Legging it on the beach

 The traditional nautical pastime of getting a leg under. Photo (c) atomvoyages.com

One thing last fall's trip to France exposed me to was loads of French beach or beach fascimile (or rocks and limpets and muck) revealed by the somewhat pronounced tidal range of south-east Brittany. It's dependable in that it's well-calculated for most spots (thanks, Bloc Marine)  and ranges from about 4.5-6 metres over the lunar month and the state of the winds and so on.

Legs could be in pairs or just one with some sort of trim ballast and dependent on the firmness of the sea bed. Photo (c) The Yacht Leg and Cradle Company.

Now, while in certain circumstances, a large tidal range represents a complication, it also represents an opportunity, as many British and French and Atlantic and Pacific Canadian sailors understand. Sure, the currents of metres of sea water coming and going in vast, sometimes wind-aided volumes can be hard to sail in, but can also, of course, speed your boat in or out of its particular destination. Travelling at about five knots under motor, but 11 knots with the tide, can be a bit of a rush.

Cardiff Bay Tidal Barrage: Aside from all this water stuff, it cuts two miles off the bike ride to Penarth!

The British, and others with large tidal ranges, such as I saw in Brittany, have dealt with their large number of drying height tidal opportunities in a variety of ways: sometimes through tidal gates that "seal in the sea" so that a harbour is essentially locked and does not dry (and cannot be entered or left unless the height of tide allows it). Such a scheme is in effect in Cardiff Bay, and other sorts of tidal barrages are rigged with water turbines that capture the energy in a dropping tide in a controlled fashion. Minas Bay, off the more famous Bay of Fundy, is seeing this sort of renewable energy project.

The Bay of Fundy is a logical place to make tidal power. This is the plant at Annapolis Royal.

Which, from the viewpoint of those keen on renewable energy and not seeing stinky harbour bottoms, is all well and good. But what if there were compelling reasons to deliberately "beach" one's boat?

Ar, scrub the barnacles, ye scurvy pre-industrialist workforce!

The proper, or least saltier, word for letting the tide gradually lay a boat down on its side is careening. or "heaving down". It was about the only way, short of entering one of the rather rare dry dock facilities available prior to the 20th century, to scrap marine growth from the bottom, to replace rotten planking, or to do the sort of caulking needed to keep the sea away from the cargo through leaks.

This is easier for full-keelers because they don't tend to heel over enough to have a porthole or hatch below the waterline when the refloat. Photo (c) S/V Moulin-Rouge.

In some places, when the weather is calm and the shoreline pointy-rock-free and of the right angle, careening is a good way to clean the bottom, service the prop and ream out the through-hulls. But it's not always easy to find the right combination of protected and properly pitched shoreline, convenient tidal range, and water that won't freeze your nuts off; this is why decent careening spots are often marked, to this day, on the better sort of charts. It was part of the "commons of the sea" as everyone with a boat had to get at their hulls sometime, and diving, where even invented, was dubious for the first few centuries.


Also, in most careening situations, it can be hard to impossible to paint or to effectively scrap the last foot or two of the keel as it will never be fully dry. And you have to do the whole process twice...because only one side of the hull will dry out per tide.

I'm guessing "Malaysia"...the travelift, not the boat.

While the usual cruising boat tactic involves the sort of strap and hoist affair of the Travelift system pictured above, followed by jackstands and cradling on land, the admittedly efficient process isn't cheap and Travelifts themselves aren't necessarily common once away from Western ports and the richer sort of marina or yacht club.


Another primarily British method of getting at the bottom of the boat when the tide is out is the twin or bilge keel design. Consisting of two keels offset from the centreline of the hull, and a strong, slightly shorter rudder, bilge keelers will happily sit on the exposed sea floor, allowing all sorts of necessary maintenance.

A slightly faster looking twin keeler.

Utilitarian as this is, they aren't great sailers due to the drag of two keels, and while I'm not entirely sure about this, they don't seem to show up on boats over 30 feet in length, probably because the heavier sort of boat would require far too large and strong twin keels to support the mass of the rest of the hull, which would create even more drag, and drag in a hull is generally the opposite of fun.

