Jason

About Jason

http://Waywardlearning.com

Posts by Jason P:

A boat, so much more than the sum of her parts.

A boat, so much more than the sum of her parts.

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What is at a boat’s core?

As I sit here amongst the field of other boats rocking and swaying with each gust of the wind and change in the water, I finally see the very core of what a boat is. When I was a new boat owner, I thought that the core was all of the work I would need to do to keep her afloat. A boat builder might say the core is the layers of fiberglass, wood, or metal that make up the hull. A spectator might see the beautiful colors and shape of the sails as she glides past and believe that to be the core. All of those views contribute to what makes a boat but now I see that at the true core of a boat is…

 

 

Freedom

A boat offers unbridled freedom to any sailor willing to cast off. So much so that when we are not sailing, we must lash our boats down to fixed docks or trailers. Even while moored to a fixture a boat still dances around as much as she has the ability. She longs for the opportunity to move with the wind and seas and break free from her bonds.

 

 

Can’t Hold Them Down

Even as we bring them in to their land based temporary homes, they become increasingly more disagreeable. As we slow to a crawl and carefully ease them into their slips, they favor the wind and waves more as if to fight the chains of oppression they will soon be bound by.

 

 

History Will Tell

It is this unpredictable freedom that has both terrified and tantalized sailors for thousands of generations. The suggestion of lands and adventures in far off places combined with a partner that shines brightest while cutting through the seas and riding the wind, sailors never stood a chance.

St Augustine, welcome to the oldest city…Part 2

St Augustine, welcome to the oldest city…Part 2

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Join us on our boat as we journey down the Intercostal Waterway to the oldest European city in North America.

Almost like home

It had been more than a year since we had moved aboard Rána and now that we were on our journey to St Augustine we found ourselves back at the vary same marina we started.

Be sure to check out part 1 here.

Palm Cove Marina is a reasonably decent place along the ICW (Intercoastal Water Way) with some standard amenities and a swimming pool. We had stayed there for 2 weeks at a time over several months when we first bought the boat but before we sold our house. We got pretty familiar with the area so it felt good to be back.

Palm Cove Marina
Palm Cove Marina

I like the green one

With only one night at Palm Cove Marina, exploring wasn’t top on our priority list but going for a walk seemed in order. We passed by a business that we had seen many times before but honestly weren’t sure what it was for. Our best guess is a high-end car dealership. This place seemed to collect very nice cars. Osiris especially loved seeing these awesome machines.

AMG GT R
AMG GT R

Calling it a night

After our walk we went back to Rána to get a good night’s rest. We had completed the first leg of our first real journey. All of us had a feeling of accomplishment and pride that is hard to match. Still there was a lingering stress for the day to come.

Rána
Rána

Preparing for day two

We had been warned about how difficult the St Augustine inlet area was. Just about everyone we talked to said it was one of the worst and was constantly changing. We heard horror story after horror story of people running aground as they came in or out. This did not help our anxiety at all.

Capsize in St Augustine Inlet
Capsize in St Augustine Inlet

TowBoatUs to the rescue

Before leaving we spent a lot of time looking over the charts for the inlet. It seemed simple enough but with all the stories we had heard we weren’t sure. We decided to call TowBoatUS to ask about the inlet. They were kind enough to put us in touch with a captain that works that inlet. After talking for a few minutes, he reassured us that it really was not too difficult if you pay attention. He suggested that most of the people who run aground are the ones that go off course while they make a sandwich instead of driving. He mentioned that just the fact that we were asking suggested we were more likely to be successful.

St Augustine Inlet
St Augustine Inlet

Watch out for those currents

In our research of the area, we did find out that the St Augustine Municipal Marina, where we were headed, was prone to high currents which makes for more difficult docking. We found out that the slack tide (the moment when the tides are between going in and going out so the current is near zero) would happen at around 3PM the day we wanted to come in. With that in mind we picked our disembarking time from Palm Cove so that we would get to St Augustine just in time.

