Bulwark Cap Rail Covers

The Caribbean sun is doing a number on the teak.  Before I start varnishing I want to at least know that it will be protected when I am not there.  Here are photos of the covers I constructed.

At home, where I had the sewing machine, I created the basic foundation for my covers.  For each side I made 7-inch wide strips, double-hemmed on each side, 42 feet long.  For the stern, the strip was 9 inches wide and only 10 feet long.  I used Sunbrella fabric and V-92 thread.  For sewing the double hems I spooled the fabric off a broom (as shown in picture).  The spool kept the double hem folded and allowed it to easily feed into the machine.  I used Sailrite advice and videos from their website and was inspired to buy a Sailrite machine after struggling through this project with a less suitable machine.

The cap rail is interrupted by three stanchions on each side and two in the stern.  I cut openings for each stanchion, but had to do that at the boat. I had pre-made the velcro pads at home on the machine but at the boat I had to hand-sew them in place.  Each one took me about an hour to hand sew.  I did them at anchor with a cocktail after the kids had gone to bed.  (My new Sailrite will come with the Monster Wheel for hand cranking).  This picture also shows some of the creative ways I found to attach the covers to the boat so that I could limit the number of snaps.  There is a loop of webbing around the mooring post and a tie through the hawse pipe.

I was able to limit the use of snaps to four on each side and two on the stern.  The reason to limit snaps is that the sockets are screwed into the fiberglass, are not as pretty and will corrode.  This picture shows my how I hung the water bottles directly opposite the snaps to avoid pulling the cover off.  The snaps are positioned to put slight tension on the fabric.

I cut slits for the ladder attachment points.  I tried to do most cuts with the hot knife. but found that cutting with scissors and singeing with a lighter also worked.  Here again I can attach the cover with a tie through the hawse pipe.

I avoided snaps in the back by tying the corners together (Kate's idea).

When I made mistakes I kept going.  Here I cut the opening for the back stay in the wrong spot and just patched it

I hung bottles filled with seawater on outside so that I did not need hardware on the outside hull (thanks to Tom from Nomad for that idea).  I used a constrictor knot around the neck of the bottles and tied them to the grommet with two strands.  The line through the grommet should prevent the grommets from hitting the paint in the wind.

More bottles hanging.  I used one bottle for the corner.

I thought it was clever to use one bottle in the corner.   

Meditative sailing videos from the passage

These two videos were contributed by my crew member Adam from his watch during the 

Caribbean 1500

Traveler redesign

A more technical post in which I describe the problems with the original traveler and how I improved it.

Some people scoff at the idea that the sail trim afforded by a traveler is significant for a cruising boat. But I simply enjoy being a geek about sail shape.  It is more than the practical consideration of being able to get the sails trimmed just right so that we are able to sail home rather than motor home.  It is more a matter of understanding how the sails work and how to get the most out of them.  And when the boat is going just right you can feel it.  So I was not going to deprive myself of a fundamental tool for achieving sail trim.

Original traveler set-up showing the line coming forward
through a bullet block and then back to cockpit

The original traveler on the Morris Justine was difficult to operate because the line chafed on the block that led it forward and the line did not go smoothly through the bullet block.  I have labeled the first chafe point in the overview picture and show a detail of it below.

Close-up of chafe point

This stacked cheek block would only allow the line to be turned straight forward or in-board but the line is led to a bullet block which is outobard of it and it chafes on the cheek bloc where the curved arrow it.  Then the line does not go smoothly through the bullet block which leads it back to the cockpit.  The system was nearly impossible to move under load and it is not something I would pull with a winch.  So instead  I would go up on deck and pull the traveler line straight forward.  My son would remain in the cockpit and pull the slack through the bullet block.

I also did not want a block in the location of the bullet block because I planned to be up there while we were sailing and I wanted to eliminate tripping hazards.

Redesigned traveller

My redesign uses a cheek block on the traveler support bar to divert the line downward rather than forward.  The key to placement of this block is to put the first hole as far into the corner of the support beam as possible while still leaving enough room to get a nut behind it (I actually had to file down my nut to get it on the bolt). On the deck I used a stand up block (I ended up not using the spring that makes it stand up) to lead the line back to the cockpit.  The key to placement of the pad eye securing the stand-up block is to determine how the block will be angled when the line is under tension.