Here's where the "beaching leg" comes in. It's a extendable adjustable aluminum sleeved pipe, in essence, with a load-spreading "foot" and tensioned lines to keep it vertical. The main weight of the boat rests on its keel and the legs only have to provide balance, in the same fashion as the training wheels on a child's bike.

It's engineering, sure, but it's not rocket science. It's basically a strut. (c) S/V Panope

There's no particular reason why one couldn't make them oneself, and in fact, that is where I got the idea: from a Cruisers' Forum thread on making one's own beaching legs, although I had seen them mentioned on occassion in the more obscure cruiser narratives. The poster named "Panope", who has an interesting refit thread of his own here, has a boat perhaps even more densely built than Alchemy,

There's a family resemblance, I will admit. Photo (c) S/V Panope.

It's a Colvin 34 and it is clearly a labour of love. But as is so often the case when I see gifted craftspeople with intriguing boat ideas, it's the little self-starter projects that catch my eye. Beaching legs could be stowed on deck and rigged at the pipe gunwhales of Alchemy in a rather straightforward manner: I have the one-inch bolts and enough spare quarter-inch SS wire to do the job...I would just need about $300 of aluminum plate and tubing. I like the idea of not having to haul out for minor fixes, painting or prop servicing. While I'm sure they do fine work, if the prices listed here are a guide, I would be willing to try my hand at making my own from plate aluminum and pipe. I already know we have a good keel bottom for this sort of setup. So perhaps Alchemy will one day stand proud with the tide out, and we'll have the boat with the nicest legs in the harbour.

The less-confidence-inspiring single-leg option. Hope it stays calm.

When friends go offshore

S/V Giulietta in Cascais marina a few days ago.

The first saltwater delivery I crewed on was on the then-new Giulietta off the course of Portugal in 2007, as related here. Giulietta is a custom-built Delmar Conde 1200 (in other words, a 40-footer), and she is not only a strong and well-conceived design, but is still impressively competitive, as her proud owner, who goes by Alex Gman on Facebook, will tell you.

A hot boat, and well-crewed.

He's right to do so. His well-crewed (mostly with youthful, fearless dinghy sailors) boat is very competitive in ORC class sailing in Portugal and in fact took first place in 2013, as in "best ORC boat in Portugal" and may do so again this season. This is pretty impressive given that 40 feet is not a huge race boat and that Giulietta's competitors are a bunch of larger Swans and other big ocean-rated vessels between 50-60 feet LOA. He's sponsored by a number of firms, including our mutual friends at Fortress Anchors, who I daresay are getting their money's worth out of the deal, given the steady improvement and persistant podium appearances of their logos.

Alex with old-man sailor beard and silverware, with his more appealing and charming wife Julieta beside him.

Alex and his crew have a new challenge at the moment: getting the light (12,000 lbs.) and generously canvased Giulietta to the Azores for some more racing. As far as I know, Giulietta has not been on an actual ocean crossing, although the Portuguese coastal waters can be brutal enough, as well as sporting a near-continuous line of cliffs and pointy, hard parts.

Alex doesn't believe in reefing...he says it just slows the boat down.

Giulietta is going to the Azores to participate in the Atlantis Cup Regatta in Horta, also known as "the Autonomy Regatta", perhaps because you have to sail across a quarter of the Atlantic to get there. Regardless, I thought it might be interesting to note that Alex, who was once self-described as "not a computer guy" (which is strange as he's a very successful engineer working worldwide) has gone over to the tech-savvy side of sailing, and is using a DeLorme InReach device (think "Spot Messenger" with Twitter-like text capabilities), and is also visible via AIS when within VHF range from the Marinetraffic.com site and also via Vesselfinder.com here.

A fairly typical outcome: Giulietta is in the lead.

Of course, a lot of this fine tracking technology will be turned off (and probably unplugged) during any actual racing, as Alex's hesitations about using AIS and these fairly recent tracking technologies was, as he said to me, "not wanting to give the competition any clues". Which, if sail racing is your sport, is very understandable.

