Radio Adventure

I got my radio working okay yesterday after adjusting my antenna (can't do much in the yard with the mast down). I was able to listen to 14.300, the Maritime Mobile Service Network, but didn't participate -- reception wasn't too good, but was much better after I unplugged my battery charger.

Now, I need to work on connecting it up to my computer and other systems. I think the easiest route will be to use the Winlink software, however, I'd still like to examine it's configuration and adjust it if necessary. One of the issues with radios in general, and marine SSB's in particular, is that although they will normally receive on all HF frequencies, they might be set to only transmit on marine frequencies -- only approved marine SSB radios are allowed to transmit on marine frequencies, which makes them much more expensive.

These setting can be examined and adjusted via the CI-V interface, but it looks like you might need special cables in order to do that from a PC. My radio, IC-M700Pro, has both a cloning jack and a 9-pin serial port, and from what I've read, you can use either. Right now, it's all a black box to me, so I need to get souped up on the CI-V protocol and enough about the electronics to do this myself. I downloaded the program Icom uses to program the radio, ex2100, but still need a cable to connect it to the radio, either the cloning jack or serial port -- the cable for the cloning jack is between 30-50 dollars, so it's not cheap.

The programming shouldn't a problem, but since I don't have a good grounding in electronics, I want to spend some time getting up to speed before I connect anything up. I certainly don't want to burn up my new radio. But this is what hams do, so I'm excited to get started. Plus, since the boat isn't covered yet, I can't work on anything else, so I've got plenty of time on my hands to work on my radio.

My preference would be to write my own software and use the serial port to program the radio, but I still haven't figured out how I need to connect the Winlink software. Looks like that'll keep me busy and out of trouble for a while, especially tonight -- Happy New Year everyone.

Winlink

I'm still having trouble getting a good signal here in the yard, but I did make some progress with the radio and Winlink. My little dipole doesn't seem to be working very well. I can hear some stations, e.g., weather, but not really anything else. I'll work on it more tomorrow.

As I mentioned before, I have a Pactor modem, but would prefer to use my sound card and the new WINMOR and RMS Express programs developed by Winlink -- simpler, with fewer things to break down. I downloaded them today and was able to connect via telnet and send and receive messages. RMS Express is still pretty bare bones. It doesn't have built in position reporting or an automated GPS feed, so I had to figure out how to do that manually.

I tried to search the Winlink site and the web, but couldn't find an example. Finally, I searched the help file for Airmail, the older email client used with the Pactor modems, and found an example. Although I had to type it in myself, I was able to send in a position report and am now visible on the Winlink User Position Reports Map -- just open it up and look for my call sign, NV5L.

Btw, here's the message I sent:

Message ID: X2V1MPMK1R6Q
Date: 2010/12/30 01:34
From: NV5L
To: QTH
Source: NV5L
Subject: //WL2K POSITION REPORT

TIME: 30 Dec 2010 01:32
LATITUDE: 40-50.5N
LONGITUDE: 073-46.9W
COMMENT: On the hard at Consolidated on City Island

I guess the secret was to send it to "QTH" and make the subject "POSITION REPORT." The body just has the appropriate fields. However, I think there are some I'm missing, e.g., course and speed, but I'll have to look up the syntax. I think this stuff is on the RMS Express "to do" list, but I'm not sure when that'll be. For now, I don't mind doing it by hand.

Hopefully it won't be too difficult to make up a cable and connect my sound card to the radio. I'll work on that and the antenna tomorrow. It'll really be nice to get all this stuff finally working, and check off one more task.

Bronze Chainplates

I finally got around to crunching the numbers and found that the readily available 1/4" x 1 1/2" aluminum bronze flat bar stock will be plenty strong enough for my chainplates, and probably even exceed the original stainless steel ones. I'm mainly concerned with the yield strength. If you exceed that, the material will deform and not go back to it's original shape. It's called necking, and will actually reduce the area of the metal -- think of pulling taffy. The smaller cross section will be much weaker, so the next time it will break much easier, that's when tensile strength comes into play.

I used the old chainplates and bronze turnbuckles as a baseline and made conservative assumptions whenever possible, in order to give myself a margin of error. In all cases, even in the worst case scenario, the new aluminum bronze chainplates were stronger than the stainless steel ones I'm replacing and the turnbuckles to which they'll be connected. Now, I just have to order them and get the old ones off.

I actually found another guy on CF that has the same boat and recently did all his chainplates. I think he replaced his with stainless steel. He did the backstay one as well, but didn't take the old one out. He just mounted an external one and drilled through the entire mess, i.e., old chainplate and fasteners. I thought about that, but decided to try to get the old one out anyway. I may still go with an external one, but I want to inspect the hull and timber where it will be fastened and make any needed repairs while I'm at it.

Radio watch:

With all the wind, I didn't try to go back on deck last night. It was gusting well over 40mph. However, I spent some time this morning reading about how to hook up winlink using a sound card instead of the Pactor modem. I bought a modem, but would really prefer a simpler arrangement, so I'm going to try the sound card method first. If that works, I'll probably send the modem to Charlie. It's got an ethernet connection, so it's really more convenient for land use than on a boat anyway.

Zoe watch:

She had a lot of fun playing in the snow this morning. The wind died down and we've got a bit of sun, so it's really nice out. I'll take her out again this afternoon to play some more. I think we got about 2 feet, with drifts up to 4-5 feet high in places.

Lots of Wind

It seems like we've had an awful lot of wind for about a month now. It's been blowing over 30 most of the day and gusting to well over 40. But other than the wind, it's a beautiful day. I was on deck a little while ago connecting up my antenna and almost got blown off by a sudden gust. Normally, that's not a big deal, but my decks are covered with ice and I don't have any to grab hold of other than my icy handrails.

We took a walk in the snow this morning, and Zoe loved it. I'm about to take her our again while the sun's still up. I'll just have to be careful neither of us gets blown off. The snow should cushion the fall a little, but it gets thin around the boats due to the high winds. It finally warmed up to a balmy 28 with a windchill of 12, so we better hurry and enjoy it while it lasts.

I sure wish I could have gotten out of here much earlier, but with similar conditions all the way down the coast, I'm happy to sit here now and wait till spring.

Boat watch:

The only boat work I'm even contemplating right now concerns organizing the cabin and hooking up my SSB. The saloon is livable now, and the SSB is ready to actually hook up and turn on, so I'll connect the GTO15 to my antenna wire and fire her up after our walk. I'll probably take a bunch of spare wire and experiment with counterpoise, but don't plan to get fancy. I mainly just want to see if I can tune HF frequencies, connect my laptop, and see if I can setup my winlink email account. I'll update as soon as I get her to work.

Heavy Snowfall

Though it's not quite whiteout conditions, it's close enough for me. It's blowing sideways and the visibility is down to a few hundred yards, if that. Not bad enough to get lost, but I wouldn't want to be out sailing in it, or driving for that matter.

I've been working on my SSB and went on deck a few minutes ago to stretch out the halyard antenna I'd planned to use, which is now my emergency antenna -- the mast is down, so I can't use the backstay. I figured I'd only be out for about a minute, so I didn't put on a coat or gloves. I got it strung, but need to go back out and adjust it. It was just too nasty and cold to stay out for too long, and boy, are my decks slick. An inch of snow makes them slipperier than an ice skating rink. The wind's blowing pretty good, and directly into the companionway too.

I was on the starboard side that doesn't have the canvas. Hopefully the canvas will help when I take Zoe for a walk on the other side. I think I'll go out and sweep it and stairs before I take her out. I have to carry her down, so I don't want to slip. That's why I rigged the lifeline and stairs yesterday. I'm not sure how much it will really help, but it makes you feel better having it there.

Blizzard Warning

It looks like Zoe will have a lot of snow to play in for the next few days. The forecast calls for accumulations of up to 16", so life's about to get interesting. The blizzard warning starts at 6am tomorrow morning, so hopefully we'll get our morning walk in before it gets too bad.

Since I don't have the cover on yet, I spent the afternoon preparing the deck. I spread canvas on the port side deck, and secured the stairs with a couple of lines. I ran one about 2 feet above the deck as a lifeline from the stair pulpit aft to my stern pulpit and another one from the stair handrail forward under the bow and to the foredeck cleat. Then I slipped a fender between the hull and the stairs and pulled the lines nice and tight.

I had to pull off the regular lifelines because they go outside the shrouds, and with the shrouds off, are slack and fall too close to the coach roof to walk safely on the side decks carrying Zoe. I got the rest of my decks cleared as well, but still want to re-tape up the hole where my chainplate pulled through.

We'll probably be stuck inside for several days, but I've got plenty to do in the cabin, so I'll concentrate on that until the weather clears.

Book watch:

As I mentioned before, I'm going to use my uninsulated backstay for my HF/SSB antenna, and run a bunch of lines under the deck for counterpoise. It should work fine, but I'd like to understand why, so I started reading the ARRL Antenna book. I also downloaded an open source antenna modeling program, but still need to read the book before I try to use it. I got souped up on all this stuff for my exams this summer, but now it's time to really learn it.

Merry Christams

I hope everyone has a merry Christmas today, or great Saturday depending on your point of view. Zoe and I plan to have a quiet day on the boat, punctuated by a couple long walks around City Island. She'll get a few extra treats today, but I'm sure she doesn't even realize it's Saturday, much less Christmas. In fact, every time she gets a treat, she acts like it's the first one she's ever gotten.

I took off her fleece last night brushed her coat. With the extra heater keeping the cabin warm, high 60's, she doesn't need it as much now. She still needs a bath, but her coat really grew in this winter -- she looks like a little bear.

