And Here We Go!

Today is Monday, October 19th. This is the day before I leave for a winter of cruising down the east coast and to the Bahamas. Everyone here at the marina and all my landbound friends have been so incredibly wonderful and supportive of this trip.

This, of course, causes some conflicting feelings - How could I leave my incredible friends? How could I not, knowing how they support the journey?

I'll be leaving around 8:00 am tomorrow morning to catch high tide at Hell Gate, East River, New York. The last couple of days have been cold, miserable, rainy, and windy. This morning there was a layer of ice on the dock! I'm getting out of here not a moment too soon!

My first stop is Staten Island, NY where I'll be staying at the Great Kills Yacht Club in Great Kills Harbor on the south east side of the island. Although the entire trip will only be about eight or nine hours it will be, I hope, a bit of a shakedown of the new stuff like the shaft driven generator (if it works, there will be a post about it next) and the Monitor Windvane steering system that has been rigged for the trip.

The other day while I was stocking up at BJ's, I found a Panasonic SDR digital camcorder that's just a bit thicker than an iPhone and uses SDHC memory cards for about $199. There are higher definition units like the Flip Mino or Mino Ultra. They are small, easily downloaded but limited in how much video they store before you have to download them or erase things.

The Panasonic SDR-SW20, with standard NTSC video, has several great advantages - one, it's water resistant to 1.5 meters (almost 4 feet), it is dust resistant, it is shock resistant to drops up to 1.5 meters and finally, it uses SDHC cards that can carry up to 16GB of storage for about three hours of the highest quality video. For 8GB cards, about an hour and 40 minutes. At standard quality, it's much longer.

The fact that it's waterproof is a real plus because I can use it while sailing (expect some videos tomorrow - not great ones, but some nonetheless). Also, since it's hard to get a picture of rough weather that really looks like it feels, I hope to use it in situations where you shouldn't take a regular camera.

The other attribute that is important to me is the fact that I can change a card when full and continue recording without downloading. Although it may never happen that I need to, it is certainly a nice option.

This afternoon I'll be hosting a quiet wine and cheese party for friends at the marina - nothing terrific, just a little get-together. They won't be awake when I leave tomorrow so I'll just be slipping away into the morning...

Today is a wonderfully sunny day - with winds from the north at 10 to 20kts. If the boat isn't ready by now, it will never be. So today is pretty much a waiting day - I'll nap and straighten up things and so forth. After the little party I'll be heading off to bed. I'm so excited about leaving that I'm fairly shaking to get away!

In the grand scheme of sailing, this is a fairly calm adventure. I'm not rounding Cape Horn or even Cape of Good Hope. It's just that I'm going for a long distance (to me) and to new (to me) places and seeing new (to me) friends and visiting old friends.

If you'd like to follow me on Google Maps, I have a SPOT Personal Tracker. This little device has several functions that allow friends to see where you are. You can follow me by using this link http://tinyurl.com/WhereIsBobFine - kindly set up by my 424 buddy Pat. The real URL is ugly.

About the SPOT device: it is meant to be a personal safety device - not to replace an EPIRB that an oceangoing boat needs, but since it's based on the Globalstar satellite system, the coverage is pretty good everywhere except near the poles. I don't plan on going to either pole as I've heard they're really cold. Maybe in a few years after global warming takes effect. (I'm joking here - don't go all postal!)

Operating SPOT once set up and services purchased on the site is really simple - you can see from the picture that there are four buttons. The On/Off button is self-explanatory. We've all seen and used them. Of the other three, one is 'Ok' which if pressed for two seconds sends an email with a message that I'm Ok, and you can see where I am using a link to Google Maps. Holding the button for 4 or more seconds starts tracking so that every 10 minutes a position is marked on the map and you can follow it at the link above.

The next button is a personal 'help' button. This one sends a customized message that I'll follow up with later - essentially it's for when I'm stuck but don't really need the Coast Guard or Marines to get me. It will actually ask for lawyers, guns, and money - facetiously, perhaps, but I'm in a bind.

The last button is '911'. When you purchase the service, this bad boy will get the Globalstar monitoring station to call the authorities to help you - obviously, on the water, it will be the Coast Guard or the Navy or the Marines. On land, the police or rescue people. You press this button, you'd better need serious help or you'll be paying for the efforts. Fortunately, the button is recessed and you need to hold it for 10 seconds or so. There is no 'test' function. You press it, you're going to be visited by some highly trained and very serious people. Perhaps they'll even be heavily armed.

I'm also maintaining a maillist that I'll post to (and my 'Ok' and 'Help' messages go to). All you have to do is send an email from your account to sv_pelican-subscribe@finesoft.com - you don't need a subject or message as they're ignored. Then you'll join the 10's of people following me!

Well, that's about it for today. I hope to see you on the water!

Finishing Projects - Holding Tank & Macerator

Here's the thing - as humans we're mostly interested in what goes into us and less so the other end of the process. This is certainly the case with me, so when I started the holding tank project a couple of years ago I stopped when the holding tank was installed and functional. But the design of the project was far more ambitious - it had to perform several functions and allow flexibility.

Here are the specifications:

• The head discharge has to be able to be switched overboard or to the holding tank.
• The holding tank needs to be well vented
• The holding tank has to be able to be emptied through a pumpout, through a macerator pump and finally, as a last resort, a manual pump.
• The pumps (manual and macerator) have to be able to take a suction from either the holding tank or the bilge satisfying the need for a manual bilge pump operable entirely from inside the closed up boat (SOLAS requirement).

So, with that said, the first thing I needed to do was put in a holding tank. Pelican didn't come with a holding tank - just an Electrasan. The Electrasan isn't very useful because it isn't legal in the U.S. and off shore you don't need it. In addition, it is a power hog using about 6 amps per flush. It really draws much more, but only operates for three minutes. True, you don't have to use it by just pumping through it added a lot more hose and wiring and took up valuable storage space.

Many people think that if you have a boat that's pre-MSD laws you don't have to upgrade to a legal system ever. That could not be more untrue. If you have a pre-MSD law boat without a holding tank and you change even one hose, you are required to upgrade to a legal system. So, adding an Electrasan constitutes an upgrade triggering the need for a fully legal system.

I purchased the new 30 gallon HDPE tank online from Plastic-mart.com - they had a standard one that fit in the lower bilge area. Tall and narrow and I asked them to spin-weld all the fittings I needed to one end - those being the inlet (1-1/2"), the suction (1-1/2" with a tube to the bottom), and two vents (1"). There is an excellent discussion by Peggie Hall on head and holding tank installation here: http://boatbuilding.com/article.php/MarineSanitationFactvsFolklore. Using her ideas and discussions and my nuclear reactor operations background I came up with system that would meet my needs.

