Countin' Our Pennies

We've hit an interesting snag in our plans for retirement.  Due to unforeseen circumstances our boat projects will have to be put on hold until after next January.  That is, IF we want to retire this year.  We could always opt to work another year or two.....NOT!  At this point in the game we'd much rather tighten our belts for a while and ditch this dog and pony show as fast as we can.  We have a short list of fairly expensive items that we need to get before taking off that include a single side band radio, life raft and security system (lights, bells, grenade launcher).  We're about half way into the water maker project and won't be able to proceed any further with that until we get the rest of the parts.  These things will have to wait until we get back on our feet next winter.

The good news is that we can carry on with what we already have.  There's two 140 watt solar panels in the shed waiting to be mounted.  Those could go up and replace the two 85's until we can get a frame built to mount all four.  I also still need to make permanent mounts for the dinghy cradle.  That's strictly labor and involves cutting holes in the cabin roof.  I've been putting that one off mostly due to fear.

Another project that can still move ahead is the Monitor Wind Vane.  The cost of a simple rebuild is still within our tightened budget.  I contacted the factory, Scanmar, about what I might need to get this thing mounted to my boat.  To my amazement they still had all the purchase info on the original owner, the guy I bought it from.  It's actually 28 years old but you'd never know just to look at it.  I mean, it's in really very good condition.  I think by the time I was 28 years old I was a physical disaster with multiple injuries and poor general health.  The factory dude said that the only installations they had done on Island Packet 420s had swing away mounts to retain access to the swim ladder.  Nice option but that costs about $2400.  Not an option for us.  They said for $100 they could design a mount for us.  Now we're talkin'.  They sent me an e-mail with all kinds of information but at the end they focused on the age of the wind vane.  They felt that at 28 it was beyond it's useful life and there was concern about crevice corrosion in critical areas.  They offered me a trade-in for $1000 off the price of a new one.  Uhm, thanks but that just puts me even deeper in the hole.

Armed with new information I decided to do a total restoration of the wind vane.  This involves a complete dismantling, cleanup, inspection and replacement of any damaged parts.  I'm already well into it.  I've found that all the rust and corrosion cleans up nicely using Flitz polish and plenty of elbow grease.  As I've taken things apart I have found some evidence of crevice corrosion in critical areas but I'll be able to replace those parts if necessary.  One of these areas is in the pendulum yoke.  The two bearing cups that
hold the bearings are cracked all the way through(see top photo at left).  This looks more like stress than crevice corrosion to me but nevertheless they still need to be replaced.  These are held in place with two small welds that can be ground out for removal.  The yoke (pendulum strut) itself, where it's welded to the post does have some crevice corrosion (bottom photo at left).  I can get replacement bearing cups for $16 and have them welded in locally.  The yoke is probably OK but I could also replace that for $430.  Have to really give that one some thought but at this point I don't think it's necessary since the corrosion appears to be just at the surface.  I'll weigh that against the expense of having the rings welded on before I make my final decision.  Mostly what I'm finding is original plastic shims and bushings that have disintegrated.  Small parts like snap rings have also broken through.  Restoring this thing is a lot of work but I'll know it through and through by the time I'm done.

 What's really sweet is that every single part is available from Scanmar and at decent prices.  I can do a rebuild at $432.88 which would replace all the necessary parts that are in bad shape.  I could add a strut guard to the frame for extra protection for an additional $165.  I could also do the deluxe rebuild which takes it even further with a replacement yoke, all new blocks and all new lines for an additional $792.50.  I can do a complete rebuild and basically have a brand new monitor for $1390.88 plus the $1500 I paid originally = $2890.38, so I'd still be ahead by $1600 and change.  But perhaps I'm getting a little carried away here.  Better opt for the basic rebuild for right now.  I think we can just barely swing that.  Even if we don't have a buncha dough I do have plenty of time so this one is worth taking on.

I've learned quite a bit about crevice corrosion since taking on this project.  It mostly occurs between two metals when moisture is introduced and becomes trapped and oxygen starved.  The areas around the yoke were beneath a washer so that accounts for the corrosion.  This can happen in welds too.  An example that I read about in an even worse place is the stuffing box for a propeller shaft.  The packing is supposed to be tightened around the shaft so that a slow drip occurs.  The water is intended as a coolant for the shaft and if you tighten it down too much you can feel the heat build up while the shaft is turning.  It is possible to tighten the packing just enough so it doesn't get hot but the drip rate is too slow to allow enough oxygen into the area and corrosion of the shaft can occur.  It's important to adjust the packing nut to allow one to three drips per minute.