As of July 18, 2014.

Now, Alex is currently reporting (it's around sunset on July 18th as I post this in the eastern Atlantic) strong winds on the bow, i.e. westerly winds. As he has a fine crew, a strong, well-equipped vessel, and is himself an excellent sailor, I have few worries for his five- to eight-day passage, but I do find it intriguing how easy it has become to actually see, more or less in real time, where a little boat on a great big ocean is...and to have them say something to the world from their deck.

Evidently, closehauled on starboard

Would that I could be there...I was graciously invited, but the timing is wrong for work and airplanes and boat fixing. But I find it encouraging that I can follow along, even from the pilothouse of my own docked boat.  Boa viagem e bons ventos, amigo!

UPDATE 14.07.21:  They've arrived in one piece.

Accessibility issues

Whither your cocks, sailor?

My last, feeble muttering in public was about...sad to relate...keeping the boat clean. I suppose a corollary to keeping things clean is to keep them accessible. One of the upsides of owning a custom boat is having no compunctions about sawing or drilling through a non-structural part of the interior to make an access hatch or other “points of egress” to a particular potential trouble spot, like the lowest part of the head hoses, or to making the aft cockpit sole removable to get at the transmission or the stuffing box.

Handy if you'd thought of it. Photo (c) Regina Sailing.

Of course, this demands all sorts of planning and a deep knowledge...and a good record...of what is behind the trim. As fewer cars owners can do minor repairs in their driveways, I would suggest that fewer boat owners know where some of the wire runs, hoses and vent lines actually go in their boats.

This used to be standard practice, even on "cheaper" cruisers. It's easier to do your own.

My experience of proposing such modifications of access is that owners of production boats are quite resistant to cutting holes in their “highly designed” vessels, even though it is newer, often “modular” designs that the most egregious cases of “burying” critical gear occurs.

Clearly labelled and next to a light source. (c) M/V Sea Spirit

A friend of mine thinking of buying a boat a while back had a 2011 Hanse 355 surveyed. The very good surveyor, Wallace Gouk, acting on my friend's tip, found a flexing part of the hull that was unsupported by an untabbed bulkhead. Not a failed tab...a spot never tabbed. A big freaking void I could have put my clown shoe through. Helpfully, it was adjacent about three holes cut for wire and hose runs, further compromising the strength of the bulkhead at that point. And with the Hanse's typically modern production cruiser-style of modular design, it would have been nearly impossible to rectify this issue without cutting out half the cockpit. This boat was lovely to look at and has the clean lines of a good sailer....even as I said at the time (grumpily, because I dislike the majority of production boats I've seen since about 2000) "it annoys me less than most". I got annoyed afresh after seeing some of the pictures from the survey...eek.

Expectedly, this issue of "tabbing absence" was a deal-breaker for my friend, who moved on to a much better-built 2002 Dufour 36 Classic. Of course, the guy selling the otherwise reputable Hanse had no clue what a piece of compromised junk the boat he was flogging was,  I would have wagered. My friend, on the other hand, worked for CS in the '80s and is the sort of guy who goes out in 30 knots on Lake Ontario because it used to be common knowledge that wind makes the boat go, and more wind is better, until stuff breaks, and that's probably the skipper's fault for an incomplete knowledge of physics. The baseline assumption is "I am sailing a well-found boat". Or was, once. Our materials science, when it comes to boat construction, seems to be far ahead in certain respects of the actual execution on the factory floor.

I am, with allowances made for crew and conditions, similar in spirit, and not out of some antediluvian machismo, but because it's exhilarating to sail in a stiff breeze and to feel the spray and to play the waves and run through one's hypotheticals should something go wrong.

Condofied to the max. I am unwilling to board such a boat to see what the access situation is.

My friend who probed the Hanse hadn't sailed for about 25 years when I first took him out  in my Viking 33 a few years ago, and when he saw the high boom of a modern Hunter and asked "should we help them? They've broken the gooseneck and jerry-rigged one higher!", I realized that such is the impression modern boat design can make with a sailor who's been out of the game for some years.

