Electrical upgrade

In the last few weeks I've taken the boat from this:

to this:

The wiring is now clean and out of sight, and the VHF antenna and new cabin lights are the only things remaining to be installed. So proud and excited!

Back in SB with a clean bottom

This past week was incredibly stressful, and I think I'm paying handsomely for it with a peptic ulcer. I wanted to bring Koan back up to SB before Memorial day, but we've had the most incredibly windy weather. I was watching the wind patterns like a hawk on Wednesday and Thursday, planning to sail or motor up on Friday. I decided that I needed some flexibility in my departure time, so I planned it as another solo trip (I'm up to 125 nm solo now!) Wed. and Thursday's predictions were for really high winds, but the pattern was very spatially variable, and there were also times when SB was in a wind hole. On Wednesday, unbelievably, the race was a light air race. On Thursday there was a hole in the morning, with the models predicting > 20 kts but actual being < 5 kts. Hoping that Friday would follow Thursday's pattern I went to Ventura on Thursday night and slept on the boat, planning for an early departure. I was hoping that I could make it to SB before the howling winds picked up.

I took off at 6:30 and arrived at 11:30, motoring the whole way, in a very uneventful trip. Sure enough, the wind picked up around noon and howled a stead 25 kts for the rest of the day, so my calculation was correct. The swell was actually really bad the whole way, and especially unpleasant near the SB harbor entrance, where I had to go beam-to-swell to drop my sails, and almost got bucked off the boat.

So Koan now has nicely buffed topsides, a clean baby bottom and new zincs. Time to get on with other projects, and hire a diver for monthly maintenance.

The mystery of the weight

According to Sailboat Data Koan is supposed to displace just under 5,000 lbs. During the haul I asked for the weight on the crane, and it was 7,000 lbs. They confirmed that they've compared the crane to a super-accurate measurement used for one-designs and it was within 20 lbs (though I suppose the error is a percentage of weight, so without knowing what they were weighing I can't estimate the error in our case).

Any ideas? What could possibly weigh an extra 2,000 lbs?!

Hauled out!

On Thursday I motored Koan down to Ventura to haul out at Ventura Harbor Boat Yard. They're doing the bottom while I'm focusing on buffing and waxing the topsides and various other small jobs. I spent Saturday and today, with Dan's help, working on that and I'm pretty happy with the results. Not all the oxidized paint is coming off after two passes, but it's a huge improvement.

There is a video of the haulout here.

New Home

Big news in Koan-land! We've found a slip in Santa Barbara, and moved there from Channel Islands Harbor. In a big way, Koan has come home!

I didn't know whether there was an inspection coming up during this move. CIH Patrol did inspect Shadow Line when I put her into one of their slips, so I considered it a distinct possibility. Thus I decided I'd better be prepared and scrambled to make a necessary, but very frustrating repair: the steaming light. Both the deck connection for getting power to it was missing and the existing light was hopelessly corroded and disgusting. After trying out a Hella and a straight up replacement of the classic Perko that I'd just removed, I settled on an Aqua Signal 25 series. This has a deck lamp, as well, but the separate wiring for that wasn't run, so it's not operational. On Friday I did the deck wiring, which took a little creativity, because there are separate ground and hot wires running and it's tougher to insulate the entry of two wires into the connector. I ended up using a bead of polysulfide instead of the existing rubber gasket. On Tuesday morning I went up the mast and tapped two #29 holes for 8-32 machine screws, and installed the fixture. I've just received an LED replacement for the bulb, and once I ascertain that that doesn't nullify the light's USCG rating, I'll install that too. 

After that job was finished on Tuesday I got the boat ready and headed up to SB. There wasn't much wind to begin with, so I attempted to sail, but at 2.5 kts I thought it was impractical. I motored on up until a nice 16 kt breeze kicked up, then close reached in that for an hour and a half or so. The visibility dropped to maybe 1/4 of a mile at some point and I got quite nervous, because I knew there were oil rigs coming up in a mile or two. But the breeze slowly dropped and the visibility improved, so I put the motor back on for another hour. Then within 6 miles of SB another nice breeze kicked in, maybe 14 kts or so. This time I was close hauled and making 4.5 kts, but it was still worth it to sail instead of beating into the wind with the motor on, so I did it. I did a horrendous douse right outside the harbor, then motored in amongst a class of CFJs. I was dying to pee! I went up and got my slip assignment, and we were home. The next morning we did the paperwork for the slip and the rest is history. 

During the previous solo trip up to SB I had recognized the problem with the mainsheet fiddle block and cam. During this trip I discovered a more minor, but still important to solve, problem: the running backstay adjustment mechanism is really jammed. I've actually never successfully operated that thing, but when it's blowing quite a bit, it's absolutely necessary, both to give the boat a little more weather helm, and to tension the forestay and jib luff. I'm fairly sure the boat would point higher and handle better if I could work the backstay, and the reefer assembly would also have fewer problems. So, here's an attempt to list that and other projects I plan to play with next. 

Slip-related: 

• install bumpers
• figure out outboard storage

Rigging:

• fix running backstay tensioning
• put spacers in reefer assembly
• install outhaul
• buy spinnaker sheets

Interior

• Redo electrics
• make v-berth window cushion
• make window shades
• buy stove

• And finally we need a haul pretty badly!

A small project

When we got Koan we didn't find an insert or a cushion for the v-berth, so I decided to make one. Luckily it's just a 2x2 ft piece of ply, painted white on one side and China red on the other, with the Chinese characters for the boat's name on the red side. The cushion is going to be a little trickier. I'm probably going to buy a sewing machine and make a project of it, since I've discovered that some of our sails also need to be trimmed to size to work with the furler.

Dogs and boat therapy!

Sailors
Originally uploaded by slampoud

I am so lucky that my dog understands the concept of boat therapy!

Dan and I started acclimatizing Huckleberry (who is 5 months old at the moment) to the boat gradually, a few weekends ago. On the first time there we only walked the docks, tried on his lifejacket for a while, and took him on and off the boat by lifting him. The second time around we went for a sail, and held him a lot, so he could sleep while we were sailing (isn't that a great picture?!). Today there was a fierce Santa Ana wind blowing and I was alone, so we didn't go out, but we did spend the whole day on the boat. This time he got on and off the boat all on his own, met other boat dogs, and generally got comfortable, chewing his bone on the foredeck.

I got lots of little chores done, myself. I uninstalled the v-berth lights, and threw them away. The plastic was melted from, presumably, bulbs that got too hot. I also realized the inside power is on all the time -- no battery switch. I'm lucky something sparked and I realized I was working on a live circuit before I burned myself. I also ascertained that the main cabin fluorescent bulbs are all good. That means the reason the starboard ones won't turn on is that that circuit is messed up. I had brought a multimeter but -- Murphy's Law -- its five year old batteries had died, so I couldn't do any diagnosing. I charged the battery, then I used my new Mastmate to climb halfway up the mast and drop down the spinnaker pole topping lift. I came up with a way to sky that and the spinnaker halyard, and that situation is now ready to roll. All we need is spin sheets and we can RUN!

Back home, I'm almost done with building the 2x2' v-berth insert. Next up, make a cushion for it, and the v-berth will be complete!

More TODO's:
* replace mid-mast running light, connect wiring for it.
* install fuel hose thru-deck fitting
* install rubstrakes for new cam-cleats
* diagnose stbd electrical circuit