Fraud?

The Pardey's built their Lyle Hess designed Bristol Channel Cutter from wood with no engine. They used (and may still use) kerosene cabin and navigation lights. They carried a minimalist package of electronics for communication, weather forecasting and navigation. It seems to me that they came very close to replicating not only the look and feel of the vessels that plied the Scilly Islands of Southwest England 150 years ago but also the experience of those who sailed them. I wonder why they chose a "modern" bermudean rig instead of the traditional gaff? I guess they weren’t really traditionalists when they first started their adventures; they were probably more like pragmatists on a tight budget.

Those of us who followed, switched to fiber glass hulls and added engines to get in and out of port and then to get home by Sunday night when the wind died. Many added lots of other goodies as higher tech equipment, appliances and construction methods became available. We were sell outs only pretending to be faithful to sailing traditions of the past.....frauds, if you will. No we weren't! We were simply taking advantage of today's technology to improve the safety and comfort of the experience.

Maybe there is a line that separates the practical modification from the affectation.....i.e. hemp colored polyester line. If I buy a carbon fiber mast and boom painted in faux spruce awlgrip I think it is safe to say that I will have crossed that line. But having changed her to gaff from a better performing bermudean rig am I not already the great pretender? It is very tempting. to buy the carbon fiber spars ....I could take 250 lbs out of the rig and still look like I chopped down a big pine tree for my mast. If they will get the price down a wee bit this is a fraud I might just perpetrate on the unsuspecting and uninitiated.  :-)

More Recent Pics

Galley port icebox starboard

Since she is coming back gaff rigged there will not be a backstay but I am keeping the boomkin anyway.  I plan to install a Hydrovane wind vane on centerline inside at the apex of the boomkin and fill in the boomkin center area with teak grate work

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Hard to tell from photo but the port side of forward cabin will have a sink with the Climma air conditioner compressor underneath and the head will be next to it with cabinets overhead. 

Sailing Alone Around the Room

These were taken a couple of weeks ago:

The galley is to port midship. From left to right there will be a sink, two burner diesel fired cook top and trash receptacle. 

The nav station and chart table with icebox under is starboard mid ship.  The ice box will be chilled by a Technautics Cool Blue refrigeration system. Forward of the ice box is enough room for a bank of 3 small drawers. Cool! (blue?)

Good Ideas

I get some myself. My best design work seems to take place at 60 mph driving to the boat (yeah I know, kinda slow; as my youngest son says, "Dad, your just not left lane material".) Other great ideas emanate from various googled websites. And then there is the archived emails electronically filed in the BCC owners website, Roger Olsen's book, "Practical Sailor", "Wooden Boat", "Classic Boat", "Hand Reef and Steer"......and on and on. Too often I celebrate the discovery of the elegant and yet simple solution to my very dilemma only to forget the details the following week; and even more maddeningly, I forget the location of my original discovery and am thus forced to re-google the topic. This time it's my wife who offers the simple if not so elegant solution to the retention problem..... "Write it down". Fine! I will write them down (another list). Here are a few of the good ideas, and solutions I have come across recently:

Bending on the Trysail........run a wire line from the mastband at the hounds to a turnbuckle attached to the main deck or the fife rail. Hank the trysail to the taut wire line and keep the sail tied off to the base of the mast.....especially interesting for gaff rigged vessels.

Man overboard maneuvering options most often discussed include the quickstop, figure eight and tack gybe and return. You're shorthanded, reaching during daylight hours. Head straight up into the wind, complete the tack but do not release the foresails i. e. Heave To. Launch the dinghy on the lee side and go get your MOB. Would have to be practiced but could be your best shot at successful recovery in certain conditions.

This one from Colin Speedie... "The addition of the Wichard Gyb’Easy has been a great success, slowing the boom effectively on its “slackest” setting, working as a preventer on its tightest—we really like it." A crash gybe with a heavy solid boom and running backstays would likely fall into the catastrophic event category so a self tending preventer makes good sense.

Same source in the "keep the water out of the boat" category. Put effective seals around lazarette and hatches. Seems obvious but worth another "note to self" based on the recent lesson in downflooding provided by Ike. Per Mr. Speedie, "We experimented with a couple of different mouldings before finding one that was perfect for our needs. We then sourced some much more robust and effective locker lid clamps that hold the lids down tight on the seals. As we have no watertight bulkhead aft, any water that could get into the cockpit lockers would find its way to the bilges pretty soon, so we’re glad we’ve cured that."

