Syzygy Sailing

When I was growing up on the farm my dad would weld out in the shop all the time. And so I placed that activity in the same realm as everything else shop-related: loud, dirty, greasy, uncomfortable, involving flying hot shards of metal, and as a result I wanted nothing to do with it.

The boomerang of rebellious devil-may-care youth may fly far, but oh how often it eventually ends up right back where it started . . .

Since buying a boat I have become more and more fascinated with welding. I decided we needed a new radar arch to accommodate our future wind generator, solar panels, and radar antenna, and that I needed to learn how to weld so I could make it myself (of course, right? how else? everything always all by ourselves). Like Jon with his sailmaking–like everything else we’ve done–I went big all at once. I got a membership to the Tech Shop for $70/month, paid $50 for the introductory TIG welding class, and bought $250 worth of 20′ long sections of 2″ diameter 304 stainless steel pipe that were a real hassle to cart around on top of the xterra down the highway.

Maybe I used my learning to weld as an excuse to make a radar arch, or maybe I used the radar arch as an excuse to learn how to weld; either way at this point I’m in ‘ass deep to an elephant’, as jonny likes to say.

Turns out welding is absolutely amazing. Totally space-age modern-marvel out of this world activity. Welding is proof of how far science and technology has taken us. The welding machine that I use at the Tech Shop is a box approximately 1′ x 1.5′ x 2′ in size–much smaller than a suitcase. It plugs into the wall, and it hooks up to a gas tank. Then you grab a stylus-shaped “torch”, bring it close to a piece of metal, and press your foot on a pedal on the floor–and then would you believe that little machine ignites a 1/4″ cone of light hotter than the surface of the sun. That’s right: instant 10,000 degrees in the palm of your hand, a little mini sun that melts metal. (Crazy!) You have to wear a face mask too dark to see through in full daylight; without it the 10,000 degree arc will blind you in seconds. (Scary!) You have to wear gloves and cover all exposed skin, because it creates so much UV that it will give you a sunburn in a minute. (Hot!) When you hold that torch, your hand is 6″ away from a tiny 10,000 degree cone of orange and green plasma that dances on the metal. Now why didn’t they tell me THAT when I was younger? Who wouldn’t want to hold the sun and fire it up and melt some metal with 10,000 degrees of blinding light?

The type of welding I’m learning how to do is commonly referred to as TIG welding, which stands for “tungsten inert gas”. It’s more accurately called GTAW welding: “gas tungsten arc welding”. It is the most precise and most versatile, yet also slowest, most difficult, and least used form of welding. In TIG welding (as in other forms of welding), the metal is melted by heat created by an electric arc, EXACTLY like the static electric spark that jumps from your hand to the doorknob after you walk across a carpet with rubber soles. Welding is a sustained form of that static electric spark–if you could keep that spark going and then make it 100,000 times more powerful, you could be welding. In TIG welding, you connect the electricity to a thin, sharpened stake of tungsten (called the “electrode”) and then you bring the electrode really close to (but not touching!) the metal. Really close–like an 1/8″. Then you press the pedal to give it juice. And you have to hold it that exact distance while you move the torch along a path which you can hardly see because you have some dark-as-hell facemask on. And you have to move kind of fast but not too fast. And I haven’t even mentioned yet that with your left hand (the torch is in your right hand) you have to precisely jab (dab) a rod of “filler” metal into the melted pool of metal, to add metal to make the weld.

Get this: if the electrode touches the metal accidentally, or if you jab the filler rod into the electrode accidentally–both of which I do far too often–the event is punctuated by an even brighter spark and pop immediately followed by an accusatory green flame, which indicates that you have contaminated (i.e. fucked up) your weld with some of the metal from your electrode. At which point you have to CEASE AND DESIST, gingerly dismantle the torch (gingerly because it is still bloody hot, remember), and take your tungsten electrode over to the grinder to grind a fresh new uncontaminated tip onto it.

