Spring has Sprung... Right Into Summer pt. 2

      "But where we are going, Oh it hasn't fully, fully been told..."
                                               -Ruby Velle and the Soulphonics





       So, where were we?
Right:  Boat is launched, boat is sinking, boat stops sinking, yadda yadda, Karma glides into her slip with no further drama.  

  With one boat launched successfully, it was on to the rest of the fleet.   With a little help from the crew of  Boats....

...we got our commuter dinghy, Chameleon, to the marina and into the water.

Then, we tackled Ereni, giving SWMBO's Bluenose  a quick and dirty makeover... and a black nose in the process, to cover some of that quick and dirty.  

  Ereni  is due for some serious  hull refitting this winter-  the brightwork needs to be brightened, the hull needs to have some blisters ground/filled/faired, and then we'll refinish the deck and topsides.  But, we think we'll keep the nose treatment, and add some nose art- SWMBO and I agree we both kinda dig the vintage "rat rod' vibe.

Over the two full years we've lived with, and aboard, Karma, we've developed a pretty good idea of our wants and needs, and have fulfilled many of them along the way...

... and created new ones.

  Our reefer install has been a well-received luxury, with an unintended consequence- power insecurity.

   We have 3 40w solar panels that live on top of our bimini, feeding a single Group 24 house battery and a Group 24 starting battery, also charged by the 35 amp alternator on the inboard diesel. Last season, this system proved sufficient....

... barely. 
     If the solar panels underperformed for more than a day, some motorsailing was required to top up the batteries.  We were careful about energy usage, charging electronics only during the middle of the day, being judicious about illumination, vhf and instrument use, etc. and never really had a power crisis...

    But still....

    This season, I made the decision to add more power and more power storage. Here's the plan:  add another 100w of solar power, in the form of a semi-flexible 100 w panel installed on the dodger, then combine the 2 Group 24 batteries already onboard into a two battery house bank, and add a third Group 24 battery for starting, locating it just aft of the transmission in the engine bay. Next year, we will replace the group 24 house bank with a pair of 230 amp hour 6 volt GC-1 golf cart batteries, if we find that the 160 amp hour capacity of the house bank is not enough We decided to isolate the starting battery from the charging circuit- we opted to install a Xantrex Digital Echo Charge. 

 To quote the manual:
 "The Digital echo-charge automatically switches ON and OFF, charging a starter or auxiliary battery without affecting the main house battery bank. The maximum charge current is 15 amps when the starting battery is 1/2 volt to 1 volt DC less than the house battery...  When the input voltage is 13.0/25.5 volts DC or higher, echo-charge automatically switches ON. The LED glows a steady green. When the input voltage is lower than 13.0/25.5 volts, the echo-charge automatically switches OFF, and the LED blinks green. The output voltage of echocharge is limited to 14.4/28.8 volts. When it reaches 14.4/28.8 volts, the charge current will decrease, maintaining a float condition. "

  So, I bought a bunch of obscenely priced cable, less obscenely priced wire, a battery and assorted electrical parts and pieces and tools and stuff and dug in, on the hottest day of the year....

   
  ... and everything largely went together better than I expected....

.... once I pretty much gave up on the original plan.

I cut and stripped and crimped new cable to wire the existing batteries in parallel...

 ...and that is pretty much where the original plan ended.

A "a semi-flexible 100w panel installed on the dodger" became a semi-flexible 100w panel mounted on the foredeck. temporarily laying the panel on top of the dodger and measuring output demonstrated that there was just too much shading for the panel to generate anywhere near it's potential output. Because of our boat's design, and our usage, the foredeck gets little traffic, so I decided to see if the "you can even walk on it' claims about semi-flexible panels were true. 
   The install was pretty straightforward, once I wrapped my head around drilling 3/4" holes in the deck.  An hours worth of work saw two of the aforementioned holes drilled, some wires run, and the panel fastened to the deck with, and all fittings sealed with, 3M 4200.  

The new panel got a new charge controller, to complement the existing bimini bank charge controllers, then the controller output for both the bimini solar bank and the foredeck solar bank were driven to a distribution block and thence to batteries... 
   ...Which were not happy at all.
    Note to self:  always check polarity before connecting 100 w panel to new charge controller.
    Then check it again.
    Then check it again.