Installing a holding tank is actually really simple. I added an 8" inspection port to the tank so that I could clean it if it really becomes necessary. I'm hoping never to do that, but hey, you never know. As you can see at the left, I've cut out the hole for the inspection plate. You can also see the tube that goes to the bottom for pump outs. When you order the tank, make sure they know its final orientation and that you need a bottom suction. I used the inspection plate as a pattern for the hole I cut.

You'll notice there are two 1" vent fittings on opposite corners. The more ventilation a holding tank has, the better. It is the anerobic bacteria that smell badly - the aerobic ones are the ones that actually break down sewage. That's why a sewage treatment plant aerates the sewage as part of the clean-up process. More often, holding tanks have insufficient ventilation in the form of one 5/8" vent.

The bilge behind the keel of Pelican is 5 1/2 feet deep from the cabin sole, about three feet below the top of the keel. I don't really need that much bilge space so I figured it was a great place for the tank. It's hard to show that here, but you can see there's a lot of volume down there. These two pictures show the bilge before the tank goes in and after it's mounted.

As an aside, the inspection plate from Seabuilt, Inc.
has been discussed before in another post. It is a sturdy, easy to install, and leak-proof system for installing inspection ports in almost anything -from fuel to water to holding tanks. They aren't for highly corrosive materials, but there are few of those aboard Pelican. The design is so elegant that I used it for putting an access plate in the base of the mizzen mast for wiring. It works like a champ.

Next, I plumbed in the tank as normal - vent hoses go to fittings on either side of the hull in as short a run as possible. Also, the hoses have no loops or sags. This is very important so that a water seal doesn't occur in them. The fittings are as high on the hull as possible below the bulwarks. There's nothing special about them except they're stainless steel. The deck pump-out fitting is installed on the starboard side because there's a closet I could run the hose through easily and many of the overboards are already there. You can see the 'Y' valve on top of the tank.

Once you get used to drilling or cutting holes in the hull, doing it in the deck is easy. I ordered a stainless steel waste fitting for the deck from Marine Parts Depot who I've used for all sorts of stainless fittings. The waste fitting doesn't need a key to open it. There's a lever built in so that you can leave the boat and the pump out person can do the job without searching for a key. When you cut a hole in the deck, though, where it's cored, make sure you seal the core with epoxy before installing the fitting.

I've installed a macerator pump and manual bilge pump in the same closet as the vent and pump out fitting. This looks really complicated but basically it allows you to use one pump at a time to either pump the bilge or pump the holding tank. For those of you thinking ahead, there is a check valve to prevent pumping the holding tank to the bilge. After seeing this all together I think I should have done it all with PVC pipe and PVC valves - it would have been a little less expensive, but far less leak prone. Someday, if it all goes wrong, that's the way I'll rebuild it. But for now, it doesn't leak, it doesn't smell, and it seems to work as planned. And what could be better than working as planned? I submit nothing!

Next up, water maker installation and shaft powered alternator.

I'm leaving to go south soon! I hope to meet you on the water!

When you're afraid it means you're about to have an adventure

A few weekends ago I was going out to meet my friends Laura and Cory at Duck Island Roads, a small island near Clinton, CT. The plan for me was to leave Friday afternoon, travel about 4 hours and then anchor for the night, continuing on Saturday morning.

Well, the normal weather pattern for the Long Island Sound is for storms to pass north or south following the coast of Connecticut or Long Island. Guess what? Not this night. There were severe thunderstorms north and as I travelled I noticed that they were travelling not from the southwest to the northeast but from the northwest to the southeast!

Pelican is a sturdy vessel, but her owner can sometimes be a little lax putting things away. Even in the Sound waves can become rather large and short. Still when things start flying is not the time to start putting them away.

Anyway, with the radar on, I watched the storm center catch up to me and then inexplicably match my speed. With winds steady at 30 knots and gusting higher the seas built to 4-5 feet on the beam quickly. Then came the rain. I've not seen rain like that in a long, long time. Within seconds it beat the seas flat. Amazing cloud-to-cloud lightning, too.

I called Laura and Cory who had decided to pull into New Haven's Morris Cove and wait for me. They suggested I try a bit of sail so I did! Just the staysail. With that alone and the wind on the beam I was going 7.5 knots! Woohoo! Really, a very wet woohoo at that.

Other than being noisy, Pelican was behaving in a most reassuring manner. It means to me that I made the right choice in her. More on that in another post, though.

Eventually the storms cleared as I entered New Haven and tied up to my friends. It was a late but deserved cocktail hour, for sure.

Although it was nervous-making, it was not fearful in any way, shape, or means. What is scary right now is knowing there's a deadline for my cruise to the Caribbean. And that's the next adventure I'm going to have!

See you out there on the water!

100 Days

It's mid July and the season here in the northeast, especially around Long Island Sound has been rather crappy - mostly rain and cool. Still, I've been working on Pelican - two current projects are installing the water maker and replacing the lifelines.

But the real issue now is that it's 100 days (plus or minus) before I leave for a long cruise to the Bahamas. That means no more fooling around. Ok, maybe a little fooling around. But not the massive, time consuming fooling around!

There are other projects that got done on the sly, as it were, where I just needed to get them done. One was replacing the emergency start battery and adding one to that bank - the original was a group 31 flooded cell battery that got cooked as all my systems are set for AGM batteries. I figured if one was good, two would be better and then realized that two wouldn't fit in the volume I wanted them in. So I made a shelf in one of the lazerettes and mounted one there.

Another project that just needed to get done was a new solar panel - no big deal but I replaced what I think was an old 80 watt panel with a 130 watt Kyocera panel and the difference was appreciable! In good sunlight the panel alone supplys 70% of the power required for the autopilot, instruments, and refrigerator. Not bad. And the panel is smaller than the old panel. Moreover, solar panels are as inexpensive as they're going to be for a while.

In getting a boat ready for offshore use there are safety issues that must be addressed. A great source of information is the International Convention for the Safety Of Life At Sea (SOLAS). In addition to many other pieces of maritime safety information, they have a checklist for getting a small yacht ready to go offshore. The checklist is provided to anyone preparing for a Marion or Newport to Bermuda race, and inspected for and enforced. It's no joke, and luck favors the prepared.

In any case, many of the items are good seamanship and common sense - all openings should be latched to prevent opening in a knockdown or rollover, for instance. You could look at the post on the new floorboard openings if you like to see how that's done.

Another issue that's important and often overlooked is lifelines. Most lifelines are vinyl covered stainless steel with swaged fittings. This is fine for new boats or boats that are not likely to see severe weather (most in marinas fit that description, sadly). But the SOLAS standard is bare stainless steel so that if there is corrosion at the ends or the middle it's obvious and repaired before someone falls through it, in theory.

