New sail!

Finally, my new mainsail for the Oday 19 came in. A neighbor happened to stop in at the same time. Together we down to the lake and set up the boat.

The new sail is a bit different than the old. One of the big differences is that this one is loose footed. It's not attached the whole length of the boom -just at the far end. That's the new trend in sails. It's supposed to give the sail better shape. Whatever. The good news is that it fits well. We took it out for a little spin around the lake.

The only problem now is that the jib sail looks shabby by comparison. No matter. It still works just fine.

While in town a couple days ago I bought a spare mounted tire for the sailboat trailer. Right now it's a spare. In a month or two I'm going to buy a another one and mount the new ones as a set. That will give me two older tires for spares.

The boat is pretty well set up for lake sailing right now. The electric trolling motor is used so little that a 30 watt solar panel has no difficulty keeping the battery charged. Sure beats messing around with gas cans and spark plugs.

I've come up with a design where I can drop in a lazerette box with two additional deep cycle batteries and a charge controller. Another 100 watt panel will sit right on top of the box. That should give me all the power I'll need for longer trips.

Of course, it is a sailboat so I hope to hardly use the motor.

-Sixbears

First launch of the season

We finally had enough decent weather so I could finish up the little projects on the boat. I'm still waiting for a new main sail, but that should be easy enough to change out. The old sail is good enough for our little lake and it was time to launch.

It's nice to have a boat at my beach, ready to go. The state of NH sells fishing licenses on-line so people can print them out at home. I've a boat in the water, a license and fishing poles. This should work out just fine.

My lovely wife had no hesitation getting back on a sailboat. Sails were raised. The wind came up. The boat leaned a bit before leaping forward. Both of us had big smiles on our faces. Nothing like getting back on the water after a shipwreck. Good memories push out the bad.

Frankly, I'm getting tired of talking about the shipwreck. The word has gotten around. When I run into people I haven't seen in a while that's the first thing they want to talk about. While that's understandable, reliving the experience over and over again is getting old.

I find myself stressing that we lived on the boat for months before losing it. Good times were had. There are a lot more photos of remote beaches, gorgeous sunsets, and beautiful anchorages than of a wrecked boat.

Too bad the boat was lost, but a bare boat charter in that area for two weeks costs about what we paid for the boat. We sailed it for months.

We had some good experiences and expect to have many more.

-Sixbears

Satisfaction

There's a guy down the road from me with a good sized speedboat. The name is, “Never Satisfied IV.” I suppose that if he had been satisfied with the first boat there wouldn't have been a II, III, and IV. Boats are like that, I guess.

As for me I've very happy to still have my 19 foot sailboat after losing the bigger one. For this year at least I plan on being satisfied with it. Better a small boat ready to sail than a hypothetical bigger boat.

The weather was great so I spent some quality time puttering around on the sailboat. It's still sitting on the trailer in my driveway, but not for much longer. Today I installed a new battery and sorted out some issues with the solar charging system. Like many electrical problems, in the end it boiled down to corroded connections. It was no big deal to sort out.

Last time I poked around in the cabin I noticed the old flares had just expired. Those have been replaced with new. The manual bilge pump is now on the boat, as are some new bumpers. The new main sail is not ready yet, but that can be replaced on the water.

Some grease for the trailer wheel bearings, tire pressure check, a new registration sticker, and it's ready to go in the water.

It will be very satisfying to get out on a sailboat again.

-Sixbears

Decisions Decisions

My lovely wife and I have been home for over a month and a half, but it still feels like we just got here. We haven't even met up with all of our friends. There are only so many hours in the day.

There's an awful lot of projects to catch up on and we keep finding more. Recently we discovered our guest bedroom has small spots of light green mold on the ceiling. Normally mold isn't much of an issue, but we closed the house down in September when it was still hot and humid. The room was closed off from the rest of the house so that might have created the necessary conditions for mold. That room has to be cleaned, sealer applied, and repainted.

Of course, we are not all work and no play. The sailboat should be ready for adventures soon. My lovely wife has been thinking of sailing into Canada when things get a bit warmer. That should be interesting. Never sailed my own boat into foreign waters before.

The van appears to have some issues with the diesel fuel line plugging up forcing me to blow the lines clear with a small air compressor. It's annoying. Maybe once the old fuel is used up the problem will go away. Now that the weather is getting a bit warmer it's been possible to run the van on veggie again. That a totally separate fuel system. Once it gets to temperature the van runs best burning waste vegetable oil. Yes, it smells like French fries.

I must admit sailboats still catch my eye, but it really makes no sense to take on another project boat right now. In fact, what I should be doing is concentrating on a few little projects that have the potential to bring in some money.

While the pursuit of money doesn't interest me much it has come to my attention that I'm going to need to pay off some bills. Doesn't seem fair. Why should I be held responsible for my creditor's bad financial decisions? They are the professionals. They should have known better than to give me credit.