Funny, sad or true? All three, I think. (c) Bill Bishop/The Marine Installer's Rant

Modern boats can appear to be crippled. They can also seem underdocumented, largely inaccessible (who has seen the rudder post?), and products of committees of introverts. Clearly, this is not universal, but it's common enough to make me happy that with a wide-open (in terms of access) custom boat, I can make my own fixes...and even my own mistakes...without too much in the way of hidden and potentially nasty surprises.

Not dead, just washing

What can I say? Paying work slacketh not during my summer, nor do boat part suppliers move faster. I've made some progress on Alchemy, but nothing I consider blogworthy at this point. Valiente has supplied some actual sailing, on the other hand, and I decided to clean her up a bit...also an excuse to buy a new, on-sale power washer.

The stowed Portabote may be a source of windage.

The missing bits needed on Alchemy are part of the raw water supply circuit; I need to work in part to pay for the AWAB-brand hose clamps I insist on using below the waterline. What can I say? See a few boats sink at dock because of poor hose clamp choices, and it affect a man. So your garden-variety Tridon and whatnot are kept high and visible. The new, mandated "wet exhaust grade" hose is pretty spendy, as well, when compared to Ye Olde Radiator Hose, found on most boats.

Almost beautiful in their way, but they are frighteningly expensive...and I get a discount.

I will shortly be moving onto other hook-ups in the Drive to Drive, but I'm still sourcing a decent house bank price. I've decided that the L16 format discussed here is probably the way to go, but that I need not go with Trojans, which I have come to believe command an unjustified premium. But I can get motoring with just a start battery. On the near horizon is getting a skin fitting and punching a hole for it through the hull for the bilgewater hose; the current set up is using the port side of the dual exhaust setup noted here...I actually have all the requisite parts in place and aboard, but if I set it up in the fashion I want, there's no outlet for the bilge pump. Which is, of course, a touch problematic.
 

A reasonably clean old girl

Well, at least my decks are, if not shiny, less grubby. Dockmate Jeff's sparkly Dufour 36 is, frankly, of unusual gleam for a 12-year-old vessel, and while no one would accuse me of nautical fastidiousness, I like to be in the top half of the Grubby Barge range, even if it doesn't help the speed as much as a hull scrub.

The guy on the other side of Valiente got a dock just for his jetski. Go figure.

It has been pointed out that I have been spending more time on Facebook than on this blog, and while technically true, this is arguably because Facebook is far more hit-n-run for a quick blather than an essay about whatever's occupying my boaty mind, featuring 20 links and 15 non-blurry photos. But I can see a bit of time opening up shortly, and hope to get back to the work my work subsidizes...and even to blog about it...soon.

Incrementalisms

The nature of my work demands my presence at a home office, and while this is a far more amenable setup for me and my anti-social tendencies than in an office, which I gave up at the end of the 20th century, it does mean I occasionally have less time to do boat jobs than I would prefer. Take yesterday: I couldn't leave the house until 1430h, leaving about four hours to play with before dinner and family time would call me back to shoreside. So instead of tackling some of the remaining, if time-eating, engine jobs, I thought to do some small things. I have to do them sometime, and it's better than sitting at home awaiting developments.

The pilot berth is the "before" shot. Actually, there are items visible that are getting installed next.

I tidied up my bits and pieces locker, which contains various small tools and designated plastic boxes labelled "plumbing bits", "self-adhering tape and electrical tape" and "marine-grade wire". And so on. I've found smallish tackle boxes and similar plastic tool boxes (many of which have been salvaged and repaired by myself) a logical way to parse order from chaos in the boat bits biz. I was driven to this some years ago when I had to tear apart Valiente looking for a flaring tool. Well, that tool is now in the black box with the green painter's tape. The action of labelling is, for me, the act of remembering. Wouldn't be the first paradox I've encountered in this process.

Relatively robust plastic box: $2 at Active Surplus. Skinny gaps are prevalent aboard, and slotting things like this between bigger tool boxes reduces movement and chafe. Or so I hope.

