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Thread: Getting Ready for SHTP 2021

  1. #231
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    Hmmm.... might have to go get a battery load tester from HD.

    The little 8-inch refurbed Samsung Android tablet arrived. It DOES have an internal GPS in it, and now has GPS Test and Open CPN along with a mess of California charts, installed on it. It's tremedously more readable than my phone.
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  2. #232
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    [QUOTE=AlanH;27282]Hmmm.... might have to go get a battery load tester from HD.[QUOTE]

    Some parts stores loan them.

  3. #233
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    [QUOTE=Intermission;27286][QUOTE=AlanH;27282]Hmmm.... might have to go get a battery load tester from HD.

    Some parts stores loan them.
    Will be taking the old battery into my car shop this afternoon for some testing!

    All the tillers are done. I've beefed them up, considerably and last night I got the steel plates on the last one. I added some bits to the e-rudder cassette so that it fits to a T, now. Once the battery situation is sorted and I CLEAN THE BOAT...it's a mess. I'm ready.

    I'm actually addressing the other UnThinKabLE issues....dismasting. I know people will think this is crazy but I'm going to get three, 6-foot lengths of 3-inch, 0.065 aluminum tubing and get them ready to sleeve. I'm putting four hefty eye straps at the top, which will be filled with a plug of douglas fir. The headstay/mainhalyard straps will be through-bolted to each other with s.s. threaded rod. The two eye straps for the shrouds will be fastened into the wood with long screws. There will be a doug fir base, drilled to take a bolt that goes through the mast base that will extend the total height to about 18' 9".

    As set up like this, I should have a forestay about 22 feet long. I so-happen to have a trasher jib around, that I bought for $40 for the Piper that so happens to have a reefpoint in it. When reefed, the luff length is 21' 7". The foot is 10 feet. It needs some sewing but it's light-ish dacron, so I can do it on my home sewing machine. I've already cut off the un-needed bottom four feet. Eight of these...
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    and I can attach it to the wire headstay. That's easy. IF I have time, I'll make a "mainsail" out of a white polyester tarp. I've made them before. The "boom" is a spinnaker pole (I have two) They die in the sun after a couple of months, but if I cut out the shape, add reinforced corners and drive in some grommets, it'll do to get the Wildcat home. IF I have time.
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  4. #234
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    I knocked out an "emergency orange" ripstop sailbag for the fixed-up heavy weather jib, this afternoon. The battery is at my car guys place. We'll see what he says in the morning. Since I had the sewing machine out, I fixed the leech on the cheapo sail I got for the Piper off of Craigslist. My home machine will actually sew through 3-4 layers of this cloth. I'm amazed.
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  5. #235
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    All these preparations are pretty amazing and cover most contingencies. The puzzle to me is that I don't know Alan or his prior experience. Is there a history of ocean going problems that reinforce the desire to have all these backups in place?

    Some preparation is required by the rules. The rules generally cover the minimum needs.

    Charge onward. I am enjoying the posts.

    Cheers,

    Ants

  6. #236
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    Quote Originally Posted by AntsUiga View Post
    All these preparations are pretty amazing and cover most contingencies. The puzzle to me is that I don't know Alan or his prior experience. Is there a history of ocean going problems that reinforce the desire to have all these backups in place?

    Some preparation is required by the rules. The rules generally cover the minimum needs.

    Charge onward. I am enjoying the posts.

    Cheers,

    Ants
    Ants, I've always been a little more conservative than most SSS sailors. I also am a little slower to learn my lessons, than most SSS sailors. That's probably why I only do middlin' well at the racing. You see, I did the SHTP in 2008, and that was the year that Ruben Gabriel took "Sparky", his Pearson Electra across. Sparky dismasted about 800 miles from Hawaii. Ruben recovered some of the rig, and managed to get something up to set up some seriously-butchered headsails to get him to Hawaii.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnbC5WQn8XU

    I don't want that to be me, if I can help it.

    I tend to think about this whole SHTP thing in two ways, which may at first seem at odds with each other.

