Rusty Hinges

You may remember that one of the early projects we did on Eolian was to rebuild the refrigerator, from the hull out.  As a part of that project, I discarded the original door and replaced it with one that I got at the old Doc Freeman's for $10 because the decor panel was damaged.  I replaced that panel with a sheet of black Plexiglas (thanks Clear Cut Plastics), and remounted it on the original hardware.

Perhaps that was a mistake - reusing the old hinges.  But at that time I did not know the marine supply business in Seattle nearly as well as I do now.  The reason that this was an issue is that the old hinges were very rusty.  I cleaned them up as best as I could, but they were always ugly, even to this day.

Ewww...

The ugliness finally got to me, and I sought out new hinges. Well, it turns out that I almost waited too long.  Tho the refrigerator is a complete custom built-in, the door (and hinges) were from a Norcold unit.  I thought that all I would have to do is order new hinges from Norcold.

BZZZZT! 

Not a chance.  That door and those hinges have been out of production for a long long time, and nobody had any left in stock - not even Fisheries.

But, as it turns out, one of the businesses in Ballard sells Norcold:  Sure Marine.  Sure Marine is one of those great places, a little off the beaten path, at the very, very end of 28th street in Ballard.  No, they had no hinges in stock, but Graham found a set of used ones in near-perfect condition in the back somewhere.  Woo HOO!

(Almost) new and shiny!

One of the last remaining vestiges of Malolo is now gone.

Merry Christmas!

iPhone App: Augmented Reality Star Chart

Boaters have something unique going for them:  Typically when they are anchored or on passage at night, they are far away from the light pollution of cities.  That means that when they look up, the sky is filled with stars, and I truly mean filled.  Those poor city folks look up and see maybe a dozen of only the brightest stars, and never ever the Milky Way (an edge-on view of our own galaxy).

So, do you know the constellations?  Do you know where to look to spot Aldebaran so you can do your celestial navigation?  Or Betelgeuse?  Or Jupiter?

No?

Well, I have the perfect answer for you.  There is a wonderful iPhone app called Sky View that you need to have.

Sky View shows you the night sky with identifications of everything up there.  But that would not make it unusual.  What is unusual is that it takes advantage of the sensors in your phone so that it shows you the sky where your phone is pointing.  Yup, as you swing your phone around, the display matches the motion.

By itself that would be amazing and useful...  but as Ron Poppeil used to say, "But wait!  There's more!"

If you want to find something in the sky (where is Mars tonite?), you can search for it...  an arrow appears on the screen, and you swing the phone around in the direction the arrow shows, until lo and behold, there it is!

But wait, there's more!

You can turn on the phone's camera and get an augmented reality view, with the stars superimposed over the surroundings.  So for example, you could say, "Yeah, that's Saturn, just off the starboard spreader."  And be right.

But wait, there's more!

It's free!  Yup, can you believe it?  FREE!

I can't believe you haven't downloaded it already.

Expiration dates

Nothing in this world is permanent.  And boat owners may be more aware of this fact than most folks...  

How many things (besides food) on your boat have an expiration date? 

• flares 
• fire extinguishers
• smoke alarms
• hose clamps (they don't come with an expiration date - they just expire)

What little click in your mind makes you think of expirations?  For us on Eolian, it is early spring - that time of year when you yearn to be off the dock but the weather disagrees and keeps throwing cold storms at you.  This is a good time to get involved with your boat at the dock in anticipation of the coming season.

For us here on Eolian, this is the winter/spring task list:

• Change the engine oil & filter
• Change the generator oil & filter
• Check the transmission oil level
• Inspect the engine raw water pump impeller.  Change if necessary.
• Inspect the generator raw water pump impeller.  Change if necessary.
• Give the engine a once-over inspection, looking for oil or water leaks.  
• Give the generator a once-over inspection, looking for oil or water leaks.  
• Top up the batteries with distiller water from the dehumidifier
• Inspect all below the waterline hose clamps (there are a lot of them!).  Do you know where all of yours are?
• Exercise all the seacocks
• Check the flares to be sure they will not expire during the season
• Check the fire extinguishers  to be sure they will not expire during the season
• Check the smoke alarms to be sure they will not expire during the season.  Install new batteries.

All Is Well

By the time the forecast windstorm arrived, its strength had been downgraded a tiny bit.  But it was still very strong when it arrived Thursday nite (aside: why do these things always happen at nite?).

