Thoughts on Heavier Weather

Work on Alchemy and work on the house and working for a living have kept me from posting (not that this is a huge priority, frankly), but some recent sailing in the old boat in rather fresh air made me consider how my young son might be acclimatising to the sailing life.

I was out a few nights back in strongly variable winds in the old 33-footer, Alchemy being mastless, engineless and purposefully immobile this summer, and I had a lot of main spilling and gybing to do, as we were just playing with the wind to test out a recut Dacron main, not going anywhere except "five miles that way, and then back the way we came". There was probably the biggest crew (eight in total), I had ever had aboard, thanks to "the steward's" large complement of racing buddies.

I take a sort of pride in gybing the main smoothly in concert with the helmsman's actions, and if you have a lot of crew (like we did), there is no difference from a tack. Not in my view, anyway, excepting of course the possibility of being brained if you are insufficiently attentive.

By contrast, in lighter air a couple of days previous to this trip, I was using the old, crumbling main in lighter air going nearly dead downwind. I used the opportunity to demonstrate to my six-year-old son a "crash gybe" by saying "look at the windex, look at what I'm doing with the tiller, and listen to the mainsail". I showed him the boom gybing out of control (I could basically give it a slap to slow it down), and showed him it at the edge of control, and showed him how to sheet it in to the centerline as I gybed. This was in about eight knots of wind.

Then he tried it and screwed it up, and did it again and did it pretty well. Being about four feet in height, he can't easily see forward without standing on the coamings and using a tiller extender, so conceptually he has some way to go, but he's well-co-ordinated for his age and shows at least some of my ambidexterity, so I would imagine he will put it all together sooner than later. Next year, he'll go into Optimists, as he turns seven next week.

Prior to going downwind, however, we had a bit of fresh air, and he complained a bit about feeling a little seasick and "tired" and basically flaked out in the cockpit. It reminded me that "crew", particularly non-active crew, can find a sailboat's motion disagreeable.

Of course this is always the variable. In 2007, we had a day in Alchemy when we beat to windward in about 24 gusting 28 knots from the east, I estimate, with four- to five-foot seas from the south-east (bending around the Toronto Islands and the artificial peninsula to their east), which is about as close as I get to "rollers" in Lake Ontario as that gives over 100 miles of fetch.

My wife and I enjoyed the ride, because it was stable and dry (even if it revealed the lack of baffles in the water tanks...boom! boom!). But my son puked up his strawberry yoghurt, and I realized that maybe a judicious application of motor might "level out" our rolling about. We only had a 10 mile passage (barely breakfast to lunch, really), and it occurred to me that as much as I would have liked to have gone five miles south into the lake to find some harder wind, it wasn't entirely fair to my son to subject him to nausea so I could push my skills with a new boat that is really made for ocean conditions.

We don't get a lot of "ocean conditions" hereabouts, so I like to slam about when I can. But I don't need to make my son associate heavy weather with throwing up...and that would be entirely counterproductive, given our long-term plans.

Watts Up, Dock?

Funny how plans evolve. Above see the latest iteration of "mein elektromechanischer Rahmenplan", because everything involving monomania and solder sounds better in German, I think. Note that despite the superficial similarity to the charmingly naive schematic of some months ago, the needless complexity and verminous profusion of self-referential symbols, colours and lines continues apace, creating an almost cuneiform effect of bafflement and dire foreboding.

Really, this diagram is a help. No, I'm not kidding. Our goal is to run more or less self-sufficiently with a minimum of noise and exhaust apart from that caused by unfamiliar, local foods. This is why we have various devices to create electricity (wind, solar and small generator, in addition to the usual alternator on a diesel...the part we want to avoid using unless we are actively moving the boat under power); to regulate electricity (various devices to turn loads of volts into the number and amperage batteries will accept); to measure electricity (so we are aware of both production and consumption and can spot shortfalls at either end); and to store electricity (in the form of a honking great bank of stolid batteries weighing in at several hundred kilos).




Now this thingie is an Air-X Marine 400, a smallish wind generator as seen in its unnatural environment of a dock. I picked it up still in its original packing at a local yard sale thanks to the alert eyes of a fellow cruiser preparing to head south. Captain Ken Goodings, we salute you!