The deck had wood core in the location where I wanted my new pad eyes.  I over-sized my holes, removed core with a bent nail in a drill, filled these holes with epoxy and then redrilled holes the proper size for my bolts.  The interior cabin picture shows duct tape holding the epoxy in the holes.  I just used washers to back up the pad eyes as there is not much pressure on these blocks.

These headliners may make the boat look pretty, but they make every project more difficult.  Getting them back in is much worse than getting them out.

Unanticipated issue

One flaw in my design is that the line lays on the companionway cover when the traveller car is all the way to one side.  I have thought about putting a piece of teak or SS quarter-round to lift up the line, but so far it is not leaving a mark.

I was in the early stages of this project at the Morris dock in Northeast Harbor, Maine when some older guy walking the dock started to tell me how many oceans he had crossed and that I was wasting my time on a traveler and that I had many other insufficiencies on my boat that I should be worrying about.  I was already having a hard enough day without the right tools on a Sunday and finally told him I needed to make my own mistakes.  I've since been advised to do projects out of public view.

Undefended

I needed to have the goal of the trip when I bought the boat.  The “trip” was the sailing trip from Maine to the Virgin Islands, with pit stops in Annapolis and Portsmouth, Virginia, then joining the Caribbean 1500 rally for the last leg.  The boat is a 1993 Morris Justine 36’ sailboat, not my first sailboat, but certainly my first ocean-worthy boat. The trip was what made me focus.  The prospect of sailing 400 miles from land in a boat that is new to me served to focus my attention, daily for six months before departure, on my lists of proactive maintenance and system improvements.  Despite intense focus I was not able to learn what I needed for the trip until I did the trip.  It might seem I would feel a sense of accomplishment having made it to my destination.  I do acknowledge the accomplishment but feel more a sense of being humbled than a sense of mastery. 

While the learning curve was steep in the months before the trip, it became even steeper once we left the dock.  The intimate understanding of the boat that is necessary to prepare her seemed to come to me following situations in which things were not working correctly.  I read as many books as anyone and I would ask questions until I feared that I had become a pest.  Still I needed to go out there and have parts or systems fail and then fix them before I understood them sufficiently to go offshore with them.  The way I would prepare for going offshore was by getting beat up offshore. 

Tangle of wires

For example, there is a tangle of wires behind the companionway ladder concealed by a panel which takes some determination to remove.  I did not appreciate what was going on in there until after the autopilot and GPS quit working early into the Gulf Stream crossing.  We were given a clue to the source of the failure by an accessory display for wind and navigation data that read "insufficient voltage." We asked, using our satellite phone email program, for advice in deciphering the clue and Morris Yachts Service suggested we use our multimeter (“I’m assuming you’ve got a multi meter on board?”) to track down a presumed short circuit. By the time we found the short we had tracked most of the wires in that tangle to all over the boat.  You could say I prepared for the GPS failure by having a handheld GPS and buying a new fuse for the multimeter before we left, but I only began to understand that system once I had to fix it.

My system for spare parts storage had consisted of several garbage bags gradually getting ripped apart by their contents.  On the trip I accessed these so often that by end of the trip I had them organized into bins repurposed from my children’s on board toy collection.  Among those spares were several extra fuel filters the chief mechanic at Morris had thrust into my hand at departure which I had been meaning to change already. When the engine quit and we saw what looked like phlegm in through the filter glass, I pulled out the books and figured out how to change a filter.

My understanding of what to do in high winds followed a similar pattern.  Not until I was out in them did I become convinced of what I needed.  The serene waters of Maine that we had seen most of the summer, gunkholing between Northeast Harbor and Camden, had lulled me into a sense of security with my current sail control systems.   A sled ride from Annapolis to Portsmouth, by myself in 35 knot winds, moved a few things up on my list.  I had debated running backstays all summer.  Deploying the stay sail in those winds showed me how the mast can pump when a force pulling at its midpoint is unsupported by running backs.  At least I learned while I was still in Chesapeake Bay. 

