S/V MOMO

Easy Bake Recipe for Stove Burner Repair

2011-10-31T18:37:00.000-07:00

Repairing a Faulty Two-Part Burner of a Typical Marine Stove

Tools: scissors; knock-out punch and mallet; vise grip clamp; duct tape.

Materials: top of a tin can; Marine-Tex epoxy putty

Time (including baking, but not including looking for tools): 20 minutes

Directions:

1. Trim lid with scissors to fit the bottom of the burner cap

2. Create an appropriate hole in the center of the lid with a few blows of the rubber mallet on the knock-out punch (I can’t imagine life without a knockout punch)

3. Fit the lid into the burner cap

4. Apply Marine-Tex epoxy putty to the bottom of the lid

5. Fit the bottom of the burner into the burner cap and onto the lid

6. Seal the edges of the bottom of the burner with epoxy putty

7. Clamp together with a vise grip clamp (apply duct tape on those points of the clamp that touch any epoxy so that the clamp doesn't stick)

8. Bake at low heat for ten minutes.

Disassembled burner & the tin can lid with an
appropriate hole that lines up with the hole in the
bottom part of the burner.

Momo is equipped with a fairly typical three-burner propane stove/ oven that has been on the boat ever since the vessel was built in 1982. It’s nothing flash, but it’s functional. At the time the stove was marketed under the “Seaward Princess” label (at least as far as I can recall, since the label on our stove pealed off years ago); now, judging by appearances, this same stove is being distributed by Tasco. Even though it’s thirty years old, we’re not about to replace it because marine stoves are expensive (especially in New Zealand) and we’re not convinced we would be replacing it with anything better. The principle of “better the devil you know” is especially appropriate when fitting out a boat like Momo because most of the “marine quality” equipment for such vessels is designed for a small, recreational market, which means that the stuff is often disproportionately expensive and qualitatively challenged compared to similar goods produced for the mass consumer market.

The tin can lid fitted into the burner cap; next, the lid
is smeared with epoxy putty and the bottom part of
the burner is fitted into the cap on top of the lid.

Our biggest problem with the stove has been its burners, which began giving us difficulties about a year or so after we moved onto the boat. In case anyone feels that we are expecting too much from our stove -- after all, by then it was over twenty years old --it’s worth pointing out that it wasn’t until we bought the boat that the stove was put to rigorous use.

The burners are made of two parts. The cap looks like it is made of aluminum. The bottom is made of thin mild steel. This steel rusts along outside edges where it meets with the aluminum cap, producing little holes in the bottom of the burner that then emit small flames.

Our first “temporary” repair involved simply smearing Marine-Tex epoxy putty along the edges where the burner bottom fits together with the burner cap. But since this repair worked remarkably well and lasted a long time, it soon became standard operating procedure. The repair itself takes no longer than making a cup of coffee, and if you pop the burner into the oven at low-heat the epoxy is sufficiently cured in about ten or fifteen minutes.

Clamp together, bake at low heat for 10 minutes,
and we're set to go.

I should also add that, based on our experience, the burner is perfectly safe. The propane needs oxygen to burn, which it gets at the top of the burner cap; and even when exposed to flame, as far as I can tell the cured epoxy resin doesn’t really burn but rather gradually turns into ash. Eventually, however, small holes reappear -- both because the epoxy slowly deteriorates and, as Neil Young puts it, rust never sleeps – and we have to repair the burners again. But that’s just part of routine maintenance.

Recently, however, we have tried something new. It has been about six years since that first repair, and the rust has devoured so much of the edges of the burner bottoms that our simple epoxy repairs don’t last more than three months. I thought perhaps we might have to admit defeat in the struggle against planned obsolescence and purchase new burners or fashion new bottoms from stainless. But then I spotted the lid of tin can on the counter which fit the bottom of the burner cap almost perfectly….

The (Road)way of the Orca

2011-10-19T00:05:00.000-07:00

We recently spent a day following orcas here in the Bay of Islands. When we were with them they were enjoying sting rays as appetizers. When we left, they were heading for a different bay, presumably for a main course of dolphins. Later in the day, they joined us in our anchorage in Urupukapuka Bay for an after-dinner treat: more sting rays, a favorite for the New Zealand orca.

An orca slides beneath Momo's transom.

We were first notified of their presence as we were drinking our morning coffee by Jochen Zaeschmar, who came to New Zealand some twelve years back because of the marine life here, which marks both his passion and profession. We upped anchor and Momo followed the orca around all morning, along with Jochen in his boat and Ingrid Vissar, a New Zealand native who has devoted her life to understanding the NZ orca.

Ingrid the Orca Researcher collected the kids so that they could have a better view.

Jochen and Ingrid interact with these animals the way most people would with their dogs. They call to them, talk to them, laugh and splash with them. They have even gone into the water with them. Ingrid has categorized and named a great many of the local NZ orca. There's Nibbles, Funky Monkey, Miracle, Yin, and even Moby -- named after Jochen's dog who has his own relationship with the orca as well. There are only 200 - 250 in all of NZ waters, and Ingrid knows many of them personally.

Orcas swim between Momo and Ingrid's boat.

Talk about crossing boundaries and borders -- Ingrid drives the length and breadth of this country to track the orca and know them more. Meanwhile the orca seem to swim up and down both coasts, from North Island to South Island and back again, in patterns that researchers are only beginning to understand. You're as likely to find them in Auckland harbor as in Bay of Islands, or even further south. They alternately head off on their own (particularly the males) and then return to the group/family, sometimes regrouping hundreds of miles away. Small groups hunt together, teach the young, and court and play.

Our encounter with orca makes us think about our own travels in a world without highways. There are no roads out here -- just a whole lot of blue. We equip ourselves with charts and GPS and radar and depth sounders; the orca have all that built in and follow their own waterways.

Jochen's close enough to reach out and touch them.

...and now they're coming our way.

We never know where they're going, but they sure do.

Passage Making: On the Importance of Being Ready for Nothing at all

2011-05-26T21:43:00.000-07:00

Dolphin at the bow

-- a version of this article appeared in Latitudes & Attitudes, December 2010 --

Our passage from Mexico to the Marquesas took forty-four days. That’s longer than the gestation period of a kangaroo and almost twice that of rabbits. One reason our passage lasted so long was that we took the scenic route. We snuck a peak at Socorro Island, but weren’t allowed to get off the boat. From there we sailed to Clipperton, where conditions were such that the wrecks on the island, which had initially been objects of curiosity, took on a more ominous significance. So we didn’t get off the boat there either. These diversions added an extra 800 miles to our voyage. But we also spent two weeks or so exploring the patch of water around 01 deg. North and 125 deg. West, inching forward by day on the slightest zephyrs and being set backward at night by a current that frequently ran more than two knots. All told, we sailed some 3250 miles in 44 days – that’s an average of about 3 kts.

I’m not complaining about this passage. We didn’t have any major difficulties, and our sojourn in the doldrums was not forced upon us but was more of an aesthetic choice – we could have fired up the Perkins at any time, or at the very least offered some kind of sacrifice to the gods of wind and weather to get us moving again. Indeed, we quite enjoyed our six weeks at sea. And although we were thrilled eventually to see the lush, steep slopes of Fatu Hiva rising from the ocean, we weren’t desperate to get off the boat. Once at anchor, our daughters jumped at the chance to swing from the halyards again, while their parents reacquainted themselves with the taste of beer. The dinghy had to wait another day for its resuscitation.

Albatross

When I compare this voyage to our first few oceanic jaunts, what strikes me is how much our attitude toward passage-making has changed. We’re less skittish than we used to be, much more content at sea and less anxious to bring our voyages to an end. It helps, of course, that we’ve learned a thing or two since we first started sailing; we’ve grown comfortable with the boat and have stuffed her nooks and crannies with enough useful junk to improvise solutions to most problems. Much more important, however, is that we’ve learned to appreciate the irony that one’s voyage at sea is quite different from everything one prepares for.

A Mahi-Mahi near the equator advises
us not to swim off the boat.

A blue-water passage leaves no room for complacency. Cruisers spend a lot of time imagining one nasty ‘what-if’ scenario after another, trying to prepare for every contingency. And so they should – they’re putting a lot on the line. But all of this anxiety about safety creates the impression that the passage itself is an undertaking of immense risk, which prudence suggests ending as quickly as possible. It is as if disasters were creatures of malevolent intent, lying just beyond the range of Coast Guard helicopters, poised to strike at both the boat (the snapped back-stay, the shredded main, the seized engine) and the flesh (the abscessed tooth, the broken arm, the embolism in the brain). Never mind that boat is in good shape and the crew a paragon of health. Passage-making is often treated as a kind of race to reach one’s destination before disaster strikes.

Sunset in the Doldrums

But while dutiful sailors typically prepare themselves for the worst, they should also be getting themselves ready for nothing much at all. The truth is that most passage-making is profoundly uneventful. Although the stakes are high, the overwhelming odds are that nothing bad will happen. While one has diligently prepared for the worst, crossing an ocean poses less risk than crossing the country in a car. It just takes longer, has far fewer changes of scenery and no roadside attractions. Moreover, even if one is possessed by the urge to complete the passage quickly, when that destination is more than a thousand miles away and your vessel lumbers along at a pace not much faster than a brisk walk, the notion of “quickly” becomes absurd. As a result, the experience of an ocean voyage is often anti-climactic – a curious juxtaposition of dread and boredom. Indeed, the number of cruisers who actually enjoy passage-making is less than one might expect. When a friend, for instance, informed us of his impending departure from New Zealand to Fiji, I suggested that he must be quite excited and looking forward to the trip; he figured I was being sarcastic – he hadn’t left yet, but already he wanted the voyage to be over. Somebody else we know looked forward to an invigorating sail from Mexico to Hawaii, but then endured a passage so tedious that in Honolulu he sold the boat.

Scooping up sea critters

Perhaps at this point you’re expecting me to insist that the key to meaningful passage-making is to understand that the journey is the goal – that one needs to immerse oneself in the voyage itself and not focus on the destination. But I don’t possess the spiritual depth to make that wisdom resonate. Our approach to passage-making is quite the opposite. For us, the voyage is something that happens while we’re doing other things – making fishing lures and baking bread; organizing boxes of stainless fasteners and picking weevils from the rice. Our kids love the baking, but not so much the weevils. When it’s calm, they’ll set up their wooden train on the cabin sole, or put on their dress-up clothes and arrange a tea-party for their stuffed animals. And when the boat romps through a building sea, they invent new ways to swing from the handholds or lie on the salon table, waiting for a wave to tip them into the settee.

Traveling by sailboat is certainly slow, but it is so unlike other forms of travel that the speed and length of the voyage doesn’t matter nearly as much. It doesn’t require the same intense concentration as driving a car; it doesn’t subject you to the same mind-numbing, blood-clot producing boredom as an 11-hour flight. And I would much rather embark on a two-week passage than suffer the experience of LAX. When all is said and done and the self-steering gear is set, the boat pretty much sails itself, leaving us free for other things. Sure, the interests of safety demand some kind of routine and diligence – checking the bilge, looking for signs of chafe, watching for traffic. For added measure, we impose a moratorium on all recreational swimming (for fear of contributing to the food chain) and alcohol consumption (livers are people too). Now and then we’re called upon to put in a reef or two (or three), or to shake them out again, or to change a sail, balance the boat or adjust our course; but after that we can focus our attention elsewhere.

Swell off Fatu Hiva

We’re admittedly less sanguine when we’re caught in the teeth of a gale. The sound of waves slamming into the hull and sweeping the cabin top still sparks an adrenal flash, even though we know that the boat can take on far worse conditions than we’re ever likely to encounter. But what do we actually do in those conditions? Well, we reef down and keep a close eye on things, making sure nothing breaks and that we don’t get run down. If necessary we’ll heave-to. Apart from that, we jam ourselves into the corners of the boat and sleep. We figure it’s better to rest just in case something nasty happens than to exhaust ourselves worrying about said nastiness. And then we wait for the weather to pass.

Of course, it is nice to be moving and I won’t deny the frustration in the doldrums of plotting our daily progress on the negative side of the number line for four days in a row. But turning on the motor would have been worse. The sound of the engine would have filled the cabin and left little room for meaningful pursuits; the expensive diesel draining from our tanks would have focused our attention on the “progress” of the voyage itself, the boat’s painfully slow pace and the immense distance still before us. Much better to wait. And, in fact, our days in the doldrums were some of the most memorable I’ve spent at sea. Contrary to expectations, the temperatures were remarkably cool, requiring us to cover up at night. We were haunted by a languid cross swell, from the northeast and southeast, long and undulating but barely enough to rock the boat. In the mornings we were often enveloped by a thick and drenching fog that encouraged nudity in the cockpit to spare our clothes. One night in particular, looking out to the horizon under a brilliant canopy of stars reflected in the water, I had the impression that we were at the center of snow globe. Usually, when the sea is broken by swell and chop and the skies patterned with cloud, it feels like we can see forever; but on this night the horizon seemed close enough to swim to.

One of our strangest (and still unexplained) experiences occurred at night at N 00 deg. 44’; W 124 deg. 42’ (or, if you prefer, in the absolute middle of nowhere). As I went up to check our course, I was greeted by a vigorous mammalian breathing and snorting – a kind that I have only heard from sea lions – and it seemed to be coming from right beside the boat. But we saw nothing, neither the tell-tale glimmer of phosphorescence nor anything with the flash light. Two nights later at N 00 deg. 41’; W 124 deg. 14.4’ (in other words, about thirty miles east of the first position) we heard the sound again. It must have been the same creature; maybe we were drifting east together. I doubt very much that it was a whale, and cannot believe that any self-respecting sea lion would wander so far from shore, so I have no idea what kind of creature we heard.

Priorities -- swinging from the halyards
in Fatu Hiva

While we weren’t moving very much, we still had plenty to do. We read aloud from the Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy under a makeshift canopy in the cockpit, a work that has as much to say to parents as it does to children. We examined peculiar critters scooped up from the sea, and witnessed the triumphs and tribulations of President Bartlett in The West Wing. Michelle monitored our consumption of powdered milk and I spent three days replacing worn plugs in our teak decks. It is often said that cruising is about fixing your boat in exotic places; we also fix ours at sea. Eventually the wind filled in again, sending us across the equator at a blistering 2 knots, after which it never faltered. Ten days later we were swept into the lee of Fatu Hiva by gale force winds accompanied by torrential downpours.

Considered only as journey from one place to the next, the passage was indeed quite long. But passages are not simply voyages and they’re not only about sailing; they are, in fact, extended moments when one’s whole life modulates into a different key, where distractions fall away and nothing stands between you and your imagination. So when you’re ready to go – you’ve checked the rigging and changed the oil; and you’ve sewn together the carcass of a chicken to feel what it’s like to stitch a wound – give some thought to what you’re actually going to do out there. Remember the promises you made to yourself in college to read the unabridged works of Tolstoy and to memorize the night’s sky? There will never be a better time.

Almost There

2011-02-11T19:45:00.000-08:00

This piece first appeared in the August 2010 issue of BluePrintReview. It was written on Day 43 of our 44-day passage from Mexico to the Marquesas, and it's part of a longer manuscript which might just see the light of day one day.

In January, Michelle was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for Almost There.

* * *

Almost There
by Michelle Elvy

We are closing in on the Marquesas. It's been over a month of nothing but blue under our keel and the steady arc of the sun and stars as they exchange places overhead in a repeated pattern of light and dark.

Tomorrow my daughters will see Fatu Hiva's lush green hills and pronounce it a perfect day, but then again, they think today's perfect, too: children live in the moment like no one else.

Which is a good lesson for us all, especially when crossing an ocean. Because out here you are alone with the rhythm of your thoughts and the ghosts of your past.

*

We scattered my brothers' ashes several years after their Cessna fell out of the sky. We met for Thanksgiving at our mother's house, my brother, sister, and I. A family out of balance, trying to find normalcy in a shattered world. The turkey was baked to perfection; the dinnertime conversation was alternately hilarious, edgy, and bitter. But we united around one thing, that two lost sons should live out eternity somewhere other than in an upstairs closet. And so we said our final farewells as we sifted their vaporized bones through our fingers into Spa Creek, around the corner from our mother's house.

I never pictured my brothers settling on a quiet street in Annapolis, and I had mixed feelings about them taking up residence there. We agreed that they should be scattered, but we had never reached a consensus about where to do it. The sea was where they spent most of their leisure time, where they had chased tuna and wahoo and marlin and sailfish. For me, anywhere in the Atlantic would do: off the Florida coast where they kept their fishing boat; off their home waters of the Narragansett; at the mouth of the Chesapeake closer to childhood memories. But schedules got in the way and years slipped by until we finally settled on something that was logistically easy for our busy lives.

An anti-climactic end, I thought.

But I've come to think it was right, after all. Ashes to ashes, returned to Nature in the waters at their mother's doorstep. I watched our mother cupping dusty dry bits of her boys in her small hands on that Thanksgiving Day and my heart broke all over again. I think of her now — passing this spot on a quick errand, glancing down the street where she kissed her palms and whispered goodbye, remembering her sons as she strolls through her neighborhood on a summer's evening — and I like knowing my brothers are there.

*

But in death, as in life, they are adventurous men and I see them wandering, too. Like me, perhaps: restless souls, or maybe just curious. I see them float out Spa Creek into the Chesapeake, past the haunts of our childhood, north up under the Bay Bridge, where they stop in Baltimore just long enough to see what became of me.

North? says Kirk, and Marc nods, Yep.

They stop in Manhattan to check in on their other little sister, a woman buried in grad school assignments and married to a boy they never knew who has brought peace into her life that makes them smile. Then they are Boston-bound, looking up girlfriends now married with kids and friends who still tell stories of two brothers as different as a mathematician and a poet could be but inseparable in life and death. They laugh at the ceaseless Big Dig, dip their toes in the chilly Narragansett and head south — down the Chesapeake again, where they putter in the Sassafrass for a day, because if you had all the time in the world, wouldn't you?

They pass Annapolis once more (Hello, Mom! calls one; Goodbye, Mom! calls the other) and then dash up the Potomac where they look in on their baby brother, who, at thirty-three, has now outlived them both (An accomplishment! says Kirk, and Marc flashes his pointy-toothed grin) and lives a musician's life that one brother won't ever understand (What the hell is post-punk? mutters Marc) and the other admires (Never mind, you old fart, teases Kirk).

They chuckle their way back down the Potomac, bantering about baroque and modern and postmodern Art, Marc still tickled at pushing buttons despite his invisible form, and Kirk giving it back because someone has to, even if they are both dust and smoke.

And then they are at the mouth of the Chesapeake, and they are making tracks now to the tropics. Kirk tips his Duke cap toward Durham when they're off the Carolina coast, and Marc shouts Yo! to the West Palm Beach fishing fleet. No time for the Gulf Stream now; they're heading to Panama, through the Canal and into the mighty Pacific — new territory.

They cheer when they cross the equator: Almost there, whispers Marc. They're gaining speed, traveling more west than south, and finally they spy in the distance a small white speck on the heaving sea.

And now here they come, to me — not blurry memories but vivid and strong. It's March 16 today, and for once I don't see my brothers in the burning wreckage of a plane, as I have done every anniversary since that spring day when metal hit mountain. On this morning I see them everywhere: from Spa Creek to the Pacific Ocean. With friends and fathers and siblings and mother. They trickle down streams and float on oceans. They drift through air and dart across time. Connected to us all, connecting us all.

It's March 16, and I'm seventy miles out of the Marquesas.

