First Single Handed Sail

 

Ayala's bowsprit - the pole sticking out the front

Finally! Things are in sufficiently good condition to go sailing again. "All" that was left was to clean up all the loose items on the boat that would shift about or fall overboard if the boat were to heel under way. All told, that took about three hours and a lot of stuff got stuffed (if you know what I mean.) I have a couple of containers of items that are related only in that they happened to be lying around when I wanted to go sailing. They will get more appropriately sorted - someday.

I backed out of my slip a little after 2 PM. My plan for departing just didn't quite come together as expected. When Ayala backs up, her stern "walks" to port (left). That means that her bow swings to starboard (right). I have this long appendage known as a bowsprit on the front of the boat (see picture.) It seemed intent on dragging itself along the side of my neighbor's cabin. Prompt intervention with a boat hook prevented any damage but Ayala seemed to have a mind of her own about which way to turn once clear of the slip. I spent about five minutes going backward and forward in short burst doing my best to get Ayala headed the right direction. It finally all came together and we escaped the marina without damage.

Sail plan for a cutter rig

Once out on the water, the conditions were nearly ideal for a first trip out as a single hander. The wind was about five knots (six mph) with minor excursions above and below that velocity. Ayala is stable enough that keeping her on course and getting the sails up was a piece of cake.

Ayala is a cutter rigged sailboat. As you can see in the diagram to the left, there are two sails in front of the mast. The one farthest to the right is the jib. The next one back is the staysail (pronounced stays'l). Getting the two sails deployed is especially easy on Ayala since the jib and staysail are roller furling sails, i.e. they wind up around their respective stays rather like a window blind turned on its end.

Even with the light breezes, Ayala moved along quite nicely - a pleasant surprise since she is almost 5000 lbs. heavier than Laelia. I started tacking my way out the Alameda Estuary toward San Francisco Bay. There was another boat about the same size, crewed by a man and woman, headed the same direction. Naturally, I was doing my best to stay ahead of her. We seemed to be on opposite tacks most of the time. After the second occasion of crossing paths with less than 20 feet between us, the woman shouted across "What a beautiful boat!" Always nice to hear!

Finally, it was time to turn around and head back. I was not wanting to stay out into the sunset - it gets chilly very quickly as the sun gets down to the horizon.

Lazing along downwind

Down wind, Ayala continued to move along very nicely on very little wind and against the last of an outgoing tide. Sailing downwind, it feels almost like there is no wind. This being a bright, sunny day, it was comfortably warm in the cockpit leaving me enough time to take a picture of the rat's nest of lines (ropes) lying around. I have to do something to get all those lines organized! It is too easy to get them tangled or to trip on them.

I turned on the autopilot to steer Ayala while I started dropping the main. The autopilot very obligingly steered the boat for most of the time until the main was nearly down. Then it quit. There appears to be a loose connection somewhere and it wasn't getting data from the compass to tell it if it was on the right course. Another project!

Getting back into the slip turned out to be fairly easy although not quite as graceful as I would wish. No damage. No scars. I call that a successful outing!

After getting the sail cover back on, I pulled all of the stashed items out of their temporary living quarters. Even after they were all recovered, the interior looked the neatest it has looked since I moved aboard. I hereby resolve to keep it this way. No more scattering things about willy-nilly! Neat is nice.

I am going to try to come up with a schedule that has me doing one inside project (something below decks) and one outside project and then I go sailing. It lifts my spirits immensely!

Cash is simple?

One might expect that cash transactions are quick and easy. Not always!

Earlier this week, I received the final payment for the boat I just sold - in cash. 186 brand new looking 100 dollar bills. It being MLK day, the bank was closed so I took them all back to the boat and hid them away in what I hoped was an inconspicuous spot.

A couple of days later, I rode my trusty bike to the bank hoping that I wouldn't get robbed or get hit by a car or fall down and have cash flying all over the street. I made it - no problem.

I walked into my bank and laid the cash on the counter. The teller's eyes got big. "How much is there?"

I told her. She looked flustered and excused herself to speak to her supervisor. When she came back, she explained that this was going to take a while. There is special paperwork to be done for transactions over $10,000.