St Augustine Municipal Marina
St Augustine Municipal Marina

Day two

We woke up early and took the dog for a quick walk then hurried to get the boat ready. We pushed off the dock and set out on our second day. For the most part the day was pretty easy. We made great time and ended up near the St Augustine inlet much sooner than we had expected. To be sure we went through it with the best chances of success we decided to spin circles to kill some time.

Palm Cove to St Augustine
Palm Cove to St Augustine

Crossing the inlet

When the time finally came, we made our way through the inlet area despite all of our nervousness. As we crossed the area where the ocean comes in and meets the ICW it got somewhat choppy, the wind picked up, and it didn’t help that it was pretty busy with other boats.

Carolyn at the helm
Carolyn at the helm

Well, that wasn’t so bad

With a small bit of luck and a lot of preparation we were able to get past the inlet with nothing more than a lot of unnecessary fears. As it turns out it was pretty easy to navigate. Once past, we had to stop and wait for the Bridge of Lions to open.

Bridge of Lions
Bridge of Lions

Our last bridge

The line for the bridge was fairly long and included at least 6 boats on our side of the bridge and several more on the other side. After what felt like hours, the bridge finally opened. We slowly made our way through the bridge then contacted the marina for a slip assignment.

Schooner Freedom going through the Bridge of Lions
Schooner Freedom going through the Bridge of Lions

Welcome to St. Augustine

The St Augustine Municipal Marina was very helpful and easy to work with. They told us which slip to use and had a dock hand available to help us in. Since we had waited for slack tide the current was near zero which made our docking very easy and without incident.

Tying up
Tying up

When we got settled, some friends from our previous marina joined us. It took us 2 days to get to St Augustine in our sailboat. It took them 45 minutes to drive there. For them it was a quick trip, for us it was an adventure.

For more check out our Instagram and Facebooks pages.

St Augustine or bust…Part 1

St Augustine or bust…Part 1

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The Adventure Starts (Slowly)
We set off from our home for the last year and half in the Ortega River. Having no idea what to expect, we planned out the trip as well as we knew how. After watching the weather for a few weeks we picked a weather window that we felt comfortable with. Under motor power our boat can only travel at around 8mph. This means that the 45-minute car ride to St Augustine was going to take us more like 20 hours in our slow boat. Since we picked a low wind weather window it meant motoring the entire time.
Skipper Carolyn!
Skipper Carolyn!
The Ditch (ICW)
In the interest of being safe, we decided to avoid making the whole trip straight through. We didn’t feel comfortable with traveling at night just yet. Our route did not have us going out into the ocean this time. Instead, we would be following the St Johns river and the ICW (Intercoastal Water Way). This is a winding path that is often narrow and shallow. Making it in the dark seemed like a bad idea for us just starting out.
Ortega River to St Augustine
Ortega River to St Augustine
First Stop
Since we were not going to make the whole trip in one-shot, we found a small marina called Palm Cove just off the ICW in Jacksonville. This place is about halfway between the Ortega River and St Augustine so it seemed like the perfect place to go. It also happened to be the marina we took possession of Rána at so we had an idea of what to expect. We also knew that we could only get in through their channel at high tide or we would run aground.
Palm Cove Marina (Jacksonville FL)
Palm Cove Marina (Jacksonville FL)
Seeing the Sights
The first half of our trip involved motoring through downtown Jacksonville. It was amazing seeing the high-rise buildings and massive bridges as we crawled past. Going only 8mph really gives you a lot of time to look around and enjoy the view! It sure beats driving at 70mph and missing everything.
Main Street Bridge (Jacksonville FL)
Main Street Bridge (Jacksonville FL)
Look, the Ocean!
Eventually, we made it to the Jacksonville ocean inlet. Although we did not need to go out into the ocean, this was where the ICW met up with the St Johns river so we had to get pretty close. All of the inlets where the ocean comes into a river are notorious for being unstable. The water coming and going often has fast currents and causes the silt on the bottom to shift around a lot making shoaling. This meant that even though our charts said we should have plenty of depth under us, we might still run aground on one of these unexpected shoals.
Mayport Inlet (Jacksonville FL)
Mayport Inlet (Jacksonville FL)
Running Aground
Just as we started making the turn south toward the ICW we saw a sailboat. I noticed that it had its sails open and also had smoke coming from the back, most likely from their engine. I didn’t think much of it at first but as we got closer, I started to realize that it wasn’t moving. This could only mean that she was grounded.
We were on a course that would put us right through where this sailboat was stopped so we quickly slowed down and turned to get further away. Just as we did, we felt it. Bump! Ever so slightly, we touched the bottom of the river with the bottom of our boat. We quickly reversed and moved away from the shoal. Seeing the stuck sailboat and reacting quickly saved us some possible boat damage and getting stuck. It didn’t help much with the pucker factor though.
Jason Driving
Jason Driving
Doing Circles
Despite our nerves being completely wrecked, we made our way down the ICW with very little stress from that point on. We actually went faster than we had expected so we ended up in front of the Palm Cove channel about 3 hours before we could go into it. Since we had not successfully anchored at that point, we decided to just spin circles outside their channel. When the tide got high enough, we made our way into their channel and successfully docked.
Circling Palm Cove Marina
Circling Palm Cove Marina
Palm Cove Marina
It was our first real planned trip as sailors and we felt great. We might not have known everything we could have and we made some mistakes but we did it and it was awesome! We would stay for just one night then be on our way to St Augustine in the morning.
It’s Finally Moving Day