Before those high winds I figured I could get by with “work-arounds” rather than secondary winches.  Work-arounds are fine until shit hits the fan and you need all the mechanical help you can get.  I realized I cannot afford to save the money when I was up on the bow trying to manage the disaster created by failed work-arounds.  I had to turn down wind to keep the headsail blanketed by the main sail but had little sea-room so not enough time to set up the clunky preventer system and I watched the boat jibe.  Nothing I can do but hold on.   I needed the ability to control lines with enough redundancy to manage multiple things at once.  A situation might start with just one thing going wrong, but can become several things very quickly if things are not brought under control.

Ocean Marine Yacht Center
Portsmouth, Virginia

Upgrades continued to occur right up to departure, possibly to the point that they compromised overall management of the campaign.  I had the boat hauled out of the water in Portsmouth to inspect and repair the keel because I had hit a couple rocks hard on the way down.   We launched as soon as I returned and I was back to my lists.  The biggest job was installing those secondary winches and I thought I had everything set to go until people started telling me I needed backing plates, making the project more complicated to the point it almost did not get done.  Boat projects always seem to have complications and extra considerations that make them take longer.  I was blessed with a crew member who could take on projects independently and I took full advantage of that.  The safety inspection found some deficiencies we had to address, I needed charts and we had to provision the boat with food for twice the length of our anticipated trip.  I was determined not to leave the dock with projects we still needed to do, having been convinced to leave Maine in such condition.

Mechanically I suppose things worked out alright.  We got our autopilot back once we figured that the short was in the GPS antenna cable, and all we had to do was disconnect it, and we felt pretty smart.  But now we were tired.  For a full day we had rotated one man always at the wheel, with waves the size of the sledding hills at home in Minneapolis, while the other two tried to get multimeter readings in inconvenient places. A couple days later we found the actual frayed spot on the antenna cable, which could only be seen using a mirror and a flashlight, and bypassed it so we could use our computerized navigation again.  We were on a roll.  We got the engine running when it quit and I learned how to bleed the fuel lines while wedged in a corner to keep from being thrown around. I kept devising various rigging experiments like my continual perfection of the preventer system. Until the boom broke we had been able to fix most things, and even then we had fuel in jerry cans which enabled us to motor-sail the rest of the way to Nanny Cay without a main sail.

But the challenges go beyond figuring out how to control the boat and keep it going.  I needed to also manage a crew.  I did not appreciate early on how important it is to clearly communicate the way in which I wanted things done and maintained.  Lines on the boat have specific uses which sometimes need to be employed immediately and I do not want those lines used for random jobs.  Equipment storage is tight and moving one thing can create a domino effect of other things being moved.  The set up of a sailboat is part science, but part art, too and this blend of art and science creates a system.  Well-meaning deviations from that system by new crew can have repercussions that break down the system.

Before I had a chance to even consider those issues I was having a hard time just finding crew.  Without crew I would not be able to sleep, so I required at least one person to sail with me and had decided I needed two in case someone got sick or hurt.  By October four people had backed out and another turned out not to be a good fit.  Each time I was down a person I was left slightly panicked about who else I could find. I was asking people to take a three-week trip out on the ocean with a captain new to ocean sailing and with a new boat.  My list of friends to call was getting short.

I could certainly tell prospective crew that it was a well-made boat and that I had taken every step to make her safe, but I was also aware that I might not be offering the level of modern conveniences that some people expect on a cruising boat.  My personal taste is to have more of a wilderness-out-in-nature type experience than a pampered one.  I chose and equipped my boat accordingly.  She is a strong sea-going boat, but she is small boat which means that the area where the people live is closer to where the sharks live.  There is no shelter behind which to steer without being exposed to the elements. We do have an autopilot and a new electric refrigerator so we are not living primitively, but I do not have a microwave and I cannot run a hair dryer, much to the surprise of some prospective crew.  I crank my anchor up manually.  I have an electrical navigation system but I really prefer to use the paper charts.