    I didn't, and wired the panel to the charge controller backward, and didn't realize my error for 48 hours.    
   I bought a new charge controller, and now the batteries happily charged away...  but wouldn't hold a charge.  Well, 5 year old lead acid batteries are due for replacement anyway, so "Next year, we will replace the group 24 house bank with a pair of 230 amp hour 6 volt GC-1 golf cart batteries" became "TODAY we will replace the group 24 house bank with a pair of 230 amp hour 6 volt GC-1 golf cart batteries."

   (Note to those of you playing along at home:  Golf cart batteries are about the same width and length as Group 24 batteries...but about twice the weight.  Getting them up onto the boat, then down into the boat, then down further into the battery bay, was an exercise that, in retrospect, would be less danger-filled if one is wearing steel-toed boots, not flip-flops.)

So, new batteries go in, cabling is connected,  and power flows!  Meanwhile, it becomes apparent that "add a third Group 24 battery for starting, locating it just aft of the transmission in the engine bay." is a non-starter.  So, the new batery gets located slightly farther aft, under the aft cabin berth.  The Xantrex Echo Charge install was a breeze- the instructions were clear, the manual was well-written, and all of the supplied bits and bobs were of good quality. 

  Was it worth it?
   Yep. 

   We now generate more power than we can use  and store most days, and have had no problem keeping ahead of our loads even during our very hot July, when our refrigerator was running much more often than it's typical 30% duty cycle.

    As we have realized the need for more power, we also have been grappling with our need for more space. the S2 8.0C is a cleverly designed boat, pulling 26 feet of accomodations out of a 26 foot LOA hull...  but that means that on-deck and cockpit storage is  non-existent. Coaming pockets would be a big help for line management- sheets would no longer be all over the cockpit benches and underass, an uncomfortable proposition during a crash tack.  I did some measuring, found a pair of fire extinguisher pockets in the clearance rack at a local chandlery, and a little mahogany and varnish and cutting larger holes in our boat and screws later...

Our cockpit is slightly more organized.


  
Also seen in the above picture, behind the compact sportsdawg, you can kinda spy that scrap mahogany was also used to craft risers, to raise the height of the bimini slightly.

Below, little has changed, other than a new trawler lamp,  cushions that are 1" thicker and comfier, and new Low-Buck back cushions and throw pillows have been added:

  
   We lucked out at our local grocery store (I shit you not- the grocery store)  and found outdoor furniture cushions and pillows in the right colours,  and amazingly, the right size, for half price.


    Life is good, and more comfortable than ever...and the sailing's not too bad either.


Thanks for having a read.  Pass the word-  Please "Talk the Dock!"

  
  

The Birth of FrankenMotor

    "Don't have a clue what I am in for...."
                                 -Stitched Up Heart


   Here's the scene:
   It's mid-October, I am feeding my browsing addiction, checking the Kijiji and Craigslist traplines, killing time that would be better spent tapping out another brilliant blog post.


   Before falling any further down this rabbit hole,  let's get some semantics dealt with-  the difference between "shopping" and "browsing"

    Shopping is an act with a purpose- to acquire something, singular or plural, that you need or want.

    Shopping is focused-  it's hunting and gathering for a consumerist society.  Find it, buy it, go.  One STARTS shopping with an end goal in mind... like, oh, a pair of shoes.  I don't understand anyone who answer's a salesclerk's "Can I help you?"  with, "No, I'm just browsing."

   No, you damn well aren't.

  You want a pair of shoes, size 9, triple E, brown, casual with good arch support.  You have a goal.

   Browsing is simply seeing what is for sale.  You don't need or want anything in particular, you're just....

   ...Browsing.


  I spy an ad online- dude is looking to trade his Tanaka 3hp outboard for an electric trolling motor, and some cash, either way.

  Which, I had.
  
  Well, the trolling motor, if not necessarily the cash, either way.

  Now, I didn't need a Tanaka 3 hp outboard.

   But I didn't need an electric trolling motor either.

   I bounced it off SWMBO, who gave me the nod, providing the new motor was running...

   (Apparently, the saga of the Trio of Dead Mopeds is not going to be lost to history anytime soon around Stately Jones Manor.)

 ... "Dude says it does."...

......  and I didn't "spend any more on it than that old trolling motor cost."

   In other words, I couldn't spend more than $25 on this motor.

   In other, other words, as the premier of Ontario puts it, this project had to be revenue neutral.


   So, after a flurry of email negotiations, and after I added an old battery box to the package to sweeten the deal, we made the trade straight across, no cash either way.

