Maintenance – Sailing Pearl: Travels on a Beneteau Oceanis 373

Chilling Out — The Fridge, That Is

There’s a Southern phrase, “I’m fixing’ to …” that usually means “I am preparing to ….” Since it’s Spring, Lisa and I have been thinking about cruising again. In other words, we are “fixing’ to go cruising.”

Unfortunately, that phase has take on a whole new meaning for us. We’ve literally been fixing Pearl for the six weeks. We installed an air conditioner, we’ve replaced the batteries and charger, changed Pearl’s registration, replaced the fluxgate compass and recalibrated the autopilot, and now we are messing with the refrigeration system. The refrigeration system failed before we tried to leave the last time. Guess what? It did it again.

Harley chilling out on deck. He couldn’t be more relaxed.

Having determined that there should be no magical boxes on Pearl, we’ve dug into the refrigeration system. It’s both simple and interesting. It is has an air cooled compressor/heat exchanger (unlike our air conditioner which has a water cooled heat exchanger) and two cold plates, one each in the fridge and the freezer. The way the system works is the compressor and heat exchanger cool the refrigerant, pass it through the first cold plate in the freezer, then through a constant pressure valve, into the second cold plate, and back. The system is controlled by a thermostat on the cold plate in the fridge — it really doesn’t matter how cold the freezer gets as long as the fridge stays at temperature (about 35F). There are no fancy electronics here, just tables mapping temperature (remember Boyle’s Law?) and pressure and a mechanical control in a closed system.

There are two pressure readings that apply, one is the “low side” pressure for the cooled refrigerant where it exists the compressor/heat exchanger, and the “high side” for where it returns to it. The magic here is balancing the high and low sides with a combination of adding refrigerant and twiddling the constant pressure valve until it equalizes out. It’s not quite rocket science, but the same principles that apply in the combustion chamber and nozzle of a rocket engine apply here. Hmmm. Maybe it IS rocket science.

The base line pressure for the refrigerant on the low side should be 2-3 psi. The high side pressure depends on the ambient temperature.

Where we’ve been running into a problem is getting the pressure balanced between the high and the low sides. So far, this has been the result of a faulty constant pressure valve, and or some debris in the low pressure line when the valve was last replaced. Also, there may be a very small leak in the system that causes refrigerant loss whenever the freezer is defrosted. To find that we need to pressurize the system with Nitrogen to about 500 psi. I hope we can skip that for the moment.

Adding Air Conditioning: A Helpful Digression

Lisa and I don’t do well together when it’s too hot to sleep. We bicker. Tempers fray. Harley the dog tries to find a place to hide. None of that works well on a small boat.

A couple of summers ago we solved this problem by jerry rigging a window-type AC on deck to keep us cool. While cost effective and functional, the jerry-rigged solution is (as a friend of mine put it) ghetto-fabulous. It also makes taking Pearl out sailing a major production causing us to stay in rather than go sailing.

Having turned 50, I relented. I decided that I should follow Lisa’s advice and we should bite the bullet and install an self contained reverse cycle air conditioning system. The upside is that we can have air conditioned (both heating and cooling) comfort wherever we go — particularly if we add a a generator. The downside is the expense, installation aggravation, and loss of storage space.

Having finally consumed most of the stuff we provisioned for going to the Bahamas last year we agreed we could use the lose the roughly 2 cubic feet of space the the air conditioner and 4 cubic feet the ducting would consume. Note to self: don’t over provision. Also, we’ve been freeing space by tossing out stuff we (mostly I) thought was essential.

One can spend truly egregious amounts of money on an ACs and installation. Yes. There are such things as “bespoke” air conditioners — custom made units to fit in specific places in a boat — and it’s really easy to get sucked into thinking you need one. Having looked at the options, however, and friends who’d done their own installs, Lisa and I decided that we would purchase a kit and do the installation ourselves. It’s not rocket surgery, after all.