I've come three thousand miles to get here.

It's taken me fourteen years.

Today I see that all this time my brothers have been here too, right beneath my keel, willing me forward.

The Short and Unhappy Life of Momo's "New" Mainsail

2010-10-24T02:57:00.000-07:00

Flying the 'old' sail from Fiji
to New Zealand

-- a version of this article appeared in Bluewater Sailing, November 2010 --

In November 2006 we installed Momo's new main, replacing one that was as old as the boat -- that is to say, over a quarter of a century. Three years (and 14,000 miles) later, that sail was trash. And though I defended it to Michelle -- whose mind is much less clouded -- at various points along the way, the fact is that the sail was never very good, tearing far too often and at the slightest provocation.

The first sign that the sail was of inferior quality was when a reefing line, hanging loosely from the reefing cringle, wore through the sail just above the boom. Which was surprising, for we don't usually consider the mere presence of reefing lines to be excessively stressful. Next, the sail began to give us problems when we reefed -- each time we reduced sail, we stood a good chance that the reefing line would cut through the sail when we drew it tight. Then the sail started to develop little holes when we straightened out the cloth. Finally, one day just before the sail's third birthday, while reefing in about 20 kts of wind, the sailcloth exploded near the reef point, producing a two-meter tear; and in the seconds following, as we lowered the flogging sail, it developed a 1.5 meter tear near the head. We cursed the decrepit sail and tried once more to repair it with our sewing machine, even though we knew there was little point. The sail had become resistant to machine repairs -- the needle did more damage than good. Indeed, by now our sail was a quilt-work of awkward hand-stitched repairs and colorful glued-on vinyl patches. Ultimately, we carried out perfunctory repairs using glue and PVC cloth, but the sail was beyond salvation.

Contemplating a two-meter
tear just above a reef point.

Anchored in Fiji on the cusp of cyclone season, we knew that the sail would never survive the notorious 1000-mile passage to the safety of New Zealand. Fortunately, we still had our vintage main, crammed ignominiously into an aft locker. Welcoming it back into our lives like an old friend, we hauled it out, recommissioned it, and marveled at the quality of the ancient cloth. Life again was good.

Taking Quality for Granted

It is with some reluctance that I say that the unfortunate mainsail was made by a sailmaker in Hong Kong, in part because I don't wish to evoke any knee-jerk reactions to "cheap sails made in China." But also because the workmanship on the sail was really quite good. Moreover, in the end, this sailmaker treated us well. The real culprit was the sailcloth itself -- which was made in America.

When we originally ordered our sail, we focused on the quality of the stitching, the weight of the sailcloth, and the strength of the slides. In our experience, these were things that mattered most; after all, deteriorated stitching and broken sail-slides had accounted for most of our repairs in the past. They were also things that could be easily judged. We took the quality of the sailcloth for granted, but that was a mistake.

The quality of polyester (i.e. Dacron) sailcloth is more of an issue today than it was, say, thirty years ago. According to Dan Neri in Sail Care and Repair (Beowulf: 2002), the quality of woven polyester "is just not as good as it used to be," mostly because of a lower demand, now that racers use laminated fabric for their sails. Also, sailcloth manufacturers make different grades of sailcloth -- some of which are definitely better than others. The difference in price between the grades of cloth is significant. Our sail was made with 9.3 oz high aspect cloth manufactured by an American company; it is one of the most popular cloths used for making cruising sails and found in sail-lofts everywhere. It is not the manufacturer’s worst cloth, but it is also not their best. Their best sailcloth, made of tightly woven premium polyester costs the sailmaker about 50% more than the stuff that was used for our sail. So unless you make a point of asking for it, you're probably not going to get it.

-- Jana tears our three-year-old main to shreds --

The Blame Game

The workmanship on the sail was good ...
With cheaper sailcloth, manufacturers rely on a relatively high resin content to maintain directional stability; that is to say, to reduce stretch. By increasing the degree of resin impregnation, they can still get the results they want while using inferior fabrics. The problem, however, is that the resin breaks down as the sail is used, and the sail quickly deteriorates. In the case of our sail, the cloth still had the stiffness of a moderately new sail, but it tore easily. Our vintage sail, on the other hand, is much more supple -- and it also has a much tighter weave.

The problem with our faulty sail was also aggravated by the fact that it was made from 'high aspect' cloth. High aspect cloth is woven so that the yarn in the 'fill' direction is especially strong. With the 'fill' oriented vertically in the sail, this type of weave helps the sail retain its shape when used on a high aspect sail. The downside is that the horizontal 'warp' is comparatively weak. Thus, while the 'fill' on our sail was still quite strong, the 'warp' threads tore like paper.

When we reported our problems to our sailmaker, they in turn contacted the sailcloth manufacturer, who suggested that the failure was due to UV-degradation. I don't doubt them, given that about 65% (but no more) of our sailing occurs during day-light hours. But when we're not sailing, the sail is protected by a thick sailcover. And our head sails -- which are as old as the boat, take more of beating, and with which we have sailed more than twice the mileage endured by our mainsail -- are in better condition than the ‘new’ main. Sure, I've spent plenty of quality time stitching them back into shape and healing minor wounds, but the cloth is still all right.

Some have suggested that the cloth came from a faulty lot. Perhaps, but we're not convinced. We've heard too many stories about short-lived sails. I recall the details about two of them: one was a sail made in New Zealand using European cloth; the other was a sail made in British Columbia (the friend who bought this sail let me tear samples of it myself). Both woeful tales were told by people who have spent more time at sea than almost anyone we know.

... but the tension on the thread of the sewing
machine tore through the sail cloth

Even if it did come from a faulty lot, the fact that it passed quality control is probably not a mistake but good business practice. Most people don't use their sails the way we do. Fourteen-thousand miles make for a lot of trips between LA and the Channel Islands, around the Chesapeake Bay or from Newport to Block Island. Most sailors would, indeed, have been quite happy with our main. So, were the deficiencies of our main the result of a bad batch of cloth? Or is it just that, for the most part, this cloth is good enough for most types of sailing, but not the kind of stuff you’d want to hang from your spars for numerous ocean passages?

An Emotional Commitment

I should also note that even though the cloth was a disappointment (to say the least), I wouldn't necessarily say that the sail was a bad deal. Quotes we received from a top-notch American outfit to make a similar sail were five times as high. I have no doubt that they would have used better cloth, but not that much better. I know, too, that some people swear by their expensive sails. But once you’re spending that kind of money, you also have an emotional commitment to what you’ve bought (indeed, I had an emotional commitment to our inexpensive Chinese sail until it really let us down). If you really want to know what people think about their designer polyester sails, you have to ply them with drink.

Our experience with our offshore sailmaker was, in the end, quite good. Initially, we had difficulty getting anyone to respond to our emails. In fact, after the sail had been delivered, the agent in Vancouver, B.C. treated us as if we'd sailed off the edge of the earth. But eventually an agent in Hong Kong got back to us and offered us a new sail at a 40% discount. Their original proposal was to make us a sail with heavier cloth or with thicker warp threads. But we were reluctant to have a sail made from the same type of cloth as the old one. So we asked for a premium cloth, and they complied. They still had all of our measurements and digital photographs from when we placed the order three years back. They also accommodated a few minor changes and let us reuse our metal slides for a moderate discount.

Lessons Learned

New sail on the right (courser thread);
old sail on the left

Now, as we contemplate purchasing new head sails, where does this experience leave us? Clearly, our negotiations with sailmakers will now include a discussion of sailcloth. But not all sailmakers want to have this discussion.

We would gladly buy sails again from that same sailmaker in Hong Kong, for example, but only if we could specify the cloth -- which isn't likely. Despite the fact that they used the cloth we requested to replace our mainsail, when we asked whether they could make us head sails out of that same cloth, they told us they don't buy the cloth and won't be able to offer it for our head sails.

Out of curiosity, we also checked with a second outfit in Hong Kong. But when we asked whether they could make us something from a better polyester cloth, they steered us towards a laminate, which is clearly not what we were looking for.

Another company advises on its website "that you leave the type of fabric and weight of cloth to our sail designers," to which I can only reply:you've got to be kidding! But when I contacted their nearest loft (which for us was in Australia), they told us that they stock a variety of cloths, including premium sailcloths. This sounds more like the beginning of a conversation we'd like to have.

One thing for us is certain: the next time we buy new sails, the quality of the sailcloth will be a primary concern. We'll get samples of the cloth beforehand and compare the finished product with the samples they send.

One final note: the manufacturer who made the cloth for our sail has recently changed its product line -- they now have a few more products to choose from. Whether that means that the quality of their lower-end cloth has improved is something we can't judge. But a little skepticism never hurt anyone.

Addendum

For those interested, the mainsail in question was produced by Lee Sails in Hong Kong. The cloth was "High Modulus/ High Aspect Cloth" manufactured by Challenge Sailcloth. We were happy with Lee Sails quality of workmanship, and perhaps if enough people ask they will be willing to use higher quality sailcloth. If so, let us know.

A Final Note on Sailcloth

Although there are hundreds of types of sailcloth, they can generally be divided into two categories: woven polyester fabrics and laminated fabrics. The development of woven polyester fabrics in the 1950s was truly revolutionary, for polyester sailcloth was in every way superior to woven cotton and immediately rendered the latter obsolete. In contrast, the development of laminated fabrics since the 1970s has significantly improved sail performance, but in other respects woven polyester has retained certain advantages. One major advantage is price: a quality polyester sail still costs significantly less than a sail made with laminates. Not only is laminated fabric more expensive, but making the sail is also more labor-intensive. But there are other differences as well which explain why, despite the fact that laminated sails have taken over the racing scene, the overwhelming majority of cruisers still rely on sails made of woven polyester – this notwithstanding the efforts of sailcloth manufacturers to market their laminated cloth to cruisers.

Polyester fabrics are created on a loom much like any other typical fabric, with “fill” threads woven in and out of “warp” threads. Although the fabric is stiffened with resin, the weaving process itself allows for a certain amount of stretch and that stretch increases as the resin breaks down. In contrast, laminated fabrics are constructed by gluing together a number of layers, some of which are woven and others are not. A typical performance cruising laminate might be comprised of five different layers: a woven scrim at the center sandwiched between layers of extruded plastic (Mylar, for example) which in turn are protected on the outside by layers of tightly woven taffeta. The resulting sailcloth is strong, light, and extremely stable. Its virtues especially come into play when sailing to weather. Whereas a woven polyester sail will inevitably stretch in these circumstances, a laminate sail will hold its shape, allowing the boat to point higher, heel less and perform better. Moreover, while the stretch in a polyester sail increases over time, a laminated sail will retain its shape throughout its life.

But the increased performance involves certain trade-offs. Laminated sails are stiffer and more difficult to handle, which is more of an issue for a short-handed crew than for a team of racers. They are also more susceptible to damage from flogging or folding and need to be treated much more carefully. And while one may promise to be diligent, such diligence is not always possible. Moreover, given a greater susceptibility to UV and chafe, the overall life expectancy of a laminated sail is shorter than one made of quality polyester. This may not matter to hard-core racers who are willing to change their sails every season to keep their performance sharp, but most cruisers have different priorities.

That being said, sailcloth manufacturers clearly want to make their laminates more attractive to cruising sailors, developing fabrics that are more durable and last longer. Their success will depend on whether the long-term experiences of the intrepid cruisers who choose laminated sails will support the claims of the sailcloth manufacturers.

Need to Control Your Twist? Consider an Off-Center Vang

2010-10-15T17:09:00.000-07:00

(A version of this article appeared in Good Old Boat in March/ April 2007)

Momo uses two off-center vangs
led to positions near the toe
rail on the side deck.
They help control the boom in
all sailing conditions, act as
preventers, and are controlled
from the safety of the cockpit.

When we reconfigured Momo, our Mason 43, for blue water sailing, we searched for a way to replace our 4:1 purchase vang with something more powerful. We also needed something that could act as a preventer and steady the boom. Eventually we developed a system of dual off-centered vangs which has proven robust, effective, and easy to use. In fact, these vangs turned out to be our most significant modification to the sailboat’s rig, greatly enhancing performance and safety.

The Centered Vang vs. the Off-Centered Vang

The typical sailboat features a centered vang, which is secured at the base of the mast and runs at an angle between 30 and 60 degrees to a position on the boom a few feet from the gooseneck. The vang keeps the boom down and thus controls the twist of the main, particularly when the boat heads off the wind and that function can no longer be fulfilled by the mainsheet and traveler.

Older boats like ours often employ a modest 4:1 tackle, which is barely adequate even on small boats. Skippers with deep pockets can install a masculine piece of hydraulic muscle powerful enough to move mountains but which costs more than a new a mainsail. New boats increasingly sport rigid mechanical vangs which also support the boom in lieu of the topping lift, although I don’t understand why anyone would trade the supple strength of rope for the rigid vulnerability aluminum extrusions and steel. Judging from manufacturers’ warnings and reports I’ve read from people who use them, rigid vangs seem like a heavy and expensive way to replace a fully functional topping lift with a product that offers above all the potential to break. The virtue of the centered vang lies in pulling the boom down without impinging on its freedom to swing from side to side. The boom can be sheeted to any desired position while the vang’s tension remains the same. But such convenience comes at a price. As much as half of the force applied to a centered vang does not actually pull the boom down but rather wastes itself driving the boom into the mast and stressing the gooseneck. Little can be done about that: if the boom attachment is moved forward, the downward pull of the vang increases, but leverage is lost; moving the boom attachment aft increases the vang’s leverage, but decreases the proportion of force actually used to bring the boom down.

Furthermore, giving the boom the freedom to swing is not necessarily a good thing. With any kind of seaway, particularly in light winds, the boom bounces around with a violence that benefits neither the rig nor the canvas. And the further the vessel sails downwind, the greater danger it faces from an accidental jibe. Inevitably, measures need to be taken to steady the boom.

Often, however, such measures are awkward and unsafe. One common recommendation, for instance, is to rig a preventer to the end of the boom, lead it forward to a block on the bow and bring it back to the cockpit. But that is easier said than done, especially after a jibe at night or in heavy weather. Another way to rig a preventer is to change from a centered to an off-centered vang – by releasing the bottom of the vang from its position at the base of the mast and moving it outboard so that the vang constrains the boom. But a vang that always needs to be moved from one place to another is a nuisance.

On Momo we decided to set up an off-centered vang for each side of the boat, with both sides controlled from the cockpit. Not only are these vangs more effective than a centered vang at pulling down the boom, they also act as preventers and help steady the boom in a seaway. Jibing and tacking are easy, and using the vangs and mainsheet we can secure the boom in any position we desire within seconds.

Respect the Force

Due to the difference in leverage, any tackle that controls the boom from the middle encounters substantially more force than tackle which controls the boom from the end. The forces faced by an off-centered vang, especially the shock loading from a slatting main, can overwhelm hardware, pull fittings through decks, break stanchions, and lift genoa tracks. Thus the vang’s components, especially its attachments to the boom and deck, need to be carefully considered.

We use webbing straps for all of our boom
attachments. They are cheaper and more
forgiving than stainless steel fixtures
and put less stress on the boom. They
accommodate shifting directions of load
and are easy to inspect and replace.
The red lines, led through holes in the
boom, keep the straps from sliding back
and forth. After about a year or so we
noticed some chafing at the point where
the shackle passes through the loop. But
the problem turned out to be caused by
corrosion on the stainless. We now put a
few turns of electrical tape around the
shackle to prevent abrasion; that has
solved the problem.

On Momo we secured the vangs to the boom with a webbing strap. In fact, ever since a stainless boom attachment for our mainsheet sheared while we were motoring through a windless stretch of sloppy seas, we have used webbing straps for all of our boom attachments. They absorb shock and accommodate shifting directions of loads; they are easy to inspect and replace; and they are light and incredibly strong – the 1" wide straps we use have a working load of 3200 lbs. with a safety factor of 5:1. They are also inexpensive – after asking a boatyard crane operator where he purchased his straps, we went to the same place and discovered that they could custom-make any kind of straps we wanted at very reasonable prices. The 2' long straps we use on the boom were made by Grip-Sure Manufacturing in Richmond, B.C., and cost less than $8 each. Compare that to the $40 we might otherwise have spent for a stainless steel boom bail that, tortured by the stress of an off-center vang, would inevitably fail.

One way to assure the strength of the lower fitting is to secure the vang to the chainplates. But leading the lines fairly can prove difficult, and, for safety reasons I will explain later, we did not want vangs positioned that far forward. On Momo we secured the bottom of the vangs to two separate points aft of the chainplates, spreading the load between the midship cleat and a stanchion base. The points are 24" apart, and each is reinforced with a 4" x 6" stainless steel
backing plate.

Each vang has a purchase of 8:1 – the same as obtained from a typical rigid vang – which generates sufficient force to pull down the boom in a strong wind. Moreover, since the off-center vang pulls the boom more or less straight down, it is more efficient than a centered vang. To gain such purchase without using excessive lengths of line or numbers of blocks, the vangs are composed of two cascading tackles. The first tackle consists of a line, the standing part of which is fixed to fiddle block. The hauling part is reeved through a block at the boom, brought down to a block at the midship cleat, and led back to the cockpit where it can be made fast. By itself, it yields a 2:1 purchase. This part of the vang bears the most load, thus the blocks and line must be sized accordingly. On our boat, we use 90mm blocks by Wichard (safe working load of 4,400 lbs.) at the boom, Schaefer’s 704-5 block (safe working load of 2,250 lbs) at the cleat, and ½" line (breaking strength of 8,500 lbs). The line must also be long enough to allow the boom to swing freely to opposite side of the boat.

The blue line runs through a block
secured at the midship cleat -- it
has a 2:1 purchase and is used for
the gross adjustment of the vang.
The white line is used to get the
vang tight. It runs through tackle
secured to a stanchion base (our
stanchions our quite strong) and has
a 4:1 purchase. This produces a 8:1
purchase overall. Both lines are led
back to the safety of the cockpit.

The second tackle bears only half the load of the first and thus can be sized somewhat smaller. The standing part of the second tackle is fixed to a fiddle block secured to a stanchion base about 24" aft of the midship cleat. The hauling part is then reeved back and forth between the fiddle block which terminates the first tackle and the fiddle block that is secured at the stanchion base, and finally brought back to the cockpit where it can be made fast. We use Harken’s fiddle blocks 1559 and 1560 (safe working loads of 1800 lbs) and 3/8" line (breaking strength of 4,400 lbs.). By itself, this second tackle yields a purchase of 4:1. Between them, however, the two tackles yield a purchase of 8:1.

Operating the vang involves two steps. First, one makes a gross adjustment using the first tackle. Simply put, one hauls on the first tackle until the fiddle block is brought all the way up to the boom. Then one uses the second tackle to achieve the desired tension and sail shape.

Don’t Trip the Boom

The only serious danger with an off-center vang involves tripping the boom in heavy seas. If the boom digs deeply into a wave while constrained by the vang, it could very well snap. With a system like ours, the vang should retain enough elasticity to avoid such a catastrophe. Since the vang’s bottom attachments are situated aft of the chainplates, it does not actually hold the boom all the way out. The distance between the vang’s bottom attachments absorbs shock by allowing the boom to rock back and forth a little while under tension. The ropes and the webbing also stretch. Furthermore, the location of the vang’s bottom attachments also help us recover from accidental jibes. When the wind catches us aback, the boom swings inward a few feet before being stopped by the vang. In this position, the boat actually feels like it’s hove-to. It continues to make enough headway that, by putting the helm hard over, we can bring the stern through the wind again and resume our course.