It’s Finally Moving Day

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Why did we move to a boat again?

We finally decided it was time to change our boat life. It had been so long since we moved aboard Rána. Mostly, we had just been going through the motion getting used to this new way of life. We spent our time fixing things, trying to find places to store our stuff, balancing how much food can fit into the fridge, and fighting the never-ending battle of decay caused by living near the water.
Ash in the refrigerator
Ash in the refrigerator
As long as we were staying at a dock our life was pretty much the same as living in a house, only much harder and in a smaller space. After a while this really made us wonder why we are doing it in the first place.

It’s about time

We had done the hard part of boat life for long enough. We decided to take our next step. It was time to make our floating home a traveling home. To that end we decided our first stop needed to be somewhat nearby. This would give us some experience without being too challenging.
We had been staying in the Ortega River in Jacksonville Florida. Not far, about a 45-minute drive, is St Augustine. At over 400 years old, it is known as the oldest city in this country. St Augustine was founded by the Spanish before the United States even existed so there is a great deal of history to be found. Since it was so close this seemed like the perfect place to try out traveling.
Flagler College St Augustine Florida
Flagler College St Augustine Florida
We called the marina in St Augustine and made our reservation to be able to stay in a slip. We were not ready for anything more extreme like anchoring overnight or using a mooring ball. All we had to do was make the trip from the Ortega River to St Augustine.

Cleaning time

It took more effort than we had expected just to get the boat ready to leave. We had settled into living at our slip so much that we had to rethink how everything was stored on the boat so nothing would fall and hurt someone.
Where are you supposed to keep the cat?
Where are you supposed to keep the cat?
Once we finally got our plan together and got everything ready to leave, we had to wait until we felt comfortable with the weather. Being inexperienced really made us drag our feet. It was best for us to leave knowing we would have nearly perfect weather for our whole trip so that we wouldn’t have to deal with anything unexpected. That 45-minute drive would be a 20-hour boat trip since the boat only travels at around 8mph!

Saying goodbye to Ortega Landing

Eventually we decided to push ourselves and not let fear stop us. We said our goodbyes to the friends we had made and set off with fear and excitement.
Cruising through Jacksonville
Cruising through Jacksonville
Dorian

Dorian

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There is something about boat life that forces you to slow down no matter how much of a hurry you are in. We often rush along trying to get ready for whatever we have defined as the next thing we need to do only to be slowed down or stopped completely by missing parts, non-existent parts, work obligations, other boat related issues, or weather.

