it holds on form both the inside and outside of the hull.

Sadly they are a little pricey (about $250-400 for the size I mentioned with variations based on pumps or co2 bottle).


If I had to do a boat-float idea, I would probably slit the centre of the inflatable dinghy floor, swim under the keel and thread the keel (yay for fin keels) through the slit and then tie on some line and inflate the dinghy! At least it is lift in the best place for it.

failing that, about four water-bed mattresses stored away small and then inlfated in a great hurry with the powered air blower we use on the dinghy and the reverse cycle 12volt vaccuum cleaner that lives on board, just inflated any old way inside the centre area of the vabin seem like a good notion.

I would not worry much about earlier comments of the boat would float vertically nose down like the titanic or something....The lead in the keel will do wonders for which bits point downwards...as long as the keel isn't what has fallen off and left a big hole. (A barnd new superyacht called Excaliber was lost that way off the coast of Australia a few years ago. Turns out the stainless steel super alloy that formed the foil of the keel got a tiny little almost impossible to see graze form an angle grinder not running stainless cutting disks during construction. Less then 6 months later the foil failed in that scatch line. I do not think I want a boat that tender...however super it might be.



Alex.

Kurt,
On the Atom website they go into detail about building watertight bulkheads and lockers. Probably not alot more money than trying to add secondary flotation. Just more labor. http://www.atomvoyages.com/projects/UnsinkableBoat.htm

I'll be building what I've been jokingly referring to as a "Water Closet" - a combination tiny head area (Porta Potti), hanging wet locker, and 'utility room' of sorts, next to the companionway. Here's a visual to give you an idea of what I am planning, more or less (stunningly rendered, isn't it? ;) ). I'll be using the flair in the wall (at the base of the companionway opening) as a high step for when I don't want to pull out the bottom hatchboard, and it also allows for a little more shoulder room when seated on the PP. Forward of the WC will be the galley. This isn't by any stretch the final design, but it is helping me to see what to do, and what it'll look like. :)

Cool,

  I really like the idea of having the locker near the companionway to keep from dragging wet foul wx gear all over.  I really like the rounded look, and you might as well use this space where you have full standing head room, rather then trying to cram it in forward like the other Alberg boats.

  I know your vision does not really include the use of the head underway, so the fact that I would not want to use it on a starboard tack really does not matter.....

  You really have some great ideas, I can't wait to see her when she is 'finished'*

  Sure glad your doing the radical stuff on the inside...  ;D



*_{Mythical state that boats in reality never reach.}

 Sarah S/V the Edge  is still alive and well.  I just got a PH Call from her.

She just Got back from Thieland.

The end is near!

The end of an extended stay at dockside for me and Katie... ;D

Went to the welders today, he will have my interior bulkhead-replacing custom aluminum tubing mast support finished next week. WOOT! It's the one piece I have been needing in order to get moving on the interior, and in order to put the spar back up and sail again...

It's being made of 1 & 7/8" tubing, with a wall thickness of ~5/32". It is replacing wooden beams of white oak, and so will be much stronger and stiffer. I'll post pics when I get it, with more details.

The new exterior chainplate material goes off to the shop tomorrow. I have decided to have someone who is set up for it do the cutting and drilling. The material is the same stock as what originally came on the Ariels (1.25" x 0.187"), but all the chainplates are longer, and they will be mounted externally on the hull, as opposed to thru-deck and to plywood knees. Additionally, I am going to a split-backstay arrangement, vs the stock single backstay. Below are a couple pics of the chainplate stock, marked for cutting and drilling. The uppers are 18" long, the lowers and backstay plates 12". There is one of the original chainplates in the pic for scale/comparison; IIRC, they were 8-9" long.

 ;D ;D ;D ;D

Gotta catch Frank and Adam!

;D ;D ;D ;D

Tubing is 1 & 7/8" OD thick wall. Flat parts are 1/4" thick. 3" wide piece of the flat stock across the top. Going to put 1-2" transverse ribs just fore and aft of it on the overhead. The lower 2' of the verticals are thru-bolted to the main bulkhead. Outboard of the ends will be knee-like structures to serve as stiffeners for the cabin trunk and sidedecks in that area. Think I'll wind up having a wide-based tabernacle built by the same guy, that will be thru-bolted outside of the ribs, base plate around 9"x12-20". It should be really strong, and I won't have added either too much weight at all, considering the amount of white oak, plywood, and bronze screws I've removed. ;)

Very nice.....totally open, it will seem much larger below and ventilation will seem better.Pretty fancy engineering....couldn't of been too hung over that day :o  Must be getting excited to see an idea come to life...keep at it.

