Sailing and restoring #9874

[SV_GALATEIA]

Another great write-up AaronD.

Your VHF is very nice but way out of my budget range. I went with a simple Uniden UM380BK for $98. For the antenna, I bought the antenna kit from CD. It supposedly has everything needed including the deck pass-through. The VHF will probably mount in the same general location as yours. The previous owner had a very basic VHF with a Stern rail mounted antenna. It was not functional but they only sailed the boat on the lake they live on (Mullett Lake) and probably never used it. Their other big boat was docked on Lake Huron.

 

[AaronD]

...way out of my budget range...

You've clearly found a way to use the words 'boat' and 'budget' in the same sentence. Several years in, and I'm still working on that...

The UM380BK looks like a sensible choice, and you have a chartplotter that can provide GPS location to the VHF for DSC calling. As I look back at my lists and receipts, I see that some of the wiring components have gotten more expensive since my projects, but electronics are getting cheaper - it sounds like you'll have a solid system for much less than I paid, and you can add a separate AIS receiver later if desired.

 

[AaronD]

RAM3 Remote Microphone and Speaker

A small(ish) mod that was a lot of bang for the effort:

We're very happy with our VHF (Standard Horizon GX-2200, described above), and we love having AIS to alert us when a ferry or container ship is steaming around the corner at 20 knots (especially when we sailed on the Columbia River). But we found that (even on a really small boat), we often couldn't hear the VHF calls very well. Or that we had to crank the volume so high that we'd blast out our poor kids out of the cabin when they're down below creating their artistic masterpieces.

Thankfully, the VHF supports a remote remote microphone with a full display, including the same AIS information available on the main unit (it was called 'RAM3' at the time; it looks like there might be newer models since; I think Icom has a similar remote for its radios). I watched for sales, and for a net price of ~$110, bought the remote microphone and a small West Marine speaker. The wiring run was easy, and the remote-mic wire even includes a pigtail for the speaker, so only one wire to run. I elected to mount the mic jack and speaker in a cockpit pocket; they're weatherproof, but it won't hurt to protect them a bit, and nobody can trip over the microphone cord there. I screwed in the jack (sealed with butyl tape of course), and stuck the speaker on with 3M tape (thanks to Stingy Sailor for pointing me toward that wonderful product!).

The speaker leads and the pigtail from the microphone jack are tiny wires, too small for red crimp connectors (maybe ~AWG 24). So I used a small junction plate and connectors as @Maine Sail describes at https://www.pbase.com/mainecruising/terminating_small_wires&page=1. I already had the crimper he recommended and some rings from earlier projects. They're useful to have around for NMEA connections and LED lights as well.


This upgrade has been a winner. It's great to have AIS info in the cockpit (even if only on a tiny screen). And VHF calls are much more intelligible. Obviously, if you had a chart plotter, you'd use that for AIS display, but I still think the mic/speaker would be worthwhile. Note: I did add 'store RAM3 microphone in the cabin' to my checklist for leaving the boat. A bit of electronics in the cockpit might be tempting to a sticky-fingered dock-walker.

Cost: ~$110

 

[Jacktar]

A vhf radio with builtin gps is nice and the command mic then gives you speed and bearing and position info constantly. See pix

 

[Gene Neill]

Yeah that’s pretty dang cool. If I were to issue a mayday call on my late 80’s radio, I would have to read the lat and long off the GPS, and recite it all verbatim over the VHF without any errors, and the coasties would have to be able to hear every word clearly, and not make any errors at their end. At best, the process would have to be repeated four or five times.
In other words ... it’s been nice knowing you guys.

 

[AaronD]

Yeah that’s pretty dang cool. If I were to issue a mayday call on my late 80’s radio, I would have to read the lat and long off the GPS, and recite it all verbatim over the VHF without any errors, and the coasties would have to be able to hear every word clearly, and not make any errors at their end. At best, the process would have to be repeated four or five times.
In other words ... it’s been nice knowing you guys.

We'd miss you, Gene! But I'm pretty confident your skills and seamanship will help you avoid that situation.

 

[SV_GALATEIA]

Yeah that’s pretty dang cool. If I were to issue a mayday call on my late 80’s radio, I would have to read the lat and long off the GPS, and recite it all verbatim over the VHF without any errors, and the coasties would have to be able to hear every word clearly, and not make any errors at their end. At best, the process would have to be repeated four or five times.
In other words ... it’s been nice knowing you guys.

Has there ever been a reported case of an ALBIN VEGA owner issuing a mayday call.....they tend to be to salty and tough so the sea spits them back.

