Category Archives: Sailboats

Diesel Socks

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Diesel Socks. An excellent name for a rock band? Agreed, but stay with me.

I tootled on down to Astoria this past Friday, full of turkey and ambitions to knock out about twenty projects that realistically will take a month to complete. I’m okay with failing utterly on most of my goals and I did get some good work done. But life kept happening, distracting me from my noble intentions. Stupid life.

First on the agenda was to completely remove the last of the hardware from our increasingly blank equipment panel in the engine room. All that was left were  the fuel filters and the raw water strainer. Once those were off, I applied BligeKote to those last areas and let that dry over night.

Tabula Rasa

While the BilgeKote fumes worked their magic on my little grey cells, I disassembled the Racor 120 fuel filters and cleaned them up as best I could. These filters are perfectly serviceable and with new A1 fuel line would protect our new engine well. But I really like the drop in cartridge style filters like the Racor 500s. They are much easier to replace and visually inspect. It has also been pointed out that the cartridges are much cheaper.

My first world problem. Keep these perfectly fine filters or replace them with even better ones.

Now doubt is creeping in. Should I reinstall these now and make do or buy the new ones and be done with it? Of course, until I can make that decision, I can’t put the existing units back on my pretty white wall.

Okay, let’s forget the fuel filters. I’ll just put the raw water strainer back on after the paint dries. At least one thing will be reinstalled before I leave. But… What if the raw water inlet is further forward than the strainer outlet? Then the hose will make a tortuous bend and my life will be ruined! I can’t possibly make so momentous a decision as the location of the raw water strainer without investigating the Beta Marine drawings and researching optimal height above/below the waterline,  plus leering over current engine installations. Before you know it, it’s one in the morning and all I’ve done is paint about two square feet of a wall.

Diesel Socks? Oh, right. One of the things Melissa and I have really enjoyed on Andromeda is the Sig Marine Diesel Heater. It is mounted on the forward bulkhead in the saloon and just makes the whole boat a warm, dry oasis in the midst of a howling, rainy Astoria winter.

So, while pouring over filters, strainers and engine data, the little diesel heater kept me company. When I went to bed, I turned down the heat and drifted off to sleep knowing that a storm was blowing in from the Pacific and already feeling, and hearing the wind singing in our rigging. I have installed a brand new CO detector right by the heater so that danger is mitigated but I did not anticipate what would happen next.

As the wind increased through the night (a max speed of 44 knots at 3:00 AM), a down draft blew out the fire in the heater. That isn’t too big of a deal except that in the morning it was rather cold and the burner had half a cup of unburned fuel standing in it. Now my to-do list suddenly includes clearing the fuel from the system and trying to re-light the heater. And making coffee.

For the uninitiated, diesel heaters are pretty safe and simple, but they can be messy. When you try to drain half a cup of oil from the heater, four ounces go into the container, four ounces go under the container and the rest goes onto your hands, hair, underpants and the tip of your nose. After changing underpants, I tried to restart the fire with a now relatively empty burner. Alas, the continued high winds kept blowing the feeble flame out before it could heat the chamber sufficiently for proper combustion.

The culprit.

Looking inside, I could see that there was a lot of carbon build up in there. Since a warm fire seemed to be off the table, I elected to remove the burner and take it home for a good cleaning. That will surely fix this problem in the future and I will once again be productively working on the boat.

After removing a few screws and then re-installing those screws so that I could remove the right screws, the burner came away from the heater. Immediately the remaining four ounces of fuel left inside began to leak on to me, my fresh underpants and the sole of the boat. I quickly placed a plastic trash bag under the burner to gain time and figure out how to get this mess out of my boat. Hopping up into the cockpit, I grabbed a five gallon bucket and put the burner inside and placed it back in the cockpit.

Now turning my attention to the carnage I had wrought, I noticed little shiny dabs of oily spots all over the sole of the salon and galley. I had managed to step in a nice puddle of fuel and then track it through the middle third of the boat thereby distributing the last four ounces of fuel from the burner. That was my last pair of socks.

