Installing Windvane Self Steering Gear Part 3 - 187

Note: If you have been referred here by another site, this is only part of a multipart series.  To see the rest of the story click here and start from the bottom.

A hole in my Boat

The picture above is what I had to do to install my self steering gear.  Any windvane gear you install entails drilling holes in your vessel.  Drilling the hole was relatively easy.  Figuring out where to drill the hole should be approached with fear and trembling.  I am extremely lucky that Yves wanted to come out to my boat to measure it for his gear.  This was important in two ways:

1. The cape horn gear has many configurations.  I was thinking of a much more complex way than what Yves suggested when he came to my boat.  

2. The time spend measuring the boat for the equipment probably cut my time in half when it came time to install the equipment.

I realize that bringing your boat to Yves, or flying Yves out to your boat is probably not something that is economically feasible, although it is something that Yves will do and the people who do have Yves come out rave about how great a job he does.   It is VERY IMPORTANT to realize that prep time spent now in the initial pre build stages define how everything from here out is going to go.  Installing the vane is actually easy.  Deciding how the vane is going to mount, and where is the hardest part of getting a windvane on your boat.  Slow down, take pictures of your stern, stern lazarette, and rudder and send them to Yves.  Send emails back and forth.  Make drawings with measurements.  Make mock up models out of cardboard shipping tubes.  Do whatever it takes to have a rock solid idea of how the windvane is going to mount and what it is going to take to put it on.  Do this and the job will go easy.  Yves will be patient and encouraging.  You will feel like he wants nothing more than for you to have the best working windvane in the world.  Which he does.  Next up: The windvane arrives.   

Catch up with Precipice Here

Installing Windvane Self Steering Gear Part 2 - 185

Note: If you have been referred here by another site, this is only part of a multipart series.  To see the rest of the story click here and start from the bottom.

Montreal is a pretty city as far as cities go.

In an earlier post I talked about why I decided to trust Yves Gelines.  Once I made that decision, I needed to verify if Yves was full of crap or not.  Fortunately, I was also trying to nail down my route around the Great Lakes and further.  Yves builds the Cape Horn windvane in Oka, Quebec.  Oka is in the backyard of Montreal, which is right on the St. Lawrence seaway route out of the Great Lakes.  So the main thing that pushed me over the edge between taking the Erie Canal out of the Great Lakes or the St. Lawrence seaway was I could visit Yves.  Why not?  When I got near Montreal I called Cape Horn and they happily agreed to pick me up from the train station near Oka.  The embarrassing part of all this is when Yves came to pick me up, I didn't recognize him immediately.  He was very gracious and took me to their factory.  What I found was a minuscule machine shop dedicated to building one product.  Everything was neat and orderly, and everything was geared toward quality.  In talking to Yves it became apparent to me that he and his company are dedicated to taking care of the customer, and building a quality vane.  I put my hand on the actual product, looked at the windvane installed on his boat, inspected the welds on vanes in progress (beautiful work) and put my eyes on the operation.  After 20 years of working in the automotive field and visiting shops all over the continent, I have gotten pretty good at sizing up what is a poorly run low quality and what is top notch.  Yves is upper level.  The next thing that happened was probably the most important.  Yves offered to drive the 45 minutes to my boat and measure it himself.  

Catch up with Precipice Here

Installing Windvane Self Steering Gear Part 1 - 182

Note: If you have been referred here by another site, this is only the first part of a multipart series.  To see the rest of the story click here and start from the bottom.

 I spent about ten years researching the windvane question.  Next to choosing the boat, choosing a windvane was the the most confusing and time consuming part of the cruising equipment equation.  The difficulty of choice was similar to the difficulty of choosing a boat in that windvanes are all equally praised by their owners.  Like a boat, each windvane on the market does it's job.  Like a boat, each windvane has strengths and weaknesses.  Like a boat, everybody that owns one thinks it is the best one made.  Like a boat, windvane owners have little experience with other styles of windvanes.   Very few boats in the Great Lakes have windvanes, as in I might see one boat a year with a windvane.  I did a lot of reading.  I purchased books about windvanes. I purchased plans to build windvanes.  I tinkered around with sheet to tiller rigging. None of the things I did ever satisfactorily answered the questions I had in my mind about windvanes.  In the end, just like the boat, I decided that I was going to have to trust a person.  With my choice of boat, I ended up going with Lynn and Larry Pardey  (which makes many a sailor roll their eyes, but usually the ones who aren't actually out cruising).  With my windvane decision I decided to go with Yves Gelines.  