This is where the wind generator and solar panels will go. I am going to have made a sort of bimini-arch that will support a small amount of cloth by way of a sun and rain shield (there's not a lot of cockpit to cover on the aft deck) but mainly will carry four135 watt solar panels, running about five feet long and nine feet wide. All this has to avoid the wind generator and the wind vane and the crew. The solar panels paradoxically will provide the largest area of shade on deck, unless we deploy big awnings in quiet anchorages. But mainly, they and the wind generator will keep about 840 amp-hours of golf-cart batteries filled with yummy sparks that will keep me in ice cubes for my end-of-day, self-congratulatory rum-based beverages.

Ignore the visual crudeness...those are real numbers, all to scale.

Sailing it old school

This is the view on Canada Day, 2008 from the aged but reliable deck of Valiente, our older, slightly leaky Viking 33. Currently under the care of Capt'n. Tara (see keel caulking activities below), Valiente is docked a few miles west of our largely dissembled "main ship".


Upon learning that Tara wasn't using the boat this week (and I've been asked to unravel the mysterious of mast wiring on her), we decided to take her for a spin. Tara hasn't brought down the full suit of sails, and the Mylar No. 1 would have been more sail than I wanted with 20 knots gusts and no place special to go, so we kept it simple. After all, what with Alchemy in pieces, it's our first sail of the season. Why push things? We had a lovely sail, and look forward to a few more.

Lots more going on the main ship...will post that soon.

Crew leave

Last year, I went to Portugal for a few days to crew on a 12 metre race boat that spends its summers as a cruiser on the south coast (winter is apparently the windy time in Portugal, even if it's pretty nice for winter by frozen Canadian standards).

This year, in a quest to keep our family's sailing experience at a rough par, and by way of an early birthday present, I sent the missus on the same trip.



Unlike my trip, Becky and friends (American catamaraners who, like me, knew Alex the skipper from the internet) had some intervals of decent wind, enough to blast along under an asymmetrical spinnaker and to practise the old racing tradition of "washing the boom in the sea".



I'm glad she had a good time on a well-run boat. Thanks to "Chuckles" and "MMR" for the photos.

Vaneous Transfusion

Peter Tietz and Jim Whitred of Voyager Windvanes of St. Catharines, Ontario, came by today to drill holes in my stern for the purposes of mounting, a typically dirty nautical term that actually means they attached our new windvane to Alchemy's rudder regions.

On the way down to the club, I had what I thought was the rather clever idea of not using my possibly uninflatable and small and wobbly and elderly Zodiac as a platform from which to do the fairly extensive measuring and drilling and grinding required, but instead to use one of the club's Boston Whaler-type boats...flat, heavy and stable like a raft, but a raft with an outboard. This proved to be the best idea of an admittedly unambitious week, inspiration-wise.

Peter, the vane's designer, builder and primary installer, seemed to appreciate being able to drop things without hearing splashing, a real change from the usual outcome, apparently. Quick access to my horde of obscure if essential tools smoothed the mood of all, as well. The 25-knot north-east gusterlies, less so.


First off was figuring out if the measurements I'd supplied and the modifications they'd performed made any sense whatsoever when confronted with the steely, baby's-got-back stern of Madame Alchemy. Mostly, they did.

Then came some extensive "dry fitting" in which the vane and bracket (about 25 kgs. all in) were moved about in order to get the right clearance around the rudder post and tiller head.


This was followed by lots of drilling and, when it was found that the servo-pendulum bit would graze the ambitiously designed if materially superfluous tiller head, quite a bit of grinding in which yours truly did some mischief (to a good end, however...). Further and better smoothing will be required, as will a "final fitting" in which the vane is taken off, the mounting boltholes primed and perhaps "bushed", and the various moving bits kept from corroding with the wax from the ring used to keep toilets from leaking. Think "Tufgel" at 0.001% of the price, and easier than squeezing a sheep.

Jim, the business end of the operation, didn't mind getting his hands dirty, as befits someone considering the purchase of a Southern Cross 35, a non-trivial boat in a world of tatty dock jewellery. Jim seemed to like the look of our club, as well. Asked a lot of questions, and I hope I represented the concern fittingly.