The whole thing is really hard. It’s really, really damn hard. It’s not hard to make any old arc, it’s not hard to melt any old metal. But it’s hard to get a result that doesn’t look like cyclops went wild on your metal with his phaser eye–I’m talking all black and gobby and bubbly and smoking crappy. And in welding (like in climbing), if it looks bad, it probably is bad: weak and worthless. Why is it so hard? There are tons of different settings, and it’s hard to tell which setting is having what effect. That little suitcase of a welding box is a freaking computer with a gazillion different options and blinking lights and whatnot. And then you have to have super fine motor skills to be able to hold both the torch and the filler rod so steady, and move them so quickly yet precisely, so close to the metal, all while you play this foot pedal to control how many thousands of degrees of heat you’re pumping into a tiny spot on the metal. And all metal is different, and different thicknesses need different settings, and each different joint requires a different technique . . .

All of which makes this radar-arch project daunting. I don’t want to add some ugly weak heavy janky piece of shit to the back of our boat now, do I? I agonized for months over what diameter and thickess and type of pipe to use, and how to join them, and where the support struts should go, and the moment of truth is coming in a day or so and I hope that it isn’t all shitty and stupid looking. I’ve spent a fair bit of time at the tech shop welding practice sections of tubing, and even at my best they are still black and ugly and melty. (You might well guess that at this point “ass deep to an elephant” may be too deep for me.) But I’m not getting much better and I don’t know what else to change and it’s time to move forward with this project and I think that my welds might be good enough. So tomorrow jonny and I go to the tech shop to make the first real welds on the actual radar arch. I KNOW they are going to be ugly. I’m hoping that they will at least be acceptably strong. I’ll post some pictures, regardless of how dissatisfied I am (especially now that I’ve laid the groundwork about how impossibly difficult it is :-). But damn! no matter what welding is a totally amazing thing that now I can (kind of) do!

*addition note: Pictures are complements of Jonny; I still have to add some shots of the resulting welds

I’ll give you two really good reasons why I shouldn’t sew a sail: 1) I know nothing about sewing.  2) I know nothing about sails.

All I know is that two months ago, while chatting about money and our sailboat, Matt said to me, “We definitely need a new sail.  Why don’t you sew it for us?  It will save us a lot of money and you could do it in Denver. It’s a boat project that doesn’t require a boat.”

It seemed so logical, so rational. Even Sailrite, the company that sells sail-making kits, said it was easy. Zip, zip, zip — and voila — done. Check out the video and see.

Still, intuition suggested that the task would be daunting. When I told my friends, “I’m thinking about sewing a sail,” I couldn’t even keep a straight face. Like so many other boat projects, sailmaking was unfamiliar and overwhelming.

Now, ankle deep as I am in this sailmaking endeavor, I wonder if Matt asked the question in jest.  A completed sail is wider and almost as long as my condo (ehem..currently for rent). How the heck am I supposed to do this?

I do know, however, the difference between a code zero, gennaker, asymetric spinaker, drifter, crusing spinaker, and genoa. I know how to thread a bobbin. I know what tension can be applied to different sail luff configurations and how that affects the ability of a sail to go to windward.   I also know what tension can be applied to a piece of thread and how that affects looping above and below the fabric.  I understand roach. I understand how to walk the dog.

I know this because I did hours of personal research, had several discussions with Matt, read a book, and talked for 30 minutes on the phone with Jeff, the head sailmaster at Sailrite, hitting him with questions I barely have enough knowledge to even be asking, let alone understand the answers.  He was extremely helpful, though I’m pretty sure he realized I was a complete greenhorn.  We need a sail though, so I pressed on, e-mailed him even more questions the next day, and then called again a few days later.

I know we want something that would work in light air.  You see, the breezes in the trade-winds (which blow from 20 degrees north to 20 degrees south of the equator minus about 5 degrees of doldrums right on the equator) are actually fairly wispy most of the time, only 5-15 knots.  All of our current sails are made of Dacron, the most common synthetic sail fabric, but which would be too heavy for those light trade winds.  Our new sail, called a drifter, will be made of super lightweight nylon, much like tent fabric.  We’ll mostly be flying it in what’s called a double-head sail set-up:  the jib and the drifter are attached at the forestay, one going to port and the other to starboard, each at about a 90 degree angle to the boat.  They create a big parachute the wind pushes against, moving the boat.  To use this set-up the wind needs to be coming from generally directly behind you, give or take 20 degrees.  Coincidentally, that’s what the wind will usually be like in the trades.

