Off With His Head!

Today started of cold. I look out the window of the house and see frost on the grass and car. It seemed to be a good day to stay home. Instead, I decided to get out of the house and head to the boat. It was clear today without a cloud in the sky. There was also a nice breeze blowing.

I went to the boat thinking I could do some cleaning, maybe winterize but something told me to try sailing again. Winterizing will wait.

Like the previous attempt and the videos I took before, I motored out and through the canal to the other lake. There was hardly anyone out. There was a few speedboats with guys going fishing. There was maybe 5 or 6 sailboats near the canal and maybe a few  more farther down. I don't know how strong the wind blew but it was more than the last time.

Sailing went well. While looking at the GPS, I would say my average speed was around 3-3.5 knots. I was able to get the boat up to 5-5.5 knots but that also involved the boat leaning over 25-30 degrees from the healing gauge mounted by the companionway.

I had the main and jib out and did a couple tacks. After an hour or so, I dropped sails and floated while I went down below and picked up all the stuff that got thrown around all over the place while heeled over. I raised only the mainsail and sailed back to the canal and motored the rest of the way back to the marina. I was sailing for about an hour and a half so it wasn't long but I still enjoyed myself very much.

Back at the dock, I took care of a few other things. I looked at the tiller thinking that it needs to be repaired in some way. The end is split and a few soft spots. Right now, I'm thinking some epoxy in the crack and a clamp to keep it together might help. Then it could get stripped down with new varnish applied.

I went to the Annapolis sailboat show recently and got a new anchor from Mantus to replace the Delta anchor that was on the bow. Changing out the anchor wasn't too bad. When the anchor was raised, it didn't sit on the bow like the Delta. Luckily, the Mantus rollbar can be removed which will allow it to sit better. I saw things online that the anchor will still set pretty good without the rollbar.

The biggest project of the day was the removal of the head and holding tank. I wanted to switch it out for a composting head. I was thinking a Natures Head but after looking at the options at the Annapolis Sailboat show, I thought the Airhead would be a better fit. There was a two inch screw holding it down on each side and applied with some sort of adhesive. Some of the wood around the edges were soft. After removing the screws, I hammered a flat-head screwdriver in between the tank and the wood and pried it apart. Took a few minutes to pry apart all the edges. Once all the edges were loose, I cut the few hoses leading away from the tank/toilet and covered them with plastic bags and rubber bands. The tank itself was deeper than I originally expected. I thought it was only big enough as what was visible from the top. As soon as I picked it up, there was dust/dirt falling from it. I didn't realize until I got it to the parking lot that there was a big gaping hole on the back side about 2" x 3". Thankfully, I never tried using it or testing it out. I would hate the clean up from a mess like that. Good thing I decided to take it out since it needed replaced anyway.

Pictures of the head.

Next step of this would be to remove the rest of the hoses that will free up some space under the counter. Then cleaning up all the old caulking and prepare the space for a new head. I'm thinking to epoxy a 1/2" plywood board to the hole the holding tank was in. The plywood would also be fully epoxied too to protect it from moisture. I was thinking of a light sheet of fiberglass but don't think it would really be necessary. Epoxy coating, I think, would (or should) be enough to protect it.

 

Motoring around - Videos

Here are the videos I made from my attempt to go sailing.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by.

Motoring Around

Today was the day I was going out on the lake. Instead of just working on the boat to get ready to go, I wanted to actually GO.

As I heard once, "a plan is a list of stuff that ain't going to happen." The reason behind this quote is that you can plan all you want but when you start to DO your plan, sometimes you are just reacting to the situation you are given.

I showed up at the boat today to see a little bit of a mess. The mess mainly comes from all the dang spiders all over the place. Webs, nests, egg sacks(?), and the spiders themselves. I saw spiders today that were from the size of a quarter down to the size of the period at the end of this sentence. Or at least they looked that tiny.

