Steering Repair

To replace the steering Charles had to figure out what size we required as a combination of chain and wire kit. Edson has ten possible combinations. http://www.edsonmarine.com/marinestore/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=84_92_220_222 

. Our order for a rush shipment came the next day at 9 am. Fed Ex overnight was cheaper than another day in the slip!

Charles is very inventive as he quizzed the rep at Edson on what he needed to do to replace the system.  He marked the mid section of the chain so we could get it right in the center of the binnacle. Fortunately one of the things he did earlier this year was to get the compass serviced. It had leaked some fluid and had a large bubble inside so Charles put some of that white board when he remounted the compass which made a nicer platform for the it. Now he was using the newly put together spacer to get at the broken steering chain. 

 I fished down the wire falling along side the engine which Charles then lead through conduit , under the floorboards and back under our bed to the steering  quadrant. the distance was probably 18 feet. We could only deal with the 24 foot kit supplies. The clamps were put on when everything was in place properly.  So in about 3 hours we did what the project manager was too busy to do and we saved a bunch of money while making sure it was done right.  After a nice lunch it was time to get back "outside" to our final destination.   We went back to the same spot in the anchorage and left early the next morning.

The steering break is gold the chain fits over the center.

 The cables being installed. They next go under floor boards toward the bed.

 At the head of the bed is the steering quadrant.  Thread the wire around the right leads and tighten the clamps.

 You can see where the wire leads around the quadrant.

 Measuring our wire on the dock.

Bad Night TWO- Jacksonville to Lake Worth Inlet

We felt pretty good getting the furler back together. As the evening progressed we were both on deck for a sail adjustment.  It was about midnight.  I took the helm to turn into the wind. Charles was adjusting the main.  He told me to switch from auto to standby. As I did that I tried to turn the wheel toward the wind  and all of a sudden we were in irons.  I felt and heard a snap and found the wheel nut pop into my hands.. I put the wheel back in it's place and put the nut back.  The wheel would not respond but fortunately Charles figured out that the autopilot +10, +1 worked just fine.  We knew we would have trouble docking though.

So we headed to Lake Worth inlet (ICW 1018.4) which we knew had a huge anchorage area where we could anchor and go either back on the ICW or outside.   We got in about 7 am and waited to call Rybovich Marina ( refit, refresh, refuel, relax) (ICW 1019.7).

They were willing to do the steering repair,  help us get into a side tie etc, A dock master came out with a boat but he did not need it as we came along side with Charles using the auxiliary tiller and I worked the engine then ran out to hand out dock lines.    We have a center cockpit and the emergency tiller is located under our bunk. But if you try to steer you cannot reach the engine controls as they are inside the cockpit about five feet from the emergency tiller located at the back of the boat. 

The floating dock was great. When we looked around we noticed Ariel was the smallest boat around. There were mega yachts everywhere. This place charges $3.50 per foot. They have "project managers" for everything that gets done. You tell them the PM's name and go on from there.  PM's come with small armies to help them do the job at hand.  All these yachts are being fixed or refitted, polished and primed for their owners. I have some interesting pictures of HUGE roller furlers from sailboats that I have no idea how long they were but they had "crew" all with the same special uniform shirts. It is another world. Most boats where from other countries. In fact one mega sailboat for sale specified that the purchase was not open to a US future owner.  taxes.

A dock person came to us to ask what electrical hook up we needed. I said 30 amp. He did not look happy. He said most connectors were 200 amp.  I suggested our 50 amp splitter might help. So we have a picture of how they dumbed down the 200 amps to 50 so our splitter could charge the boat. We were not able to get water as Ariel was too far from a "pod".  No cable. I think the connectors were so different.  Wireless was one bar, the end of their docks. We have our own wireless so no problem.