But, before we even got to the paperwork, she had to count it - very carefully. Then she had to go back through it and mark each bill with a special pen. The ink shows up brown on a genuine bill, black on regular paper.

All was in order at that point, so she started in on the paperwork. I had to present identification, SSN, and sign a receipt. Then I had to wait another 5 - 10 minutes while they did something online and got a response back.

All in all, the transaction took almost half an hour. A check would have been way simpler.

Then I got to thinking...

What if some of the bills had been counterfeit? Maybe the boat buyer would make it good - maybe not.

What if someone came in to rob the bank just as I laid the money on the counter. Would the bank make good? I doubt it.

Cash is simple? I don't think so. I will think at least twice before I do any more large cash transactions.

Getting properly shafted

Diagram of stuffing box and stern tube

Inquiring minds will want to know how the engine inside the boat can turn a propeller outside the boat when the propeller is under water and we don't want the water to come into the boat. In the tidy little diagram at the right you will see the answer.

Stuff to cut up to make stuffing rings

In this diagram, the engine is to the right. The propeller shaft is hooked to the engine and passes through the stuffing box and the stern tube to the propeller at the left. It is basically a shaft passing through a tube stuck the hull of the boat. Now for the tricky part - making the arrangement leak proof. It is rather difficult to make the stern tube bearing snug enough to keep water out without having it so tight that it causes excess friction which causes heat which causes the whole thing to weld itself into a lump that will no longer make the propeller turn. The solution is to make the stern tube bearing loose enough to let some water get past it and help cool it.

The pieces labelled "Packing Gland" and "Packing Rings" are the secret to keeping water out of the boat. The rings are simply thick string - about 1/4" in diameter - often flax, heavily impregnated with a slippery lubricant. A ring is a length of string cut to just the right length to go around the propeller shaft. Stuff several layers of these into the shaft and then compress them using the stuffing gland and voila! we have an arrangement that doesn't leak - much. Normally, when the propeller shaft is turning, about one drop of water per minute will work its way past all the packing and drip into the boat. This helps keep the packing rings cool. One drip per minute is easily handled by any competent bilge pump. As time goes on, the packing rings get compressed and the boat maintenance guy has to adjust the packing gland to keep the proper amount of pressure on them to stem the flow of water.

The grim reality of the stuffing box environment

So much for the theory part of this post. The reality is pictured at the right. When you compare this picture to the diagram, please note that in the picture the engine is to the left and the propeller to the right.

When I bought Ayala, her stuffing box was dripping about once per second. A quick look at the stuffing gland told me that the gland was adjusted as far in as it could go. Either there were no packing rings or they had been compressed so much that they were no longer effective.

Now, it seemed to me that pulling the packing gland out of the stuffing box while the boat was in the water might be a dicey kind of proposition. Once the rings are pulled out, what is to keep the ocean from coming in? I consulted with my friendly local boatyard and was told that the water would not come in fast enough to sink my boat as long as I had my work well organized.

Before pulling the stuffing gland out of the stuffing box, I made several new stuffing rings and laid them where I could get to them easily. I elected not to dig around and remove what was left of the old rings. This being the first time doing this job, I didn't want to take the risk that I might do something wrong and end up with an embarrassing amount of water in the boat. I will repack the stuffing box next time I have the boat out of the water to have the bottom cleaned - in about a year.

Of course, since this whole assembly resides in a low part of the boat, it is somewhat greasy and dirty with some minor corrosion in evidence. In fact, it is so low, that it is below the floor boards in the compartment under the cockpit. Working on the stuffing box means crawling into a fairly small compartment, kneeling and putting my forehead on a big black tube for support and reaching down into the depths of the bilge with both hands.

Getting the nuts off the studs sticking out of the stuffing gland was a slow process. I could only turn the nuts about 1/6 of a turn before I had to reposition the wrench. Once the nuts were off, the packing gland refused to cooperate by sliding out of the stuffing box. Half an hour of applying PB Blaster (penetrating lubricant that also dissolves rust), tapping on the gland with a hammer and using a cold chisel as a wedge between the stuffing gland and the stuffing box persuaded the stuffing gland to let go and slide up the propeller shaft toward the engine.