We have even more to smile about.  We have a dry bilge!  How cool is that?  We've had this boat for 5 years now and it's always had at least 2" of water sloshing around in the bilge.  It would go stagnant and stink within a week.  We'd pump it out and then go through the same cycle over and over again.  Five years.  We recently wised up and installed Mermaid Condensators in the return lines for our AC units so they no longer dump condensation water into the bilge (click here).  I was amazed to find that this was 99% of the water we got down there.  We still get a few drops from rain running down the mast but I can live with that.  This past weekend we ran a fan in the bilge and completely dried it out.  We then applied two coats of bilge paint.  What a difference!  That was well worth the effort.

Back at the beginning I mentioned we were planning to install a security system.  I've done some studying and have learned a lot.  Originally I was thinking of a panic button mounted somewhere down below that you could hit if you heard some bad guys sneaking aboard.  This would turn on bright spreader lights and start blasting the fog horn, both of which we don't yet have.  This would probably be enough to make most bad guys abandon their efforts and jump ship.  For those with more fortitude we'd have to get out the grenade launcher.

In my studies though I found that marine security systems have advanced quite a bit recently.  They now have deck pressure sensors that can tell when someone is walking across the deck.  It takes more than 30 pounds to set it off so a bird or Bella wouldn't be giving false alarms.  The new systems will send GPS coordinates if your boat gets stolen and can also call or text you (as well as the police) when the alarm is triggered.  Instead of using spreader lights and fog horns they now have audio alarms (watch the video) that are so loud (125db with unbearable frequency patterns) they can immobilize people.  They have sensors for if someone tries to steal your dinghy or engine (or both).  There's even a system that can fog a room (click here) so densely you can't see a thing and it continues to fog it for something like two minutes, way beyond the time most bad guys are willing to stand around.  You can set up a perimeter around the boat using GPS so if it moves outside that perimeter it'll set off the alarm.  Cameras that you can watch on your phone.  Total control of the system by phone or iPad.  We're talkin' high tech for the boat world.  We're mostly concerned about bad guys sneaking on board while we're asleep.  The deck pressure sensors with lights and sound would take care of that.  It would also be nice to know if someone was sneaking aboard while you're sitting in a bar on the beach somewhere.  A system that can text you would be pretty sweet.  Of course I think we still need that grenade launcher.  We do plan to put in a security system of some kind.  I guess now we have some time to figure out just what we want to do.

Leadenham Creek 06-06-14

Leadenham Creek

 Earlier in the week we started talking about what we wanted to do over the next few weeks.  I checked out the weather and found that this weekend, June 6 - 8, was predicted to be pretty nice and that the following weekend was looking like a good chance of rain.  We opted for anchoring out this weekend and spending next weekend getting caught up on some projects.

Since we both work four tens, Monday through Thursday, we don't get much done at home during the week.  Friday always falls to weekly chores.  We had hoped to get underway by noon but had a list of things to take care of first.  As it worked out we didn't clear the dock until 1500.

I had checked with two weather resources and both agreed the wind would be NW at 5 knots and then swing around to the SE on Sunday.  With that in mind I planned for us to head to the Wye River.  Once we got out into Herring Bay we found the wind to be ENE and 5 to 10 knots.  Plan B was instituted and we headed for the Choptank River.  It was a pleasant sail at 4 to 5 knots on a close reach and as we approached the Eastern Shore the wind slowly crept around to the north allowing us to enter the mouth of the river on a single tack.  As we came around past Tilghman Island the wind was directly ahead and at this point it was already getting on to 1800.  We still had at least two hours to go, if we were making good time, so we decided to furl the sails and finish the run under power.

The plan was to try a new anchorage on Broad Creek.  We've been there a number of times before and found most good spots to be fairly crowded.  With this in mind I thought we might try Edge Creek near Elberts Cove, which doesn't seem to be as popular.  As we approached red #4 to make our turn to starboard I glanced off to the left and saw all the anchorages down that way were completely empty.

Grace Creek had always looked attractive to me and I figured this would be a good time to explore it.  It's fairly narrow but has several wide spots that might make a nice anchorage.  The one I chose was on our port side just before the first green marker.  On the chart it says 8' and I approached it slowly and swung in a broad circle to scope out the depth.  We were well within the 8' charted depth when we came to an abrupt halt.  Hard aground.  This was a bad spot to be stuck in.  We had gone about 2/3 around the cove and were headed out towards the channel.  If we tried to back down we could end up in 2' of water and risk damaging our rudder.  No point in trying to turn to starboard because it was shallow there too.  I turned hard to port and gunned the engine to full ahead.  We didn't move forward at all but eventually we slowly spun to port, turning on a dime.  I straightened the wheel and we slowly made headway, plowing through the mud and eventually got back into deep water.  Hmm, I think that chart needs updating.

