This is more or less how we did everything in Corps, so it's not that foreign to me, but it's still tough to do on a small sailboat. I'm not there yet, but I think I'm getting close, but for me it's a bit more complex. I like to think of it as a matrix of short and long duration, and good and bad weather.
Currently, I'm only okay in the short duration, good weather category. However, once I finish stowing gear down below, hopefully today, I should be ready for short duration, bad weather as well. Of course, I'm only talking normal bad weather, like getting caught out in a squall, not a hurricane.
The long duration sails, at least for me, imply making some sort of ocean crossing, so those require a few more things on my list, e.g., the new forward hatch, so it'll be a while before we're ready for that, but I still like the idea and will try to make it SOP on Aurora.
Riding Sail watch:
I ordered a riding sail yesterday, and it should arrive by the end of next week. I'd wanted to use the sailmaker in Marion who'd repaired my genoa a couple if years ago, but lost confidence in him when he offered to change the size of the sail based on my uneducated comment about it being smaller than I'd imagined.
I was relying on him to design it right in the first place, so his willingness to change it led me to believe he was just guessing. I ended up buying a stock one from a small company in California. I measured everything, and even used some of my old engineering techniques, a free body diagram to sum the forces in each direction, to determine the best angle to sheet it. The California sail will need to be sheeted to one of the aft lower chainplates, which should work out just fine.
Wind vane watch:
I got it all hooked up again yesterday, including a quick release I can trip from a floating line I'll trail behind the boat. I still need to get a float for the end of the line and figure out how long to make it, but at least everything's in place. If I can get someone to go sailing with me, I'll actually test it by jumping overboard -- can't do that test by myself for obvious reasons.
Anchor watch:
I've been having a lot of trouble with anchor chain twist. For whatever reason, the boat seems to have a tendency to rotate in a clockwise direction around the anchor. We've been at anchor for over a month, so she's done it several times since we've been here. I have an all chain rode and use a short 3/8" nylon snubber I attach to my main cleat on the foredeck, so after a few twists, the chain will begin to wrap around the snubber.
Since this could cause chafe and eventually part the snubber, I've cleared it several times by pulling it back in, unwinding, and reattaching it -- I use a rolling hitch. I also added a second line off the snubber a couple days ago, and attached it to my forward lower chainplate in an effort to keep the bow off the wind and lessen hunting back and forth -- similar to what the riding sail will do.
The extra line has helped reduce hunting, but not as well as I'd hoped. Perhaps I need to play around with the lengths. However, it has prevented the chain from twisting around the snubber, which is pretty cool. In any case, I've decided to buy another 50' of chain, for a total of 250', and plan to attach the new chain directly to the anchor and put the swivel between it and the existing chain. I figure that with a 5' draft, I'll always need to anchor I at least 6' of water at low tide. Even the smallest tide will be at least a few feet -- it's almost 8' here -- so if I use and average of 4, that's 10' at high tide, minimum. Given a 5:1 depth to scope ratio, I'd always need to let out at least 50' of chain and could tie the snubber on just after the swivel -- problem solved. The swivel also makes it east to know when you've deployed the minimum amount. I have cloth markers tied at various lengths, but the swivel will be very obvious.
Now, it's a boat, so we'll see, but many people swear by them. However, they tend to attach the swivel to the anchor. I like my idea better, since it's the boat that's rotating around the anchor, not the other way around. Also, most of the chain will be resting on the bottom anyway, which will add additional resistance and may inhibit unwinding. Unless there's a good wind blowing, most of my chain rests on the bottom the entire time.
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