During gale conditions we’ve had the boom dip lightly into the sea, but this is not something I like experimenting with. The best thing is to avoid tripping the boom at all. Reefing helps, not only by reducing heel but because each successive reef raises the end of the boom a little further from the deck (this, of course, depends upon the design of the main). Eventually, conditions might require striking the mainsail and flying a trysail without the boom.

In the absence of boom gallows, the vang can center the boom and hold it steady. In any event, even if the boom trips in the sea, the rig faces less danger from an off-center vang than from a preventer run forward from the end of boom. Whereas the vang might break the boom, the preventer might generate sufficient torque to bring down the mast.

Buy Yourself Something Nice

Building a quality robust vang is not exactly cheap. Our vangs were designed to sustain a safe working load in excess of 3000 lbs. Based on the catalog of a leading US chandlery, the blocks we used retail at around $650, although a little bit of searching can yield significantly lower prices. To that one needs to add the cost of line and other incidentals needed to secure the vang and lead the falls back to the cockpit. Still, compared to other alternatives a vang like ours is a veritable bargain and much more versatile. Forespar’s rigid mechanical vang (‘Yacht Rod’) for a boat our size retails at more than $1800, while setting up a hydraulic vang for a boat our size costs around $2800. With all the money you save, you can buy yourself something nice – perhaps a little rowing dinghy. And when you stow it on deck, shove it right against the mast, because there won’t be a centered vang to get in the way.

Video -- Jana takes on our three-year-old sail.

2010-09-29T12:31:00.000-07:00

We made this little video last January in Whangarei. An article about this sail will appear in the November issue of Blue Water Sailing (available mid-October). Once it's published, we'll post it to our blog.

Making the Shift from Land to Sea: Moving Aboard with Kids

2010-09-20T06:03:00.000-07:00

Most people planning to go sailing with kids wonder how they will feel living in a small space 24-7 with their spouse and offspring. Moving from house to boat is a major transition, no matter how much planning and dreaming you've done. People who don't live on boats can't get past the image of cramped quarters and shared bathrooms. Indeed, in today's world where the average American home has more than doubled in size since the 1950s and plenty of kids are accustomed to their own private bathrooms, flat-screened TVs, and cars, it's hard for some to imagine life aboard a space that's not much larger than a walk-in closet. For those of us who embrace this lifestyle, however, there's no question of the upside: our shared space creates an opportunity for greater harmony, the family unit is strengthened, and every day we look forward to what's just over the horizon.

For Bernie and me, the decision to leave land life was already deeply ingrained even before we became homeowners -- we bought our first boat, the one we would eventually live aboard, before we even contemplated house or kids. Then, we sold our Baltimore house and everything else we owned in July 2002 and moved with our baby Lola onto our 1961 Pearson Triton, which we had affectionately named Simplicissimus, the 'simplest of the simple.' Compared to the house we had owned, everything about the 28' Triton was on a much smaller scale. No complicated systems -- just a 3hp outboard (we had removed the old Atomic Four some years earlier), a kerosene lamp for light, and a two-burner kerosene stove which we had built into the table top.

The living space was small, to be sure, but so was the workload. The scale was so dramatically different from the house, we rejoiced every time we had to search for a tool (many of which we misplaced in our house, never to be seen again) or tidy up (a task that was never complete in the house). Fiberglass repair replaced plaster work; painting the hull was easier than painting our bedroom. And sure, we had no heat, but we also had no heat bills. In short order, a sharp realization came to light for both Bernie and me: this small but rugged boat was better suited to us and would allow us a kind of freedom that life on land never did.

We now live aboard a Mason 43, a boat larger than Simplicissimus in all ways (we have doors! a shower! a galley!). But starting out on the Triton was one of the best decisions we ever made. On that boat, we honed our sailing skills and learned the routines of living aboard. We loved its quirky personality, and we were in our element. When we were ready to purchase a larger boat to accommodate our growing family, we knew what we were looking for. Indeed, it has become our firm belief that starting small helps you figure out exactly what you need in a larger boat. And, psychologically, the move to a larger vessel creates a whole new positive perspective on size. Moving from house to boat is always a dramatic downsizing in your life, but going from the Triton to the Mason created the impression, at least, that we were now living in luxury. When we moved aboard Momo back in 2003, our daughter Lola, then two, announced her approval after she ran up and down the center aisle between the settees the first time: "Big boat -- I like it!" It’s all a matter of perspective.

Fitting Your Family Into Your Boat

Whether aboard a 30, 40 or 50 foot boat, we haven't met a family yet who has complained about the space. The distances you plan to travel and the time you plan to spend on board will influence the size of your boat. Deeper pockets at the outset might get you more boat and more equipment, but a modest budget will not keep you from going. We've met families willing to put up with tighter quarters for a two-year cruise, because the timing is right. If you and your family are committed to going, choosing a smaller or simpler boat because of budget limitations will not stop you. And kids adapt wonderfully no matter what the space: there is always a way to fit them on board a boat. A quarter berth makes a cozy space for a small child, and a pilot berth can be turned into a private play or sleep space.

We met a family aboard a Pearson 36 who had cleverly built a bunk out of the starboard pilot berth which created a bed and play space for their 3 month old. They sailed with their baby and one other adult for extra crew, and their boat accommodated all of them comfortably. Other friends who took off sailing aboard a Swan 35 (a small boat, by most liveaboard standards) made space for their 7 year old and 11 year old in the port and starboard pilot berths in the main salon.

Another couple we met aboard a Tayana 37 have created a cozy space in their starboard quarter berth for their two year old, complete with a net for her animals and bright colorful sheets B and they still have space in the bottom half of the bunk for a month's worth of toilet paper, paper towels, and diapers. Any of these families might have chosen larger boats if their budgets had allowed, but for each of them, the time was right. Their boats, all under 40 feet, have gotten them where they wanted to go.

Sharing Space, Sharing Things

The reality, of course, is that most of the space on any boat is shared space, so being comfortable with your children in close quarters is something you will have to adjust to quickly. Besides, living with a little chaos keeps you healthy. We tell ourselves that, since by the end of each day, Momo's settee and pilot berth area is cluttered with books and toys, games and puzzles. And the shell collection outside seems to grow every day, even when we haven't been to the beach.

To keep a handle on the natural trend toward entropy, we maintain a few loose rules and, most important, keep in good humor. Neither adult on board Momo is a tremendous disciplinarian, but a few simple routines go a long way toward maintaining some semblance of order. The table and floor are cleared before every meal, for example (let’s face it: who would want to place their feet on play-do bits and jacks anyway?). We encourage our kids to put away one set of toys before others come out (though this rule never works with our tools, dishes, or books either, but it’s sound in principle).

Often it's easier (and always faster) to clear the space ourselves, but you can't start too early teaching your children to tidy up the boat with you, because maybe they’ll be better at it than you are. We are not experts at any of this, by the way: sometimes our kids spend more time pulling long faces and protesting than actually putting things into shelves. But kids do that in a big house, too. So don’t let the small space overwhelm you. When you are fed up with stepping on trainsets and dolls and shoes, look outside and breathe. And then laugh at yourself, and smile at your good fortune.

In addition to sharing the space, you have to share things. Just as you don't need two cars any more, or a television in every room, you also learn how to make one item serve multiple functions. On Momo, the kids' rubber bath is also the fish tank for spear fishing off the dinghy, the beach box for snorkels, masks, and shovels, the washing machine, and the recycle bin while we are underway. The laptop is our work space as well as our family entertainment center. As I am writing, my daughters have commandeered a laundry basket and several of my hand-sewn cushions to build an elaborate fort on the floor between the settee and the table. If we put fish in their bathtub, they can use my cushions. This doesn't mean that certain items are not off limits -- the sewing machine and power tools are generally not toys, and we ask neither Lola nor Jana to share their baby dolls with us. But on a boat, your ability to economize is tested on a daily basis, and getting everyone behind the idea that we share our things makes life more enjoyable -- and more creative too.

The smaller space of your boat means, of course, that your children will have fewer things than when they lived in a house. There is no garage to house the Big Wheel, ping pong table, or playhouse. The entire living space is in fact much, much smaller than an ordinary play room. When we accumulate new toys or books, there is no attic to accommodate the older ones. The same solution has been discovered by every sailing family we know -- at regular intervals throughout the year, the kids routinely go through their old toys, books and clothes to make room for new ones (and the parents have to do the same). In doing so, we underscore the value of need over superfluous junk, and that the accumulation of stuff is not the key to happiness. We’re not overly zealous about this point -- our kids love getting presents like all other kids (that's what grandparents are for, no matter where you live). But we’ve grown up understanding that cleaning out their cupboards and rotating things off of Momo is a natural part of their lives.

Sharing this new and smaller space with your children requires a psychological adjustment, to be sure. New challenges and tensions might come with close proximity, but so does the opportunity for unity that most families come to cherish, even as the parents are tripping over the legos or wishing they hadn't surrendered their bed for an afternoon of pirate ship.

Sharing Space Beyond the Cozy Cabin

You are not limited to the space inside the boat, of course. On any boat, the cockpit becomes a back porch on which to enjoy a cool sunset beer or dinner al fresco. On Momo, the foredeck and boom serve as practice space for acrobatics, and the cabin top is the front yard where shells are collected and sorted, tea parties are organized, abstract art finds its way from brush to paper, and laundry is washed and dried. You can make good use of your entire vessel, but even more than you, your kids will see the whole boat as an adventure, if you let them, and they will learn better than any one else how to use every inch of space, inside and out.

The space at your disposal actually extends far beyond the confines of your own boat, too. Even if you are concerned about the small space of life aboard, the reality is that your space grows very quickly beyond your own vessel. If you stay in marinas, your reality extends quite quickly onto the dock around you. We've known numerous boats who end up sharing a whole dock space as an affinity develops between neighbors and a community quickly grows. And of course, land and all it has to offer is literally a few steps away as soon as you step over the toe rail.

For us, the same thing happens at anchor: your immediate space around you becomes like your front yard, and your connection to other boats in the anchorage provides you with a neighborhood. In any anchorage with a critical mass of boats, we have encountered people eager to help with each other's projects or throw together a spontaneous potluck. For kids, a visit to another boat is an open-ended adventure. Sometimes a short chat on a dinghy ride evolves into an afternoon of activity -- a coffee on board, a fishing excursion, a hike in the hills. Then of course there's the large swimming pool just off your transom, if you are in warm climates, or the beaches that beckon each afternoon.

Shifting Your Focus: Making the World Your Home

In the end, when you move aboard, your space is expanded, not diminished. Your vessel creates your immediate personal space, however small, but the space you can explore while sailing the world is limitless. You might sleep each night in a bed that is much smaller than your king sized futon back in your house. Perhaps your children now play only steps away from you rather than in the den down the corridor or in the third floor nursery. But space ultimately has little to do with LOA or beam. This requires a monumental mind shift, of course: to imagine that your space is now larger, not smaller, than when you lived on land. But it's true. And the world opens up one hundredfold as soon as you leave your home port.

This article appears in the September/October 2010 issue of Liveaboard Magazine. Thanks to the editors for sharing our stories and perspectives with their readers.

introducing thirteen

2010-09-12T03:49:00.000-07:00

I've been busy this month getting the first quarterly review of my flash fiction website out the door. And it's here now!

thirteen

features the best of the first thirteen weeks of

52|250 A Year of Flash

In this review, you’ll find the best stories from 52|250's first quarter, plus an interview with an artist, ten new creative non-fiction stories written by our most loyal flashers, and a page where the Editors share a little more, too.

For anyone new to these pages, perhaps you are wondering what 52|250 A Year of Flash is. It started back in May, as a way to discipline myself to write more. The idea was to produce one piece of flash fiction every week for a year: 52 weeks, 250 words each week. I mentioned the idea to my high school pal John Chapin (who also happens to be a writing instructor) who responded, “I’m in!” So we created a website, and made an announcement here and there. The first week saw 17 submissions — 17 different stories about Breadfruit. We followed that week with a new theme, Fancy Me. Next came Little Worlds... and so on. People submitted theme ideas and art, and more and more stories rolled in. Soon Walter Bjorkman joined our team and helped streamline the site and prettify the code. And we’ve been writing every week since. We’ve just published stories for Week #17: We Are Not Responsible. And this week -- Week 18 -- has everyone writing about Lucky Number.

In short, 52|250 grew almost overnight from an idea to a community. We’ve had over 70 people participate in the project, and it’s still growing. And now we are here, with our first beautiful Quarterly Review.

If you are hearing about 52|250 for the first time, feel free to wander over to our site and send in your submissions — art, themes, or flash.

And thanks for stopping by and reading thirteen. Which, this week, is my lucky number.

More than you wanted to know..

2010-08-21T23:36:00.000-07:00

As if our own website doesn't offer enough of a venue for us to go on and on about ourselves...

you can read all about Momo and her crew, distilled down to one (long) page, at Kathy Parson's Women and Cruising website.

Kathy and her team have put together an amazing project about sailing families, in which they've asked twelve sailing families to answer a set of questions about everything from safety to education to entertainment to offshore sailing. You can read about other families who were featured in weeks before us: NEW LIFE, TOTEM, MERLIN, KANDARIK, and SHANGRI LA.

And now you can read how we tackle those same questions, here.

Thanks to Kathy for this great website. Momo is very pleased to participate in this project.

Debunking the Baby Myth

2010-08-01T04:44:00.000-07:00

The real deal about sailing with kids

When we moved aboard our 1961 Pearson Triton back in 2002, the most common question we were asked was “Isn’t it hard living aboard a sailboat with a baby?” Our daughter Lola was then 8 months old, already crawling, and fast approaching that age when mobility and exploration are critical to a baby’s development. At the time it seemed like a natural progression to be moving our soon-to-be-mobile baby onto a 28-foot floating home, even as our parents imagined her crawling right off the deck. By then, our minds had long been set on the goal of setting sail with our children, our house and material goods had been sold into the caring hands of others, and Lola seemed as willing as her parents to embark on this watery path.

I realized only much later that for people back home, the hazards of living on a boat with a baby seem more extreme, the possibilities for mishap endless. We watched landlubber friends gasp as they reached protectively for toddling Lola scrambling around deck. But the comparison was brought into sharp relief when, a few years later, we gasped in the very same way as our children ran into in the urban yard of those same friends and seemed dangerously close to the passing traffic. Our friends and their kids were perfectly calm, but for us, the nearby cars were more frightening than ocean waves.

In short, our children treat the dangers of the sea in the same way that city-dwelling kids treat the speeding roadways that they live with every day. They are mindful of the hazards, they heed their parents’ repeated warnings, and they play close to the edge nonetheless. It’s a matter of perspective, and what you are used to. While a sidewalk marks the boundary between the safe yard and the streets of Baltimore, the lifelines, netting and harness create the necessary border between life and death on board a boat.

Brave or Crazy

Even more surprising to me than our land-based friends’ disbelief when we set sail for more distant waters was the response from other sailing families. I have frequently met seasoned cruisers sailing with older kids who hold the opinion that sailing with babies must be really difficult. The commentary ranges from “You must be very brave!” to “You must be crazy!” As colorful as that makes us sound, we are neither, really.

The truth is, if you take your childcare as seriously as you take your safe boat handling, living on board with babies comes naturally. And if you start out from the very beginning (the earlier, the better), the changes come, well, one baby step at a time (which seems infinitely easier to me than prying a teenager away from his cell phone, X-Box, and D&D club). There are so many reasons why living on a boat is in fact quite amenable to babies: the settees are fixed places for them to pull up and toddle around; the corners are rounded and provide nice handholds; the leecloths make ready-made romper rooms. And that netting you see on baby-boats? Not only does it keep your baby on deck but it will also save numerous tools and toys from a deep-sea end. For us, less equipment for the baby means more room to travel. No stroller, no crib, no bottles of formula. We had always been pretty basic in our outlook of what we needed, and having a small baby on board further emphasized this point.

At Sea as On Land
Bernie has often mused that whatever kind of personality you were back in your shore-life, you are bound to continue to be on a boat – except that your characteristics (or quirks, as the case may be) will become more pronounced. A packrat will continue to squirrel away items in those hard-to-get-at lockers. A planner, a scheduler, a time-keeper will not shed that watch lightly, and might like to make reservations in marinas along the way, just to be on the safe side. If you once possessed a tidy kitchen and organized desktop when you were a house-dweller, you will be among the lucky ones who can locate the spare paper towels or the 9/16” wrench when you need them. If you are slightly more chaotic (and this one I can relate to, since I live with someone who is neither tidy nor a list-keeper), well, your life on board might veer towards degrees of entropy. You get the idea: there are all types out here, everyone finds their own comfort zone on board, and you can only change so much, even when you shed your shore shackles and sail off into the sunset.

The same goes for pregnancies and babies on board. If you find pregnancy tiring and difficult, it may be so on board. If you are prone to slight neuroses, the sort who reads every book written about what-to-expect-when..., then you will be more likely to discover some neuroses about your baby on board. And let’s be clear about the discomforts of pregnancy: going to sea is no cure for morning sickness, and diapers do not magically clean themselves in a gale.

A few years back, we were motoring out of Vancouver’s Fraser River at an evil morning hour, when the wind kicked up to 25 knots against the outgoing tide. This was the only occasion when both our daughters awoke throwing up, the eldest (four at the time) exclaiming with shock, “Mama, I think I have The Seasickness!” (It was, quite clearly, something mythical that she had not yet experienced first hand.) I stayed below with the girls while Bernie motored to the mouth of the river over the next several hours, and quickly abandoned any hope of keeping myself vomit-free – my shirt became a towel; my lap may just as well have been the bowl or bucket I’d perched for each of my kids. Yes, things can get messy.

Less is More

Choosing this life with your babies on board is just that – it’s a choice, and one you make freely. Embracing that choice and seeing past the discomforts can lead to a kind of enlightenment (yeah, sure, you say; but believe me: I’ve been vomited on by two people at once and I still especially love sailing with my children!). It’s a state of mind, really, this sailing with babies. Becoming adaptable is probably the best thing I’ve learned from having babies on board. That and the less-is-more approach to pretty much everything. You don’t have room for all the accoutrements you might accumulate in a house, so you use what you have. We made slings and baby carriers in lieu of strollers with both of our children. We slept with our babies too, but if that’s not for you, then pilot berths and V-berths make great substitutes for cribs. And exercise? Kids get plenty of that on board, even if you do not. A kid will put any length of line to use -- turn it into a swing, make a leash for a stuffed animal, tie a sibling to the mast.

Of course, the less-is-more motto works especially well if you breastfeed your baby on board. Yes, watches can be tiring if you have to feed intermittently through the night, but the pay-off is worth it. At the risk of sounding a little too earth-mother, what better way to nurture your babies while at sea? Nature does it all: the wind pushes you along, and you don’t have to measure out formula on a heel. No diesel, no bottles. Less mess, better nutrition. What more could you ask for? With both my babies, I let nature take care of them across time zones and bodies of water and found this to be one of the most practical (and most comforting) things in the world.