Prior to departure I developed anxiety about losing crew.  Each time someone backed out it was the same.  I don’t hear from them for a couple of weeks, they’re not asking questions about the trip and I end up giving them a call to see what’s up. I became frustrated as I realized that my dependence on crew cut into my coveted independence.  By the time we started I had become excessively accommodating.  I would not speak up when we dropped below my usual standard of neatness on the boat.  I did not enforce equality in cooking or dishes.  I said yes to fishing late in the day just as we were entering the Gulf Stream.  I let people change where things are put away.  I let myself be convinced by crew to leave the dock when we weren’t ready based on an assurance that we could get things done underway.  As we approached Tortola I was going to risk making landfall at night, cutting through some narrow channels, because my crew had been counting the hours until our arrival. I succumbed to pressure in how much we ran the engine.  I took chances with crew like letting one steer with the spinnaker which developed into a situation in which I thought we could lose the mast 400 miles from shore.  Worst of all I deviated from a safe course to one that was much more dangerous when a crew member threatened to leave the boat if I didn't and still was going to keep that crew after he openly questioned my role as captain.

I am not particularly interested in being the authoritarian captain, but I can appreciate how that tradition came to be.  Simple decisions on a boat become complex given the interactions of all the systems and if I have made a decision that I like something done a certain way on my boat then that is the safest way to do it until we have a time to sit down and think of a new way.  Routine is good and with a new crew on board routine has to be enforced.  Also, it takes a considerable amount of confidence to be the captain of a boat.  Threats to my confidence make me less able to see solutions to problems.  I was already uncertain of my own ability.

Interestingly, I think a friend was trying to help me with just these aspects of preparation in the weeks before I left. He recommended some reading and I was surprised that it dealt with how to run sailing campaigns, not about actual sailing. When he talked to me about my preparation he asked me about my watch schedule with a concern for how we would get rest, maintain active roles and facilitate communication.  I thought he still needed to teach me about technical stuff like the wind speeds at which I was going to reduce sail. I had noted the measured intensity with which other captains the year before had approached the days before departure and was aware that my busyness was making it hard to achieve that level. 

First time up the mast

We finished the Caribbean 1500 at the back of the pack which was expected as we were the second to shortest boat in he fleet and the shorter boat’s top speed through the water is always going to be less than that of a longer boat. But I thought my childhood of dinghy sailing and a more recent history of keelboat racing might help me keep up.  I learned that these guys who have done ocean sailing know how to keep their boats moving.  

The boat is now sitting up on land in Tortola, British Virgin Islands. People tend to assume I would feel a sense of accomplishment, but more than anything I am humbled by the experience.  I needed to do all the preparation I did and I needed the pressure of the trip to force that level of preparation.  But I could prepare all I wanted -- I was not going to be prepared for a cognitive and emotional challenge in one of the most remote places on earth until I had done it myself, in my own boat, responsible for all major decisions.  If I had not done the trip, I wouldn't even know what I didn't know.  I could have stayed close to shore or hired a professional captain, but I never would have learned. 

ps: this blog post appeared in Sail magazine

Broken Boom

This is the front of the boom.  It broke approx 75 miles from Tortola. The bar running slightly uphill from left to right was originally attached at the little nub of metal to the right of the wheel. The entire piece was welded to a sleeve that fit inside the boom and secured with rivets. You can see where the weld was on the bottom of the bar. It looks like it peeled away over time. The axle that the wheels turn on was bent. I never heard anything actually break (or maybe I should say that the sounds of things breaking have all been accounted for). We were in calm seas and I just noticed it hanging there. I had been using the preventer on reaches and since it attaches at the aft end of the boom, I wonder if I could have caused some forward pressure on that joint. The axle is secured in the middle but also went into indentations on both sides of the sleeve. It would've bent just as the piece pulled apart.  They re-welded it for me in Nanny Cay and reinforced all the welds.