What we learned from out experience:

Measure several times, cut once.
Lay out every component and ensure that you have the space to do what you need to — e.g. connect fittings, hoses, and hose clamps — and leave extra hose and wire so that you can do maintenance.
Ensure there is a constant upward. flow of water from the through-hull to the filter, then the pump, and air conditioner — if you do this, you don’t need to worry about priming the system.
You don’t need to install a sump and possibly separate thru hull for draining condensation. A couple of vendors (Marvair and Mermaid) offer venturi pumps that attach to the discharge hose.
Double the time you think it will take to get anything done.

Also, consider taking yoga classes to prepare yourself for the unique positions in which you will likely need to pose yourself to install some of the components.

Fortunately for us, Beneteau offers the 373 with a factory installed air conditioning as an option. Beneteau’s Customer Service very helpfully provided us with the schematics and a parts specifications for the ACs they install, as well as pictures of someone else’s installation. While we did purchase several parts from Beneteau for the installation, we didn’t get all of them — in some cases because they just weren’t available.

As it turns out, the Dometic Marine Air 16000 BTU Retrofit Kit fits perfectly in the space mapped out. We tried a Webasto 16k BTU but despite the specs indicating it would fit, we just couldn’t wrangle the unit into place. We bought our system from West Marine, and avoided getting the install kit in favor of buying individual components. This ended up being less expensive than buying the “kit” and had better components — e.g. brass rather than plastic fittings.

AC Installation Picture — The AC in place under the Port side settee. The grubby bilge is from the condensate buildup — which should be addressed by the Marvair Condensator.

The most demanding part of the installation was running the plumbing. While we had a “spare” through-hull fitting that we were able to use, getting the water filter, pressure pump, and air conditioner on a consistently increasing gradient was a bit of a challenge. We still need to fiddle around with this whenever the filter gets clogged.

Fortunately, Lisa is both small and flexible. Running the pipes and attaching the necessary hose clamps and fittings in tight spaces required some impressive contortions on her part. Regrettably, there is no photographic evidence of her feats as my picking up a camera would have resulted in “bad things” happening. I am not sure what the bad things are, but i prefer not to find out.

The most traumatic part of the install was cutting into Pearl’s cabinetry and drilling a hole in her hull. With the right tool, anything is possible. We ended up getting a Rigid Multi-Tool from Home Depot for cutting the holes for the return air vent, ducting, and the thermostat/control head. The multi-tool was far easier and more precise and manageable in the confined spaces we were working in than either a rotozip or a jig saw — we tried to use both. The mutl-tool was well worth the $65 cost. Prior to this, I thought they were completely pointless. For the vent into the salon, we needed a Milwaukee 5″ hole for which we used a hole saw. These tools, along with a nut drive for tightening the hose clams made the install quite manageable.

The other part of the story was hooking up the power. This wasn’t too bad. Instead of trying to patch into the existing wiring and adding a circuit breaker, we opted to run a completely seperate dedicated 30 amp circuit for the AC — complete with a Beneteau standard Merlin Gerin Circuit Breaker. There is nothing else on the circuit. This way, if we choose to run the AC while at anchor all we theoretically need to do is plug in the generator.

There is one other component we need to install. It’s a Venturi pump made by Dometic/Marvair that evacuates the condensation pan that currently drains into the bilge. While, once again, you can jerry rig a much less expensive solution using fish tank supplies, we figured the potential downsides out weighed the higher cost. Hopefully, once this is complete, we’ll be back to having a clean, dry bilge!

We love having our AC so far. It works much better than the ghetto fabulous cabin-top jerry rigged unit we had. It dries out the inside of the boat — which is nice — and keep the outside of the boat cleaner and less cluttered. Good call Lisa. Stay tuned for more.

Choosing a new Dinghy for Pearl

Sadly, we had to retire Ziply Banana Rocket, the AMI XL 300 we purchased in Portland last year. While she was new out of the box, she’d been made in 2009, which when she was relocated to the “tropics” caused some one of her tubes to leak.

