Woohoo! We're back! We had an awesome time!
First off, some of what didn't work. We had two "exciting" gear failures and one that didn't surprise us at all.
The unsurprising one was a part failure on the new tiller. The old tiller has a metal "knee" that braces it against the rudder. It's for convenience, rather than necessary, since the tiller works just fine without it, but can chafe on a coaming. So the knee just keeps it off that coaming. I didn't want to remove the part from the old tiller and put it on the new, since I want to keep the old tiller as a backup. I don't know how to mill a metal one (that's the new project as a result of this), so I made one out of walnut wood impregnated with penetrating epoxy. It broke within minutes of sailing. Oh well! So Kitty taught me how to make some chafing gear to protect the tiller where it rubs on the coaming, and here it is:
Otherwise, the new tiller was a huge thumbs up!
The other two gear failures were annoying and scary, respectively.
The most annoying one concerned WAG bags. These are a double-bag human waste disposal system, in which you pee and poop into an inner bag that contains a gelling powder, then wrap it all up in a leak-proof outer bag for packing out and disposal. We were planning to use these over a bucket for the trip, so we wouldn't have to have liquid waste on board, which can be tricky on a small boat that pitches around a lot. We had a dozen WAG bags that came with the boat, among which one had already been opened, presumably for inspection by the former owner. We used that one first and everything was fine. On the second day, when it came time to use a second, I discovered that the unopened WAG bag packages were a little different from the opened one. Those contained a biodegradable inner bag. However, their packaging, which was heat-sealed plastic, was not sealed all the way on all of them. So all of the inner bags had biodegraded from exposure to humidity. We had no inner bags, and the outer leak-proof bags were too small to use directly! Boo! We had to bucket and chuck it from that point on, which made us sad. So don't store WAG bags in humid places! WAG bag company, listen up: heat seal those packages! Quality control, baby!
The other gear failure was a little more disconcerting, rather than inconvenient. When we left the islands for the mainland it was blowing 20ish kts, with a big swell and we hadn't slept that night, so I thought tethering up to the boat was a good idea. When I got done cleaning up anchors after our departure I went back to the cockpit, and, as I was stretching and kind of re-arranging my chest harness, rrrrriiiip, it tore! I knew that chest harness was old, it looked pretty tired, but I was so mad at myself for not putting it to a serious test before trusting it. These chest harnesses are made of white nylon webbing, sewn around stainless steel hardware. The construction is very similar to that of a simple climbing harness without padding. But, where climbing harnesses are subject to abrasion and sunlight damage, sailing harnesses are subject to saltwater and sunlight damage. Well, apparently, this one was toast. I should point out that this is not the fault of the manufacturer, but squarely on my shoulders. I do not even remember where this harness came from, and I knew it was suspect, but, like I pull-test my climbing gear placements when the stance permits, I should have pull-tested this harness before trusting it. I switched to wearing a life jacket after that.
Of the newly purchased gear we wanted to use on this trip, only one thing didn't work out. The DicaPac WP310 for my Canon S95 was ill-fitting, in spite of being the size recommended on the company's fitting guide. This resulted in a black halo around the pictures I took with it. Also, the silica pack they included was useless for keeping the interior from eventually fogging up. Thumbs down!
A bit about what worked well in the next post!
First off, some of what didn't work. We had two "exciting" gear failures and one that didn't surprise us at all.
The unsurprising one was a part failure on the new tiller. The old tiller has a metal "knee" that braces it against the rudder. It's for convenience, rather than necessary, since the tiller works just fine without it, but can chafe on a coaming. So the knee just keeps it off that coaming. I didn't want to remove the part from the old tiller and put it on the new, since I want to keep the old tiller as a backup. I don't know how to mill a metal one (that's the new project as a result of this), so I made one out of walnut wood impregnated with penetrating epoxy. It broke within minutes of sailing. Oh well! So Kitty taught me how to make some chafing gear to protect the tiller where it rubs on the coaming, and here it is:
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| The new chafing gear. |
The other two gear failures were annoying and scary, respectively.
The most annoying one concerned WAG bags. These are a double-bag human waste disposal system, in which you pee and poop into an inner bag that contains a gelling powder, then wrap it all up in a leak-proof outer bag for packing out and disposal. We were planning to use these over a bucket for the trip, so we wouldn't have to have liquid waste on board, which can be tricky on a small boat that pitches around a lot. We had a dozen WAG bags that came with the boat, among which one had already been opened, presumably for inspection by the former owner. We used that one first and everything was fine. On the second day, when it came time to use a second, I discovered that the unopened WAG bag packages were a little different from the opened one. Those contained a biodegradable inner bag. However, their packaging, which was heat-sealed plastic, was not sealed all the way on all of them. So all of the inner bags had biodegraded from exposure to humidity. We had no inner bags, and the outer leak-proof bags were too small to use directly! Boo! We had to bucket and chuck it from that point on, which made us sad. So don't store WAG bags in humid places! WAG bag company, listen up: heat seal those packages! Quality control, baby!
The other gear failure was a little more disconcerting, rather than inconvenient. When we left the islands for the mainland it was blowing 20ish kts, with a big swell and we hadn't slept that night, so I thought tethering up to the boat was a good idea. When I got done cleaning up anchors after our departure I went back to the cockpit, and, as I was stretching and kind of re-arranging my chest harness, rrrrriiiip, it tore! I knew that chest harness was old, it looked pretty tired, but I was so mad at myself for not putting it to a serious test before trusting it. These chest harnesses are made of white nylon webbing, sewn around stainless steel hardware. The construction is very similar to that of a simple climbing harness without padding. But, where climbing harnesses are subject to abrasion and sunlight damage, sailing harnesses are subject to saltwater and sunlight damage. Well, apparently, this one was toast. I should point out that this is not the fault of the manufacturer, but squarely on my shoulders. I do not even remember where this harness came from, and I knew it was suspect, but, like I pull-test my climbing gear placements when the stance permits, I should have pull-tested this harness before trusting it. I switched to wearing a life jacket after that.
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| Taking off the torn harness. |
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| You can see the black halo from the ill-fitting lens barrel on the DicaPac PW310 used with a Canon S95. |
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