Projects – Road and Ocean

Final preparations

March 8, 2015March 6, 2017 Chris Tanner5 Comments

After waiting in line in the Puerto Vallarta baggage hall for maybe an hour and a half, I finally got to customs. There’s a button to press – if you get a green light, you’re clear to go through, but if you get a red light then the questions and searching begins. The lady before me got a red button, so probability was on my side. While her bag was searched, the customs man was looking my big, suspicious bag up and down, no doubt running questions through in his head. My turn came, I pressed the button, and got a green light. Whoopee! Through the airport, picked up a taxi and back to the boat. Rafiki was all well, but a little grubby from two months sat in a marina. Even though I was starving hungry, I found I had to at least give the cockpit a scrub down before unpacking bags and filling my belly.

It’s been a busy week, getting every thing ready. David and Eva, my Swiss crew, arrived on Monday with home-made biscuits in hand. We spent the day getting to know each other, and settling in. The rest of the week has been spent on a bunch of jobs, me working on the boat, David and Eva ticking things off their todo list and hunting down a place to make copies of the charts I brought out from the UK. We borrowed a huge stack of charts from a local boating group, but it turns out that the ones I’d picked up from the Admiralty were the best for having as emergency backup. We’ve made copies of a few old, interesting looking charts though – to put up on the wall later! David + Eva have packed a sextant and large stack of astro navigation books, so we hope to be proficient old-time navigators by the time we get to Australia 🙂

The boat was pretty much ready for an ocean crossing back in October last year, since the sail down the outside of the Baja peninsula is remote and long. Still, 2,800 miles of open ocean, and then a further 5,000+ miles of sailing to get to the other side of the biggest ocean on the planet requires a certain amount of preparation. In fact it’s a logistical behemoth. This will I’ve ticked off a few final jobs; adding a third battery, two more solar panels, inner forestay for the storm jib, and running backstays to support it, and then a load of little things around the place.

2015 03 05 1900 splicing into the night — David and Eva splicing backstays, late into the night

Extra solar panels, smuggled through customs

Forestay attachment on the mast — Forestay attachment and running backstays … had to cut a huge slot in the front of the mast … eek!

Forestay - lower attachment on the deck — Forestay – lower attachment on the deck

On Friday we did our first major food shop, spending over three hours and thousands of Pesos in the local supermarket … and having to take TWO taxis back to the boat with all the food. With a bit of extra shelving squeezed in here and there, and by squirreling things away under the floors, Rafiki soaked it all up easily. Shopping for many months at a time is an interesting challenge. The first time we’re going to be able to get decent supplies once we leave Mexico is 8 weeks later in Tahiti … where it’s expensive. So we’re packing in as much as we can carry.

Food everywhere! Here screwed under the floorboards

Last night we spent at anchor outside La Cruz, 10 miles north of here nestled in the corner of Banderas Bay. We got a good shakedown sail, making sure everything was functioning as it’s supposed to. I tightened the rigging, got the water maker back in action, and we threw the boat around a bit. All systems checked out A-OK. We’d made extra copies of the charts for some other sailors here in the bay, and delivered them up to La Cruz too.

Topping up on a couple of kilos of dried fruit — Grabbing a couple of kilos of dried fruit

The group of boats making the voyage from the Americas across to Australia or New Zealand are called “Puddle Jumpers”, and they have their own radio net each evening to give position reports to each other, and catch up with any other news. It’s on a shortwave radio system (SSB) that I can only receive, since I don’t have a transmitter. It’s the first time I’ve sat down and listened in … the first step towards being out there ourselves. Boats were checking in from as far as Panama and the Galapagos. There’s a “net controller” that will follow us all the way to the Marquesas – these radios transmit a long way. I’ll be sending position reports in by email, and another boat will be reporting us on the net. There’s a list of other boats jumpin’ the puddle here.

The same position (and weather) reports will be displayed on the Rafiki tracker, which I’ve put up on the blog. I hope to get a report sent every few days.

Tomorrow we do our final food shop for fresh food, fill up with water and propane, and get our Mexico clearance papers. Then we’re ready to leave! I’ll post again before we set sail…

Hola Mexico

November 16, 2014December 6, 2016 Chris TannerLeave a comment

Goodbye USA! After just over a year here, we’re moving on. The sail from San Diego to Ensenada in Mexico is about 60 miles – a decent length day, and wanting to arrive before dark to avoid lobster pots, we left as the sun was starting to rise and wake the city up.