As a result we decided to donate her to the Key West Community Sailing Center (a sailing co-op with the skills and resources to fix her). They plan to use her as a chase boat for the youth sailing program. “Come here little duckies!” We were very sad to see her go. The question was with what we were going to replace her.

The matrix of choices when it comes to buying a dinghy are pretty impressive.

PVC or Hypalon
Rigid hull Inflatable Boat or Rollup (hard or slatted floor)
Air floor or Hard Floor
Aluminium or Fibre glass hull RIB
Single or double hull

The choice between PVC and Hypalon seems pretty easy. If you’re in the tropics, choose Hypalon. The issue according to a repair shop that I spoke with is that the glue used on PVC degrades in temps around 80 degrees causing the seems to fail and the tubes to leak over time. Apparently the glue used in the construction of Hypalon boats doesn’t suffer the same problem — hence the choice for us.

The choice between RIB or Roll-up has has to do with space. It’s arguable that RIBs are heavier than Roll-ups, however the roll-up we had was heavier than the RIB we have now.

Ribs are great. The are drier, plane faster, and are more robust from the perspective of driving them up on a beach. The downside is that you either need to be willing to tow it, store it on deck, or lift it on davits.

A roll-up, on the other hand will “roll up,” you can put it in a dinghy stuff sack, and turn it into a nice little package that can even be lashed on the fore deck or even stored in a locker. The down side is that they are wetter, less comfortable on long rides, and potentially less durable.

There are a couple of three choices for Roll-Up dinks, soft/air floor, slatted floor, or hard floor. We didn’t spend much time on these options because we wanted a hard floored RIB as a result of Harley. What I have heard, however, is that the high pressure floors with an inflatable keel work quite well to get you on a plane, etc. Based on personal experience, the slatted floors are not great for anything but very minimal use. The hard decks are quite nice, our previous dinghy had them and they worked very well. The only downside is that you have to find the space to store the floorboards.

If you choose a RIB, you have to decide between an Aluminium or Fiberglass hull. Aluminium is more durable than fiber glass, it is more resistant to dings than the gelcoat on the fiberglass hulls but more challenging to repair. They are also lighter! We wanted an aluminum hull but finally opted for fiberglass due to the cost ($5000 instead of $4000) and availability.

Note that there is a very affordably priced aluminum hulled Highfield RIB. We opted not to go with this as the buyer for a major online retailer who’d evaluated the dinks refused to carry them as he thought that the hull-tube bond would fail as the hull was powder coated before the tubes were glued on. I would encourage you to do your own research on this one. AB, however, has a couple of very nice but expensive aluminium hulled RIB models.

After all of that, we came up with the following criteria:

Must be made of Hypalon: it last better than PVC in the tropics
Must be light as it will be carried on davits
Must be rated for a 20 hp engine: what we have–> Must be FAST! (Lisa)

After looking at several dinghies, we ended up with the following short list:

– Caribe 10X @ ~ $3500.00
– Achilles HB315DX @ $4000.00
– Zodiac Cadet 310 RIB @ $3000.00
– AB VL10 @ $4000.00
– Highfield UL 310/340 @ $3000.00

The general consensus among the cruisers and sales people we spoke with was get either a Caribe, Avon, or AB. Our initial preference was to get the Caribe 10X which is double hulled, has a bow, locker, etc. When we looked at a Westmarine 340 which had a bow locker, the locker seemed pretty pointless, and it seemed like we be better off and save the weight by getting a “single hull. Also, the “single hull” on the AB isn’t really accurate as the VL has a flat floor.

While we did not personally inspect and test all five choices, what we did find out was that it’s really hard to get Caribes any more as they come out of Venezuela. We also found out that dinghy sales people were remarkably disinterested in selling product in this price range. The notable exceptions were Adam and Mike at the Inflatable Boat Center in Portland, OR and Jeff at Lifeline Inflatables in Miami from which we purchased our dink.

