iPhone Trouble

My iPhone died a few days ago, but mysteriously came back to life this morning. I used a phone patch provided by Fred, W3ZU, in Florida to let my sister Karen know I was fine, but would be incommunicado for a while. Fortunately, her's was one of the few numbers I had written down -- all the rest where lost with the phone.

Anyway, she came back this morning, the phone, not my sister, so I'm charging her now and catching up. Once she's fully charged, I'll transfer everything to my logbook just in case.

Boat watch:

Fueled up yesterday, and plan to head over to Huntington to pick up some provisions today. I might anchor over there too, but will wait till I'm there before I decide. I did have one problem when I tried to pull away from the fuel dock yesterday. The set screw on my throttle control sheered off, so I had to stop, tie up again, and fix it. Luckily, I happened at the dock. I ended up drilling it out and putting a bolt all the way through. It's a little loose, but I'll find a larger bolt and snug it up when I get a chance.

Radio watch:

I replace all my coax, except for what's in the mast -- that'll have to wait till I get to Houston. I still haven't hooked up the tuner permanently, but the testing I've done so far was satisfactory. Not good by any stretch, but usable. I'm really only interested in 40-meters at this point, but even the dipole I've been playing with hasn't performed well. I guess the success I've had with the 20-meter one has spoiled me a bit.

Zoe watch:

While I was at the fuel dock, I took her for a walk. She had a great time, and made full use of the opportunity. She's also gotten very good about staying on the boat, so I didn't even need to tether her. Several people came over to talk to her, and although she listened attentively, she never said a word.

We were there for a little over an hour, and got back just in time to anchor before the the thunderstorms started rolling in. It got really dark and reminded me a lot of Seattle -- all dark, low, and purple. I enjoyed it, but Zoe didn't like it one bit -- then again, she's never been to Seattle.

Float Plan

It's about time to start planning the trip south for mid-October, and I just noticed the next full moon will be on the 11th, and rise just before sunset -- perfect. Therefore, depending on weather, I'll plan to leave the week of the 10th.

Tides are also favorable if I decide to go through New York City and down the New Jersey Coast. It's an easy overnight from Sandy Hook to Cape May, and another night all the way to Norfolk. That's the original route I'd planned to take last December.

I haven't decided on a route yet, but I'll plan that trip as well as the off-shore route via Bermuda, with and without a stop. I don't really want to motor down the ICW, but it might make sense to take short trips as far down as Norfolk before going too far off-shore. The weather will be much nicer a little farther south and also give me a chance to anchor somewhere and work on the boat if necessary.

MMSN

I became a Net Control Station (NCS) for the Maritime Mobile Service Network on Monday, and ran my first net that evening. I'm not on the schedule yet, that'll have to wait a while, but I have been picking up open slots almost every day this week. It's been a lot of fun, but the first couple of times really wore me out.

The Maritime Net provides assistance to maritime mobiles like myself with position reports, phone patches, hourly weather reports, and message passing. I'm currently the only NCS that's actually on a boat, but I've heard that there have been others before. Although I can run the net, I obviously can't provide phone patches, and find it difficult to read weather reports on my iPhone -- the font's too small. Luckily, there's normally other NCS's online willing to help out.

In the afternoon and early evening, I can usually contact stations from as far away as The Netherlands to the east, the out into the Pacific to the West. I've had several European stations check in with me, which is close to 4,000 miles.

Radio watch:

The radios are all in place, but I still need to finish making up all my coax cables. I'd also like to reinstall my antenna tuner, but since that's not critical, it may have to wait.

My 20-meter dipole is working really well, but the 40-meter I made up doesn't work quite as well. I hoist the 20-meter up to the masthead as a vertical/sloper, but the 40-meter is too long, so I hauled it up on the starboard flag halyard as an inverted V, with the lower ends tied off to the pulpits on both ends. However, the boat's too short, so I had to coil the ends. I can make contacts with it, but it doesn't work near as well as the vertical.

Boat watch:

I've been making slow but steady progress, so I'm still planning on leaving by the middle of next month. I decided to hold off on replacing the forward hatch. Lashing it down like I did for the hurricane should be fine. That means that except for remounting a few things and painting on the non-skid, she's pretty well ready to go. Looks like it's time to start thinking about provisions, and route planning.