Anyway, my lifelines were coated and there was apparent rust at the terminal ends so I thought I'd replace them. I have access to swaging machines and terminals and so forth, but I saw that Suncor Stainless makes SOLAS approved lifeline kits that are installable with simple tools. "Hey!" I thought, "That's for me!"




The kits come in four flavors - with and without gates and with or without coating on the wire. I chose 4 bare wire with gates kits. From West Marine with a Port Supply discount, they were $215 each. Pound for pound, they're about $30-$50 more expensive than having to purchase the fittings and doing it yourself. Still, they are several hundred dollars less than having a rigger do the job. Pictured at the left are the tools you need - I purchased the wire cutter since I needed it anyway as an emergency tool.
One item not shown is LocTite thread sealant. You need a little tube of it and I used the medium strength stuff 'cause you never know...

There's a specific order you put the lifelines together in - from the bow to the gate, from the stern to the gate, and then the gate. Before starting, however, make sure your stanchions are aligned properly, straight up and down, and if there are adjustable supports, make sure they're well attached. It will make your life easier in the long run. In the picture at the left I've installed the turnbuckle for the bow on the new spool of wire. The instructions are short but complete inasmuch as there are really only three moving parts, the collar, the wedges (three held by an o-ring) and a bronze washer. The only vague part is how tight to make it. They say in the instructions tight but not too tight. That will differ from person to person, I think.

Let's just say that I installed the line from the bow to the forward end of the gate and from the stern to the aft end of the gate, which is what you see here.

Note: This is important! Whenever a piece has adjustment, put it half-way before measuring and cutting the wire! Open turnbuckles 1/2 way. Unscrew pelican hooks halfway.

Anyway, the gate eyes screw onto studs and have lock nuts behind them, so I just installed the one end in the stanchion, took the left over piece of cable and mounted the pelican hook, hooked the hook and measured to the back end of the gate as you see to the left. I cut the wire and assembled the whole thing. The eyes are put on with the LocTite. That's the only place I used it.

Here's the gate eye completed. The first lifeline took me about an hour to install. The other three went in in about two hours. As it turns out, I didn't know the pelican hook was adjustable so I didn't unscrew it when I made my cable and it turned out too long - not a lot too long, but enough to droop and not give a great sense of security. After calling Suncor I found that you can reuse the fitting if you haven't damaged it by over-tightening. Otherwise, you need new wedges and bronze rings. No big deal.

Each set comes with 40' of cable. That should be good up to a 48-50' boat as I have about 6' left over from each line. The Suncor people are easy to deal with and are knowledgable and friendly. Highly recommended.

As I mentioned, the 100 day mark is here - so I'll be working tirelessly between sailing and partying to get the boat ready. The major safety equipment is in, with the life raft being the most recent expense - with recertification and a hydrostatic release, it's $1300...

Still, I'll see you on the water!

A Haul Out and Much More

The last month has been a whirlwind - a trip up the Hudson River to White's Marina in New Hamburg, NY, a trip to England, a haul out, return trip down the Hudson, Memorial Day weekend at Mystic, CT and finally just now flying to Savannah, GA to pick up a boat for a delivery to Connecticut.

There's no real wonder I didn't post earlier. But here goes.

I decided to bring Pelican to White's Marina for several reasons. The first is that they are extraordinarily nice people who are honest, hard working, and extremely fair. It's a rare marina these days that actually wants to help boaters - that take the boater's needs into account. That's not to say they give away the farm, but they are fair and that's all we really want.

The trip up the Hudson was with friends. We left Stamford, CT on a Friday afternoon with the idea that we'd get to City Island for dinner. Well, best laid plans and all that. About an hour out, the engine started to overheat requiring running slower and slower (what little wind there was was on the nose - big surprise there). So we arrived an hour later than we wanted. As it turned out because of traffic everyone else arrived an hour late too!

So, after a terrific meal at the City Island Yacht Club where the new steward is absolutely top notch, we all toddled off either home or to bed depending on where we came from.

The next morning, the plan was to go to the City Island Diner for whole wheat pancakes but as we had to make the tide through the East River and Hudson we took the time to replace the raw water pump. Guess what? That wasn't the problem; and this is key: If you've had zincs disappear in your raw water heat exchanger then there's a really good chance that the zinc oxide (the white stuff that falls off the zincs) is plugging the tubes. In fact, 3/4ths of my tubes were plugged with that white paste. Running a coat hanger through (gently) fixed the problem and we were good to go with a half hour to spare!

I'd like to say that the trip up the river to Haverstraw was magnificent with great sailing and beautiful scenery. But it was a gray and cold day and the leaves weren't all out. But we made it to George's Island in Montrose and anchored for the night. Susie made some delicious shishkabobs and salad and we had a grand old time - there wasn't another boat around!

The next day was totally sunny and we travelled slowly up river past Tomkins Cove, Indian Point, Peekskil, the Bear Mountain Bridge, Garrison, West Point, Constitution Island (and World's End), Cold Spring and Storm King, Breakneck Ridge, Newburgh and Beacon, Chelsea and finally White's Marina in New Hamburg. Although all motoring, it was a beautiful trip. The stripers were running and the river was thick with little fishing boats. The Hudson Highlands is one of the most beautiful places in the world in any season.

Bob and Suzie went home to Connecticut and I stayed on the boat - I left for England the next week for a week and returned to help with my haulout.

Once Pelican was out of the water I had a bunch of projects I wanted to get done - the foremost being moving the boottop stripe to where it belongs. The previous owner had decided to lower it (most cruisers raise it every year or so!) and had curved it as well so that it was down at the bow and stern. This resulted in it being continuously under water.

Pearson had left a score in the molds so that you could easily see and tape where the line was. Using that as a guide, I taped off where it should go and wiped it down first with a hull cleaner (they come either as phosphoric acid or oxalic acid) to get rid of the brow staining, then wiped it with acetone to remove waxes that the acid doesn't remove and then painted it with Interlux one part urethane paint with Teflon - especially for boottop stripes. After the acetone, I sanded with the recommended 320 grit wet-or-dry paper and then wiped with acetone once more.

I found the best way to apply it is with a foam or really short nap roller and then tip it off with a brush. It requires at least two coats and preferrably three. You must wait 16 hours between them and sand with the wet-or-dry 320 grit paper between coats. So basically, it takes three days for this project.

I recommend that you use the fine-line tape for the edges you want and then extend the protection with 2" blue masking tape. I know that I'm an accident waiting to happen when it comes to painting. So the more protection I afford myself, the better it goes.