What we finally purchased and extremely happy with is an AB VL 10. It has the right combination of features for us and most importantly, seems to be very well put together. Stay tuned for pics and video of our new dink!

What you have above are a lot of my opinions and I’ve made a number of generalizations that you should take for what they are worth. On the off chance you are buying a dinghy, I hope they will give you some food for thought. If you have navigated this process yourself, I would love to hear you thoughts and opinions.

Our 9 Best Upgrades to Pearl for Cruising

We are finally done with boat projects and upgrades to Pearl to make our cruising life more comfortable. After all the theorizing, what we actually have done follows:

1. Dinghy Davits

Lisa and I decided that davits were a “must have.” There are several reasons for this:

(a) Improved boat performance: you don’t end up dragging the dink, allowing the boat to move a knot or so faster.

(b) Safety: you have an easily deployed life raft if necessary. Yes, we have a seperate life raft, but ….

(c) Security: dinghies are better stored “on board” than in the water; needing to climb aboard a boat to cut a dinghy free tends to deter prospective thieves.

The davits we finally settled on are from Garhauer Marine. They are very well made, and I highly recommend them.

2. A Hypalon Dinghy

Sadly, Ziply Banana Rocket, the Yellow AMI XL 300 PVC dinghy we purchased last year started to fail. This was due to the glue that holds the boat together being eroded by the heat and UV in Florida. Given that a dinghy is a critical piece if equipment when cruising, we opted to purchase an AB RIB (Rigid hull Inflatable Boat).

The big deal with hypalon vs. PVC fabric in the tropics isn’t about the fabric itself. It has to do with the glue that holds the fabric together. According to a inflatable boat wright (?) I chatted with, PVC glue start to fail at about 80 F. Since one is consistently above that temp in the tropics, PVC boats tend to fail sooner rather than later as we saw with the AMI.

3. Upgraded Navionics

Given that the Raymarine Pathfinder Radar had started to glitch and that charts for the chart plotter were pretty expensive, we decided to upgrade all of the navigation electronics and radar, and add in AIS display capability. Oddly enough this was less expensive than buying the electronic chart kits for where we wanted to go cruising. The net result is improved visibility of surrounding traffic as well as less expensive charts!

4. Foredeck Shade

Given that we haven’t added a high capacity generator to Pearl, we figured we’d go with a low tech solution: a deck shade that keeps the sun off the fore deck. Surprisingly, the shade noticably drops the temp in the V berth. Also, the shade is well enough constructed and laced on that we leave it up during storms — for which it can also serve as a rain catcher if required. The shade was definitely worth the $ 380 it cost to get made.

5. Filters on the fuel systems

We’ve added a Racor 500 filter on Pearl. This replaced the Racor 230 (?) that came standard. Additionally we’ve opted to add a couple of fuel shutoff vales to this to facilitate filter replacement rather than running a dual filter system. While I gather you can use vise grips on the fuel lines when changing filters instead of having shut off valves, that seemed a bit dodgy to me.

We’ve also added a Racor 120 gasoline filter for the outboard that will hopefully minimize problems there.

6. “Eye Lids” for the Portlights

Keeping the port light open when it rained was a bit of an issue. It made the boat stuffy and uninhabitable. We’ve added “eyelids” for the port lights which mostly keep the rain out of the boat. These cost appromimately $50 each from Portshade.com and were super easy to install. This was another worthwhile investment as it keeps the boat ventilated.

7. Marine VHF with AIS / Digital Selective Calling

We upgraded the original I-Com to a Standard Horizon Matrix AIS+. There are a couple of cool features to this change. The first is that it has Digital Selective Calling, which enables you to call a specific vessel based on their MMSI number (which most commercial vessels advertise via AIS). The second is that it integrates with the Raymarine e7D and a67 chart plotter/MFDs to provide enable AIS displays on the chart plotter. So, now we can identify the vessel we need to call and reach them directly.