Yesterday I bought a garden hose and a nozzle for the house but took it to the boat to spray anything off. I sprayed all over cleaning dirt and webs and such and saw there is a little bit of growth on the exterior in the way of green spots on wood and spots on the deck. Thankfully, the interior looked fine.

I took a bunch of stuff to the boat with me. I emptied some of it from the truck and stored it inside. Spent quite a bit of time killing spiders too. They get everywhere. Stepping foot onto the boat is also stepping into a bunch of webs too.

Spider slayer!

Once I got everything stored, I went on to bleed air out of the fuel lines. About this time, it rained pretty hard a few times. Found a leak from the deck that I didn't notice before. I thought a porthole was still leaking even after replacing a rubber gasket but turned out to be a hole from something that may have been mounted on the deck from a previous owner. Now, I need to come up with something to fix that. I'm thinking penetrating epoxy might be something to take a look at to seal it up.

bled air from fuel filters

Black spot is the leak culprit

The rain didn't last too long and I decided to go ahead and do some sailing for once. I have only sailed a Colgate 26 for an ASA101 class so I've been looking forward to sailing MY own boat for a while. Took the mainsail cover off and untied the starboard dock lines while getting a few things ready to go.

Looking at the weather online yesterday, there were reports of thunderstorms happening a good part of the day. It ended up really nice and didn't really rain much more throughout the day. It stayed partly cloudy with a nice breeze blowing too.

Things were going well motoring in the lakes, or so I thought. The lakes are connected by a canal. Just to get from my marina, through the canal and to the other lake is about 3 miles. I motored this entire way. Thankfully, I didn't have any issue with the engine at all today. As soon as I got to the other side, I raise the sail to get started, then I hear a really annoying sound. It was the sound of the bilge alarm. To that, I immediately jump down into the cabin, open up the floor board to see an almost full bilge and water flowing into it. I don't mean a drip or trickle, I mean a flow like a faucet was turned on. I didn't have the bilge pump turned on so I turned it on and jumped back into the cockpit. When I saw no one was nearby, I jumped back down and poked my head into the engine space and heard the flow of water. I found out the water was coming from the stuffing box. I was surprised to see this. I replaced the stuffing material last year to make sure it was good and tightened the nuts together so they wouldn't come off. I wasn't comfortable trying to work on it out on the lake, although thinking about it now, I could have just by dropping the anchor and getting to work. I ended up motoring all the way back to the marina to take a closer look at what was going on and to fix the issue. Not only was the nuts on the stuffing box loose, the big one holding the stuffing material wasn't even on the threads of the stuffing box. I think the boat yard loosened the nuts to do some work on the boat getting it ready to put in the water but forgot to tighten it back up. Anyone hear of the nuts on a stuffing box working loose?

While motoring back to the dock, there was a guy in an rigid dinghy with his son. As he passed by, he asked me if my boat was a Pacific Seacraft. I just said "no, it's a Nor'sea." On the owners group, I saw someone comment about how they were asked many times if their boat was a Pacific Seacraft so they made some "Nor'sea 27" lettering and attached them near the bow.

After taking care of everything back at the dock, I worked on organizing a few things I brought with me for the day. I bought some storage containers to use with food items. One cabinet I plan to use as a pantry for storing food and wanted to test fit some things on the bottom and on a shelf. It looked pretty good to me and I could end up getting quite a bit of food supplies in this one cabinet. I then filled the containers I got with some food I bought. I could add more containers over time.

I was watching videos from another Nor'sea owner, Greg and Jill who own Guenevere. They recently posted one video of useful items for the galley. These items included a collapsible strainer, bowls and I thought this was a good idea. I went grocery shopping recently and just happened to find a couple of items and I thought I would go ahead and get them. I got a collapsible strainer and a funnel. Thanks Greg and Jill for the space saving idea.