Kidding . . . I'm just kidding. Everyone will get what's owed them.

-Sixbears

Projects and bug out ideas

I've a lot of little projects that need doing. Most of them require warmer weather. We had snow on Monday and there's still pockets that haven't melted yet. It's been below freezing at night so even on sunny days it takes forever to warm up.

My lovely wife has started a lot of plants inside. With any luck they'll survive the transfer to the garden when it warms up.

The battery on the boat is totally dead. It's so dead it won't take a charge. At the end of last summer it seemed to be fading, so it's no real surprise it quit entirely. Better to discover it now than when the boat is on the lake.

I decided to take a trip into town to talk to my insurance company. A lot of people don't know that if they take their car into Canada they need a Canadian proof of insurance card. My insurance company hands them out free of charge but people have to ask for them.

It's funny how many people say they are going to run to Canada after the presidential election. Almost nobody will. Even if someone wants to leave the US and move to Canada, it's very hard for the average Joe to do so. Having a lot of money makes it easier, but plenty of countries accept rich people.

Most people can't even legally cross the border for a visit as most Americans lack valid passports. How many preppers have bug out vehicles but can't take them across the border? The best time to bug out is before everything falls apart. That means there'll probably be active border control, at least during the early stages. (when you really should be getting out)

Canada is a great place to visit, but there are reasons my ancestors left there. Factory work in New England beat the heck out of starving to death on a Quebec potato farm.

I must admit to being tempted to take a sailboat and disappear over the horizon until things sort themselves out.

-Sixbears

All thumbs day

Some days things don't go as smoothly as they should. Monday afternoon the weather was good and I thought I'd install some of those boat bits I bought on Sunday.

It's not that hard to install a new boat trailer jack. It's basically just four bolts. The old one took a little effort to remove due to corrosion, but that's normal. For some reason I was all thumbs bolting on the new one. Even tried to put a part on upside and only noticed it at the last minute. Just as I was about to finish my toolbox fell over and scattered all my sockets into the dirt.

That's pretty much how the afternoon's projects went. Everything took longer than it should, but the jobs got done anyway.

For me the final straw was when I tried to check the voltage in the boat's battery. There was an internal short in my battery tester and it tried very hard to catch fire. That was it. Time to call it quits for the day.

Tuesday morning it was snowing and about an inch of snow had accumulated on the ground. That's all the encouragement I needed to stay inside and drink coffee. When there's snow on the boat it's too early to launch anyway.

-Sixbears

Registrations

Last month I registered the van, a boat trailer and a utility trailer. This month I was in the town hall writing checks for my boat license and the dog license of all things. The next thing I have to do is write a check so I can get my hunting and fishing license. Those state fees add up.

It could be worse. At least the canoes and kayaks don't have to be registered, in my state anyway. That doesn't mean the idea doesn't pop up from time to time. Considering my pile of paddle craft, that's a good thing.

Two years ago I tried to get my little Ooze Goose registered before hauling it to Florida. Since it was a homemade boat there was a $20 fee for a police office to confirm that yep, it's a boat. The paperwork wasn't quite finalized before we headed south to Florida. I thought they'd forward the registration to me. Nope, they shredded it instead. They made me more than a little unhappy.

The boat is only 12 feet long and only needs to be registered because it had an electric motor on it. Since the sailing rig hadn't been finished yet I figured rowing and motoring would be fine. It was legal as a rowboat, but not as a motorboat. I decided to be an outlaw motor boater with a flipping 12 volt 55lb thrust trolling motor.

There was even one campground that required boats with motors to pay a fee to use the boat ramp but paddle and rowing craft were free. I'd launch the boat and row out of the marina. Once out of sight the motor came out and screwed to the transom. One the way back in the motor went back into the cabin. The marina people were impressed how I could could go rowing all day long. What they didn't know didn't hurt them -or me, which was more important.

One day the law caught up to me. My lovely wife and I were in the middle of St. Joesph Sound north of Clearwater Florida. A sheriff's boat made a bee line for me and caught me messing around with the motor. It was obvious there were no registration numbers on the boat. They asked if I was having problems. I told them no. They said they only came over because my boat was the most interesting thing on the water. No mention was made of the missing numbers. Nice guys.

Long story short, after writing a bunch of checks to the town and state, I've decided to not register the Ooze Goose. One has got to draw the line somewhere. I've paid enough and will pay no more. However, the motor will have to be left behind. I got away with it in the past but there's no need to push my luck. Instead I'm going to finish building the sailing rig. It should be legal anywhere I'd be likely to take it.

-Sixbears

Now back to the real world

While I'm interested in what happens at National and International levels, my influence is limited. My gaze is far but my arms are short.

Now it's back to my home projects. It was a brisk morning at 19 degrees. Once temperatures rose above freezing I tackled some outside projects. One was the repair of a stone wall that keeps the soil in our little garden. By rights I should probably have torn it all down, dug below the frost line and built up from there. With a shoulder still on the mend, it wasn't going to happen. Repairing the top section was tough enough.