It would be slick to be able to be able to tap the AIS icon on the chart plotter to have a call placed, but that seems way over the top at the moment.

7. Upgraded Bilge Pumps

Pearl came equiped with an approximately 200 gph bilge pump. I hadn’t really thought about what that really meant until I sat down and figured out how much water we’d take on if one of the sea cocks or through hulls failed. That calculation resulted us adding a 2000 gph bilge pump that is plumbed into the boat as well as a 4000 gph portable bilge pump. A couple of things to note are that what bilge pumps are rated for and how much they actually put out depend on the input battery voltage, how far the water’s being lifted, and I believe, how many plastic buckets one has.

8. Flooded to AGM Batteries

Pearl originally had 200 Ah house battery bank, We’ve upped this to 520 Ah, and changed from flooded batteries to maintenance free AGMs. We figured that AGMs are better for a a few reasons: the first is that they don’t require maintenace, the second is that they are more resistant to being bounced around. The third is that they can be drawn down without damaging the cells.

9. Electric Pump on the Head

Ok. The head in this case is the toilet. We decided to replace the Jabsco hand pump with en electric macerator pump to clear the toilet bowl as we seemed to have interminable problems with the joker valves on the manual pump. This is a nasty mess on which you don’t need the details. The short version is that we a quite happy with the result.

There are several other little tweaks we’ve made — e.g. adding a plexiglass splash guard to the galley sink, a clothes line in the head, etc. The upgrades listed above are our best guess at our most important improvements for cruising.

We’d love to hear from you if you have suggestions based on you experiences!

Upgrading Pearl for Extended Travel

So having hung around the marinas for a while, lived on the boat, and generally tried to adapt to cruising life, I’ve come up with a list of stuff with which to upgrade Pearl. There is a magic balance here. On the one hand I don’t want so much gear on board that I can’t swing a cat. On the other, there are things — like water — that can be a serious pain in the posterior to acquire when traveling abroad.

My design goal here is to be able to project Pearl an unspecified distance for an undetermined period — single handed. Note that short of building a “generation” spaceship replete with an farm on board, this is not very realistic. It does, however, pose interesting questions regarding energy consumption/production, water (!!!), and crew workload/rest.

It’s useful to note that people have traveled in sailboats for a long time without any of the stuff that I am considering adding, and that there are fail-safe behavioral rather than technological solutions to all of the problems I am trying to solve.

To this end, there are three projects upgrades to Pearl that I think would be useful, which I will discuss individually as they evolve.

Project #1: Power Generation
Pearl currently has only two energy sources on board — her sails which are used for propulsion, and the her diesel engine which is an auxiliary propulsion system as well as the source for generating electrical power that is stored in batteries. There isn’t an issue with the propulsion systems. The big question has to do with electrical power for all of the conveniences that are “must haves” on board.

There are three options for supplementary electrical power — a gas or diesel generator, a wind generator, and solar panels. There are two parts to this equation: demand and supply. The magic I am trying to figure out at the moment is how to increase the renewable power supply from solar and/or wind, cut demand, keep up with the power requirements for snazzy electronic gear while under sail, and find a place to park the batteries required for power storage.

Project #2: Water Maker
This is a really sore topic that I am in the process of researching. On the one hand, the dock-side scuttlebutt is that you can’t live without a water maker, particularly if you don’t have giant water tanks 200 – 400 gallons, and particularly in the Bahamas. Pearl carries “only” 100 gallons of water. While I figured I could use 3 – 5 gals of fresh water per person per day. This still makes for water stops every 10 days to 2 weeks. There is also the option of supplemental water (e.g. bottled) for drinking, jerry cans, and a rain catcher (?!?). Stay tuned on the story behind this one.

