Monthly Archives: July 2016

Ripping off the bandaid

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Ever pull off the band aid too early and things just aren’t right yet under there? Well, looks like we did that with one of the spreaders during that heavy-wind first sail. Here’s the starboard upper spreader, which took the leeward pressure that day. 

Ouch – what you’re seeing are the too-thin Carbon uni laminates used to bond the spreaders back on after the mast rebuild last year. In retrospect I was too concerned about blending in those spreaders, keeping it light. This time we’ll beef up those corners. 

Charlie and Jim remember hearing a sharp crack sound as we sailed but non of us could find the source. But I did midweek as I used the solo TopClimber to go get the topping lift shown in the last post. It was spooky to be up there and suddenly realize the damage overhead. Thought about trying a repair in place, but that lasted about ten seconds. KKMI in Richmond was happy to pluck the mast with Herb Craen and we set it on rolling carts in a very handy huge shed.  

Repair day one was cutting and grinding away the wimpy laminate on the bad one, and sanding away the paint six inches back from the joints on the other three. All four will get two layers of 45/45double bias 9oz to make the bends, with some leftover 12oz uni (from the mast longitudinals) sandwiched in between, applied in a figure 8 to tie the two spreaders together across the front of the mast. 

Here’s where things stand this evening, with the spreader re-bonded and filleted in place. It was hard to guess which tools to throw in the car, so the painters tape was repurposed to hold the final position. Cross your fingers that nothing shifted after I left there today!

We expect the work to finish Thursday and we’ll sail this weekend. 

On the good news front, all the plumbing was finally finished up during the weekend, so the ladies get a proper restroom aboard. The flexible/rubber water tanks are working fine, and the grey water tank is in use for toilet flushing. All good so far. 

Ravenswing’s first weekend in Richmond was a full moon. 

The next big moon should have the boat out exploring. If you haven’t been full moon sailing on the bay, it’s pretty great when not cloudy. Drop us a line if you want to join Thursday or Friday Aug18/19. We’ll be practicing with radar, AIS ship identification and navigation software. We can touch n’ go at the dock to land those who don’t want to spend overnight on the water. 

PS – anyone see the F31 float on the trailer in the second photo above? That’s Race2Alaska now-veteran Ma’s Rover just now back home, about to get relaunched at KKMI. Pretty amazing coincidence to be using the same crane today. If you haven’t read up, go check out the wonderful sportsmanship of Ma’s owner Mark Eastham. After all the work and investment he put in to that race, Mark volunteered to help the F27 team sailed by a paraplegic crew who were approaching the event’s cutoff time. That crew was pretty exhausted but wanted to reach the finish. Mark and other racers didn’t just go home. I’m eager to here from him how he went aboard and helped that boat make it to Ketchikan. What an adventure. 

A man’s first sail

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That’s Larry on the right. He and the missus just retired from Florida careers and they’re touring North America by motor home. They have no schedule, they can go where they please. This month they’re visiting Charlie’s house, which means they’ve watched the Boat People traipsing up and down the dock out back as we continue to fit out Ravenswing for sail. At midnight on Saturday the depth finder came to life as the last real must-have to navigate out the long river and through San Pablo Bay. Larry was happy to join F27 skippers Jim, Charlie and me for the F36’s first sail. A nice summer day outing and Jeanne would pick us up at the marina in Richmond. Larry’s never been on a sailboat before, but hey, what could go wrong? :)Woke up to a super minus tide. Boat lying in the weeds…

Once floating (and breakfasted) and bottom semi-scrubbed from the kayak, we pulled out at 9. The motor mount fix made a major (good) difference. We still need to try the higher pitched prop and get that aspect dialed in. Well, in all the excitement some unnamed boat builder forgot to check the two 3 gallon gas tanks. About an hour motoring down river tank 1 ran out, and guess what, tank 2 had less than a gallon. And the Vallejo gas dock is closed Sundays. 

Enter another Ravenswing hero, Goose. He had planned to intercept us as the photo chase boat once we hoisted sail in the Mare Island Straight. Good thing his West Wight Potter 19 can plane with it’s 50horse motor!

Thank you sir, for running a couple gallons upriver!!!  (And yeah, his coach roof is the entire sliding hatch section of a Catalina 30; wow can this guy mod a boat with gusto and results!)

Back underway, Ravenswing’s final obstacle to sailing was the Mare Island bridge. The flood was ripping, the wind on the nose, and our 60 ‘ bridge raise request held up cars for ten mins as we struggled for decent headway. 

After the bridge, 21 years of anticipation became the moment to set sail. But our fantastic looking lazyjack system completely fouled the main hoist on any point of luffing towards windward. What a mess, with Goose’s camera clicking away. More humble pie. 

We cut the lazyjacks free and in the building breeze set the main at the first reef. In the flat Straits water the boat took off like a scaled cat. A sailboat at last, hallelujah. 