 

[Gene Neill]

You guys have me confused with someone else.

I have the skills of a drunken orangutan, and the toughness of a damp Kleenex.

 

[AaronD]

Alternate COB Technique?

Only slightly sailing-related, but a story I wish I had a picture of.

Our kids have always been good about wearing their PFDs, on the dock or on the boat. They know the rules, and they've never complained. But a few seasons ago, they somehow found themselves together at the dock ramp without their PFDs, while my wife and I were on the boat. We looked down the dock and saw our kids (aged 7 and 4 at the time) walking toward us, holding hands and looking like they were trying to blow up balloons. When they arrived at the boat, they said, "We didn't have our life jackets. We puffed up our cheeks with air, so if we fell in the water we'd float."

My wife and I just about died laughing.

Warning: I haven't tested this approach in a real COB situation, and I doubt it's ASA approved. Caveat emptor.

 

[AaronD]

Hyde Headsail



This was my first time buying sails, so I had a lot to learn. But I can't say enough about how good Hyde Sails Direct was to work with. I called them a few times; as often as not, @DrJudyB picked up the phone herself; she was friendly, listened to my questions, and offered great advice. She helped me think through different genoa sizes, sail combinations, and fabric choices. For a C-22, we're not buying $10k sails, so HSD can't be making much money on us. But Judy and crew always took extra time to help us.

Many people recommend buying through a local loft for the personal attention. But I felt like we got plenty of personal attention from Judy. Buying through HSD means that I had to do the measuring myself. But I'm fine with a measuring tape, and that meant I didn't have to trailer the boat somewhere for a saleperson to do it. Everything arrived promptly; the workmanship looks great, and they even offered a discount for buying 2 sails (review of the 2nd to come). Highly recommended.

And (as someone else has opined), what's up with my sailmaker retiring? Fair winds, Judy, and enjoy your tri!

Cost: $733
120% furling genoa #2, Challenge 5.53 Dacron. With luff tape and pad, UV cover, and telltale windows.
$100 discount because we bought 2 sails at once (details on the other one coming someday)

What might I do differently if I were starting over?

1) I'd probably go with a slightly smaller sail.
--I thought our previous jib was a 110%, and wanted to go just a bit larger. In reality, it was ~100%, so I sized up more than I thought I was.
--I've since learned more about sail design and tradeoffs, and I think I'd go for a higher aspect-ratio sail (reversing my earlier thought of sizing up a bit from the previous jib). Probably 100-105%. At this point, I'm thinking that a non-overlapping or barely-overlapping headsail would sheet in tighter and let us point a little higher.

2) I've since heard of some lighter options for the UV cover. Since we're only moored during the summer (and in the PNW at that), I might look into those. But I might change my thinking completely in the next ~5-8 years before I go shopping again.

3) We could have done a radial cut sail for about $250 more, and maybe I should have. I honestly don't know just how much difference it would make for our sailing. The price delta was less than that when I last looked, so if were buying now I might spring for a radial.

A few notes on the furler to follow in a subsequent post...

 

[AaronD]

Furler and Genoa Install

Schaefer Snapfurl CF-500 for Hyde 120%. I don't have a lot of pictures here (you're not especially interested in snapshots of a furler laying on the mast in my shop, are you?).

The Schaefer instructions and online videos were pretty straightforward. We love the furling system. I know a hanked-on sail would be lighter, and I really never minded the hanking process, but we find that we get sails out earlier and leave them up longer when the headsail work is a quick few seconds.

Tangs: I raised my furler up a couple inches to keep it clear of my anchor shank (the double-jaw toggle and tangs you see in the picture). The 4" tang I bought was too long, and I couldn't find a shorter one for 1/4" pins. So I cannibalized a pair of old deck organizers; they already had 1/4" holes spaced ~2" apart, and after a couple (too many) hours with a jigsaw and a grinder, they look like proper tangs. One would probably be fine, but I doubled it, in case the stainless wasn't quite the same quality, or if I weakened it while cutting or grinding. Yes, making my own standing rigging components. What was I thinking?!?



Furling Line: Three (possibly) interesting notes here:
1) The 120% has reef marks at 97% and 77%; @DrJudyB said that it should reef down to the 77% mark before it starts to completely lose its shape. If we ever need to roll it down that small, we want to be sure our running rigging won't stretch much (as Drew Frye notes at Line Selection--Is Low Stretch More Myth Than Function?, a gust in a blow is the _last_ time you want your lines to stretch and add belly to the sail). Even a few inches of stretch in the furling line could add quite a bit of extra sail area.