After the last coat, I removed the tape and retaped with the 3/4" fine-line tape below the boottop stripe to keep the bottom paint off the gelcoat. This would leave a nice 3/4" white line below the stripe and the bottom paint for a little definition.

Next, I bottom painted with Petite Ultra plus which is their top-of-the-line paint. It's expensive at $200 per gallon, and here's the key - do not apply it with fuzzy rollers. Apply it thinly with a very short nap roller. It goes a long way if done right. One gallon did the whole bottom with a little left over for the poppet pads.

I spent a day waxing the hull - removing the previous owner's boo-boos and scuff marks and scratches as well as I could, then waxing with Royal wax with Penetrol added like Herb does. It really works great! The wax lasts for a season.

Finally, I was truly tired of living aboard out of the water and wanted to go back in. As I was being picked up by the travel lift, I noticed water coming out of the keel at the bottom - and really smelly water at that. Upon further inspection I found that there was a crack about two feet long aft of the ballast that was weeping the full length. I also discovered that the smelly water was coming from leaking fittings on the top of the holding tank that was over-full. Yuck and more yuck.

Well, my friend, Leigh, came up to provide moral support (and incidentally figure out what the problem was) and I went to work. First, you need to know that the initial impulse is to use a hot air gun to dry out the crack and epoxy over it as a pretty quick repair. Don't do it. It will remain wet and it will continue to leak and epoxy doesn't bond to wet stuff. You'll probably try it anyway, but I warned you.

Ok, so now the correct way to fix the problem. I ground out the crack to be about 3/4" wide by as long as it was on the keel - about two feet - beveling it outwards at a 45 deg. angle. I probably could have gone farther but there was a really good bonding surface. Using rags, water, and finally acetone I cleaned up the hole and made sure that there was no water in the bilge that could leak out.

With epoxy and mat I bridged the hole and added about three layers overlapping the previous' edge by a bit. Leigh was cutting strips as I needed them. I let the first layers set up until they were stiff, but still tacky - about 25 minutes. Then I started in earnest laying strips one to the left and one to the right overlapping by a half inch or so.

Once I built up a half-inch that way I made a putty of chopped strand and epoxy and filled the remaining space until it was to the right level at the bottom of the keel. I let it set some and then put three increasingly wide layers of mat to finish it off. Finally, I made a paste of epoxy and filler and put on a skim coat for fairing.

This sounds faster than it is, believe me - this kind of work requires patience. Don't rush it. Wipe the area between coats with acetone to remove the blush. Once the skim coat set up, I did a quick sanding to smooth it out and then bottom painted the repair.

As it turned out I was the third person to make this repair but the first one to make it properly. I think the boat will fall apart before this repair does - or at least I hope so!

The next morning was a Sunday and I didn't expect to get launched but son of a gun, Chris White came down around 8:00am and kindly dropped me in the water! It took me about and hour to get the holding tank pumped and re-rig the headstay and babystay and head down the river lickety-split. I had the current with me from New Hamburg all the way to Alpine, NJ!

I had to anchor for six hours for the tide to change again at the Battery and left around 9:30pm for the rest of the trip. Once again, it was all motoring but going around the Battery at night and up the East River is a really special treat. Once out past the Throgs Neck Bridge it was just a slog to Stamford where I arrived at 5:00am. Oh, and it was COLD on the Sound that night!

Although I was tired, I went to work and got home at my regular time. So I can function for well over 24 hours without sleep - this is important for a cruiser, I think, especially for longer passages. The downside, of course, is that when you do sleep it's long and hard. I went to bed at 6:30pm and didn't wake until the alarm went off the next morning. That's less useful for cruisers...

Pelican looks absolutely stunning - like a new boat! So it was all worth it. Also, the bilge is staying dry now - something it didn't do before (water apparently leaked in, too).

Next up - Memorial Day at Mystic Seaport!

The season's here and I hope to see you on the water!

Wow, it's March Already

Here it is, March 22nd. I have been bad about updating this blog, but to be fair I've been busy. Also, it's been darn cold here in the northeast.

Just like last year, all the little bits and pieces I purchased over the winter are being installed. I added a line brake to the boom for the reefing lines, a few well placed cleats for the halyards, most of a HAM radio installation (which also includes no small amount of studying for the tests) and getting equipment that needs updating updated (EPIRB and others).

Here's a tip: If you are going to sail away from the United States you need an FCC Ships Station license. Nothing is required except for $150 or so and when you apply check all the services you may use (for instance, EPIRB, VHF, radar, etc. - you don't need INMARSAT, but it's up to you). If you want to add a service later, it'll cost you another $150.

Anyway, that's not the tip. The FCC will give you a new MMSI number. If you've programmed your radio with the number from Boat U.S., you may have to send it back to the manufacturer to change it. All DSC enabled radios will allow at most 1 change to the MMSI number. The reason for this is to prevent someone changing the number and making false distress calls. The Standard Horizon GS5500X doesn't even allow one change. I didn't know that the Boat U.S. number wasn't good for overseas operation.

Here's another tip, though: if you have an EPIRB and you have not registered it with NOAA, do so. If it came with the boat, make sure you update it to your contact information. If you have an older non-406MHz unit, dispose of it. No one is listening to the older frequencies and it will leave you with a false sense of security. Registering is free and takes all of a few minutes to do here: http://beaconregistration.noaa.gov/. You'll need your EPIRB's unit identity number (UIN) which is provided by the manufacturer and is on the unit itself.

The only difficulty is if it was registered by the previous owner with a different vessel name. The process is a little convoluted but it's absolutely doable. The end result of this process is a sticker for the EPIRB that shows you've registered it. It's good for two years and it's free.


Before leaving, I plan to purchase another EPIRB that deploys automatically. The manual one will go with the ditch bag.

It's amazing on how much effort it is to get a vessel ready for offshore use. Not just physical work, but expense and thought and learning. It's often hard to look at your boat and think of all the things that make general travel safe. Most of us sail in pretty benign areas (at least on the east coast) and have many choices for ports when the weather turns crappy. Once you're offshore by more than about 50 miles it's a total free-for-all. By the time you'd make safe harbor the weather incident will probably be over. This is why the SOLAS (Safety Of Life At Sea) requirements are so strict.

What is a minor nuisance day sailing becomes possibly life threatening on offshore passages. One of my pet peeves was that several drawers in Pelican didn't have latches and on port tacks tended to open - they never fell out, but I never pressed the rail into the water either. So my first project in March was to put latches on everything that wasn't. Although I don't really care for the fingerhole type of latching, it's what I have and it'll have to do. Finger hole latching invites broke fingers. At least the holes are big enough for some wiggle room.