Wes, one of the owners of the yard, has a bunch of cats that live in and around the office. They don't seem to cotton too much to Zoe, but she's sure interested in them. They don't run, but I don't let her chase them either. She's used to cats, but can't resist chasing them if they run.

Diagnosing the Engine

Bill called me back this morning and we spoke for a few minutes about my ongoing engine problems. When I mentioned to him that it sounded like it was making a "new" ping or clanging noise when I winterized her yesterday, he said that might indicate a more serious problem with the engine itself and not the transmission.

He suggested a few ways to diagnose it, and recommended I try them before pulling the transmission. I'm on land and since it's winter, there's no running water, so he suggested I pull the hose off the mixing elbow and run it in the bucket with my intake line so I could recirculate coolant instead of pumping it out the back. Unfortunately, I didn't have a spare 3/4" heater hose on the boat -- I've added it to the list -- so I just filled a 5 gallon bucket up to the top with fresh water and used that.

But before I did anything, I gave Boston another call and discussed it with him. He said it was a good idea to do what Bill had suggested, but also said that even in neutral, a transmission problem could still produce some noise, so that might account for what I'm hearing (actually, I might just be hyper-sensitive right now -- the noise I'm hearing could have been there all along).

So I ran the engine, and even after throttling her up, she sounded fine, which was a great relief. It does seem to have a bit of a ping or clang, but that seems to be a separate issue I'll have to handle later. Perhaps it will go away once the transmission issue has been taken care of.

Bill also suggested I loosen the engine mounting bolts and use a pry bar to raise her up enough to get blocks under her. Boston told me that he's done this before himself and it works pretty well. I think I've got enough room to do it, but plan to wait till I get the boat covered so I can work with a little heat.

I ordered a set of service manuals today, so I'd also like to wait till I've had a look at them before I start taking her apart. I've got plenty to keep me busy, and the engine isn't going anywhere, so it really doesn't make a whole lot of difference at this point.

One thing I am going to do right away is finish cleaning up and organizing the cabin. I'm not real anal about this sort of stuff, but it does sort of weigh on you after a while. It seems like I have to move half the boat to find anything. Plus, Zoe chewed a hole in her down comforter (actually several at this point, so many I can no longer fold it to hide them) and there are down feathers everywhere. It reminds me of that Dick Van Dyke show where he was showing the judge a pillow filled with chopped chicken feathers and they went everywhere. What a mess.

I don't want to throw it out, so I'm going to try to sew it up. Since I don't have anything to patch the holes, I'm going to try to use the technique people used to use to darn socks before they became disposable. I guess that will be my Christmas present to her, plus a nice long walk and treats of course.

My present will be a feather-free cabin -- and perhaps a little scotch.

Free is Better

The next project I'd planned to do, before I was forced to hang out here at City Island, was to setup my SSB. I wanted to use my backstay, but since I didn't want to cut it, I ran an old ss halyard up next to it and was going to use that instead. The beauty of that solution was that it didn't cost me anything.

I still haven't had time to hook the radio or tuner back up, but since the mast is down and I'm in the process of replacing all the shrouds, I've been trying to figure out whether or not I wanted to have the rigger cut my new backstay and install one or two insulators. I was also trying to figure out what length to make it if I did have him cut it.

After searching a bit and reading about vertical antennas -- I also have a copy of the ARRL Antenna Book, but it's massive and I haven't made much headway yet -- I'm going to go the simple route and use my uninsulated backstay as is. I'll place the tuner in the lazarette and run a piece of GTO-15 to the feed point about 6-8 feet off the deck. Evidently, this is called a "grounded multi-pole vertical" antenna, and should work just fine.

I read about it on one of the cruising message boards, and it's funny that the guy who posted it is a ham and has been doing this for years, but since it's so simple and doesn't cost anything (other than the parts you already have) most of the other posters wouldn't accept it. They'd prefer to buy something, the more expensive the better, instead of even trying something that's essentially free.

Blows my mind -- me being a "free is better" kind of guy.

Diesel Heater

I ordered the deck fitting and flue sections I'll need to remount my diesel heater yesterday, and it'll be here in around a week or so. The problem has always been that I didn't have an appropriate bulkhead where I could mount it low enough to give me a long enough flue, the top of which needs to stay well under the boom.

I'd decided to move it over to a small bulkhead on the starboard side that goes fore and aft, but that would require me to modify the regulator, since sailboats heel and the regulator requires gravity to work properly. However, when I measured everything, I realized that I wouldn't be able to squeeze by it to go forward without getting burned -- it just took up too much space. At that point, I decided to go ahead and add a small temporary side-to-side bulkhead in the same spot and not worry about modifying the regulator.

I have a load-bearing bulkhead in the center of the boat that sits under the deck step, i.e., the mast, and goes all the way down to the keel. The head is on the port side and the starboard side is open, allowing me to go forward to the forecastle. The new mini bulkhead I'm contemplating will essentially block the starboard passage, but luckily the head has a door on both sides and can be accessed from both the saloon and the forecastle.

So I don't see a problem with that, especially since this will only be used in the winter, and should be easy to remove. Actually, the only problem would be that access to the forecastle could be blocked if something fell against the door, but again, the heater is small and light and can be quickly removed -- at least if I design it right. I might even hinge one side for that very reason.

Cold watch:

I have 2 heaters now, so the boat is staying relatively warm. This is my second winter on the boat above 40°N, so that may make a difference as well. I grew up near Houston, so this is about 20° colder than I'm used to. The heaters help, but the cover will really make a difference. I'm also thinking about adding some insulation along the inner hull, but haven't figured out what I'll use or how I'll do it.

Insulation isn't my first priority, but it's certainly something I can work on while waiting for the cover. Since I can't do the engine, chainplates, or deck till I get her covered, I'll try to get a few little jobs like that out of the way while I'm waiting.

Cover watch:

I spoke to Tom at Coneys yesterday, and he said the frame for my cover is still where I left it and I could get it any time I wanted. Kieran offered to pick it up and bring it up here, so if it fits in his vehicle, and his schedule, I should have it in a week or two. All I'll have to do once it gets here is fix what's left of my cover and sew it up. It only has to last 3 or 4 months, and in fact, really only long enough to fix the engine, chainplates, and non-skid the deck, but keeping it on through March would be nice.

I'm not sure how I'll sew it back together, but I may just add grommets to each side and lash it -- sorta like a shelter half. That's what we did in the Corps. Each man carried half the tent, including half the poles and stakes, needed to put it up. They snapped together when I was in, but buttoned earlier. It's a pretty good system, and even if you're alone, you've still got a heavy piece of canvas you can use to cover yourself -- I've certainly done that on rainy nights in a ditch standing watch.

Winterizing

I'm trying to get the boat winterized today. I finished the head and will do the engine after lunch. I haven't decided whether or not I'll do the fresh water system today. It sorta depends on if I still have enough anti-freeze left over after I finish the engine. I've got about a gallon and a half left, and don't think it should take too much to do the engine, but it goes really fast.

I'll start with a 5 gallon bucket full of water and get her started, then pour in the anti-freeze once it gets low. Hopefully, a gallon will be plenty. If so, that'll leave me a half gallon for the fresh water. I think that will be enough, It's just going to one pump, and I can drain it. However, I want to siphon out some garbage from the bottom of my main tank before I do anything else.

I might throw a little into the bilge too, but I'm planning to use the wet vac to dry it out once I've got everything else done. It will still gather a little until I get her covered, but it shouldn't be a big deal.

Email watch:

I have a new email. I'm going to switch from gmail.com to gmx.com and use my ham callsign, nv5l@. Once I get my ham rig up and running, I'll be using my call sign at winlink.org. I'll use that on the boat, but will continue to use the gmx one when online -- don't want a lot of garbage coming in over the radio and sucking up bandwidth. Winlink has a pretty good filter, so that might work out well for everything, but your email only stays after if you've used it within the last 6 months, so it's not permanent like gmx or gmail.

I was going to use gmail with my call sign, but they don't allow addresses less the 6 characters -- who knows. But I sorta like switching to gmx anyway -- Google already knows too much about me.

Unstepped the Mast

They unstepped my mast today, and Jeff Lezare, the rigger, inspected it an found some cracks in at least one of the swages at the base of my shrouds. Chances are, they're just as old as the failed chainplates, so I'm going to take this opportunity to replace them all. No idea what that will cost, but I really don't have a choice.

I removed all the shrouds this afternoon after they got the mast down and put it on horses next to the boat. Jeff is going to work up a quote for the new shrouds and I'm thinking of adding an insulated backstay to act as my SSB antenna at the same time. That'll simplify my radio issues.

I'm going to see if I can get the SSB working even though I'm out of the water. You can't legally use a marine SSB if you aren't on the water -- at least I don't think you can -- but since I have my ham license, I can use that. And if the ham frequencies aren't open, this would be a great time to fix that too. I may or may not have to send it Icom, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

The biggest problems left to address are the stemhead fitting and the backstay chainplate, both of which might be a little difficult to get off. One of the screws holding on the stemhead fitting is covered by the port toe rail, so that might be a problem -- I sure don't want to remove the toerail -- and the backstay chainplate is completely glassed in, so it's going to be a bit of work getting it out.

Alternatively, I could add a 'Y' to the backstay and install 2 chainplates, but that's more expensive and may involve even more work reinforcing transom in 2 new places. I'll probably just cut out a section of deck around the chainplate and grind away the fiberglass covering it below deck.