Quote from: Frank on October 13, 2008, 08:37:01 PM
....couldn't of been too hung over that day :o 

Maybe CapnK. just bumped his head one too many times ;)

Looks great, you guys are really making me feel bad. Hopefully one more week of getting things settled and I can get to work on a regular basis.

Nice touch capt k

You engineering types amaze me!

BTW - any word of late from, Sarah, S/V the Edge ?

It came out of nowhere. Winds were sustained at 40 or better, gusts to 60, there were honest 4+ foot waves running thru the marina. I did what I could, which wasn't much, then after a while said The Prayer:

QuoteLord, I ain't much of a praying man, and You know that, but if it'd be yer will, I'd sure appreciate it if this mess would lay down some, and soon...

Then I packed up what I could grab that would be essential to making some money to start over, and got off the boat.

Somebody heard me, and it laid down shortly thereafter, and Katie still floats. The end of the dock is broken into 3 pieces, I'll get pics later.

It was pretty much a bad experience from start to finish, but once again I was amazed at how well Katie took the waves on her stern quarter in some nasty, nasty conditions, gettin thrown up and down 4-5 feet at a time, snatched back and forth by the dock, and she still didn't ship any water over the stern.

darn this boat is a good 'un. I'm sure glad she's still here. :)

I'm happy your still here also, I've been there I know how hard it is to abandon ship. Its been shown time and time again what these boats can endure, so getting yourself to a safe place and not being tossed around the inside is the best thing. The boat can be replaced you can't.

It is amazing how much confidence these little ships can inspire...

...even just sitting at the dock.   ;D

  What did the crew dogs think about all of this?

CrewDogs were asleepin' in the car, far from the scene. :) I put them up there whenever we have stormy weather, so they can sleep dry, and in case it gets bad, like last night. Here's a couple of shots I took last night.

My dock. Or what used to be...
(http://sailfar.net/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/Sept2010storm02.jpg)

My finger pier at the t-head. You can see that it is displaced laterally a few feet. This is about 10 feet *less* than where it was at in the thick of things. Glad I tie my windsurfer to the dockbox! Didn't lose it, or any of the sails, because the wind flipped it over on top of them. Both my banana trees made it through. I just now realized that, among other things like fishing rods and tackle box, my fancy nice dock chair is missing - darn. Watched a lot of sunsets from that thing!
(http://sailfar.net/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/Sept2010storm01.jpg)

Forgot to add: we looked at the closest buoy report last night. At the time of the storm, the seas were something like 14ft with a 7.5sec period. Beyond square, rectangular even...

WOW!  :o

  Man, I am glad the chair / poles are the only loss you had.  No mention of the boat that provoked Katie to attack it before.. I notice it does not appear in the picture...

  ... did your girl happen to have another go at her?  ;D  Might look for lines pointing straight down in the slip next door.  ;)

  It is one thing to say there was some rough wx in the slip... but those pictures are really something!

Glad you, the crew, and your little ship came though ok.

Wow- that first pic is right where we were sitting those nights you consumed those bottles of rum  ::) ;) Right in front of where Tehani was moored!!!

Glad nothing but docks got smashed. Sorry about your deck chair too.

 :o :o :o :o :o :o :o

Ah man, I am glad it wasn't worse!

I'll bet you wish you had some hyped-up prior notice from the media, eh!

(Sorry Capt. Smollett I couldn't resist  ;D)

Took these this evening. I think the decision has been made that instead of rebuilding, they are just going to amputate the last 100 feet or so of this dock. This includes the (in)famous D-dock Bar and Grill.

:'(

We may have only had one season, but at least we did it right!  ;D
{/me hoists a cold foamy to the memories...}

(http://sailfar.net/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/Sept2010storm003.jpg)

(http://sailfar.net/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/Sept2010storm004.jpg)

(http://sailfar.net/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/Sept2010storm005.jpg)

(http://sailfar.net/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/Sept2010storm006.jpg)

And another for the salty tears  :'(

We ended up not getting much wind (a few mid-30's gusts this morning), but mega rain.

Over 10" were recorded in some stations today.

My cockpit drains got plugged up sometime today, and I had to bail/pump for 5-10 minutes each hour.

Finally seems to have passed us...

Good luck on relocating the D Dock B&G, Kurt.

I'm out of dry socks.

Glad you, the crew dogs and Katie are OK. Sounds like a wild ride.     Hope things get back in shape soon for ya. Take care

Glad you're ok Capt.  Glad Molly and Buffett got the safe seats for the event and KM took it in stride.  Let us not over look the sparing of the banana trees.  There is a good yarn in your words just a waitin'.

Katie now has the NEWEST of sailing innovations - the Reverse Open Cockpit!

..and...

 :P

Quick!

  Grab him men!  The good captain has gotten into some bad rum and is quite off his rocker!

Wow!