I was gratified to see that the water was coming in at no more than a steady trickle. It was enough to cause the bilge pump to come on for a few seconds about every thirty seconds. Pushing the new stuffing rings into place was relatively easy. I slid the stuffing gland back into place and seated it with a few taps of a hammer before tightening down the nuts that held it in place.

Now the book says to start the engine and put it in gear so the propeller is turning. Observe the stuffing gland and see how fast the water is coming in. If it is more than one or two drips per minute, tighten the nuts so the packing gland compresses the stuffing rings a bit more. Then let the engine run for about five minutes and feel around the stuffing box. If it is hot, the stuffing is too tightly compressed.

At the end of the five minute test, all was well. Only two drops of water were observed and the stuffing box was only slightly warm to the touch. All that was left was to clean up.



Rat's nest of wiring dangling perilously close to the steering cables

Did I say "all that was left?" The observant reader will have noted from the second picture and the one to the right that this space, located under the cockpit, is pretty grubby looking. Also, the picture at the right shows a rat's nest of wiring with some of the wiring dangling close to the steering cables at the upper right. It is conceivable that when Ayala starts rolling and pitching in a rough sea, these wires could end up getting tangled in the steering mechanism. Not a pleasant thought.

It was another hour's work to scrub down the enclosure then reroute wires and use wire ties to secure them where they won't cause mischief.

With all that done, I have completed the last major task I need to do before I go out day sailing on the San Francisco Bay. Hopefully, the next post will contain a description of such an event!

Progress

This is the starting point

I have found that when I have a job to do on a boat, it usually includes a string of "... before I can start this, I have to do that ..." connections. After going through one of these exercises, I was down to the top two things that I needed to do to be able to move on. Today's winner was to remove the air conditioning unit from the boat. The other job was to put new stuffing in the propeller shaft stuffing block but, today being Saturday, there were a string of interesting radio programs on KQED and I figured I would miss the smallest segments by doing the air conditioning job.

Why would I want to remove the air conditioning? The biggest is that I will probably never use it. To use it, I would have to be in a slip with shore power available. I hope that my future life aboard will include very little of that once I am clear of SF Bay. The other is that it is heavy and it sits well to starboard in the boat. Ayala has a more or less permanent two degree list (tilt) to starboard that I would like to eliminate. Most of it is due to the 60 gallon fuel tank that lives under the starboard settee. That's a little over 400 lbs. of off-center weight that is not balanced by anything on the other side of the boat. Someday I will remove that tank.


Got all the big pieces out. Lots of room!

But I digress. The final reason for removing the air conditioning unit is that it takes up over half of the space in a large storage locker. Storage space is too dear on a sailboat to give it away to something as useless as an air conditioner that I won't use.

With all that in mind, I plunged into the fray. As you can see from the top photo, the beast is tightly crammed into its enclosure. It was a matter of starting at the edges and working toward the center. First the control panel, then some of the connections inside the cabinet. Finally, I had it down to no more than the compressor and the big squirrel cage blower. With everything bolted together, the unit was to wide to make it out the door. I finally figured out that the hole you can see just below the blue/gray hose that is hanging off the left side of the cabinet was the way to access the blower motor and get it loose from the rest of the unit. Still, it took another hour and a half of wrestling with everything to get the unit out of the cabinet.



Compressor and blower sitting on deck

As you can see, there is still a lot of clean up to do - dirt and mold abound in the area that used be buried by the machinery.

I now have the biggest parts sitting out on deck. I have advertised on Craig's list for someone to come pick it up for free. It might even be operational.

So - after some clean up tomorrow, on to the next project. Stuffing the stuffing gland. More later...


Update

For those who are waiting breathlessly for an update on the fresh water system problem:

Water tank in the bilge. Aft is to the left.

According to the boat specs, the original tank was 100 gallons. This appears to be a replacement tank - fiberglass over plywood - and probably doesn't hold quite as much. I finally figured out that the fresh water tank is divided into two tanks. In the picture to the right, you can see the large tube with a tee in it going to each tank. There is a smaller tube in each tank that is in the line with the red handled valves. Those are the intakes for the fresh water pump. For some reason, when they are both turned on, the system seems to suck a lot of air. I tried turning off the valve to the aft portion (to the left in the picture) of the tank and things went well for several days. Yesterday evening, the problem reappeared - the pump would not shut off after use. I turned off the valve to the forward half of the tank and opened the one to the aft portion. So far, all is well.