Sure, in port it's a nuisance in port to have to unlatch drawers every time you want to get to something, but it's a small price to pay to keep knives and stuff from flying about when you least need it.

Once the cover came off (I forget how much I enjoy the light streaming in) it's apparent how dusty the boat gets during the winter. Light is wonderful, but shows everything! So now Spring Cleaning is in full swing. Swiffer pads are the best for dusting! I wish they had one with oil for the wood, too. If I find another product that works well on the interior teak, I'll post it.

Well, I'm off to do more stuff! The bad thing about boats is that projects never end. The great thing about boats is that projects never end!

We'll all be on the water soon! See you there!

February Is...

Here it is February, or actually, the middle of February in the northeast. February is the 3:00am of the year - it's the darkest time of men's souls. The fevered activity of the holidays have given way to a certain lethargy.

It is the time of the year that causes one to ponder the upcoming warmer months and their activities. Things like removing the boat cover. Sailing on weekends. Completing tasks that you really promised yourself you were going to do during the winter but just could not bring yourself to get them done.

February is the month to sleep. It makes one appreciate the concept of hibernation. It is, with the exception of Valentine's Day, a month with nothing to recommend it. Sure, the days get noticeably longer - a few minutes each day - but it's cold and windy and causes one to scootch down in ones covers for another hour of two of sleep.

February doesn't have the promise of March. It doesn't have the excitement of January. It is the stuporous month like the hour after a great big meal before you go to bed. It is such a boring month that we've started consulting with a largish rodent to see how long this plunge into cold and boredom will continue.

The death and cold of winter is stark in February. There is no promise of spring. Intellectually, of course, we know spring is coming but from day to day there is nothing to indicate it. Passing through February is like swimming through molasses. It becomes an effort to do anything.

Of course, your experience may differ. But for me, February is a black hole. I've been living under a green boat cover for three plus months, even in bright daylight I need lights. The heaters run constantly and I am veritably shaking with the effort to not scream.

It is very fortunate, then, that February is so short. I suspect that Pope Gregory also knew that the shorter the better for February. Sure, let the sylvan month of July and the halcyon month of August get an extra day each! And take it from February so it gets itself over faster than any other month.

For all of you with a birthday in February, I salute you! Happy Birthday! For myself, I'd just as soon skip directly to March.

Anyway, the truth of it is that the year continues and soon the cover will be off. Those projects like the wash down pump and water maker and macerator pump and HAM radio and other stuff will get done in the spring. When the social support system shakes itself awake from it's winter's slumber. When you can work outside without four layers of clothing. When the first faint traces of a tan occur if only on one's bald spot.

C'mon March! Hurry it up!

See you all on the water soon now, oh, so soon!

Happy New Year 2009!

Wow, it's already the middle of January! Happy New Year!

I can't believe it - in a few days Barack Obama will be President with all the hope that brings. He's got a tough row to hoe, but he's picking a cabinet of people who are as smart or smarter than he is whether he agrees with them or not. That is the mark of a true leader - he knows he doesn't know everything but he employes those who do know to advise him. That's quite a change from the last eight years.

That's it for my political statement.

Ok, the country is in the middle of a blast of cold - the last couple of days have not gotten out of the low teens and the nights have been in the single digits. That makes living on a boat a challenge. It becomes difficult staying warm, I must say, even with the heaters running.

My original plan was to prepare the boat to travel to England by travelling up the coast and visiting Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Greenland, Iceland for the winter, and then on to Ireland and England. I find that I am not that enamored of the cold. So I do believe there's a change in plan.

I'll be heading south for the winter. Since visiting the Bahamas this summer I have become enthralled in the possibilities. I've also seen some wonderful places on the Intracoastal Waterway where I could very easily spend days ore even weeks exploring. And then there are the Bahamas!

The plan after that is to start north in the spring, stop at Bermuda for a bit, head on over to the U.S. and travel to Maine and then hop off to England directly. Some 30 days later or so arriving there or Ireland and after that England. I'd love to explore the Baltic countries. But who knows? Life is what happens when you're making other plans.

There is a point here, no matter how veiled. Plans change. My cousin has expressed a great interest in doing the 'Great Loop' in his boat. His wife is not interested. So that may be an interruption in the trip to England as well. It's too bad there aren't two of me. Ok, maybe not.

As the time draws near, though, I am more frantic - there are so many things to do that it seems insurmountable. I have to install my HAM radio and get my license. I have to decide to inspect my liferaft or purchase a new one, I have to install tiedowns and new grabrails, get my HAM General License with the Mobile Marine designation. Prepare first aid kits, stow everything in an orderly manner, refurbish and install the watermaker, purchase and install solar panels and shaft generator, install a washdown pump. Also, I need to haul the boat, service her, install the hailer and digital TV antenna, check all the rigging, take care of the teak, and fix whatever breaks. As Charlie Brown put it, "Yaaahhhh!"

And those are just the big projects....

Still, there has to be time for fun. This whole project must be fun. It has been and continues to be argued that man is not meant to be happy. I think that's pure hooie. We are not meant to be happy all the time, surely, as that indicates a mental deficiency, but overall we can live happy lives and we can enjoy life without hurting others. Happiness comes in many forms. The pursuit of happiness can be accomplished without destroying the planet. The big question, however, is whether we are capable of performing such a feat. I sincerely hope so but am not sanguine.

Wow! The new year certainly gets me waxing philosophically!

With the circulators running in the marina, you could almost believe you're at anchor with the waves lapping gently at the hull. I am so hopeful of this summer's activities. In the cold and dark of living below a Fairclough cover in winter hope for warmth and sun and swimming and sailing and cookouts and exploring and lazy days at anchor and exciting days under sail and clear nights under the stars and sailing under the full moon and safe harbor in a thunderstorm and cool showers on hot days and fishing and fresh mussels, clams and oysters and all those times with friends or alone grows like a sprout from a seed in a little plastic pot that you keep on the window sill and sometimes forget to water but then do and feel bad about it because you did forget but then forgive yourself because you know the little plant doesn't hold grudges as it just wanted a little water to be happy.

Be well, keep warm, and we'll all be on the water soon! See you there.

Kudos to a Business that Cares

Let me tell you a story of how a business should be run.

Last September on a surprisingly cold, windy, and rainy day, I was in Northport, NY rafted up with my good friends Laura and Cory. We had had a lovely evening before with Herb and Gina and Bobbie and Warren aboard Laura and Cory's boat.

The next morning, as I said, turned out to be rainy and cold. Laura and Cory had to get back to Stamford so when they were going to weigh anchor I had no choice but to do the same.