Peter does final assembly of the vane. There's a few blocks and a tiller lock to put it (the tiller lock they brought committed suicide by drowning, but I know some men with face masks that might perform some "retrieval"), but when we finally get the stick in, we will have the ability to self-steer using zero amps. Peter's product isn't cheap (neither is the electric type of autopilot, nor are most things in the "presumed rich" world of boating), but it's stoutly made and custom-manufactured, and I think it will see several tens of thousands of nautical miles of use when we head for the horizon in a couple of years.



The vane will stay on until we a) put in the mast, b) restore the overhauled engine after having c) redone the water tankage and d) redone the fuel system and tankage OR e) designed and installed an arch-bimini thing that will both shade the sailing helm and support (eventually) an array of solar panels without interfering with the operation of the wind vane.

Which is why a wind vane went on an otherwise engineless, mastless, going nowhere, half-dead and partly dissembled boat today. It. Is. Necessary.

I'm Fixing a Hole

This is the bilge of Valiente, the “loaner” Viking 33 mentioned below. The flung-aside sole boards, the splayed wet-dry vac and the sheen of water on the inside of the boat all speak to the presence of lake where it shouldn’t be.

Valiente flung briefly into the air indicates the scope of the problem. Tara, sailor extraordinaire and designated steward for this good old boat, reported that her pre-launch crew, with all good intentions, either ground open a previous (crappy) keel-hull joint repair, or said repair’s time had, after many a dry season, finally arrived. The resultant 15 litres a day contribution to the cabin’s water feature isn’t wildly dangerous, but in the absence of a bilge pump of the automatic variety (the bilges are flat where the sump isn’t very narrow) mean that about two sinkfulls of H20 every two days must be dealt with.

Here’s the semi-cheap (the haulout cost $230) and mostly cheerful quick fix for "unwanted moisture": Find cracks, grind cracks delicately with a Dremel tool, and fill with “5200”, a tenacious black goo that seals and glues and gets everywhere you don’t want it. Of course, the proper way to do this job is to haul the boat for days, not 60 minutes, in order to grind away the entire hull/keel joint, to dry it out, to tighten the keel bolts, to fill the gap with thickened polyester-vinyl fiberglass goo, to fair it like a baby’s bum, and to put on barrier coat, and then anti-fouling. But this may serve until October…maybe.

We had an hour, so we pretended the keel was a cracked driveway. Tara found several spots where age and (probable) prior impact to the big lead bit had caused separation anxiety.

Oh, yeah, baby. Squeeze it good. Woo-hoo!

Then…splash! Back into the drink for a quick trip to my club to drop off all the hardware I’d brought from Alchemy (after a U-turn to get the ladder we’d left by the TraveLift…yes, that is the name of the giant’s truss device), and then Tara sped westward solo to her dock.

Two days later I checked Valiente’s bilges. Water, but no worse, and possibly better in terms of less of it, greeted me. The 5200 may not be entirely “set-up” yet, so Tara will keep an eye open and we’ll figure out if a bilge pump will suffice, or whether we need to get a cradle over to another club with a TraveLift that will let us do the job the correct, if tediously season-shortening, way.

Anchors Aweggs, or What They Rode In On.

As if to underline our boat's current engineless, mastless state, a local duck has pushed some coiled-down nylon rode in the anchor well into a semblance of a nest and deposited five eggs:



My darling wife, a biologist and by trade a wildlife rehabilitator (and therefore duck-positive in a big way) figures they might not hatch until mid-June. I have sagely pointed out that several trips to the club crane to haul large, heavy objects out of the bowels of the boat are in store by that point or sooner, and while I will not deliberately disturb the next generation of avian flu vectors, if the tow line snaps when no engine's aboard, I'm chucking the anchor with a quickness.

Nature is a cruel mistress, indeed.

You're So Vane

These grotty little graphics are just a couple of many I sent to the nice people at Voyager Windvanes , whom I hope will make as functional a product for us as it looks to be robust. They need the measurements to essentially custom-build a windvane for Alchemy, one upon which I will be relying to steer the boat when on passage or under sail for more than a couple of hours.

Why a windvane? Because one of the dirty little secrets of cruising any sort of distance is that actually standing or even lying down at the helm, steering 15 tons of moving vessel is tiring, exacting and, well...boring. My time would be better spent looking around for other boats, sleeping whales, rogue shipping containers and things that could be sucked into the seawater intake.