Removing an elderly nuts and bolts set of plastic drawers to a more prominent position (which I had to do as I couldn't access "BRASS SCREWS" without hazardously lifting the whole five-kilo mess free of the locker) made space I could use. I've noticed as I've been ramping up the electrical work that I use the above four tools (two kinds of crimpers, a really nice Ideal wire stripper and my beloved $9 used Klein cutters) in conjunction, and so it made sense to pack them together instead of leaving them on the helm or hanging from a clamp. And lo, they fit into something I'm guessing held Internet installing tools in the '90s, and which cost a few coins.

The recently acquired Powerpole spares have come in handy for the various test leads and runs I'm doing that have to be disconnectable. This includes the fairly considerable runs that go through the pilothouse roof. At some point, I will be laying down spacers to isolate the aluminum from the steel frame, and I'll be sealing the flange from water ingress with a combination of HDPE spacers used as bushings and washers,  EPDM rubber stripping and good ol' butyl tape. The new Tricrimper, by the way, is giving me great results in a way that the otherwise fine Ancor crimper was not.

A little loud in more than one sense, but surprisingly effective.

One of the reasons I like our new Standard Horizon GX-2200 is that it has a number of secondary functions that I am actually likely to use beyond the usual "VHF and AIS" functions I've already mentioned.  One such function is the PA/Fog Horn. Above is pictured a 7.5 watt/8 ohm "PA/talkback" horn I got at the closing of Kromer Radio a couple of years back, again, for a handful of coins. While I've already ordered the "official" PA/Fog Horn from Standard Horizon, I thought to see if I could get this working, despite the impedence difference. Let's say I wasn't planning on alerting the fleet.

Well, it works, all right. While I had to be careful with output levels and the inevitable feedback, I was able with this antique to both use it as a reasonable PA and to hear the variety of sound signals the GX-2200 is able to produce. I've sailed in fog, and my wife or son is quite accustomed to standing on the bow with an airhorn of some description even in clear weather, as we've encountered kayakers emerging from behind seawalls before. Andnot only is the ability to make sound signals mandatory, I think it's useful to be able to make yourself audible in tight situations or to unlit and unbeaconed vessels, such as fishing boats. Again, this is a situation I've had before, where I've heard someone (in bright fog) and have narrowly avoided a collision. The GX-2200 will run AIS and fog signals simultaneously, which is also a plus. Anyway, even temporarily wired, the thing works, and it was a little odd "listening" to the outside noises in "talkback mode".  I would imagine I'll use this particular speaker for intercom or external speaker use, like to hear Ch. 16 if I go below decks. What is interesting to me these days is how items I essentially purchased "on spec" are now actually getting installed. Yay for me.

Who doesn't like red balls?

The old black one cracked and fell off. The new one is more lurid. Something similar will eventually show up on the outside helm. Dual levers are more "powerboaty", I think.
 

Not seen: a bag of Power Lugs. Seen: $1 LED sticky lights for the underside of locker lids and so on.

This is the MaineSail-recommended FTZ battery lug crimper. As mentioned in the last post, a lot of luggery is approaching, and this is the right tool. It took some time to source.

Squint and all is revealed.

The legend on the labels gives guidance on the die settings. Seems pretty straightforward, but then I've been trying to get this one right, as the ability to make up my own cables in as conductive a manner as is possible is important to me...and important to keeping my expensive batteries content, if that's a term one applies to lead plates in an acid bath.

Crimp, rotate lug 90 degrees, and crimp again. That'll never come off, or so it is hoped.

The dies are coded and rotate in order to make a crimp tight enough, if done correctly, to exclude moisture ingress, to mechanically bond to the conduit, and to make the electrons within think "I didn't even notice I was leaving that battery!"  And these and some other little and less photogenic jobs made up my late afternoon.  I also met my new dock neighbours, Kris and Jenny, of the Mumm 36 Ace, mentioned in this blog which appears to be written by one of their crew. Now, I've never seen a Mumm 36, although I've seen plenty of Mumm 30s (there are several at our club), but it looks like a pretty hot sled, especially from the early '90s. Let's just say that the contrast between Ace and Alchemy is pretty obvious, but while I appreciate and enjoy a well-built race boat, I know what I prefer to take offshore.