I will say that diesel does impart a lustrous shine on old teak and holly soles. But it just doesn’t feel safe to have a slippery, combustible oil on our sole. So I cleaned that mess up and tried to salvage my day by installing a new ABYC compliant 30 amp shore power breaker.

I shall end this post by showing you that I did clean the burner and it was way over due. I now suspect that the extraordinary carbon buildup inside the burner was largely responsible for its inability to efficiently burn. I am looking forward to re-installing everything and once again enjoying our cozy little fireplace.

The black pile of rock is most of the carbon build up that I chipped and ground from inside the now clean burner.

Next weekend I will start anew. Fresh socks? Check. Fresh underpants? Check. 2 projects down, 18 to go.

 

Must… Keep… Working…

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It was another whirlwind weekend in Astoria for Melissa and me as we continue our monomaniacal efforts to prepare Andromeda for her new engine. The Betamarine 60 horse engine has been delivered to the shop that will build the mounting hardware and cut the prop shaft. Now there is really some pressure on us to finish our cleaning and painting. And find someone to help us move the boat. And schedule a haulout. And, And, And.

But let us celebrate the small victories of this weekend. All of the cleaning and painting of the past few weeks are really starting to show. Just take a look

Almost hate to put a red engine in this clean, white room.

You will note that we have taken the head and holding tank hoses off the wall temporarily so that we could paint behind them. Early on, I envisioned removing and re-installing this arrangement but have lost courage. It still seems likely that we can simplify or at least shorten some of these hose runs, but we  will save that effort for another day.

Next weekend I will move the fuel filter and valves up higher on the wall and then paint that area. I wanted to make the fuel system a little easier to access so that maintenance and switching can be done closer to eye level. The raw water strainer will be removed for painting and re-installed where it is.

In addition to the all the painting, we installed a pair of 12 volt LED flood lights in the engine room. At fifteen bucks a piece, I can hardly believe how much warm white light these tiny little lights put out.

Each light draws less than an amp and is roughly equivalent to a 55 watt halogen floodlight. I think I will add two more which will surely light up all but the furthest recesses of the engine room. The lights are really designed as outdoor landscape lighting so they are waterproof and powder coated aluminum, making them great for the marine environment as well.

Lenbo LED Floodlights

But if you want to buy LED lighting and pay five times more, Melissa found what appear to be the exact same lights at Englund marine for $80 each. The only difference between the two is that the ones at the marine store have a longer cord. Put the word “Marine” on a product and you can charge whatever you want. Go here to check out the expensive ones.

I also installed a new bilge pump switch for the aft bilge. Better now than later.

Let’s step out of the engine room for a moment. The paint fumes are making me woozy. Another project that bears sharing is our effort to steal WiFi from hardworking Americans (or Canadians, we aren’t choosy). I had read an article in Practical Sailor describing a number of systems designed for the marine environment that act as powered antennas for WiFi signals. Most of these systems use a PoE (Power over Ethernet) amplifier attached to a marinized antenna and cost $200-$300. After spending countless seconds on the Google, I found a device that not only brings in WiFi from all over town, but delivers it to a small wireless router which gives every computer on our boat its own connection. With this setup, we now have a fast wireless connection that works just like connecting to your router at home. Price? $85.

The two products are the Alfa 2 watt long range WiFi antenna and the Alfa R36 Repeater/Router. The setup is a bit more complicated than I would have liked but the results so far have been very good. The Port of Astoria has free WiFi but the signal was poor at our location. With the antenna mounted about ten feet up the mizzen mast, that signal and about twenty others come in strong. Many of those are password protected, of course, but enough of them aren’t to make finding an open network pretty easy.

Next weekend I will be going it alone to finish up a few tasks in the engine room and try, once more, to find someone willing to tow us to the haulout. Melissa volunteered to have a spa day in Seattle with Claire so that I could have a day of rest. Ha! Must…keep…working!