A windvane both obviates and compliments the more popular electric or electric-hydraulic, super-duper, GPS-guided, amp-eating autopilot. Yes, I will install one of those as well, but the general idea is that the autopilot will steer while we are motoring (sails down) or motor-sailing (sails up but engine on in order to maintain a certain speed. With the engine on, particularly in calm seas, there is no problem in making the amps necessary to power the autopilot, and the same is true of the array of electronics gadgets that help us navigate and help us communicate with the outside world. Generally, we would have AIS, GPS/plotter and probably would actively monitor certain VHF/SSB frequencies. The kid might be watching an education DVD, also. The combination of alternator, solar panels, and towed generator would more than take care of the energy drain during motoring or motor-sailing.

Sailing (to be preferred), it's a different story. Depending on proximity to shipping lanes, land, known fishing grounds, the time of day and the weather, we might switch to just AIS, handheld GPS, radar on low-power "guard" mode (more on this later), and only switching on the SSB at certain times for "cruiser nets". I would likely keep a VHF on low if close to land; otherwise no.

The fridge would thus be the biggest draw. Again, I would hope that the solar panels, the wind or towing would more than compensate the reduced draw-down, plus the fact that I intend to have more than the usual battery capacity for calm, cloudy days when the engine's not working...

The windvane works on servo-pendulum principles, a sort of mechanical feedback effect akin to a see-saw or a gyroscope. The course made good tends to resemble a sort of very elongated letter S, whereas the autopilot will attempt to steer directly at the desired waypoint or compass course. Frequently, an odd wave or wind shift will push the boat off-course; this will cause the autopilot to use a lot of power to compensate. The windvane does this using the wind itself, and ends up in many situations doing not only a better job of steering than a human helmsman, but a better job than the autopilot on which so many cruisers rely exclusively.

Here's an interesting head-to-head by Tony Gooch, a long-time solo sailor from Canada with more fastidious observational skills than myself.

The economy drive

Two posts in one day: almost unprecedented!

It strikes me that those who read about a family with two sailboats planning to go around the world might easily assume that these were people of some means. While far from poor (along with the vast majority of people in the Western world tonight), we aren't rich, either. But we've bucked the consumerist trend fairly consistently over the years, and it's allowed us to scrounge finances for things that matter to us, like boats and boating and self-employment and extended, slightly under-financed sabbaticals.

Evidence of this is found in this photo, showing the 9.9 HP outboard I took off Alchemy, as the RIB is going into retirement, in order to make room in the "garage" for the 2HP Honda, which my wife successfully put on its dedicated motor mount in the forepeak.

Giving it the gears.

That motor's about at the limit of what I care to tow behind my bicycle (although I've done more and in dodgier weather), but it illustrates that not owning a car is no true impediment to the movement of even semi-massive goods. It looks funnier when I take seven or eight sailbags down in one go. Very Mumbai-lunchtime.

The motor (which is a lightly used and reliable Mercury 9.9 HP short-shaft two-stroke) will appear shortly on a Craigslist near you.

Tender moments

After a winter fraught with family trouble, loads of work and, even for Canada, ridiculous amounts of work-suspending weather, we got the vessel launched. The engine is disconnected at the moment, awaiting further ministrations with a sabre saw to get the pilothouse roof off. The original owner, apparently convinced that 40-odd SS bolts, nuts and washers didn't quite do the trick, put a bead of what I assume is 5200 or some equally tenacious sealant around the inward steel flange of the pilothouse.

This means it isn't coming off easily. The insulation and ceilings and cherry battens and wiring came apart easily, but the roof itself? Not so much. Hence the sawing.

And why do I wish to do this? Well, the engine's coming out for "prophylactic servicing". More exciting than it sounds, really, it will just be a complete going-over to determine what damage, if any, 20 years of minimal usage (and winterizations of unknown skill) has done to the engine...if anything...and to remedy it. Because I wonder rather pay a mechanic a few thousand today in Canada than to throw a rod in Fiji once I start running the thing several hundred hours per year. Currently, it has 1,300 hours on it...in 20 years, this is nothing for a diesel...and I've put on 200 hours in the last two years. So out she comes, and to do this, off comes the roof.