Two gentlemen from the repair department came to help us with our steering problem. They assessed that Charles could handle this by himself.  By this time he had the binnacle apart and was trying to fish out the cable and chain which had one broken link.  They very nicely offered to lend him tools from his shop if we got our own parts and did the work as they explained that they were too busy to take on our job, if that was OK with us.  We got Edson Marine to ship us the parts overnight and by 9 am the next day we were installing new chain and cable. Fed Ex shipping had to be less expensive than another day in this slip.

 We learned from Edson that your cable and chain should be replaced every seven years. Well Ariel was built in 1986 and we don't think her cable was ever replaced. They had special lubricant in a tube which we got for the install.  After a few hours of fishing, clamping and greasing we had done the job!  Time to have a nice lunch and take off. Since we did not have water on board we did a shower in their gym area. It was an incredible gorgeous shower with two heads, one rain shower and the other regular shower head.  Nice tiles..so see the pictures.

 Gorgeous bathroom , two shower heads !

 The pool

 Their travel lift is HUGE..

 big  sailboats

 Our power source.. needed to be converted smaller. This pod has all the power and resources a huge boat needs.

 this black line leads to Ariel's 50 amp splitter.

 furler that is probably nine feet high see the men standing by to fix it? HUGE.

 The gym for boats in the marina

 eye candy everywhere.

Beaufort to sea- BAD NIGHT ONE

We were sailing along doing our thing then with little warning on night two- November 2 at 2:30 am I got a call from Charles waking me (unusual). He asked me to  reset the main breaker.  The main was not going in fully but when reset it went back completely.
 I got back on deck (left at 12:30 am) and there I heard and saw an ugly sight. Our roller furler drum  had broken loose from the 5/8 "clevis pin so the jib which was shortened in these 20 kt winds, was swinging side to side trying to knock Charles overboard.  I was deressing to hear that the drum clanging around had also pulled out our new bow pulpit from the screws, wires port & starboard hanging but still connected. The full moon was a welcome help.

He tied the wild assembly to the portside rigging hoping that the storm sail assembly we have which is not an actual inner forestay (but rather connection to windlass base and halyard above) would keep the mast from falling over.  I tied the sheets tighly to a cleat near the main winch. Things got a little calmer in time.   As we got closer inland the wind dropped to 8 kts instead of 20-25 kts, less bounce from the waves.

  We had a short sail out, thank God. It tried to furl even more when all heck broke loose.

 

 Furler gone from it's usual place!

  .

 Frayed furling line

 fraying, surprised it stayed connected.

As the sail assembly raised and lowered with every wave it dug into the deck.

 new bow pulpit tearing from deck.

 

We headed inland toward Jacksonville  Fl to a marina where we stayed last year .  Port side tie so the rigging would be reached.  The pictures tell a big story.  We got there at 11:30 am after a sleepless night.  This marina is on a river with a very swift current, plus a large ferry moving next door making wakes with great regularity.  The courtesy car from last year was non-existant this year, but Enterrpise car rental did well.  We visited two West Marines to resupply. We bought new lines for the furler. We could not get the missing clevis pin as they only sold a 1/2 inch but we had a new dock mate on a 72 foot sailboat. The owner gave us the much needed pin. AWESOME.

At this point we are good to go.  It would be nice to have a rig inspection but we are trying to get going and the tide suggests a noon time departure. So off we go, back outside, nearly new!  Charles is amazing.

Charleston to Beaufort SC

It was fun sailing with Debi and Carl. We enjoyed an anchorage rafted off the Bull River (32.30.90N, 080.33.899W) (ICW 521) then off to Beaufort and timing the Ladies Island Bridge on the Beaufort River. We both docked at the Beaufort Downtown Marina.(32.25.835N, 080.40.476W).  We enjoyed lunch at Plums ( shrimp salad is worth it). 

Then we were fortunate enough to have family in  Dataw Island and we were treated to home cooked dinner with Pat and Dave L. (Bill's sister). Pat is so sweet she even took me hunting before hand for an HDMI patch cord at Staples so we could watch movies from our PC onto the TV that we upgraded. On our last visit, I pressed her to take me to Publix to reprovision for an hour. She is such a good sport. This time we hunted also for bias tape so I could complete some sewing projects.  We were fortunate enough to get to see Fox news which we missed on the boat. Being home Bunker (a lab) could join in welcoming us.

