Masthead Fore-Aft Positioning

The position of the masthead in a fore-aft position to the mast step (also known as rake) is an important point of adjustment for sail handeling. If the masthead is too far forward, the boat will suffer from lee helm, the desire for the boat to turn downwind. If the masthead is too far aft, the opposite will occur and the yacht will suffer from weather helm, the desire for the boat to turn upwind. Somewhere in the middle of these two positions is the sweet spot where the forces will be equal and the yacht will sail straight and balanced.

For safety reasons, most yacht designers incorporate a little bit of weather helm into the yacht so that if you were to fall overboard, the yacht would eventually turn upwind and stall. This would theoretically allow you to swim back to your yacht and perform your own rescue. 

While the theory about masthead position is all well and good, it can be a bit daunting to perform in practice. When you stand on the deck, the mast just looks like it goes up. It is almost impossible to visualize if it is slightly forward or aft of its desired position. Even more compounded when the specifications call for the masthead to be raked 8 inches aft. 8 inches aft of what?! How can you tell where the masthead is way up there and then how are you supposed to position it 8 inches aft? 

There is a simple trick to this dilemma, and it involves gravity. 

A mast is supposed to be raked aft. This means that the front of the masthead will lie over the mast base and the rear of the masthead will hang aft of the entire spar. The main halyard exits the masthead on the aft side of the spar and is thus the perfect candidate for this exercise and measurement. By hanging a large jug of water, say around 1 gallon, by the main halyard, the halyard will transform into a plumbline which can be used to measure the position of the masthead relative to the step. 

If you have access to a drawing of your boat by its designer, it will usually tell you how many inches aft the mast should be raked. If you have this information, all you need to do is tighten the backstay while you loosen the headstay and move the masthead aft until the halyard (which is now a plumb line) marks the distance desired. 

The point that you will be measuring will be your gooseneck, which you can think of as "inch 0" since it attaches to the aft of the mast. Each inch aft of the gooseneck as you move down the boom will be your point of measurement.  

For example, if you need to position the masthead aft by 5 inches, you will simply adjust the headstay and backstay until your halyard crosses the boom 5 inches aft of the gooseneck. 

Having a designer tell you how to set everything up is wonderful, but what if you are not graced with that knowledge? There is a simple starting point that can point you in the right direction. 

In general, you want your masthead to sit just aft of the mast step. If you think of the spar as a tube in space, and you compress the tube vertically until it is nothing more than the oval at the bottom and the oval at the top on a flat plane; you would see the oval at the bottom (the mast step) sit right in front of the oval at the top (the masthead).  

What this means is a good starting point is to position the aft side of the masthead the distance aft of the gooseneck that the spar measures fore-aft. If you have a 4 inch spar, you will hang your halyard plumb line 4 inches aft of the gooseneck. If your spar is 12 inches fore-aft, then you will hang your halyard plumb line 12 inches aft of the gooseneck.  

This is obviously just a starting point and should be adjusted from there depending on how the balance of your yacht feels. If you find that you have too much lee helm, rake the mast further aft. If you find that you are struggling with weather helm, ease the masthead forward a bit. 

With tuning and practice, you will find the sweet spot that your mast likes to be for your given yacht and sailplan. Most importantly, when you find this sweet spot, measure it and write it down so that the next time you take your mast off, you will know exactly where to set it when you are recommisioned. 

Kindness of Strangers

We found ourselves stranded in Oriental, NC, with our motor on the fritz for an extended period of time in a harbor that is not "sailable." Thanksgivings was approaching and we wanted to spend the holiday with family that live about 5 hours away. The problem was there were no car rental places in Oriental, and the closest rental center is in the neighboring town, much too far to walk or bike to.  

We found ourselves in this dilemma, one of the locals asked if he would be able to help. He offered to drive us to the rental center so that we could get a car and get to family for the holiday. He even offered to keep our dinghy in his garage while we were away so that it wouldn't get damaged against the pier while we were away.  

Someone that we just met connected the dots so that we could spend the holidays with our family! Before this moment, we had never known each other, and yet, being kind to strangers will make everyone's life grander.  