2014 11 05 1100 Tiller arm — Fairly heavy engineering project – fitting the new autopilot tiller arm at the docks in Ensenada. Lots of bronze and stainless drilling, sweat and muscle

2014 11 05 1200 Edson tiller arm — Autopilot tiller arm in place, bolted through the rudder post. Not much room for working down here!

2014 11 06 1000 Leaving Ensenada — Leaving Ensenada after a couple of nights. Checked into Mexico OK, did a days work, then onwards

2014 11 06 1800 Moonrise — Moonrise – full moon over Baja

2014 11 07 0600 Split second before dawn — Moments before dawn the next morning, on our way down to Isla Cedros

DCIM100GOPRO — Rose capturing The Last Crumpet before we eat it for breakfast

Then from Cedros, we had a day sail across to Turtle Bay. Left early in the morning so that we’d get into Turtle Bay by dusk. Next morning, getting into the dinghy to go ashore for fuel, I noticed that the backstay chainplate had cracked welds – not good! Spent an hour or so ashore mulling over options; get a new part in from US, get something made here, get this one welded here, carry on with jury rig … ended up going back to the boat, taking off the backstay and chainplate, and taking it into town. Turns out the town’s stainless welder is up in Ensenada with the start of the Baja 1000 race and not back till Sunday. Erk, we’ve not got time for that. After a few hours of chasing people around town we finally catch up with a guy that can weld stainless and he fixes it up. Relief.

2014 11 10 1200 Backstay off — Backstay chainplate removed

2014 11 10 1200 Backstay chainplate — Welded back together – looks messy but I think it’s stronger than when it was new

Once the boat was back together, we filled up with nearly 40 gallons of diesel, hoping that we don’t have to use much of it! From Turtle Bay we had another 230-odd mile leg down to Bahia Santa Maria, a cove tucked around the corner out of the north westerly winds. Sailed almost all the way! Couple of nights out at sea.

2014 11 13 Bahia Santa Maria — Rafiki at anchor, Bahia Santa Maria

We arrived at night, maybe 0400, got some sleep, and then spent the day relaxing. Had a great swim. In the evening, went ashore, our first dinghy landing in the surf, and wandered on the beach.

2014 11 13 1800 Bahia Santa Maria — Bahia Santa Maria

Next morning, about 0500, we left for San Jose del Cabo, around the southern tip of the Baja peninsula. See On Passage With Rafiki for that leg, typical of the sailing we’ve had all the way down from Ensenada – though further north we’ve had less wind and a lot more motoring.

Arriving and leaving

September 26, 2014December 6, 2016 Chris TannerLeave a comment

We got back from the road trip nearly 3 weeks ago, and I’ve been so busy getting ready for our journey south to Mexico that I’ve not managed to even finish the story…

The last few miles in from Yosemite were familiar territory, but looking so, so dry. Leaving the mountains, we drove past a wildfire that looked like it had recently started – flames by the side of the road, and a few police cars arriving. We pulled into a lay-by a bit further down the road to see what was going on, as a bulldozer on a low-loader thundered past, sirens screaming. They had a spotter plane circling overhead, a helicopter picking up water from the nearby reservoir, and a couple of planes doing circles dropping red fire retardent powder. Checking back on the internet a few days later, it looked like they got this one under control quickly enough.

10,622 miles and 3 months later, we arrived back in Alameda. What an epic trip. The van held together, we adjusted to living in a micro space, didn’t bite each other’s heads off, and we saw an incredible amount of America. People always ask “what was your favourite part?” – I think it was the intensity of newness. New places, new scenery, constant change, different camp spots each night. Not one bit of boredom or dull routine in all the time we were away. The landscapes were stunning. The mountain biking, especially in the last few weeks, was awesome. Adjusting to being away from full time work was wonderful. The sense of freedom to go wherever we wanted, pretty much whenever we wanted, was addictive.

09-04 1100 California-dry-grass — Back in parched California

Each time we filled the tank with fuel I did feel that we were being excessively wasteful, driving around just for the sake of driving around to see places, burning up a whole load of petrol and spewing nasties into the air. I reconciled this with the fact that over the past year we’ve hardly consumed anything in terms of fuel, electricity or waste – living aboard the boat enforces that. And looking into the future, the wind will be our fuel, and the sun via our solar panels will power pretty much everything else.