Current To Do List

1. Finish roughng in the interior cabinetry in forward compartment.
2. Build a spreadsheet showing DC powered equipment and lighting plan.
3. Go out for bids on building the spars.
4. Buy inverter/charger, battery, SSB and VHF radio and add to other components on the testing bench. ( Move test bench from dining room to the yard) 
5. Detail clean interior and prep for insulation and paint.
6. Finish plumbing fuel tank.
7. Dry fit gammon iron and anchor rollers, deck sampson posts,bow sprit and anchor windlass
8. Complete the engine install.
9. Dry fit Lavac head and have Juan tab in the shelf. 
10. Beef up deck under anchor windlass and sampson posts. 
11. Install Wallas cooktop, Climma air conditioner, Cool Blue refrigerator compressor, Muir anchor windlass.
12.  Exchange Galley sink.
13. Buy some 10mm aerogel insulation to build icebox top and insulate bare hull.
14. Build new water tanks  2" shorter to fit under the newly lowered sole.    

Progess

Sucks, actually. I thought furniture would be finished by the end of this month. Looks like mid February now. Juan is great carpenter and fiber glass hand but I should stop telling everyone how good he is. The goal is to keep him on my boat not send him more work. I'll sing his praises after he finishes. Anyway, he only lacks main shelves in the forward cabin to have all the furniture structure roughed-in. Then I can power wash, detail clean and wipe dry the entire interior. Once that project is complete we will declare a two month moratorium on all below deck sanding so we can paint hull interior and inside of cabinetry. Then wiring and plumbing can start in earnest.

I hope I will be splashing the boat by September but I don't want to leave the shed early. I want to get as much done as possible before going in the water. Once in the water I will take her to Lakewood (floating docks!). I estimate another three months getting her dressed up for a christening party.

Onboard Computer

The computer that will crunch Rose Point GPS and a Maretron NMEA 2000 calculations and display data is from "Small PC Company". This baby computer is a fanless shelf mounted 12 volt DC model SC 240 with Intel Atom 1.6GHz CPU, 512MB DDR2, 32G Solid State Drive, WinXP-PRO, external AC Adapter (12V DC), 10/100 LAN, 3 USB 2.0 Ports, VGA Port and dual HD15-VGA and HDMI video connectors. The Dimensions are 10.5" x 7.5" x 3.75".

There are other mini pcs on the market with similar features and capabilities but this one appears to be the most energy efficient. While bench testing systems I am operating through an AC adaptor but onboard the computer will be run directly off the dc side. I assume that a dc dc converter will be required.

The mini pc will drive two monitors one permanently installed on the nav station forward bulkhead. This monitor is a Viewsonic model VX1932wm-LED. The Led backlights keep the power draw down to a minimum........advertised to be 15 watts in a typical operating mode. The second monitor will serve in the cockpit as required and then down below mounted on the overhead above the pilot berth. This monitor will be a bit more high tech given that it will mount in the cockpit while underway, albeit under the dodger. The most promising candidate for this service is the new Argonaut 10 inch Tflex-G610LED with optional touch screen which appears to be feature laden and is advertised to be a power miser. We shall see once on the bench.

Roughing Out Interior

I think it will be another 30 days before the interior construction is finished.  Once the furniture rough out is done we can start machinery installation, plumbing and wiring.  Photos I took last week show the current state of affairs down below.

The freezer space is on the forward end of the box and is as big as the fridge compartment in order to accept the Cool Blue Technautics cold plate. The freezer side has a bottom that conforms to the shape of  the hull while the fridge side bottom is level.  I think I can get a drawer under the fridge side.

The navigation station with chart table and fridge/freezer under is positioned at the forward end of the main cabin on the starboard side.  The space is 53 inches long and will contain a small bank of 10 inch wide 3 high drawers at the far forward end in addition to the 36" long and 18" deep refrigerator freezer box.

The 25 inch high cold plate mounts in the freezer side of the box on the bulkhead facing the centerline of the vessel.

The Nav station faces the port side galley on the forward end of the main cabin.  The doorway leading to the forward cabin is offset to starboard so that the 8" diameter mast does not block the access.

From the companion way  we get a feel for the overall main cabin layout......port settee aft of the galley and to starboard, a facing settee (yet to be built) with pilot berth behind and nav station forward.

Looking dead astern from forward cabin.

The port quarter berth is 76 inches long and has storage below and beside.

The starboard pilot berth is 27 inches wide at the top and 33 inches wide half way down.  Total length is 93 inches.  The pilot berth does not convert to a double..... one mattress without insert. (Sleep two, eat four and drink 6)  The area due south of the pilot berth will be dedicated to machinery space and storage.  The only access will be from down below.  There will be no starboard cockpit locker to get to this space.  Based on our recent track record down flooding opportunities will be kept to a bare minimum.