He has many friends that are cruising and understands the troubles with transportation in a new port, and he was also going to the town that had the car rental to run some errands. 

While cruising, we have found that the smaller the town is, the more friendly and welcoming the people there are. They will help you connect the dots in your plans that way you can have a more pleasant experience in their town. This will leave you with happy memories of their town and a fuller experience while cruising. 

Oriental, NC

Oriental is a small town in North Carolina on the Neuse River, just off of the Pamlico Sound. This small town is a cruiser hotspot, as all the shops and locals seem to cater to the constant passing of yachts and their crews. Their busiest seasons are spring and fall, when the cruisers migrate north in the spring and south in the fall.  

The town was named Oriental because of a ship named Oriental that wrecked on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The wife of the postmaster found the nameplate on the beach and liked the name, then deciding to name the town Oriental because she felt it needed a better name than the one it had.

Years later, the name has stuck and the locals seems to have taken a liking to it. Chinese dragons can be found all over the town, in the forms of paintings, lawn decorations, or even stuck in inconspicuous places! Maddie and I had a grand time wandering around the town looking for dragons in different places.

The best part of Oriental is certainly the people. They are very welcoming and warm towards cruisers that are passing through. They will invite you to local events and treat you like one of the locals, even though you are merely passing through.  

Along the lines of being cruiser friendly, there is a town dinghy dock, where it is free to tie up, along with two free town docks that you can tie your sailboat up to. They have numerous recycling bins at the dock, making trash runs quick and easy! The town also has a marine consignment shop, where you can find what you need or something close to what you need at a very reasonable price.

As you come ashore, you will find a cruiser grocery store that has another consignment shop in the back, along with a smattering of parts that frequently break on a boat, all at very reasonable prices. If that wasn't enough, they also have a WestMarine store a bit up the street! All in all, this town is a great place to stop if you want to relax and unwind, or if you need to carry out some repairs. 

If a wonderful and welcoming town wasn't enough of a reason to stop at Oriental, they also have wonderful weather. The jetty stops any waves from forming in the harbor, and the town provides plenty of protection from the wind. During strong storms, it would be blowing 30 knots in the Pamlico Sound, and only 10 knots in the anchorage, also with no waves formed either. 

Oriental is a wonderful place to stop, even if it is out of the way of your cruise. One taste of the local ice cream parlors inexpensive and delicious ice cream will make you glad you took a little detour! 

Electronics on a Yacht

If you have been reading the blog for some time, you might have noticed that while I try to offer a equal view on various topics, I, like all people, have my biases. I work really hard to keep them from influencing my writing, but I know they are always looming in the background, and you may have noticed that over the years too. 

I do not trust electronics. They are convenient, they are easy, and I feel they will let you down. 

The reason I don't trust electronics is simple, I have trouble fixing electronic items. Since I can't always fix it, I can't always get it up and running again, and that means that it will die on me before something mechanical would. 

When our Monitor Windvane broke, I fixed it with a single new bolt. It was an easy fix that allowed us to keep going without any hiccups in our sailing. When something electronic breaks and I open it up to find the fault that caused the entire problem, I am confronted with a tiny green board that is covered with electrical connections. Each connection is important and is prone to death by corrosion in the harsh marine environment. When I look at the green board and everything looks clean and fine, I get even more frustrated because, unlike the big bolt on the Monitor Windvane, I can't see the problem on the electronic board. 

Worst of all, I expect electronics to fail when I need them the most, and when they fail, I won't have the time or knowledge to fix them and keep them running longer.

This frustration presented itself today when we were getting ready to set sail on a broad reach to a new port. The anchor windlass is manual and easy to repair and maintain. The halyards and sheets operate on mechanical winches. Our charts are paper and I am proficient enough with a sextant to find our position. While this may seem old-school, I do dabble in the realm of electronic conveniences. 

We have a GPS chart plotter in the cockpit, our VHF radio also displays our coordinates. We have Navionics software on our iPad and iPhone, allowing us to view detailed charts in the palm of our hand and sail through unfamiliar waters without fear or concern of unknown shoals. 