Catch up with Precipice Here

Newfoundland - 181

We have been at this trip now for half a year.    This is our home in Quidi Vidi, Newfoundland.  The is about 3100 miles of sailing from where we started.  We will winter here, living in the boat and preparing for the next season.  The girls are being home schooled by Deb.  Follow our continuing adventures here.

Nova Scotia - 116

. . .we entered the Northumerland Strait with 35 knot winds under storm sails. We left on a gentle downwind run through a sailors paradise. . . .

We have updated pictures here

. . . . makes running the boat aground, being scared by whales, and three days of beating to windward to get to Prince Edward Island . . . .

A Kid Boat is discovered . . .76

A kid boat is discovered.

The girls plan their escape

before the anchor is even down.

They swim over to the other boat . . .

A Plot is Hatched - 64

A Plot is hatched. It is discovered that Jannelle's triple insulated foil lunch box is . . . .

Click Here

The head - 63

I built the head where the stove used to be. It is designed to hold three 2.5 gallon buckets. I built it to use the "Wag Bag" system ( http://www.thepett.com/ ) while we are in port or anywhere in the great lakes. They consist of a biodegradable bag filled with "poo powder". The system works well and doesn't require a bunch of nasty chemicals, a holding tank, hoses, clogs, or any of the other drawbacks. The system seals up into a bag that you throw away just like a diaper. When we are further than three miles out at sea we will go into "bucket and chuck it" mode. The head also has a basin at the feet portion with a drain that will allow us to use it as a sitting shower. So fat we have been happy with the design. I got the ideas for it from Lynn and Larry Pardey. They have a sitting tub where our engine is. First I built a platform
Using marine plywood I built the frame, and bed it in with 3M 4200
I framed it out using T+G teak purchased off of ebay.
I then used a padded toilet seat built so that when the cover is closed it is a compressed seal.

There are actually two hinges, one that opens the entire cover and one for the seat.

The Journey has begun - 53

Our journey has finally begun ten years after the dream was hatched and five years after the date was set.

Our website is finally live: www.svprecipice.com

Rachael is blogging at: www.sailorrn.blogspot.com

You can track us in real time at: http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?&glId=0TFhj0tOoh7Q7FIbfJkeZKuFCsr2Be95i (and keep in mind this system goes down without warning.)

I will keep posting to this blog, but the real meat will shift to our website.

Getting the Bottom Done - 13

A wood boat of this size has some half mile of seams between the boards. All of the seams were scraped out, primed, repayed, and painted. This took about 160 man hours of work. I wanted to go down to wood below the waterline to find if there was any hidden rot and I found none. This made me very happy, and is a tribute to the quality construction of this vessel.

Portland Pudgy Part 1 - 26/63

Note: If you got here by another web site or referral, this is only the first part of a series.  See the entire series.  Click here and start from the bottom.

I ordered the Portland Pudgy to serve as a tender/lifeboat for Precipice. I originally was going to build a dingy myself, but found this while searching for plans.

The website:http://www.portlandpudgy.com

I will let you know later how quick it shipped, initial build quality, how it works, and give you a six month quality report.

The pathetic kitchen sink - 54/91

Precipice came with a really pathetic galley. You couln't stand in front of the sink or the stove. A better place for the diesel heater I thought. Still, it is always a little unsettling to take a sawsall to something that is presently working, no matter how poorly. This little project seemed from the outset to be a simple task. It ended up taking a good part of the winter in stops and starts. I ended up running two separate fuel supplies to the heater, one gravity and one pumped so that the heater will work no matter what direction the boat is heeled. The carbeurator had to be repaced, and so did the water heating coil. In the end though, the heater was blessed more than the pope on those cold days working on the galley.

What a Winter - 55/92

Last winter I ripped out most of the interior of our boat and put enough of it back together for the summer so that we could sail. This winter I have been putting in a double bunk up front, finishing the galley, and re-rigging the vessel. This winter was cold. One of the most important things I did this winter was install a diesel heater. The heater worked great until the temperature got below 10 degrees (12c) and the diesel fuel turned into a nice jelly. Then it wasn't so fun. Progress has been made though, and the boat should be ready in time.