We had a guest on board Rána this week and we had hoped to take her out sailing. We got everything ready. The weather was going to be great, and even the tide was going to be ideal. It seemed like nothing could get in our way. Enter Dorian to slow everything down.

As soon as we heard about Hurricane Dorian we started thinking about how it might affect us here in our little hurricane hole. It is hard to image much damage can happen here since it rarely does. This season has been especially mild on the weather front so it was almost a surprise to see this one sneak up. It shouldn’t have been.

Dorian slowly developed and the possible paths came into focus. At first it was going to be a smaller tropical storm and would barely come near us. Then it worked its way into a much into a larger problem. It slowly creeped up to higher and higher speeds as it became a category 2, then 3, then 4, then it became the largest hurricane to ever hit the Bahamas at a massive category 5. Even though the news made efforts to sensationalize the storm and we typically avoid that sort of thing, it was hard to deny that it was looking very intimidating.

As Dorian crossed through the Atlantic toward our home we watched it hit the Bahamas, first at Abaco then Grand Bahama islands. It was devastating to these islands and the people living on them. They had prepared but they did not know it would be as large as it became. Dorian tore through houses and flipped over vehicles. People were left with only bits of their lives still in place. It was horrible to watch on the news the things that happened to these people and our hearts go out to them.

Unfortunately, the hurricane stalled just over Grand Bahama Island and just off its coast. This meant for us that things were changing and the path was becoming more unclear again. Some paths looked as if it would hit us straight on and be devastating and others suggested it would pass by us like a mild summer weather pattern.

We were meant to start our first day of homeschooling for the year but instead of learning what we had planned we refocused on learning about hurricanes. Deirdre supplied us with her very own spaghetti model to show what she had learned.

In the darkness of uncertainty, we decided to start our hurricane preparations for the boat and our family no matter what was going to happen. Everyone, even people living in large comfortable well built homes, should have a plan for disaster. They do not happen all that often and some areas are more prone then others but they do happen. The people with even a minimal plan in place are the ones who survive and come out okay.

Our plan started off with getting all windage off the top of the boat. This meant we had to take down or tie down anything that could catch wind. Our mainsail is a furling main meaning it rolls up and in our case, it rolls up inside our mast. This is a pretty protected place for it to be so we rolled it up as far as it would go then tied it down to make sure it couldn’t unroll. We pulled down our headsail and tightened all of our halyards and sheets (ropes).

We spent time getting our solar panels secured and removing our brand-new canvas. We also added several extra dock lines including lines between our boat and the boat next to us to help protect each of us from hitting the dock. 

We used zip ties to make the ends of rope and other things secure in places where they could whip around. Someone may have gone a little crazy with them…

Once we felt like we had fully prepared Rána for the possibility of a storm we started working on the plan for the living things on our boat. We are very fortunate to have a good friend that lives nearby. Her and her family graciously offered to let us come stay with them during the storm so we would have a safer place to be. 

As the storm moved closer and closer to us it started to slowly push further out into the Atlantic. We still couldn’t tell how far out it would pass us so in the interest of safety we took our friend up on staying with her.

When Dorian finally came it was not much more than some minor rain and medium wind. We left our instruments on in the boat to record the weather during the storm. This showed that we had maximum wind speeds of 49 knots or about 56 miles per hour but the average was down around 22 knots or 25 miles per hour. We realized we could have stayed on the boat but in the end it worked out pretty well. Staying with our friend was a welcomed change from our normal routine. We all got the chance to hang out. The adults did puzzles while the kids played various games.