With Gusto

In terms of sailing in adverse conditions, we can take a cue from our children as well. We find that their confidence builds as ours does – or is it the other way around? At any rate, we try to maintain a sense of cool while emphasizing the risks of sailing offshore with both our kids, and they seem to have adopted a healthy, balanced attitude. I’ll never forget Lola’s laughing face (at age two) when we sailed down the Chesapeake Bay one afternoon in a 25 knot headwind, spray splashing us all the way to Annapolis (we had no dodger). I kept looking for signs of distress, but she stood all afternoon on the cockpit seat, harnessed into the floor, one arm around her father’s neck and one hand on the bimini frame. And she laughed with every splash. It could have been easy to grumble about the wind – it was our last leg back to Annapolis after a summer in New England, and a calm sail into harbor would have been more pleasing, to be sure. But her joy was contagious. She and Bernie were in their element, and I’ll never forget the image of those two great big grins.

A year later, Lola’s sister Jana made her first offshore ten-day passage (Ensenada to Puerto Vallarta, nonstop) when she was three months old, tucked gently among cushions in the leeward bunk (with Lola romping all around). I recall my only worry on that trip was what to do with the very large marlin who had become interested in our trailing lure (he threw the hook, much to our relief). We then set sail to Hawaii with a bouncy 3-year-old Lola and a 7-month old Jana, and found the three week crossing hassle-free – and no thanks to the weather either: we experienced strong tradewinds combined with a cross-swell sent our way from a gale off of California and thus sailed with 30+ knots and steep 12-15’ seas for ten days straight. But even in those conditions, sailing with a baby was easy. She ate, slept, played, cooed, and pooped. That’s pretty much what babies do, on or off a boat.

Three-year-old Lola, meanwhile, found her sea legs quickly and romped around as if nothing was unusual about those 21 days, morning, noon, or night. Adaptability comes naturally to small children, and it was in those uncomfortable days on that passage that I really noticed how much we can learn from the light spirits of children. Our daughters have become hearty offshore sailors who understand the need for equal doses of caution and a sense of freedom. Sometimes they even wax philosophical about their sea-bound life. It was in a gale off of Oregon a couple years back when Lola quite happily declared: “The waves are my spirit, the water is my life!” OK, we’re not all quite so poetic about being hove-to in a two-day gale, but it did serve as a great reminder to embrace the moments we have on board, and to do it with gusto. Even if you are wet and cold.

As I write, it is slightly raining and my daughters are outside, swinging on the halyards. I urge them inside; I think they will get cold. No, they declare, they are having too much fun. Lola pushes herself out as far over the water as she can, and I hear her laugh with Jana and say, “This is my best swing ever!” I smile as I remember an older cruising couple anchored nearby who recently commented about our kids’ foredeck antics, how they expressed a sense of awe and wonder at the children. How they thought them very brave. Yeah, I think to myself now: brave and crazy. And then I remember that people have said the same about their parents.

This article appears in the August 2010 issue of Blue Water Sailing. Thanks to the editors there for sharing our experiences with their readers.

Up Close and Personal with Peppers

2010-07-25T01:48:00.000-07:00

When I think back to our years sailing in Mexico and all its culinary delights, I recall with great emotion one thing: chili peppers. We spent one particularly glorious season in the Sea of Cortez, spearfishing every day for our dinner and enjoying a never-ending supply of three of my favorite things: cilantro, lime and chilis. All three go hand-in-hand, but cilantro and lime do not come in the varied and colorful forms that chilis do. And so it was with chilis that I experimented most.

In particular, I fell in love with the mild poblano that season, using it in everything from savory scones to rice pilaf to garlic-citrus mayo on baked fish. Roasted, stuffed, or made into a quick salsa, the flavorful poblano became a staple item in my repertoire. And you just can’t live in Mexico without discovering the mysteries of mole, and you can’t have mole without the poblano. But other sorts of peppers also caught my fancy back then: chipotle turned my chili con carne deep and smoky, jalapeno became a standard in my spicy tomato-corn salsa, and serranos were a must in any respectable salsa verde poured over fish tacos.

Each of these chilis possesses varying degrees of bite, quantified by the Scoville scale, a system for measuring the piquant in pepper developed in 1912 by a chemist named Wilbur Scoville and popularized in recent years by the vast market of spicy BBQ and hot sauces, many of which boast about their Scoville score right on the bottle. Scoville developed a way to measure how many parts per million of capsaicin a pepper contains, and how much dilution is needed to drown out the heat. The pimento or pepperoncini is the mildest of all peppers, rating only 100 to 500. The poblano is also quite low, with a mere 1,000 to 1500. Next in my lineup of personal favorites comes the chipotle, which rates 2500 to 5000. The jalapeno is a bit spicier, with 5000 to 8000 as its score. And the serrano is even stronger, with a rating of 10,000 to 23,000. To keep this in perspective, let me add a few more chilis in here: cayenne pepper, or tabasco pepper is rated 30,000 to 50,000; Thai pepper or Indian pepper, 50,000 to 100,000; scotch bonnet, 100,000 to 300,000; and the champion of all when it comes to piquant, the habanero, 350,000 to 580,000. At the very top of the scale is pepper spray, which is rated at 8,600,000 to 9,100,000. You see why it’s so effective

But back to peppers, and a particular story about the serrano. The serrano figured prominently in any salsas I made in Mexico; I like them spicy. Sometimes I’d use the serrano to heighten the flavor of my creamy cilantro sauce served over grilled chicken or fish. And I always used a serrano or jalapeno for ceviche, depending on which was available in my pepper basket on that particular day.

Ceviche deserves a discussion of its own, for it is nothing short of a delight. It is pleasing to the eye and palate, nutritious, and easy to make with whatever assortment of fresh items you have on hand. It’s the perfect meal in the tropics, because you don’t have to crank up the stove or oven. We used whatever fish we caught: grouper, mahi mahi, trigger fish, snapper. Even tuna will do (and is used in some South American cultures), but we prefer it with a firm white fish. Ceviche is made, quite simply, by marinating the fish in fresh lemon or lime juice -- which breaks down the proteins and pickles or “cooks” it without heat. Once you get your cubes of fish marinating, you start chopping veggies, and by the time you've finished chopping, you can break open the crackers or tostadas or forks and dig in. I make my ceviche with a few standard items: lime or lemon, onion, tomato, bell pepper, and fish. If I have avocado or orange, I might add it. Anything crispy will do as well: cucumber, celery, jicama. But mostly, ceviche just ain't ceviche without the right amount of kick. The serrano delivers.

We ate our way through the Sea of Cortez that season nourished some days wholly on ceviche. I linger over my memories of those meals – fresh, colorful, crispy goodness. But let me offer a word of warning here, too. Serranos are actually quite hot. You’ve heard the stories of people rubbing their eyes after chopping jalapenos? Well, serranos are even hotter than that. And I had a very close encounter with a serrano one day.

I know what you’re thinking; using the Scoville scale, the serrano looks mild. You’re thinking that a rub with a serrano might not be such a big deal. And I agree, to some extent: while I would have preferred an intimate brush with a poblano, I am forever grateful that I was not chopping habaneros that day. But the serrano is sharp enough, and the effect is immediate. I felt the full power of those 30,000 Scoville units that day: they burned into my skin, and into my memory.

Which brings me to the central story, which I could label as Michelle’s Number One Tip for Sailing Women. Here it is, fellow travelers, in all its scorching bluntness:

Do not ever, ever chop chili peppers and then change your tampon. You do not know the meaning of HOT until you’ve done this. And I don’t mean HOT in a titillating manner. I mean HOT as in panic-producing, sweat-inducing, scream-generating spiciness. Forget that itchy-hot sensation you get when you you've just chopped chilis and you inadvertently scratch your nose. This ignites a sensation on a whole different scale. Unexpectedly intense heat of that sort in the nether-regions is, quite frankly, shocking. And embarrassing (especially if your mother-in-law is visiting).

After about an hour of rolling, clutching and hopping (one's urge to blow is just not possible in this case), things settled down. Copious amounts of aloe gel and a couple cold beers later, we were all laughing and eating ceviche. You might think I had no appetite after the Great Serrano Incident, but I do not believe in holding grudges against something so lovely as the serrano, and even though the pain still lingered, I appreciated the humorous side of the this particular fire in my loins.

I still cook with chili peppers. I chopped some jalapenos just the other day (and, no, I don't wear gloves, because I'm unteachable in that way). Burning fingers or no, I can’t help myself: despite my mishap with the serrano, I’m devoted to chilis.

Some call it love; I call it burning love.

A version of this article is out now in the August 2010 issue of Latitudes and Attitudes. Thanks to the Editors over there for putting my pepper story in the galley section of their magazine.

Cigarette Smoke in the Car

2010-07-18T03:53:00.000-07:00

Hardly a sailing story, but that was last week's theme on the flash fiction site 52|250, and Michelle's Bedtime Story appeared there. You can read all the stories at 52|250. Here is Bedtime Story:

Let me tell you, child, the story of how your father became your father.

Not the story of how his sperm crashed into my egg, how mad passion made a sweet sticky union that turned two into one and then in a split second became three. That is a good story, too, but this one is better.

We were driving down Highway 1, me at the wheel and him dialing the radio. Windows down, heatwave hitting us hard. Supertramp: Give a Little Bit. He turned it up, lit a cigarette, put it to my lips like he always did, his sweet salty fingers so close I wanted a nibble. When I turned my head slightly and said No he looked almost hurt. Then I said the thing I’d been hiding for two weeks: I’m pregnant. I couldn’t read his face, and the telling of this simple truth was much like the rest of our relationship: unplanned and hot. I saw the slight slump of his shoulders that accompanied his bent head, his black Oriole’s cap shielding his eyes. And then he stubbed out his Camel unfiltered, exhaled long and slow. He took the pack from his Tshirt pocket, turned it over, studied it as if it might reveal some magic wisdom: Run away! Marry her! Find another girl! Then he pulled the remaining cigarettes from the pack, and, one by one, tossed them out the window. Turned Supertramp louder, cupped his hand round my sweaty neck, and grinned.

Flash Fiction (May 24, 2010)

2010-05-26T13:43:00.000-07:00

This week's theme was "Fancy Me." You'll find more stories at http://52250flash.wordpress.com/.

From The Doctor, With Love

(Michelle)

I am tired, man, beat.

feel like a whiny kid,

are we there yet,

need to sleep!

Don’t know if I can walk

another mile, though you might talk

me into it. ’Cause though I’m

stomped and scuffed,

and have wrinkles and pocks,

you say they’re not wrinkles,

but creases and folds –

you say I have character,

you say I’m not old.

You caress me,

hold me and stroke

the soft spots between my folds.

I love how you touch me,

your hands warm on my shape,

and I know we are bonded

by more than duct tape.

Remember that dog shit?

And the chewing gum?

It’s a hazardous world, but you, old chum,

scraped and washed me clean of all

those insults, every single time.

Then came the thinning –

your hair, my sole.

We’re well suited, you and I –

Together, we’re whole.

And though you toss me

in the corner each night,

I feel a surge of affection

the next morning

as you pick me up gently again,

choose me over the Nikes, Adidas

and even those Florsheims

that your mother once bought,

back when you were jobhunting.

You look right past them,

once shiny and loud

now dusty with disuse.

I wait quietly and think,

I am here for you.

We’re both thinner, older,

greyer, slower,

but you are still you

and I am The Doctor.

And I feel it deep down,

you never say it but I know:

I am not just any old loafer.

_____________________

The Potato Head Principle

(Bernie)

Revlon’s development of the Mr. Potato Head principle for human applications had revolutionized the beauty industry, and kits were now available from a number of manufacturers. They could be bought cheaply at Costco and Sam’s Club, but you had to be wary of ones that were made in Pakistan and the Szechwan province of China, for they reportedly caused gangrene. In the mornings, Jerry would shuffle down the stairs and take his place in the greasy diner below his apartment run by the Polish lady. And carrying his breakfast, she would greet him with a different face each time – one day with eyes that were big, round and accentuated by heavy lashes, the next with glistening star-shaped pupils and no irises at all. Her nose might be flat and broad or long and thin, and sometimes it would dangle. Some mornings her ears would be pinned flat to her head, but other times she would accessorize with auricles that fanned the air. “Do you fancy me today?” she’d ask him with a smile, sometimes toothy, sometimes not. “It’s not quite right,” he’d inevitably respond, though her look quite often turned him on. They’d laugh, their flirting done with for the day. And he would polish off his eggs, sausages and toast, read the comics in the Vancouver Sun, and leave a fistful of dollars on the table. Then he’d shuffle off to work at the pickle factory, wondering whether he would recognize any of his friends.

Flash Fiction (May 17, 2010)

2010-05-18T03:23:00.000-07:00

http://52250flash.wordpress.com/Michelle & her "flash partner" John Chapin launched their new project today -- "52|250 A Year of Flash." The challenge: to write one piece of fiction (250 words or less) every week for one year. Stories are written around a theme each week. Themes are submitted by anyone -- you, too (go to the site if you are interested). The first week's theme was "Breadfruit"

Our contributions this week are as follows.

A Knobby Thing

(Michelle)

She reclines in her window seat, sees the starboard prop whirring superfast, looking slo-mo. She closes her eyes and drifts back to yesterday, the last day of everything, 80-hour work-weeks, devoted dull boyfriend, pet cat (a gift) she secretly hates. She brings her thumb to teeth, gnaws where there’s nothing left to gnaw, sorrowful nails bitten down to nothing. She feels ugly but ready for anything.

The wheels touch down and she gathers her things, spits cuticle out the side of her mouth, thp. She steps out into air so hot she’s sure she’ll never be able to breathe here. Then she inhales deeply and instead of feeling oxygen hitting lungs, she tastes it -- floral and citrus, sweaty and sweet. The first breath is as miraculous and jarring as the one she took some thirty-three years back. She almost cries out, too: the punch of this new world hits her hard.

She wanders along Main Street, spots the trademarked arches garish and gold against this landscape, jutting up amongst dusty buildings and peeling paint -- an echo of her old world. She longs for its familiar cool, then spies a small market across the street. Locals laugh, handle fruits she's never seen or heard of. She goes to the first long table, eyeballs a knobby thing, large and green, asks a dark woman with droopy breasts and happy eyes, "Quest-ce que c'est?" The woman answers, "Breadfruit, love." She picks it up, smiles, thinks she'll give it a try.
_______

A story they might tell

(Bernie)

To save our small South Pacific island from the rising tides of global warming, our ancestors turned to Google and the sacred breadfruit tree. From Google they got the names – thousands upon thousands – which they compiled in lists. From the tree, they plucked the breadfruit, which they shaped as human heads, inlaid with pretty stones and shells, drawing upon each a corporate logo or a flag, and inscribing a name: a captain of industry, finance or government. Streaked with war paint and chanting loudly, they split the fruit open with their clubs, boiled it in water, and then picked the meat clean with their forks. And in time zones far, far away, the bankers, executives, and demagogues suddenly began to disappear, vanishing from beneath their silken sheets, evaporating in the business class compartments of jet liners, the back seats of chauffeur-driven limousines, and behind the protective cordons of security teams. There was much weeping from laser-corrected eyes and gnashing of orthodontured teeth. And as if our ancestors had jammed the trunk of a coconut tree between the spokes of a giant bicycle wheel, the industrial gyroscope came to an abrupt halt, flinging millions upon millions of bodies into the oceans and into space. Years later, we still marvel at the sparkling night sky, following with our eyes the moving points of light as the debris of capitalism reenters the atmosphere and burns. We tell stories, like this one, drink kava, and eat well, for the breadfruit tree is bountiful.

Addendum to: An Expression of Doubt — How can Hydrovane Self-Steering really be any good?

2010-05-17T03:32:00.001-07:00

I’ve written this post as an addendum to my earlier piece, An Expression of Doubt – How can Hydrovane Self-Steering be any good? in part because someone questioned whether it was fair for me to criticize a product with which I have no experience. And in principle I wholeheartedly agree. Yet in my defense, I made it clear I had no personal experience a Hydrovane. I confessed that I could not understand how it could work very well. The questions I raised were based not on pure speculation but on the promotional material of the product itself – they are the kinds of questions that I would like to have resolved before I would purchase such a unit.

But I do so much prefer talking about stuff I really know about, so I’m taking a different approach this time. I’m revisiting the Hydrovane promotional material again, but this time I'm looking at the way it represents its primary rival, namely servo-pendulum self-steering gear. Hydrovane makes some rather grandiose claims about its superiority vis-à-vis servo-pendulum gear, but they are based on gross misrepresentations which bring up basic issues of credibility.

A major claim that they make repeatedly is that servo-pendulum gear doesn’t work well in light air. They say, for example, "we have too often heard owners of servo pendulums that are very proud of their units but advise that they only work, when off the wind, in a minimum of 15 or 20 knots of wind!!" But this can hardly be true, or at the very least it is the product of extremely selective hearing. If the servo-pendulum is set up correctly, it should not require any more wind to steer the boat than a Hydrovane. In fact, the windvane on a servo-pendulum actually does less work than the windvane on a Hydrovane. On the Hydrovane, the windvane has to turn a rudder – a rudder that’s smaller than the boat’s own rudder, but which is nonetheless much larger than the steering oar of a servo-pendulum gear. After all, this rudder is steering the boat. On a servo-pendulum gear, the function of a windvane isn’t to steer the boat but to turn a small, balanced oar, which in turn harnesses the power of the water rushing past the boat. In effect, the windvane on a servo-pendulum only needs enough wind to send a signal to the steering oar; the windvane on the Hydrovane needs to get all of its power to steer the boat from the wind. Indeed, this is why the windvane on a Hydrovane is significantly bigger than on a servo-pendulum gear.

A boat with a servo-pendulum needs to be moving through the water for the gear to work. I would estimate that once our boat reaches, say, 2 ½ knots, the gear can steer the vessel without any problems. I can imagine that a Hydrovane might be able to steer a boat that is moving slower than this, though this would also mean that there was very little wind. But a more likely scenario would feature a boat sailing dead down wind in light conditions. The faster the boat moves, the less apparent wind is experienced by the boat and by the windvane. In such conditions, a servo-pendulum will have plenty of power to steer the boat – the tricky part is having enough wind to send a signal to the steering oar (sometimes we’ll increase the area of our vane by clipping on a piece of cardboard). But I imagine that the Hydrovane would have an even more difficult time, for it needs the wind not only to send a signal but also to power the rudder.

Another point the manufacturers of Hydrovane repeatedly stress when comparing their windvane with servo-pendulums is that their unit has “very little friction” and thus performs better in light air. They add, too, that if there is any “excess friction in the system - stiff rudder, arduous connecting lines” then the servo-pendulum unit suffers all the more. This is most certainly true – but it is also misleading and largely irrelevant. To meaningfully discuss of the role of “friction” in a servo-pendulum system, one must distinguish between that part of the system powered by the wind and that part powered by the water. If anything, the part of the servo-pendulum system powered by the wind should generate less friction than the hydrovane – it performs less work. The part of the system that is powered by water – from the lines through the blocks, to the tiller/ wheel, from the wheel, to the cables, to the rudder – obviously generates a lot more friction than the Hydrovane. But it shouldn’t matter. Given the amount of power generated by the oar in the water, that friction should be easily overcome. If “excess friction in the system - stiff rudder, arduous connecting lines” – is really limiting the effectiveness of the gear, then something is seriously wrong.