I'm not terribly shy about cutting into my boat (other marina dwellers think I'm nuts...but I'm a tinkerer by nature); but I think I would think really hard before doing that. Especially if she is still afloat. Good luck. I'm truly curious at the improvements that surgery is going to produce.

A doggie door maybe? ;D ;D

Oh, I've been pondering this one, lookin' and thinkin' on it prior to cuttin', for over a year now. I'm bringing the bridgedeck that much further aft, about 14", to accomplish 2 things:

• Decrease the amount of water the Ariel can/will hold in that ginormous footwell.
• Increase the width (the boats fore/aft dimension) of my aft athwartships berth directly below.

Additionally, you can see in pic 2 that the cockpit lockers are separated into distinct areas only by 2 pieces of pegboard which drop down vertically on the plane of the footwell walls. I am going to change the pegboard to a solid material, and make the space under the cockpit sole (an area about 2'x5'x1.5', or 15 cubic feet) accessible from the aft berth. Thus, should a sea board and fill the cockpit to the point of breaching the lockers, there is less space in them to hold water, less room for said water to move about (causing instability), and the area under the sole could also be made to act as a buoyancy chamber

I was wondering how much the cockpit well would intrude into that space you had talked about using by going aft up to the cockpit locker openings. Now I see that it isn't going to be a problem. You will also reduce the volume of the well, which will be good for offshore sailing. Quite a bold modification.  :)

Quote from: CharlieJ on April 13, 2014, 02:22:14 PM
A doggie door maybe? ;D ;D

LOL!  ;D

Quote from: CharlieJ on April 13, 2014, 02:22:14 PM
A doggie door maybe? ;D ;D

Here's how long and how much I have pondered this mod: I have actually given that quite a bit of contemplation, to the point that I have not ruled one out, although it would be for fair weather use only.. :)

Just a tiny bit bold - after all, R L Graham completely sealed his over and turned it into a bunk on the first Dove, referring to it as "the cave", using it as his seaberth.  :)

A visualization by way of explanation :)

I think it is a great plan.   8)

I was just looking at the photo below of the section of excess cockpit on the dock, and thinking...ah so that's how you eliminate those pesky thru-hulls... You've connected the cockpit scuppers to each other with a single piece of hose!  :D

Fillin in the hole has commenced...

I always found the hardest part to a project is stating. Cutting that big hole sure as heck got ya started!!!!   Have fun...keep the progress pics coming!!

I thought you might use the original forward bulkhead and just add to it.  Where will the new cockpit drAins go?

Is there  n opening port going in the frwRd bulkhead?

Draining out the back now. Going to add some sole, 2-3" up front, slanted back to 2x 2" drains straight out/back into motor well area. The board you see glassed in there now is 4" high.

Thinkin' and figgerin' on the port in rear bulkhead... It's nice to have that by the berth below, but if I do I will wanna make sure it tightens up real good against water flooding into the cabin.  :)

Because of work going longer than expected, planned, hoped, and wanted  ::), I missed Mario and his lovely mate today when they stopped in Gtown. :( I did get done with enough daylight to get the new cockpit sole sub-floor rough-cut out. 3x pieces of .75" EPS foam. Going to insert the pieces into the footwell and glue them together to form one large block, then remove it and shape it in the same manner that I used to do with surfboards in order to create a final shape with slope and drainage towards the rear (where the tiller base cutout is located). Then it goes back into the footwell to get glassed in place.

This is perhaps the most exciting photo to have ever been posted in a boat forum...

;D

On Edit - the next day:

I've been thinking on this modification for some time - years, in fact. Almost since seeing the results of the first rainfall onboard I have wanted to move the cockpit scuppers and drainage so it went aft, instead of forward as originally designed. So after years of tumbling about in me brain, and finally being at the point where thought is being realized as action, last night I had a bit of an epiphany after at last putting the raw materials I am working with in place.

I have always known that I would need to raise the forward end of the footwell to enable efficient drainage; there is a very slight but definite forward slope to the cockpit sole. So even until last night, despite thinking of probably hundreds of possibilities to accomplish the end goal, I had always envisioned it as a process of 1) building the sole up, and then 2) shaping it back down to achieve the desired result.

Last nights epiphany was how to achieve both goals in just one (more or less) step: shape the end result in from the beginning, by layering the foam differentially, thus allowing the last layer to define the end result, and this result being a drain solution which funneled the last dribs of water not to the edges of the sole, but to the middle, and thence aft.

So the end result will be 'low spots' shaped not so that they resemble what I have seen in almost every boat and been envisioning, a pattern that resembles a football goal post (down both edges, then over to center), but instead a Y pattern drainage, both forward corners and the edges draining at an angle aft and down to the center. Eureka. :)

...some time later...

Idea roughly implemented. Bring on the rain, let's see how she works. :)