Sailboats have Destinations: Diligence and Attention to Detail

51 02.6N 168 20.8 W — 11-jun-2020 12:56 HST — Motorboats have schedules, sailboats have destinations.

Caro Babbo demonstrates this as we arrive three days later than planned into Samalga Pass to the Bering Sea. Jennifer will blame this on a miscalculation in motoring capabilities, but the real arithmetic shows that of the four or five times we thought we should motor, only one or perhaps two would have been worth the fuel, if we had it to spare.

The wind, that the various models predicted and that the weather router person expected, did not show up as promised. Instead of the consistent 125 nm per day we have been closer to 100 and sometimes well below that.

Instead of arriving Friday, yesterday, we’ll most likely arrive Monday.

This has been a much easier passage than from San Diego to Hilo. None of the steering functions have failed, so we have not been reduced to tiller slaves.

Caro Babbo is a machine that travels forward. At the moment, she is in freight train mode. We’re doing about 6 knots in smooth seas. We are each below. Caro Babbo journeys forward, and we read, eat, write, sleep, and talk below.

Jennifer has asked, “is this what passage making is generally like?” She is okay with this.

Of course, in the middle of the night Jennifer was up with me jibing the main and resetting the preventer. The preventer is a nuisance because it goes through the life lines so it can not be merely picked up and moved side to side. Though in the past that is exactly what we did.

There have been problems. I think I do not want to hear anyone else’s issues because we seem to get them in sympathy.

James from Zingaro is skippering Mark McDade’s boat Te Vega from Oahu to San Fran (Half Moon Bay). When they stopped in Hanalei Bay to say Hi, James commented on some deck leaks he fixed on Te Vega before he would leave and how he hates a wet (below decks) boat.

Caro Babbo turned into Swiss cheese on this trip. Each leak I sort of knew about.

We occasionally would, maybe, see some water in the very front of the forepeak. It could have been condensation, but probably not. It was troubling because that is a watertight bulk head to the anchor locker.

It has been very wet on deck here. For the first part of the trip we pushed very hard making 166 miles each day; averaging above hull speed. And lots of water came into the forepeak. Then it rained, adding more.

It seems we have it tracked back to the pad eye that the dinghy attaches to. I am guessing that the leak happens when there is enough lifting pressure on that pad eye, that the seal to the deck is broken, but not otherwise.

We seemed to have solved it by coating the fitting with 3M 4000. We’ll be dropping the headliner to take a look.

The second leak is on the port side. I believe it is the Genoa sheet track, which I installed just before we left Seattle last summer. Again, it seems as if there might have been some leakage, but on a starboard tack for days at greater than hull speed, the seal broke somewhere and the track leaked. It leaked when we were hard charging with no rain. Like the bow, there can be a lot of splash in those conditions, and also when it is raining more than an inch an hour.

Finally, water is running down the port side of the compression post. This is new and we don’t understand. Water has always run down the inside of the compression post to the sump under the engine. I believe that was a design decision. This new leak is not.

On a dry day, I will brute force this with either silicon or 3M 4000.

Onto ”this can’t be happening.” In Hawaii, I completely redid all of the bilge pumps.

Last November I replaced the burnt out vertical Rule-brand pump and mechanical float switch with an electronic float switch and horizontal, removable pump.

This combination worked flawlessly until about a week ago, when it blew its 15 Amp fuse. I opened the pump, didn’t find anything jammed and replaced the pump. It worked fine until yesterday, when it blew its 15 Amp fuse again. The pump is rated at 7.5 Amp.

I also installed a second electric bilge pump, a diaphragm type that drains the last drops from the back corner of the bilge. This used the same model electronic float switch.

The first day out of Oahu the switch failed; it will turn on the pump, but not turn it off. I removed the switch from the circuit and used the manual switch. But last night it basically stopped moving water. The problem turns out to be the design of the screen. Debris can get caught in the entrance to the screen. It needs a coarser screen in front to catch larger debris. The current screen is installed under the stairs from the main cabin to the cockpit and is easily accessed. I occasionally get it right.

There is a manual bilge pump, which I have been using. Reliable and quick but leaves 2 inches of water in the bilge.

The water in the bilge is primarily because the propeller seal is still leaking. I thought I had it repaired, but did not. One of the factors about where we’ll leave the boat will be a yard that can do this for me. This, I will, out source.

We’re having some electronic worries. Our Vesper AIS device is acting a little squirrelly. It speaks to the world via WiFi (using the Iridium Go as a router), through an old 0183 protocol running on an even older RS422 connection and through an NMEA2000 bus (You can guess what year that was implemented).

A few weeks ago our radar, which is connected through the 0183 protocol started throwing an error that the AIS was not updating properly, though its targets appear on the screen. It has been working properly for the last year or so and was working the week before.

Also the EV1 autohelm, which is connected to the Vesper via NMEA2000, will stop getting Course Over Ground (COG) and Speed Over Ground (SOG) info.

Finally, the Vesper will drop off the Wifi occasionally, though this may be related to the Iridium Go. I’m still investigating that.

It is cold here, in the forties at times. Caro Babbo is a PNW boat with two diesel heaters and a kerosene stove that works very well as a heater. Friends sailing up from Hawaii have frozen in their heater-less boats.

Sent from Iridium Mail & Web.