Crawling

Laying in my bunk, tired of trying to fall asleep, I can see Sean through a porthole window, crawling on all fours to the foredeck. The wind has dropped below 20 now and he is taking down the stay sail. The boat is still pitching in the waves from the storm we've just been through, making it hard to balance up there. I'm sure he's wearing his life jacket and harness and that he is clipped in via a tether to the nylon webbing we have run up each side of the boat. The thought of falling in the water out here is ominous. He knows the likelihood of us finding him if he goes over, especially if we do not immediately know he's gone over, is slim. At least it is daylight now. Sometimes you have to do this stuff at night. The ocean is really dark a night. The first waves we saw were bigger than the ones last night. Sean aptly characterized the biggest ones as being the size of a sledding hill. Those ones were coming from behind us and we could surf down as they passed underneath our boat. Our entire hull would shudder. Sometimes they would crash into the cockpit. Last night they were smaller, but we were going against them, trying to make our way upwind. Even smaller ten foot waves would make it hard to see the little head of a person, treading water one trough over. Our life jackets have lights and whistles attached to them, but there are too many stories of people overboard who are never found. The storm wasn't that bad. I actually enjoyed it. Winds were over 30 knots for about three hours, but they have been over 25 for the last 16. Sean had woke me in the night to say that we needed to put in a reef (reduce the size of the main sail) and that he needed my help. As long as we approach these type of jobs methodically they are not that bad. If we leave a step half done, or do not keep our lines organized, or fail to take a safety precaution, mother nature will get the upper hand. The forces that are harnessed by our sails are tremendous. When the ropes are controlled by the winches and the sails are nicely shaped and pretty, these forces are not so apparent. But let the sail flap, swinging the boom like it's a twig and turning our ropes into clubs, and you realize the value of keeping things under control. And don't forget that we are 450 miles from land, way beyond the range of helicopter rescue. Not that medical attention could do much for the injuries you could sustain here anyway. So it becomes essential to keep control of the boat and the sails. Change things one step at a time. Set the safety lines, then change them to the other side when we switch what side the sail is on. Straighten up lines, a never ending chore, to prevent the development of spaghetti. There is an element of being honest with nature inherent in all this activity. We are harnessing the power contained within the wind to make our boats go. If we allow our tools to get out of control, allowing nature to flog the sails, rock the boat or whip the lines around, there are honest consequences. We cannot go into the lodge and get warm or get into our cars and go home. We are out here dependent on our skills and the preparation we have done. I am not only in awe of nature, I am deeply respectful of it. That is a big reason why I am out here.

Annapolis to Norfolk: Headsail issues and high winds

This was an unexpected trip for me.  I had planned that my crew member from the Maine to Annapolis leg would move the boat to the start point for the Caribbean 1500.  That will not be happening.  He and I decided that he will not be continuing wth my ocean sailing program.  I had a long fall weekend planned while my kids were off school to just do stuff around the house and gave it up to move the boat.  I bought a one-way ticket to Baltimore with 5 days before I had to be back at work.  In that time I wanted to get a few things done on the boat and find a weather window during which to sail her 150 miles to Norfolk at the mouth of the Chesapeake.  It blew south for the first 2 days which gave me the opportunity to shop at Bacon Sails and Fawcetts, finding things I would have searched for.  I also had riggers, a canvas maker and a mechanic on the boat helping me get the boat ready.  I was spending so much money I did not know if I should laugh or cry.  I was naive of me to think I did not have to do this trip myself.  The work in Annapolis needed to be done.  Even more importantly, I needed the experience of the high winds I was about to face to gain an appreciation for even more preparation I need to do.

It looked worse in real life

The wind change for which I'd been waiting occurred overnight.  It had veered to the WNW, perfect for traveling south.  It would turn out to be the highest wind I have seen with this boat, and bigger seas than I thought could develop within Chesapeake Bay.  At least I put in a reef before leaving the dock.  The jib furling line got away from me, letting the entire jib out.  I was overpowered, burying the rail and hitting 9.2kn while the anemometer peaked at 33kn.  I was eventually able to blanket the jib with the main and furl it back, but it took a bit of planning.  I needed first to develop the sea room downwind of me.  I would need to set the boat going downwind with room to continue that course before I got into waters that were too shallow.  And I needed to set my preventer so that the boat would not jibe, sending the boom crashing across the boat, as I was focusing on trying to bring in the jib.  It was a pain to set because of how it secures to the mid-ship horn clean.  After getting on the other tack in preparation to blanket the jib I did not set it and did jibe as I was getting everything ready.  To furl the jib I had to let out the sheet as I tried to furl in.  I only had a horn cleat to belay the jib furling line and was having a difficult time controlling my release of the sheet to coincide with furling of the sail.  Somehow the amount of slack in the sail became too much and both the port and starboard jib sheets end up wrapping around the forestay.  Now I have to go up on the bow, which, don't forget, is pitching up and down, and try to coax the jib back around the correct way.  I have to take advantage of moments when the jib gets blanketed by the main to guide it because when the wind fills it I have no ability to influence its direction.  I think some other boat was watching as this was going on, too.