The roof needs to come off anyway, because the 2 x100 gallon stainless steel tanks slung under the side decks are coming out in favour of 4 x 50 gallon HDPE tanks I will secure to the frames about a metre lower down in the hull. This will "stiffen" the boat a fair bit, I believe, as well as will taking a currently unused 40 gallon SS former holding tank under the engine and using it as a diesel "day tank" containing only heavily filtered diesel from my soon-to-be-installed FilterBoss dual Racor set-up.

And I haven't even vouchsafed my latest plot for the Herculean battery banks....

Yes, it's not about what you do on boats, it's the order in which you do them. Basically hauling out the middle of the boat allows a lot of rationalization of the plumbing, tankage and probably the last opportunity to lay down thick coats of paint in very dark corners.

Speaking of rationalization, behold the ten-foot Portabote.


Looks like a surfboard, doesn't it? Well, it cleverly becomes, in a fashion that resembles origami but with considerably more grunting, a reasonable rowboat of some 55 pounds/24 kg. in weight.


When appended with the little Honda 2HP seen below, it goes about five knots hither and yon on a few tablespoons of gasoline. It will be our "cargo tender", and the rather more handsome nesting dinghy below will be our "people tender" for when we just want to row in or have a quick sail. Having two tenders, both reducible in size, made more sense than the standard Zodiac-style RIB or even an old-salt-approved rowing dinghy of the Fatty Knees type. My wife has to lift this gear solo for it to make sense, really, and that means thinking a bit more deeply about our off-boat transport.

A last and unexpected bonus was that the Portabote is pretty close in colour to Alchemy's livery.


The name of the tender is the previous owner's; the new name was selected by my wife, while my son decided to name the nesting dinghy. Me, I designed the logos that will shortly adorn them.

I like bad puns and I cannot lie.

Boat Show 2008: Fresh Acquisitions

Consumer-oriented boat shows don't hold a lot of interest for me these days: the kind of voyaging we are planning demands the type of gear more commonly found on fishing boats and the smaller sort of commercial vessels than Lake Ontario recreational boats.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. I do get a little sniffy, however, when I see new boats classed as "ocean-capable" with few of the seaworthy attributes and design touches I think essential for potentially heavy weather situations. And the boat show wants every weekend warrior to think that his slick-looking bar with a keel can cross oceans. The good news? It probably can. The bad news? He probably can't. He'll break his skull getting thrown across the condo-like cabin, or get washed over the insufficiently high lifelines, or simply get battered into submission because light boats get whipped around in big seas.

So I go these days to get bargains on stuff I was already going to buy, but mostly to talk to the vendors and installers with whom I need to develop relationships in order to not only book them to do work I can't, but to have nice secure feelings about that work, and about the products I've researched with, I hope, a measure of diligence and discernment.

Anyway, here's a couple of new items arriving before spring launch:



It's a Honda 2 HP four-stroke, all of 28 pounds in weigh. My wife, who is height-challenged, can hoist it in one hand, and it should be enough to move out nesting dinghy (see below) and the new-to-us PortaBote. Add a lifting sling for insurance, and getting it on and off should be much easier than the current 9.9 two-stroke, which is great for planing the Zodiac RIB we aren't taking, but is overkill (and over-spec) for both tenders.


This is a gas-powered generator that, at 42 pounds, is "luggable" to shore and easily lashed on deck. After wind, solar and alternator, it's a way to charge the batteries should all else fail, and if the inverter fails (or I am wanting to dedicate "ship's amps" elsewhere, like to refrigeration, I can use this on deck to power hand tools, paint sprayers, power washers, or to charge isolated stuff like the windlass battery (see electrical schematic below).

Anyway, I got half off on the delivery, and I look forward to using the gas generator on board after the engine's out for service (thanks to Mazda fancier John Ousterhout for providing missing pieces of the "is it a Mazda or a Perkins?" debate) in order to power stuff where running an extension cord is problematic (like the currently power-free forepeak that requires a full repainting before I hook up AC and DC circuits).

That's all for now. Next up: how to haul a small diesel from the bowels of a big boat in the dead of winter.