In any case, I'll have to remove the section of toerail along the transom so I can get to it, which is good thing, since it needs a lot of work anyway. Actually, that might be where the fasteners are -- which would be very strange. Chainplates should always be accessible so they can be inspected, but when the boat was built 40 years ago, they might not have realized stainless steel wasn't completely corrosion proof.

I also need to winterize everything. I bought some anti-freeze yesterday, so I'll do the engine and head tomorrow. I'd like to wait as long as possible for the fresh water, but really don't think I have a choice. At some point, it's going to freeze. However, if I can get my diesel heater working, I can keep the boat, including the engine compartment, pretty warm all winter. I'm going to concentrate on that next. It's a whole lot easier using the faucet instead of water jugs.

Chainplates

They finally put me in the yard today, but won't unstep the mast until tomorrow. This went better than Saturday, but they still managed to destroy the block for my spinnaker halyard. The guy didn't realize that the halyard went over the travel lift crossbar to support the mast while the forestay was removed -- my mast is deck stepped, so without a forestay, there's nothing to keep the mast from tipping over backwards.

After lowering the boat onto the trailer, he started to move the lift out of the way. As he did, he pulled the halyard, it tightened, and all of a sudden the sheave exploded. For a second there, I thought he was going to rip something else out of the deck. I wasn't quite as cool about this mishap and used a bit of colorful language to express my displeasure. But he stopped quickly and it looks like he only broke the sheave, nothing else.

Now that I think of it, Barden's put her in with a travel lift and didn't have to take off the forestay, but they lifted her from from the stern instead of the bow. I'll have to mention that to them, because I don't want any more mishaps. My mast is well forward of midships, so the angle of the backstay is less than that of the forestay, therefore, they can get in closer without hitting it if you lift from the stern. They must just lift everything the same way without thinking about it.

Btw, the guys at Barden's are still the best I've seen at lifting and moving boats, as well as working on engines. They still owe me for a broken handrail, but that guy was the exception.

I'd actually never seen anything break on a boat (except my handrail), so I'm glad I got to see both of these failures in the yard and not at sea. I think it puts things in perspective and will help me make better decisions concerning repairs and upgrades in the future. In particular, I really want to get a handle on expected loads and the ratings on all the gear I've got on the boat. Some things might be too small, and others might be overkill, and thus a waste of money.

Everything should be okay now, but I have to make sure I don't let these guys do too much, because I don't think I could afford them. They were talking about having my new chainplates fabricated, but after looking on the web, I see that it would probably cost several hundred to perhaps several thousand dollars to get them fabricated depending on how many I get -- the stem fitting would be the most expensive.

Therefore, I've decided I'm going to buy bronze flat bar stock and make my own. It's not really a big deal, and I can make ones for my drogue at the same time. At a bare minimum, I need to replace the six side ones that are 3/16" x 1" x 12". I think the one for the backstay is more or less the same, but I need to go take a look to be sure -- it'll need to be bent as well, which might be a problem.

I want to beef them up a bit, so I'm going to go with either 1/4" or 3/8" x 1 1/2" aluminum bronze stock. Cutting, drilling, and polishing shouldn't be a problem, but the drilling does require a special bit (you need a straight flute, so I'll probably just buy a new regular one and modify it since they're hard to get). Bronze isn't quite as strong, so upgrading to 1/4" x 1 1/2" would only be a modest increase in strength, but 3/8" may or may not be overkill. I'll need to check the thickness as the masthead before I decide on what to order since it doesn't make much sense to make it any stronger than the weakest link.

I'm not sure what to do about the stem, but I'll pull it first so I can see what shape it's in. I'm sure it has a similar problem, however, a design flaw in the construction of the side chainplates really exacerbated the corrosion problem. They had an 'L' shaped piece welded onto the side that helped prevent it from being pulled through the deck. I'm not sure how much that really helped, because all it did was make a big hole when it pulled through my deck. Sure, it bent a little, but I don't think that helped much. Maybe it's just there to make a lot of noise as it rips through so you notice something's wrong.

It might be designed to take some of the load off the bolts that fasten it to the hull, but I don't like it much. The problem was that it's only welded on the sides. If water leaked in, which it always does, it pools in the void between the two pieces and rusts. In the photo I posted below, the bent 'L' shaped piece is actually pulled away and underneath, but the rust and large cracks are the back side of where the two pieces touched.

Bronze won't have this problem, but I don't see a reason to add something like that anyway. I'm certainly not welding anything. I'll research some more and talk to the rigger tomorrow about it, but if the bolts aren't enough, I'd prefer to add more and perhaps make it longer.

Another problem is that the standing rigging might need to be replaced as well. I'm not sure how much that costs either, but I'm going to have to have a long talk with the rigger on what I need to do -- he pointed out some problems when he looked at it today. If I do get new ones, whoever makes them will figure the loads for me, so that may also dictate the size of the chainplates. It may also require a modification, or replacement, or the masthead. I think the mast itself is okay, but I may end up trimming the bottom of it after all.

With all these extra expenses, it's looking like I may need to go back to work sooner than later. At least I'm stuck near NYC, it's the hottest high tech labor market in the country right now, or at least that's what I've heard. I've been getting one or two emails or calls a week from recruiters for at least the last month or two. However, if I do end up interviewing anywhere, they're going to have to take me as I am, because I got rid of all my suits. But with all the work I need to do, I don't really have time for a job right now -- the boat is my job.

Broken Chainplate

While I was climbing back on board after walking Zoe, I noticed that the forward starboard shroud chainplate had broken off yesterday when she slipped in the sling. I pulled the broken piece off the turnbuckle and was really surprised to see that it was rusted almost completely through. The surveyor said they looked fine when he surveyed her in late 2007, and she's been covered almost continuously since then, so he must have just missed it.

I inspected all the other ones closely afterwords, and they all look the same. So, in the long run, I guess they did me a favor when they almost dropped her yesterday. It's a whole lot better to find this out now than later when it really matters. I'm going to have to replace all of them with heavier ones, so I'm not going anywhere any time soon. And it could have been worse, had it not broken, the shock would have probably damaged my mast, and hidden the fact that they were all about to go.

I'm going to take the sails down today, and they'll unstep the mast, put her on jack stands, and cover her for the winter tomorrow. I'm going to try to live on her here and fix it all myself, but I don't think there's any way I can get out of here before spring. All the work I planned to do in Houston will have to be done here in the cold.

I'd thought about getting a job for the winter, but if I did, I wouldn't have time to work on the boat, so it's better if I just bite the bullet and get with it. Although I got a sick feeling when she slipped, and an even sicker feeling when I saw the broken chainplate and realized I'd need to replace all of them, I'm actually okay with it now.

This should give me plenty of time to do the engine and transmission work, as well as the half dozen other jobs I'd planned, in addition to the chainplates of course. Right now, I'm just going to concentrate on getting ready for the winter. I'll have to winterize everything tomorrow, so life on the boat is about to get a little more primitive. I'm about to be back to where I was in Marion, but at least I'll have more reliable power, and better heat.

But it's still better than working in Manhattan.

Aurora Slips

They almost dropped the boat when they where lifting her out of the water yesterday. I have a modified full keel with a swept forefoot. That means that the full keel only starts at about midships, which is the fulcrum, and has a gradual "s" shape continuing forward up to the bow.

When they put her in the slings, the aft one was just forward of the rudder, which was fine, but the foreward one was too far forward. They tied them together with a rope on one side to keep them from slipping, but they guy who tied it didn't know what he was doing. I don't know what kind of knot he was trying to tie, but it slipped and forward sling slipped all the way to bow and caught on the bow roller and stemhead fitting.

I think all of us lost a couple years off our lives right then and there, but it didn't seem to have caused any damage. I still need to inspect everything, but will need to unfurl the genoa to look at the furler on the forestay. The forestay had been removed so she would fit in the travel lift, but it was attached to one of the forward stanchions and had to bend a good deal. Hopefully it's okay.

They lowered her and tied both sides better the second time, but after looking at the knots they guy used, I added another safety line on the starboard side. I couldn't get it as tight as the one that's already there, but at least my knots won't slip -- I used a truckers slip knot and several half hitches to secure it.

So, no harm, no foul, but it could have been worse. Someone could have been hurt or it could have snapped my mast. I guess I need to be the master rigger from now on. I've seen it done correctly a few times, particularly at Coneys and Bardens, but wasn't too impressed by these guys. Ultimately, I'm responsible for my own boat, so I'll be more hands on from now on.

I'm going to see if they can get me on jack stands today, but may have to wait until tomorrow. I'm sitting in the slings on a block right now.

Engine Mounts

The aft engine mounts are bolted through the transmission, so I can't just remove it without supporting the engine and unweighting the mounts first. I've been trying to think of how I could do this without pulling the engine, but haven't been able to come up with an acceptable solution without significant drawbacks.

The main problem is the weather. If it wasn't so cold, I could just remove the engine cover in the cabin, lay a 4x4 over the sliding hatch opening and use a block and tackle to lift it up. I still may use that technique today, but with the cold weather, I can't leave it like that while I have the transmission out. I could block up from the bottom, either to lift the engine or keep it there, but there's a plywood drip pan glassed in under the engine and there isn't a lot of space. The drip pan also makes it impossible to use the bottle jack technique suggested by Boston yesterday.

It's still too cold to do anything right now, but once it warms up a bit, I'll go ahead and take out the shaft. I loosened the prop last night, but didn't have time to pull the shaft. To actually take off the prop, I have to loosen the shaft and slide it forward, then I can slide the prop off and pull the shaft completely out -- my prop sits in a cutout between the aft edge of the hull and the leading edge of the rudder, so you can't just take it off (and can't just loose it either, which is a good thing).