A third misleading point made by Hydrovane is that “all servo pendulum systems, when matched against a Hydrovane, are comparatively unsophisticated. Once engaged they do a meandering sort of course correction without any means of tuning or straightening its course.” Frankly, this assertion is so divorced from reality that I hardly know what to make of it. The manufacturer at this point in its promotion is really trying to emphasize Hydrovane’s own “sensitivity adjustment” of its vane axis and its three different “rudder settings.” To set up a striking contrast, the manufacturer wants you to imagine that its servo-pendulum rival has “no means of tuning.” How ridiculous. Our Sailomat (which like all decent servo-pendulum gear begins with a sophisticated geometry) can be “tuned” (from the top down) as follows: changeable windvane sizes, moveable counterweight, adjustable windvane lever arm, adjustable push rod, adjustable lever arm at the steering oar, selection of line attachment points at the pendulum, a wide range of block configurations for the lines, adjustable lines for balancing the helm. Some of these things are adjusted when one sets up the gear; others can be used to adjust the gear for different sailing conditions. I will concede the point that “all servo pendulum system lack this [namely Hydrovane’s specific vane axis] adjustability for sensitivity,” but we are talking about different kinds of systems here. Kinda like criticizing an orange for not having apple seeds.

A fourth misleading point made by Hydrovane pertains to the way the boat’s rudder is utilized by the Hydrovane and by a servo-pendulum unit. The Hydrovane needs to set the main rudder in a certain position that balances the boat so that its own auxiliary rudder is effective. The manufacturers then criticize the servo- pendulum system because it cannot balance the rudder in the same way, but they misrepresent the way the system actually works:

A servo system cannot match the configuration of locking your main rudder to render your boat perfectly balanced. … A servo pendulum system must perform a lot of steering that a Hydrovane does not have to do. … On every turn it must deal with the forces of any weather helm or lee helm – not so for an auxiliary rudder system which has no weather or lee helm to deal with as the positioning of the locked main rudder compensates for such ‘pulling’ by the positioning of the main rudder – neutralizes any weather or lee helm! … a servo pendulum can struggle with the forces of weather or lee helm on every turn. … Comparatively, a servo pendulum configuration requires a lot of extra steering.

Hydrovane wants you to believe that a servo-system oversteers because it cannot balance the rudder. But in fact, trimming the lines that connect the servo-pendulum to the wheel/ tiller – that is to say, balancing the rudder – is a critical part of properly setting a servo-pendulum gear for the sailing conditions. The rudder is trimmed to balance the boat, neutralizing weather or lee helm, and the lines to the gear are trimmed so that the gear is a neutral position. The servo-pendulum then steers the boat by moving the rudder in relation to this “balanced” position. What Hydrovane has done here is to describe the wrong way to use a servo-pendulum unit and then criticized its operation. They might as well be telling you that shoes don’t protect your feet because you wear them on your hands.

And this misrepresentation leads nicely to the next one, in which servo-pendulum gear is portrayed like some kind of savage brute. The passage is worth quoting at length:

If you have ever had the chance to see a servo pendulum operating in bad weather you would better appreciate where that comment about its power comes from. Its activity can be described as perhaps violent as it wrenches the wheel/tiller from one course to the next. One certainly wants to stay clear of that section of the cockpit. We do suggest that there is some overkill in that performance. … The comparison [between a Hydrovane and a servo pendulum] is like the difference between the less skilled hard working rookie and a skilled athlete that makes a play look so easy …

Now, I actually have seen our servo-pendulum operating in bad weather. And I never noticed that it “wrenches the wheel/tiller from one course to the next.” Properly trimmed, it ticks gently back and forth, keeping the boat on course. But when boat get smacked or falls of a wave, and veers in the wrong direction, the servo-pendulum shows its strength, vigorously spinning the wheel to bring the boat back on course, making good use of the boat’s own rudder – an athlete to be sure. At this point, I imagine the Hydrovane would be calling out for help from the autopilot (although I confess I wouldn’t know, because I’ve never used one).

I'll close with final quote from Hydrovane's website that attempts to portray a stark contrast between the pathetic inadequacy of servo-pendulum steering gear and the magnificent superiority of the Hydrovane:

A servo pendulum cannot be adjusted for conditions. It cannot help but to over-steer or under-steer. The activity of the main rudder flapping back and forth exacerbates the steering difficulties of a heavy sea. If the same boat had its main rudder fixed it would be far more stable. These issues are complex and hard to understand. I am guilty of a bit of hyperbole in making my point but the concept of the stability of auxiliary rudder systems is well worth appreciating. It alone makes the auxiliary rudder concept superior to any other method of self steering. Adding to that the sophistication and the unmatched versatility of the Hydrovane..........[sic]

Guilty of a bit of hyperbole? You betcha!! I can almost hear maniacal laughter.

An Expression of Doubt — How can Hydrovane Self-Steering really be any good?

2010-05-15T21:10:00.000-07:00

The Hydrovane in all its naked glory.
Which of the two rudders do you
think is stronger? Which of the two
rudders do you think will steer
the boat more effectively?

During the past few weeks, two different friends — one here in Whangarei, New Zealand, the other in Boston, Ma. — announced that they had purchased Hydrovane self-steering gear for their boats in preparation for off-shore cruising. I generally like to be encouraging, but news like this always makes my heart skip a beat — just before it falls into my stomach. And while I fumble for an appropriate response, the homunculus behind my eyes shakes his head and mutters: “those guys have made a big mistake.”

In the interest of full disclosure, let me be perfectly clear. I have built my own self-steering gear in the past, I've modified the one we're using now (because I like to tweak), and I have helped others get their self-steering gear under control. But I have no personal experience with a Hydrodvane. You don't see them very often compared to other kinds of systems. The only one I've ever fondled was on a Waterline 50, and the owner expressed displeasure because it didn't do the trick. The Waterline 50 is admittedly a large boat — it is heavier than Hydrovane recommends. But the makers of Hydrovane shamelessly encourage the use of their product for boats that exceed their own recommendations, noting that they "know of and even provide many installations for boats in excess of those limits." They might indeed be willing to "tell you about the many 50,000 lb. or 23,000 kg boats that also have glowing reports of their Hydrovanes," but the fellow I know clearly isn't one of them.

My skepticism arises mostly from a theoretical assessment of the gear and from an utter inability to understand how it could possibly work very well. If you want to hear about how wonderful the Hydrovane is, I refer you to their website. But much of what I've read there sounds like half-truths. Thus, for example, when you follow the link that takes you to the testimonials of "famous sailors," you'll be greeted by a photo of Jimmy Cornell's "Aventura" sporting a Hydrovane. But what they won't tell you is that Cornell currently touts the servo-pendulum by Windpilot. "I switched from Hydrovane to Windpilot," he writes, "because I felt that the Hydrovane system may not be powerful enough for a 43 ft. boat." Or perhaps Windpilot just pays him more -- who knows.

In any event, my purpose here is simply to raise a few doubts and encourage prospective buyers to perhaps think twice before spending "25-40% more than good of servo-pendulums" (for some reason, Hydrovane subscribes to the "if-you-charge-more-they-will-buy-it" philosophy) on a mechanical self-steering device that might very well prove to be a major disappointment.

Something I do know for certain is that robust and effective self-steering gear is the key to happiness. I know this from our own experience and from the experience of watching the tribulations of others. On our passage to Hawaii, our Sailomat servo-pendulum gear kept us on course as we bounced around in the nastiest cross swell we’ve ever experienced in forty knots of wind for days on end; meanwhile, we were in radio contact with a skipper not very far away, whose autopilot (which was supposedly more than adequate) gave up so frequently that he couldn’t get away from the wheel long enough to pee. Another skipper we know on a Valiant 50 from our stay Mexico experienced a thirty-knot blow as a "survival storm" because his autopilot couldn’t do the job. For a short-handed crew, decent self-steering gear – whether it’s a mechanical windvane or an autopilot – makes the difference between heaven and hell.

With respect to mechanical windvanes, there are a number of ways to skin this cat. Most crews rely on servo-pendulum gear. Ours is made by Sailomat, but Monitor is the most common, and there are other manufacturers as well – Aries, Windpilot, Cape Horn, Fleming, Voyager. While we might debate their finer differences, in principle they work the same. A windvane is positioned so that when the boat is on course, the vane is vertical. When the boat veers off course, the shift in the apparent angle of the wind causes the windvane to deflect. The deflecting windvane turns a balanced oar that is in the water. As the oar presents a face to the water rushing past the boat, it is forced to swing like a pendulum. The energy from this swing is transmitted by lines and blocks to the boat’s steering system – either to the wheel or to the tiller – and the boat is brought back on course. Servo-pendulums are not practical for all boats, particularly those that rely on hydraulic steering instead of cables or those with a center cockpit. But there are also other kinds of windvane devices that by-pass most the boat’s steering system and effect the rudder more directly. They use a windvane to deflect a trim tab on the boat’s rudder, which in turn causes the rudder to swing. In all these cases, the power of the wind (which is quite weak) mechanically adjusts the gear so that it harnesses the power of the water (which is immense) to steer the boat.

Hydrovane in action on Youtube:
"Runnning downwind
in 18 to 20 knots, heading to Sydney ..."
Are you impressed?
You shouldn't be.

The Hydrovane, on the other hand, relies solely on the power of the wind to steer the boat. And unless that little magical box which links the windvane to the rudder somehow manages to transcend the laws of thermodynamics, that power isn't very much. This is why the key to the Hydrovane's successful operation is balance. As the manufacturer points out, “the trim of the sails and balance of the boat determine how well the Hydrovane can do its job.” And under the "causes of poor performance," the makers list an “unbalanced boat” (they suggest retuning the rig, changing the rake or position of the mast, cutting the boom — that's some pretty drastic surgery); “unbalanced sails”; “baggy sails”; and a “main rudder locked on the centerline” instead of in the “balanced position” (this a draws attention to the fact that fiddling with the Hydrovane to set one’s course also requires fiddling with the main rudder).

Four-year old Jana sails the
boat in Tonga. I think this
is a little more impressive. She's
also cuter than a Hydrovane, but
admittedly she requires feeding.

Now, I have no doubt that the Hydrovane will steer a nicely balanced boat, but that isn’t saying much, because a nicely balanced boat virtually steers itself. Anyone who has struggled with a wheel or tiller to counter weather-helm knows that a balanced boat is easier to steer than an unbalanced one – this applies equally to biological, electronic, or mechanical pilots. Our youngest daughter can steer the boat in perfect conditions; when the sea picks up and conditions get gusty, we let someone else take the wheel. The measure of an effective pilot is not its performance under “balanced” conditions, but “unbalanced” conditions. And on a boat that is being smacked around by waves, conditions can change from “balanced” to “unbalanced” in a heartbeat – the key is having a pilot with the strength to get the boat back on course and “balanced” again.

Let me reiterate this point with another quote from the makers of Hydrovane. They say that a "perfectly balanced" boat "leaves a lot less work for the Hydrovane to do — or put another way: makes the Hydrovane's rudder much more effective." But the logic of this statement is faulty; it really works the other way around: because the Hydrovane is not very effective, it cannot do a lot of work, so the boat must be perfectly balanced.

Another way the manufacturers turn vice into virtue is when they stress that you can use the Hydrovane and an autopilot at the same time, something that they point out you can't do with a servo-pendulum gear.

In major storms many have used this technique [that is, using an autopilot in tandem with the Hydrovane] when the Hydrovane appears to be challenged to the maximum and needs all the help it can get. That is often the case in the early hours of a storm when the seas are square and chaotic. Once the storm has blown for a while and the seas become more regular then the autopilot can be turned off.

Here I am keeping watch
on the self-steering gear
during a gale under beautiful
clear skies off of California.
But since there was really
nothing to do, I soon went
back inside.

Sure, it is true that you cannot use your autopilot and a servo-pendulum gear at the same time. But the more important point is that you don't have to. And what the makers of Hydrovane construe here as a virtue (namely that the Hydrovane and autopilot can work together) is in fact a pretty way to dress up a liability: in fact, the Hydrovane needs an effective autopilot in adverse conditions. Again, they note that an autopilot is "comforting to use in storms when uncertain -- [it] can [be] turn[ed] off once control is regained." Frankly, a priority for me in bad weather is to not loose control in the first place.

As for their criticisms of more conventional servo-pendulum gear, they only make me wonder what the makers of Hydrovane are smoking. "We have too often heard owners of servo pendulums that are very proud of their units," they write, "but advise that when off the wind they only work in a minimum of 15 or 20 knots of wind – not all, but some!!" This can only be true of the most dysfunctional gear and would be evidence of serious problems. Our own gear works in pretty much any wind (on any point of sail) that is sufficient to bring boat speed up to 2.5 knots. Likewise, I wonder about their drug intake when they make the power of servo-pendulum sound like uncontrolled violence:

If you have ever had the chance to see a servo pendulum operating in bad weather you would better appreciate where that comment about its power comes from. Its activity can be described as perhaps violent as it wrenches the wheel/tiller from one course to the next. One certainly wants to stay clear of that section of the cockpit.

This is what life looks like in Momo's cockpit
on a beam reach (supposedly a 'difficult' point
of sail for self-stearing gear) in about 12
knots of wind. We're just cleaning a fish;
the servo-pendulum is driving the boat.

Damn right! We tell our kids all the time to keep their fingers away from the lines, blocks, and wheel. We also teach them to be wary of the loaded sheets and winches. There are a lot of forces at play on a sailboat, especially in nasty weather. But when I look out at our servo-pendulum gear as it navigates our vessel safely through a gale, I don't see violence but grace, and I feel for it a fondness that approaches true love.

P.S.

The best book I have ever read on self-steering gear for sailboats is Bill Belcher's Wind-Vane Self-Steering. Belcher examines an number of different types of mechanical windvanes. His theoretical discussions are incredibly clear. He provides an honest appraisal (untainted by any affiliation with a specific product) of the capabilities and limitations of such gear. And the whole point of the book to help readers construct devices of their own — the book includes detailed plans for a number of different types of gear. Given the outrageous price of self-steering gear, it is reassuring that anyone with moderate skills can make a decent and effective self-steering device for, say, five-hundred dollars. I believe the book is out-of-print, so it may be hard to find. But it's worth looking for.

Seven Things...

2010-05-10T17:44:00.000-07:00

Our Momo Blog recieved a nod for a BEAUTIFUL BLOGGER AWARD last month by the remarkable Martha Williams, who's not only an excellent writer but also a sailor, diver, mother, humorist, and too many other things to mention here; you just gotta go to her website and visit a while.

We regrettably must admit, however, that this award is undeserved, because we sometimes forget to blog altogether. But we're HERE and we are happy if you are HERE too! And here's our lovely award:

Thanks, Martha!! (yes, go read her blog now!)

The award comes with a suggestion that we share seven things with our readers about ourselves, and that we then suggest other blogs for this mighty accolade. So here goes...

1. "Here" for us is New Zealand these days; we're on a pile mooring in Whangarei's Town Basin -- which is, incidentally, one of the few times we've not been at anchor in eight years (once when Jana was born; once we left our boat in Skagway for an excursion to the Yukon; and a few other times when anchoring was not an option, such as Radio Bay, HI, Lahaina, HI, San Diego).

2. Jana now talks about "mates" and "knickers" (and is also pleased about her first loose tooth).

3. Lola has outgrown every pair of shoes and pants we've gotten for her in the last several months.

4. Both kids love the idea of school (more than the reality of getting out the door every morning), but they also feel a certain melancholy, along with their parents, that Momo is not sailing north this season.

5. We have discovered Whittaker's chocolate, which helps heal the hole in our hearts where Milka used to be.

6. Our bottom paint experiment continues: this time, we're seeing how long the ablative paint will last, since we are not moving. On the other hand, we're watching that waterline scum grow in our motionless state, but only a little, since our ablative-paint-waterline-experiment is doing quite well (forthcoming Cruising World article posted soon).

7. You can tell winter's almost upon us by the way our kids dress. It's really only fall here, but Lola and Jana have inherited their mother's predilection for hats and scarves. Lola believes in layers and layers of fleece. Jana, however, has declared herself a "New Zealand girl" and so skips off to school (we've still never seen her walk; she runs or skips everywhere) with hat, scarf, sweater, umbrella, and flip-flops.

Here are seven other blogs worth checking out, and certainly worthyof the BEAUTIFUL BLOGGER AWARD:
Women and Cruising
Advice, Resources, and Inspiration for Women Cruisers
The Peregrine Sea
Featuring Tim Robison's gorgeous photography
S/V Totem
A family of sailors, presently eating their way through French Polynesia, one baguette and pompelmousse at a time
Jason Rose, S/V Bodhran
A blog about one man's adventures from the Pacific Northwest to the South Pacific
Atom Voyages
James and Mei adventuring around the globe on a Pearson Triton, a boat near and dear to our hearts
Bee Elvy
Artist and musician, living on the edge in NYC, embracing transition always/all ways (so what's wrong with a little nepotism in the wonderful world of blogging?)
Wortblitze v. Flawnt
Cool stories in German. What more need we say?

And now, a little more about why we're here and what we're really doing...

We've been in New Zealand since December (09) and we're working on getting our residency sorted, because Whangarei is the perfect place from which to explore New Zealand and its surrounding waters. For the first time in eight years, we're staying put for two consecutive seasons. It's a strange feeling, but a good one too. Lola and Jana are attending Whangarei Primary School, and Bernie and Michelle are immersed in writing and editing and translating projects, all the while job-hunting to keep us in the South Pacific. The North Pacific's too cold, Australia's too big, North America is a little nuts these days, and Europe is too expensive. Yep, New Zealand suits us thoroughly, so keep your fingers crossed for Michelle's mad job-hunt and we'll keep you posted when someone decides she's just too good to pass up.

We look up from the tap-tap of fingers-on-laptops every now and then and get out and explore. This is a beautiful country. Here are some reasons why we love Northland.

Palmerston Island, between yesterday and tomorrow

2010-04-05T20:45:00.000-07:00

We sailed to Palmerston Atoll from Rarotonga, and were glad to see the low lying main island after three days of a hard breeze and a lumpy sea. As we neared the reef, I radioed Palmerston Administration and was instructed to follow two men in the skiff to a mooring ball: "Look for the two dark skinned men with great big smiles." Sure enough, we were expertly showed to a mooring ball by Edward and Simon Marsters, two brothers who were to be our hosts.

The Marsters Dynasty

Palmerston holds a unique place in the Cook Islands – indeed, in all of Polynesia – for its peculiar history. It was settled in 1863 by William Marsters, and was uninhabited at the time of Marsters' arrival. His three Polynesian wives (cousins) came from Penrhyn to the north, and the families they began were the start of the three Marsters lines, the Tepou, Akakaingaro, and Matavia, who still populate Palmerston today. William Marsters himself left behind twenty-one children when he died in 1899; today there are thousands of Marsters living all around New Zealand and the Cook Islands.

Edward Marsters, our host

Only members of the Marsters family are allowed to live on Palmerston. The island residents share the main island as their home, each family branch living in one section. They have divided up the other smaller islands in the atoll; asking permission to visit or camp on an island that “belongs” to a different family is expected and honored by all. The families share the fishing grounds. And there is a loose rotation system about greeting the arriving boats. A few days into our visit, I asked Edward how it is decided which family hosts which guests, and he responded, "whoever gets there first," but there was a sly smile on his face, and we could tell that he was in part telling the truth but also maintaining a bit of the Marsters myth and mystery.

Indeed, the stories abound regarding the families arguing over visiting yachts. It's a bit of an exaggeration, of course: in reality, they maintain a kind of rotation system that seems to work. But the myth of the families warring over their guests underlies some of the deeper troubles this island has faced in its short history. Rivalry between the families has always existed, and violence has been a traditional method of solving conflict. At various points throughout the twentieth century, Palmerston has faced the worrisome trend of declining population. Illiteracy has always plagued the residents. And certain opportunities like the one presented by the recent debacle over the Marsters Dream -- a Norwegian fishing vessel that the islanders were to utilize and share for the benefit and profit of all -- have been squandered in the past due to an inability to get past personal differences.

