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Thread: Getting Ready for SHTP 2021

  1. #361
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    Before our 2010 PacCup I went thru and replaced all NANCY's inside-the-hull wiring. A Wyliecat with an outboard is a fairly simple wiring job. I found several wires that were "spliced" together and dangled in what passes for a bilge under the forward bed platform. I replaced all with continuous wires. The old switch panel didn't have enough circuits so several had been clobbered together as accessories were added so I wired in a 2nd panel. Needed amps for the SSB radio, chart plotter, masthead lights, and several other items which were not present when the boat was originally wired. Halfway to Hawaii is not the time to be checking circuits! Working on cabin wiring is an inside job; good for when it's raining outside.

    Yes on checking battery connections, cleaning and tightening -- really tight! Yes on getting wires out of the bilge. Yes on checking connections everywhere. Yes on checking the backside of the electric panel for corrosion or loose connections. Yes for clearly labeling wiring. Yes on LED lights; much lower draw and smaller wires. Yes on a clearly labeled wiring diagram just in case. Spares? A roll of duplex can create a circuit directly from battery to whatever in an emergency (like auto helm circuit). Toss in an inline fuse holder.

    During a sunny break a good idea to check everything having to do with solar panels, too. They're out in the salt environment 24/7.

  2. #362
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    Sep 2007
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    San Francisco Bay Area
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wylieguy View Post
    Before our 2010 PacCup I went thru and replaced all NANCY's inside-the-hull wiring. A Wyliecat with an outboard is a fairly simple wiring job. I found several wires that were "spliced" together and dangled in what passes for a bilge under the forward bed platform. I replaced all with continuous wires. The old switch panel didn't have enough circuits so several had been clobbered together as accessories were added so I wired in a 2nd panel. Needed amps for the SSB radio, chart plotter, masthead lights, and several other items which were not present when the boat was originally wired. Halfway to Hawaii is not the time to be checking circuits! Working on cabin wiring is an inside job; good for when it's raining outside.

    Yes on checking battery connections, cleaning and tightening -- really tight! Yes on getting wires out of the bilge. Yes on checking connections everywhere. Yes on checking the backside of the electric panel for corrosion or loose connections. Yes for clearly labeling wiring. Yes on LED lights; much lower draw and smaller wires. Yes on a clearly labeled wiring diagram just in case. Spares? A roll of duplex can create a circuit directly from battery to whatever in an emergency (like auto helm circuit). Toss in an inline fuse holder.

    During a sunny break a good idea to check everything having to do with solar panels, too. They're out in the salt environment 24/7.
    All of that is on my "to-do" list! It's just that now it's front and center on my "to do" list! I'm going to add a depth sounder at the April haulout, and that of course will be another circuit. Right now I don't have a steaming light, as it's corroded and ruined. I velcro a little LED garden light into the spinnaker pole ring when I'm motoring. I suppose I could use that circuit for the depth sounder. But you know, a new panel with circuit breakers is not that much $$. EDIT: I just bought one, circuit breakers, 8-gang "waterproof". riiight.

    Carrying a couple of in-line fuses and 20 feet of wire is a good idea.

    The autopilot soon to be autopilotS, as Joan and I had a talk last night and I'm going to buy another Pelagic, is on it's own circuit, with it's own switch with an inline fuse, straight to the batteries and the wiring is not in the bilge. The wiring is pretty new, all the connections are crimped. I feel pretty good about that, though I could make a fancier switch box. So that should be fine. Hopefully this windvane will work out so even if the entire electrical system fails, I can still point the boat in the right direction. Even if the windvane doesn't work out, I might close my eyes...wince... and buy a Windpilot Pacific Light, or a Mister Vee windvane.

    The nav lights are now, all LED. The one interior light that I sometimes turn on, is incandescent, and there are three of them, but I hardly ever use them, so....

    I have a couple of overhead LED lights in the cabin powered by AA batteries, so I can light up the cabin even if the electrical system goes down. I have two AAA-battery powered headlights. I have a strobe light on a pole, with wiring and alligator clips and I can run that for days on a 12v lantern battery. I also have some red and green LED strips, which also can run off of a lantern battery, glued to bits of plywood. They can get duct-taped to the hard-dodger, and run off of a lantern battery so I can even have nav lights.

    I have one Magellan GPS that is terribly old school and runs on AA batteries. So I'll know where I am, and I might just buy an old Garmin etrex off of ebay for a AA-battery powered backup to the backup. I have two old cell phones now, and an android tablet all of which have GPS's in them, but they need a USB connection to charge. So being able to juice them up would be very nice. Anyway, For getting a position twice a day, 6:00 AM and 6:00PM, I think I'm good.

    The Garmin tracker needs a working USB connection to charge, so that's a concern, but the reality is that's a rules issue, and a "peace of mind for the folks at home" issue, not a "will I get there?" issue. The solar charge controller seems to be working fine, but if I HAD to I could just wire one panel to each of the batteries and it would work...badly, but it would work. Also a spare low-tech charge controller is cheap, probably worth it to have a backup on the boat.

    Anyway, my idea is to set things up so that even if the batteries die, I can get to Hawaii. I can see what I'm doing, the boat can steer itself, people can see me, and I know where I am....all with no functioning electrical system.