The next-dock neighbour's ride: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoYV0T6lhDE 

Don't know why it's failing to embed!

Watts up in the house?

If you were me, and all else were equal(ized)...

Plenty of ab crunches in my future if this is the way forward.

Can't resist a good electrics pun, I'm afraid.

I've posted this query on Cruisers' Forum, but it struck me that I have a fairly experienced readership right here, so why not ask?

Let's assume I wish to make a six-battery, roughly 1100 Ah house bank. Assume I have all my charge sources sized correctly and adequately, and I have all the space I require close to the boat's CG. Assume I like Trojan products and the tall L16 form factor, although this is not a must-have if I can save a few hundred with an equivalent battery maker.

Would there be a case to favour six 2V batteries to form one big bank using this model of Trojan L16: Trojan L-16-RE-2V 2V, 1110AH (20HR) Premium Line Flooded Battery

or to go series/parallel with three pairs of 6V batteries of this model? Trojan Battery Company

The rationale for hooking together a bunch of massive two-volters is found here: http://navigatorpublishing.com/ondig...ad_edition.pdf

End result is the same, and I gather the 2Vs are more robust in terms of plate thicknesses and general construction, but if one of the 6Vs went bad, would I not have the ability to remove its partner and simply fall back to a house bank 2/3rds (two pair instead of three) the intended size?

I've got a feeling some of you could provide real-life-based guidance here. It's akin to those compartmentalized batteries Rolls sells, only via a different methodology. Thanks.

Oh, and for the curious, I would keep the separate 12 VDC start and windlass batteries (probably Group 27s) charged via echo charging from this house bank. The charge sources, mentioned here before, include four 135 W solar panels, a 400W wind generator, and one 180 amp alternator or two 75-90 amp alternators, switchable to charge either house (default) or start batteries.

UPDATE 14.06.05: Have yet to hear back from the Ceol Mor's perfectionist skipper, but collected wisdom is favouring the "three pairs of 6VDC batteries" option. Now I have to shop as concepts such as "core charge"  and the vagaries of buying in Canada versus in the States (shipping, HST, yadda yadda) strongly affect the end prices of each battery. Seriously, there are significant price differences that don't appear to be related to battery format or Ah capacity. I'm a bit off the Trojans now, as I've been persuaded that the "quality gap" has been largely closed and you're paying for the name...for which I don't care to do. So I'm pricing these U.S. Battery L16s and these Interstates. And I'm trying to find some old dead batteries to offset the prices I find if I buy here in Canada. Thanks to Jeff C. for some leads.

Finally, a little sailing

Completely unrelated to this post, but this 1973 Spencer 53 pilothouse ketch visiting NYC last Saturday  was so nice I had to include it. Thanks to Whitby YC-based owners Dave and Sherry for letting me crawl over her.

 While I am becoming more comfortable with the idea of selling Valiente, it doesn't mean the process of parting means I've given up sailing her. Over the last long weekend (May 18th), I took the family out for the inaugural messing about.

Fantome: looking good for older than Joan Rivers.

The air was mournful angels' farts in the Inner Harbour, so we hoisted full main and the No. 1, a relatively rare event unless we are trying to get somewhere as it's vast and wants precise folding. We found more wind (like 9 knots AWS!) in the Eastern Gap. We also found our club's "Around the Island Race", which was more of a drift, really.

We gave way as we weren't racing, and realistically, at 40 feet LOA, and a honking great mast, they are probably the faster boat in any airs.

And away! Note the 10 cm. swell.

So we had some fun avoiding them while trying to find chunks of moving air. As a former, or rather rare, racer, I appreciate that "giving other boats your dirty air" is just poor form, so I stayed to the lee of every boat I could.

Old sails, sure, but still capable of getting the job done.

I had sewn in some battens the previous day, the zippered batten pockets being a little worn, and had also tucked in a few telltales on the leach. Or "leech", as some would have it, although I think a leech would die of hunger on the trailing edge of a main sail.