After this experience I decided maybe Grace Creek wasn't the beautiful anchorage I had originally thought.  We headed back out to the channel in Leadenham Creek and turned towards Baby Owl Cove.  We had anchored there before about two years ago.  It's a good anchorage but the cove is small and you're surrounded by houses.  It feels like camping in someone's back yard.  The southern side of the creek had no homes though so we proceeded a little further and found a nice spot in 9' of water straight across from Coopers Point.  The anchor dug in on the first try and we ended up staying there through Sunday.

This is a quiet spot and well protected.  On Saturday we took the dinghy out for some fishing and thought we might tie up to a nearby duck blind.  As we approached we discovered there was an Osprey nest built on top of the duck blind and momma and papa Osprey were not happy about us being so close, about 10' away while we tied up.  They screamed at us and flew about but once we drifted off they settled down.  We tried fishing for about half an hour before discovering that the water was only 2' deep.  We retrieved our line and headed out to deeper water.  I think the birds were glad to see us go.  It turns out these are not real social birds like Parakeets or something and they seem to prefer to be left alone.  Go figure.

We tried fishing several more times during the day but saw no action.  Just before dusk we went out again and found ourselves surrounded by skates.  They weren't biting but it was pretty cool to see them breaking the surface all around us.  I think they must have been busy with one another, not really concentrating on food at the time.  We tried again Sunday morning but had no luck then either.  We did witness a huge skate furiously break the surface about 50 yards away though.  It made a splash like when a 100 pound golden retriever jumps in the water.  Definitely a big boy.

Over the weekend we had some nice meals.  Friday night we had some nice Tilapia fillets (read this!) cooked in butter with rice.  Saturday was blueberry pancakes for breakfast and for dinner we had an excellent T-bone steak cooked on the grill with mushroom gravy, asparagus on the side and a nice Molly Dooker Shiraz (click here) from Australia.  Breakfast on Sunday was French Toast made with Cheri's secret recipe which includes vanilla and almond extract.  Uhm, OK, maybe not so secret.

We departed for home around 1130 Sunday morning.  It was a beautiful day with a nice breeze out of the SSW.  We raised the main as we left but didn't shut off the engine until we were out of Broad Creek.  Once out into the Choptank River the wind was brisk, about 10 to 15 knots.  We tacked across towards the south shore and then tacked again to take us out the mouth of the river.  Off the southern end of Tilghman Island there's a deep channel that provides a shortcut above what used to be Sharps Island.  We turned into this, readjusted our sails for a broad reach and had an excellent run home at 6 to 7.5 knots.  Coming into Herring Bay we cut in close to Holland Point and tightened up the sails to run past red#2, still running at 7.5 knots.  We turned up into the wind, furled our sails and motored into home the rest of the way.  Pulled into our slip at 1730.

Awesome weekend!

Wind Driven

We have an auto-pilot (click here) which consists of a P70 control unit, SPX-30 Smartpilot Corepack and a type 2 short stroke linear drive, all made by Raytheon.  This works great for short runs around the Chesapeake Bay or maybe for day hops between islands but it has two big disadvantages.  It's a major power hog and it doesn't hold up in bad weather.  Our plans include some long cruising between stops and we really need something that won't suck down our battery power.  We're also most likely going to hit bad weather now and then with nowhere to run and hide.  We're going to need an auto-pilot that won't go on strike, ever.  On our trip to Bermuda we hit a storm and the auto-pilot wasn't able to keep up with the waves.  It gave up when we needed it the most and we had to hand steer for 12 hours straight.  Driving a car for 12 hours is tiring.  Driving a boat in high winds and 15' - 20' waves for 12 hours is exhausting.

After doing some research and reading about what real-life "round-the world-sailors" have done we decided we needed a wind vane.  There are a handful of designs and some seem to work better than others.  The stand-out favorite is the Monitor, now made by Scanmar (click here).  This is what's called a servo-pendulum type wind vane.  It's operation is explained on their website as follows -

"Imagine yourself holding an oar with its blade behind a boat that travels forward. You will do fine as long as the edge of the blade is aligned with the direction of the boat. If you twist the oar, even a fraction, the water will hit the flat surface of the blade and you will be unable to keep the oar straight - it will swing to the side. A tremendous leverage is created from the blade, through the shaft, to the end of the oar where you are holding on.

A servo pendulum gear uses this great leverage to keep the yacht on course. An oar or paddle is suspended like a pendulum from the stern of the boat. As long as the yacht is on course, the oar blade trails on the center line. The airvane is the sensor that controls the servo pendulum oar. When the boat wanders off course the airvane will sense this and rotate the oar. The flow of water hitting the blade broadface causes the pendulum oar to swing to the side with great force. The pendulum is connected through lines to the wheel or tiller and the resulting movement of the yacht's rudder brings the boat back on course."