2) It seems that many people have problems with filling up their furler drums, and tangling or jamming the line when unfurling (for those who haven't done furling before, the line rolls onto the furling drum when unrolling the sail - that seemed backward to me, until I thought about it for a minute).

3) Finally, it seems I'd misread the specs on the CF-500, and thought it took 3/16" line instead of 1/4". 3/16" seemed pretty small to handle, but I didn't want to overfill the drum.

So, for all of those reasons, I decided to 'make my own stripped Warpspeed' out of NER Endura 12 (single-braid dyneema, like Amsteel) and the cover from Sta-Set. I bought discounted hanks of each (100' of 5/32" Endura 12 - breaking strength ~= 4k lbs - and 50' of 1/4" Sta Set). Endura 12 stretches .7% when loaded to 10% of its breaking strength. I'll have about 16 feet of line out, so at 400 lbs of load (a pretty serious gust), it should only stretch ~1.3 inches). And it's thinner on the drum than even the 3/16" line I thought the CF-500 was intended for.

I used about 25 feet of 1/4" Sta Set. I stitched the Endura 12 to the Sta-set core (tapering both just a bit, I think), and milked the Endura into the cover, making it the new core. I think the original core was actually a bit larger than 5/32, so the final line is just a bit under 1/4", and the cover covers a bit more than the 50 feet it originally did, but that doesn't matter much. I buried the cover in the core, just the same as Samson's instructions for stripping the cover of Warpspeed (https://www.samsonrope.com/docs/def..._c2_stripping_cover_web.pdf?sfvrsn=f3566b8d_2). I had to taper the 1/4" cover quite a bit to fit it into the Endura, but the overall strength of the line isn't in that splice anyway (it's in the core itself, and the tension on the cover to grip said core).

The end of the furling line is anchored to the drum with a stopper knot; single-braid dyneema is notoriously slippery, so I looked around for a stopper that wouldn't pull out, and found the EStar Stopper Knot (Home credit to Evans Starzinger).


Furling Line cleat / clutch: I started with an old jam cleat for the furling line; the family complained, so it got a clutch for the second season.


There's still a little more friction in the system than I'd like. I'll probably try to hunt that down at some point (perhaps replacing a couple fairleads with cheek blocks)

Cost: ~$760 (+$733 for genoa listed above)
--Snapfurl CF-500: $577 ($679 on WM's 15%-off-everything sale)
--Furling line (with some left over for other projects):
----100' 5/32" Endura 12: $38
----50' 1/4" Sta Set: $12
--Assorted fairleads: ~$20
--Double jaw toggle: $47
--Lewmar DC1 Clutch: $62

Time: 10.75 hours
(including 1.5 for the clutch and 2.5 making those stupid tangs)

 

[AaronD]

Bowsprit and Code Zero

Here are a few pictures of last years biggest project (and biggest winner by far): A homemade A-frame bowsprit and a "Cruising Code Zero" on a continuous-line furler.

I'll go through the process over a few posts, just in case anyone else might be crazy enough to do something similar. But first, why did we do all that?

When we bought the boat, she came with 2 150% genoas, one that seems to be a fairly standard weight dacron (6oz or so) and the other a very light North Sails laminated sail (perhaps leftover from a previous life as a racer? We don't know her history that far back).

We mostly sail in the South Puget Sound, where summer winds are often light. So over our first couple seasons, we came to love the light 150. I have no idea what exactly it's made of, but even the slightest breeze would keep it full. It often made the difference between sailing and motoring. But after a couple seasons, it got the 'crinkle of death', and started to delaminate. I've heard from multiple sources that once these old laminate sails start to go, there's really nothing to do for them. It seemed like we could:
A) Buy stock in Bainbridge's sail-repair tape division.
B) Start looking at a new sail.

So I called up @DrJudyB and started asking questions. It seemed like we had a couple options:
1) A new lightweight laminate 150
2) A smaller headsail and add an asym or code zero

A laminate 150 would have been ~$1200, and still leave us with our old 100% working jib for the occasions when we have a bit more breeze. The jib wasn't in terrible shape, but it has seen a lot of miles, and would probably need replacement sooner rather than later. So we'd be on the hook for $1200 now, and several hundred more later.