Garage sail

For those interested in the decision to opt for a nesting dinghy instead of the usual cruiser's choice of a RIB and a 9.9 HP outboard, here is the Niccollslite NN-10 nesting dinghy I ordered a couple of months back. It's made from Barry Niccolls in British Columbia.

http://www.niccollslite.net/page1.html

It arrived last week and now that I am recovering from a nasty head cold, I decided to put it together in the garage.

It is a relatively simple operation. The whole boat weighs under 100 lbs., and both ends can float by themselves. Four large screw-in fasteners do the trick, and the two pieces more or less "click" together under a fibreglass lip. I have a three-piece mast, and a main and jib, as well, but as it's taller at roughly 5 metres than my garage ceiling, I've left it packed until I go sailing.

As you can see in the pictures, it has a centreboard with sail controls mounted, bronze tholeplates, several small cleats and a nice kick-up rudder and sturdy tiller. I suspect I will sew bags so I can lash all these pieces into the nested boat.

It's easy for me to handle: in fact I attempted to walk it home using a hand truck (I don't own a car), but my cold was rotten so I ordered a taxi van and stuffed it in the back.

How to haul a boat properly

This little sequence illustrates something unusual, at least for us this year: How to remove a boat from its natural element without damaging it.

As the photos clearly show, it takes a large number of middle-aged people with sticks, a very large crane, a minimum of A.M. alcoholism, and a steady hand on the digital camera.

1) Deep thought...how heavy is it? (The answer turned out to be 29,500 lbs., 500 lbs. less than the skipper had guessed to satisfy a space on a form.)


2) You don't say? This calls for more deep thought.



3) Right. Raise high the chalice!



4) A quick look confirms the anti-foul seems to have worked.



5) The push-stick, the steel boat and the tourist trap: A senseless conflation of photographic composition, really.



6) This single individual is doing almost none of the lifting. Quite something, physics, isn't it?




7) Safely down, and nothing damaged. Anxiety....receding....

Latest issue of Power Boat Illustrated!

Here's a provisional (updated May 15, 2009) plan showing my current ideas (no pun intended) on redoing Alchemy's electrical system.

Missing are some of the various conduit runs and any learned suggestions cleverer sailors than me care to make.

Some of this is already in place. Some (like the inverter, the genset, the solar panels, the wind generator, the isolators/combiners, the DC outlets, and the controllers and displays) are yet to be purchased, or yet to be installed.

The location of the bulkheads is accurate and to scale. I am leaning toward installing two 75 amp alternators (I have a two-groove power take-off) because that provides quick bulk charging plus redundancy when I actually run the engine to make power (which would usually be only when motoring). A general sense of physics as it applies to diesel power take-offs leads me to believe that two belts pulling opposite to each other might be easier on the crankshaft.

Some points of interest, for those tedious drones who like this excruciating level of detail:

The overarching goal of this set-up is one week of energy independence from either shore power or the need to run the engine merely to supply power. Pollution, cost and noise concerns aside, running a diesel at anchor to charge batteries is wasteful, inefficient and wearing on the diesel, which "likes a load on"...don't we all? Far better to schedule a reason to run the engine while pushing the boat once or twice a week for a few hours. Keeps everything lubed and cleaned out.

The start and the windlass batteries will be the standard deep-cycle flooded cells. The house bank will be AGMs, approximately 840 amp/hours in capacity. I'm leaning toward those Northstars, but, like the NN10 dinghy (see upcoming post), we seem to be rather lonely in that opinion. UPDATE 2008.02.03: Popular and generally expert writer Nigel Calder waxes poetic on new breakthroughs in AGM-style design that allow for rapid charging and greater cycling. Click on "Breakthrough" at this link: http://www.proboat-digital.com/proboat/20080203/

The start battery will be charged by the alternator(s), but switched to draw down from the house bank or to be charged from the Honda EU2000 I will purchase. I do not know yet if I require separate regulation for each alternator.

The house banks will be charged by the solar panels and the wind, but will draw from the alternators directly or via the Xantrex RS 2000 inverter charger when the start battery is at capacity.

My solution to the problem of never dipping below 80% capacity on the house bank is to a) ensure that my refrigeration is extremely well-insulated (I believe it is quite good already), and b) to throw as much capacity as required to accomplish this. The house banks are out of the engine compartment due to cooling, wire length and access concerns. I am prepared to alter the saloon companionway stairs to create a large battery box. A simple cross-brace and block and tackle can then lower the batteries directly into the compartment, which will be positively vented.