Looking Forward

Main Street

Given a difficult and isolated history, the balance that Palmerston is working towards today is remarkable. Palmerston is in fact a social experiment in the works. Aside from the church one would expect to find in the center of the island, Palmerston boasts a school house for its current sixteen pupils, a central administration, and an internet connection and phone. But it is not blindly marching toward modernization. The islanders have discussed satellite television, for example, and, for the present, have decided against it. Indeed, the Palmerston islanders cling to their historical roots, maintain a strict Christian belief system, and still settle island matters through the traditional Island Council, which consists of the two eldest members of each family branch. Since no Polynesians were living here when William Marsters arrived, they are the only island in the Cooks which has never operated under traditional Polynesian system of Ariki (chiefs) and are immensely proud of their independence and self-governing spirit.

Technology Central

This independent spirit is central to the Palmerston psyche, and, with a degree of effort and determination, to its governing structure as well. Unlike the other outlying Cook Islands, Palmerston has almost all of its government "departments" under its own control. Health, Education, Energy, and Agriculture come under the Palmerston Administration, whereas these departments are managed by the central government in Rarotonga for the other Cook Islands. The Island Secretary, Tere Marsters, proudly described the modernizing process of Palmerston's infrastructure to us. Mostly, he emphasized how this affords them a sense of control over their future. At the very heart of the Palmerston way of life there is an inherent balance between past and future. They modernize in order to remain independent, and their independence allows them to maintain their traditional customs, and a certain distance from mainstream society. We spent an afternoon at the home of Tere and his wife,Yvonne, whiling away hours discussing the benefits and pitfalls of 21st century technological advancements.

A Balancing Act

School assembly

I was struck by the similarity in the choices we make raising our children aboard a sailboat. Take satellite communications, for example. Tere himself can imagine how this might be simultaneously useful and harmful to the island ways. On Momo, we've been running away from the pernicious effects of marketing all these years, while simultaneously utilizing the best of modern technology to get us around the world. The Palmerston residents' isolated lives are not unlike ours in some ways: they make choices that benefit their population, and at the same time they keep at bay those elements of mainstream society that they deem ill-suited to their lifestyle.

Yvonne and Tere, w/ daughter Shekinah

We came to see Tere and Yvonne Marsters as the embodiment of the balance between tradition and modernity. Educated in New Zealand and Australia, Tere devotes his time to making Palmerston what he believes it should be. Besides serving as Island Secretary, Tere is also acting minister in the island's church when the Reverend Matakere is away. Tere is keen to bring Palmerston under a modern vision of efficiency and independence but is cautious in his efforts, noting how in the past Palmerston has seen "modern, educated" people come in with big ideas that simply do not work.

World map with visitors

Meanwhile, Yvonne teaches many youngsters who are the first in their families to read properly. Rules of fairness and nonviolence dominate her lessons (three children were suspended for fighting while we were there). Her commitment to progress in Palmerston is palpable. In the classroom, a world map dominates one corner, showing the vessels and people the children of this island have met over the years. Yvonne considers this contact vital to broadening the students' minds. Yet moving forward does not mean abandoning the island's traditions. Indeed, the school curriculum is a strictly Christian-based program, based on individual learning tracks for home-schooled children. The dual themes of safeguarding their history while also taking responsibility for their own destiny is a constant theme on this island, one that people like Tere and Yvonne Marsters believe to the bottom of their Palmerston souls.

Global Interactions

Momo's greeting party

One of the most fascinating things about Palmerston is their relationship to sailing vessels like us. From their earliest days, the people of Palmerston relied on trading with passing yachts, and this custom continues today. We made contact in Rarotonga with some of the Marsters family and delivered boxes of fresh produce and newly issued passports; others coming after us were bringing a shipment of handheld VHFs and other supplies. Since the supply vessel comes around only a few times a year, the people welcome yachts that can bring them items from the "main" island. But their very dependence on small vessels like ours affords them the independence that they so avidly seek to maintain. This is counter-intuitive at first: you'd think that their reliance on the delivery of goods from outsiders would put them at a disadvantage.
But there's a balance in this too, just like everything else on this island: by maintaining the trading tradition they proudly attribute to their “father,” William Marsters himself, the people of Palmerston remain who they are, and stop the tide of tourism. They compare themselves to other Cook Islands where an airstrip has brought hotels and organized tours, and dread the day this might occur on their island.

Marsters boy with his catch

Indeed, the Cook Islands has the highest tourist-to-islander ratio of the South Pacific islands, according to our Moon Handbook: tourists outnumber residents 4:1 every year, compared to 2:1 in Fiji, 3:1 in Samoa, and 1:4 in Tonga. But the people of Palmerston wish to keep those crowds on Rarotonga, Aitutaki and even faraway Manihiki, where an airstrip brings visitors to its pearl farms every week. Not that the Palmerstonians don't benefit from being within 300 miles from the "main island.” Everyone we met proudly displayed months worth of pizza, ice cream, and other snacks from “Raro,” deep frozen in several freezers – they don’t romanticize a life of fish and coconut alone. But on the whole, they prefer to keep the concentration of consumer society on the main island, and they clearly do not want conventional tourism to find its way to their island. The much debated airstrip would provide emergency medical care, of course, but it would also unleash a tide of tourism that they prefer to live without. For the most part, the people of Palmerston feel that their relationship with the fifty or so yachts that stop in each year provides them exactly what they need: necessary supplies, and contact with the outside world, on their own terms.

Sunday lunch

And so we learned that the tradition of "hosting" visiting yachts has many benefits for the Palmerston islanders and fits precisely with who they imagine themselves to be. Their legendary hospitality is deeply rooted in the importance of meaningful individual contact. The cultural exchange that transpires on a very personal level each time they meet a passing yacht is something they prefer to serving large groups of tourists. The idea of turning Palmerston into one more island with resort accommodations is abhorrent to some of them. Cooking up a fabulous parrotfish feast for visiting yachties comes naturally; becoming part of the service industry would not. As one proud Marsters put it: "I don't want to clean a toilet in a hotel; that's beneath my dignity."

Shirley Marsters cleaning the day's catch

As a boat benefitting from the Palmerstonn tradition, we relished our time there. Our hosts, Edward and Simon and Shirley Marsters, insisted on sharing their recently delivered cabbage and tomatoes with us during our time there, cooking up one delicious meal after another. Shirley baked us fresh bread almost every day. On several occasions, they baked parrotfish in the traditional umu oven, served with their home recipe of salt-water and coconut milk brine.

David and John and 240 parrotfish

Our daughters played with the children of Palmerston, exploring the pathways and beaches of the small main island every day. One day, Bernie and I went fishing on the reef with the men, while our young daughters stayed on the island with Shirley. Sunday dinner was a big event, as we were joined by the family Elder Taepae and his daughter Marama (who, along with Yvonne, teaches at the school). We ate fish, chicken, and a Palmerston specialty of tropic bird (they call it the "Bosun Bird" and are one of the few islands who eat it). We did our best to reciprocate throughout the week, bringing coffee cake and hot sauce, dried fruits and more hot sauce, leaving some musical instruments for the Youth Group, and participating in a sewing project with the school children.

On our final day in Palmerston, our new friends came to Momo to share one last coffee. Six young children scampered around on deck while we swapped a few more stories with the adults below. Finally, they all piled into their skiff once more and waved enthusiastically as they swerved away. Those great grins will stay with us for a long time.

You cannot help but notice that this place is a world apart, and you cannot help but hope it remains that way. But it is not isolated and backward, not by any means. Literacy rates are up; family feuds are down. And, unlike many of the other Cook Islands whose populations are slowly diminishing, the population of Palmerston has in recent years stabilized and even increased (the current number of permanent residents is somewhere around 70, although it fluctuates due to extended stays in Rarotonga and mission work abroad).

An Island unto Itself

Palmerston's Future

The balance here is both remarkable and tenuous. But make no mistake: this is not an island caught between past and future; it is, rather, positioning itself there with great effort. I wondered as we sailed away how the island will look in ten years, hoping with all my heart that they win the battle against the airstrip. What the future holds is anyone's guess, but the people of Palmerston are doing their best to ensure that they guide themselves there.

(This story appears in the April 2010 issue of Blue Water Sailing magazine.)

Landfall at Pebble Beach (2006)

2010-03-31T15:18:00.000-07:00

Weather interrupts our passage from Juan de Fuca to San Diego and we find ourselves anchored just beyond the kelp in the wealthy shadow of the Pebble Beach golf course. Coming off the sea, one never knows how the natives will react. Familiar with how they guard the beaches on Long Island, we half expect a greeting of dimpled artillery launched from the 7th hole – we’re well within range. But a swimmer on a surfboard, elderly and fit, assures us that we can safely go ashore and even (carefully) walk the links. So we do, landing at the Stillwater Yacht Club and entering a world as foreign to us as a Mexican fishing camp on the Baja. Our ragged shore party soon finds itself among people like we’ve never seen before: women – thin and exquisite, glowing with a moonlight pallor that is almost frightening; and men (equally exquisite) – coiffed, manicured, and perfumed, their faces lit orange by artificial tans. As we wander the grounds and marvel at the price of T-shirts in the pro shop, the faces are welcoming and pretend not to notice our faded clothes, gritty fingernails, and dearth of fashion accessories. Our walk to Carmel along 17-Mile-Drive, a road wholly unsuited to pedestrians, takes us past houses with names – Wit’s End, Pinewood Edge, Lucky Strike – and we witness a parade of fenders and chrome as impressive as the diamonds in the resort’s gift shop. We pick up the Carmel Pine Cone and read the police blotter for light entertainment (we’re used to Baltimore). Back at The Lodge, the doorman invites us in to peek at a wedding; on the lawn we see the happy couple exchanging vows with our boat, Momo, perfectly at ease in the background. Later, aboard another boat, we meet a resident who offers the use of his Mercedes SUV so we can tour the landscape. We decline the offer, but change our minds the next day, only to learn that he’s left for his Nevada ranch with his dogs. When we leave Pebble Beach, we take with us an unexpected fondness for this place, and steel ourselves for San Diego.

(This ditty appeared in Sail, March 2010)

International Women's Day Then and Now: Women Rocking the World in Their Own Way

2010-03-17T16:06:00.001-07:00

This month I’m thinking of all the women in my life, because March 8 was, after all, International Women's Day and this is, by extension, International Women's Month. The idea itself dates back to 1910. Its historical roots lay in the socialist movement of the late 19th century, and the international celebration of women was first put forth by German Socialist Clara Zetkin, a fervent fighter for workers' and women's rights in late 19^th and early 20^th century Europe. Zetkin started out as a member of the Socialist Democratic Party in

Germany

(the SPD – which is, incidentally, the oldest political party in

Germany

and still one of the major parties today, having governed most recently in a grand coalition with the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union, the CDU/CSU, until late 2009). But she took her fight to the streets early on, even joined the more radical KPD, the German Communist Party, in the wake of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the German Revolution of 1918. Unlike her contemporaries such as Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, whose fate came in the form of a bullet, Zetkin managed to keep her head and work within the framework of the German parliament, the Reichstag, most of her life. Her last act as political activist was to fight against National Socialism; she was forced into exile in 1933 when Hitler assumed power, and died later that year in

Russia

at the age of 76.

But this is not about German politics or history or revolution. This is about how, from all the chaos of the early 20th century, a legacy was born for women. And so, I suggest, even if you don't agree with the politics of Clara Zetkin, you might agree that she was remarkable for her time.

And certainly you’d agree that the women who surround you today are remarkable, too.

Which leads me to reflect on women who have put meaning into my life. They are not necessarily rebelling in the streets or founding political parties. But they are doing things that are nonetheless worth mentioning here.

I first met Dale in Redondo Beach, California, in the same harbor where we fell in love with Momo. At the time she lived down the dock aboard her Hardin Voyager 44, Estimated Prophet, with her dog Tonka. She was the fittest single mother and grandma I had ever met, a woman with her 100 ton Coast Guard captain's license who supported herself as a delivery skipper and teller of sailing yarns. We only knew each other a couple months as we outfitted Momo for offshore adventures, but it was the kind of friendship that grows out of mutual admiration and respect, and a lot of belly laughs. Dale was the last person we saw when we sailed out of that harbor forever: she stood on the pier with Tonka, waving energetically with her hearty smile.

Since then, Dale has sold her boat, moved back east, launched a yacht delivery business, fallen in love, bought a farm and several horses, and joined her husband in his jewelry design business. On any given day you might find her driving a cat between South America and California, picking menacing icicles from the rigging of another boat on a wintry east coast delivery, head-down in an engine compartment of yet another vessel, galloping through the hilly Pennsylvania countryside atop her horse Leif, baking cookies with her equally energetic grandkids, or choosing stones for the next line-up of designs at Purple Gem Jewelry. She is a force to be reckoned with, Dale is, and I can only say how glad I am that Momo was situated on that particular dock when we flew to Los Angeles to check her out that November day.

Laura meanwhile is happily ensconced in life in Carlsbad, California, juggling her time between her job as contracting agent, soccer, softball, mother of two, and her expectations as a soon-to-be mother of three. When we first became friends she spent her days as an angler, diver, and sailor. She and her husband took off sailing in 2004 and did a two-year Pacific loop which took them through Mexico, French Polynesia, Niue, Tonga and New Zealand. She was not a sailor to begin with, however, but an avid diver. That passion was ignited when, at sixteen, she took a course which involved walking into the tempestuous surf off a San Diego beach fully loaded down with gear – a day she remembers well since it was predicted by the older, stronger men in the course that this thin-framed blonde would never make it. She, of course, made it all the way, while the tough guys rocked and dropped in the surf around her one by one.

Laura shares her fondness for diving with her husband, and so they decided to sail the Pacific in search of some of the world’s greatest dive spots. Somewhere between re-rigging, painting, canvaswork, provisioning and in all other ways outfitting their Fantasia 35, Gunner Too, Laura learned how to sail – and sail well. Along the way they met us, and, over several months’ worth of meals and adventures and animated conversation, a permanent friendship formed. Laura’s eyes light up when you ask her about fishing with her dad. And don’t get her started on lures. "Originally I had a mackerel lure with a wire leader on the line which was hit -- but that fish got away,” she recalls when I ask her about one particularly large wahoo she caught in the Marquesas while her husband was rigging the anchor to the bow in anticipation of landfall after a twenty-eight day passage. “Right afterwards, I tied a black rapala on the line, and that is what this wahoo was caught with -- we had to turn back out to sea in order to give us time to land the monster before we reached the harbor.” No girl woops a wahoo like Laura. But she’s not just a fisher and diver. She can bleed an engine and serve up mouth-watering sushi all in an afternoon. Not to mention change the oil, take apart a winch, reef down sails, and manhandle any fish who happens to take an interest in her carefully chosen lure.

And then there’s Julia, whom you’ll find these days in Aden. She’s in the second half of her circumnavigation aboard her wooden boat, Macy. She built the boat herself in her home town of Jamestown, Rhode Island, after finding the new wood bare hull. It took nine years from the purchase of the hull to the launch. Julia knew since she was a young kid that she wanted to build her own wooden boat. And when she was ready to build it – after years of working as crew and mate on schooners, skippering a 40-ton schooner one summer while in college, earning her 100 ton auxiliary sail Coast Guard license when she was 26, working as steward of a yacht club for nine years, and acquiring skills needed to build a boat by working as a finish carpenter over many years – she did. "I knew I wanted a traditional looking boat made of wood," she says, and adds with her characteristic humor, “What is more romantic and impractical than that?” But she is a generous soul, my Julia, and she gives credit all around: “The realization of this dream required a divorce, or independence, and the… kind support of my brother…” In addition, half way through the project a man name Dave wandered into Julia’s life. Dave just happens to own a Rhode Island lumber yard; he soon fell in love with the boat project and became Julia’s friend and partner. He’s still with Julia and the boat, too, sailing toward Masawa Eretria and on the lookout for pirates even as I write.

And while her brother provided occasional hands-on help and financial support of the project, a man named Macy was the inspiration. An old friend and experienced woodworker, Macy was “the guiding light who gave direction during the overwhelming task of decision making…, especially early on." Macy died of cancer before the project was completed, but "he died knowing that he had passed the torch and we would complete the job,” says Julia fondly. And now Macy's namesake is tens of thousands of miles from his resting place, slowly making its way home.

Of course, once you start thinking about all the amazing women you know, you can’t stop. There's Shelly, who can scurry up the mast of her custom built cat faster than you can say Ebeneezer (the name of her boat). There's Jan, who got her Captain's ticket back in 2002 along with her husband Rich so they could start out on equal footing, who has sailed since then up and down both North American coasts, through the Panama Canal, all around the Caribbean. There's Lisa, who learned to sail so she could take her two kids on a Pacific circumnavigation before they grew up too much.

There's adventurous Arran, calm Nelia, fearless Angie. There are many, many other women I’d love to mention here, in fact – sailors, teachers, artists, writers, divers, doctors, dentists, psychologists, computer scientists, musicians, engineers, mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, lovers, friends, captains, admirals, mates, crew – but this post has to stop somewhere, and I must send my daughters off to school now, so that they too might grow and impact the world, in their own fabulous way.

(this article also appeared in the Women and Cruising blog)

Fiji -- Celebrating Taxes on Koro Island

2010-02-04T11:26:00.000-08:00

The certainty of taxes may be universal, but it doesn’t need to be universally painful. At least, that’s what we learned when we visited Nabuna Village, on Koro Island in Fiji. We anchored off the village to say good-bye to friends before we left the area. “Do you really need to leave so soon?” asked Mele. “Tomorrow we’re having a celebration.” That was about as much arm twisting we could take, so we stayed.

Turns out that what Mele called a “celebration” was actually a kind of school tax day. It was one of three annual events by which the villagers raised funds – the other “celebrations” were for the church and the village. They are spaced evenly throughout the year and unfold more or less the same way. Needless to say, the fact that the villagers could turn such fund raising for essential services into a joyous occasion piqued my curiosity, for I've never found paying taxes particularly delightful.

The school needed $13,000 Fijian dollars this year for supplies and infrastructure (the teachers themselves are paid by the central government). This burden was to be shared by the villagers, who were divided along family lines into five groups (one for each teacher), each group made up of twenty-six “men,” each of whom was obligated to pay $100 – a significant sum in this subsistence village economy.

The day of the “celebration,” people began showing up at the school at around 11:00 – things really should have gotten underway at 10:00, but, as Mele explained, we were operating on Fiji time. Written on the blackboard was a table that listed how much money needed to be raised, along with the names of the five teachers, each of whom represented a different group.

The event had no emcee, no leader, no obvious director – it unfolded almost organically. The kava drinking began immediately (kava is a dirty brown liquid made of kava roots that, in its Fijian form, is mildly intoxicating – it numbs the lips and relaxes the body and the mind). Initially, our circle was small, no more than seven or eight people. Somebody put a plastic tub near the kava bowl and the village chief dropped in a five-dollar bill.

Meanwhile, our daughters, Lola and Jana, had brought a dozen or so hermit crabs up from the water’s edge, carrying them in their little plastic green bucket. They were surrounded by school kids in blue uniforms, as if those kids had never seen a hermit crab before. Later on the rugby field, the kids played tag and Red Rover, among other things.