We’re not sticking around the bay area, we’re going to get moving again. We live on a sailing boat. It’s built to be taken over distant horizons, carrying a crew of excited adventurers, not tied to a dock in a city, getting all dusty and grimy. I’ve always wanted to spend time seeing new lands from the sea, experiencing things that you’d just never experience as a tourist just passing through. But work is also calling… right now I’m on the way to SFO airport, going to spend a week in the UK company HQ with the tech team planning the next few months so I can continue to contribute while being out of the office. Our satellite phone turned up last week and I’m in the process of sorting out an airtime contract, so we should be able to stay in touch wherever we are.

The van is now delivering beer around the east bay; sold to a chef who’s just started a brewery. It felt strange to see it go, having had so much time in it over the summer. It was a home, a shelter from the sun and the rain, our life support machine, our transport and our one piece of consistency in a constantly changing few months. I sold my road bike. We’ve dropped a few bags of winter clothes, and my snowboard, at a buddy’s place (thanks!). Won’t be needing that in the tropics.

Even though I’ve been working steadily away on boat projects throughout the last year, there’s still been a lot to do. In the last couple of weeks we’ve:

Installed a watermaker to turn seawater into nice clean drinking water. At 3 gallons an hour it’s hardly going to match the flow of Niagara, but it should keep our tanks topped up and allow us to have freshwater showers.
Replaced all the stinky toilet hoses and pump so the boat now smells all fresh. A job that was surprisingly not as nasty as I thought it was going to be. The hardest thing was making sure I had all the right parts before I started, sine we use the heads on a daily basis.
Added an electric macerator pump to empty the holding tank when we’re out at sea. The local consignment store is very handy for picking up things like pumps second hand at good prices.
Spent hours and hours sorting out lockers and belongings down below.
Fitted an AIS unit so that ships and commercial fishing boats can see us on their instruments, and so that we can see them, even if it’s dark, foggy or stormy.
Rewired a bunch of stuff, fitted cabin cooling fans and a couple of new lights.
Made a drink holder for the cockpit so we have somewhere safe to put things when the boat is rolling around.
Replaced the masthead tricolour and anchor lights with LED bulbs to save loads of power.
Fixed the top rudder bearing which was starting to loosen. I hope it’s fixed, anyway – we’ve not had the boat out for a sail yet.
Tightened the steering cables around the rudder quadrant.
Painted the last 5 metres of the anchor chain red so that we can stop the windlass in time and not lose the whole lot overboard.
Had both main sail and jib repaired, with a third reef added to the main for super windy conditions.
Put the name on the stern (ssh don’t tell Neptune, we’ve not had our naming ceremony yet)
Added flag halyards for our Mexico courtesy flag.
Stocked up on boat and engine spares.
Picked up a new outboard engine and ordered a new dinghy. Decided to go with a hard dinghy that converts into a life raft.
Added an extra cockpit winch to haul in the jib furling line in strong winds.
Mounted an extra propane tank to the stern for our BBQ/grill.

… plus a bunch more small stuff.

Just 3 weeks to departure! We’re mentally ready – excited of course, and also a bit apprehensive – we’re going to be learning a huge amount in the next few weeks. We met a couple of Brazilians in the marina next door that are fitting out their boat to sail down to Patagonia where they’ll be climbing – they’ll be sailing down the California and Mexico coast about the same time as us. And there will be loads of other people we meet on the way too.

A couple of days ago, when we still had the rental car, we spent the entire day shopping for food. The Big Provisioning Run. Somehow the boat has managed to soak up hundreds of tins, pasta, rice, sauces, jars and a load of UHT almond milk which we may not be able to get once south of the border. That’s all gone under a screwed-down floor panel in the galley. I’ve been trying to stow everything as far aft as possible; ever since we added the new anchor, windlass and chain, Rafiki has been bow-down by a couple of inches. Not ideal, but not much we can do about that. Just before we go we’ll stock up on fresh food. We’ll be near shops pretty often – it’s not like we’re crossing an ocean – but from here forwards everything we buy will most likely need to be ferried out to the anchored boat by dinghy, so it pays to get the bulky and heavy stuff on board while we’re at dock.