Project #3: Navionics
Pearl currently has a great chartplotter, autopilot, depth sounder/sonar, radar, and radios (VHF and HAM/SSB). The dodgy bit is that the chart plotter is old, the Jeppesen charts for it are egregiously expensive (more expensive than the cost of new gear for the east cost alone), and the radar is essentially dead. The current generation of that gear is pretty slick and offers a bunch of interesting safety enhancements like integrated AIS (think transponders for ships) and MARPA based radar guard zones that allow you of potential collisions and threats. Oh, and all of this can be displayed on an iPhone or iPad, as a bonus.

Stay tuned. More to come.

Backing Your Sea Cocks / Through Hull Fittings

Okay. If you got past the title on this one, you’d probably thing “sounds kinky, and not likely to be fun.” For those of you who are wondering what a “sea cock” or “through hull” is, it’s a tap/pipe fitting that covers up a hole in a boat allowing water (typically) to be taken in or dumped out. For example, there is a sea cock / through hull to pull water into the engine to cool it. There is also one for the sink to drain out. These are arguably necessary holes in one’s boat.

The problem here is that a sea cock is a hole in the boat. If the fitting fails, there is a distinct possibility that the boat will SINK — an unnerving thought at the best of times. I’ve been paying attention to Pearl’s through hulls after recently figuring out that her bilge pumps will not keep her afloat if one fails. I’ve had to replace one sea cock already as a result of a cracked nut, so I think that I should replace the rest with more robust models that and install backing plates to make them more secure.

Here’s a picture of the some of Pearl’s sea cocks without backing under the sink in the head ( a.k.a. toilet) along with the infamous shower pump.

There’s a pretty good article of how to install backing on though hulls at Jamestown Distributors. It’s something to think about the next time you pull your boat to get it painted.

A glitchy shower pump and learning how to stay afloat

Pearl has had a problem with the shower pan in the head filling up for a while. This has driven me nuts. Sometimes it fills faster than others, other times, it’s fine and bone dry. The fundamental problem was that water was siphoning back through the shower pump, but given several other factors, none of this made sense. The problem could be easily fixed by installing a loop with a vacuum break to prevent the siphoning but didn’t answer why the problem occurred intermittently.

A couple of days ago, I decided to dismantle the self priming diaphragm Jabsco Shower Pump that seemed to be the source if the problem. Once taken apart, the problem was obvious and simply resolved. Hair had got through the pump guard (filter) and was breaking the seal on the pump that prevented back flow.

While aggravating, this project taught me a lot. The first is that diaphragm pumps are a pretty good solution for situations where there might be back pressure, as well where the pump needed to be self priming, and/or possibly run dry without burning out. The second, which is more important, is that the same pump (more or less) empties out Pearl’s bilges. The third, is that backing plates on the through hull fittings will be a very good addition when the boat gets pulled to have the bottom painted.

For the most part, the Jabsco diaphragm pump is a works well to keep the bilge clear of drips. In the event of a real problem, however, like failure of a through hull fitting, I didn’t think there there is no way it would keep keep up with the influx of water. So, i decided to run the numbers.

On average, Pearl’s through hull fittings are between 1″ and 2″ in diameter, and they are somewhere between 6″ and 12″ below the waterline. My question was how many gallons per minute would that generate, and what sized bilge pumps would I need to accommodate that influx of water. As it turns out, this is the inverse of the “emptying a tank” problem that many of us had to solve in college. I have a vague recollection of how to calculate the answer, BUT as it turns out there is an easier solution, an online flow rate calculator (see http://www.efunda.com/formulae/fluids/draining_tank.cfm#calc).

The net of this story is that I need to size my bilge pump(s) better. Fortunately, this isn’t too hard a problem to solve. West Marine had 2000 gph bilge pumps on sale for $100 ea this week, and the locating them and running the required hose isn’t too much of a problem. This is, however, and important consideration even if you leave your boat parked at the dock and aren’t planning to go sailing.