Zoe watch:

It's been pretty cool out here for the last few days. So much so that the last time I let Zoe swim, she turned right around and came back to the dinghy and wanted out. I guess it was just too cold for her. We're in for some more rain for the rest of the week, but it should warm back up after that. However, I think our swimming days up here might be numbered -- at least mine are.

Installing Radios

I set my VHF radio and AIS transponder back up yesterday. At first, I had a problem getting the AIS unit to update the radio, but once I re-crimped the barrel connectors, it all worked fine.

After getting it all working, I tried to see if I was getting picked up on the marine traffic site, but couldn't find any targets in Oyster Bay. However, I don't think that has anything to do with my setup, because I can pickup several other targets here in the bay, including a 60+' ketch. Her antenna is at least 90' over the water, so if they can't see her, they won't see me either -- mine's only 45'.

I decided to keep all the radios together on the starboard side shelf that sits about a foot directly under the side deck. I still have a few leaks along that toerail, but they aren't too bad. Since the radios are mounted a little above the shelf, they won't be sitting in water even if there is a leak. I use small plastic bags to catch the drips, but there's never much water, even during big rain storms, so I guess that'll have to do for now.

Provisioning watch:

I'm pretty much out of everything now, except rice and coffee, so I'm going to take a small trip over to Huntington and go shopping. There's a West Marine right there, so I'll go there too. Not sure if I'll try to do laundry this time, but will definitely do that before I leave the area.

Kieran offered to take me down to a Costco, or something like that, so I'll wait to do any serious shopping till then -- it's about a quarter mile from the town dock to the store, so I wouldn't be able to carry much on this trip anyway. I just need to get enough to hold me over for the next few weeks.

Zoe watch:

It's staring to cool off a bit, so even though Zoe still goes swimming almost every day, I don't always go in with her. I need to buy a wet suit -- maybe Kieran can help with that too -- though it's not quite cold enough for one yet. However, it would still be helpful for cleaning the bottom.

I normally go around and check stuff while she swims, so the other day, I decided to clean the top couple feet of the bottom with just my bare hand. It worked fine, but without a suit, I ended up with lots of little critters clinging to me -- quite uncomfortable. Not sure what they were, but I sure won't be doing that again. However I do need to clean the prop and through-hulls before I leave. Hopefully that won't stir up too much stuff.

Up and Running

I'm finally back up and running, however, I'm not happy about the engine alignment, so I plan to keep an eye on it. It turns out that the coupling that slides onto the spline fits up into the seal, so when it came loose, and slipped down, it broke the seal and let all the fluid leak out.

Once I put it back on and tightened the nut, the leak stopped. I tried to pull the transmission, but the silicon gasket material I used held too well, and I couldn't get it off. I was able to pull the other side of the coupling off the shaft, which gave me enough room to work, so I slid the coupling back on the spline, tightened up the nut, and did my best to pin it.

I got it all back together, so for the time being, it's okay. I'll keep an eye on it and re-tighten it if I notice a leak. I guess it's just one of those things you have to check every time you run the engine. I plan to pull the whole thing in Houston, so I'll fix it correctly down there.

I'm going to try to do some sailing this weekend, and try to get over to Huntington to buy provisions either this weekend or next week. I also want to go over my list and make sure I can get everything done and get out of here by the middle of next month.

Time's getting short...

Dilemma

I finally got around to the transmission, and am now faced with a dilemma.

The nut holding the coupling onto the spline did indeed come loose, but doesn't appear to have damaged anything other than the seal, which probably just needs to be reset. However, that means all the fluid leaked out, and since the gears are always meshed and turn when the engine's running, I really can't run it like this -- so this might be my last post for a while due to low power. Also, the shaft doesn't slide back far enough for me to work on it in place, although I will give it that old college try.

So, it looks more and more like I'll need to pull the transmission. As I mentioned before, my changes to the deck drain hoses, seacocks, and water lift placement should give me enough room to get her out, but since I've never tried it, I'm not really sure. Remember too that removing the transmission also means removing the rear engine mounts -- not my most favorite thing, especially in the water. At least everything is clean and freshly painted. It should come out much quicker this time too.