For an assortment of reasons too complicated to detail here, we spent the nite at our cabin on Camano Island.  The maximum wind speed we clocked was 43 kt, but the NWS recorded 53 kt elsewhere on the island.  We lost no trees that we know of, and suffered no damage.  But the power went off at about 19:30.

But oh boy, Friday morning, when I decided to make a mad dash up to Anacortes to check on Eolian, the wind's effect was everywhere.  First, in our little neighborhood, trees had fallen across the streets in three places in the two blocks out to the main road.  But islanders, being self-reliant, had cleared them overnight.

The real problem was evident a little further along.  A tree had fallen and taken the power line with it.  Tho the road crew had cleared the worst of the tree debris, the wire was still lying in the road, with large burned spots and melted aluminum wherever it touched the road surface.  In getting off the island I passed more than another half-dozen places where trees had fallen across the road.  In each case, they had already been cleared by 08:00 - impressive!  Nevertheless, the power line crews had their hands full.  At its height, the PUD reported that some 17,000 of their customers were without power, most on Camano Island... which only has 22,000 residents.

I was a bundle of nerves all nite long, and so by the time I got to Anacortes I was pretty apprehensive.  But as it turned out, Eolian was fine.  The heat pump was running, keeping her at 61° inside (which was the setpoint).  The dock steps (probably 100 lb, and with a big iron grappling hook stored inside) had been blown perhaps a foot down the dock.  But the LED Christmas tree we had on the bow was still in place, undamaged. 

As you might expect, there are no wind reporting locations right at the marina, but here are the reports from some nearby locations:

Smith Island, in the east entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca

South end of Padilla Bay

Mid-Padilla Bay

As you can see, there's a lot of variation - not uncommon where there is significant relief in the landscape.  So the winds at the marina probably did not reach the forecast 50 kt, although it is possible that some gusts could have been that strong.

With Eolian having weathered the storm successfully, and power back on at the cabin, all is right in the world once more.  Halleluia!

Uh oh...

PZZ133-091715-
NORTHERN INLAND WATERS INCLUDING THE SAN JUAN ISLANDS-
300 AM PST TUE DEC 9 2014

...GALE WARNING IN EFFECT THROUGH WEDNESDAY MORNING... TODAY...S WIND 30 TO 40 KT...EASING TO 20 TO 30 KT IN THE AFTERNOON. WIND WAVES 5 TO 7 FT...SUBSIDING TO 3 TO 5 FT IN THE AFTERNOON. RAIN.
TONIGHT...SE WIND 15 TO 25 KT RISING TO 25 TO 35 KT LATE. WIND WAVES 2 TO 4 FT BUILDING TO 4 TO 6 FT. A CHANCE OF RAIN IN THE EVENING...THEN RAIN AFTER MIDNIGHT.
WED...SE WIND 30 TO 40 KT...BECOMING S 20 TO 30 KT IN THE AFTERNOON. WIND WAVES 5 TO 7 FT. RAIN.
WED NIGHT...S WIND 15 TO 25 KT. WIND WAVES 2 TO 4 FT.
THU...NE WIND 10 KT...BECOMING SE 10 TO 20 KT IN THE AFTERNOON. WIND WAVES 1 TO 3 FT.
THU NIGHT...SW WIND 40 TO 50 KT...BECOMING S 5 TO 15 KT. WIND WAVES 7 TO 9 FT...SUBSIDING TO 2 FT OR LESS AFTER MIDNIGHT.
FRI...E WIND TO 10 KT...BECOMING SE. WIND WAVES 1 FT OR LESS.
SAT...SE WIND 10 TO 20 KT. WIND WAVES 1 TO 3 FT.

Christmas in Anacortes

With a population of 16,000, Anacortes has less than a third of the population of Ballard, our old stomping grounds when we had Eolian berthed at Shilshole.  But 16,000 folks is plenty to create a complete community.  With the emphasis on community.

The way Anacortes celebrates Christmas is an example of that community.  The first event that we attended was the lighting of the town Christmas tree, scheduled to happen at 18:30.  But it was delayed somewhat because of the cat-herding needed to get the elementary and junior high school choirs into place and organized.  

Of course the event was well-attended.  It seemed like the whole town was occupying (but in a nice way!) the intersection of 8th & Commercial streets.  The choirs sang, there were bands, and dignitaries, and of course, Santa Claus!

The very next day there was a Christmas parade!  Most of Commercial street was blocked off and despite the blustery weather, became lined with folks - and lots of little kids.  There were floats, fire trucks, bands (some of the same ones), and of course Santa!  Actually, there were four Santas (including a blue/green one, dressed in Seahawk colors), so I assume parents had some difficult questions to answer.