Can’t wait!

Windlass installation

June 11, 2014 Chris TannerLeave a comment

Over the last few months I’ve found loads of information from various forums and blog posts online … apart from windlass installations on the Pearson 36-2, so here’s some information on how I did it, in the hope that someone else out there will find it useful.

Seeing as we’re going to be headed much further afield soon, and anchoring out a lot, a windlass was on the “need” list. I also wanted a spare bower (main) anchor, so decided to get a new 20kg Rocna and keep the old 35 lb CQR as the spare. I decided to err on the side of caution and buy 5/6″ chain; 150 foot of it. To haul all this lot up, I chose a Maxwell RC8 windlass; because it had the ability to take a winch handle in emergencies as standard, whereas others needed an expensive add-on. The windlass only comes with a toggle switch and I wanted something to use up at the bow, so bought a couple of Maxwell foot switches.

I already added a dedicated engine battery under the aft cabin bunk, and as the windlass is always going to be running when the engine is on, I decided to take power directly from that.

There were a couple of options for mounting the windlass;

1) behind the anchor locker, with the gypsy poking out on deck
2) in the anchor locker itself, angled back for the right chain pull

Unfortunately there’s not enough space to mount this windlass through the deck behind the anchor locker opening; the front of the windlass would extend a couple of inches forward of the rear edge of the hole. I could have modified the locker lid and build a frame / bracket for the front end of the windlass, but thought that was a bit “hacky” and would have looked a real mess. Ended up with the second choice, which also keeps the windlass nicely out of the weather.

Chain locker

I turned the space in the bow, under the anchor locker, into a chain locker. Having the windlass drive and wet chain in the same airspace isn’t ideal, but needs must… Ideally there would have been a way to lead chain aft so it’s not all in the bow, but the water tank under the v-berth prevents that. The combined weight of anchor, windlass and chain puts the boat bow-down a good 3 inches or so (!) which is far from ideal – but we’re still a long way off our cruising weight so as long as I load as much as possible towards the stern we should be level again; outboard, life raft, 20 gallons of diesel … not ideal to have weight in the ends but again, not many other options.

I reinforced the sides of the locker with 3mm ply glued to the inside of the hull, and gave it a good coat of epoxy. The water-fill pipe also comes through this space, and since I didn’t want chain sliding around to chafe through the pipe I wrapped another layer of fatter pipe around it. This new chain locker should drain into the bilge; it’s now all sealed around the edges apart from a hole at the lower forward end. Any green water over the bow will go into the deck locker and then overboard through the bow drain; I’m hoping that very little should get below.

Mounting the windlass

Having the windlass mounted in the locker, which is quite a bit lower than the deck, meant I needed a mount that knocked the angle back a good 20 degrees or so to make sure that the chain ran on and off the gypsy at the right angle. The floor of the locker itself ramps downwards towards the bow too. I got a local carpenter buddy to make this up for me from laminated teak for a hundred or so bucks (teak is expensive!). The teak is bolted to the bottom of the anchor locker with 4 large coach bolts, and plenty of epoxy. Sticking this down was pretty committing! There were loads of interesting angles to calculate here; coach bolts, windlass mount bolts, a hole for the windlass drive, and a hole for the chain.

Because the whole assembly is tilted back a fair amount, part of the chain hole (hawse pipe) sits above the back of the drive motor below, so I extended the hawse pipe section with some PVC pipe, the bottom of which you can just see in the photo of the chain locker. So far I’ve not had any trouble with this feeding in or out. However with 150 feet of chain we do get pile-ups every 50 feet or so. Having someone down below to knock the chain pile aside was not an option so I cut an access hatch in the bottom of the anchor locker, just to the right of the teak windlass mount, which makes it easy to deal with chain pile-ups from on deck.

Anchor and roller

From the photos you’ll also see that I’ve mounted the anchor on the port side of the bow. This is because I wanted an anchor roller designed for a Rocna rather than use the under-engineered alloy roller that comes standard on the Pearson 36-2. I bought a Windline (URM-2?) off eBay, and added a Lewmar roller on the aft end to carry the chain clear of the forward end of the locker. The windlass is fairly deep in the locker, so the chain would have taken a nice chunk out of the deck, as well as rubbing directly on the back end of the main anchor roller. Not good.