United States Maritime Academy - 206

I have been taking classes to get my Coast Guard captains licence. This is an intensive process that includes drug testing (I passed) a physical (still have to do visual and hearing), documenting your sea time (minimum of 360 days) attending 80 hours of class, getting a CPR licence and passing examinations. Oh, and 1200.00 for the class not including gas, testing, and physical. I figure that I will have 2 grand wrapped up in this by the time I am done. The closest USMA class is in Chicago, a 4 hour drive for me. Two to three times a week. So yes, I have once again proved that I am completely insane. There are closer classes, but not in the format USMA teaches with quality instructors, at least not that I could find with a 2 hour web search. I feel that this organization is worth the drive and the extra hassle. So far they have been excellent, and the rest of the class is quality, which also says much about the organization. You can have the best instructors in the world, but if the students they attract are fencepost IQ you yourself will not learn much, and believe me I speak from 20 years experience in the automotive field. What can I do with this licence? Captain a ferry, dive boat, charter boat, deliver a boat, charge people for a trip on my boat, teach a captain's class, and have that nice warm glow inside knowing that I accomplished something that others wont because they think I am crazy while they change the channel with the remote control.

Labor Day - 214

About 80% of our house church likes to sail. Unfortunately, 20% of them get really really sick. This is a higher percentage of sailors than other groups we have taken sailing with us. It was a great weekend. We had reserved a campground in White Lake for the weekend, but we never used it. People just camped out on deck, slinging hammocks and using sleeping bags.

Lunch time with Carrie and Dan, John and Faith. We are probably making 2kts. here. Nice for eating. I think Carrie said at least 15 times, "Did I say thank you for taking us sailing?".

John "the fish" proving that you can climb the mast using the hoops. Sorry girls, he just got married.

This lamprey decided Precipice was a giant fish and tried to suck it's blood. Pretty scary creature, like some kind of alien seeking to take over the ship. I think we took more pictures of him than anything else. I eventually got him to move on with an oar, but it wasn't easy and when he let loose he went right for me, bounced off and kept going. Feisty little guy. Good grip to.

Looking under Precipice's skirt.

Fifth Third River Bank Run - 216

This is an actual picture of me running the 5/3 River Bank Run - a 25K race. Apparently I wasn't as fast as the camera expected me to be. I finished in 2:32.

South Manitou Lighthouse - 221

Top 10 reasons not to tease your daughter about throwing her over the rail of a lighthouse:
10. You might be categorized with Michael Jackson.
9. Your daughter might have FIA on speed dial and reception is great up there.
8. You were told not to by the park ranger at the bottom before you went up.
7. The park ranger does not have your sense of humor.
6. The park ranger will kick everyone off the lighthouse if he catches you.
5. The other people on the lighthouse will not like it when their time is cut short.
4. The park ranger is in better shape than you, he rides his bike 12 miles a day.
3. The park ranger has been putting up with people like you all summer
2. The park ranger lives on an isolated island and knows where to hide your body.
1. The park ranger carries a bigger gun than you do.

(Not that this ever happened)

Bad Weather - 222

One of the things I often get asked about is bad weather. We have had our share of it through the years, sometimes we even have deliberately gone out in bad weather to practice bad weather tactics or man overboard drills. We don't usually take pictures during bad weather because we are busy with all the added workload that reefing, sail changes or looking for things going wrong. We are also working extra hard navigating, even when we use the GPS (this is getting to be more and more rare) it takes more to make sure you are where you think you are in a thunderstorm. We have had it only once where the boat was knocked down, and I will tell that story if someone asks for it in the comment section. Have a great start of the week!

4 - Baie Fine - 224

Following the advice of the guidebook sailor, we rowed up a creek and then hiked about a mile up a trail and found a waterfall slide. Bonus, if you don't mind sliding on slime.

This is an honest to goodness beaver dam.
The backwaters of the beaver dam with the house in the center.

About five miles up the trail is cave lake. About here the mosquitoes attacked in full force, we were prepared with DEET.

Precipice in the pool.

Deb standing on the top of the beaver dam. These were excellently engineered. They were curved just like hoover dam for strength and packed with mud.

Rowing up the creek.

I am sure that there is a video game that could almost approximate the experience of this slide.