Unlike their Kady-Krogen, I had to be outside for this little trip back and so reached for my favorite foul weather gear, a Gill O2 jacket. As I was standing out in the rain I noticed I was getting wet. Inside. Like totally soaked. I thought maybe it was just the dampness, but no, it wasn't. I was wet.

This is not the behavior one expects from foul weather gear, so that week I figured I'd call Gill and see what's up. Of course, my expectations were low as the jacket was five or six years old, but it had been taken care of, so I thought, "What the hey..."

After getting the phone number for customer service, I called and talked to Becky - she was as nice as nice can be and suggested that sometimes the waterproofing wears out and I should try that first, and then let her know how it went. Really, she wanted to know.

Off I went to a sporting goods store and picked up some waterproofing stuff. Two bottles of waterproofing stuff as the jacket was considerably larger than a couple of pairs of shoes.

Back at the ranch I started in on the jacket and noticed that a panel in the back below the shoulders was all broken up and I could see the liner through it. That was obviously the source of water inside the jacket.

Soon afterwards, I called Gill again and spoke once more with Becky. She indicated I should send it in and they'd have a look at it and either repair it or replace it if they thought it was a manufacturing defect. It turns out Gill has a lifetime guarantee. I did not know that.

I wrapped the jacket up, put it in a box, and fired it off to Gill at the address she provided. Inside I placed a letter describing the whole sad story. I figured I'd never see the jacket again and it would be deemed my problem.

A few weeks later while staring into the blue it occured to me that I should give Becky a call. Being the man of action I am, I waited until the next day and then called her. "Oh, yes!", she said, "We've just sent out a replacement jacket to you - actually we don't make the one you sent anymore and so the new one is an upgrade. You should have it, umm, let me see here, by Wednesday." Then she added that the panel had delaminated - it might have been the end of the roll or something and I had not done anything wrong.

I was stunned into near silence. No I wasn't - I was just yanking your chain. I reserve stunned silence for other things. I thanked her profusely, and she seemed genuinely pleased to have been able to help. I hope that was the case.

But she was wrong: The jacket came Tuesday. And it's so nice that all the people on my dock want to steal it. Hard to do with me in it, I might add.

So there you have it - I had to get this out because if you're looking for foulies, and you don't know whose to buy, go with Gill. If they can stand behind their product like that it's got to be good.

There's my feel good story for the year. Let's see Oprah beat that! Ahahahaha!

See ya on the water!

There Is Never Enough Space!

I'm going out on a limb here and stating a truism: There is never enough stowage in a boat. No matter how much space you think you have, you'll fill it and want more (I think it's the reason people purchase bigger boats - they can have more stuff aboard).

In Pelican, there are three usable cabin sole openings. The forward one in the v-berth cabin is large enough to stow some wine and get to the knot meter for maintenance. There's one in the main cabin just above the keel and deeper area where I've put the holding tank and a third that gives access to the Walter V-Drive.

However, sticking my head in the opening in the main cabin I can see there is enough volume below the cabin sole to store, literally, tons of stuff. But it's not accessible. The main space aft of the mast on top of the keel is 18" tall, 20" wide or so, and 5 feet long - to either side are stowage areas following the hull, going the whole length of the cabin, way up into the v-berth. But sadly, no access.

Well, that's changing. I wanted better access to those volumes and to upgrade the latches on the floorboards so that they meet the Saftey Of Life At Sea (SOLAS) specifications. So, with help from my good friend Leigh we set about cutting the openings out from the cabin sole. One great tool we used is a new one from Dremel - called the Multi-max. It vibrates and you can get a small saw blade that allows you to cut the corners square. The basic kit comes with one.

After cutting out the openings, we cleaned up the edges and framed out the openings with 2x3 Douglas fir. That's the same type of wood used by Pearson to frame out the cabin. Since it's really very dry there, fir is perfectly fine. If it were wet all the time, I'd probably use oak or even better, ipe, a really hard, dense wood that is supposed to be a sustainable wood. It's very hard to work with, so think twice before starting a big project. But it will last forever in almost all environments.

Anyway, once the things were framed out, Leigh took the cut out sole board home and framed them in oak - which is what Pearson did. They didn't use teak.

When I got them back, I took the time to fit them properly. Leigh had made them exactly the same size as the hole so I just removed 1/32" on each side with an electric plane and hey! Presto! Perfect fit.

Now, for me, comes the hard part. I'm great with plumbing, electrics, electronics, welding, machining with all sorts of materials. But put a piece of wood in front of me and you can be sure it will end up as toothpicks or scrap. That's just the way it is. Wood and I just don't get along.

As it turns out, Leigh, sometime in the past, had made patterns for mortising the latches - we had used them to lock down floorboards on some boats participating in the Newport-Bermuda race. SOLAS, as I mentioned, requires all openings have positive latches and these are the strongest and easiest to use. Anyway, there are two patterns; one for the square opening you see at the sole level and the other for the mechanism below. In addition, I have to drill a hole below that for the rod to stick out from. The latches are available at Marine Parts Depot (see link on sidebar) at half the price anywhere else and unlike the ABI ones (very expensive) these have stainless steel bolts - The ABI ones have or had bronze or brass ones which were too easy to snap.

This is the first pattern - the fitting must start at least 2" from the edge of the board so I've marked the pattern at 2" from the inside edge of the opening. I can line it up and center it and then clamp it. Using a router and a 1/2" pattern bit slowly adjust it until the depth is correct - the cut in the wood is about 3/32" but I took the time to compare it to the fitting's thickness so it would lay flush. You'll notice that the pattern has boards on it - there's a reason for that and once the bit is cutting to the proper depth, merely changing the pattern will make the depth cut for the mechanism perfect.

You'll notice on this board there is an old mortise - this is from the pull ring. Fortunately, the pull ring hardware fits exactly within the footprint of the new latch and is exactly in the right place. Remember, the latch you purchase will have a rather large variability for the distance from the edge so if you need to move it one way or the other you can shorten the arm or make the latch on the frame wider - there is really about an inch of play. Finally, I squared the corners with a sharp 1/2" wood chisel. Take your time and do this right and it will make installation look totally professional.


The second pattern is lined up with the first pattern's corners - notice the little triangles cut out at the corners of the pattern hole. These are exactly the corners of the first pattern and allow you to look down and see the mortise that exists. The inner hole, the one you'll route out, is not aligned on any edge - it actually is short of the edge enough so that the screws in the latch will bite wood. This is very important.


You can see the whole mortise now with the 1-1/2" hole drilled for the mechanism and shaft. This bit of routing creates lots and lots of sawdust. Don't do it in the boat. Really, you'll be cleaning up sawdust for years. Just cutting the openings took me almost a week to get all the nooks and crannies clean. What a mess!