Controls

I added the foot switches on deck, which is just where I’ve always seen them when I’ve been anchoring on other boats, but in hindsight I should have put them in the locker itself, seeing as you have to have the lid open to operate the windlass anyway – it would have kept them out of the weather and out of the way. Some folk would have a control on a cable instead. I might fit one as well; as backup in case the switches fail. Maybe. I haven’t yet mounted the toggle up/down switch that came with the windlass; if this goes in the cockpit somewhere then that will be the backup option. The windlass has a clutch so you don’t need power to drop the hook, but there’s the possibility that we need to get the anchor up in a hurry to leave a lee-shore anchorage, and I don’t want to be messing with wires; I like to have backups for safety-critical kit.

Which brings me onto the manual lift option on the windlass itself. The centre winch handle hole is for the clutch, and the one on the outside of the gypsy is to haul the chain in manually. As I write this and look at the pictures in detail, I see that the handle isn’t going to go all the way round in the space- doh! At least it can come up bit by bit.

Power

Power to the windlass is via 1 AWG welding cable running directly from the engine battery under the aft cabin bunk, via the circuit breaker, through lockers and cavities along the starboard side of the boat at eye level, to the bow. The cable run was pretty straightforward; accessing each bulkhead with a 25mm hole saw was simpler than I thought it was going to be.

Does it work?

For passage making, the anchor is stored on the roller and lashed with line. There’s also a chain lock bolted to the top of the locker lid. When we get to an anchorage, we undo the chain lock, loosen the line, slide the anchor forwards a few inches and re-lash it. This gives enough room to open the locker lid. Dropping the anchor then means undoing the line and slipping the clutch on the windlass.

So far so good. We’ve not had lots of use out of it but everything works exactly as expected. When we’re just using 50 feet of chain, there’s no need to knock over the pile in the locker as it comes in.

I’ll post another report once we’re 50 anchorages into our trip 🙂

Mainsail in for repair

June 6, 2014 Chris TannerLeave a comment

Dropped off the main sail at a local sail loft today. I’ve been toying with the idea of a new main; the one we have is sooo baggy and is getting a little tired. I also want something with a third reef for when it gets really windy. But I thought I’d also see what a sailmaker had to say about it, in case it was worth repairing. They gave it a good looking over on the loft floor and we decided that it was worth putting some money into this sail rather than buying a new one. It’s not a top end sail, but it’s got plenty of life left in it.

It’s still going to be baggy – that’s due to the lower quality fabric rather than stretched seams, so it can’t be fixed without major surgery. This just means that we won’t be able to sail as close to the wind as we could with a new, tight sail, which in turn means that it’ll take longer to get to places to windward. But we’re not planning to sail much to windward, and we did actually manage fine coming back from Santa Cruz, so that’s fine. The repairs work out about a quarter of the price of a new sail too – bonus.

He’s going to;

Add a third reef
Stitch a new leach line in to replace frayed canvas
Stretch the luff rope that’s shrunk
Add anti-chafe patches where the sail touches the spreaders on a run

Looking forward to picking it up in September!

Powering up

February 28, 2014 Chris TannerLeave a comment

When I bought this boat, it was pretty much exactly as it came out of the factory nearly 30 years ago. Everything had been looked after, a few things had been replaced, but that’s about it. Because it was built as a “coastal cruiser”, designed for day trips and the odd weekend here and there, it came with a pretty basic 12v DC electrical system.

For extended periods away from shore power, the batteries weren’t going to last long. Perhaps 24 hours at most. And then when it came to charging them up again, the poxy 35 Amp alternator with no fancy regulation would have taken perhaps 7 hours to charge them up again. No es bueno. We’re planning to get a long way from shore power, for long periods of time. Over the past few weeks (months?!) I’ve been reading all I can get on 12v boat systems, and have come up with a new systems design; the two main components being a new, powerful alternator with smart regulator and a set of solar panels.