I also know this because I borrowed my sister’s sewing machine, and had my newfound mentor, Lauren, gave me a brief tutorial on using it.  Like a good mentor, she stepped back and let me have fun. To start, I ripped off a 4’x4′ section from my 20 foot square blue ground tarp, hoping that it would mimic nylon, because I wasn’t willing to cut up my tent.  I then impatiently cut  the 4’x4′ square into 6 different pieces to sew back together.  Once in a while, when something stopped working and I couldn’t fathom why, I’d ask for help.  Otherwise, I showed her my stitching, asked for feedback, and generally felt proud of what I had done.
The process reminded me of the internship programs that my students go through. Every week, they see new things, learn new skills, and push themselves beyond their normal boundaries — under the guidance of amazing mentors. Such opportunities — in school!— are awesome, and I smiled just thinking about it.

Three significant lessons emerged from the reassembly of the first tarp:

1) It would help if I cut up the tarp in straight lines.
2) It would help if I mimicked the way the sail panels would be pre-attached with double-sided tape.
3) It would help if I had more thread.

So we drove over to Fancy Tiger, a local boutique thread-shop.  They have a surprising lack of thread, needles, and fabric, but an ungodly amount of yarn, and they also have sewing classes! You get to bring in your own projects and get help!  It’s like getting 10 mentors at once, for free! As far as I can tell, there’s no other shop like it for 500 miles.

Back home, I cut out a second piece of tarp. This time with straight lines.  I tacked the pieces together with double-sided tape.  I used my new, bright yellow (Lauren raised her eyes at my choice, but I wanted bold) thread.  The second go was a significant improvement, and my confidence rose ten-fold.

So, now, thanks to so much help, this project seems more manageable. I’ve got Lauren, and my sister, and Jeff, and the entire staff of the local thread-shop as support.  With all that scaffolding, it should be easy.  Right?