Alternatively, I could pull the prop under water and slide the shaft back as far as I want -- even completely out if I wanted, but things might get a bit wet inside if I did that. The coupling on the shaft will keep it from going all the way out, but I'd need to keep the rudder locked to one side so it wouldn't rub and bend it.

A third option, the one most sane people might choose, would be to pull the boat and do it on land. That's also the most expensive. I'll give Coneys a call to see how much, and if they could even do it, but I'd still prefer to do it here.

Actually, I've got nothing to loose by trying to pull the transmission while she's in the water. I'd have to do that on land anyway. However, if I need to pull the prop to slide the shaft back, that's more of an issue. But I guess I might need to know how to do that someday too, so who knows. It's better this way, right?

One good thing is that this anchorage is nice and calm. There may be one or two small fishing boats that go by, but for the most part, no one comes over here. We've got great weather right now too, and the water's about 70 degrees.

Other than the transmission, everything is back to where it was before the storm -- actually better. Incidentally, if I wanted to sail right now, even without using the engine, I'd need to secure the shaft forward so the prop wouldn't interfere with the rudder. I might also want to rig something up like this anyway, just in case. You wouldn't want a problem like this to disable the boat at the wrong time or place.

Cooling Off

It's finally starting to cool off a bit. It was warmer than usual back when we was still in the yard, but now it's more or less seasonal. I have to wear long pants and a fleece first thing in the morning, and even had to put on shoes yesterday -- there was a cold heavy dew on the decks.

That's only the second time I've had them on since we put her in the water, and sailed over here. In fact, I'm so out of the habit that I forgot to take them the last time I went ashore and had to walk to the store barefooted.

I've pretty well gotten the boat put back together after the hurricane. I'll bend on the genoa this morning, then clear out the port cockpit locker and start working on the transmission. Hopefully it won't be a big deal, and I can fix it with her in the water. If not, I'll have Coneys pull her over in Huntington and fix her there. Other than that, we're back to where we were.

Rig watch:

While I had the sails off, I spent some time re-tuning the rig. First, I loosened all the wires and took the bend out of the mast. This required removing the link plates and sliding the furler up on the foil far enough to expose the turnbuckle. I tied the dinghy underneath just in case I dropped something, but the one set screw I did drop stayed on deck, so I got lucky -- this time.

After I tightened the headstay and put the furler back together, I tried re-tensioning the rig, but had a hard time getting her straight. It looks like the mast is slightly out of alignment fore and aft, which might be part of the problem, but since I don't think I can straighten it by myself without damaging it, I've decided not to worry about it right now.

I ended up doing a lot of research on rig tuning and finally got it setup late yesterday afternoon. I'm not completely happy with it, but I think it has to do with the way she's sitting in the water right now. With most of the chain out, her nose is high, and she's still listing to starboard a little. I'll pull in some chain this morning and see if I can get rid of the slight list, then recheck all the wires.

As long as the mast is straight and centered, and the cap shrouds are about the same tension, I think she'll be okay. I should also note, that this is pre-tensioning. Final tensioning should only be done while sailing. I've got the cap shrouds and backstay tensioned to about 15% of breaking strength, with the lowers slightly looser right now.

Normally, they recommend heeling her over to about 15 degrees, then tightening the leeward shrouds just enough to keep them from being slack and floppy, then tack and do the same thing on the other side. The headstay is only used to position the masthead, and with roller furling, can't be easily adjusted anyway, so the backstay us used to bend the mast and control headstay tension, or sag.

Due to the difference in angles, they recommend not tensioning the backstay to more than 30% of breaking strength, which would put the forestay at about 40%. I'm not really interested in racing, so I'm not going to go crazy bending the mast back -- not to mention the danger of breaking an older mast offshore -- but I do want to make sure the headstay is tensioned correctly and doesn't sag too much. I also need make sure it doesn't bend the mast in the other direction under load, which could be just as bad.

Zoe watch:

We were visited by three swans just after sunset last night. They were so quiet I had to point them out to Zoe. The first two paddled right by us and continued out into the bay toward the mooring field, but the last one hung out with us for a while. I guess they're used to people feeding them, but since I didn't have anything for him, he continued on after a few minutes. Zoe was really interested and I think she wanted to invite him on board.