Finally Sailing…

Finally Sailing…

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With the wind in your hair, the horizon in the distance, the sea in the air, and no resistance, you’re sailing. As nice as that sounds, it’s almost what we’re doing. We finally got to go out sailing. How can we have spent so much time not just owning but living on a sailboat and almost never go sailing?
Prior to buying Rána the last time we had sailed was on our 14’ Vagabond, Blue Horizon. She was a fun little daysailer. She was rigged as a fractional sloop with main sail and foresail so she had all of the same basic controls and surfaces as Rána. It was a little different with Blue Horizon since she also had a dagger board instead of a keel but all in all she was just about as complicated. Aside from size, which seems like the most obvious difference between the two, the fact that Rána is also our home plays a large roll in how we use her.
Since Rána has the added benefit of holding just about everything we own as well as all of us living things, it is a little more daunting to decide to take her out for a day sail. We have to stow everything we can in a safe place, get everyone ready and in sailing mindset, prepare the animals, remove our sunshades, disconnect shore power, checkout and start the engine, do a last minute doublecheck of lines and wires, close thru-hulls, shutoff our air conditioning, untie our lines, then set off. To add to all of this we can only get in and out of our slip between about 2 hours before and 2 hours after high tide which is always changing times on us.
Once we finally get completely ready and the tide is playing in our favor we can go out. That’s the point at which we always seem to get stuck. We know we want to. We know we love being on the water but somehow, we seem to stop ourselves. Often the excuse is another boat project. Since there is always another boat project this seems to be an easy way out.
Finally, after months and months of not sailing while living on our sailboat, Carolyn found a quote on the internet that said, “Sailing should always be at the top of the to do list.” This obviously hit both of us like a ton of bricks. We both asked ourselves why we were living on a sailboat if we weren’t doing any sailing. We quickly realized that we had to make a change so we decided to take her out sailing the next possible time. For us, based on the tide was the following weekend. We got Rána prepared and set off. This time Carolyn even got us out of the marina and drove us to the nearby bridge.
Once we were in the open area of the larger river we opened the mainsail. Since this was the first time we had done this since our sea-trial before buying the boat, and we had just put up new rigging, we went slowly and overly cautiously. I think we both kept waiting for it to jump out and bite us or something.
The wind was mild (7-10 knots) and the current was slow (~1-2 knots) so it was very easy. Once the main was open we both thought why not open the Genoa as well. With Carolyn on the helm, I pulled the Genoa out and filled it up with air. The boat heeled over maybe 5-8 degrees and suddenly we were really sailing our home.
We had been concerned that the kids would not like being heeled over at all but once we were they seemed to enjoy it. The water was a little choppy so the boat was bouncing a bit which also seemed to be fun for both of them.
We didn’t get to sail for too long since we only had about a 4 hour window before we wouldn’t be able to get back to our slip but every single minute of it was fun. As much as we tried we mostly forgot just about all of the things we thought we knew about sailing so we weren’t trimming the sails perfectly and we were fighting the boats weather helm but it didn’t matter. We were sailing. Now the top of our To-Do list is always sailing first.
Those little holes in the bottom of our boat

