Halyard Service

Our main halyard takes a lot of abuse! Since we sail everywhere, it lives its life with the mainsail raised all the way to the sheave.

The sheave rubs on the halyard covering in one of three locations:

1. Next to the shackle (full sail)
2. Midway on the halyard (1st reef)
3. Further on the halyard (2nd reef)

I don't spend that much time in the first or second reef, so most of the wear occurs near the shackle. Over the past 2 years, the polyester fibers have chafed and parted where they rest on the edges of the sheave. My choices are: 

1. Let it continue to chafe until the halyard breaks and I have the pleasure of running a new halyard inside the mast.
2. Replace the whole halyard
3. Cut off the worn section and re-splice the end
4. Repair the cover
5. Service the cover

Obviously, I am opposed to ignoring the chafe, so option 1 is lunacy to me.

Replacing the whole halyard is a pricey endeavor, being nearly 180 feet in length, a new halyard would cost around $380! That's a lot of money for a single halyard that is only 2 years old and a little worn in one spot.

Cutting off the worn section and re-splicing the shackle onto the end is a valid alternative, but over time, I will end up with a short halyard. A splice consumes a lot of rope and I like having this length of halyard so that the line can reach into the water for emergency recovery. This would work in a pinch, but not over the long term.

Repairing the cover is a valid option, this would fix the chafed cover and continue to protect the core. The problem with repairing the cover is that this area of halyard is exposed to a lot of chafe and it will wear out again in roughly the same amount of time.

The last option is to service the halyard in a very strong cordage which will repair the chafed area and protect it from further chafe in the future. When the service becomes severely chafed, I can easily remove it and re-service the area with no adverse effects to the underlying core. Best of all, serviced line is very resistant to chafe, making this repair even stronger than it originally was.

The first step is to asses the extent of the chafe. If the chafe is only affecting the cover, repairing is acceptable; if the chafe is affecting the core, consider replacing that section of line (cut off and re-splice). 

My chafe occurred where the sides of the cover rubbed on the sides of the sheave and where the halyard exits the mast. 

The parted strands in the cover are pulled away from the affected area and cut off further back. This reduces the risk of further chafe from these ends on the core. The core is visible through some gaps in the cover.

For service, I chose to use 2.7mm dyneema applied directly over the remaining cover and core. Service was started by hand until enough was in place to start using the serving mallet.

The ends of service are the weakest portions of the covering, so it is a good idea to place the beginning far away from the location of chafe. This way, the stronger service applied with the serving mallet is in the harshest location of wear and chafe. 

Once the service has been started, I lash the shackle to a strong point that will not rotate and continue to apply service from there.

The service applied with the serving mallet is much stronger, harder, and more uniform than the service applied by hand. After several turns of the serving mallet, the halyard will be covered and protected. 

To finish the service, you need to bury the tail in the service. I service the line to the very end and then unwind the last 5 wraps and re-wrap them around my finger over the line. 

I pass the tail through the space between my finger and the halyard and pull the end tight using a marlin spike hitch. The end is then cut off where it exits the service and the tail edge is fuzzed to avoid chafing anything else.

Now the halyard can be set back up with new protection against chafe!

Living aboard made this project much easier. I was able to feed the halyard through the salon hatch and secure it to the companionway grab rail. When I was finished, I simply pulled the halyard back out through the hatch and re-attached it to the mainsail. If I had to take the halyard off, I would have needed to run a messenger line up to hold the place of the halyard and then replace the halyard after the service was completed. This is not incredibly difficult to do (it's how I replace halyards all the time) but it does add an extra step to the project which was avoidable by having a long halyard and living aboard!

Marina Community

Maddie and I got married on June 4th, and during the toasts I realized something.

Many of the people from the marina were present at the wedding because they are like family. We might not be related by blood, but we love each other, take care of each other, and look out for each other. I have never experienced this type of close nit community on land, where neighbors seem to keep to themselves and avoid interactions with one another.

In the marina, we all hang out together on the docks and in each others boats. If you are inside and hear people having a good time, you come out and join in the fun!

I had taken this sense of community for granted all these years until my neighbors began giving toasts at the wedding. These people have known me from the first day I arrived in the marina. I just bought Wisdom and brought her into her slip, giving everyone a spectacle as I had no experience reversing a full keel boat into a slip!

They helped me situate the dock lines and position fenders, they gave me pointers and were always available to lend a hand when I was coming or going. I took this for "friendly boat neighbors" and didn't realize that this is because we are all family in the marina.

We connect on a much deeper level! We go through the same struggles and we are always around to help in time of need. 

When Maddie came into my life, everyone noticed how I had changed. I was much more open, and they all said I seemed so much happier; and they were happy to see this change in me. 

It was very touching to see how much everyone cares about us in the marina. It is a bond that I have never had on land, and it's a special bond between liveaboards.