   ...and then I brought home my new acquisition and surveyed what I had.
 
   You've never heard of Tanaka?  You're not alone.

From Tanaka's corporate site:

     'In 1918, the Tanaka business was started in Japan by Takashi Tanaka who created “Tanaka Iron Works” near Tokyo, Japan. In 1941 the manufacturing plant near Narashino (approximately 25 miles SE of Tokyo) was built and in 1948, Tanaka began research and development of compact internal combustion engines. In 1950, the company name was changed to Tanaka Kogyo Co., Ltd. The word “Kogyo” (pronounced “Koh-gyoh”) means industries in Japanese. ....

   (lots of boring irrelevant stuff here...)

... in 1974, introduced a 2.5 hp outboard motor that would eventually be private label for Sears. ...
In 1978, Tanaka Kogyo (USA) Co., Ltd. was established in Kent, WA to pursue and support North American sales. In 1984, Tanaka acquired a small mail order company, Aquabug International, expanded its product offering and renamed it Sporting Edge.
In 1985, Tanaka relocated its entire operation to a new 70,000 sq. ft. facility in Bothell, WA. In 1987, the Tanaka Kogyo (USA) Co., Ltd/Sporting Edge assets were purchased from Tanaka Japan by an investment group led by Bill Thomson. The company, while now separate from Tanaka Japan, retained the identity of Tanaka Kogyo (USA) Co., Ltd and the exclusive marketing rights for Tanaka North, Central and South America.
In 1989, Tanaka’s USA assets and marketing rights were purchased by the Ariens Co. of Brillion, Wisconsin. Soon after, a new subsidiary company of Ariens, Tanaka Ltd., was established to continue marketing and support of Tanaka products. In 1990, a new line of Ariens brand 2-cycle handheld products (made by Tanaka) was introduced for Ariens Distributors and Dealers. In 1992, Ariens discontinued its relationship with Tanaka and ISM was established by a five long-time Tanaka employees....'


   So, lot's of history, of which Tanaka's illustrious line of outboard motors gets... half a sentence.

    Basically, the design brief was to build a simple, low-buck, low output 2 stroke outboard motor.

    It's essentially a weed trimmer with a prop.

                                                                                  -from the web

   

 

  If you decided to build an outboard motor with as few parts as possible, you would end up with a Tanaka 300.

   Our old 2 hp Yamaha P45 was more complicated.

   The powerhead is aircooled, with a dry exhaust that exits below the waterline.   There's a small built in fuel tank, and no provision for an auxiliary tank.  There's a choke, a fuel shutoff petcock,  a twist grip throttle on a very short tiller,a kill switch and that is the entire list of controls... and features.  There's no reverse, and no clutch- it's pull, point and shoot.

 It's light, simple and loud.... ish.  More on that in a bit.

    So, I got my new find home, gave it a once over and realized that there were some vital parts missing- like the fuel shut off petcock and fuel lines, the wiring for the kill switch, and the twist grip throttle.
 
   Other than that, it wasn't in bad shape.  The tank was clean, the plastic was uncracked, the engine kicked over fine and the starter cord recoil recoiled.

  Errrrm... okay, it should run, with the missing bits no longer missing. Parts are available, and fairly cheap and the manual is a point and click away online.  Whew.  As I  sat in the skunkworks  and pondered this orphan, I got thinking.

"What if," thought I, "I optimized this motor for dinghy use?"

   First things first- the tiller is too short.

   The outboards on SWMBO's Bluenose and our Walker Bay dinghy were treated to Minn Kota tiller extensions a the beginning of this season...

 and SWMBO and I both agreed that the longer reach made a world of difference in comfort and control.

 The only challenge was that a tiller extension exceeded my SWMBO-approved $25 budget.

 I pondered the pile of cast-offs that hadn't quite been cast off from the corners of the workshop yet, and discovered an old broken lawnmower handle.

  Hmmm...

  This might be better than store-bought.

  A little measuring and eyeballing and cutting and ...

...add a bicycle brake lever, a foam grip, a throttle cable from a citi moped, some zipties, a new petcock, a VW fuel filter, fuel hoses, and $23 later....

    

  Whuh-BAM!  Frankenmotor is born.

   Why the curved tiller?

    Sitting astride the center seat of a dinghy, a straight tiller with a twist-grip throttle is fine, in a straight line.  Start to turn, though, and as you push or pull the tiller your wrist wants to either roll off the throttle, or roll on the throttle.  It feels awkward. With nothing significant invested other than my time, I decided to try a curved tiller and a throttle lever rather than a twist grip.