Once the shaft is out, I'll have more room and can assess my options. I think I can get blocks in under the engine from the aft end to support her once the transmission is out. It just depends on how much room I have to play with, and I can't tell till I can get my head down there to look. If I can't get it out, I may be forced to let them pull the engine. However, I can get it ready for them today so all they'll need to do is actually pull it, but I really hate that idea.

The bright side of pulling the engine is that I can do a lot of pm while she's out, as well as clean and repaint the inner hull in the engine compartment. I was planning to do all of that in Houston, where it's warmer, but with the weather as cold as it is this time of year, another engine failure is not an option. So, it is what it is.

Also, I'm going to go ahead and remove the cockpit hatch latches so I don't get stuck inside while I'm working on it. It would really suck to freeze to death down there over the holidays. I could see that happening out in the middle of nowhere, but heck, from here I can see the Manhattan skyline.

Bottle Jack

Well, it wouldn't be a boat if everything was easy, now would it?

I loosened the prop, but need to unhook the coupling and slide the shaft forward before I can remove it, so I climbed into one of my cockpit lockers to see what tools I'd need. But when I looked at it, I noticed that the rear engine mounts bolt through the transmission. So, I can't just unbolt the transmission and pull it off.

At that point, I figured I'd give Boston another call for advice -- he's sorta my personal "boat talk" guy. Anyway, he said it shouldn't be too much of a problem and suggested I buy a small bottle jack to support the aft end of the engine so I can unbolt it from the engine mounts. I still need to figure out how to block up the jack, but I might have to go all the way down to the bottom of the bilge.

It looks like the weather should be okay tomorrow, so I'll see if I can get everything ready. I may or may not be able to get a bottle jack tomorrow, but there's another guy living on a boat here named Gary who offered to drive me down to a store to pick one up on Monday afternoon.

Gary's a neat guy. He teaches social studies in a Bronx high school, is a song writer, and lives on his 40' Beneteau. It's a beautiful boat, and seems like it's twice as wide as mine, especially inside. In fact it looks like a really nice Manhattan efficiency apartment inside. I still love my boat, but what a difference. I guess I just love pretty boats.

I love pretty women too, but as with boats, the prettier they are, the more dangerous they can be. I've got a good looking boat, but she's relatively safe. I'm not sure about Gary's boat, but she seems a bit too beamy for me -- built more for comfort than safety. She's more like a wide sled with a fin keel, whereas mine is much thinner and has a modified full keel with a swept forefoot. I'd actually prefer it wasn't swept quite as much as it is, but she still sails pretty well.

Degrees

I see things in degrees, neither totally good nor totally bad, but somewhere in between. So, although a blown transmission is definitely near the bad end, it could of been worse.

I'm sitting in the travel lift sling next to the dock right now, and Zoe is sunning herself nearby. I'll probably be here at least a few weeks. The guys in the yard tell me they'll need to pull the engine to get to the transmission, but I'm a little dubious. I've had the prop off and the shaft out already when I replace the cutlass bearing and stuffing box, and it sure looked like there was plenty of room down there to get her off.

So I put a few calls into friends who work on this stuff and finally got in touch with Boston (Harold) up in Marion. He has the same engine on his boat, albeit a different transmission. He gave me a few ideas and told me that if it was him, he'd pull the prop, uncouple the shaft, slide it out, and unbolt the transmission without pulling the engine. He also told me that it wasn't something he didn't think I could do, so that's where I'm at.

I'm going to see if I can get the prop off and shaft out today, and probably tackle the transmission tomorrow. He also said that there's often a plastic disk (not sure exactly what he called it) that connects the flywheel to the spline, which will sometimes break. If you engage the engine at idle and there's no load, it turns the shaft fine, but if you add throttle, it will start to slip and make a lot of noise. I think that may be what I've got, but I won't know for sure till I get if off.

I wish I could have gotten down to look at the prop and eliminate it as the problem before they pulled me, but at least I'm learning more about my systems. I'd also like to continue doing all the work myself, so pulling the transmission is actually a good thing. However, I'm also seriously considering buying a dry suit before I leave -- I don't want to have this happen again.

I also need to make a good rope ladder while I'm here as well, otherwise, I won't be able to get back on board very easily. I'd like to have something like cargo netting I can hang off around the cockpit when underway, and pull up in port. I've had some experience climbing up cargo netting, and it wasn't bad.

City Island

Tonight I'm tied up at a dock in a marina on City Island. Something fouled my prop a couple hours after dark last night as I passed Hewlett Point at the edge of Manhasset Bay, and I lost all propulsion. The engine ran, but I couldn't go anywhere and it made an awful noise. I had to shut it down and quickly raise my mainsail as I drifted by the rocks on Hewlett Point.

I was lucky I didn't hit any of them. It was high tide at the time, which probably helped, but I saw them today at low tide, and the one closest to me last night was as wide as the boat. I'm glad I got out of Huntington, but left way too late, both in time of day and season. I had to break up the ice to get out yesterday.

They'll pull my boat tomorrow and see what's going on, but I think I must have hit a lobster pot or some garbage that got tangled around the prop. Hopefully, it's nothing serious, but I might have lost the prop. In any case, I'll have to stay here till at least Tuesday as I've missed the weather window. The next one isn't looking as good either.

They loaned me a great heater, so we're nice and toasty tonight. It's already down to 30 outside and we're at 62 in the cabin and climbing. Zoe's really happy too. She got to go for a walk and warm up -- both of which are her favorite things, as are treats, etc.. Like all dogs, she has lots of favorites.

I think I'll take advantage of my time here to move my diesel heater and see if I can get it to work. It puts out a lot of heat, but would get full of soot overnight. It was a real mess. I think it was mounted too high in the cabin and the flue was too short so it didn't draw well. I'm going to move it to another spot where I can mount it much lower and add another foot the flue on the inside. I figure I could use the dorade on that side to feed the air intake, if needed.

I just can't live on the boat in this weather without heat, and the stove doesn't provide nearly enough. Reliable heat will also reduce the urgency of traveling south. I'll be able to make shorter trips and wait for better days without worrying about freezing. I don't want to wake up to another 28 degree morning on the boat.

Time to Go

I guess I could have titled this GTT (gone to Texas), but I already used it earlier this summer when it became clear I couldn't finish everything necessary for a safe ocean passage before I left. But in any case, today's the day.

It looks like the weather should be cold but mild through Saturday. That'll give me plenty of time to make it to Cape May. At that point I'll need to decide whether or not I anchor there or continue up Delaware Bay and into the Chesapeake via the C&D Canal. Again, it all depends on the weather, but at least I'll be getting a little closer to the goal -- warmer weather.

Actually, that's really all I'm looking for. Aurora's my home, so it doesn't much matter where I am, as long as I'm on board and not freezing. We'll take a walk shortly and then I'll start getting everything ready to go.

I still need to get water and diesel, but I spoke to Jimmy yesterday, and he said he can help me out with both right here at the dock. I hope to leave by around 1100 so I can make the USMMA before dark. I've never been there, so I don't want to miss it. They have a breakwater, so I'll be nice and cozy inside while I wait for high tide tomorrow morning. I plan to go through Hell Gate at around 0641 per the tide tables.

Not sure when my next post will be, but if I get a chance I'll update this evening. You should be able to follow me via AIS sometime after 1100, however, I may disappear from time to time due to the low power of my emission. Since I won't be able to track it myself, it would be great if someone could tell me how well it's working.

So it's time to say goodbye to New York, or in the Aggie vernacular, AMF to NYC.

Final Preperations

I got the AIS and new radio working, and entered my MMSI number so that DSC will work. The best part of my radio is that it displays the AIS targets and can also be used for navigation. You can put in 100 way points and use the GPS that's part of my AIS unit.

I had to borrow a USB to RS232 adapter from Coneys to setup the AIS unit, but after that, it all worked great. It's a low power emission, so I can only be seen from 5-10 miles away. The closest base station to here is probably a little further away, so it's not picking me up or displaying me on marinetraffic.com.

I don't have time to order one, and none of the stores in Huntington have them in stock. I did find one in Westbury, but would have to take the train over to pick it up. And since I wouldn't be able to take Zoe, and it's too cold to leave her on the boat alone -- I don't run anything when I'm not on board for fear of fire -- I was prepared to sail without it. However, I mentioned it to Kieran, and he offered to pick it up for me on his way home, so I'm going to call them as soon as I finish this post.

Departure watch:

I'm planning to leave tomorrow at about noon so I can reach Throgs Neck, or there abouts, before dark. I spoke to the folks at both the SUNY Maritime Acadamy and the US Merchant Marine Academy and both offered to let me tie up for the evening so I could make slack tide at Hell Gate by 0600 or 0700.

It looks like Sunday is going to be windy again, so I don't want to miss this window. All I need to do today/tomorrow is finish mounting my radios (duct tape works if nothing else), mount a bulls-eye fairlead on the mast, and fill my tanks, both water and diesel. I'm planning to fill the tanks tomorrow morning right before I go.

And finally, I'll check the weather again in the morning and make my final decision by around 1000. Based on what it looks like right now, I'll be either stopping at Cape May or heading up the Delaware on Saturday. I don't want to be out there on Sunday if there's a Small Craft Advisory (SCA) or gale warning.

AIS

I just finished hooking up my new AIS unit. I still have to hook up my new radio and mount everything, but for the time being, I'm using a couple unused fuses on the instruments panel in the cabin (they were for stuff that's either broken or been removed).