At first, the returns lady at Home Depot didn’t wanna let me return the Dremel tool, since I didn’t have a receipt or the plastic box it came in. I pressed on.
“It’s broken,” I said. “Try it. It turns on, but you can’t change the bits.”
She examined the tool, turning it over mid-air. She held it gingerly, as if it were a sex toy, or a rotten vegetable.
“What’s wrong with it?” she asked, bringing up the refund screen.
“Broken collet,” I said, and she began typing. I spelled it out: C-O-L-L-E-T.
A wave of joy swept through me. Success! I thought. Replacement Dremel, here we come!
Alas, all was not right according to the returns lady. I had picked up a brand new Dremel tool, still in the box, for demonstration purposes, and now she looked at the image on the box — model 400XPR, with 70 bits and 3 attachments — and pointed to the attachments. She asked if I had those with me.
“I don’t,” I said. “I brought everything I have.” This was definitely a lie. I had left all the good dremel bits on the boat, because we are down to a precious few of them.
“You can’t return it without the box,” the returns lady said.
“But it’s broken,” I said. “The tool is broken, and it’s guaranteed.”
“I can’t return it like this,” she said. “There’s a code on the box that the manufacturer needs.”
I begged. I pleaded.
“What if you let me return the old tool, without the box, and then i give you the new box, since I won’t need it?”
This calculus was beyond her. It didn’t work like that.
The returns lady had me move over, to make way for another customer. Not a good sign. Not success. I felt like $100 was about to be pulled out of my pocket.
My problem tool and I were handed off to Mike, apparently the fix-it guy at the service counter. I recognized him (I guess I’ve made too many trips to Home Depot) but tried to hide it.
Mike grabbed a wrench,  depressed the collet button with his thumb, and tried to turn the collet with the wrench. It didn’t budge.
“That’s what I spent the last half hour trying to do,” I said, trying to establish rapport.
He tried again, this time with two wrenches: one on the collet, and the other on the bit.
“I tried that too,” I said. I wanted to say: I’m not a dumbass, dude, but I restrained myself.
Mike tried a few more times. By now the manager had walked over, to see if Mike had made any progress.
“What were you grinding?” Mike said.
“Balsa wood,” I said, which was true.
“It’s rusted shut,” Mike said. “It won’t open.”
“I told you,” I said. “It’s broken. I wasn’t even running it hot,” I added, which was also true.
“I’ve never seen a broken Dremel,” Mike said, with an air of fascination. He looked up at the manager.
“I’ve never seen a broken Dremel,” the manager said, with a sense of gravity. He seemed troubled, as if he’d just learned that the world was not round, but octagonal.
I thought for a moment, and decided it was against my interest to point out that I had seen three broken Dremel tools before, in my own hands, by my own doing. I also restrained myself from blurting out: Are you gys serious? You work in a friggin’ hardware store!
Instead, I lied again, and said I’d looked online and seen that a lot of people have this problem. It seemed innocent enough; how could people like me NOT have this problem?
Grudgingly, the manager said he’d take care of it.
As the manager walked back to the returns counter, Mike made some joke about running a retail establishment, where the point is to sell things. Then, to me, he said a lot of people come in with “I.D. 10-T problems, saying it like that: I.D. ten dash tee. I tried not to laugh. I knew he wasn’t  comparing me to the people who can’t find the ON button, or who think their CD-drives are coffee cup holders, but I didn’t want to be mentioned in the same breath as them. I did not want to be cataloged anywhere near the Incompetents.
The manager printed a refund slip and receipt, and I walked out into the world with a brand new Dremel, in a new case, in a new box, complete with 3 attachments and 70 bits. No money was sucked from my pocket. Success!
Of course, halfway home, I realized I was missing one key bit: the coring bit that was stuck in the broken tool. The single best bit we owned! Curses!
But I was too happy to turn around. Back at the boat, I swore I’d save the box, the case, and the receipt, because it’s only a matter of time before this one, too, bites the dust. Given how much work remains on the boat, it’s inevitable. I’d put money on it.

For the next two months I’m unemployed. This condition is not by choice. Nevertheless I intend to avoid feelings of guilt or worry by constantly working on the boat. Today was the second day of this mandated vacation.

Today I didn’t succeed in rewiring the nav lights (yesterday I didn’t succeed in fixing the diesel fuel leak). I spent all day doing it, and I finished maybe half of it. This is a job which I’ve already done twice and didn’t want to do even once. This third time it was because I accidentally cut through the wires while we were installing a portlight, in such a way that I couldn’t reuse the old wiring. Of course I only accepted this after taking apart half the ceiling which I enjoyed putting right back even less. Usually these things don’t faze me, they take their own time and I give it to them patiently. But today my coping system took a vacation and left me with the desire to hammer on everything in sight, to hammer the entire boat to nothingness. Nothingness wouldn’t need any maintenance.

So I spent much of the morning stuck up in the anchor locker again, and I wasn’t wearing a smile and feeling goofy like the last time I shoved myself in that uncomfortable hole.

This undertaking–i.e. planning to sail around the world–may be grand and romantic, but the reality of making it happen are thousands upon thousands of small victories and defeats. Each small task is necessary and requires total concentration; in such a state it becomes difficult to keep the big picture in mind. And sometimes I’d rather not think of that big picture, lest I become overwhelmed by the magnitude of the work that remains.

Tomorrow is another day, I know. Take the bad with the good, I know.

    Matt was driving north over the Bay Bridge. I was gazing out the passenger window, feeling pensive. This was two weeks ago. We’d spent the afternoon buying parts, and were eager to get back to the boat. Four tankers sat at anchor in the bay far below, in line with the current. I said it was neat how even in this modern world, boats and planes must understand and obey tides and currents and winds, etc — and how crazy it was that only cars don’t really have to make way for nature, unless it snows, or gets really windy, as it is prone to do on sections of I-80 in Wyoming. I asked Matt if he’d ever buy a diesel car, and he said that next time he’d like to, if they made a diesel something-or-other like an X-terra. He said it’d be cool to be able to work on it, and I didn’t dissuade him of the notion.