    All that said, it would sure be easier to have a functioning electrical system, seeing as I bought the battery and the solar panels and the charge controller.
    Last edited by AlanH; 01-02-2021 at 01:04 PM.
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  3. #363
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    OK, today was spent moving the trim tab. That wasn't so bad, I cut off part of the bottom bracket, drilled new holes in the upper brackets and cut off the excess.

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    This brings the trim tab tiller significantly further forward..

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    This is a more usual location for the trimtab. They're usually tucked in right behind the trailing edge of the rudder There's about 3/8 inch clearance, here.

    EDIT: there's now a sacrificial zinc, connected to the trimtab rod by a bit of s.s. rigging wire on the rudder. It's screwed into a nut that I epoxied into the wood in an obvious place.
    Last edited by AlanH; 01-04-2021 at 02:53 PM.
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  4. #364
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    Sep 2007
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    The thing that kept me from ever putting together a hard-linkage system, and kept me so focused on the "wires-in-cable-housing' idea was that I just could not figure out a way to put the illustrations of linkages I see online, into functional reality. Well, today a little miracle happened. You'll laugh, because it's SO NOT sophisticated, but this was a ~Huge~ AHA! moment for me. I was holding the little slapped-together wood trimtab tiller that I made out of wood, and I just wondered....out of the blue....if it would fit on some half-inch fiberglass rod that I got from Greg Nelson. I tried it. It fit.

    I looked at that for about a minute and the light turned on! So I sat myself right down and made another arm.

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    This is a tich crude, the sheet metal screws are functioning as set screws, but the connection is actually pretty firm. I'll trim the fiberglass rod to length, and hang that assembly below the platform that will hold the vane mast. A piece of 1/4 inch fiberglass rod from TAP plastics, is, like eight bucks, and that will make a dandy connecting rod.
    Hey now! I'm onto something, here!.
    Last edited by AlanH; 01-02-2021 at 10:08 PM.
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  5. #365
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    Aaaand.... the asymmetrical pole bracket is done! ...painted, ready to go.
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  6. #366
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    Look what just arrived. i got it online from a place called Marine Parts Depot in Rancho Santa Margarita. I've never seen a DOUBLE fold down padeye before wandering through Google image search, looking for "folding padeye".



    This is not a Wichard-quality casting, but it's plenty good enough and it was about $15.. It will be the aft-end hold-down for the assy pole.
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    Last edited by AlanH; 01-04-2021 at 02:45 PM.
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  7. #367
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    The new windvane linkage is done. It took me about a day and a half to make it essentially from wood scraps I had...an assortment of wood screws, some starboard I had lying around and epoxy. s.s. machine screws with the points ground off are functioning as set screws. There won't be a huge load on this, just the force of the wind on the vane, maybe 20 pounds....30 if it's honking.



    If this works a treat, I might...MIGHT rebuild some of it in aluminum. I honestly think this is plenty strong enough, crude or not. It'll get paint on it in another day or two, when the epoxy stops being sticky.

    Thanks again for the half-inch fiberglass rod, Greg!
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  8. #368
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    Jan 2021
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    Anyone know when registrations will open for SHTP 2021? The jibeset site is not updated yet.
    Thanks!

  9. #369
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mountain View Post
    Anyone know when registrations will open for SHTP 2021? The jibeset site is not updated yet.
    Thanks!
    That's hard to say. The new Board has only been online for a couple of weeks now, I'm sure they'll get to it when they can. The Three Bridge Fiasco is coming up in 3 weeks and it's a HUGE event. I wouldn't expect anything to go up until after that, at least. Also, the Board might be concerned about taking registrations and collecting fees when Hawaii/Kauai hasn't opened up from COVID, yet.

    It would be good if the 2020 SHTP Site were either taken down or changed over to be 2021, though.
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  10. #370
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    I'm starting to think about cooking onboard. OK, that's not true, I've been "thinking" about it, rarely for a while. There's really no good place to mount a stove down below. I could maybe put a bracket over the totally non-functional sink, but then if there's spillage it's going to go all over the liferaft. I don't want to have a swinging stove flailing around in the middle of the already-tight cabin space. Also, the wood trim that you see at the back edge of the daggerboard trunk is just held onto the trunk with about a dozen wood screws. I don't think I want to depend on that thing to stay up with half a quart of boiling water flailing around inside it.

    And so, I think I'll be mounting a swinging stove on the temporary seat I've made which I set up much like a bridgedeck. It's immediately behind the companionway, and is just a plywood platform that has some inserts glued and screwed to it, to keep it from sliding around. I can ooch that back 8-10 inches and clamp a swinging/gimbaled stover to that. It's behind the hard dodger so it's reasonably protected from splash.

    Along those lines, I just bought a 1.5 quart Bain Marie pot from the "Webstaurant Store". What's a bain-marie pot? You've seen them in steam tables, or cold tables at restaurants before, like at the salad bar.



    They're tall....meaning deep, so even if food sloshes around, it's unlikely to come out. They're stainless steel so they don't corrode. You can get the lids as well. I'll have to drill and rivet a small handle to the pot, no big deal.
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

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