I have yet to decide whether charging the windlass battery should be done via a charger plugged into the inverter (wasteful but convenient and avoids a 25 foot wire run), or via the generator directly. How to "patch in" this isolated deep cycle battery well forward is still a question in my mind, as is the proper way to distribute power from multiple sources (such as wind, sun and alternators simultaneously when motorsailing).

Any suggestions are welcome before I go spending more money and electrocuting myself.

It's good to have friends with a nice eye for a photo...

Almost looks seaworthy

This is our baby at dock. You can hardly tell I haven't powerwashed her in six weeks...Shot by David George of Somersault I

Not even at sea yet....

...and already the mutinous behaviour begins!

The sort of things you discuss with a boat's designer

Northstar AGM battery usually used for telecom backups, but a nice form factor for me.

Below is an edit of an e-mail I sent to Phil Friedman, the designer (some 25 years ago!) of Alchemy and exactly one sister boat, which P.F. kept for himself. It gives a sense of what we've been up to in the planning and gear departments, and some queries that I am making regarding some physical changes I wish to make.

Mr. Friedman:
I thought by way of piquing your interest in your now 19-year-old "baby" that I would give you periodic updates as to our modifications and our observations. We are enjoying the boat and are in the process of making many changes in preparation for distance cruising, among which are the cutting of a hatch in the forward collision bulkhead at the foot of the starboard sea berth in order to pass into the "workshop" without going on deck. This hatch will be as high as is practical, and will be fully gasketed and dogged, so as to preserve the watertightness of the bulkhead once plugged at the limber holes, which would be standard practice on passage.

A box aluminum engine room hatch with a gas pivot, multiple SS and brass grab bars, mounting chocks for a nesting dinghy, a "Dutch door" companionway hatch upgrade, a set of dorades, a Charley Noble for a diesel heater, gasketed hatches for the saloon and aft cabin, a head sump, a helmsman's seat and the replacement of most of the carpet in favour of teak and holly flooring is also going to happen.

Perhaps the most radical idea I've had, although I have since learned that it is not a new idea, is the construction of a pair of vent manifolds, one for the diesel tanks, one for the water tanks/anti-siphon loop break, tapping into vertical brass poles terminating at pilothouse roof goosenecks. Both manifolds would have stopcocks and drain plugs for maintenance and isolation. The logic of this is not just because we need handhold in the pilothouse, but because so many ofthe problems I note with engines and water supplies on long-distance cruisers are traceable to downflooding of the tank vents when heeling. This makes me question the wisdom of having vents anywhere near the rail as is customary. I noted in Ian Nicholson's book, Small Steel Craft, that running the vents "high and centered" was at one point quite common, as was the practice of shutting off the exhaust outlet to the sea when not under power.

I am also running 120 VAC/12 VDC forward and will be installing a Xantrex RS2000 inverter this winter just below the saloon stairs. In the electric systems line, I am upgrading to a 130 amp alternator to replace the stock 55 amp Motorola, which I will keep as a spare. I am also having a bimini/arch constructed over the sailing helm in order to mount three 130 W Kyocera or BP solar panels, and to provide much needed shade. Also much needed here is a second throttle/shifter, as pilothouse-run dockings are a tad tentative.

To this end, and because the aft cabin design you specified was not followed closely, we will be rebuilding the aft cabin this winter to put the double bed athwartships, rather than fore and aft on the port side. This will free up space for communications equipment, a small library and some built in cabinetry, and will obviously allow use of the bed on either tack. Taking down the "ceiling" will allow access for autopilot installation, throttle cable installation, SSB antenna tuner installation, 12 VDC and power conduit to and from the sailing helm, and finally, the installation a six-foot Garhauer triple-block traveller to replace the inadequate Harken version with "car stops" instead of blocks and line. I will have to have the Garhauer "I-beam" carefully bent to match the camber of the deck, and will have to through bolt the existing holes carefully to maintain the current water-tightness of the deck. I will be purchasing three or four 8D "slimline" AGM batteries