I'm trying to balance my time and energy. In recent years I've been putting a lot of time into boat projects at the expense of house projects. That's why I started the day with the garden wall. Only once that was done was time to play with the sailboat.

The mast and sail have to be set up on land so measurements can be taken of the rig before a new sail can be ordered. To have room to do that the boat had to be moved back about 8 feet. Should be easy, right? Just hook it up to the van and drive it back.

Normally it takes just a few minutes to hook up the trailer. Anyone who's ever taken a boat out of storage knows the first boating adventure of the season never goes smoothly. In my case it was the boat jack. It was rusted in place. I've had good ones and cheap ones and they all seem to only last a year or two. Even those with grease fittings that allowing for regular lubrication fail. Probably I should just buy cheap ones and keep a spare.

Without the boat jack, it took a tire jack, blocking, a large pry bar and the assistance of my lovely wife to get it hooked up. By then my shoulder was too sore to set up the mast and rigging. In my younger days I would have pressed on. Maybe I would have gotten away with it and maybe I would have really damaged my shoulder. Older and wiser, (and slower to heal) I decided to put that project off until tomorrow.

-Sixbears

A day out and about

My lovely wife and I connected with some friends we haven't seen in six or seven months. They live over 100 miles away from us so we split the travel difference.

We met at a shooting range. This place is open to the public, has nice shooting stations, and is totally free and unsupervised. Only in America.

My buddy always brings interesting things to the range for us to play with. Among other items he brought a Luger, a Broom Handle Mauser, and SIG's version of the AK. All interesting firearms to shoot.

After a couple hours on the range they took my lovely wife and I out to lunch. Really great to get together. My buddy and I have been friends since Jr. High School. Not saying that was a long time ago, but our History book was a pamphlet as most recorded History hadn't happened yet.

We took our time meandering home and checked out the changes that happened while we were away. My lovely wife, on an earlier trip with our daughter, had come across an antique marine compass and wanted to show it to me. It's not the sort of thing you normally find in a shop far from the ocean.


I suggested we could get the compass and then later build the right boat to slip underneath it. She's still not keen on me building another boat. However, she's not opposed to getting another one, so there's that.

All in all, a great day.

-Sixbears

Electric sailboat

As most of you know, my lovely wife and I lost our boat in a shipwreck. That doesn't mean we won't be sailing. Once the ice is off the lake our Oday 19 will be back in the water. While it doesn't have the creature comforts the Ranger 23 had, we've made it work for us in the past.

Last year I did away with the gas engine and switched to a 55 pound thrust trolling motor. Since it's a sailing boat, the motor isn't needed all that much anyway. Mostly, we used it for leaving our anchorage. Once last year the wind totally died and we came back using the electric trolling motor. We traveled about 4.5 miles and there was still plenty of charge left in the battery.

It was nice to not have to deal with a heavy gas motor and gas cans. Because we used the motor so little, a small 30 watt solar panel was able to keep the battery charged.

That was great for the type of boating we did, but what if we use the boat for days or weeks at at a time? One thing I'd like to do is to convert the home made gas can box into a battery box. There's plenty of room for two heavy duty deep cycle batteries. That's great, but how to keep them charged up?

The little 30 watt solar panel would probably not be up to the job. Since we occasionally stay at marinas, it would make sense to be able to charge the batteries at the marina. About 6 years ago I converted a regular heavy duty outdoor extension cord into a 30 amp marine cord. I already had the extension cord it was easy to just purchase a 30 amp male plug and wire it myself.

That was great but this past winter I noticed a lot of marinas have done away with the 30 amp power poles and completely replaced them with 50 amp. In fact, plenty of boats were tied into two 50 amp power outlets at the same time. What the heck where they doing that they needed so much electricity? Arc welding?

Probably not. Live aboard power “needs” have increased to the point where 100 amps barely does the job. Air conditioning is a big power hog, but things like freezers, ice makers, and a whole host of appliances really increases the power draw.

The simple solution would be to buy a 50 to 30 amp adapter. The problem is that they run for over $100. Sure, I could buy one, but If I solved all my issues by throwing money at them, we'd never be able to afford to sail at all.

One good thing now about marinas is that for many of them electric power is not included. How is that good? That means a guy like me who uses very little power isn't paying the same price as a guy who's got the AC turned so high they could use their boat as a meat locker. Once the 100 watt solar panel was in operation we never connected to marina power. The sun provided all the energy we needed.

The solar panel was one of the few things salvaged from the wreck. If it was installed on the Oday it should be able to do a good job of charging the trolling motor batteries. I could even keep the 30 watt panel charging the ship battery that runs the lights.

The best part is that outside of the batteries themselves the project could be done with materials already on hand.

-Sixbears.