The new 125 Amp alternator will pack way more of a punch than the old one, the smart regulator pumps the charge into the batteries way faster, and then handles things nicely when the batteries get near full. Budget doesn’t yet stretch to solar AND wind power, so out of the two I decided that we’re going to get more benefit from 200 Watts of solar panels than a wind generator. I’ll mount the panels on the cage I’ve fashioned on the stern rail from the old dodger frame, which just happens to be a perfect fit. They’ll also give a load of shade above the helm for those hot, tropical passages and days sat at anchor…

The solar panels are sat by my desk at work waiting for an opportunity for me to swing into the city with the van and pick them up. The other stuff should arrive next week, but I’ve managed to get a few things ready ahead of time. I bought a small car battery to use as the starting battery, which means I can wire the two existing large deep-cycle batteries in parallel and double the useful capacity for everything else – the fridge, lights, autopilot, instruments … so we’ve about 230 Amp-hours there now. From my workings we’ll be using about 100 Ah per day whilst on passage with all the gubbins on and lights at night, so even with the panels giving full power for about 6 sunny hours we’ll still need to run the engine every day to keep the batteries healthy. At anchor when we’re not using navigation lights and autopilot, the solar panels should keep at least the fridge running.

2 house batteries under the rear bunk, and the solar controller ready to install

I found a space for the starting battery just next to the existing battery bank, nestled in between the side of a drawer and the fuel tank. I built a solid box for it and have wired it up. Now we’re all set for the solar panels and the new alternator. The panels are going to be run via an MPPT controller, which does some smart jiggery-pokery with the Amps and Volts from the panels to make sure that they are operating at their most efficient.

We’re still going to be on the dock here for a while yet … so why the need to get all this stuff? I want to have plenty of time living aboard self-sufficiently before we cast off the dock lines and set sail over the horizon. If something’s not quite right, I can get it sorted now whilst there’s plenty of stores and services around. And I also want to see if we can go “off-grid” completely, even while we’re here. We only use the mains power to top-up the batteries, and for a bit of heating. I’m hoping that with spring on the way, we’ll leave the heater off and run everything off solar power.

A month or so ago I installed a voltage / current meter in the dashboard so I can see exactly what load we’re using. The biggest drain is the fridge, which takes about 7 Amps for perhaps 20 minutes each hour. That’s 8 hours * 7 Amps each day … 56 Ah. The solar panels will output 10 Amps at max power, perhaps for 6 hours a day … the 60 Ah just covering our bases. We’ll see!

Table frenzy

February 17, 2014July 22, 2018 Chris Tanner

On President’s day (a bank holiday here) I went on a table making frenzy. Perhaps the most extravagant table making extravaganza ever. I produced a whole cockpit table AND a fold-up chopping table for the galley. Phew. I think I’m at my creative peak. Does it get any better?

It’s funny how much difference a cockpit table makes. It’s doubled our outdoor flat surfaces (the only other one is the cockpit floor) – which means we now have somewhere to put mugs and plates down without their contents going walkabout. I picked up an old piece of plank from near Rose’s studio in the shipyard nearby and spent a happy afternoon shaping it up. Rounding off the edges took me right back to the days at Lush when I was building longboards by hand. Haven’t lost an ounce of technique in ten years, me.

The galley extension folds away neatly and again, doubles the flat surfaces. It’s made from a $10 IKEA chopping board. We’ve not used it as much as I would have thought, even though we’ve been complaining about having to move everything off the surfaces just to get something out of the fridge. I think it’s real value will come when using the galley at sea. It needs toughening up a bit so that you can use it to brace yourself when the boat’s on port tack (leaning away from the cooker), and some deep fiddles.

Now, where did I put that jigsaw?

Boat projects – the tipping point

February 5, 2014 Chris Tanner

Putting money into old boats is perhaps one of the most foolish things a man can do with his hard-earned greens. Often it’s a case of justifying each extra gizmo or fix with the thinking that “hey, I’m saving money by fitting it myself”, or “this could save our life one day”, or “life will be so much more comfortable afterwards”. But usually every dollar sunk into a boat is gone, spent, never to be seen again. Not many boat projects increase the value of the boat by the same amount as they cost.

There are two types of project. Reactive, and preemptive. Reactive projects are the ones that should come first – fixing things that have either broken, or are not working as well as they should be, but are already in place in some shape or form. Apart from the benefit of truly understanding what’s going on around the boat, these are less exciting, and sometimes a fair bit harder as you have to deal with rusted bolts, over-enthusiastic epoxy resin use in the past, or a previous owner’s bodged job. Fortunately on this boat, I’ve (touch wood) not had to do much of this at all.