My friend Bob Muldoon made me some aluminum angle fittings for the latches to lock to - they are simply 3" long sections of 90 degree angle with three holes drilled in one arm for attaching to the frame below the sole. Dead simple. I installed them so that they were even with the top of the frame and the sole would sit just on top of them. Then I adjusted the arm on the latch to be just next to the arm of the angle that protrudes into the opening.

There are many ways to hold down the sole openings - on other boats, I used pins on one side that slid into sockets and only one latch on the opposite side. On Pelican, I used two latches because it's just easier and there is less likelyhood for splitting the cabin sole where they go. For the price of the latches, it just made sense - it also gives me two handholds for the piece.

So, then, here is an example of a finished sole opening. This particular one on the port side will allow access to one end of the watermaker - just aft of where you see the toe of my foot is another new access panel that gives me access to the refrigerator compressor and where the actual water maker pump and plumbing will be.



As I write this it's snowing the first real snowstorm of the season. It's hard to imagine that! Ok, not hard - all I have to do is go outside. But here in Pelican I'm warm and toasty. There are a tremendous number of winter projects and I'm excited about each one!

All to soon this downtime will be over and it will be sailing season again! I can't wait for that either! If I don't see you on the docks, I'll see you on the water in spring! Happy Holidays! Happy and healthy and good boating New Year!

Another Season Passes

I'm back from my delivery of an Outer Reef 65 to Palm Beach. It was eventful and boring in equal measures. We had three systems including gales offshore pass on the trip down and had to spend more time in the Intra Coastal Waterway (ICW) than we wanted to.

The ICW is suffering from a lack of funding. It's supposed to be dredged to a depth of 14 feet but in many cases it's less than half of that and with wind from the north or north west tends to empty towards sounds like the Albemarle or Pungo River, Neuse River, or Pamlico Sound. Moreover, in the larger bodies of water it gets uncomfortably rough.

Anyway, inside a big powerboat (expedition trawler) with stablilizers it's warm, comfortable and level. There's pitch, of course, but no roll.

I can't stress this enough: There are logs in the ICW that float below or just at the surface of the water. While navigating it, you MUST keep an active watch. Some boaters will report the deadheads as securité anouncements on the VHF, but more often it's up to you. Actually, it's always up to you.

One sad thing about the ICW is that where there are no speed limits, large powerboat wakes are destroying the banks. This is bad because the eroded materials end up in the ICW and because the undermined trees end up as deadheads that can be hit. In vessels with protected rudders and propellers they are just noisy. In boats where that's not the case they're a disaster lurking.

What was really nice was going with someone who has experience on the ICW. Cory has been up and down it 30 something times and knows all the cool little places. I plan on stopping at all of them and more on my adventure.

Many people get Beaufort, NC and Beaufort, SC mixed up. The North Carolina one is bo fort and the South Carolina one is beu fort. Easy way to remember this is 'o' comes before 'u' so the bo fort (Beaufort, NC) is above the South Carolina one. The members of the local populace gets very irritated when you mix them up.

Beaufort, NC is a sailor's town. Sure, powerboats stop there but unlike most other marine towns, they don't hold much sway. Beaufort is a jumping off point for the Bahamas, Bermuda, and all places south. It's below Cape Hatteras so you can avoid unpleasantries there. True, there are still two more capes (Lookout and Fear) which have similar histories of shipwrecks but are not, for some reason, avoided as assidously.

I met a fellow 424 owner, John Stevenson, and we had a nice afternoon together and he joined us for dinner at a very tasty restaurant just up the road from the town marina. I think it's on Queen Street, and it's not called a restaurant but a market. It's a little pricy, but not bad. And the food is excellent. John has been all over the Atlantic with his 424 and is extremely knowledgeable. It was a stroke of great luck to hook up with him. He's off to the Bahamas now.

There's a little bar on Middle Lane, too, where if she's reading this (highly doubtful), I'd like to thank the lady who popped in and danced with me for one dance and then left. Very much like a drive-by dance.

We had to stay in Beaufort for a day and a half while we had propeller work done. Remember the deadhead thing? Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement. All I can say is I'm glad I wasn't at the helm when we hit.

Here's something else. Generally when you hit something with a prop the prop bends. It's the nature of the material. What you don't expect is a brittle failure. Check out the pictures of the prop that was the most seriously damaged. The props are supposedly bronze. Bronze is an alloy of copper, tin, and zinc (as well as other metals). Unfortunately, tin is more expensive than zinc so many foundries use more zinc than is best for the application.

Normally, this isn't a problem. However, in a marine environment what do you put on your shafts to protect them from electrolysis? Yes, that's right, zinc. What happens when the zincs are all used up due to stray currents in a marina or a poor bonding system? You got it - the propellers become the zincs resulting in the loss of zinc from them - you can tell because they become pink. Check it out - especially at the hub. Those pink splotches are from the zinc being sacrificed.

What this means is that the metal won't fail in a ductile manner (bend before breaking) but in a more precipitous brittle manner. It's very important, therefore, to make sure you keep up with your zincs. Propellers are expensive. Zincs are not.


What is most incredible about 24hr sailing is nighttime at sea. I've mentioned it before on another entry, but each time I go out on the foredeck and look up I'm amazed. Totally amazed. You can look out and think it's cloudy but it's not - it's the Milky Way! There are so many stars to be seen that you can't pick out many of the well known constellations! There's almost no space between all the stars! I could lay out on deck all night long and watch except for the cold spray. When farther than 20 miles from land and therefore out of shoreside light pollution range it is more than worthwhile to stare at the sky. Highly recommended.

Finally, my friend Cory gave me a PowerSurvivor 35 revers osmosis water maker originally sold by Recovery Engineering who was purchased by PUR and finally by Katadyn. I'll be rebuilding and installing it this winter.

Sadly, the season is coming to an end. Yesterday there was a flurry of activity at the marina - people taking their sails off the boat, winterizing their engines, and performing all sorts of end-of-season tasks. I'm hoping for another good weekend to sail and then I'll cover the boat. Usually, I wait for horrible weather to do that. Maybe this year, too...

Way Down in Virginny Town

Well, here I am aboard a 65' Outer Reef on a delivery to Florida. My friends Cory and Kevin are involved in this thing (Cory's the Captain, Kevin and I are the crew). This is an expedition trawler. Quite a lovely boat, actually.

We're tied up at a really nice marina, the Atlantic Yacht Basin, just south of the lock in the ICW south of Norfolk, Va.