  But, before schlepping Frankenmotor down the dock, I hung it from a sawhorse, added some fuel to the tank, put enough water in a bucket to cover the prop, opened the choke and gave the cord a pull.  First pull she lit up!

   RIIIIINNGGGGGGG DING DA DING DA DING DA DINGDINGDINGDINGDING!!!!

   True to it's weed trimmer, er, roots, it is weed trimmer loud.

   Kinda obnoxious loud.  Kinda, might-piss-off-fellow-Marina-boaters loud.

    But maybe that's just in the garage, with the exhaust above the waterline

   Well, it's the end of the season, there are few boats around, there's no better time to see how loud it really is, in the real world.

   SWMBO volunteered to be the test pilot.  we swapped out our 2.3 hp Suzuki outboard and clamped on Frankenmotor.

   SWMBO got Frankie to light up on the first pull and off she went.  With the exhaust outlet underwater, the motor was noticeably quieter.  Not as quiet as our Suzuki water-cooled outboard, but comparable to a Honda 2.3 hp aircooled outboard.

 

 

  At full throttle, according to my handheld GPS, in back-to-back sheltered flat water tests, Frankenmotor drives our porky 10' Walker Bay dinghy at a similar pace to the Suzuki-about 6 knots full out.

   That junkyard tiller and throttle?

    Success! the L shaped tiller makes for a more comfortable grip, with less wrist fatigue, and SWMBO demonstrated that a doubled up hair elastic makes a good throttle lock.

   As I mentioned, I don't need  another outboard, but now that I've got one...

  ... I should probably build a boat to fit it.




  Thanks for stopping by, and please, "Talk the Dock!"


 

Head Games

     " 'til I can't take it anymore, no more...."
                                             -Foreigner


   *This post contains harsh realities of  boat life.  Reader discretion is advised.*



    Have I mentioned how much winter sucks?

    If so, too bad.  I'm gonna reiterate:

    Winter sucks.

   This winter was like a bad party guest- it came late, stuck around, and wasn't much fun.

   How hard was this winter?

  Lemme tell you a story:

  Back in November of 1975, the Edmund Fitzgerald sank during a storm on Lake Superior.  The  last ship to have visual and radio contact with the freighter was another freighter, the Arthur M. Anderson, which survived the same storm unscathed.  

  That's one tough boat.

   February 2015, the Arthur M. Anderson, the Chuck Norris of lakeboats, is stuck, trapped by Lake Erie ice just off Conneaut, Ohio.

                                                                                                     -image courtesy of techtimes.com

  The ice of February did what the gales of November couldn't:  Forced the Arthur M. Anderson to accept Coast Guard assistance.

                                                                                                            - image courtesy of fox8.com

  Yeah, THAT hard.

   The only, very limited, upside to this winter was the extended period of solidly sub-freezing temperature.

   Emphasis on the word "solid'.

   Perfect for one particular boat job.

   One Sunday afternoon, Elly the Crazy Boatdawg™  and I dealt with our cabin fever by making a run to the boatyard, and while one of us ran around the boatyard...

The other one of us able to climb a ladder did so, and then dug a path through the cockpit and uncovered the companionway...

  To clamber below and begin to deal with one part of the boat that SWMBO and I both agreed needed improvement with a quickness...

...The head.

  

     The head was NextBoat's one minor, mild disappointment. The height was uncomfortable and  it was poorly located in the space leaving a user feeling, er...

....cramped.  

     That was fixable, but the bigger practical issues weren't- the integrated holding tank didn't hold much, and, not to put too fine a point on it, when aforementioned holding tank was close to full, (often, because of it's limited size), the holding tank tended to be less-than-diligent about the "holding" part when the boat heeled past 15 degrees.

     Yeah, the head leaked when the boat heeled.  

     Ick.

    So, with everydamnthing between here and the state of Georgia frozen solid, the time was right to remove the offending fixture, and plot and plan its replacement.  Yeah, in theory,  the head should be empty, but Murphy's Law of Marine Plumbing Disruption states that no head is completely empty.  the only safe head is a frozen solid head, I figure.  

 Before.....

   

10 minutes of quick hose hacking and yanking, and a heave over the side....

   During, removed from, and stowed beneath, NextBoat.... 