If you go to Beaufort you must go to the bridge street ( Carteret) at the five hundred block for chocolates at the Chocolate Tree. This shop has been around for 30 years so you will find something you can't live without. The 300 block off Carteret has a visitor center with hand outs of every kind, suggestions on where to go and what to see and do.   Coming back, I regret missing the sweet shop ( ice cream) in the mall just across from the marina area. They were having pumpkin ice cream but I never got back!
Restaurants shops abound.  The marina has a car you can use ( not allowed over Ladies Isl Bridge) for a hour so take off toward  a piggly wiggly and other shops away from the downtown shops.

The current is very strong on these floating docks but as I recall every time we have been there we have been able to flip the boat around in the slip preparing to leave in an easy direction.  Dock hands are great. 

Off for a two or three night sail to our next port.. let's see how that goes.

Around Hatteras Again.

 We fueled up at Chesapeake Boat Basin Kilmarnock so we did not have to get fuel in Cape Charles.  Since Tabbs Creek is tide dependent we decided to leave the dock at pretty high tide about 4 pm and head outside into Fleets Bay for an overnight at Pirate's ( October 20th) which is better known as Little Bay. 

The plan was for Charles to start up the engine at about 3 am.  I was supposed to stay asleep. Not gonna happen. We need to turn over a switch under our mattress not to mention the roar of engine so I got up too.  We headed to Cape Charles to go under the bridge and out into the Ocean.  We had a great weather window.  It was going to be pretty calm.   We  had been calling our friend Blaine on the Sat phone to hear about Passage Weather reports and he had heard of storm coming up the coast and suggested we go inside when we could.

We arrived at Charleston Maritime Center Charleston SC Oct 24th at 11:30 am. Our friends Debi and Carl were already there from the day before.

My first order of business was to get the knots out of my hair!.  When we go offshore for a few days my hair gets tangled worst than a bee hive.  No matter what I do I have to spend  time taking the knots out. Hats, head bands, and hair ties  still leave me with knots.

Charleston is a wonderful city. They have public buses and a more extended bus system.  I wanted to get to West Marine so I took the city trolley # 210 toward the visitor's center. Then walked two blocks to in front of Huges Lumber& Bldg Supply ,82 Mary Street at King where the bus terminal for other outside the city buses converge.   They have electrical supplies so you don't have to go all the way to West Marine.  But if you must take the #30 bus out to the West Marine, if you continue on the route it will take you to the Citadel Mall which has every store known to man. 

    

The city is a great place for restaurants and cultural entertainment.  We ate at Jestine's Kitchen  (251 Meeting ST. (843) 722-7224 featuring soul food. Eat the chicken or fried green tomato, Coke Cake is super. 
We shopped at Harris Teeter which is open 24 hours and has a full supply of butcher meats and other goodies down to beer.
*****8
Back outside to get to Florida in three or four days so we hope.....

Sailing Again 2012-2013

Ariel had some preparations for this years trip starting in August. We thought we would be taking off on a two week cruise in Southern Chesapeake after a brief trip on dry dock for bottom painting but the issues kept coming up.

One thing Charles did was to re-design the "stuffing box" arrangement for the rudder post. I had often noticed our taking on water on the starboard side when extremely heeled over.  It turned out that some of the water was from the stuffing box / rudder post arrangement and some came from a split in the exhaust hose for the engine.  Above the shiny stainless steel is a design Charles made to hold the rudder post in place and to prevent water from coming it there are three precision cut spacers for "o" rings that are about 2 inches in diameter.  The yard had to build up the fiberglass.

 Then Charles put the adhesive ( 4200 I think) then it was screwed down in place and he put in his special "o" rings. The area developed a crack which we did not know existed between holes made in the old fiberglass and the places where the new fiberglass covered. So after a second fiberglass application she was good. 