These devices make our lives easier, but they can always fail us. The phone and tablet computer can easily fall overboard or get hit by an object, breaking their screen or rendering the device inoperable. The chart plotter could one day not turn on. The radio could stop working. All of these devices can die silently and without warning on a boat, only demonstrating their passing when you need them and go to use them, finding their current situation and reveling in frustration.

This happened to us on our voyage south. We are in the ICW, waters that are known as being unfriendly towards sails. We have previously avoided these waters since we have a rather deep keel and an electric motor. The motor is more of an accessory that we use to help us dock, not our primary mode of powering the yacht, that is what the sails are for! 

In the ICW, we had to put our trust in the electric motor, as it would be the main mode of propulsion as we moved along these narrow and shallow waters. We motored into an anchorage that is small and shallow, but also very well protected. There is a strong current near the rocks, but this is no problem with a motor that can keep you clear of the jetty and in the middle of the channel. 

Then one day, we decided to leave the anchorage because the winds would be in our favor as we headed to our next destination and the motor would not work. 

I do not know when the motor died, because we used it getting into the anchorage. We also used it in the anchorage to get us off a shoal that we swung onto, putting its last use only a day ago; but here it sits inoperable and silent. We were planning to leave, only discovering its deceased state when we needed it and went to use it, luckily before the anchor was raised off the bottom! This changed all our plans, as we had planned to leave today and head to a new port, but instead are now going to stay here longer as we await the arrival of replacement parts by mail. 

Electronics are fun and convenient, but I do caution one to not rely on the solely, as they could fail and leave you stranded if you do not have a manual backup. 

Trouble in Paradise

We left Hatteras, NC and sailed down the Pamlico Sound on a broad reach in 25 knot winds and a light chop. The sail was fast, maintaining a speed of 6-7 knots for a majority of the passage. Then we anchored in the harbor at Oriental, NC which is a very boater friendly town. 

They have marine consignment shops, and co-op stores that stock everything a cruiser will need to provision, repair, or relax as they cruise! They even loan bikes to boaters for free so you can explore the town with ease. The local grocery store also has a shuttle that will pick you up at the pier and take you to the store, and take you back to the pier with all your groceries! 

We greatly enjoyed our stay here in this small town where everyone knows each other and is very friendly towards us and other cruisers. Then the winds shifted and were blowing towards our next destination. 

I was preparing to raise the anchor when I decided to test the motor first: nothing. 

The engine display would not turn on and the motors did not respond when I would put the motors in forward or reverse. It seemed that our reliable and maintenance free motors were not responding and were not going to work today. 

I began trouble shooting everything, tracing wires and checking voltages. We had 51.3 VDC leading into the motors, and all the connections seemed to be corrosion free. I also checked for continuity in the circuits, and everything was operating as it should, yet the motors would not spin. 

Then I thought: "What if the propeller is fouled and wont allow the motors to spin!" So I tried turning the shaft by hand, and sadly, it spun freely without any hesitation. I was stumped, as everything seemed to be in working order, yet it was not responding. 

After talking with the manufacturer of the electric motors directly, they deduced based on the information that I had given him that the main controller has died and there is no way to fix it without a new control unit. 

The company is very kind, and since the unit is only a few months old, it is covered under warranty and they are going to ship it out to us so that I can swap the parts and get running again. 

We are anchored in a beautiful harbor, surrounded by many nice people, yet we wanted to go and were not able to. It looks like we will be here in Oriental, NC for another week as we wait for the parts to come in. Such troubles! 

We did consider raising anchor and sailing away without the motor working, but decided against it. Yes, we usually sail into and out of anchorages, traveling many miles without the use of our engine, but those are in much wider waters with calmer currents. Here, the current flows at around 2 knots down a very narrow channel with lots of shoals and obstructions along the way. We could brave it and venture off under sail alone, but it would be very unwise. The ICW is in the motor boats domain. The water is narrow and shallow, and the winds are blocked by trees and buildings along the way. There are also bridges that open on a schedule and a motor is needed to fight the current and hold one in place as all the boats wait in a line. 

Trying to sail through narrow Adams Creek and into Beaufort, NC is foolish. So instead we decided to stay where we are and wait for the parts to arrive so we can join the ranks of the motor boats that transit these narrow and crowded waters.