It was much calmer with the genoa put away,  Winds now 25-30, seen 33.  Speed 7.2kn.  I have a slight fear of my genoa, not knowing how I could use it without having it all unroll on me again.  I really did not want to have to repeat the above procedure for bringing it in.  I was going downwind and still flying along over 8kn, so I just sailed with reefed main.

After some rest and food, I decided to try the staysail.  This was when I first appreciated the necessity of running backs.  I have a removable inner forestay which can be quickly set using a high-force lever.  I was able to set the sail, but something was clearly not right.  The inner forestay seemed to be slacking then tightening again.  This was happening because the forestay attaches in the middle of the mast and once the sail is attached, it pulls the center of the mast forwards until the mast snaps back.  Running backs are lines that attach to the center of the mast and prevent the mast from being bent forwards.  Mine are made of 11mm Endura braid with a 14,000 lb breaking point and attach to the mast the same place as the inner forestay and run aft to one of the back corners of the boat.  We had just built these running backs in Annapolis, but had decided that the fitting on the boat where I had intended to attach them was not fastened with sufficient strength to the boa.  I could just imagine rthe running backs ripping out the fitting and ripping the back corner out of my boat.  Since I was not ready to use the running backs, I could not use the staysail and was once again stuck sailing without a headsail.

It was not until 10 hrs into the sail, at 2030 that I first saw 20kn--so much quieter, but lasting only a moment.  By this time I had taken to spending my time either huddling under the dodger or sitting inside at the nav station, watching the radar, AIS and instruments.  A handful of times a wave would dump a garbage can full of water into the cockpit, flooding it 6 inches, but then draining quickly.  I seemed to avoid getting soaked myself, but it still got colder as night fell.  I eventually remembered I have an Espar heater and soon had the cabin nice and toasty, making the brief trips outside easier.  By 0200 the wind had dropped down and was consistently in the teens.  I risked putting out a little jib, this time running the furler line through a block and then around the horn cleat in order to maintain tension, and even then it was difficult to control.

My log identifies these issues at 2030:
1. where to cleat traveler, consider jib furling cleat
2.  should not be without jib.  cannot go up wind, but do not need to now
3.  faster than anticipated.  will arrive before dawn
4.  wind is a lot.  just dropped below 20 for the first time!.  that was short-lived
5.  running backs incomplete.  do not want to use mooring chock

It would have been very nice to have a secondary winch so that I could gradually deploy the jib.  Of course I could have switched to a port tack (with the sail on the starboard side of the boat), thereby making the port side primary winch available to the jib furling line.  I could then have use a rolling hitch to hold the furling line while I took it off the winch and moved it back to its cleat.  Then I could tack back and start going the right direction again.  But that would have been a lot of work, would have made me go in the wrong direction for a while, and could have failed miserably if the rolling hitch did not hold.

I was not prepared for my boat to go so fast.  I thought it was going to take me at least 21 hrs to get to the mouth of the channel which led to Norfolk.  Since I left at 1000 earliest I would arrive was 0700.  Instead I arrived at 0415.  I could see the freighters on my AIS, going through the channel at 10-20 kn.  I was going to be run down if I went in there and I did not want to be outside of it in the dark and my first time through.  So I hove to, a maneuver that basically parks a boat.  I fought to stay awake until the sun arose.  Motored through the channel with a 20kn headwind and an opposing tide, but in daylight.  Was able to sail again once inside and saw dolphins.  Possibly the most intense experience of my life.

We are pulling the boat before the trip.  Just wanted to see the bottom after hitting those rocks.  Rather than pay for a slip and a diver, I will be paying for a haul and the repair.

from C & D Canal

from Buzzards Bay