Those little holes in the bottom of our boat

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The excitement and stress involved in doing a large project on a boat is always high. The anticipation of being complete is a great feeling. Knowing that all you have to do is that one last thing and you are finally done…except…we are learning that it is never really done.
Just as we were wrapping up the large undertaking of pulling down our mast and replacing all of the standing rigging holding it up, we decided to do another ritual check of things around the boat.
This check is fairly simple and often quick. The first thing we look at is the bottom center of our bilge. Since this is the absolute lowest point in the boat, and under all of the floor boards, it is where all water flows if there is any kind of leak. Checking this area for water will give us some insight into how well we are doing at not sinking.
After checking the bilge at the lowest point, we go through each of our thru-hulls. These are the holes in our boat that are meant to be there. Some are above the water line outside and some are below. Some are used to discharge water out, like the sink drains, and some are for bringing water in, like the air conditioner cooling water.
Each thru-hull is first a hole cut into the boat. A bronze or plastic device is placed into the hole and sealed in place. Attached to this bronze or plastic device is a valve often referred to as a sea-cock. The sea-cock typically has a barbed nipple attached to connect a hose. The intention behind all of this is to control how the water comes in or goes out and to avoid leaking.
As with all things boat related, just as we thought we were getting done with big projects like the rigging, our inspection of thru-hulls revealed that one of them was leaking. That meant our boat was sinking! Of course, our boat was sinking very, very slowly but still.
Unfortunately, the only right way to fix a leaking thru-hull is to pick the whole boat up out of the water, remove, and re-bed it. As always, we started researching the best ways to do this project and came to MarineHowTo.com. This site has a wealth of experience based tutorials on boat related work. It is well worth a look if you are learning.
They describe a method of using fiberglass backing plates instead of the wooden ones that Hunter thought was a great *read cheap* idea. These are to be glassed into the boat so they are permanent and fixed. It also suggests that using something like the Groco flange adapter will help to improve the strength of the whole system. We decided this was the way to go and we were going to do the oldest 5 thru-hulls below the waterline. We have 11 total below the waterline but the other 6 had been re-bedded a few years ago by a previous owner.
We needed to flatten the inside of the boat so that our new backing plates fit properly and then could be well glassed into the bottom of our boat. When you need to grind the inside of your fiberglass boat and you don’t really want to get fiberglass dust everywhere what do you do? I say make a sanding tent!
After a ton of research, even more elbow grease, and a little bit of guess work, we were able to get them all replaced. Of course just we we thought we had the hard job completed we realized that the hull had some bumps on it…These bumps are known as osmotic blisters.
These are bubbles that form between the fiberglass of the hull and the gelcoat that is used as a barrier. It turns out that gelcoat isn’t really that great for boats despite being on just about every fiberglass boat I have ever been on.
The blisters fill with fluid which slowly converts to a corrosive substance. It then eats away at the fiberglass which rots it. The only solution is to grind all of the bad glass out of the hull. It was a little scary to start grinding on the outside of our hull but once we got started we just kept going until we got all of the water out.
After grinding it all out the next step was to fill the holes with thickened epoxy. We used West Systems 105 Resin, 205 Fast Hardener, and enough 406 Colloidal Silica to make it like a thick peanut butter. This mixture had to be pushed into the holes then smoothed out to make a nice finish. Once we had the finish shape we wanted we were able to paint over the patches to make a finished look.
That big hole in the top of our boat…

That big hole in the top of our boat…

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I didn’t realize just how many holes there are in a large boat. Despite not wanting to have holes, since they seem to be how water gets in, there are several. One of the larger ones on the topside of the boat is for the mast.
Some boats have a deck stepped mast and some have a keel stepped mast. A keel stepped mast is one where the mast goes through the top deck of the boat and then rests on top of the keel at the bottom of the boat. A deck stepped sits on a foot on the deck. Under the foot on the inside of the boat is a compression post that goes down to the bottom of the boat.
On Rána we have a deck stepped mast with a solid stainless steel compression post. This has the advantage of having a much smaller hole in our deck than if we had a keel stepped but that doesnt mean we have no hole.
When we took the mast off the boat it seemed like the right time to take apart the mast step and work on rebedding it. This is where we completely disassemble it, remove it from the boat, clean it, then remount it with new bedding compound in the hopes that it will not leak on our heads.
Upon taking apart our mast step we found that ours had a mast foot, which is the dark grey plate, a stainless steel plate with wings to hold the turning blocks, and another stainless steel plate which was welded to the compression post.
Someone got the wild idea that we could try rebedding just the mast foot and leave the rest in place since it looked as if the whole compression post would have to be removed to rebed all of it. As I am sure you can imagine that did not go well.
A few days after we bedded the mast foot we were sitting at our table as it started to rain outside. It didn’t take long before it was raining inside as well. I suppose it was better than having it leak after the mast went back up! So we went to work taking it all apart again and cleaning it up. This time we took the whole compression post out and cleaned everything.
Once we got it all back in place it looked pretty good. We waited a few days for the bedding compound to cure then we did some wet tests to make sure it wasn’t going to leak. The only thing left to do now was to take apart and rebed all of the chain plates…
All things aloft…

All things aloft…

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When we surveyed Rána we found out that she would need new standing rigging sooner rather than later. After doing some further digging we realized she was still on her original rigging which meant it was 17 years old.