I hit a slump - got mildly depressed and had a hard time staying focused on getting work done. Some variety surfaced in the form of a dinner with the Wednesday Night Dinner guys at Macaroni Grill in Milpitas. It is always interesting to catch up with these friends I first met in 1977 when I arrived in Silicon Valley.

I rented a car to get to the dinner and kept the car for another day so I could drive down to Santa Clara to meet with one of my former co-workers from Agilent, visit the much updated marina at Westpoint Harbor where I used to live aboard on Laelia and had dinner at the Sequoia Yacht Club. Dinner at the club was quite interesting. I was accidentally included in a group of people who had been out doing a lot of sailing in the South Pacific and backpacking in Ecuador.

All this reminded me that I need to arrange things to have a little more variety in my life. In the months before I moved aboard Ayala, I discovered that regular exercise did a lot to improve my mood and give me energy. I was going to the gym three times a week for a workout and an extended swim. I got to where I could swim for 30 minutes without stopping and I felt great afterward. Yesterday, I finally made it to the gym for the first time in a month. I had to stop swimming at the 20 minute mark but I feel so much better today! Gotta keep up the workouts! It is a bit tricky because the gym is about a 15 minute bike ride and I don't want to be out pedaling around in the dark. That means taking a 3 hour chunk out of the middle of the day - but it is important so I will be working on doing that.


Starboard settee with way too much stuff

Ayala has lots of things that need fixing up but she is certainly in good enough condition to do some SF Bay sailing. I just need to clean up some of the clutter and make sure that things won't bang around too much. My focus for the next few days will be to get things in shape to go sailing.


Port settee and dinette. Better but needs work.

I got started on my fixup agenda by doing a good deck washdown today. Alameda is not the cleanest place to keep a boat to begin with and the SF Bay area has been experiencing a string of "Spare the Air" days - too much pollution in the air. There was an unsightly amount of green fungus starting to appear in areas on deck so the washdown resulted in a significant appearance upgrade.

Now - start sorting through the cabin clutter. What to I need to keep here to be able to work on the boat? What can I put in storage or get rid of? Hopefully, by the next time Judy comes to the boat, we will be able to go sailing instead of working on cleaning and fixing the boat.

The Joys of Buying an Old Boat

Wiring rats nest under cockpit - one of several

My previous boat was the same age as Ayala. I sorta knew what I was getting into when I took on another 35 year old boat. There would be layers of wiring done by different owners and boatyard workers who just wanted to get something working and weren't particularly concerned with doing it neatly. Sure enough, there are several rats nests of wiring, battery posts and switch terminals with lots of wires attached instead of run to buss bars or terminal strips.

To add to that there are mysterious hoses that run from one place to another. A few dead end without being connected to a thru-hull fitting or a sink drain or anything else that makes sense. Fine! Yank it out. But there is also a puzzling amount of plumbing having to do with the head (toilet to you landlubbers). I am hesitant to do anything to it until I am sure I am not going to have raw sewage discharging into the bilge. It is not fun to clean up and the odor lingers – and lingers. There are valves to direct sewage to the holding tank or, when I am well away from land, directing it overboard. There are more valves for the backup bilge pump located under the cabin sole (floor boards). The pump can pump water from the bilge in the unfortunate case where there is water in the bilge and the electric pump cannot handle it. This pump can be switched to pump the holding tank overboard when I am offshore and there is no pump out facility available. In the case of pumping sewage overboard, we are talking about being at least 25 miles offshore.

The fresh water system has a mysterious ailment. First – some explanation about how a fresh water system works on a boat. Since it is often not hooked up to the city water system, fresh water is stored in one or more tanks on the boat. To get the water from the tank to a tap, something has to supply some pressure. That “something” is a small electric pump containing a switch that senses water pressure. When I first put water in the tanks, I turn on the pump and it pumps water into the tubing on the boat that takes water to the taps and the shower. Since they are closed, the system soon builds up pressure and the pump turns off. When I open a tap to get some water, some water flows out and causes pressure in the plumbing to drop and the pump comes on. When I close the tap, the pressure builds up and the pump turns itself off.