Monitor Rudder

Monitor wind vanes are an essential part of an ocean going cruising boat. They will keep a well balanced boat sailing along on a straight course (with relation to the wind). They are simple, reliable, and easy to trouble shoot and repair! What is there not to love about these units? The price.

You get what you pay for, and you certainly do get a solid and well built unit for the price; but the price is still on the high side. A new unit will set you back around $5,000, plus installation. Added accessories will set you back even further. 

One such accessory is called the M-Rud, which is an emergency rudder that can be connected to the monitor. I have heard people say that they like using the M-Rud over the standard servo pendulum rudder because its longer length makes it more responsive.

One boat owner on a Fallmouth Cutter came up with his own clever way of having the longer rudder without the extraordinary cost: a wooden rudder!

Sailors are a creative group, and wood is a wonderful medium to work with to construct your creative thoughts. I love seeing the ingenuity that different sailors will come up with to solve the most basic of problems!

Waiting for the Weather to Pass

A low pressure began to move in, so we covered the roof with a tarp to protect all the non-oiled wood from water damage. The clouds gave plenty of warning to the approaching front.

A thin veil of clouds came over the sky and as the day progressed, the clouds slowly became thicker and thicker. By the next morning, the rains had come and the tiny house was safely covered by the tarp.

Having grown up in Puerto Rico, this blue tarp reminded me of the tarp roofs that FEMA would install after a hurricane would peel the roofs off of houses.

Once the weather improves, we can continue working on the tiny house. Slowly but surely, we are installing the plywood roof panels onto the rafters.

Planning Out the New Dinghy

We have finally begun the planning process for our new dinghy. This dinghy will be stored on deck, between the mast, boom, and dodger while on long voyages. This will reduce the drag associated with towing a dinghy behind us.

Tooth is an excellent row boat, but on long trips, he can be a drag! At 13 feet long, he is too large to store on deck when sailing. This leaves us towing him along over hundreds of miles, which has led to a few snags along the way.

We are very good at dodging crab pots in the bay, but they have a way of getting hooked on the painter. The snagged crab pot will bring us to a halt until we free it from the line. A towed behind dinghy also adds resistance to the equation, making us travel along more slowly than if we were not towing. It's the same idea as clean bottom vs. dirty bottom. It might not seem like much of a drag, but its effects will add up considerably.

While the longer length allows Tooth to carry more weight and row more efficiently, we need a smaller dinghy that we can take on long voyages with us. This is where our new dinghy will come into play.

I stumbled upon a dinghy design that I really like (mostly) and plan to make only a few modifications to it. The design is rather old, appearing in an 1890 Forest and Stream. The designed skiff comes in at 8.5 feet long and 3.5 feet wide. This is close to the size I'm looking for, but still on the big side.

We have a maximum of 10 feet available on the deck, so I'm looking to occupy it with something around 7 feet long. Shortening the span between the stations will bring this boat down to size and give us the wiggle room we want and need around the stowed boat on deck.

I am also going to change it from a flat bottom to a slight Vee bottom. Tooth is a flat bottom, and Maddie and I both hate the sound of the waves slapping into it. The first time we launched it, we thought something had broken because it was so loud! To avoid having that happen again, we are going to add a bit of a Vee to the hull, allowing it to cut through the waves rather than smacking them harshly.

This design is around 126 years old, and there have been plenty of skiff designs between then and now! Why this design? Why not a more contemporary model? Most all contemporary designs are for prams (which look ugly to me) and plywood construction.

I desire something with a pointed bow, allowing us to row into surf if we need to, and a carvel plank construction using "real" wood instead of plywood. I went back in time to find plans for wooden dinghies, before playwood and "stitch and glue" had dominated the scene.

Stitch and glue construction is fast and rewarding, it's how I built Tooth; but it doesn't hold up as well as I would like it to. Tooth has had a rather rough life, being towed over 800 miles in his first year after launching. In one year, Tooth has also shown significant amounts of wear and tear.

I hope that a heavy carvel planked hull will hold up to these abuses a bit better.

As you can see, the plans are not very extensive (that single page is what I'm going off of). There are no scantling numbers given, or diagonals or buttocks, simply a very basic line drawing with a station view.

I took to Herreshoff's Scantling Rules to calculate the needed dimensions for the parts at play. I did upsize a few of the key points (keel, frames, stem, and planking) to give me a bit more strength out of it.

With the basic calculations in place, I set out to collect some lumber to begin construction. At the moment, the plan is to build the entire dinghy out of Douglas Fir (Oregon Pine); but the planking might end up being out of cedar if I can't locate clear stock at a good price.

Since I am changing the design a bit, I'm going to begin by building a mold out of 3/4" particle board. This will allow me to visualize the hull form better (and make sure it fits in its intended location on deck) before construction begins. From the molds, I can also pick up the frame bevels by running battens along the hull, making final fabrication of the frames all the easier.

Lastly, having particle board templates of all the pieces needed will make cutting out the actual pieces from the wood all the easier. Instead of doing proper lofting, I'm going to cheat and use the mold as my templates.