(provisionally these puppies: http://www.northstarbattery.com/data_sheets/HD_Marine/NSB%20M12-210.pdf)

and will be putting them under the saloon floor very close to the CG point of the hull (more or less just below the mast). These batteries have a form factor akin to that of a "tower" PC, but narrower, and will give about 630-840 AH of capacity. I feel getting all but the start battery out of the engine room will keep them nice and cool, and I don't think the weight down there will hurt at all, a point I will return to shortly. We will haul the engine this winter for an evaluation for a top-end rebuild. Too little use, rather than too much, over the last 19 years is the issue, as some of the rocker and valve components show signs of corrosion. This engine has a mere 1300 hours on it, 250 put on my us in the last year as we have used the boat a great deal more than the previous owners, who seemed a tad "dock-bound".

I am installing soft mounts and a universal coupler and am having a thrust bearing welded in to reduce vibration and to lessen the shock of shifting with our new 19 x 15 four-bladed VariProp, which I hope will lessen prop walk, gain us some speed under sail, and will exploit the diesel's power band more efficiently. The VariProp can be pitched differently for both forward and reverse operation, which I hope will be of use in tight docking situations.

We have also ordered a Voyageur Wind Vane, giving us both a "motor autopilot" with a ComNav head and hydraulic ram, and a "sailing autopilot" that is purely mechanical and uses the tiller head. We are doubling the plumbing system in the same spirit, with Whale footpumps to supplement the Flojet pressure water system. We feel this will save amps and wastage offshore.

Regarding the water tanks, I have a question: They are (reportedly) 100 U.S. gallons each and are currently mounted beneath the pilothouse deck on either side, with approximately 20 or so inches of space to the turn of the hull beneath them and perhaps one foot of space either side of the engine compartment hatch.

I have noticed a couple of issues and I would like to solicit your feedback, if I may: 1) Alchemy seems "tender" at dock and heels perceptibly when boarded amidships. I have found that this is directly related to the fullness of these tanks. 2). The tanks flex audibly in a seaway. I filled them prior to leaving Port Credit Yacht Club on Thursday, and on starboard tack in six-seven foot waves, they "rumbled" when motorsailing with staysail only off waves and pitching some 20 degrees with 15 degrees of heel. While I don't think this is dangerous (the tanks are steel), I think it may indicate they are not internally baffled. Another piece of information: There is a SS 40 gallon "holding tank" keel mounted directly beneath the engine that is not currently in use (a 40 gallon HDPE tank is under the nav station cabinetry just forward of the head instead), nor is it currently filled.

While I intend to install a purchased Filter Boss dual Racor system in the compartment in order to convert this otherwise superfluous tank to a 40 gallon "polished" diesel day tank (and thus to increase my total fuel capacity to 140 gallons), could it be that part of the perceived tenderness of Alchemy is due to the missing 40 gallons of ballast at this point? As I am removing the engine this winter anyway in order to change the fittings and access at this tank (and to make it pristine, frankly), I have no problems filling it with water ballast in the meantime. My question regarding the water tanks is this: Given that there is a lot of "dead space" beneath these tanks, is there any designer's objection to having them dropped to the frames directly beneath them? The tanks would have to be remade to conform to the curve and chine at this spot, but I would both feel more comfortable with the tanks fully supported on the frames, accessible from the top for inspection, and to remedy any missing baffle issue. Also, I suspect lowering them would increase initial stability and stiffness. The freeing up of usable space for spare chain and gear ABOVE the tanks would be icing on the cake, as it is diffficult to access the space below them now. Sorry for the length of this, but frankly you are the best person with whom I can discuss this. and I would appreciate your thoughts on this if you care to share them.
I think I'll follow up with a phone call. These decisions require some professional insight: I'll pay him or another designer to get it right if I have to.

Damage report

Scroll down a bit and you'll see how a procedural error at my launch from a public marina nearly cost us the boat. We didn't find this damage until late June, accessing a rarely viewed locker. I believe this impact evidence corresponds closely to the position of the cradle pad that took the brunt of being dropped, avec bateau, on the road back in May.

I am "in negotiations" to have what I hope is merely fractured paint surveyed and remedied. I want to make sure that if the plate itself was damaged or weakened structurally, I don't learn of it falling off a Southern Ocean wave.