Depth of spout (ft):	0.50	1.00	1.50	2.00	0.50	1.00	1.50	2.00
Spout exit diameter (in):	1.00	1.00	1.00	1.00	2.00	2.00	2.00	2.00

Exit Velocity, V (ft/s):	5.67	8.04	9.84	11.35	5.67	8.02	9.83	11.30
Volume Flowrate (gal/min):	13.60	19.20	23.60	2.72	54.40	77.00	94.30	109.00
Volume Flow Rate (gal/hr)	816.00	1152.00	1416.00	163.20	3264.00	4620.00	5658.00	6540.00

A “Ghetto-Fabulous” Inexpensive Boat Airconditioner in 5 Steps

Not to denigrate ghettos in any way since several of my closest friends live in them, …. The solution that Lisa and I came up with for an air conditioner with which to survive summer in Florida was literally that: a jerry rigged but very effective, inexpensive installation. Yes, it does make Pearl look a little bit like the Clampett’s truck, but I can live with that for the moment. At least we aren’t sweating.

Requirements for a Ghetto-Fabulous AC

An appropriately sized AC for your boat
A suitable place (like a forward hatch) to install it
A roll of non-marking 3M Duct Tape
A sheet of plexiglass
About 2 feet of bath-liner vinyl (this is pretty wide so you need to cut it down)
Installation Instructions

Cut a rectangular piece of plexiglass approximately the width and height of the front of the AC
Square the AC off in front of one of the forward hatches so that the plexiglass sits on the hatch at an angle
Attach the plexiglass just above the air intake panel for the AC
Drape the bath liner vinyl over the AC so that it covers the front of the AC that would be inside the window in which it’s installed and tape it to the AC
Fold or cut the vinyl as required so that it can be taped to the deck.

That’s pretty much all it takes to get up and running. You can make the system more efficient by taping the plexiglass to the vinyl sheet. There will be other tweaks you can make depending on your boat, but this is about as quick, dirty, and effective as it gets.

There are several people I know who install window style ac units in the companionway. That turns into a huge pain as you have to clamber over it every time you try to get in or out of the cabin.

We’d love to hear if you have a better idea on how to cool your boat for cheap!

Boat keeping — In Praise of Vinegar

Having lived on Pearl oddly enough requires one to do regular housekeeping, or in this case boat-keeping, on the interior. Messy is ok. Grubby is not good. There are a couple of things that I have learned over the past few months that I figured I’d share; a number of these involve vinegar.

As a sidebar, I would like to mention that a friend of mine, Denise, who helped move Pearl from Texas to Florida bought a lot of vinegar. She bought vinegar by the gallon. She was convinced that it was a panacea for boat related stuff: cutting soap scum, sanitizing dishes, inhibiting mold, … the list goes on. I thought she was quite mad. It sounded too hippie-godess-ish but I decided to humored her. We must all learn from our mistakes, after all.

As it turns out, Denise was right. Vinegar, sometimes in conjunction with other stuff, is GREAT! Additionally, it isn’t as caustic or harmful to the environment as bleach or many other commercially available products. Note that all of the gray water on a boat goes directly over the side — unlike sewage that goes in a holding tank.

Cleaning the head: vinegar and Simple Green in equal parts do wonders to keep the shower and head crisp, clean, and smelling good. I also use this combination to mop the floors in the salon and berths. Note that the heads on most boats (if nothing else) smell musty, particularly in warm weather, and the vinegar combo works wonders on keeping it fresh.

Cleaning the toilet: if you use the head on you boat, it tends to get a bit smelly. Many live-aboards, therefore, do not use the head (toilet) on the boat. They hike over to the restrooms on the dock. The odor issue is easily resolved by pouring a healthy splash of vinegar down the toilet periodically. I haven’t worked out the chemistry, but it works!

For extra points, pour a cup of tide into the holding tank every time it gets pumped out. This apparently loosen “gunk” in the system and keeps things smelling fresh and clean as well. Obviously, this isn’t ideal if there aren’t any pump-out facilities. Just saying. Avoid disgorging tide enriched sewage on remote reefs and anchorages.

Cleaning the Galley: yup. you guessed it. A bit of vinegar goes a long way in cutting grease and attendant odors.

