The old ways are still good

There is a lot of commercial traffic on Puget Sound.  There are big container ships, cruise ships, ferries, tugs towing barges, and military ships.  And all of these move faster than we do in Eolian - much much faster.   Whenever we cross the traffic lanes, I feel a little like the frog in Frogger.

There is a strong tendency on my part to be attracted to the latest new, shiny "gee whiz" gadget.  I'm pretty sure that I am not alone in this.  But you have to go pretty far up the gadget cost scale to get something that can top the good old hand bearing compass. 

A recent crossing from Port Madison to Shilshole provides the case in point.  Just as we cleared Jefferson Head, a tug and tow became visible, heading south in the southbound traffic lane.   I pulled out our trusty old hand bearing compass and took bearings on the bow of the tug and the stern of the barge it was towing.  Then after a few minutes I took the bearings again.

The old adage is that if the bearing is not changing, then you are going to collide.   And tug-'n-tows are long enough that you need to keep track of both ends of the combination (NEVER try to go between a tug and its tow!).

But when I took the second set of bearings, I noticed that a second tug and tow had  appeared from behind the first - he was in the process of passing!   The problem just got more complicated.

Clearly one tug was going faster than the other (he was passing, after all).  Now the choices had become:

1. Pass in front of the entire parade
2. Pass between the barge in the first tow and the tug in the second
3. Wait for the whole parade to pass and cross behind the last barge.

More study with the compass as we continued, our courses converging, convinced me that choice #2 was available to us, but that we were going a little too slowly to make it possible.  So I increased our speed (there was no wind - we were under power), and confirmed that we could pass between the first barge and the second tug.  A little more fiddling with the speed got us into the sweet spot.  And indeed, we cleared both tug-'n-tows nicely, with no drama at all.

We did this bit of piloting with a lowly hand compass. 

To do it with electronics, you'd need to have a GPS-interfaced AIS receiver, or a multi-thousand dollar radar with MARPA capability.

Or a hand compass.

The old ways are still good

Renewal = removal?

Looking back, sometimes it seems that our time on Eolian has been dominated by deinstalling things and hauling them off the boat, some large, some small, and some almost trivial.  Here's what I remember so far, over the 15 years that we have now been responsible for her care:

• I think the first think to go back in 1997 was a rusty  suspended metal three-basket set.  It was ugly beyond belief.
• Remove a whole host of corroded brass doodads that celebrated dolphins. 
• Remove another host of straw fabrications, presumably procured in Mexico and attached to various places with generous quantities of silicone
• Removed an ancient battery charger, and eventually the batteries that it ruined.
• Removed (and refurbished) the insulation of the refrigerator
• Removed and plugged the refrigerator opening that had been cut into the countertop, apparently by a drunken logger with a chainsaw that needed sharpening
• Removed (and replaced) the refrigerator door
• Removed (and replaced) the original stove/oven.  This was at least 20% by weight congealed grease
• Removed a 110V crash pump - a large 110V centrifugal pump.  In a situation that needed it, it was likely that the time spent getting it to prime would have allowed the water to rise up and drown the generator.  
• Removed (and replaced) 3 bronze head thru-hulls and associated leaking bronze tapered plug valves
• Removed (and replaced) the original bilge pump, installed when there was nothing else in the hull, apparently.  Spelunking skills were required.
• Removed a corroded and non-functional antenna tuner
• Removed an unbelievable quantity of "mystery wire" - wires that went nowhere and caused no end of difficulty in troubleshooting electrical problems.  At today's copper prices, I wish that I had saved it for recycling - I'd be rich.
• Removed (and replaced) the old bowsprit
• Removed (and replaced) the old inner forestay pad eye
• Removed  (and replaced) the old Benmar autopilot
• Removed the leaking fuel daytank
• Removed (and replaced) the refrigerator cooling water circulating pump
• Removed (and replaced) the holding tank
• Removed (and replaced) the bilge pump controls
• Removed (and replaced) the forward electrical distribution panel
• Removed two non-functional diesel filters
• Removed (and replaced) the stern lite
• Removed (and replaced) the masthead lite
• Removed (and replaced) the old microwave
• Removed (and replaced) the water heater
• Removed (and replaced) the corroded section at the foot of the mainmast
• Removed (and replaced) all the running rigging
• Removed (and replaced) the old cockpit canvas/bimini/dodger/side curtains
• Removed (and replaced) the old Groco heads
• Removed (and replaced) all the head plumbing
• Removed (and replaced) the exhaust elbow
• Removed (and replaced) the exhaust manifold
• Removed (and replaced) the alternator
• Removed (and replaced) all the original instrumentation (except windspeed/direction)
• Removed (and replaced) the original inverter
• Removed (and replaced) all the interior cushions and upholstery
• Removed (and rebuilt) all the cockpit cushions
• Removed (and replaced) the large fixed cabin windows
• Removed (and replaced) four of the eight opening ports
• Removed the original 110V space heaters
• Removed (and replaced) the original TV
• Removed (and replaced) the original VHF
• Removed the LORAN set (replaced with GPS)
• Removed the remains of the original airconditioning equipment
• Removed a non-functional oil change pump
• Removed (and replaced) the mizzenboom gooseneck fitting
• Removed all the original wood-grain formica
• Removed (and replaced) all the engine rubber hosing
• Removed (and replaced) the original fuel level senders
• Removed (and replaced) the original fresh water pressure pump
• Removed (and replaced) the original anchor wash-down pump

Woo boy.  I'm pretty sure that there's more, but the list is depressing enough as it is.  And there are investments that don't show up properly in the list, like a new bow lite, or a new inverter/charger.  Many of the removals above constituted their own projects which are documented elsewhere on this blog (you can search either by keyword or by label, over there on the right).

It seems that our waterline should have moved down...

Renewal = removal?

Remotely wonderful

WHAM in its 12V/120V charging cradle

Do you have one of these?

It's a remote control for our VHF. It carries all the functions of the radio except the emergency MMSI/position transmission.  For that you have to go to the radio. Uniden calls it a WHAM mic (Wireless HAndheld Mic) - it talks to the radio using Bluetooth.

In one way, it is better than a handheld radio: when we transmit with it, we are using the full 25 watts of the main radio and the antenna 65 feet in the air. But it would be useless in a ditch bag of course, or in a dinghy

For us it is a lifesaver tho.  Jane despises the constant chatter that comes in on the radio, which on Eolian is mounted just inside the companionway,  out of the weather but convenient to both the cockpit and the cabin.  So we mostly leave the volume on the radio itself turned all the way down, and I keep the WHAM mic out by the wheel.

It's a solution that is optimal for us, and it could be for you too.

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First posting using the Blogger iPhone app.  The app is OK, but I had to go to the computer in order to get the picture to be above the text.  And of course there is that "keyboard"...

Remotely wonderful