We had to learn a lot about standing rigging and how it all worked. The standing rigging is the wire and other components that hold the mast up. Our boat is a Bergström-Ridder or more commonly known as a B&R rig. This is a unique design that was adopted by Hunter several years ago. It was originally viewed as a poor choice but lately has gained a lot of regard since it appears to work as well as they said it would without much issue. It is now being incorporated into other manufactures designs in some fashion or another.

 

Standard Fractional Rig

The B&R rig is a lot like any other rig however it lacks a backstay. For reference, you can see in the picture that the stand style of rig has a forestay coming from the front of the mast to the bow of the boat, a backstay coming from the back of the mast to the stern of the boat, and two side stays that go from either side of the top of the mast down to the chain plates on the sides of the boat. The B&R rig does away with the backstay by making a tripod out of the forestay and side stays. The side stays are held back at an angle by the spreaders. This keeps all three stays at 120 degrees from each other.

B&R Rig

Since the rig is setup this way it is very stable and does not require any adjustment while sailing. It is sort of a “set it and forget it” design only requiring the occasional inspection for problems. This has its ups and downs but for us we felt like it would be best to have the simplest setup we can.

We did some research into rigging age and realized that as a general rule, rigging should only be used for around 10 years and that is when it’s been used in the best conditions. We spoke to a lot of different sailors and it seems there is a lot of opinions about this. We heard everything from “20 years is fine” to “5 years is the very end.”

After doing even more research we decided that the only real answer was to scale the mast and fully inspect everything. Various websites give ideas on how to inspect your rigging but none seemed to really lay it all out there. In the end the most important thing we found to look for is cracking from corrosion or stress as well as rust staining. The rust staining is an indicator of a large problem since all of the standing rigging is made of 316 Stainless Steel. It takes a lot to make this stuff rust but the salty harsh ocean environment is just the right mix of corrosive.

We started the process by taking zoomed in images with our DSLR camera and zoom lens. That got us part of the way there but really didn’t show enough detail from the ground. The next step was to climb up the mast and look as closely as possible. We had read that taking high resolution images was a great way to inspect. This turned out to be a very good idea since the bright sun and the movement of the boat made it very difficult to get a good view. Using the images, we could zoom in and really see if there were issues.

Immediately we noticed rust staining at just about every joint in the system. We also found several very small stress cracks. As it turns out, stainless steel apparently corrodes from the inside out. This means that if you can see corrosion, it is likely much worse on the inside of the steel. After looking everything over we decided the best bet was to just replace it all.

We contacted a few local riggers to quote doing the full replacement for us. Turns out that is surprisingly expensive. We were given verbal quotes of between $10k and $15k. We let that sticker shock sink in a bit which led me to research doing it myself. I found a few sites with information on how to do it and all in all it seemed doable. We decided that we would pay a shop to make our new rigging and ship it to us then we would put it on.

We took a great deal of measurements and took a lot of pictures to get the quoting process started. We knew that we would have to pull the whole mast off the boat to get the final dimensions but we needed to get a basic idea first. We contacted several companies that could do the work and found that Sailing Services in Miami FL had the best prices as well as the best information and recommendations from others.

Finally, the day came to pull the mast down and get all of the old wiring off the boat. Since our mast is 50’ long above the deck of the boat and it is a rather large piece of aluminum extrusion, this required hiring a crane and operator to meet us at a nearby marina. The crane was strapped to the mast then we started removing all of the connection. Once down we were able to take off and label each wire so we could measure and prepare them for replacement.

We took our final measurements and wrapped up half of the wiring to send off the Sailing Services. Once they received everything they went to work getting it replaced. Our new rigging arrived in a little more than a week. It was much nicer and cleaner than the old stuff.