I looked at a couple storage boxes that are molded fiberglass that is used under the cook-top. I'm looking at scrubbing them and roughing them up a bit and painting the inside of them to give them a nice clean look. One of them was cut on the end because it was slightly longer than the space allowed. I'm looking at using some epoxy and fiberglass tape to reinforce it and then smooth it out for painting also.

Despite the setback trying to go for my first sail with my own boat, it still turned out to be a pretty good day. I actually left the dock and was gone for a total of 2 hours. I still got a lot done. I'm glad I was at the boat when I found out about the stuffing box. I would hate to come to the boat and find it sitting on the bottom. The short time I had the sail up, I ended up going in circles a couple times. I guess in a way, I did go sailing, just not how I expected it to go.

At least everything is a learning experience to prepare for the next step ahead. I'm sure the next time will go better.

Annapolis

I'm visiting Northern Virginia and decided to go to Annapolis, MD. I plan on going to the sailboat show (Oct 10-14) for a day or two so I thought I would drive over and see what it was like there before the show and crowds. It's a pretty nice area. I parked right by the Harbormaster office building and walked around for a couple hours. I like the old town feel of the area immediately in the area the show will be.

I took a few pictures of the area from my walk. Not much but I do plan to visit again.

 

For lunch, I stopped at the Market House that's next to the city dock and had a falafel sandwich that was pretty good.

 

 

It was nice looking out at the mooring field and seeing all the boats in the area. Walking on the city dock area, I saw a boat with a French flag and a Canadian flag flying from a couple boats and just thought of all the travels they must have had in the past.

 

 

 

I'm looking forward to visiting again. Not just for the boat show but also to walk around town some more.

Wasps

There seems to be quite a few wasps around. Last weekend, I took the mainsail cover off and found a couple mud clumps around, then raised the main sail and found more within the folds of the sail. Today, I went for just a short time and did some cleaning/organizing.

Today, like last week, there was a wasp that was flying in and out. Last week, I just sucked the thing in the vacuum and that was it. Today, I did something different. I wanted to keep things out of the boat. There's also a lot of spiders around too. It doesn't take long for them to build their webs either.

Just as I was wrapping up the cleaning, the wasp I saw today flew in as I was closing things up. I took some green tape I had on hand and used it around the opening of the companionway boards and hatch. This sealed things up pretty good, I think. The opening is about 1/4 inch so anything can fly/walk in as they please.

Here I taped it up on the inside of the cover and outside of the boards.

This wasp I mentioned isn't a small one either so I'm really not comfortable with them flying around me. The two holes in the front of the hatch is for the Nor'sea plate that came with the boat that I will attach after doing some finish work on the wood. So, those two holes are a little too small for the wasp to get through. I made sure to tape around side corners too.

The hatch as a clear (mostly) top that anyone could look down into. It didn't take long, but the thing was flying into the hatch. It really wasn't too happy. It was flying into it and walking around trying to find a way out.

I took some video trying to get a shot of it. it's about 1 1/2 inches long. This is a still picture of the flying visitor.

The few I've actually seen are all about the same size. When it starts getting colder, I plan on going through all over the boat to make sure there is no clumps of mud hiding anywhere. I did find it interesting that one of the clumps I found last week on one of the mast winches had dead spiders inside it. Saving for later?

Creepy little things. Now if only I could get rid of the spiders, that would be great too.

In hopes to at least keep the flying critters out, I'm thinking to make a couple hatch covers. One with Sunbrella canvas material to block some light and another made with a mosquito net I happened to have sitting around the house that will still allow airflow through the boat. I could use some sewing practice anyway.

The previous owner had the boat stored on its trailer in Arizona and it got infested with bees and now in mid Kentucky, I have wasps and spiders. How fun (sarcasm).

UPDATE: I just looked up some info on wasps. I found out that because of the mud clumps, this is actually classified as a "mud dauber".  I read stings are rare but I'm sure it's possible so I don't want to take any chances. I read that there are eggs inside the mud clumps so another good reason to look throughout the boat to get rid of them.