Cruising Code Zero
So I was seriously considering the combination of a furling jib (described above) and an asymmetric spinnaker. Judy recommended we look at their 'cruising code zero'*. It's a close-reaching sail, cut from heavier spinnaker cloth (1.5oz, whereas a C-22 reaching/running asym would probably be .75oz). Judy pointed me to some videos of her Potter screaming along under a similar sail (search YouTube for 'Little Deuce Sloop'). Hyde's standard C-22 C0 is 242 ft^2. Roughly equivalent to a 230% headsail, so quite a bit larger than even our light 150. And the combination of the C0 and a smaller genoa seemed like it would cover a wide range of wind speeds.

Furler
Finally, I noted that Defender had a small Facnor furler (FX-900) on clearance for $300 (discounted from a regular price closer to $1k). I wasn't scared of learning to launch and douse a chute, but I was pretty certain that we'd use it a lot more if it were a simple matter of unfurling. And at about the same price as a spinnaker sock, the furler seemed like a no-brainer (when I mentioned that price, @DrJudyB said she might snap up a couple).

Important note: the flying sail furler needs to be out in front of the headstay, to give the spinnaker space to furl. Thus the need for a bowsprit, which I'll describe in more detail below.

The C0 has an integral luff of anti-torsion cable, which you need to transfer the furler's torque evenly up to the top swivel. And the price was very reasonable, at $891 (shipping included). With a sprit out front, our sail is about 278 ft^2, so about 15% larger than the stock size, but HSD didn't charge us any extra for the additional material (we did pay an extra $45 for a 4-color design; the standard price covered up to 3 colors).

* (Judy did note that calling it a C0 is a bit confusing, since that's often a very specific racing sail, and this one is cut somewhat fuller for cruising - but it's hard to think of a better name).

Cost: ~$1700 (ouch, don't tell my wife!)
* Sail: $936 (including the $45 charge for a fourth color)
* Sprit: ~$250
* Furler: $311 with shipping
* Furling line, fairleads, etc: Approximately $30
* Sheets: $83
* Sheet blocks: $32
* Halyard + blocks: ~$60

Time:
Building and mounting the sprit: 30 hours
Installing furler, furling line, halyard, etc.: 10.5 hours

About 10 hours of that time was installation of the sprit, so I think using a commercial sprit would have saved ~20 hours (and cost an additional $1-2k). It would be lighter, and probably stronger, but also not nearly as satisfying.


PS: Don't tell @DrJudyB, but when the C0 arrived, it even included a nice launch bag that I don't recall paying extra for.

 

[AaronD]

Thinking about Bowsprits

A flying-sail furler requires that we get it out away from the headstay and bow pulpit (so it has a few inches of clearance all along its torsion cable). Thus, a bowsprit of some sort. I considered the free-standing retractable versions made by Selden and others (I don't personally know anyone using the Selden, but I've seen good reports online, and looked at one in-person as I wandered the docks when visiting Stockholm). They're a pretty slick piece of kit (and the price tag would be around $550 with a mounting ring - less if I waited for a West Marine coupon or 15%-off-everything sale). But I found I couldn't use it; I spent a long time poking around the bow with lengths of PVC pipe, trying to figure out how to route a sprit around the anchor roller, pulpit, cleats, etc. The bow of a C-22 gets busy pretty fast, and I couldn't find a system that got the sprit's tip anywhere close to on-center.

So I looked at the designs from http://www.csprit.com/ and https://trogear.com/. They look like great systems - naturally, with price tags to match. Their small models would be plenty strong enough for my needs, but I think I'd have to go up to a larger model to get out past the anchor. And that meant $1200-$2k, which seemed a little steep. But, after a little more time poking around with PVC mockups, I designed a system I thought might work, for a price I could stomach.

It wraps around the front of the anchor, but it's hinged, so I can get it off in a few seconds when we need to drop the anchor.

I'll detail the process in the next few posts, just in case someone else should want to build one.

Note: @Meriachee made a sprit for his C270 (https://meriachee.wordpress.com/2014/06/23/sprit-city/), @Slartibartfass has a Trogear on his Capri 22. See https://forums.sailboatowners.com/index.php?threads/adding-a-bowsprit.194390/



Construction basics
--Tubes: 1-3/4" 6061 aluminum tube, 1/8" wall
--Front bracket: 1/4" G10 and Wichard 6504 6mm folding padeyes
--Aft brackets: 1-1/2" fiberglass rod
--Bow mount: 1/2" 316 SS rod through fiberglass tube (1" OD / 1/2" ID)

Lots more details to follow.

 

[DrJudyB]

I'll go through the process over a few posts, just in case anyone else might be crazy enough to do something similar. But first, why did we do all that?