Right now, it's all just sitting on the counter and seems to be working correctly. However, I haven't seen it show up on the marinetraffic.com site yet, but I might just be out of range here in the harbor.

We're in the middle of a nice little storm right now. It's blowing around 20 and gusting up to 30 and blowing us up against the dock. Every time it gusts, we heel over a few degrees, and don't think Zoe hasn't noticed -- she hates that. It's also really noisy which she doesn't like much either. Although it hasn't really gotten any better, she seems to have gotten used to it.

She had gotten down and was hanging around at my feet, but with the sole so cold, I guess she picked the lesser of two evils and got back in her bunk. It's well below freezing outside and will drop down below 20 tonight. I've been trying to wait until the wind dies down a bit before we go for our walk, but it doesn't look like it's going to get much better any time soon.

I think I'll go down and tighten up the dock lines first so she'll stop jumping around so much. I don't want either of us going it when I carry her off the boat onto the dock. The engine compartment seems to have stayed above freezing today, but I'm going to go ahead and start the engine when we get back and let her run for a while.

The worst part is that the wind blew all the snow off the decks, so I've lost my blanket. Hopefully we'll be able to keep her warm enough tonight. At least I seem to have gotten my sea legs, she's bobbing like a cork and making hard to type.

Snow Photos

Here are a couple of photos of the boat. I took them from the patio of the restaurant next door, and as you can see, she's covered in a about an inch or two of snow. You might also notice the canvas on the starboard side deck. The decks are so slick I had to roll that out so I could get on and off the boat with Zoe.

In fact, it works so well that I'm thinking of cutting sections and adding grommets so I can tie it down in place to provide a little bit better footing for my trip south. It's too cold to paint on non-skid, but except for a few places where the slope is too great, the canvas stays in place and provides an excellent non-skid surface. A lot of older wooden boats had canvas decks, so I think it's a viable alternative given the situation.

Snow Blanket

It started snowing last night around 2200, and it looks like we got 1-2 inches, which is a good thing. It's currently 20 degrees outside, but with the snow blanket covering my decks, we're a toasty 50 in the cabin.

I spread my boat covers over the cockpit area to insulate it, and after it started snowing, decided not to worry about starting the engine last night. The fresh water was still flowing this morning, so nothing, other than the inside surfaces of the forward portholes, froze -- they have a thin coat of ice.

It was under 40 in the cabin when I got back on the boat last night after our walk, but slowly warmed up. Zoe's still wearing her fleece, so she didn't feel the need to crawl in my bag, but I did drape the fleece throw over her a few times last night just in case.

Once I've finished my coffee, we'll try to go ashore for our morning walk. I've got my full foul weather gear on, partly so see how warm it'll keep me. It'll be about this cold for the first few nights during my trip. I'll take my phone and see if I can get a good photo of the boat covered in snow.

I have a couple things I'd still like to do on deck before I leave, but I don't see that happening until it warms up. That probably means I'll use Thursday to finish up, which may or may not delay me another day. In any case, the weekend and early next week look good for sailing. It'll still be unseasonably cold, but at least the wind will have died down.

Fixin to Get Cold

The temperature has already started dropping and should dip below freezing by 2100 -- and stay there for the next 72 hours -- so I'm going to make a concerted effort to keep the fresh water lines and salt water intake from freezing this time. I can keep the cabin fairly warm with the little electric heater, but the area under the cockpit, where the water lines are, is completely separate.

The only way to heat that compartment is to either remove the engine cover and let the cabin heat it, or run the engine. My plan is to run the engine every 4 hours or so, but if the salt water intake freezes, I'll have to use the cabin heat to thaw it out -- running the engine while the intake is frozen could burn up the impeller.

So, I'm going put myself on a watch and run the engine for about 30 minutes every 4 hours. I guess it's sorta like what I'll be doing when under way, but at least I'll get more sleep.

I mounted the outboard on the stern pulpit today, and put up the SSB antenna (but didn't connect it to anything). I also sanded and cleaned the decks; Since I didn't have time to put down the non-skid, I wanted to at least take the gloss off. It's actually not bad -- almost like it was when I bought the boat in the first place. I've also been stowing gear below for the last few days and almost have a handle on it. I need to do a little more organizing of my tools and supplies but feel it's probably good enough for now.

The next major project will be my radios. I'll eventually need to climb into the starboard cockpit locker to wire them up to the batteries, but can still do a lot in the cabin first. I'm not crazy about climbing down there in sub freezing weather, but don't think I'll have much of a choice.

Voyage watch:

Although the timing and route will ultimately depend on the weather, I've pretty much decided to make a straight shot offshore from Sandy Hook to either Norfolk or south of Diamond Shoals (North Carolina). I'll have several choices for stops along the way, e.g., it's about 24 hours from Sandy Hook to Cape May, so I could stop there the second day if need be. It's another 24 hours or so from Cape May to Norfolk, so that would be a good place to go in on the 3rd day.

But after that, I'd need to clear Diamond Shoals completely before I could come in. However, I don't think it's too much more than 24 hours south of Norfolk, so it would be the 4th day anyway. The current forecast looks like I'll have at least that long before then the next front comes through, so I'd like to get as far south as possible. However, I'll stop and tuck in as soon as the forecasts dictates

One way or another, I'm going to have to sail 24 hours a day for several days, and at least the first few will be pretty cold. I'll keep an eye on the forecast, and if it looks like it's warming up, I may delay my departure a couple more days, but I don't want to get caught by another cold front, or I may never get out. The wind has already picked up, so I'm glad I'm still on the dock -- I think we've got gale warnings from now until Thursday pretty much up and down the coast.

Final Local Storm Begins

The final local storm began early this morning -- at least I hope it's "my" final local storm here in New York. It's not cold, but should rain all day, and turn really cold Monday night. With any luck, the strong winds will abate by Thursday and I can start my voyage south.

I've still got a few leaks, but the caulking around the companionway frame helped a lot. However, I'll need to make some modifications when I get to Houston, because there's no way it would keep out a wave. The boards fit way too loosely.

The other leak is near the starboard side splice I repaired this summer. It's not too bad, but I think I'll have to remove the bolts and fill the void with epoxy in order to fix it. It shouldn't take long, but I'll have to wait till I've got about a week of relatively warm and dry weather, which I won't find until I'm south of the Carolinas.

Aurora's nose is still a little low, which is exacerbating the leak since the water is pooling up against the toe rail a few feet forward of the deck drain. I'm going to move gear around today to see if I can rebalance her. I have a 35 pound anchor hanging off a bow roller and 200 feet of 5/16 chain in the chain locker that adds up to about 215 pounds right at the bow.

When I bought the boat, it had about 180 pounds of lead pigs up in the chain locker to help hold the nose down with the anchors mounted on the deck forward and aft of the mast, so I've got a good 30-40 more pounds up there right now. And since it so far forward of the fulcrum, it's tough to offset it. I did move 7 of the pigs (20 pounds each) to the lazarette and have both of the old anchors in the cockpit, but the nose is still heavy.

Most of my tools and the extra paint is up in the forecastle, mostly stacked well forward on the v-berth. That's also a lot of weight, so I going to try to move some of it aft today. I think that should help a lot. I can also move my outboard aft, but since I don't want it to interfere with the wind vane, I'm not sure if I'll be able to mount it on the stern pulpit.

I guess I'll play around with it over the next few days, but right now it's strapped to the coach roof between the sliding companionway hatch and the mast. I also have my inflatable rolled up and stowed on the coach roof on top of the sliding hatch sleeve. Both are aft of but really close to the fulcrum, so they aren't having much effect on the fore and aft balancing.

I'd prefer to keep my decks as clear as possible, but I'm not sure that's possible when cruising. There's so much gear you need to take, you'll almost always have to stack some of it on deck -- that includes additional fuel tanks as well -- don't want them in the cabin.

The Second Time is Always Better

The second time up the mast went much better than the first, but I was still shaking like a leaf on the way down, and not because of the cold either -- well, maybe a little. I used the smaller spinnaker halyard to hoist my climbing rope since I'd already used the jib halyard to bend on the genoa. My only other options were the topping lift and the main halyard, but the topping lift is in use (though I could still use it, however it uses the smallest block at the masthead) and the main halyard down haul is the one that rubs.

The next time I go up, I'll use the main halyard and go all the way up. I need to reroute the spinnaker halyard -- it's reeved backwards, with the down haul outboard instead of inboard, so it'll chafe badly if ever used. I also want to add chafing gear to the spreader mounting points and reinforce the lashing on the chafing gear I added today. I split a piece of fire hose and put half on each side of the bracket, letting the excess lap the mast and cover the screw heads.

If I weren't so worn out, I'd do it today, but I'm afraid I'd get myself in a bind and not have the strength to extricate myself. There are other things I could do this afternoon, but I think I need a break after the mast. There's no wind at all, so sailing around the harbor isn't an option.

I think we'll take the afternoon off, go for a walk, and stop by the bar for a beer. That ought to put me in a good mood to tackle the mess in the forecastle and finish stowing tools and gear this evening. I might even look into what it will take to install the solar panel this week, but no matter what, the radios come first (that's tomorrow's top priority).

Up the Mast

Well, I went up the mast this morning. And I can honestly say, that I hope I never have to do that again. I'm not a fan of heights in the first place, and hanging by a thin line 30' above the deck is not my idea of a good time.