It leaked under power!  That was when we discovered the exhaust pipe leak.  It caused the port lazarette to fill with a certain amount of moisture-- like most of our lines were drenched even though the boat was in dry dock for a month.. The leak drizzled down the new rudder post arrangement so it was hard to tell if that project was complete.   She is dry now.

******

Taking the boat in and out of the sling he noticed places on the keel that were in need of repair.
 These were dug out and replace with a special filler hardened, filled some more, hardened and finally painted.

All this comsumed August and into September. We were not able to go on a club cruise as we had hoped since she was not sea worthy. It was disappointing as Sheila and Steve did a lot of planning for a great cruise.


*****
We decided to replace our 13 inch TV with a 20 inch TV which came with a DVD player and ran on 12 volt power.  We already had a TV antenna but we needed to make sure power was getting to the antenna so we could get on air tv stations.  We have enjoyed TV in most places, but not always FOX news.

 

 

 

TV in place.  We added an HDMI cord to watch movies or things from the PC.

 

 

Behind the TV is a storage area for bowls and rice as well as my bread mixes.  I decided to bring the bread machine along this year and we have made bread on shore power in Charleston.

 

 

Another project was a new bow pulpit which Charles installed himself. It has the new LED lights which are more compact and take less power to run. 

Places visted last year

We visited a few other ports which I did not write about..it was a writer's block after our rat visit.

I wrote about Fowl Cay, Green Turtle Cay both sides, and several times to Hope town.

We also visited, Guan Cay ( Nippers) , Treasure Cay, Little  Harbor ( Pete's Pub) ( with the bronze art creating process).

Bridges Cay and Little Harbor Bay.

Eleuthra- Royal Island Harbor

Spanish Wells Harbor
Alabaster Bay
Rock Sound Settlement

Warderick Wells Cay, Exumas
 Black Point- Great Guana Cay (went through Dotham Cut with a 3 kt extra current)

Allen Cay (anchorage)
Nassau Harbor
Hurricane Hole Harbor Nassau

And of course we had to join the Northern Neck Masters from the YMCA of NN which attended the Hall of Fame Pool in swim competition. We joined Esther, Bill, Jarett and their team mates for a delightful time together.  Thanks all for your warm welcome. We loved cheering for the team and having Ariel just a step away with our home on the water. That was in mid April.

After leaving Hall of Fame we took about the 2 pm bridge Monday through Port Everglades and went offshore till we arrived in Beaufort NC on Friday am  that week.   I LOVE having AIS onboard. We hailed boats by name and can tell if those huge vessels just outside a channel are at anchor or underway. Nice..

Oriental NC was our next stop.

Then the Alligator River, Georgia Bay. As I recall the weather was a bit nasty. I remember trying to make out marks in the rain and it was cold too. The Swamp was nearly deserted. Everyone else had sense.

South Mills Lock.  We stayed on the hook overnight.   We were the only boat going through the northbound lock which was opened early for us as there was no other traffic to come through first. 
 The Welcome Center Dismal Swamp was a good place to drop off a bag of boat trash. It was closed but three or more boats can tie up for free there. It seems to be a car rest stop on the other side. restrooms and a visitor center which is manned during certain hours, not our luck though.

 We dodged logs and groups of floating (?) vegetation in the middle of the channel.. We had the dodger winder open with rain pouring through, cold rain I might add. But we got through it all.

 Working our way back home the skies looked dark. We were planning on going to Hampton Yacht Club but we got hailed real quick by our friends Judy and Paul from EYC. They suggested we join them on the town dock for a free nights stay. So we did. Nice cocktail time with other EYC folks.  Dinner in town. Then and early departure.  We escaped that nasty downpour in Hampton.

Made it to the Tabbs creek dock around 4:30 pm. We were greeted with a lovely offer for dinner that night.

Now we can see what happens sailing back in 2012-13.