Exiting the Vallejo reach at the Carquinez bridge with no jib yet, we just wanted a feel for the helm and boat responsiveness. In a few minutes the apparent wind was above 20kts and the helm too weather heavy. Hmmm, rudder angle or too much mast rake? But we’re moving too fast and we need to tack away from those oil wharves now. We’ll take a leg to weather and gather our wits for the jib hoist. Another minute or so to clear the wharf and we hit the infamous San Pablo Bay chop. Charlie and I (and a number of you) have raced the f-boats here and been pounded silly by that short steep chop water. The F36 is much bigger and she slammed through instead of lurching skyward. That’s fun. But somewhere in those opening minutes a wave came through that completely firehosed the full crew. Welcome to summer sailing in San Francisco, Larry, the place where we soaked your Levi’s and shoes with icy cold water to start a 30 mile sail. Bad manners from the boat host. And so glad Jeanne is not seeing her new boat this way!

We beat up to Marin without the jib. The boat was very unbalanced, the helm a struggle to keep from rounding up, and without any good plans to hoist and reef the new slab jib. Let’s just muddle through and not break stuff. (The open bottom boom needs more cross bracing where the reefing straps sit under the reefed clews). Near Point Pinole the water flattened out a bit and with reefed main only we were hitting 12kts upwind. This rig pulls like a freight train. 

Got the jib up, full hoist, at the Marin Islands. Took a bit to find a groove, but for a while just south of the Richmond Bridge, Ravenswing hit her stride for the first time. Complete magic as she rose up on plane and accelerated like crazy. This is one powerful cruiser/ocean voyager and I want to dial it in and see what’s possible!!!  There are race courses in her future :)

After a few minutes of fun we hung a left in to the Richmond channel. Jim steered around big tugs with, as Charlie said, the ugliest possible vessel (Asian car transporter), handed over the reins and we tucked in to Marina Bay’s office dock to begin a two month cruise-outfitting and shakedown period.

Today saw hours of 25+ apparent, and it’s the same story you’ve heard here. We’re having a very windy summer, and we’re being reminded to respect the weather as we bring this sailboat to life. But if the dodger had been finished today could have avoided a full frontal soaking.

Thank you Jeanne for handling the bad traffic and picking up the tired crew. Nothing broken, nobody hurt, and Larry a bit wide-eyed. So of course as my lovely wife walks up the dock to our first ‘grownup’ boat slip ever, her eye goes right to the rig and she says, 

Honey, why’s the topping lift way up in the rigging like that? Did somebody let go of it?”  Well, um, that would be me and it’s a long story back near Vallejo. Let’s go get a beer and burrito at LaCasa in Sonoma on the way home and I’ll tell you all about it…

NOT 1,000 square feet

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Some of you were pretty surprised we got the shop emptied and turned over that quickly. The bad news is “all that stuff gotta go somewhere!” Ugh, don’t look around our small lot at home for a while please. We still have to finish making boat parts, mostly finish sanding, priming and painting. Here’s the new paint shed (code name for an old bug tent now on the back patio under our messy big trees)

The big work table and the large power tools get half the garage (miraculously the car is in fact parking inside now). That’s half the DeWitt Dinghy in the top of the frame – fun little 8′ solo boat!

And all the supplies and small tools go in the 8×6′ tin shed, which got a massive shelving system added on July 3. Still shoehorning stuff in.  

Back at Charlie’s dock this afternoon we removed the stern tower and fished 8 cables through. Anyone building something like this, please note to lay in messenger lines BEFORE sealing up a clamshell design, and make continuous internal conduits with gentle exit bends. My sporty exterior look required much contortion with wire fish tapes and bent fingers. Jim is down from Oregon right now and brought all his carpentry skills to bear on this one. The wired tower slide home and the guys bolted down the feet from the aft cabin while I stood out on the swim platform relaxing with a cigarette (just kidding Mom) Tomorrow is supply plumbing (drains and tankage are done), and finishing the reefing system before hopefully a full daysail on Sunday.  Perhaps we’ll get most of the tower electronics installed too. 


Enjoy the weekend!

Much to their surprise 

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The shop neighbors just laughed and shook their heads as they closed up their businesses Friday afternoon for the holiday weekend… The boatbuilder had said this mess would disappear by the time they reopened!

 
Most of the tools were home already before that photo, but as usual we were trying to “multitask”; still building parts until the last possible moment. We were packing to the tune of the vacuum pump as this table full of cabinet doors and companionway boards came to life. 

No fireworks this year as the Fourth gave us new doors and a disgraceful amount of landfill waste

We will live ‘greenly’ on Ravenswing, but the construction left a debris trail that was a bit unnerving at the dumps this morning. It was pretty weird handling every scrap with all their memories of missteps, fixes and clever accomplishments over the years. But also a HUGE relief when the landlord snapped this photo with the keys in her hand and the Carters no longer the Piner Industrial Center boatbuilders!

Big thanks to Michael the woodworker for all the tool loaning and advice over the years. To Mark for wrenches and the forklift in a pinch. To David for painting advice and labor leads. To Marcus for Giants fanaticism and damn funny humor. The Piner guys get a McCovey Cove day Aug20 on the boat; we’ll be the ones on your TV with the huge World Series Champs flag that Marcus got from the steps of City Hall celebration in 2014.