When I first moved aboard, the pump supplied pressure as it should but it would not shut off when I closed the tap. Last week, I replaced the pump. That seemed to fix the problem – for a while. Now, sometimes it shuts off properly, sometimes it keeps on running. If I open the tap for a few seconds more, water comes out but at very low pressure – or not at all. The pump sounds like no water is coming in to it – as if the water tank were empty. But I know the tanks isn't empty – I just filled it. After 10 to 30 seconds, the pump starts sounding like it is getting water again, the pressure builds up and when I turn off the tap, the pump stops running. My current theory is that grindylows live in the water tank and are hoping to drive me mad or trick me into opening up the tank so they can pull me in and drown me. (Don't know what a grindylow is? Read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.)

Looking down at the water tank in the bilge

Today, the water system problem got to the top of the to-do list. Not only does it have the problem with not shutting off properly, it leaks badly around the shower valves. The water tank lives in the bilge (basement) so I started by pulling up most of the removable sections of the cabin sole. That leaves the cabin looking a lot like the picture at right (taken looking down into the bilge) except that I also had tools scattered around the edges and stuff sitting on the benches that I haven't found homes for yet. In short, the cabin was a humongous mess!

The tank should have one hose running into it to fill it, one running out so I can get the water out and one to allow air to leave as the tank fills and re-enter as water is taken out. As you can see from the picture, the way it oughtta be is not quite the way it is.

Manual bilge pump and mysterious filter (top center/right)

I started following hoses. What is this? In the second picture, toward the top you can see a black hose curling around. It runs into a thing-a-majig that looks like it might be a strainer to keep dirt in the tank from getting out where I might drink it. I pulled out the filter element. Disgusting! It was covered in slimy green stuff. I cleaned it and started to put it back together and realized that there was only one hose attached to the filter. Hmmm.

After some head scratching and tracing the hose run more carefully, I realized that it had nothing to do with the fresh water system. It was part of the system that supplies cooling water to the air conditioning.

Air conditioning compressor

“Air conditioning!” you say in amazement. Yes, Ayala

used to have air conditioning. A couple of owners back in her history, Ayala (under a different name) was based in South Texas on the Gulf of Mexico for some years – an area well known for its hot, humid summers. The former owners apparently disliked sweating, usually tied up at marinas at night and apparently had money to burn. The air conditioning unit (shown at right) doesn't work now and I have neither the money nor the desire to have it fixed. It also takes up most of a highly desirable storage area.

I removed the newly discovered filter and the attached sea water pump and the rest of the plumbing that lead up to the air conditioning unit.

Seeing that I was not going to get to the bottom of the problem of the run-on pump before dark, I thought I would take a quick look at the leaky shower faucets and come back to the original problem tomorrow. I needed to have the boat a bit more straightened up before I would be able to cook dinner. Additionally, I don't like to leave the cabin in a condition that might cause me to fall into the bilge when I get up during the night to drain my bladder.

The leaky shower faucets

I tightened a few things here and there – but the quick fix did not work. It still leaks. I started tracing the plumbing to see if there was a shut-off valve. I want to pull the faucets apart to see if they need new pieces or if I have to replace them. In the process of (futilely) searching for the shutoff, I discovered that the valves that decide whether the head pumps overboard or into the holding tank are frozen. They are old and will most likely have to be replaced. The valves that select whether the manual bilge pump (the big round thing at right) pump out bilge water or holding tank contents are also frozen – and the pump itself doesn't work. Try as I might, I cannot budge the pump handle.

OK! Enough already. Time to put everything away. Make a big pot of spaghetti with Puttanesca sauce and wash it down with at least one glass of wine. All of this will be waiting for me tomorrow. I am hoping that answers will come to me in a dream tonight – and that I will remember the answers.

Buying an old boat can be a way to have a high quality boat at an affordable price. It can also be the gateway to a myriad of headaches. But the process of fixing the problems both gives me better knowledge of the boat and gives me a sense of truly owning the boat.

Ayala is a beautiful boat. It gives me great satisfaction to also be part of making her a smooth running, save boat. Fortunately, I take a perverse sort of enjoyment out of tracking down these problems and fixing them. I sense a lot of “enjoyment” in my future.