As more people arrived, they removed the desks from the classroom and rolled large grass mats across the floor, and when there weren’t enough mats, they made do with thin sheets of plywood. Villagers arrived in groups – first they lined the walls and then they gradually filled the room. Soon there were five kava bowls in operation within the classroom and two more outside. One bowl was traditional, that is to say it was made out of wood. The rest had been fashioned by cutting the tops off of large plastic fishing floats that had washed up on the beach. The kava bowls were emptied one coconut half-shell at a time into the gullets of the villagers and replenished by plastic buckets filled with more of the brown stuff – production never ceased. Drinking kava is a quintessentially social event; if the circle is small, two people sit at the bowl and pass out half-shells to one person at a time. Everybody watches as that person drinks, and then everyone claps their hands together. When the circle grows much larger, you are free to bring a half-shell of kava to somebody else; but you never take one for yourself – you must wait until somebody brings the kava to you.

After a while, two or three women started going around the room smearing handfuls of baby powder on the faces and in the hair of the participants (a common practice that’s been explained to us only as "traditional" but which clearly post-dates the arrival of Johnson & Johnson on these islands). Someone else draped strips of colored crepe paper streamers around peoples’ necks. Everybody had shown up in their most colorful outfits; the women in “our” group had rolls of purple and red cloth with a floral print shipped in from Suva to make their dresses for the occasion. People were talking and laughing. We had been promised dancing, but the radio was broken. One group started singing songs, accompanied by a guitar and ukulele. Others were playing cards. The sight of little kids eating lollipops, peanuts, and mango skins betrayed an entrepreneurial presence somewhere in the crowd.

Throughout the day, tightly wadded up bills (as if no one was allowed to see) were presented to the teachers, who straightened them out and recorded the name of each contributor and their contribution in their notebooks. Around 1pm they made their first tally – the total contribution of each group was recorded on the blackboard. There was a brief pause as everyone contemplated the results, and then the chatter and drinking resumed. Two hours later there was a final tally; they’d managed to raise about half of what they need.

“What happens if you don’t raise all the money?” I asked the woman beside me.

“Well, I guess we will have to do this again -- maybe.” It is difficult to get a definitive answer about anything from anybody.

“What happens if one of the men doesn’t pay his hundred dollars?”

“Nothing,” she said. Then she added: “He will feel shy, he will feel bad. When someone asks him whether he paid, he won’t be able to say ‘yes.’”

“Everybody in the villages knows who has paid and who hasn’t?”

“Yes,” she said.

“No one knocking on their doors?” asked Michelle.

“Nooooo,” she said, wide-eyed. “They all pay.”

After the results were tallied, the head teacher gave a small speech.

“She isn’t supposed to talk,” said the woman, “The head of the committee is supposed to talk, because the committee deals with the money.”

But nobody from the committee ever did talk, and no one seemed to care. Then, for the first time acting in concert, the villagers broke into harmonized song; the song first recounted a tale about some visitors who came through the pass in the reef to see the village and then made an extended comparison between a ripe fruit and a ripe woman. Some one told us it was the song of Nabuna Village.

We left around 3:30 – we had been drinking kava since we arrived. The villagers still came and went; some of them partying well past midnight.

Drinking kava, chatting with friends, singing songs – this certainly didn't feel like taxes. For us, taxes are about filling out forms under duress and reluctantly handing over money to distant and anonymous bureaucrats. But here on Koro Island, where the nexus between the money paid and the benefits reaped is immediate and personal, the financial obligation did not seem like such a burden. Indeed, the obligation to put money into the communal pot was a great reason to come together and have fun.

The Ideal State of Momo

2010-01-12T12:53:00.000-08:00

Lola & Jana hoist the flag
of the Kingdom of Nate
at Beveridge ReefWe are a proud democracy on board Momo -- not the kind that my own country has devolved into, plagued by sloppy elections and inane discussions about the President's place of birth, but in a much purer sense going back to the political philosophy of the ancient Greeks: serving a good life for the good of the whole. And that indeed is the State of Our Ship, which should not be confused with the Plato’s Ship of State. Philosopher Kings are sexy, but a monarchy we are not, no matter how enlightened (or sexy). We have evolved into our own kind of republicanism (I refer here to a type of polity, not to the American species of elephants). Some might think we don't fly the American flag out of political protest (we are US Coast Guard registered vessel, but our citizens are American, Canadian, and Mexican), but really it's just that we believe in letting our own freak flag fly. In fact, we’re more like the Swiss mercenaries who served the Renaissance kings of France—political loyalties be damned, we’ll take on the most daring of campaigns (as long as we don’t get hurt). It’s probably no coincidence that our 8-year-old citizen has declared Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner as our anthem and plays it every chance she gets. Last year at Beveridge Reef we planted a flag and established the short-lived Kingdom of Nate, ruled by a 9-year old absentee monarch from South Carolina. His Majesty’s politics are unfamiliar to us, but who cares? We stood guard by that flag with honor and pride, at least until the tide came up and the Kingdom of Nate slipped beneath the waves.

Bismarck steers the
German ship of state (1879)

When we’re not in the service of foreign sovereigns, we're happily minding our own business and floating from one island to the next. We've taken the notion of self-sufficiency even further by printing our own money. Having your own currency is useful: Momo Money gets me foot massages and reading sessions. But it goes both ways, because all the citizens on Momo have Momo Money, so upon demand the ruling class must also reciprocate by allowing the non-voting citizens to exchange their money for ice cream and movies.

Democracy is much easier to manage, of course, in a polity of four rather than 300 million, and our State is more modern than the Platonic or Aristotelian view of the world -- we have no slaves (though we’re trying to teach our children to serve coffee in bed), and we’re products of the post-suffragist era, which makes my voice equal to my man's. Sure, we have our moments of strife, and at times I'm not sure democracy is all it's cracked up to be. I admit, at times I can relate to the 43rd US President who, speaking of the United States government, said "If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier...just so long as I'm the dictator.” But his example serves also as a warning to me, showing how easily a (un)Philosopher King can sail his Ship of State onto the rocks--something that the Demokratic Republik of Momo wants desperately to avoid.

Sometimes it would be easier if we'd just follow traditional rules about who's the boss. On most other sailboats, the roles of Captain and First Mate are rigidly established, almost always along traditional gendered lines. On those vessels, discussions about sail configuration or navigation don’t take place. There's comfort in that, to be sure: one strong voice of authority reduces any chance of misunderstandings, announces quick decisions, and is able to see that directions are followed efficiently. "Starboard tack? OK!" "Bring in the sails? Ay-ay, Cap’n!" No one says, “Do you really think so?” Or: “Well, I was rather thinking that another strategy might be altogether more effective.” Or: “Let’s take a poll.” There's a reason that some of the best captains of ships have historically been some of the strictest; nobody would describe Captain James Cook, for instance, as touchy-feely. The problem we have, however, is that neither Bernie nor I want to be bossed around, so we've slipped into our own style of how to do things. Sometimes he's right, more often I am. Usually it doesn't matter. We always get there one way or another, however unorthodox our methods. I'm not sure either of us would have cut the muster on Captain Cook's ship, but we do just fine on Momo.

Gallery: Five of Coastal Deserts, Baha Mexico

2010-01-10T02:40:00.000-08:00

Entrance to Bahia Santa Maria (West Coast, Baha)

Rock & Sky, Cabo San Lucas

Yellowstone Beach, Sea of Cortez

Sunrise at Los Gatos, Sea of Cortez

Five from the Yasawas, Fiji (2009)

2010-01-10T00:02:00.000-08:00

Fruitbats...

... and more fruit bats.

Shallow channel

Anchored with Caledonia

Grizzly Landscape

Five of Momo

2010-01-09T23:36:00.000-08:00

Ensenada, Mexico (Fall 2004)

Sailing to Hawaii (2005)

Hanalei Bay, Kauai, Hawaii (2005)

Resolution Bay, British Columbia (2006)

Koro Island, Fiji (2009)

Five Speared Fish

2010-01-09T22:59:00.000-08:00

Grouper in Ha'apai, Tonga

Golden Leopard Grouper, Sea of Cortez, Mexico

Grouper in Va va'u, Tonga

Job Fish, Ha'apai, Tonga

Snapper at Beveridge Reef

Gallery: Five Wretched Wrecks

2010-01-09T22:45:00.000-08:00

Anchor at Beveridge Reef

San Augustin III, Puerto Don Juan, Sea of Cortez, Mexico

SS Catalina, Ensenda, Mexico

Wreck of the Liberty, Beveridge Reef

Wreck on the Avatiu breakwater, Raratongo, Cook Islands

Gallery: Five from Tonga

2010-01-09T20:59:00.000-08:00

Recycling on Ha'afeva

Umbrella Hat & Chinese Store, Ha'afeva

Fishing Boats, Nuku Island

Grey Building, Ha'afeva

Tongan Fishing Boat

Gallery: Five Hooked Fish

2010-01-09T20:51:00.001-08:00

Lola with Mahi-Mahi, near Clipperton

Barracuda in the Ha'apai (Tonga)

Mahi-Mahi, sailing to Raiatea

Mahi Mahi, near the Equator

Wahoo, Savu Savu (Fiji)

Video--Home Skooling on Momo

2010-01-09T11:02:00.000-08:00

Knives drawn, Momo's crew invites a Mahi-Mahi on board for dinner and biology lessons.

Video--Momo's Home Improvement

2010-01-09T10:57:00.000-08:00

Putting the final touches on our new hard dodger while leaving the Bay of Islands, NZ, heading for Fiji (June, 2009).

Batteries--the Virtues of Flooded (Lead-Acid) Batteries

2010-01-04T17:48:00.000-08:00

When we bought the boat, the batteries
were located beneath the V-Berth--
not exactly the best place to carry
such weight. After removing the water-
heater, we were able to fit eight
batteries beneath the cabin sole,
right on the centerline between
the mast and the engine.

The heart of a sailboat's electrical system is its batteries. Keeping in mind issues of weight, space, and location, it makes sense to get the biggest bank of batteries you can fit on your boat. Regardless of your expected daily load, the larger your bank of batteries, the less deeply they will be discharged, and the longer they will accept high levels of charging. There is no good reason to divide your house batteries into two banks--not only will this complicate your wiring, it actually increases the wear on individual batteries and makes charging less efficient.

You don't need to get the most expensive batteries out there. On our old 28' Triton we had two expensive AGM batteries and spent plenty of time in the dark (for which, however, I can only blame our naive faith that solar panels alone would get us through Fall on the Chesapeake Bay); on Momo we use eight Trojan 105's, which are standard flooded 6-volt golf cart batteries, and we've never had a problem. Theoretically, this bank yields 860 amp-hours. Nothing did more to convince us about the virtues of the Trojan 105 than watching it in action. In Ensenada we shared an anchorage with friends who were rebuilding their 120' ferro-cement ketch. Using arc welders, drill presses, table saws and other heavy equipment, they subjected their bank of Trojans to an abuse much more intense than any cruising sailboat could ever deliver, torturing their batteries to the brink of death almost every single day; and they always recovered.

Newer battery technologies, like Gel or AGM, might very well be "better": they accept larger charging levels and deliver more power faster; they also have a lower rate of self-discharge than flooded batteries, although this does not matter if you're actually using your batteries every day. Building a bank with Gel or AGM batteries, however, costs more than twice as much as with flooded batteries; and the larger your bank of batteries, the less significant are the advantages offered by newer battery technologies. Your engine might very well start better using a single AGM battery than a single flooded battery. But if you have eight batteries, who cares? Likewise, you may be able to charge a single AGM battery more quickly than a single flooded battery. But the equipment needed to attain a similar degree of charging efficiency on a large bank of batteries is more than we can afford anyway. In any event, if you need to make a choice, it is better to have more amp hours using flooded batteries than fewer amp hours using Gel or AGM batteries.

In two important respects, newer battery technologies are actually at a disadvantage when compared to their flooded counterparts. The first is that, because they are sealed, Gel and AGM batteries can't tolerate being overcharged. If your system starts overcharging your expensive high-performance Gel or AGM beauties, it will toast them. In contrast, flooded batteries require periodic over-charging as part of their regular maintenance. During this process, called equalization, they vent off explosive gases -- a fact which scares some people. But since these gases are lighter than air, as long your battery boxes are ventilated, they will dissipate. Moreover, if your bank of batteries is large enough, I doubt your charging system will ever bring them to a vigorous boil. Ours most certainly cannot. A second advantage that a battery like the Trojan 105 enjoys over its more sophisticated competitors is that people play golf all over the world, and they need golf carts. Thus, if you ever need to replace your batteries outside the USA, it will be much easier to find something that fits your boxes than if you used batteries with more exotic dimensions. Keep this in mind, too, if you're considering those most aristocratic of flooded batteries produced by Rolls-Surrette.

Sure, newer battery technologies--especially AGM--have plenty of enthusiastic proponents. But before buying those vaunted AGM batteries, which were designed to withstand the G-forces of military aviation, ask yourself how frequently you'll be sailing your boat upside-down. Keep in mind, too, that even if you take care of them, AGM batteries don't last any longer than flooded batteries. A friend bought a brand-spanking new Nordhavn just after we bought our Trojan batteries (2005). He had to replace his AGMs last November (2009), while our Trojans are still going strong. I know for certain that he has a much "better" charging regimen and puts a lot less strain on his batteries. He also likens owning a boat to "ripping up $100 bills in the shower, just quicker." I can sympathize with him, but I'm grateful that our experience had been different (especially since we don't have very many $100 bills).

Replacing Boat Windows: Polycarbonate (i.e. Lexan) or Acrylic (i.e. Plexiglas)

2009-12-29T02:06:00.000-08:00

Worried about the vulnerability of his tempered
glass windows, the owner installed polycarbonate
(1/4” thick) over his tempered glass and sealed
the polycarbonate with silicone. At the time of
this photograph, the polycarbonate is only a year
old, but it leaks and its transparency has obviously
suffered—not so much because of UV-degradation but
because of the abrasive effects of a saltwater passage
from the eastern Canada to New Zealand. The
commercially-made hatch on the right is made of acrylic
(also 1/4")—it is two-years old and its transparency has
also suffered, but not as much as the polycarbonate.
This boat was knocked down in the south Atlantic and
the polycarbonate survived; but so did the hatch. So
too did the tempered glass, which was battered on the
inside by flying objects when the boat went over.

When replacing their windows, most DIY boat owners use plastic (either acrylic or polycarbonate). Plastic is easy to work with and produces seaworthy results. Plastic can be used to make curved windows; it can be fastened directly to the cabin trunk or fit into frames. There is much debate (often rancorous) about which is better: polycarbonate (i.e Lexan) or acrylic (i.e. Plexiglas). While we prefer polycarbonate for certain purposes, generally speaking we think that acrylic is better. In many cases, however, the best choice is actually tempered glass, but we'll have that discussion later.

Polycarbonate (i.e. Lexan)

DIY boat owners often get very excited about Lexan (which is the proprietary name for polycarbonate made by SABIC, formerly GE). Polycarbonate has gained a reputation for being virtually indestructible because it is used to make bullet-proof glass. Other characteristics of polycarbonate, however, are less appealing. Polycarbonate's strength is best understood in terms of impact resistance--polycarbonate doesn't break because it flexes. But this flexibility also makes it difficult to seal; polycarbonate windows are notorious for leaks. Sure, your Lexan may keep out bullets (and this may be important, depending on how you use your boat); but it may not be able to keep out the water. Polycarbonate is relatively soft, which helps it absorb a bullet’s energy but also means that it is easily scratched, even by salt water spray (which is much more prevalent at sea than flying lead). Friends of ours replaced the Lexan windows on their catamaran after only a couple of years of cruising because saltwater spray had rendered them almost opaque. Polycarbonate is also vulnerable to UV degradation. While you can purchase polycarbonate with a UV and abrasion resistant film, its effectiveness on a boat window is limited; curving the polycarbonate, moreoever, will compromise the film. Keep in mind, too, that polycarbonate is much more expensive than acrylic and, if you like a spiffy boat, needs to be replaced more often. That said, polycarbonate is excellent for storm windows, which don't need to be waterproof--just make sure that you leave enough room between the polycarbonate and the actual window so that when the polycarbonate flexes it does not break the window. Its is also a good idea to have a few pieces of polycarbonate on the boat for emergency repairs. On Momo we use a 10mm piece of polycarbonate for our companionway door. Given how much the material flexes, however, it would be a good idea to stiffen the polycarbonate with strips of teak--I don't think the polycarbonate will ever break, but I can imagine that if struck with enough force the door could blow out of the frame.

Acrylic (i.e. Plexiglas)

These old acrylic windows are
crazed but still remarkably transparent.
Note the generous washers between the
fasteners and the plastic.

The question about the difference in strength between polycarbonate and acrylic needs to be kept in perspective. Unless you're sailing in a war zone, acrylic (often known by the proprietary name of Plexiglas) is strong enough for boat windows and hatches. Lewmar and Bomar use acrylic in their deck hatches; the Comex Deep Star tourist submarine uses acrylic for its pressurized hull and hasn't lost a tourist yet. Non-marine uses include protective glazing in hockey rinks, helicopter windows, and the walls and tunnels in large public aquariums. Other factors besides strength also play a role in determining which material is best suited for boat windows. Compared to polycarbonate, acrylic is less vulnerable to UV-light, resists scratches better, and is easier to seal. It is also less expensive. Momo's hatches (the largest of which is 30" x 32") are made of 3/8" acrylic, supported by crossbars. They are badly crazed after 30 years of relentless exposure to the sun, but they are very strong and don't leak. They are as firm under foot as any other part of the boat and an ideal place to set up the sewing machine when we need to repair a sail. The fact that we use our hatches as a convenient workspace has added a few scratches, but they would be much worse if the material was Lexan.

Installation Notes for Plastic Windows

The cracks in this window (they've
been "repaired" with black sealant)
all start at the fasteners,
which are too tight to accommodate
the material's expansion and flexing.
Using black sealant, which absorbs heat
and makes the expansion worse,
hasn't helped.

The plastic windows we've seen on blue water boats are usually between 5/16" and 3/8" thick. While plastic is easy to work with, it needs to be treated carefully. To prevent cracks, mounting holes should be substantially over-sized (i.e. a 1/4" fastener should have a 7/16" hole). Screws should not be countersunk; rather, their heads should rest flush on the surface of the plastic. Better yet, cushion the screws with a decent rubber washer. Avoid the use of black sealants because they absorb heat and exacerbate expansion and contradiction. When choosing sealants, avoid polyurethane adhesives like 3M 5200: the outgassing of the plastic will affect the seal and then you'll have windows that not only leak and but are also very difficult to take apart. Sika, 3M, and BoatLife all make products that supposedly work well with polycarbonate and acrylic. But it should be noted that polycarbonate and (to a lesser extent) acrylic are difficult to seal. Thus the directions for Sika's 295 UV (which is specifically meant for plastic windows) explicitly state that Sika "does not guarantee the performance of Sikaflex® 295 UV on acrylic, polycarbonate, or any other form of organic windows." Good results have been reported from silicone-based products used for glazing purposes in the commercial building industry, like GE's Silproof SCS 2000 and Dow 795. We've used Dow 795 successfully for many different projects (you won't find it at Home Depot; you'll have to hunt it down). One advantage is that it is easy to clean up and the residue is not as tenacious as regular silicone.