Mrs. Alchemy in her role as Mrs. Valiente. Note the flaked-down tails. One must be tidy, one must.

While the winds only sporadically freshened to the point where we actually approached five knots SOG, it was a decent day and the rain mostly held off. I resisted the surprisingly strong urge to pull a Dave Rogers and to chuck off a fender while murmuring "man overboard..." Next time, perhaps.

It was a "one-telltale" sort of breeze. And yes, I should have reefing rigged, I suppose, but I only reef above 30 knots, a probably bad habit.

The engine seems fine, which is always gratifying as I am its only mechanic. Despite the replacement of the little spring in the "little spring and ball oil pressurization mechanism", I still get a drop from cold oil at 60 PSI to warm oil at 25 PSI, so I might switch to straight 30W instead of 10W30...assuming I can find it. It's a minor issue and could be related to elderly meter calibration. The engine itself hovers after 10 minutes at its usual 165F, which is as high as is likely in this still-cold lake water. She starts on first turn of the key with full choke, which can be eased back to full lean after about 10 seconds of running. The tune-up and my cleaning of the spark plugs (RJ12YCs gapped to .040) seems to be doing some good. Only 140 hours running since rebuild in 2006, so I want to actually get through an entire 10 gallons of gasoline this year if only to have all fresh gas aboard.

Nice greeting-card vista, but the sailor sees wind under that darker bit. The rain is the price of the wind.

Even the ever-sleepy Wonder Lad ("it's puberty, Dad: I have to save energy to grow!) got into the act with helpful foredeckery and watchkeeping.

Clearly, back in the doldrums.

A fun day and a good start to perhaps the last season we'll have with the 33-footer. More to come on this when I rig out a proper advertisement.

Putting the squeeze on retail

I don't live in a small country. It's the second-largest on Earth. Its population, however, is similar to California's, and so "consumer options" are, to a certain extent, limited compared to our 10-times-larger neighbour to the south.

Handy, but, apparently, a touch tricky.

This comes into play in the field of boat gear, which, due to reasons of low demand and fairly demanding manufacturing tolerances for weight, non-corrosivity and occasionally specialized uses, is never going to be a cheap pursuit. The joke goes that the prefix of "marine" means "multiply cost by three", and this is in fact sometimes optimistic. Could be worse; could be Australia or New Zealand, where I understand that the exchange rates, the distances, the low populations and the fact that there are few other choices that don't involve import duties combine to make most boat-related things expensive.

Boat restoration sometimes demands single-purpose tools: you should see my prop puller (which can also remove transmission tailpieces, thank goodness)

So I wanted more Powerpole connectors as there's a lot of electrical work ahead of me on Alchemy. Using even my decent Ancor crimper on the little silver connectors at the heart of the Powerpole pieces wasn't working well, so I decided to order, along with a fresh batch of connectors and connector housings (I've wrecked connectors, but no housings, yet), the recommended specialty crimper. The fact that I have a U.S. dollar VISA and didn't require the items immediately made ordering online from the States a no-brainer; while I know (and originally bought my first batch of Anderson connectors) from a perfectly professional Canadian radio shop, it's a distant and uphill bike ride, and their prices reflect, as is typical, the "Canadian markup" to which I'm become sadly accustomed.

Even though I express my Scottish genes when it comes to extracting value from my transactions, I'm not neurotic about it. My wife works part-time at a decent chandlery, after all, and I certainly patronize them and the other local shops (save West Marine, which has little I want) for things I need quickly or which make no sense (like exhaust hose) to order "foreign". Shipping charges and delay factor, of course, into these decisions, but in general, because I usually get free advice in addition to the products purchased, I try to patronize local marine retailers.

But that's not always logical or possible. The Powerpoles are one example; they aren't specifically boaty, and are most closely associated with amateur radio folk. It took me some research to even find them in that realm at the retail level in Toronto; ask for them in the biggest Home Depot and you'll get a blank stare. Even electrical contractor places haven't heard of them, and give the impression they would prefer you got your non-contractor backside out of their shop so they can help the guy with the 15-kilo toolbelt behind you.