Unfortunately, I do have to go back up, probably later this afternoon. I only took the c-clamp up with me this morning to try to press the radar reflector frame closer to the mast. I didn't have any success, but at that height, I'm not as nimble as I'd be on solid ground, so it probably could still be done some time in the future. As soon as I recover from the first ascent, I'll go back up and put on the chafing gear.

The biggest problem, aside from a healthy fear of heights, is that I'm exhausted. I'm probably not doing it correctly, which is making it more work than it needs to be, but I did finally get the hang of it coming down. It's really a lot more work than I'd expected.

I'm sure it has a lot to do with how I've got my daisies adjusted -- those or the lines connecting the ascenders to my harness. I think the right one was too short, not allowing me to go quite as high, and the left may have been too tight. I'll play around with them a little before I go back up.

Btw, have you ever noticed that you never see an overweight climber? There's a really good reason for that -- it's a lot of work pulling up your own weight. I'm not fat, but I'd feel a lot better about climbing back up there if I could loose half my weight.

Working the spring loaded cams on the ascenders was also a pain -- my hands are aching. And of course, once you get up there, you have no choice but to come down, and coming down is when you have to trip the cams. My mistake was doing that most of the way up, which was stupid now that I think about it. It's also why I'm so tired now.

33 Degrees

That's how much warmer Houston will be today. The highs today will be 42 here and 75 there, and that's why I'm heading down to Houston, or at least south. I may or may not actually make it to Houston this winter, it all depends on the boat and the weather, but that's where I'm bound.

We have almost no wind today, so as soon as it reaches the high of 42, around 1300, I'll try to go up the mast. I actually hooked everything up yesterday to test it out, but didn't try to go up. I was wearing my sailing gloves, which are really thin and have the tips of the thumb and index finger cut out, but after only a few minutes, I felt like I was getting frostbite on my right thumb and gave it up.

I'd tried to use another set of gloves, but they were too loose and bulky and made it difficult to work the ascenders. I have some glove liners I'll try today, and plan to wear my fingerless wool gloves over them. Hopefully that will be enough -- it was below freezing when I tried it yesterday. I could also try to go up tomorrow. It's forecast to be a balmy 51, but there's also a 60% chance of rain which might make it worse.

I bent the sails on yesterday, so if I can get the chafing gear on early enough today, I'll take her out for a short sail this afternoon. There's not much wind, but that's actually better, since I just want to go through the motions and make sure everything is working correctly.

I also want to start working on my other radios, so the weather delay's probably a good thing -- I definitely want to get the new VHF and AIS units installed. However, the gale warnings from Sunday into early next week all the way down the coast to Florida still aren't terribly encouraging. I just hope that the high expected on Wednesday night, Thursday morning, brings good weather with it for several days.

I know I'm going to have to deal with high winds and heavy seas at some point, but I'd prefer to put that off for a while, at least until I've had a chance to test out the boat, and myself, a bit. I also need to see how Zoe's going to deal with all of this and make any accommodations.

Too bad I couldn't have gotten out of here a couple of months earlier. Mais, c'est la vie.

Weather Delay

We're having a spell of unseasonably cold weather right now, just as we had unseasonably hot weather this summer. Weather extremes, both too hot and too cold, make working on the boat much more difficult. I'd hoped to have her ready to sail today, but it's been cold and windy for the last few days, so I still haven't had a chance to go up the mast.

The winds finally died down late last night, and it should warm up this afternoon, so I hope I'll be able to do it either today or tomorrow. Last night began a very short weather window, but even if I could have left this morning, I'd still have to stop somewhere from Sunday through Wednesday due to another system that's expected to reach this area late Sunday. That would mean I'd have to hang out for a couple days at Cape May.

In addition to not being ready to sail, my water system froze last night, so it took about an hour to thaw it out and get it flowing again this morning. It seems fine now, but when I started the engine, it wasn't throwing water, so I need to thaw that out too before I can run it. I've got the cover off in the cabin and both the shop light under the intake hose and the electric heater pointed at the face of the engine where the water pump is mounted.

I might need to add some insulation to keep it from getting too cold. However, the real solution for me is to get the hell out of here before it gets cold again. It's still below freezing outside, and I've been having trouble keeping the cabin above 50 -- it easily drops below 40 at night, even with the little electric heater running at nearly full blast. I took Zoe down to the little bar across the street last night to warm up for a while, and when I got back to the boat, it was only 28, at eye level, so I'm sure the sole was colder. I used the stove and heater to warm it back up, but gave up once she got above 50 and shut the stove off and went to bed.

There's a thin layer of ice around the boat. In fact, it goes out over 100 feet from the eastern shore, and pretty much stays frozen all day. It first froze up a few days ago and hasn't thawed yet. When boats go by and kick up a wake -- not too many this time of year -- the ice rubs against the hull and makes a hell of a noise.

Although I've read about that sort of thing in a book about Shackleton, but never thought I'd hear it myself. It's really thin right now, but it still makes a lot of noise. At first I didn't know what was going on, but quickly realized it was just the ice. It might scratch the paint, but chances are all it will do is help clean off the scum line.

At this point, I'll probably go ahead and finish getting everything ready here and delay my departure until Tuesday night. That means I'll have to traverse the Hell Gate and the East River at night, but NYC is lit up like a Christmas tree at night, so I don't think it will be a problem. Also, it should be light by the time I make it to Sandy Hook, and I plan to just continue directly out into the Atlantic.

The current forecast indicates I'll have mild weather for several days, maybe a week, beginning on Tuesday night, Wednesday morning, so I plan to leave here Tuesday night, go through NYC at night, and sail 24 hours a day as long as the weather holds, probably at least 5 days or so, but it's all depends on the weather. Hopefully, that will put me well south of Norfolk by the time I get into weather of any significance.

Cold and Windy

They moved all the other boats to their winter locations and put me out on a small exposed dock on the north west corner yesterday. And since the wind normally comes out of that direction, we've been bobbing like a cork for the last couple of days -- much worse than before. I guess the bright side is that both Zoe and I are starting to get used to it, e.g., it's blowing at about 20-30 mph right now and I'm able to type, and edit, this with no problem whatsoever.

It's been too cold and windy to go up the mast or do any work on deck for that matter, so I've been concentrating on the cabin. I reinstalled the head yesterday also continued to organize my tools and stow gear. It's getting much better, but I've still got a lot to do.

I'd hoped to get on deck today and work on the wiring and remount the clutches for my halyards, but never got to it. Since I'm going to try to go outside from NYC to Cape May, I wanted to have the Jordan drogue ready, so I spent most of the day tying in the rest of the parachutes. I think there are about 170 or them, and I'd already tied in almost half, but it still took me most of the day and I've got a few left. I'll finish them tonight.

The only thing else I need to do to complete the drogue is to make up a bridle and add a weight to the end. West Marine has dock lines on sale which are about the right length and already have eyes made up, so I'm going to pick up a couple of 5/8" ones tomorrow. The weight on the end needs to be about 15 pounds, and although I could use my small anchor, I think I'll go ahead and pick up a dedicated length of chain. It'll be a lot easier to stow and no one will be tempted to use it for anything else -- safety gear should always be ready to go.

I also need to hook up my radios. I'll run up my SSB antenna, which is just an old piece of stainless steel halyard, but won't worry about hooking it up yet. However, I do need to install my new VHF radio and AIS unit. I'm not sure where they'll eventually go, but for the time being I'm just going to stack them on shelf at the foot of my bunk. That'll keep them away from the toerail leak.

I might move the SSB there too, but need to run some heavier wire if I put it that far away from the batteries. However, I don't think it'll be a problem. I'm also going to connect all my radios directly to the batteries (actually, the battery selector) instead of through the panel in order to reduce the chance of interference. Hooking up and tuning the SSB might take some time to get right, so I might even wait until I get to Houston before I mess around with it. I certainly won't need it for this trip.

Snow

I saw a few flakes of snow this morning on our walk. Zoe loves the snow, but sure hope we don't get too much of it before we leave. It's still too windy to go up the mast and add the chafing gear, but it should clear up by Thursday. Hopefully, I can get everything else ready by then, so all I'll have left to do is add chafing gear, bend the sails, and take her out for a shakedown.

Even then, it'll still be cold, but I should have a weather window of at least 4-5 days where I can shake her down and still make it to Cape May before the next front comes through. I'm considering doing the Sandy Hook to Cape May leg in one shot over night. It's just 24 hours and with weather windows only lasting 4-5 days at a time, I don't want to get caught somewhere along the New Jersey coast for another week waiting for good weather to go back out.

There are a few marginal places to go in along the New Jersey coast, but none of them are really appealing. It's also really shallow, so going inside for that section isn't a good idea either. I've been reading the cruising guides and message boards and have concluded that going down outside for this section is the best option.

However, that means I'll need to do a few more things to get ready -- most of which I've done over the last few days waiting for the high winds to die down. So, I guess the current weather delay is actually a good thing. It also gives me a chance to pick up a few more supplies based on what I've used since going in the water a couple weeks ago.

Charts

Since I'm going to go down inside via the ICW instead of outside, I need some additional charts. I have Waterway Guides and large area charts for the entire coast, but don't have all the detailed charts for the ICW, so I spent the most of the day downloading a full set of electronic charts from NOAA. I also found and downloaded a free open source program, OpenCPN, to view them.

The download took a while, even though I excluded the great lakes and Alaska. However, I did go ahead and get the West Coast and Hawaii, as well as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. I don't need all of them right now, but since I've got a good connection and plenty of room on my hard drive, I figured getting a full set couldn't hurt.