Our Take on Things

2009-01-09T01:09:00.000-08:00

The last thing we want to do is encourage anyone to go sailing. There are far too many sailboats out here as it is; the ocean is getting crowded and the anchorages are packed. And with every boat out here, the rules multiply. It's dangerous, too: pirates, hurricanes, poverty, and inadequate healthcare! Let's keep those sailboats where they belong: firmly tethered to First-World docks, meticulous and clean, varnished by illegal immigrants to maintain resale value. As part of the effort to recover from the world's financial crisis, sailboats should be fitted with gear during the week and taken out on Sundays to produce the kind of head-turning envy that keeps the economy going. But nothing more than that. Long live the work-ethic! We’re here to tell you that there’s nothing romantic about stuffing a family of four into an oversized cigar box with spars and canvas. Nothing at all.

Making Sure the Current Flows: An Inexpensive Electrical System That Will Keep Your Lights On (published in Good Old Boat, Nov/Dec 2007)

1999-01-12T11:41:00.000-08:00

For sailboat owners rethinking their vessel's electrical system, the broad and expensive range of equipment and technology touted by the industry as vital for their safety and comfort can be overwhelming. There is, of course, no single perfect electrical system for small sailboats. The system you need is determined by how much electricity you consume; and the system you get is determined by how much you are willing to spend. The two are not the same. You can empty your wallet to buy electrical components that will fulfill virtually any technician's desire, and still not have the power you need; but you can also design a simple, safe, and robust electrical system that will fulfill your needs at a reasonable price.

I'm writing about this subject not as an electrical engineer but as someone who has lived and traveled with his family on a sailboat for about five years now: first on the east coast on a Pearson Triton, now on Mason 43 in the Pacific. We've learned much during that time. And during that time, we've also spent fewer than fourteen days plugged in at the dock. In fact, we spend so much time at anchor that we no longer have a dockside power cord. This does not mean that we're Luddites in matters electrical. While we certainly don't waste power, our addiction to electricity is undeniable. For emergencies, we own a single hurricane lantern (I would need to look for it). But the splendid kerosene trawler lamp that came with the boat proved to be as troublesome as it was beautiful and has been replaced by a fixture from Ikea -- with an incandescent bulb, no less, because we like the glow. We run our laptops and navigation equipment; we charge our digital cameras and handheld radio; we make plenty of use of the sewing machines, and, when the need arises, the drill, the angle grinder, the soldering iron and the heat gun (admittedly, not all at the same time). And we keep most of our perishables cool and some of them frozen. In principle, our system -- built around a large bank of batteries, a portable generator, and an inverter/ charger-- will work as well on 28' boat as on a boat 48' long. I don't actually know how many amp-hours we consume. But, I am happy to report, neither do I find such knowledge necessary.

Cherish the Old -- The Virtues of Flooded Batteries

When we bought the boat, the batteries
were located beneath the V-Berth -- not
exactly the best place to carry such weight.
After removing the water-heater, we were
able to fit eight batteries beneath the cabin
sole, right on the centerline between the
mast and the engine.

The heart of a sailboat's electrical system is its batteries. Keeping in mind issues of weight, space, and location, it makes sense to get the biggest bank of batteries you can fit on your boat. Regardless of your expected daily load , the larger your bank of batteries, the less deeply they will be discharged, and the longer they will accept high levels of charging. There is no good reason to divide your house batteries into two banks -- not only will this complicate your wiring, it actually increases the wear on individual batteries and makes charging less efficient. If problems develop with one of the batteries in your single bank, you can bypass it.

You don't need to get the most expensive batteries out there. On Simplicissius (our Triton) we had two expensive AGM batteries and spent plenty of time in the dark (for which, however, I can only blame our naive faith that solar panels alone would get us through Fall on the Chesapeake Bay); on Momo we use eight Trojan 105's, which are standard flooded 6-volt golf cart batteries, and have never had a problem. Theoretically, this bank yields 860 amp-hours and costs about $720. Nothing did more to convince us about the virtues of the Trojan 105 than watching it in action. In Ensenada we shared an anchorage with friends who were rebuilding their 120' ferro-cement ketch. Using arc welders, drill presses, table saws and other heavy equipment, they subjected their bank of Trojans to an abuse much more intense than any cruising sailboat could ever deliver, torturing their batteries to the brink of death almost every single day; and they always recovered.

Newer battery technologies, like Gel or AGM, might very well be better: they accept larger charging levels and deliver more power faster; they also have a lower rate of self-discharge than flooded batteries, although this does not matter if you're actually using your batteries every day. Building a bank with Gel or AGM batteries, however, costs more than twice as much as with flooded batteries; and the larger your bank of batteries, the less significant are the advantages offered by newer battery technologies. Your engine might very well start better using a single AGM battery than a single flooded battery. But if you have eight batteries, who cares? Likewise, you may be able to charge a single AGM battery more quickly than a single flooded battery. But the equipment needed to attain a similar degree of charging efficiency on a large bank of batteries is more than we can afford anyway. In any event, if you need to make a choice, it is better to have more amp hours using flooded batteries than fewer amp hours using Gel or AGM batteries.

In two important respects, newer battery technologies are actually at a disadvantage when compared to their flooded counterparts. The first is that, because they are sealed, Gel and AGM batteries can't tolerate being overcharged. If your system starts overcharging your expensive high-performance Gel or AGM beauties, it will toast them. In contrast, flooded batteries require periodic over-charging as part of their regular maintenance. During this process, called equalization, they vent off explosive gases -- a fact which scares some people. But since these gases are lighter than air, as long your battery boxes are ventilated, they will dissipate. Moreover, if your bank of batteries is large enough, I doubt your charging system will ever bring them to a vigorous boil. Ours most certainly cannot. A second advantage that a battery like the Trojan 105 enjoys over its more sophisticated competitors is that people play golf all over the world, and they need golf carts. Thus, if you ever need to replace your batteries outside the USA, it will be much easier to find something that fits your boxes than if you used batteries with more exotic dimensions. Keep this in mind, too, if you're considering those most aristocratic of flooded batteries produced by Rolls-Surrette. They, for instance, list three distributors for Central and South America -- two of which, however, are actually in Nova Scotia and Florida. You can compare the distribution networks of your favorite brand of marine batteries on the internet.

Consider a Single Bank of Batteries

That single bank of Trojan 105's is the only battery bank we have -- we use it for everything, thereby flaunting conventional wisdom that stresses the importance of reserving a battery bank for the sole purpose of cranking the engine. In the past we had two batteries dedicated to that task, but found it irritating to carry around an extra 120 lbs that did absolutely nothing. When those batteries bit the dust, we simplified our wiring. While it is very important to have a way to start the engine if you run your house batteries into the ground, setting aside a dedicated battery bank is not the only way nor is it necessarily the best.

Neither is setting up two battery banks all that simple. Doing so in a way that preserves their independence and assures that each gets the charging it needs is rather complicated and requires parts that are expensive and will no doubt eventually need to be replaced. Thus, it violates the axiom that simple is good. One method involves the use of a second alternator (the cheapest Balmar alternator weighs in at around $450) . Another method using a single alternator requires something like Balmar's Digital Duo Charge($250), or Blue Sea's BatteryLink ACR ($93). Either way, you'll need to invest in battery switches (starting price around $40 each), extensive lengths of heavy duty cable (1/0 gauge wire costs over $9 per foot) and other incidentals. Maybe you'll need Xantrex's Zapstop Alternator Protector ($28). You might also want something like Xantrex's Digital Echo Charge ($130), which allows you to charge your starting batteries automatically through your inverter. Otherwise, you might find yourself in the same position we once did -- with dead starting batteries because we sat around at anchor too long without running our engine. Those interested in setting up two battery banks can find advice in any number of excellent guides to electricity and boats. But before you get smug about having a bullet-proof two-bank system, let me just say that if you are relying on your engine to charge your batteries and something goes seriously wrong with either your engine's charging system or with the engine itself (let us count the ways), your second bank of batteries won't do you much good for very long.

Most of our system's heavy duty connections
fit within this 8" x 8" square. The
distribution posts were recycled from an
old ammeter shunt.

In contrast, setting up an electrical system from a single bank of batteries is comparatively straightforward. On Momo, the positive cable leads directly to a 250 amp fuse -- it is surprising how often, even on a vessel with plenty of complicated wiring, such a fundamental safety measure is overlooked. From there it leads to a distribution post. The output from the alternator is wired directly to this distribution post, thus it is impossible to break the alternator circuit while the alternator is running. This protects the alternator and makes a snubber like Zapstop superfluous. Another cable from the distribution post leads to a battery switch, which directs current to (1) the engine starter or (2) the electrical panels and inverter or (3) both simultaneously. The battery switch is not strictly necessary, but if there is major problem with either the engine wiring or house wiring we can isolate them. As far as the basic wiring goes, that's about it -- the number of connections are minimal, as are the number of parts.

Monitoring Your Battery System

To monitor our electrical system, we splurged on Blue Sea's 12 volt digital multimeter, which costs a hefty $220 (you can make your own for considerably less). Whether we want to make sure that the multi-stage regulator is functioning properly or if we've left something on again, it tells us tells us everything we need to know -- the voltage of our battery bank, how many amps are flowing out, and how many amps are flowing in. And if the voltage falls too low, it sounds an unpleasant alarm that sounds much like my mother's cell phone. Another $100 or so will buy a battery monitor that will tell you more, but if you don't keep it properly calibrated (which is difficult if you don't regularly plug into the dock) it will tell you much, much more. When we bought our boat, it had a nifty monitor that also kept track of the battery bank's amp hours; but not long after we left the dock it developed an increasingly powerful imagination. Soon it was reporting an abundance of power even as the lights were growing dim. In short, while a monitor that calculates amp-hours promises a direct report of the battery bank's remaining capacity, it cannot be completely trusted. Once you get used to the fluctuations of your system under various loads, you can gauge your system's health more reliably based on voltage and current readings alone.

Take Pity on the Engine

This diagram illustrates Momo's basic
wiring. For sake of clarity, the wiring
for the alternator's voltage regulator
has been left out.

A sailboat's engine provides its most powerful means to charge its batteries. But before laying out substantial sums to optimize your engine's generating capacity, keep in mind that regularly using your engine for that purpose is unwise. Charging your batteries while motoring is fine. But few things lead more quickly to the premature demise of (very expensive) diesel engines than running them for long periods without sufficient load -- i.e., repeatedly charging batteries with your engine while at anchor. Thus if you have a limited amount of cash to spend on your charging system, don't stick it all in the engine compartment, or -- more sooner than later -- you'll find yourself replacing the engine, too.

Certain authorities eager to sell you things suggest that your engine alternator's rating should be equal to 25% to 40% of your total battery capacity. Nonsense. On our boat, that would mean an alternator that puts out from 215 to 340 amps, and costs between $940 and $1850. Of course, we would need to invest in an appropriate regulator and heavy duty wiring as well. Even if we were prepared to fork over that much cash, I don't think our little Perkins could handle it. High-output alternators are not always a good thing. In a tight engine compartment they can generate far more heat than can be dissipated and thus burn themselves up. They could also impose loads that your engine's belt and pulley system cannot withstand. Friends of ours on 35 ft. boat with a 30 hp. Yanmar, fitted out for a tour through the South Pacific, found themselves regularly replacing their aluminum pulleys on their (admittedly aftermarket) water pump because their 70 amp Balmar imposed too great a load.

Our alternator never puts out more than 70 amps, and we've never had a problem and could get by with less. While motoring along for any length of time, a gentle and less expensive alternator will get the job done just as effectively and much less stressfully than a high-output alternator. And if the boat is at anchor, you should probably find some other way to charge your batteries.

Our alternator is 'marine' quality (for what it's worth) and uses an multi-stage external regulator. But I think that a heavy duty automotive alternator would function just as well, particularly if hooked up to a decent external regulator. Disparaged though they are, I've heard good reports from people using such alternators. While chandleries like to stress the rigors of the marine environment when touting expensive 'marine' products, churning away under the hood of a vehicle for two hundred thousand miles through all kinds of weather and terrain is no mean feat. I suspect that the major reason automotive alternatives are so much cheaper than "marine" alternators is that the former are mass produced. Automotive alternators are generally not ignition-protected, which is a problem on boats with gasoline engines; but neither are all 'marine' alternators (especially older ones). But don't despair -- the automotive-industrial giant, Delco-Remy, also produces alternators that are ignition protected, namely the 5SI (50 amps) and 7SI.(70 amps), described as off-highway alternators suitable for marine applications. Priced around $200, the Delco-Remy 7SI costs less than half of a comparable alternator built by Balmar and its warranty lasts twice as long.

In Praise of the Portable Generator

The Honda 2000i is the workhorse of
our charging system; it rarely
breaks into a sweat.

On Momo we don't like to charge the batteries using the engine unless we are actually motoring underway. Instead, we rely on a portable gasoline generator -- the Honda 2000i, which costs around $1000. I just saw a comparable Coleman generator at a Big Box Store for under $500; and, although I can't vouch for it, for that price it is tempting to buy one as a spare. Sure, a diesel genset sounds nice, and they are no longer that unusual on boats 40' long or more. But even a 'small' genset like the Fischer Panda 4200 weighs more than 200 lbs and will set you back around $10,000 before it is even installed. Since they produce enough electricity to run a small factory, you'll also want to install the appropriate appliances -- air conditioner, microwave, dish washer, washer/dryer, deep freeze, trash compacter -- to take advantage of them. But stuffing all of the appliances needed to reproduce the American lifestyle onto a small sailboat is not only expensive; it is also bad for the waterline. Like much of the American population, most cruising sailboats already struggle with their weight, raising their boot-stripes an inch or two to mask their obesity. (True story: we once came across a 41' sailboat whose owners raised their boot-stripe a whopping thirteen inches.)

Settling for a portable generator makes this struggle much easier. Our Honda weighs about 45 lbs. We can take it to the beach, lend it to friends, and keep it in a cockpit locker. It is reliable, efficient, and built by a company with a reputation for producing quality equipment for a mass market. As the basis of a system which charges our batteries, the generator is completely independent -- it starts by hand and even uses a different kind of fuel from the engine (which is important since contaminated fuel knocks out diesel engines more than anything else). In a pinch, the generator will charge the batteries even if our charger fails. It generates all the power we need, loping along at less than half of its rated capacity to run our battery charger at full strength. Thus, when we run the generator, we usually make a point of charging all of our other battery-powered devices as well.

We plug the generator into the boat with a modified shore power cord and charge our batteries with a Heart Interface EMS inverter/charger. The inverter draws from the batteries to deliver a maximum of 1800 watts of 120 volt AC; as a charger it pumps about 60 amps back into the batteries, ramping down in stages according to the batteries' needs. While we're happy with our charger, we wouldn't object to one with a capacity of 75 amps -- but nothing higher. A comparable unit costs between $1000 to $1300. You can pay significantly more for units whose AC output is a pure sine wave, but we've never had any problems with the our inverter's modified sine wave -- even when running our navigation computer (which uses a desktop power supply). You can buy stand-alone chargers for less, although they generally have less output as well. By the time you're looking at chargers that put out 50 amps or more, the price difference between chargers and inverter/ chargers is negligible.

A number of people we've met who ran their generators through chargers that only delivered 20 or 40 amps regretted not having chargers with larger capacities. One friend who only had a 20 amp charger wound up charging his batteries with his engine much of the time -- precisely what he was trying to avoid. A major reason why people leave the dock with low-capacity chargers was because they had been warned that their generators would not be able to handle anything more powerful. Indeed, Xantrex insists that to operate a 50 amp charger at 12 volts, the generator needs produce at least 3.5 kW, citing the difference between inductive and resistive loads. Faced with such science, I can only say that before we purchased our 2kW Honda, we routinely ran our 60 amp charger on a 1kW Yamaha generator without any problems at all. Poking around the internet, I've discovered that others have had similar experiences. Go figure.

As for 'greener' charging technologies -- i.e. solar panels, wind generators, or hydro generators -- we don't have any. All three remain expensive and are at best supplemental sources of power. Wind generators are large and noisy, and hydro generators add a level of complexity to passage making we don't want. We like the idea of solar panels, and used one on our Triton. But on Momo, although we have thought long and hard about the best way to mount them, we haven't found a solution we like. If we needed solar panels, we would have figured something out. In fact, however, the portable generator has proven so economical and easy to use that we've always found other ways to spend our money. Generally, we run the generator every second or third day. We also run it while passage making, propping up one end on a cockpit cushion to compensate for the boat's heel. Often we'll just run the generator in bursts. If we need to run it for more than hour, we'll wait until we watch a movie on the laptop -- it's quiet enough that we only notice its purring when it stops. The only time we run the generator for longer than 2 hours is when we equalize the batteries, which we do every month or so to keep our batteries healthy. We carry two six-gallon gasoline jugs, which our generator and small outboard need to share; this supply lasts around six weeks. On our trip to Alaska this summer, during which the Perkins and its alternator saw plenty of action, those twelve gallons lasted more than three months.

Keeping Things in Perspective

Designing an electrical system on a limited budget means focusing on what you need to get the job done and resisting the allures of technological sophistication. Keep in mind not only the cost of your initial installation, but also the expense and difficulty of repairs and replacements. Before buying those vaunted AGM batteries, which were designed to withstand the G-forces of military aviation, ask yourself how frequently you'll be sailing your boat upside-down. Before spending vast sums to set up the most powerful charging regime your batteries can withstand, consider that, even with a moderate charging capacity, it doesn't take long before your voltage regulator starts ramping current levels down anyway. And don't worry too much about not attaining self-sufficiency because you need to buy gasoline for your generator; remember that, every now and then, you need to buy groceries, too.

Dealing with the Scum Line: Painting the Bootstripe with Vivid Anti-Fouling Paint

1999-01-11T10:57:00.000-08:00

Momo on the hard in Opua, March 2009

The persistent line of algae and scum that grows in the splash zone just above the waterline used to be one of most annoying problems we had on Momo. The tenacious stuff could only be removed by vigorous scrubbing with a scouring pad, which took off the gelcoat as well.

So the last time we hauled out, we tried something new. Instead of using a regular polyurethane paint for the bootstripe, we bought a can of Petit’s Vivid bright red anti-fouling paint and rolled on a 12" stripe between the bottom and the topside. Now all we need to do to clean the waterline is go sailing. We haven't scrubbed the waterline since.

Momo's waterline 8 months later after
a season of cruising in Fiji

The only disadvantage of the paint is that it rubs off on the dinghy. But it's worth pointing out that one-part topside paint also rubs off (we know this from painting our first boat), and the Vivid is much easier to replace.

Overheating Engine? -- Try Installing a Second Heat-Exchanger

1999-01-10T10:23:00.000-08:00

One of the early problems we had to deal with on Momo was an over-heating engine. Momo’s diesel is a Perkins 4108, which for all its virtues has frequently been faulted for having an inadequate heat exchanger. Indeed, in cold water, our engine never over-heated at all. It was in the warm waters of Mexico that we encountered the problem. Later, when we sailed to the Pacific Northwest, the problem disappeared again.

Our solution was to put in a second heat exchanger. We picked one up at a second-hand marine exchange--it's about twice the size of the original. We circumvented the problem of mounting it on the engine by not mounting it on the engine at all. Instead, we found a spot for it beside the engine and plumbed it between the engine and the raw water pump. That is to say, the sea water actually passes through the heat exchanger before it reaches the raw water pump on the engine. Meanwhile, the engine’s fresh water coolant passes through the original heat exchanger and then continues to the second heat exchanger. We’ve never had an overheating problem since.

Used heat exchangers aren't that difficult to find, especially if you don't need to worry about getting a specific kind. We paid less for our heat exchanger than for various bits of plumbing needed to hook it up.