While we waited for the new rigging we did some work on the mast. This was the best time to take apart the in-mast furling gear (this allows our mainsail to be stored inside the mast) and grease it. Since the mast was down it was also the best time to replace the wiring inside it as well as the lights on it. We also did an inspection on the entire mast and re-bedded the mast step and chain plates…more on that fiasco in another post.

We spent another few days preparing the new rigging by setting everything to the old measurements. Several of the wires have turn buckles on them so that they can be adjusted to the correct tension. Since we knew the lengths for the old wire we configured the new wiring to match so we would be ready.

After a lot of hard work and anticipation finally the day to put our sailboat back together came. We prepared the mast to go back up and brought the boat over. Putting it up went fairly quickly which was sort of surprising. We didn’t spend a lot of time tuning the rig which could be done late so it was really just all about getting it back on the boat.

Once it was attached someone had to go up the mast again to remove the crane strap and connect the wind instrument. I quickly volunteered to rid the “sky hook.” I got strapped in and the crane operator lifted me all the way to the top of the mast.

After getting the boat all back together and into sailing shape we decided it was a good idea to do an underwater inspection. This is where we look through the boat at all of the underwater things (from the inside of the boat) for leaks. Surprise….a leak…

All dressed up with nowhere to go…

All dressed up with nowhere to go…

,

You work hard and you plan everything but in the end, are you ever really ready?

We haven’t been great about taking the boat out since we moved aboard. As you can imagine, we have mostly focused on the transition to living in a small space. Just getting everything on the boat and out of our truck took weeks. We had to find every awkward storage space the boat had including the hidden ones.

Still, we thought it was time to get her out into the river for a joy ride. We planned everything out…we thought.

We went through the dubious process of stowing everything we had lying about the cabin.

We took the cover off our dodger.

We checked the engine out and made sure all of the fluids were ready to go.

We got the life jackets out and the kids excited to put them on and go for a ride.

 

Then we tried to start the engine to get out of our slip. It turned over for a split second then was dead. I realized quickly that the starter battery was dead. It seemed like it had just enough to maybe start so we tried it once with hope. Still nothing.

Luckily, we just happened to have a standard 12V car battery charger from when we had been at a previous marina. They had disconnected our power cables while we were away from the boat and when they put them back on they didn’t do it correctly so we came back to our entire house battery bank without a charge but that’s a whole different story.

I quickly setup the charger and hooked it up to the starter battery. I was determined to save our day trip since we had already put so much work into getting out.

Finally, after about an hour I had just enough charge to get the engine running. Everyone got so excited. We were ready to get out of our slip.

I was just about to disconnect us from shore power when I realized I should probably turn on the instruments. I figured since I was turning them on I should quickly check our depth. I knew we were near high tide but it’s always best to double check.

Our boat draft is 5.4’ from the water line. That means that we sit that low in the water so the ground has to be at least that far from us. Our slip has about 5.3’ of water at low tide. Most likely our keel has grooved out an area so it doesn’t actually sit on the bottom but it is very close. At high tide, we only see around 6.3’. The river we are located in is only around 5-8’ at the deepest points.

I looked quickly across each of the instruments. Wind was slow, maybe 5 knots from the West. Hull speed was zero as expected. Then depth…it showed 23.5’. I had to double take before it clicked that something wasn’t right.

I thought maybe it was just a glitch and I could reboot it so I tried. When it came back up all I got was “—“. After a quick google search and some frustration, I discovered that it was likely a failure of the display unit.

Now, if the wind sensor or even the speed sensor had gone out we could have still enjoyed our day but no. It had to be the depth. This is the one instrument on our boat that is critical for us to even get out of our marina.

At that point, the day was lost and the kids were let down. We decided to let the engine run for a while since it needed it anyway and it would charge the battery. I spent the rest of the day trying to solve the depth problem. The kids and Carolyn went into the cabin and found other things to play.

Sometimes you can plan for everything. It isn’t until you are ready to embark that you realize you missed something so simple. At least we weren’t leaving for a month-long voyage at sea…

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