All the kids lining the parade route got to harvest candy thrown by every vehicle, float, etc that made the route.  The best prepared kids had grocery bags to carry their haul.  The rest had to make do with overflowing pockets.

Some kids did not brave the weather (and missed out on the candy!)

Christmas in Anacortes is a real community experience.  We love it!

Tis The Season

Every winter there are boat fires - fires which rapidly lead to marina fires except in the most fortunate circumstances.  And these fires are almost universally electrically caused.

Why do they happen so frequently in the winter?  Because (up here in the north, anyway), it is in the winter when the boat's electrical system is most taxed, keeping the boat warm.

It is the combination of high resistance connections and heavy current load which is the problem.  Ohm's Law, one of the most basic electrical principles says in one of its forms:

P=I²R

Where P is the power or heat generated in watts, R is the resistance in ohms and I is the current in amps passing thru that resistance.  What this means is that the heat generated at a bad connection is powerfully related to the current being passed thru that bad connection.

Here's a visualization.  Have you ever changed out a 100 watt light bulb that just burned out?  It was way, way too hot to touch, right?  Incandescent lights deliver about 97% of their output as heat and only 3% as light (thus the push behind CFLs and LEDs).  So now you have some idea of what 100 watts worth of heat is like - its a lot.  Now let's consider a 30 amp shore power connector that has gotten salt water on it and is a little corroded.  If that corrosion causes only 0.1 ohm of resistance in the connection, the amount of heat generated in the tiny volume where the two pieces of metal in the connector touch will be:  30 x 30 x 0.1 =  90 watts.

As bad as that is, it is not the end of the situation.  In the female side of the connection, the connection is made by a springy contact pair which wedges apart when the male end is inserted.  The heat takes the temper out of these spring contacts, making the poor connection even worse.  In fact, this can snowball, leading almost inevitably to this:

Uh oh...

Prevention is pretty simple.  First, just put your hand on the shore power connector while all those space heaters down below are running.  It should not be warm.  If you have any doubt about your ability to judge this, disconnect the connector and look at both the male and female ends.  If there is discoloration, you have a problem.  Both the cord and the connector on the boat should be replaced.  Why both?  Because regardless of whether the bad connection was where the wires are made up to the female connectors in the shore power cord, the connection between the female connectors in the cord and the male connector on the boat power inlet, or where the wires make up to the male pins on the boat power inlet, the whole shebang has gotten hot.  And that means that everything has been damaged.  If you replace just one side (say, the shore power cord), it is likely that the now-damaged shore power inlet on the boat will cause the new shore power cord to overheat.  So then you'd have to buy a second shore power cord as well as the inlet connector.  Save yourself some money, a second risk of fire, and do it right the first time.

By the way, the marina end of the power cord and the connector in the marina's power box are also candidates for failure - you should check that end too.

Tho the shore power connection seems to be a common failure point, every electrical connection in the boat's wiring is a candidate too.  There are too many of these for me to call them out individually.  But if any electrical connection down below gets hot or shows signs of having been hot, repairs are in order.  Bad connections make heat, and heat makes bad connections worse.

When doing a general inspection, check the connections that carry the most current first - and yes, this does indeed mean that the 12V connections are a bigger risk than the 110V connections.  Remember, the heat generated is as the square of the current, and the highest current connections on your boat are likely to be the 12V ones.

We're Not Used To This

This much cold this early in the year is something we are just not accustomed to here in the Pacific Northwest. This is a bottle of Diet Coke that was left out on the deck because the refrigerator was full of Thanksgiving food. It was plenty cold out there - the Coke is frozen solid.

Tho I should point out that this is Diet Coke.  Regular Coke has a lot of dissolved sugar in it, which lowers the freezing point (dissolving anything in water lowers its freezing point and raises its boiling point).  The beer, wine and other non-diet bottles stored out on the deck did not freeze.  Thankfully, since there are a lot of glass bottles out there.

In fact, as I write this, it is still below freezing outside and has been so continuously since last Friday.  This is our second cold snap of the year.  Thankfully, our two heating plant failures on Eolian, both associated with sea water supply and not with the heat pump itself,  have been corrected.  The first of these was the near-complete clogging of the strainer that the heat pump sea water passes thru, accompanied by the screen completely falling apart when I touched it - now replaced.  The second I already wrote about. 

I think we'd all welcome a return to more seasonable temperatures here.  And I really feel for the rest of the country, which is experiencing winter in earnest.