Swan Song

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Mike and I spent 2 1/2 days aboard Moonrise this weekend, sailing up to Blaine to do a delivery for some new boat owners. The boat we delivered? Moonrise. That’s right, she finally found the perfect new owners and as part of the deal, we agreed to sail her up to Blaine, WA from her home slip in Tacoma.

Long term readers will know we’ve had Moonrise on the market for about 2 years and until recently, no serious buyers came forward.  No one, not our brokers, not potential buyers, could tell us why she was still sitting on the market. But we knew there must be a reason that had nothing to do with the boat or the price. She is a well kept boat, cleaner than most boats on the market, and she was reasonably priced.

Just north of Seattle, Mike checks the wind vane. Or maybe he is praying to the weather gods.

The reason became clear on the day we bought Andromeda. Apparently the Universe was waiting until we had found the perfect boat for out next adventure before it would allow us to release Moonrise into someone else’s care. The Universe knows we would hate being boatless. On the very day we closed on the loan for Andromeda and she became legally ours, we showed Moonrise to Stephan and Anita, a sailing couple from Vancouver, B.C. They had owned sailboats before and had been trying to get down to Tacoma to see Moonrise for a couple of months but the timing had never been right. They fell in love with her. I knew after they left that these were the new owners. I just felt it, and I was right. They soon made the offer and arranged to have her surveyed.  And lucky thing for them, too, because since that day we’ve had all kinds of interest in her. We actually had a waiting list of people interested in case the sale fell through for any reason. Wierd times!

Who’s that tapping with his little hammer? Yes, it’s our favorite marine surveyor and all round good guy, Tony Allport. He gave Moonrise the ‘thumbs up’ after she passed her tests.

The buying of Andromeda before the selling of Moonrise created a bit of a stir among those who read the blog, those who know us, and those voices of “common sense” in our own minds. But consider this: There is a kind of ‘knowing’ that is purely beyond the realm of logic. This kind of knowing doesn’t look good on paper. Numbers do not necessarily add up, things do not appear to make good sense in the realm of the physical world. People think you are crazy, when what you are really doing is following the heart that is speaking to you. Somewhere inside is a small, quiet voice, a lantern in the dark, that whispers, ‘This is the way to go. Go this way.’  And so you do. And it comes to pass, just as though someone planned it that way. You step into a stream of life energy and when it’s the right thing, it simply carries you along like a leaf on the current. This was the feeling we had in this entire process. No real questions, just some solid faith that we were making the right choice for us and it was our job to allow the story line to unfold.

I’d like to say we made the offer to sail Moonrise to Blaine because we are generous and kind and wanted to sweeten the pot for the deal. But that would be only partly true. We made the offer because it gave us one more chance to have a long weekend aboard a much-loved boat, to feel the water under her keel one last time, to allow her to shine on the sea and surf down a wave once more with us at the helm. Sure, we were glad to help Anita and Stephan out, but what we really wanted was one more chance to say goodbye.

The Port Townsend cut. Will Andromeda be able to go underneath this bridge? We are not sure yet. This was the calm before the storm.

And what a terrific trip it was! Mother nature threw all of what she had at us this weekend, from wind, to a little rain, to sunny skies and tall seas. We anchored for the first night at Port Hadlock and settled down for a calm and secure evening, only to hear the wind begin to scream through the rigging, and feel the boat bouncing and tugging at anchor. The weather report had changed and we were in for a rough night of 30 knot winds, but the anchor held fast. No one got much sleep, and I remember thinking if this didn’t make us seasick, surely nothing would. Mike slept in the salon so that he could get up regularly and check the anchor, but I believe he got the better end of that deal as I was in the forward berth being slammed to heck and back. We were so glad we had decided on Port Hadlock rather than our usual Port Townsend anchorage, which would have been so much worse.

This is my ‘Ralphie’ look. Wool long johns, polypropylene over that, then a one piece fleece sailing suit, then my foulies and jacket. Two hats. Oh, and hand and boot warmers. It takes me 20 minutes to use the head. Stadium pal, anyone?