The only power it uses is the power of the wind and water.  It makes no noise.  It performs better as the wind increases in strength.  It doesn't complain about working the midnight shift and it doesn't drink my whiskey or smoke my cigars.  Perfect!  The biggest difference between the Monitor and the auto-pilot is that the Monitor holds a course as an angle to the wind and the auto-pilot holds a compass course according to GPS coordinates.  Now you might think it's better to hold your course by GPS and this would work well for a vessel under power but we're a sailing vessel and we set our sails to the wind.  Out in the ocean the wind tends to blow fairly consistently for long periods of time.  You can adjust your sails for the course you want and then set the Monitor to maintain that angle to the wind.  As long as you initially set your sails correctly the boat will always hold that wind angle no matter what the wind does.  If the wind does shift you simply adjust the vane on the Monitor to bring it back to the course you want, then readjust your sails.

This past Winter we made a list of major purchases we needed to make for the boat over the next year before we retire.  We have five items at the top of that list and none of them are cheap.  A new Monitor wind vane costs about $4500.  Every now and then you can find a used one for sale but they get grabbed up pretty quickly, usually in days of being listed.  I looked around the usual places and did find some ads but they were already sold by the time I got to them.  I checked EBay and found nothing.  Then I tried Craigslist, which is supposed to be for "local sales".  I hit the Annapolis area, then Baltimore, then DC.  Nothing.  Then I tried coastal areas in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.  Still nothing.  When I finally got down to southern Florida I found what I was looking for.  There was an ad just recently posted for a 30 year old Monitor that had been faithfully maintained and updated with new parts.  It came with a box of spare parts and two new wind vanes for light and heavy winds.  All the control lines had recently been replaced with 1/4" Dyneema.  Asking price was $1500.  I jumped on it, contacted the owner and made the deal.  This is a large item and shipping came to $140 by FedEx.

Installation of this thing should be fun.  It hangs off the back of the boat from four sturdy legs.  Our boat does have a sugar scoop which provides about 18" of footing but not much room to maneuver.  Might hafta use the safety harness back there to keep from going in the drink.  We'll also have to rearrange some of the gear at the stern.  There's an engine hoist and a rail mount for the outboard engine.  I also need to figure out what to do with the stern swim ladder.  I'm hoping we can walk out on the frame of the Monitor and climb down the side of it to the deck of the sugarscoop.  That'll require a custom ladder of some sort but I don't want to lose the use of this part of the boat.  It's a great spot for swimming and with the ladder we have now it affords easy access to and from the boat.  Just one of those things that needs to be worked out.

I received the Monitor on Tuesday.  For being something like 30 years old it's in very good shape.  The picture at left is of it sitting in our cockpit.  I plan to go through it this weekend, clean it up and give it a close inspection.  From what I've already seen it appears pretty much ready to use.  I will have to order some leg extensions since our boat is completely different from the boat it came off of, a 38 foot, 35 year old, John Alden designed sloop.  Fortunately for me Scanmar supports every wind vane they've ever made, original owner or not, and all parts are available for use on any boat.  I just need to call them with the serial number and the model boat we have and they'll make up the parts we need for the installation.

There are a few parts that I'm thinking about replacing since it's all pretty easy to get at right now.  The pulley used to adjust the angle of the wind vane is the original part made of aluminum.  It's showing wear, mostly cosmetic, due to salt water exposure.  A replacement is available made of Delrin for $59.  There are quite a few bearings and I'll have to take a close look at those.  Our Monitor arrived with several parts kits and one of these included a full set of bearings but I want to have spares for this thing so if needed I'll order more.  Being a pre-1991 model it's missing the bottom brace on the main frame and I could get that for $165 and have it welded on locally.  Probably be good insurance.  All the control lines are in good condition and must have been replaced recently.  The frame itself is in very good shape with some minor stains that buff out easily.  Not dents or anything major to worry about.  I think we did pretty well on this one.  It'll make a nice addition to our crew.

Just for an update......I have started ordering parts for the water-maker.  I've sourced all the parts we'll need and have prices for everything.  I ran into a snag with the high pressure pump and it's delayed things by a few months.  Fortunately we have plenty of time for this project since we won't be needing it until we depart.  The HP pump is the heart of the entire system and I'd really like to

have that before I do anything else with this project.  It's large and heavy so location is going to be everything.  The other "big" parts are the two membranes which are 40" long and I'm planning to

mount them in the chain locker.  I saw another Island Packet that used this location and it made pretty good sense.  The only concern I'd have would be exposure to low temperatures if we decided to cruise the Antarctic or something and realistically, I don't think that's going to happen.  I guess the only other bump in the plans is where to mount the control panel.  I think the spot that makes the most sense is where the medicine cabinet is in the forward head.  That's just about the right size too.  Of course I don't think tearing that out would go over too big with the crew.  Hafta give this one some more thought.  I'll continue to collect the parts for the water-maker and once I have everything on hand I'll begin assembly.

These are two pretty big projects and I'm looking forward to working on them.  I'm in way over my head now but still enjoying the journey.