We left a couple of days ago and a series of lows came across the mid-Atlantic states making the outside really, really uncomfortable with spray over the pilothouse and 8-10 foot waves. Sure, the boat has stabilizers, but there's a limit. Also, since we're running someone else's boat, we came inside at Cape May and up the Delaware to the C & D Canal, and down the Chesapeake. We're running 24 hours a day when outside on 3 hours on watch, 6 off.

Although this is a paid position it's still fun. Let's face it, you can crew on an old, beat to crap sailboat or a modern motor yacht and I'm telling you that unless you're a glutton for punishment, you'll go for the motor yacht. Heat, A/C, long showers (because of a water maker), full galley, stabilizers so the boat doesn't roll (it still pitches and yaws), and some very nice living arrangements makes the trip quite nice even if it's not my very own boat.

On the ICW we only run dawn to dusk. You can run at night but it's not really recommended. It's very nervous making and with a 2.5 million dollar yacht at your command and you'd better think twice before taking the risk.

There are a bunch of lows marching across the US as is normal for this time of year so every day we have to decide daily whether to go outside or not. For the next couple of days we'll be inside bypassing Cape Hatteras and if possible we'll leave from Beaufort, NC to go outside. More on that later in another blog.

So after a rough night outside the coast of New Jersey and a moderately tense night down the Chesapeake, we're here.

Getting from Mile Marker 1 in Norfolk to Old Bridge which should take 45 minutes took almost 4 hours today. Jeez, what a pain. We had 30 boats or so trying to get through bridges that only open on the hour or a lock that fills and empties at the speed of the boaters involved. It was nice to see some professionalism in the boaters (and some not). Only one boat ran aground and only one person ended up in the water - trying to get his inflatable out from under his self steering gear.

Tomorrow we'll be heading to Beaufort, NC, as I mentioned. The ICW can be very beautiful so I'm looking forward to the trip.

Will write more when I can - I hope to see you on the water!

I Can't Believe Summer's Gone Again

Wow! The summer slipped by so quickly! Driving through the woods in the Hudson Highlands the sun was setting behind me and the leaves were swirling down from the trees, sparkling, beautiful and nostalgic, blowing like moments past. (I give credit to my friend Tracy for the last phrase - much better than my own.)

Normally I'd've written a great deal about my vacation but this year it was on my friends' Laura and Cory Kadey-Krogen 54 they purchased in Ft. Lauderdale. We took Ursa Minor from there to Cat Cay in the Bahamas, across to Great Harbor and into the Gulf Stream to Savanah, Ga. Up the ICW to Great Bridge, Va racing Hannah - a storm that was hyped and then wasn't. Across the Gulf Stream we powered through feeder bands for Gustav - some of the squalls were 50kts and blinding downpours.

On the ICW it was basically a delivery. Long days - mostly because we were outrunning Hannah, as I mentioned.

High points of the trip: Cat Cay, diving around Great Harbor for lobster and conch, and free wine in Beaufort. Also: Taking a shower in the runoff from the pilot house roof in a squall. Really, really nice. I learned how to clean lobster, couldn't follow cleaning conch (and actually, for the $3.00, it's much better getting it done by locals). It seems that there's an inverse relationship between ease of capture and ease of cleaning of creatures in the Caribbean...

That's not to say there aren't beautiful places on the Intracoastal. There are - there are cypress swamps and freshwater creeks and large marshes piled high with oysters and mussels (which as you may remember, I love). There are also dolphins in the ICW - they love to play in the bow wave. I tried to take pictures, but it's not easy. Mostly what I got is underwater blurs.

When I was in Ft. Lauderdale (a place I have an extremely low opinion of, incidentally, Travis McGee not withstanding) I purchased an inexpensive underwater camera and case - good to 139 feet, which I probably won't ever free dive to. I got some excellent pictures of sea turtles at Great Harbor. I'm told it's really odd as most of them have been eaten.


Cory caught a load of lobster and taught me how to clean them for eating - basically, for the Caribbean lobsters that have no big claws, you only eat the tail. So, although kind of gross, you rip the tail off with a twist, break off a piece of the antenna, insert it into the now detached tails' rectum a little bit, twist it to get the intestine caught, and pull it out. Then you save the tail and toss the rest away. Later on, when you eat them, though, it's worth it. They're good - more flavorful than Maine lobsters.

There was a great deal of activity for the two or three days in the Bahamas. We wanted to stay longer but there were four storms either forming or coming across - Gustav, Hannah, Ike and an unnamed one forming near Africa. So we had to leave. Too bad - but I'm definitely going back. It's hot there, but nothing as oppressive as Florida. The people are great, too!

I just finished a project I wanted to take care of since I purchased Pelican - namely, getting the bilge pumps working and wired properly - they were wired to a breaker not fed directly from the battery and there was no way to run them manually. There are two, a Rule 1500 gph with a low in the bilge switch, and a Rule 2000 gph with a switch about a foot above the bottom.

The upper float switch didn't work although the lower did the job quite nicely. While rebuilding a workboat for my employer I saw some very nice bilge pump switches - Auto, Off, and Manual with a light that indicates the pump should be running. I decided to mount them at the nav station where they were out of the way but accessible. The West Marine switches have their own 20amp breaker. You can also get them with a fuse holder - everything else is the same.

After measuring and cutting the holes, I pulled and disconnected the wiring from the bilge pumps - this is an excellent time to test everything. I tested that each pump ran by providing power directly to them and that both switches worked with a multimeter. It turned out that the upper float switch connectors had corroded but the switch was ok. I ran new marine 14 gauge wire, one three conductor wire for each pump and switch so they could be run independently.

After rewiring the pumps and their float switches, I wired the the panel switches and while everything was out I tested they worked as planned - the diagram that came with the panel switches wasn't too clear and moreover, the top and the bottom of the switch was reversed in the diagram. When you make connections that are going to be exposed to water, make sure you use the heat shrink ones - and shrink them. I used them for all the pump and switch connections and then wrapped the whole mess with that rubber tape that only sticks to itself.

Finally, after checking the panel switches were all wired correctly and worked as expected and so forth, I mounted them and hey! presto! properly wired bilge pumps. Incidentally, the power comes from the buss bar connected directly to battery bank 1, the big three 4D AGM battery bank. That's why the panel switches have their own breakers.

Well, that's it for now. I'm leaving for a boat delivery to Florida and when I return I suppose I'll have to put the cover on again. Darn! The season was just too short!

Upcoming projects for the winter will be refurbishing and installing a watermaker and finishing the plumbing for the holding tank - wiring the macerator pump and testing all that. There are others I hope to get to, including learning celestial navigation. Also, my opinion of the XM weather thing for the Raymarine C80 display. I installed that this summer and am not terribly impressed. But I'm prattling on.