It started raining yesterday; it was the first rain we’ve had in eight months.
Then the boat started leaking. I had thought that we had already tested her thoroughly, by putting enough water over her bow in the course of our sailing to leave no dry spot. Knowing how boat things go, though, I should have known that we wouldn’t get off that easy.
It leaks around at least three of our hatches. There’s a leak around the companionway that drains into our engine room–directly over my brand new electrical installations. I stopped looking after that. There must be dozens of leaks: behind cabinets, under boards, inside lockers, etc. I can’t think about it right now, it’s too discouraging.
I spent the last two days drilling 36 holes in our mast, and I plan on drilling another 20. Not big holes; just quarter-inch holes. I’m installing mast steps, so that, from now on, getting up our mast won’t be a lengthy/cumbersome affair. You never know what you may need to fix up there.
Matt and I had meant to install the mast steps when the mast was out of the boat and lying flat on the ground, but we got sidetracked. Actually, the mast steps were a side track, and the main track was: fix things that need to be fixed before putting Syzygy in the water.
So now installing these 2-inch aluminum “steps” — which John Ryan custom made for us at his machine shop — requires ascending the mast 21 inches at a time. Twenty one inches seems a good height for a step — it’s about knee height for Matt, Jon, and I — and though we could certainly step higher in present conditions, it seems prudent to make the steps climbable in the rain, in the dark, while the boat is swaying madly.
Continue reading “drilling into the unknown”
So the first three times we sailed Jon, Jonny, and I went out by ourselves. This turned out to be a smart idea, because three times in a row we went out and broke something.
On July 4th we broke our reefing hook–broke it right in half (the metal was corroded apparently). We were practicing reefing, we lowered the mainsail, Jon hooked the tack to the reefing hook, and when we started tightening the halyard back up half the hook just flew right off. Lesson learned: don’t trust even large, seemingly strong metal parts without good reason. So we replaced the reefing hooks; we even put one on each side so it’s easy to reef from either tack.
The next time out we blew up a rope clutch. I was unwinding the main halyard from the winch and as soon as the force was transferred to the rope clutch it just shattered, the top popped right off and the axle snapped out. Pretty dramatically. So we replaced all of our rope clutches, and our deck fairleads, and serviced the winches.
The third time the stitching on the luff of our jib came apart. This was to be expected I suppose, since the stitching that failed was the stuff that’s been sitting in the sun for a decade while the sail was wrapped around the furler. It cost $175 to have Pineapple Sails restitch it.
Ready to take people out.
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Usually I think of myself as a somewhat intelligent individual. I did really well studying Chemical Engineering. I scored in the top 5% nationally on the GRE. I scored higher on a reading comprehension test than all the English teachers at my school. My parents tell me I’m smart. On the boat, however, I am constantly humbled at how many questions I have, how uninformed I am, and how many ridiculous things I’ve done recently. I love laughing at myself, and the boat has given me (and Matt and Jonny as well) plenty of occasion to do so. Some of those moments:
Continue reading “Not my best moments… Stoopid things I’ve done recently.”
Why is there water coming out of our cabinets???
We overfilled the water tanks and water came out of the vent hose which is nicely positioned in the cabinets right above the brand new stereo we just installed. When I looked over and saw our new radio hidden behind a waterfall I was extremely confused.
How many grommets does it take to secure a windlass cover?
The boat originally had 5, but Jonny determined that the best answer was 12. We can be assured that our new windlass cover will not be lost overboard. Ever. (n.b. the cover for our entire mainsail only has 8 grommets.)
How many hundreds of dollars of epoxy and hundreds of hours of time does it take to build and fiberglass wooden water tanks??
Roughly $1200 and 300 hours. We are now thoroughly convinced without one shred of doubt that we should have never torn apart our steel water tanks and we should have hired a welder instead.
Is it possible to start your engine with your arm and an errant wrench?
Yes. Jon freaked out when he was laying on top of the engine, working on the fuel filter, when he unexpectedly received a painful burn and the engine started cranking underneath him. Thereby accidentally discovering how to short the starter solenoid.
Why is water squeezing up from between our floorboards when we walk around?
Jury hasn’t yet returned a verdict on this one. Most likely explanation is a defective foot pump. No matter what, I can tell you this: it will require at least three more trips to the chandlery, approximately $1000 in unforeseen expenses, two gallons of epoxy, 300 rubber gloves, two days of sanding, and a whole lot of work we didn’t anticipate.
I feel that this event merits a second, more detailed telling.
Here’s how it went down from my viewpoint: I’m standing in the galley at about 10pm, all is quiet and still in the marina, and I’m lost deep in thought about why our engine refuses to start (which was a long, unproductive, confusing thought). Somewhere deep in my subconscious I noted a strange sucking, airy sort of sound, but my reverie was deep and this sound failed to warrant my attention . . . So I’m still deep in thought for another minute, when I notice something extraordinarily strange at the edge of my vision. A sheet of water about 2 ft wide has emerged from underneath one of our cabinets, at head height, and is pouring over the drawers onto the settee. On its way from cabinet to settee, it also happens to be passing over our newly installed stereo. And this is no drip. It’s a veritable waterfall. I mean volume. Like the rate at which one could empty a pitcher–quickly. This sight is so astoundingly implausible that my mind refuses to react to it with anything more than a grunting, guttural, medium-volumed “wha??”
Continue reading “Why is there a waterfall in our cabinet???(!!)”
“Fuck this hose!”
It was 1 AM, and I’d been working for 17 straight hours on our damn water tanks. The hose we’d bought was inflexible yet annoyingly curvy, and slightly larger than our old hose, making it extremely difficult to shove it onto the fittings. One fitting that was supposed to attach to the water inlet hose was so tight that I spent 20 minutes, splayed out on the floor, with my arms scrunched into a tight crevice between the water tank and a bulkhead, struggling, pushing, pulling, leverlng, to no avail. Swearing seemed to be called for.
Continue reading “Labor. Manual labor. Lots of manual labor.”
I’m here! After months and months of anticipation, I’m at the boat, eager and excited, a teenager at prom. It’s especially exciting, because for months I’d been listening to Matt and Jonny talk about everything they were doing with the boat, and I felt so left out, missing great adventures and stories, and wanting so desperately to be there. It was agony; but no more. The first night in Emeryville, Matt filled me in on some projects that I could get started on. We needed to create lifelines, he said, by lashing skinny lines around thicker lines. We needed to remove the ineffective and messy sound insulation in the engine room, probably by using a putty knife. Also, the old resin in the bottom of the bilge needed to be chipped smooth; for this Matt recommended a wood chisel. Easy enough, I thought: lashing, putty knife, wood chisel. No problem.
Continue reading “To start press any key. Where’s the any key?”