That said, I did not expect to go on a retail odyssey yesterday in search of a battery cable crimp tool.  The saga started with the redoubtable "Maine Sail" and his excellent and previously cited primer on making one's own battery cables. His recommendations regarding both gear and technique have yet to steer me wrong, and feelings of child-like devotion illumine my otherwise barnacled spirit whenever I read his screeds on The Right Way to Do Things on a Boat. And he liketh not the "hammer crimper", nor the insufficiently beefy "starter lug". He does liketh the Heavy Duty Power Lug and the FTZ Industries Heavy Duty Non-Ratcheting Crimp Tool. And it was good.

And lo, across the land, even unto the Great Satan, it was out of stock. And low-res.

And if you are moved to read his thoughts, you may concur with me that the man is onto something, and that if you are looking at a few dozen crimps to make a whack of short, thick cables so that the batteries will stay cool and the amps will flow unimpeded, a good, cold-formed crimp is the way to go.

Cold-forming: the copper has been crushed to form a solid mass that is largely moisture-resistant, meaning less resistance electrically. This is actually stranded wire compressed by a hydraulic crimper, one step beyond what I require.

So I started Googling and, having Googled somewhat in vain, for the crimper in question seems to be out of stock everywhere in the States, including the place Maine Sail suggested, I phoned the factory in South Carolina where the crimper is made and asked if they had Canadian distribution. They had, and I phoned them (not, thankfully, long distance). They distributed to a number of contractor-grade places, and, as far as they knew, I could order from the Torbram Electrical Supply outlet on Spadina Avenue, just north of Front.

If not next door, more or less in the direction of the water.

Huzzah! So off I pedalled, as is my wont, and spoke to a nice fellow behind a distinctly industrial-grade counter surrounded by the paraphernalia of the electrical trades. He scowled at my Techspan reference numbers and went off to make a series of phone calls to them. Emails were exchanged. Images of crimpers were sent to and fro, especially as, after the first hour, I insisted on putting "FTZ Industries Heavy Duty Crimp Tool" into Google and hitting "images". Well, it turned out that despite being the FTZ distributor in Canada, Techspan had every crimper BUT the one I wanted. Some seriously weird clamping stuff, including devices suitable for a giant's bris. This was after an hour of hovering around a room with all the ambience of the liquor stores of my youth.

This is actually from 1970 Manitoba, but Ontario's governmental boozers looked much the shame.

Mission: unaccomplished. Time: wasted. After a briefer time working aboard than I had--HA!--planned, I went home and went online. Within minutes, I had found a place in the States...where, I know not, but it's in area code 208...that offers the item I couldn't get in a city of five million. U.S. buck Visa in hand, I ordered it to be delivered to my club. Sorry, retail: I tried, but you and your disparate SKUs and part numbers and suspect inventory control drove me online. I just wanted to support you!

Now, here's where my own countrymen, despite a rep (not entirely deserved in my experience) for civility and politeness, fall down. I placed the U.S. order last night around 1800h. While I've been writing this, around 1230h the next day, I've received a call from a nice fellow named Chad, apologizing that BargainBoatParts does not in fact have the crimper in stock, and that he's been on the phone to FTZ Industries and the delay would be some two weeks, plus five days for delivery...and would that be all right?

Yes, Chad, that's fine. Particularly given I now know you are in freakin' Idaho, a long way from water. I haven't bought the cable or the batteries yet, and the Power Lugs might now extend my original order, because you've proven you want the business of a single boat restorer. U.S. firms seem to grasp on the importance of keeping even "little" customers happy, and I was gratified to experience this mysterious "customer service" of which I've heard so much. And given that every other places was out of the Must-Have Lug Crimper of the Season, I wasn't entirely surprised to hear of the delay. I was surprised to hear of it via a personal phone call. As for retail, even in my big city, sometimes it's just better to shop other than in person, I guess.

UPDATE 14.05.21: The Powerpole gear arrived today, and the crimper appears reassuringly hefty. Will start making up test leads shortly.