    Priorities.
    1. Don't die.
    2. Get to Hawaii
    3. Get to Hawaii with a smile on my face
    4. Don't be DFL in the fleet.

    And this.
    If the hull doesn't get a hole in it, and
    the rudder doesn't fall off, and
    the keel doesn't fall off, and
    the mast doesn't fall down, and
    you don't fall off the boat...

    You'll get to Hawaii. That's basically true, in this day and age of GPS. If you take enough food and water, you'll get there. so it makes really good sense to make sure that either those things don't happen, or if they DO happen, you have a ready-to-go solution on hand to fix it.

    Holes in the hull: Well, The Wildcat only has two through-hulls, now that the inboard engine has been removed. They're the cockpit drains, and the join between hull and "tube"...which leads to the hose that links up the drains, is very stoutly fiberglassed by the builders. The hoses on my boat are in good shape, so I'm starting the trip with no extra holes in the boat. Even the sink drains into the bilge (I might pull it out before the SHTP, or I might leave it in, and use the 3 gallon water tank to count towards my water requirement). I will carry a couple of 1 ft X 1 ft squares of triaxial fiberglass and underwater epoxy on the SHTP, ~just in case~. I have real doubts about being able to deploy and fix a hole bashed into the boat below the waterline, so I suppose this is just a risk that I accept.... but I'm guessing that the more-likely scenario is getting the lower rudder pintle ripped out of the transom after hitting something. THAT, I think I could fix....and yes, I will fabricate and carry a backup pintle and a square of 3/8 plywood and a hand saw.

    The rudder falling off....well, we all prepare emergency rudders. I've made a substantial one, in fact maybe the cassette is a bit TOO "substantial" but I have confidence in the rudder, itself. For that matter, I have confidence in the cassette, too, it's just awfully heavy.
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  7. #237
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    The Keel doesn't fall off: I'm sure you'll all think I'm crazy but I consciously just accepted the fact that I couldn't really do anything about this issue when I took Ankle Biter over in 2008. Ankle Biter was a Santa Cruz 27 and has a bolt-on keel. I could drop the keel in the yard and inspect the top parts of the bolts, but the truth was that there's no way to know what's going on inside the lead. I figured that the keel wasn't wobbling when I sailed the boat, it had been there since 1978 with no issues, it probably wasn't going anywhere.

    In 1996 when I tagged along with the fleet, I sailed a Ranger 29, which has a molded keel/hull and internal ballast. This whole "keel fall off" issue is a powerful reason, IMHO to consider boats like this.

    The Wildcat has ballast in two places. 1. There's 600 pounds of internal ballast; lead poured into the keel that sits below the saloon floor, and 2. a 600 pound daggerboard. The daggerboard is tapered and the daggerboard slot is tapered such that without a major breach of the hull structure, the board can NOT fall out the bottom of the boat. So that's reassuring....there's nothing to corrode, here. However, in the unlikely chance of a roll-over the board can fall out the TOP of the slot/case. The s.s. plate that's there, with the block on it that guides the board hoisting line down to the top of the board is held in with 8 s.s. screws sunk about an inch into the fiberglass. That's fine for holding the plate in place for the expected loads but I don't think it's going to stop a 600 pound board plunging from full-drop position. So in fact, a couple of weeks ago, I drilled a hole through the daggerboard case, about a foot above the waterline, and put a stout 1/2 inch bolt through it. Now the board CAN'T fall out the top of the case.
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  8. #238
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    Don't Fall Off The Boat: .. We all worry about this, thus the discussions about jacklines and lifejackets and etriers. I have the usual things as required by the rules, and now the back of the boat is enclosed by a 24 inch high pushpit. That will make deploying and removing the outboard a PITA, but what's more important? I put a nice, strong Wichard U-bolt through the bulkhead right below the companionway. One tether lives on that u-bolt when I'm at sea, where I cannot possibly NOT see it.. I don't put two feet outside that companionway without hooking up to it. I just don't. Not EVER.