      I acquired a larger holding tank from Jack's Used Boat Part Emporium and cleaned up the head reclaimed from DonorBoat, and a few days ago  SWMBO and I loaded in the new/old head, and eyeballed the layout:

    

  Yeah, we think this will work.

  The old vinyl flooring and carpet has to come out, a new floor has to go in, a seacock needs to be installed, the holding tank needs to be fitted...

   But the worst is done.

- Thanks for stopping by, and please remember to "Talk the Dock!"

Low-Buck Arts & Crafts at Stately Jones Manor

      "In the meadow, we can build a snowman..."
                                              -Felix Bernard



    ......  or not.


      As I write this, the temperature outside has nosedived to around -23 celsius.

      I am not nearly masochistic enough to calculate the windchill.

      If one is a skier, skater, ice fisherman, snowmobiler, snowboarder or snowshoer, one might enjoy freely frolicking in this frozen frontier.
 
      I, however, am none of the above.

      I am a sailor.

     And I am NOT going outside into this fucking frozen freakshow unless I absolutely have to.

      Luckily, I have a punchlist of off-season boat work to keep me occupied  until the lake ceases to be a solid mass entirely, and utterly, incapable of floating a boat.

     Doing something with our wobbly and plain saloon table was near the top of the "Boat projects that can be accomplished from the comfort of SJM" list.

     I've got some ideas for this project, boldly going where I had never gone before, but first: a warm-up project, an  aft cabin amuse-bouche if you will:

     Fixing the TV wall.


      The previous owners installed a small flat screen TV- its removal prior to sale has left an ugly blight in an otherwise very pleasant  aft cabin.

     SWMBO and I ruminated over this disfigurement throughout the season, and finally came up with an idea:

     A piece of scrap luan, some wood glue, and a cheap spreader to quickly, evenly and economically spread the adhesive....

      Then, trim a chart to size...

      Apply the chart to the very sticky board....

   Slather more glue on top, recalling skills vaguely remembered from elementary school art class decoupage projects.  While waiting for all that glue to dry, construct a frame from scrap mahogany trim...

Assemble  and varnish......

 ...and install (right side up) when the weather warms up.

  Right, so, feeling cocky, I got back to that saloon table....

     My initial thought was that we needed a larger table that would tie into the stripper pole, er, compression post. Upon further measuring and headscratching I realized that bigger is not better in this case.  Enlarging the table would make our current expansive and inviting recroom feel like  a cramped and cluttered cell, with a table that would be difficult to move around  and would prevent the locker door under the stove from opening fully.

So, the table can get no bigger.
Okay.
It does, however need to be more stable, so I lengthened the collar underneath, that fits over the post.  Now, no wobble.

But, there is a crapload of winter left, and it is a rather plain table, so I might as well try to figure out marquetry.

     Marquetry, as defined by the OED: "Inlaid work made from small pieces of coloured wood or other materials, used for the decoration of furniture."

     So, a supply run to Lee Valley Tools  was in order.  I needed glue, veneer.... that was pretty much it.

     I still managed to spend damn near $200.

     It's that kind of store.

     I bought a "box of veneer" which was exactly as described- a pizza box full of very thin sheets of a variety of different woods:

Like, 80-100 square feet of the stuff.

The table in question is about 3 square feet.


I quickly cobbled together a low-buck veneer cutting jig- a piece of scrap ply for a bed, some aluminum angle and scraps of luan trimmed to create 90 degree, 45 degree and 22.5 degree guides to simplify the math...

   

 ... and discovered the tricks to cutting very thin, very brittle pieces of wood...  after destroying a bunch of very thin, very brittle pieces of wood.

Luckily, I had a lot of it.

After marking the center on the table, and the half way polints on all four sides, I laid out a simple geometric design, and proceeded to cut and tape and glue and clamp and swear my way to an end result;

   

       It still needs some sanding and a few more coats of varnish, but I'm not completely embarassed by the end result.

    And I still have a crapload of veneer left over.

   And a crapload of winter.

   I rummaged through the scrap pile and did some sketching and came up with a plan for a simple cockpit table.  A little ply, some reclaimed teak trim from DonorBoat, and the basics are done:

 

   

   the rough work is done, now it's just a matter of mortising and installing the hinges, final sanding, and finishing.  I'm saving that until next weekend.

   It looks like there's still lots of winter left.




Thanks for checking in, and don't forget to "Talk the Dock!"