Hey Griff, pool-cover Nevin traded his new portable air compressor for our old huge one, so I didn’t have to move the BigPig out of the shop and we have a nice beefy 2hp compressor in the garage now :)

We could not have finished the boat these past five years without this place. A note to current or contemplating builders: it’s easy to underestimate the costs of a rented or borrowed shop in a build budget. Mostly because IT IS going to take longer than any of us plan, and that rent check has to keep being written. For us, the extra 12 months rent devoured our electronics savings account, so Ravenswing launched without the Tesla-like lithium batteries, light weight 600 watt solar array or desired Furuno comms/nav goodies. But overall, choosing a workspace one mile from home was the best thing we did for this whole project. The proximity made getting to the boat work an easy thing, so more got done any given week. Do what you can to avoid commuting to your hobby job! Finally, go big. 48×24′ was really too small for this boat. If ever again, the shop would have to be large enough for the tri or cat to stay in its fully assembled wide condition. 

So now the boat to-do list gets tackled  from the dock. First up is solving motor cavitation (severe power loss due to poor water flow or air bubble entrapment). The protection leg in front of the motor is too long. Not sure how much, but it sits 3″ below the waterline and cutting 6″ is the common sense move. Pre-cut here:


Half a foot later

Then we took the offcut to Charlie’s table saw and salvaged the bottom cap, clean-up sanded the cap and the motor mount, and prepped a batch of peanut butter thick epoxy/cabosil paste. Loaded the kayak to continue the 6pm surgical reconstruction…

And plastered that cap up where it (hopefully) belongs

That seam will get cleaned up and covered with a bit of fiberglass next week after this current business trip. If I’m lucky, our boat dock host will have tackled some lazy Jack improvements this weekend :)

We’ll get her sailing for real very soon. 

Humbled by the wind

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For twenty one years this boat build has been sustained in part by daydreams of sailing anywhere the dreamer wants, confident in a strong, capable vessel. So of course on the day of the maiden sail when things should be tested in light zephyrs, we pull off the dock into 20+ knots on the nose and a big flood tide coming up the river we need to charge down many miles past Vallejo and in to the Bay. Damn, this is not going to be an easy day…

The 20hp motor and 10″ propeller are relatively small for the windage size of the boat. The motor is in the break-in first ten hours where you can’t run it beyond 2/3 speed. The apparent wind was up over 25, plus that north bay chop was starting. The builder who thought himself so clever with a motor mount ‘sled’ made that motor leg protection shield extend about 3″ below the water surface now paid the price of diverting water flow around the propeller area oddly enough to create major cavitation problems. So after a half hour of degrading conditions (that afternoon wind was building), motoring upwind, we had to admit this was a bad way to test new sailing systems. That was an ego blow, but some great learnings. The first: wow does Ravenswing sail well under ‘bare poles’. This shot is a few miles later, back in protected waters, but still sailing over 5kts with the head sail strapped to the deck and the main down at the boom. After a night of reflection, it’s pretty funny that her first sail didn’t involve sails. We learned to use the rotating semi-wing mast as a tall skinny sail, and actually tacked the boat with just the mast rotation when motoring back to the dock hours later. 

For those who visited the assembly / launch site, you can picture Charlie, Dean, Anton and I sailing back and forth doing two mile upwind/downwind legs in front of the people fishing from that dock. The main was double-reefed and we never did hoist the jib in that very narrow waterway. You sailors will be disgusted re: sail shape / trim, here with the main tortured up against a lazyjack I didn’t quite finish in time to make it easily adjustable. 

Yes, these photos make it all look mellow and the author here suspect :)


We sailed and motor-sailed enough to get a feel for key things. The revamped steering is much better. The daggerboard is humming once up near 10kts, which I think can be fixed by shimming the head tighter in the trunk. The clew-end reefing with the clutches and winch on the mast-end of the boom work well. The Vee Mainsheet worked just as advertised, including the ability to easily travel the boom upwind and down by yanking on the crossover line. (Still anxious to confirm that under full sail). The mast base and rotation setup work very well. We learned where on deck to place line holding cleats for sailing activities like holding the leeward (unused) back stay out of the way. Etc etc.

The jib is hanked on, waiting for another day. 

Anton saw the boat and said that’s a lot of string in the sky


And I had a few moments of reflection to really enjoy the fruits of years in the shop. Ravenswing is actually sailing, phew!


The boat has another new punch list of work needed, but for the next few days it’s all about the shop – finishing projects, moving tools and raw materials home, and nasty cleaning. 

Jeanne instigated a push to build all the cabinet doors before losing the shop. Inch and a half wide mahogany frames, 1/4″ foam core panels, and some cherry vaneer will get vac bagged today. 

More interior comforts finished; this is a great seat for surveying the scene 

And don’t do this: I used locktite to keep these VHF radio side mounts tight. Within two days it ate the plastic away. 

Standard Horizon replaced these at no charge, so another item on the list. 

Enjoy the 4th! We won’t be sailing :)