Cleaning oneself: a bit of diluted vinegar on a wash cloth. I didn’t realize how much water I used when showering until I had a bath on Pearl and drained one of the water tanks. Keeping yourself clean and fresh when away from a convenient water source is … challenging. I have no interest in being a stinky pirate.

“The solution:” bathe in sea water, wipe yourself down with a washcloth soaked in a diluted vinegar solution, and have a quick fresh water spritz. This can keep your bath down to less than a gallon and leave you feeling fresh and clean. If you want to be even more miserly with your water, just wipe yourself down with a wash cloth soaked with the diluted vinegar solution. Yeah. You might smell odd for a bit, but at least you wont stink.

If you’ve got this far, you’re probably thinking “Gawd! Enough vinegar already!?!” so, I will. C’est tout.

P. S. I’d love to hear anyone else’s thoughts, and ideas about effective boatkeeping.

Cheaper Maps — Getting Discounted Jeppesen CMAP NT+ Chart Cartridges

February 29, 2012 — Portland, OR

If the phrase “chart cartridges” doesn’t mean anything to you don’t bother reading further. If it does, and your chart plotter uses Jeppesen data you will find the following pretty helpful.

Having become completely enthralled by Navionics, the thought of traversing the Caribbean without my best friend the chart plotter is beginning to give me the willies. The net of it is that I needed to buy chart cartridges to cover the entire Caribbean — that’s four chart cartridges at $200.00 a pop. Ouch! What was that about about BOAT = Break Out Another Thousand?

It turns out, however, that if you join Club Jeppesen (cost $85) you get one chart update for free. Further, if you have chart cartridges to trade, that drops the cost per cartridge to about $85. What this did for me and my 4 new cartridges is it cut an $800 bill to about $ 550 — a roughly 30% discount. Sweeeeeet!

While this isn’t price compettetive as the FREE NOAA raster charts that you can get using iNavx on an iPad, the benefits are that it integrates well with Otto the aoutopilot and give one the warm fuzzy feeling that one knows where one is.

Increasing Efficiency: Swapping out Halogen Bulbs for LEDs

February 22, 2012 — Portland, OR

There are two things that give me pause for thought on Pearl: water use and power use. While I haven’t spent a lot of time evaluating either of these from living aboard before going cruising, I am trying to make a bunch of optimizations around these issues based on what I hope is common sense.

While not establishing a baseline is generally a bad idea — i.e. undetermined starting point — I’ve purchased a bunch of LEDs that were delivered yesterday to replace the halogen and incandescent bulbs on board Pearl.

The incandescent bulbs are primarily used in the Navigation lights. The Halogens are used in the interior spaces (salon, cabin, etc). While I expect power consumption from lighting to be more of an issue while at anchor than under sail, the idea of using only about 10% of the power we’d otherwise be using is pretty attractive — particularly since I found a relatively inexpensive source online for the bulbs at Super Bright LEDs.

Note that while you will have to poke around the site a bit to find what you are looking for, the prices are pretty darned good. Also, I’ve tried out several different bulbs. The conventional wisdom seems to be to get as many LEDs as you can on the “bulb” mountind surface. This hasn’t worked out so well for me. The lights end up being too bright and that requires installation of a dimmer. Super Bright has some slightly lower power LEDs that I think should work well.

Stay tuned. I’ll let you know how all of this experiment turns out.

Day 3 of the refit in Texas

Ok. Pearls hull is back in the water where it should be. Her mast is back on, but the rigging needs tuning. Her sails and boom are still off, but that’s ok. She had a manual raw water pump and faucet installed for the galley sink, as well as a new through hull fitting to support it. This should help a lot with water conservation — something that concerns me in the Caribbean.

Right now, I couldn’t be more pleased even though the recomissioning cost 4x what I was hoping for, and 2x what I was expecting. A part of the increased cost comes from Continue reading “Day 3 of the refit in Texas”