    We got to talking about the differences between diesel and unleaded engines — how the power from an unleaded engine is like the power required to ride a bike with sneakers, pounding only on the downstrokes,  while the power from a diesel engine is like the power required to ride a bike with clipless pedals, a nice smooth round even stroke. We were pretty proud of that metaphor. We talked about how an unleaded engine can propel a car from 0 to 60 in 5 seconds, while a diesel engine can eventually propel a car to 60 while pulling 100,000 pounds; and how unleaded fuel in a diesel engine destroys it by exploding way too early in the cylinder, pushing the piston down too soon; and how diesel fuel in an unleaded engine just won’t explode no matter how big a spark you throw at it. We were grappling with the big picture, so that the little details of our engine would make more sense when we tinkered with it later. Thinking about it all, I marveled at how not-understood the distinction between diesel and unleaded engines probably is — akin, perhaps, to asking Americans to name the 3rd president or the capital of Nigeria.

    It was nearly sundown by the time we began installing the oil transfer pump. Matt in particular had been excited about the project for months, ever since he first changed the oil in the engine. That task — changing the oil — had been a bear. A total bitch. Because the drain plug was nearly inaccessible, and, at any rate, a drain pan wouldn’t fit under the engine, changing the oil the standard way wasn’t possible. Instead, it required pumping out the old oil via a long, narrow hose snaked in through the dip-stick tube, and then pumping in the new. It was such a laborious, lengthy, messy – -and apparently ineffective — solution that none of us wanted to change the oil, which is not a good thing. Hence the transfer pump. We planned to remove the drain plug, attach a valve, and connect a hose from it to the pump — so that from then on, changing the oil would require only the flip of a switch and the push of a button. it would be glorious.

    But first: how do I know the pumping-through-a-hose-snaked-in-through-the-dipstick-tube method was ineffective? Two ways. First: Our engine takes 4 quarts of oil; it says so in the engine manual. So an oil change should entail removing 4 quarts of nasty black oil, and putting 4 quarts of clean oil back in. But notes in the engine logbook, kept by the meticulous previous owners, reveal oil changes of less than 4 quarts. Since 1993, the numbers look like this: 3.75 qts, 3.5 qts, 3.5 qts, 3.75 qts, 3 qts, 3 qts, 3 qts. Given how inordinately difficult it is to manually pump the oil out of the dipstick tube a little bit at a time, these numbers aren’t so surprising. But what’s the point of changing the oil if you’re not going to change all of it? It’s like only flushing the toilet partway. Second: having changed the oil on cars, I am familiar with nasty, black used oil. The nasty, black, used oil in the bottom of our engine was something else. It was sludge. Big surprise, considering how hard it was to pump the gook out through a tiny hose.

    So: we screwed five bronze fittings (a 90-degree bend, a connector, a valve, another connector, and a hose fitting) together, put some bomber glue (3M’s 5200) on the threads just to be extra safe, and connected them to the spot where the drain plug had been. For what it’s worth, this was beneath the most inaccessible underside part of the engine, and required creative squirming just to get your arm in there, let alone use a wrench. After that, we mounted the pump on the bulkhead just above the engine, and connected the hoses. Then Matt wired it up. Finally, around midnight, we changed the oil by flipping a switch.

    The pump hummed, and the oil level in the 4-quart container began to fall. No mess was made. Nasty, sludge-like oil did not leak anywhere, or stain any clothes. The operation took only about five minutes. When the 4-qt oil jug was empty, we turned off the pump, closed the valve, and checked the oil level with the dipstick, just to make sure everything was OK. At first, the oil level seemed low, so we wiped the dipstick clean, put it back in, pulled it back out, and inspected it again. Matt grew serious. "Oh shit," he said,  "it looks like there’s water in the oil." I corrected him:  the new oil was so clean and transparent, and we were so accustomed to looking at black, oily sludge, that the new oil, thin and golden, looked watery. But it wasn’t. And we had the perfect amount, right between the MIN and MAX lines.

    I expect that our engine will be very happy with its new treatment.