The best thing about them is that they include tide and current information, which really helps. Since I don't want to run my laptop all the time, I'll mainly use it for trip planning. I'll make simplified sketches of what I need to know for a particular leg and keep it on me anyway, and use paper charts to track my progress. It also has lots of bells and whistles, but I don't know how much of that I want to use, e.g., waypoints, etc. I don't want to get too dependent on something I can't use all the time, e.g., over seas, and might suddenly become unavailable -- laptops are somewhat fragile.

Small Craft Advisory

It looks like I'll be around till at least the middle of next week. Here's the current marine forecast from the National Weather Service:

.MARINE...
LOW PRESSURE OVER THE CANADIAN MARITIMES THE NEXT FIVE DAYS WILL
RESULT IN A PROLONGED PERIOD OF SCA CONDITIONS DUE TO THE STRONG W
TO NW FLOW FROM THIS SYSTEM. AS THE LOW DEEPENS RAPIDLY SUNDAY
NIGHT INTO MONDAY...A PERIOD OF GALE FORCE GUSTS ARE POSSIBLE ON
THE LOCAL WATERS.

TRANQUIL CONDITIONS ARE NOT FORECAST TO RETURN UNTIL THURSDAY.

I'm not even sure I want to go out for a short shakedown sail until it calms down. It's also cold as hell right now, and won't get back up to normal temps -- still in the lower 40's -- till the end of next week. But that's okay, I've got plenty to keep me busy, however, as I said before, I don't want to wear out my welcome, so I don't want to stay any longer than necessary.

It's pretty windy today, but I should still be able to go up the mast. However, since I'm probably going to be around for a few more days, I can wait for better opportunity if it's too windy this afternoon -- there's really no hurry.

Parts Have Arrived

I didn't get as much done yesterday as I wanted, but I did mount my cleats and caulk the companionway frame. I also worked on routing the main halyard. First, I mounted the deck organizer and fed the halyard through it to see how it would work as is, but it looked like it would chafe badly and wouldn't feed the blocks and organizer correctly. I ended up bringing the down haul around the mast and aft of the starboard spreader to the block I've got attached to a pad eye just aft of the mast on the starboard side that turns it to the deck organizer.

It's the best I can do short of mounting another pad eye further forward, but there's still a few places where the halyard will chafe, in particular the radar reflector bracket and its mounting screws. I spoke to Kevin about it and he said using fairleads for this sort of thing was pretty common, so that's what I decided to try once I get a chance to go up the mast.

I wanted to get a few more things mounted this morning while I was waiting for the parts to get here, so I started off with the cockpit locker latches. One is broken, so I could only mount it's lower hook -- I'll use a cord to tie it off for the time being. I'd like to replace the old latches with something better, and safer, but haven't found anything suitable yet.

The problem is that if you're in the locker working on something, like I was today while working on the exhaust hoses, and the hatch closes, you could become trapped since these latches are similar to those used on old refrigerators. New boats no longer use them, but mine's 40 years old and still has the original ones. I always tie off the hatch whenever I'm working, so I'm not too worried about it, but I don't want to temp fate, so I'll replace them when get a chance to finish the cockpit.

Most of the stuff I ordered came in this afternoon, so I was able to re-hookup the exhaust system. However, I'll probably replace the hoses, or at least adjust the length tomorrow. It was getting dark and cold by the time I got it hooked up, so I went ahead and put it together as is, but the hose is a little too long and rubs against the hull. Eventually, that might chafe a hole, so I need to trim it, but the bigger problem is that the waterlock is mounted athwart ships which isn't correct.

Since this is a sailboat which can and will heel, it should be mounted inline with the engine. Another problem is that the hose has to make an additional 90 degree turn, but since it's off center, it really makes a 180, then a 90 going up. If it were inline, it could just make the single 90 going up. Again, with all this snaking around, it's no wonder it leaked -- snaking around like that in such a short span, less than 3 feet, puts a lot of stress on the hoses and the joints.

Most of the climbing gear I ordered also arrived today. I set it all up, but since I won't get the easy aiders until tomorrow, I didn't try to test it out yet. While I was down at the office picking up all the packages, I bought 3 bullseye fairleads from Gill. I'll use them to help turn the main halyard down haul around the mast and away from the radar reflector bracket and the spreaders. He also let me grab a small piece of 1/4" scrap teak I can use to make shims to fit them to the curved mast. Hopefully it won't take too long to make them up, and I'll have everything ready to go when the easy aiders get here and I can go aloft.

Departure watch:

I've got a few other things to do, e.g., hooking up lights, radios, etc., but hope I can get it all ready and also take her out for a few short shakedown sails this weekend. I'd like to leave and go through New York City as early as Monday, but definitely some time next week. The tides should be favorable next week, but the forecast is calling for a bit a wind, so I might need to work around that. I'm not sure I want to be out in anything too strong without proper non-skid.

This morning, Kevin mentioned they'll need to move me somewhere next week as they start to berth the boats that'll stay at the dock for the winter. It's probably not a big deal, but I'm hoping I can get out of here anyway before I become a nuisance. They've been really good to me, so I don't want to wear out my welcome.

More Leaks

I guess I spoke too soon when I said I'd fixed all the leaks in the cabin. Heavy rain yesterday, including wind gusts up to 50 mph, caused a couple leaks to show up: one small, and the other pretty big. The small one is just a couple bolts on the starboard toerail joint I had to epoxy back together. It's not serious, so I'll let it go for right now.

However, the other one was pretty big. I had to hang a plastic sandwich bag up under it and caught about a 1/2 of an estimated cup that came in around the companionway frame. I think it just needs to be caulked. I was waiting until I finished the cockpit, but with that much water coming in, I'll go ahead and caulk it this morning once it dries out. Part of the reason the leak was so bad was because the wind and rain was at my stern most of the day, and piled the water up against the base of the frame.

Exhaust watch:

I had to order the fiberglass exhaust reducer yesterday, so it won't arrive until Friday. I might also replace some of the hose, but will wait until Friday to decide what I need. I may be able to get a couple of small pieces from Gill. I only need about 6 inches of 2" hose and about 2 feet of 1 3/4" hose. I think I can get that much good hose out of what I've got, but it might be better to go ahead and get new hose, especially since it's a safety issue.

Mast watch:

I need to go up the mast to adjust the radar reflector bracket and put on chafing gear. I also need to be able to get up the mast by myself in case of an emergency at sea. After speaking to Jimmy, the dock manager, about it, I decided to take his advice and get a set of ascenders. My brother Charlie does a lot of climbing, so I called him and he explained how he uses them and helped me choose the right climbing rope. I plan to haul it up on a halyard, so I only need about 50' (I bought 100) -- I don't want to climb up a halyard because they are expensive and closely woven, so they won't stretch, and I'm afraid the ascenders might damage them. Both halyards and the climbing rope should be considered safety gear, so I don't mind having a dedicated rope, much the same way I have dedicated ground tackle, i.e., anchor chain, nylon rode, and snubbers.

I ordered a couple of ascenders, the rope, and harness from REI, then started searching for examples of how to rig up and use them -- youtube is great for this sort of thing. Anyway, I found a couple of examples of using Metolious "easy daisies" and "easy aiders" (the easy daisy connects your harness to the ascender, and the easy aider also connects to the ascender and has a foot stirrup at the other end) so I altered my order to include 6 locking carabiners, and a set of easy daisys.

REI didn't carry the easy aiders, so I had to order them directly from Metolious. I should get the REI order on Friday, but it might be early next week before I get the Metolious order. If the aiders don't get here by Friday, I'll use some line to hand tie a set so I can go up the mast Friday or Saturday. The wind is forecast to pick up again early next week, so I want to get this done while it's still calm -- at least the first time.

Day watch:

There's still a little wind this morning, but we've got a bright blue sky and lots of sun. It's only supposed to get up to the low 40's today, but the sun will warm the boat up nicely. I'm going to concentrate on finishing the deck today -- there are still a few things I need to remount. I want to get it all out of the way today so I can spend tomorrow working on the engine and the mast. I also need to connect up the wiring, so I'll try to do that either today or tomorrow too, however, it's not as critical since I won't be going out at night until I leave next week.

Nasty Weather

It's going to be a nasty day today, with high winds and heavy rain, but luckily I haven't found any leaks in the cabin area. There are still a few in the cockpit, but since I haven't really done much back there, I'm not worried about them right now -- they aren't bad enough to risk a chance of sinking, at least not as long as I'm on board.

Even though I probably won't get too much done today, I did get a lot done yesterday before the rain started. I got the clutch mounted on the mast and the deck organizer mounted on the coach roof. I also researched the exhaust issue and took the bus down to Home Depot to buy parts.

Although I did buy a reducer and a couple of nipples, I don't think I'll use them (however, I will keep them on board as a backup). I did more research last night and have decided to buy a fiberglass reducer. The problem with the stuff I got from Home depot is that the OD is slightly smaller than the hose, e.g., 1 7/8" instead of 2", and 1 5/8" instead of 1 3/4".

I also took the opportunity to buy more alcohol and kerosene while I was there. It's much cheaper there than it is at West Marine or Coneys. The alcohol came in gallon cans, but I saved a few plastic ones from this summer and will transfer them over -- I don't want anything that might rust on the boat, especially fuel.

Today watch:

I'm going to try to do a few things in the cabin today including stowing gear; I have parts, tools, paint, and solvents stacked all over. I've also got a list to port that I need to take care of by redistributing the weight. The bow is also a bit low, but that will change a lot once I bend on the sails, so I'm not going to worry about that too much. Part of will be taken care of once I'm able to stow all my spare gear in the cockpit lockers, but I can't do that until I've finished the exhaust system.