Because it's a hoot to fly big powerful sails in light winds?

Judy pointed me to some videos of her Potter screaming along under a similar sail (search YouTube for 'Little Deuce Sloop').

 

[Meriachee]

Because it's a hoot to fly big powerful sails in light winds?

Nah. Don't let that cat out of the bag. We'll undoubtedly get into another theory conversation.

 

[Voiding Sounds]

Because it's a hoot to fly big powerful sails in light winds?

Me, thinking about sails:

 

[AaronD]

Me, thinking about sails...

I like that! You can obviously see which button I go for, and it never seems to be the class-legal one.

 

[rpludwig]

Aaron, great write-up! I'm not in the market right now, but saving this for future reference...thx!

 

[AaronD]

Bowsprit Load Calculations

I got an mechanical engineer friend of mine to come help, and we worked out the loads on the anchors and the bobstay. The most important load on the sprit is upward, from the stay / furling cable. I found it surprisingly hard to calculate just what that upward load might be. I have a 2" thick aero-hydrodynamics textbook on my shelf; perhaps it might be helpful if I understood more of it...

The C-22 forestay is spec'd as 1/8" SS wire, so I think we can consider its SWL as a high-end sanity check - that's ~880 lbs (http://l-36.com/line_stretch.php, SWL for wire ~= 50% of breaking strength). After a bunch of web searching, online calculators, etc., I found a few calculation methods which all yielded loads of around 200-250 lbs, so I went with that.

From there, we calculated the load on the bobstay and bow eye. Here we have the problem that the C-22's spoon bow makes angle A pretty acute, raising the load considerably. As angle A approaches 0 (bobstay parallel with the sprit), the load goes to infinity. The larger we can make angle A, the lower the load (here the plumb bow boats have an advantage).

I wanted to work with the existing bow eye (and moving it wouldn't make much difference anyway). So I worked to place the anchor points as high as possible on the hull, yielding an angle of ~17 degrees. That worked out to a bobstay pull (F_a) and force on the anchor points (F_b) of ~700 lbs each, which seemed completely reasonable (the bow eye is 3/8" SS, backed in a huge chunk of glass, so 700 lbs should be fine). I'm not all that confident in my force estimates, but I think they're within the right order of magnitude.

I spliced the bobstay from 3/16" Amsteel. A fixed-length bobstay would be ideal, if I were able to splice one to exactly the right length. But the sprit angle is really sensitive to even slight length variance (e.g. lengthening the bobstay by 1/2" might raise the sprit by 1-2"). Even if I spliced precisely, I wasn't confident that I could get all the construction stretch out ahead of time. So I put an old turnbuckle in the system (I'm replacing it this year with a whoopie sling, which should be lighter and less metal clanking around, but that's untested at this point).


References:
--http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/sailboats/assemetric-bow-pole-calculation-18900.html--
--http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f116/load-on-halyards-23978.html
--http://www.briontoss.com/spartalk/showthread.php?t=2253

 

[AaronD]

Bowsprit Materials and Costs

--Tubes:
--1-3/4" 6061 aluminum tube, 1/8" wall
--33 inches long (cut down from 36").
--Bought 3 (just in case) on eBay for $45 with s/h

--Front bracket:
--1/4" G10 plate
--3x 3/8" bolts (3" and 3-1/4", ~$2/ea)
--1x 3/8" quick pin
--2x Wichard 6504 6mm folding padeyes : ~$30/ea, eBay.

--Tube ends (forward and aft):
--1-1/2" fiberglass rod. 5' long : $65, McMaster-Carr

--Tube mounted in bow:
--1" OD / 1/2" ID fiberglass. Constructed from 2 nested tubes
--1" OD / 3/4" ID fiberglass tube : $15, M-C
--3/4" OD / 1/2" ID garolite tube : $14, M-C

--Rod through bow tube:
--1/2" 316 SS : $12, M-C

--Mounting hardware
--1/2" 316 SS Washers: $7, Boltdepot.com
--316 SS Cotter Pins for 1/2": $8/10-pack @M-C

--Bobstay: ~8' 3/16" Amsteel: ~$5

Total cost (with s/h): ~$250-275


If I were doing it over again, I'd seriously consider carbon fiber tubes. I think ~40-50mm diameter, 2mm wall would be equivalent in strength to the aluminum I used. They'd be more expensive than aluminum (probably in the ~$100-150 range), but would save quite a bit of weight. (Plus, I think CF would look pretty killer, and I wouldn't have to repaint nicks in my spray paint)