    Sure the washboard tethers hook to that u-bolt as well, but most important is that tether. None of what I do is anything special, we all do this stuff.
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  9. #239
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    The mast doesn't fall down: ... again, I'm sure you all think that I'm crazy, and I worry too much, and I load the boat down with unnecessary junk, but I just think about Sparky, and I watch videos like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-jqwkNXMIY

    and this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64l29uncetY

    and the video of the Coco Mini doing the Trans At for normal boats, dismasted in the middle of the Atlantic, no way to retrieve any part of the rig, and nothing on board to put up a new one. NOT ME.

    Three, six foot lengths of 3" 0.065 aluminum tubing, with sleeves... through-bolted pad eyes attached, and a couple of extra blocks already shackled to it...three lengths of 1/8 stainless wire with loops swaged into the ends, can make an 18 foot mast and doesn't weigh that much. A lot of guys/gals would consider that extra weight, but you know what? I sleep better knowing that I have it. I can use a spinnaker pole for a boom. Since I have two spinnaker poles, I can pole out that extra genoa, and get going at a couple of knots downwind, I can make some progress upwind...slow, but progress.

    It's worth the $$, prep time and weight, to me.

    Part of the question when figuring this out, is "how much mast can I actually push up, on the boat?" I mean, if you could carry a 30 foot mast on the boat, pretend it's carbon fiber so it only weighs 10 pounds, wouldn't it be great to be able to put up a 30 foot stick if you had to?

    I remember pushing up my Cal 20 mast, with the boat at the dock and that was tough....and I was 25 years younger. Also, as you all know, I compete at the Scottish Highland Games. One of the events is the Sheaf toss, where you spear a bag of hay with a pitchfork, and heave it over a bar. The higher the bar, the harder it is. The vertical pole that are braced and support the crossbar for sheaf, usually go up to 30 feet. They're usually made out of steel or 2-inch electrical conduit, which is heavy. It takes about 6-8 guys to push those things up to vertical, with other people holding the supporting guy wires out to the sides.

    I thin it would be POSSIBLE to raise a 30-foot mast by yourself, keeping in mind that if your boat is smaller than 40 feet, half of the mast will be hanging off one end of the boat, while you prepare it, but even on a flush-deck boat where you can rig up side-stays directly in line with the pivot point at the base of the mast, it's going to be a very dicey proposition. If you have 4-5-6 crew, then maybe it's do-able. Alone? I don't think I could do it.
    Last edited by AlanH; 08-28-2020 at 11:35 AM.
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  10. #240
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    After pushing up 2/3rds of my clubs sheaf apparatus the other day, I realized that 20 feet is really the outer limit of what I could possibly do, myself.

    Side-to-side stability during the hoist is important. If you are using a four-point rigging system, a forestay, backstay and two side-shrouds, then things are a little bit simplified. The key is to set up the side shrouds such that their base is directly in line, and outboard of the mast base...the pivot point of the mast. On a flush-deck boat, this is not a problem. There might be a chainplate there, already, or a "backup" chainplate/u-bolt/eye bolt arrangement can be set up beforehand. On a boat with a cabin trunk, clever use of the toerail and lines and probably get the side-shroud attachment points pretty close to in-line with the base of the mast.

    Why is this important? Because you want the side shrouds to be pretty taut as you push the mast up from behind, or forward. That will keep the mast from wobbling side-to-side. If you pre-set either of the fore-and-aft stays...backstay or headstay, then you just get under the mast and push it up until that stay is tight. Lead the other fore-and-aft stay to it's anchoring point on the boat, lash it down and there you are. You can also have a spinnaker pole fitting on the mast, and use the spinny pole as a gin pole, and then winch the mast upright.

    THINK, though...when you set this up. Is the distance between your mast base and the bow pulpit longer than the distance between the mast base and the transom? Probably not. You'll want to assemble the parts of the mast on the boat where you have the most deck space to work from. For most of us, that will mean that the backup mast will be assembled AFT of the mast base, and a few feet of it will extend over the stern, before it's raised.
    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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