Saturday dawned bright and beautiful with blue skies and warm temperatures and we started across the Strait of Juan de Fuca off the coast of Whidbey Island.  The seas were confused and rough after the previous night’s storm. With no wind at all, we motored through 8 foot swells, coming close together and growling with foam. Mike was trying to get a little sleep in the cabin. Ha! That was not going to happen. In the middle of the strait another storm system was blowing in from the coast and the winds increased, temperatures dropping about 10 degrees. With winds clocking around 30 knots according to the radio, we had a small headsail flying and skittered down waves at 9.5 knots, grinning like demons. In spite of the big waves and spray, it was some of the best sailing we’ve had in a long time. Moonrise was in her element and the weather gods were smiling on us, leaving us with the wind and swells, but dumping the rain somewhere else.

Those are the San Juan Islands ahead. What a glorious day! Why do photos never accurately show the sea state?

With wind and tide pushing us from behind, we soared up Rosario Strait, feeling particularly fortunate the wind and currents were in our favor.  But it was getting late in the day and more high wind from the West Southwest was expected that night so we needed a place to anchor for the evening. Doe Bay offers the only protection from that wind direction on that side of Orcas Island. We set a course and found a reasonable anchorage just north of the park, surrounded by private mooring balls with nobody on them. After dinner and a game of Scrabble, we were both pooped and went to bed early. We had a quiet night and slept deeply, one last night in our comfortable big v-berth.

Sunrise. Yes, it’s really that monochromatic, for those who don’t live here.

And now a little more light.

Wanting to catch the tide going up the strait, we were underway in the dark by 5:30 am with 20 knots of wind behind us and big following seas. There’s nothing like hanging ten down the front of a wave, foam flying, only to be lifted by the next one. We flew out into the Strait of Georgia just as the sun was coming up, thanking the gods that we were going in the right direction and not trying to beat to weather. We made record time into Blaine and Moonrise performed perfectly under sail.

Beautiful day on the Strait of Georgia. Orcas Island behind us.

The only bad part of the trip was trying to get docked in the Blaine marina in about 40 knots of wind. No kidding, the wind was just screaming. I had to gun the engine going through the entrance to the marina for fear the wind would blow Moonrise into the concrete barriers if she went too slowly. We bulleted through the entrance at a brisk 4 knots. To get docked I had to keep the throttle at full reverse to keep the boat from being blown into the boat in front of us. And that was INSIDE the protected marina. We were both pretty stressed out by that time and just glad to have her safely tied off. We love being on the water in those conditions, but being in a marina with high winds kind of sucks. I couldn’t help being a little stressed out about learning to handle a much larger vessel in tight quarters.

Love this photo, except for that little green water spot on the lens. Still, maybe it’s a luminescent sea creature?

Claire drove up from Tacoma to collect us and our personal items from the boat, and Anita and Stephan drove down from Vancouver to finished the deal. They will be berthing Moonrise in Vancouver where they can learn to sail her at their leisure. They are very excited to have her and we are very happy to have found new owners who will take her to the Gulf Islands and explore the coast of British Columbia. Moonrise will show them all of her old haunts!

Happy boat buyers!

It was important to us to sell our boat to someone who would use her the way she was intended to be used and not let her languish at the dock.  We are excited for Anita and Stephan and know they are just the people we were looking for. We look forward to seeing photos of Moonrise at a beautiful anchorage next summer and hope they will stay in touch. Maybe we will meet them in a beautiful anchorage sometime in the future and we can give the old girl a pat and a little kiss from us.  Bon voyage, Moonrise. We shed tears as we say goodbye to you. You will be in our hearts forever, with thanks for all the adventures and learning.

Anita, looking excited as she puts their foul weather gear in the hanging locker. That’s a good expression on a new boat owner’s face!

Mike ‘splains the finer points of the GPS to Stephan and Anita.

Have wonderful times on this good boat, Anita and Stephan! Fair winds and following seas to you all!