The only other thing I might do today is laundry. There's a laundry right across the street, so I hope I can get over there this afternoon. It also goes hand in hand with the cabin cleanup.

Departure watch:

My departure date depends on both the weather and boat readiness. The weather should start clearing up tomorrow and should be nice, but cold, for several days. As for boat readiness, I'm down to only a few things, many of which I hope to get done today or tomorrow. Hopefully, I'll be able to take her out for a shakedown on Friday and leave this weekend or early next week.

Zoe watch:

She's doing fine. I've only seen her limp on right rear paw once since I removed her broken toenail, and the fall she took the other day doesn't seem to have had any lasting effect either. We're still dockside, so she gets a few walks ashore everyday. I still don't know how she'll handle going on deck once we leave, but she's smart and relatively young, so I hope she'll be able to adapt quickly.

Slick Decks

The weather finally turned cold and we had a heavy coat of frost on the decks yesterday. It didn't burn off until after 1000, and I haven't had a chance to paint on the non-skid yet, so we had a bit of a problem when we went out for our walk first thing in the morning. I have a teak grate in the sole of the cockpit, so I had good footing there, but the bench that goes all the way around was slick and slippery, and that's where Zoe normally jumps and walks.

It was so slick that I attached Zoe's tether right away, and just held it in my hand as I gingerly stepped over the coaming onto the side deck next to the dock. I had the lifelines up, so I figured I could just lean against them as I made my way to the shrouds where I'd climb over the them and onto the dock. However, Zoe was in a hurry and tried to hop over the coaming and jump directly onto the dock.

She would have made it too, except that I had her tethered and hadn't let out much slack. She ended up with her front paws firmly on the dock, one rear paw on the toerail, and the other deperately trying to get a hold on the dock. She's not very big and the space between the boat and the dock at that point was over a foot, so with the tether holding her back, she didn't have a chance.

I tried to give her more slack, but since she'd gone under the lifeline, it took me a few seconds to turn, see what she was doing, and pass the tether under to try to help her. That's when she lost her grip on the dock and headed for the water. Luckily, I had her securely tethered, so I picked her up and pulled her back on board before she could make a splash.

I don't think she hurt herself, but she's slipped a few other times and seems to be walking a little more slowly than usual, so I'm betting she'll be sore for the next few days. She hasn't gotten used to the slick decks yet, but hopefully I'll get better at keeping her in safer situations in the future. I need to make sure she's settled and not prepared to jump before I turn my back on her. (and get the non-skid on as soon as possible)

I also finished putting the netting around the boat yesterday, which should help keep her on board and discourage her from trying to jump off. I laced it to the lifeline at the top and to a taunt line at the bottom attached to the stanchion bases. It needs a bit of adjusting, but should be good enough to keep both of us, and our gear, on board.

Sail watch:

I bought a tap and die kit yesterday, and will use it today to tap holes in the mast for a clutch for the jib halyard, and whatever blocks I need to route the main halyard. I also need to mount the deck organizer on the coach roof and a gang clutch to feed the coach roof winch. Once that's all done, or mostly done, I can bend the sails. I'd like to get them up before it starts raining later today. I still need to fix the mounting bracket for the radar, but figure I can still get the sail on, just not actually put it all the way up and sail.

Engine watch:

I took off the bad exhaust hose going from the mixer elbow to the vetus waterlock and discovered why they added the bogus PVC elbow in the first place. The male end coming off the mixer is 2", while the male end coming off the waterlock is 1 3/4". The PVC elbow was a custom kludge to reduce it and make the connection, which is one of the most dangerous things you can do on a boat. And to make matters worse, it never worked anyway. The large end was only 1 7/8", so that leaked, and the other end was held onto the muffler with seizing wire. No wonder he added a leaky deck vent next to the cockpit -- the engine compartment was probably full of carbon monoxide all the time.

I'll fix it correctly, but neither of the places I've checked so far have the right combination of pipe fittings to do the job. I'll try to get down to Home Depot this afternoon once it starts to rain, but will check with Gill first. He might be able to get me what I need, and he normally has it the next day.

Although I want to avoid replacing the entire exhaust system if I can help it, I might end up having to anyway. I'm going to call Bill this morning and see what he thinks. He's a diesel mechanic and does all the engine work for Coneys. I'm running out of time, but loosing the engine isn't an option, and from what I've read, the muffler is undersized for my engine and might cause engine damage due to excess back pressure (of course that hasn't been a problem since it didn't seal anyway).

Broken Toenail Removed

I finally had to remove Zoe's broken toenail last night before our walk. It had come completely loose due to her constant attention, and was only held on the inside by some super glue and perhaps a bit of unbroken toenail. I was able to use a pair of scissors to snip the last little bit holding it on and remove it.

She was great and let me take care of it -- I tried to be very gentle and only upset her once. I put some polysporin on it and took her for a walk. She did pretty well and only limped a little once, and on the walk this morning, you couldn't even tell she had an issue. She's a tough girl.

Boat watch:

I'm going to finish installing the wind vane control lines today. I got it mostly installed yesterday, but had trouble attaching the blocks to the stern pulpit. I had to give up for the evening once it got cold. I still have to attach the second one, then install an eye bolt on the starboard coaming even with the wheel for the double block that will turn both lines to the wheel. I'll take photos later, but if you're interested in what I'm talking about, search for Windpilot and take a look at the WindPilot Pacific model connected to a wheel, and you'll see what I'm talking about.

I was able to fix the diesel leak yesterday, and found and fixed a small leak in one of my cockpit drain hoses. I thought I was done, but when I started the engine and climbed down into the starboard cockpit locker, I could see that the hose coming off the heat exchanger was still leaking badly where it connected to the muffler. It looks pretty old, so I'm going to try to take it off today and replace it. I think I can use the excess hose I cut off the exhaust hose the other day.

If I have time, I'm going to try to go up the mast to add some anti chaffing to the radar reflector mounting bracket. I'm going to try to use c-clamps to squeeze it together closer to the mast, then wrap it with plastic hose and line to keep the halyard from rubbing up against the metal edge. I think I would have had to do this anyway, but by mounting it so high, I exacerbated the problem. I've got a tri-lense, and you can see how the mounting bracket could chafe a line running along side.

I also need to add a cheek block to the base of the mast on the starboard side to help turn the halyard back to the deck block. I might also want to add a bullet block higher up to help feed it and keep it away from the radar reflector bracket, but will wait to see if that's really needed first. I'm going to use duct tape to temporarily mount the check block to see if it'll work the way I want it. Alternatively, I could mount another winch on the mast on the starboard side where the old wire halyard winch used to be. However, I'd prefer to run everything to the cockpit.

I also need to get down to the hardware store to buy a set of taps so I can mount this stuff on the aluminum mast. I'm also thinking of adding a clutch on the port side of the mast to hold the jib halyard, which normally doesn't need to be touched after it's up, since I use roller furling, but that's a would be nice thing, and not in the critical path for departure.

Super Glue

I ended up using super glue to temporarily fix Zoe's toenail. It's better, but I still think I need a more permanent solution. I wanted to get clear nail polish and use that to build it up -- sorta like epoxy -- but couldn't find any at the little store across the street. I'll walk down to the super market later today and pick up some. CVS is across the street, so I'll drop by there also. I think I'll get some dramamine too, just in case.

Boat watch:

I got the winches mounted yesterday after it stopped raining, but when I tried to route the main halyard, I realized that I had a few problems. First, since I switched from wire to rope, I can't use the wire halyard winch on the mast -- I finally took it off yesterday -- and need to route it back to a winch on the coach roof in the cockpit. The previous owner had mounted one on the starboard side, which is the side the main halyard comes down, but that's not a good hard spot on the deck, so I removed it -- I'll just use the new one on the port side with a set of clutches.

The problem is that I need to route the halyard around the mast over 180 degrees, from the starboard side to the port side, and to a deck organizer about half way between the mast and the winch. I have a couple eyes mounted on the deck just abaft the mast on each side where I can mount blocks, but they aren't enough to keep the halyard from rubbing on other stuff on the mast which will eventually chafe through.

I'm thinking of adding a check block to the lower mast to help turn it to the block on the deck, but will need to play with it a bit to make sure it'll work. However, that's not the only problem. I also noticed that the radar reflector I added high on the mast will also cause a lot of chafe to the halyard -- it rubs directly against the aluminum mounting bracket. That means I need to go up the mast and add some sort of anti chafing.

I'm planning to use some old hose to pad the edges and wrap the whole thing with line, which is a good idea in any case. I just need to figure out how to get up there by myself, i.e., without someone on deck to winch me up -- it's about 30' above the deck. I'll need to be able to do that when I'm out at sea anyway, so again, it's a good thing, but I think I'll wait till the wind dies down a bit. It's really blowing again this morning.

Broken Toenail

Not me, Zoe. I looked online for what to do -- can't really afford a vet -- but they say I should cut it off, etc... It's painful to even think about it. Sure, I could do my own, but not Zoe.

Perhaps it's best it happened now -- I need to be able to handle this sort of thing, perhaps even for myself, and the vet is across the street in case I need them. However, I don't really have the right sort of supplies for this kind of thing. I could fix it with epoxy, but that's probably not the right solution. I guess I'll try to immobilize it tonight and try to take care of it tomorrow. I have no idea what should go in a first aid kit, but know enough to know that the ones you can buy are a waste of money. Suggestions?

I just can't figure out how she did it. We were on the foredeck watching the parade of boats -- which was great -- and she must have caught it on something. All the sudden, she was limping and kept licking her right, rear paw.