Repairs and Upgrading – Page 4

I’m your (almost) Captain. Goings on ashore.

Port Townsend, Wa, 18-May-2019 – Call me Almost Captain. I’ve passed all the tests, taken a Red Cross-approved first aid course, had a physical. There is only getting a TWIC card (background security check), getting a drug test and assembling 720 days of sea time, and then, with the addition of another few hundred dollars I will have a 25-ton master’s license for near coastal. Oh yeah, I also will have sailing, and assistance-towing endorsements.

This will allow me to captain, for money, power vessels up to 25 tons gross vessel weight based on volume (not displacement); the vessels will weigh, empty, much less than 25 tons. I can also master a sailing vessel of unlimited weight and get paid for towing boats that need assistance. In the US, it seems I can do all of this on non-commercial vessels, for no pay, without any license. (In other parts of the world this isn’t true: one must actually have training before doing these things.)

We’re going home…soon.

Decatur, GA, 7-MAR-2019 – With the Edgemont house listed, there is time to get back to life and Caro Babbo. Jennifer and I have been celebrating by seeing friends in the afternoons. Yesterday, we went to Marlay’s in Decatur and drank beer.

Lastnight, I registered for a Captain’s license course that I will start later this month. There is an irony. The course was offered in Port Townsend, while I was here in Atlanta, and now that I will be back in Port Townsend, I will take the course in Seattle, 2½ hours away. Keeping Caro Babbo on Lake Union proves itself once again, as I will be able to stay in Seattle the evenings after the class. I can also tele-attend via an internet connection from Port Townsend.

In short, it’s time to get back to the fun stuff.

Stuck in the ATL

Decatur, GA, 23-NOV-2018 – There is no joy working on these houses. We won’t get the first two done before we head north for Christmas. Jennifer won’t be going to Berlin.

We might get one house done, the second underway, and the third, perhaps, contracted to completion before we return to Atlanta in January.

Our, well, at least my life revolves around Caro Babbo.

The reckoning: what did we spend?

We were gone for 171 days, and spent $9400, for an average of $55 per day.

Where did the money go?

Decatur, GA, 31-OCT-2018 – For 2018, we decided to take six months for our sail to Alaska. Why? Because we could.

The trip, in my eyes, wasn’t really a trip. Looking backwards, it was just living on-the-go for six months. I’m not sure at what point something moves from being a trip into being how one is living.

What went wrong this year?

Decatur GA, 21-OCT-2018 – A friend from Oregon told us that the only real shakedown for 3000 mile cruise is a 3000 mile cruise.* Our trip in 2016 proved his point; the list of things that broke ran three pages and almost everything on the list was my own fault.

Two years and 6000 miles later we came home from this year’s trip with no serious issues to report.

2018 was the year of leaks: there were four minor water leaks, three freshwater, one salt:

Racor

Khutze Inlet, 27-AUG-2018 – While Jennifer sleeps, I research and fret over what to do about he junk that has accumulated in the bowl of our Racor fuel filter.

Kutze Inlet is a beautiful, big place, surrounded by mountains, with snow-cover peaks glimpsed around closer mounts. The water is flat and two water falls provide a constant aural accompaniment to the sights. Continue reading “Racor”

Water where it’s not supposed to be

Bag Harbour, Haida Gwaii, 6-JUN-2018 – It’s been raining in Haida Gwaii. As far as I can tell that’s all it does. The wind is variable: it might be good sailing wind, or 40-50 knots, which sends us and every other boat to find a safe harbor and hunker down. While in the safe harbor we use the dinghy when there are breaks in the wind.

When we first bought Caro Babbo I hadn’t considered a water maker. All the books and long-distance sailors I’d read talked about two things: a mister for rinsing after washing in salt water (everyone washed in their cockpits after stripping off their shorts or bathing suits – they don’t sail the waters we sail in*), and collecting rain water.

Continue reading “Water where it’s not supposed to be”

Technology Summary

20-May-2018 – Technology runs a sailboat and always has. In our age, technology has become synonymous with electronics. On a sailboat, electronics is just one of many.

Let’s start with Caro Babbo’s most troubling technology, cooking:

Taylor’s Stove

Taylors model 030 kersosene stove and oven (parafin cooker)

2016, on the advice of most pump jockeys, we used Jet A as a fuel. Jet A burns significantly hotter than kerosene. The hotter fuel caused the fuel in the bottom of the burner and the fuel line to turn into hardened carbon: coke. Continue reading “Technology Summary”

Part 2: Threads reweave, one ends

The prawn boat docking did not go quite as smooth as one might hope. The crew seemed new.

The crewman on the starboard forward deck, dock line in hand, watched the dock as it got closer and as he prepared to loop a line around a cleat, the aft most deckhand called forward, “get a bumper.” The forward crewman replied out loud, “oh yeah,” and dangled a faded orange ball of a fender between the dock and the boat.

The front of the boat pressed against the dock as its stern rotated to starboard pressing against another orange faded ball-shaped fender. I went back to work. When I looked down again the crew had finished docking and were preparing to leave the boat.

On the stern was written Nordic Star. Continue reading “Part 2: Threads reweave, one ends”

Threads reweave, one ends

Port Hardy, BC Canada, 6-MAY-2018 – I spent a good part of Friday at the top of our mast reinstalling our antenna and the cable that leads from it through the mast through the engine compartment through the bilge and into the basement where the cable connects to a signal splitter.

I spent enough time at the top of the mast that another boat owner spoke with Jennifer and offered to pay me to go to the top of his mast. I was flattered, but not tempted.

In Friday Harbor, we had bought and installed an 8 foot whip antenna as a temporary solution for our failed masthead antenna. We started showing up again on AIS. The harbor master in Port Hardy, where I sat atop the mast like a Christmas Angel, spoke to us through our VHF. Continue reading “Threads reweave, one ends”