Preemptive projects are “fitting out” projects. Stuff you think you’re going to need in the future. Or as I’ve often seen (and often been tempted by), things that people say you’re going to need. Here’s where the line between “need” and “want” needs to be fully understood! I’ve always split my to-do list into needs and wants, and so far I’ve been pretty good at sticking to the “need” list. Sure, everyone’s perception of need is different, usually defined by how much money you’ve got to throw at the whole thing and your level of personal comfort.

We’re running a pretty tight budget at the moment, but not on a complete shoestring – my needs done so far have included new instruments, autohelm, new spray hood, new anchor chain, new VHF radio, re-bedding some deck hardware and various jobs around inside the boat like a new oven and a timber grid under the front berth to prevent condensation in the mattresses. All reactive, or fixes, apart from the significant cost of the spray hood and autohelm. Classed as needs for me, with a vision to voyaging further, but really not essential for sailing around here.

On the wants list completed are things like new stereo, LED lights to save power, extra storage for the galley – that’s about it.

So far, I think I’m breaking even. The boat was cheap enough for the extra cost I’ve put in to bring the value up to a point where I’d claw it all back if we sold it. The Pearson 36 was designed as a “coastal cruiser”, and that’s exactly what it is at the moment – in great condition, with a bunch of new kit.

The next set of jobs however are where this all changes. At some point we’d love to leave the San Francisco bay area, and head much further afield. That’s going to need a level of financial and time commitment I won’t get back. I’d be turning a coastal cruiser into an offshore voyaging vessel. I’ve been thinking long and hard about whether it’s worth it with this boat. It’s an awesome liveaboard boat for being sat in a marina, but that’s not what this is all about. From our limited trips so far, this here boat is great to sail in both calm and strong conditions – she gets up to speed quickly in little more than 5 knots of wind, and we don’t need to reef until we get near 20 knots. She’s really well balanced on the helm, and rides waves nicely. And while it’s not as tough as a classic “blue water boat”, it is strong and well put together, it’s fast, it’s in great shape, and it’s got potential.

As soon as we know for sure we’re going to be headed over the horizon, the new list of preemptive “needs” will be straight up on the wall. Off-the-grid power (solar, extra batteries, new alternator & charging systems), life raft, dinghy + outboard, more storage, new anchor and windlass, more chain, more sails … I love getting stuck into this kind of stuff, but I am going to hold fire just a little longer.

He says, getting up to measure the cockpit for a solar panel mounting frame…

New sprayhood

January 30, 2014 Chris Tanner

Over here in the US of A they call it a “dodger”. Either way, I’m pretty chuffed. A couple of weeks ago the guys from Iverson’s Designs came along to install the frame and measure up for the canvas. Today they came back with the finished article for the final install. Our colour choice turned out just right! I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

I’m impressed by the workmanship – the thing is bar taut and precision engineered – check out the first two pics where the chaps are using the front frame to tension up the top. The front and the sides zip off completely, which turns it into a sunshade for chilling out under in the tropics (one day!), and the windows are this funky semi-solid, super-see through stuff, with covers.

It’s going to take us a few days to get used to it – we’ve still been bumping our head on the frame, coming in and out of the boat, even after having it in place for 2 weeks.

Rotten balsa

January 20, 2014 Chris Tanner

Much of this afternoon was spent digging around between the inner and outer layers of fibreglass underneath one of the lifeline stanchions. The balsa core of the deck had rotted away where water had got in under the seals, making the whole lot wobble around in a nasty way. The pre-purchase survey had brought this up as something needing attention, but I’ve only just decided to tackle it. Looks like the problem has been going on for a while since there’s an extra set of holes where the previous owner had shifted the stanchion base a bit, but didn’t seal it well.

So, I’ve cut out a nice big section just small enough to still fit under the stanchion base, squirrelled away all the wet balsa I can reach with a long allen key, and will let it dry out over the next few days. Then I’ll fill it all up with some epoxy and re-drill the holes. The inside of the boat, where the backing plate goes, also needs some attention. The backing plate appears to sit over a curved section of the inner hull, so it never sits flat and square enough to be a decent, solid backing plate. I think that’s the source of the problem. So I’ll figure something out in there with a load of epoxy too; make it flat somehow.

The lack of scuppers on the outboard part of the side decks means that there’s often sitting water just where this stanchion base is. Strange design – possibly an oversight. So far though I’ve found very few design flaws like this, it’s a well thought out boat.