Messages

I'm on SF Bay and have a 110 (well, I suspect it might be closer to a 115, but close enough!).  I usually have my car right at the front end of the track.  Close hauled I might bring it back slightly when the wind kicks up.  The real problem is when I roll up the jib a bit to reduce sail--no ability to move the car forward.  Probably why I usually sail with a full jib--the performance reduction is more than I can accept when I reef the jib.  I had thought about trying to add some track too, but finally decided that the few times I would really need it weren't worth the trouble.

I have blistered finish appearing on the cabin sole just outboard of the base of the companionway ladder on the stbd side.  2006 Mk II.  What is under the plywood?  A yard is telling me that the wood in this area is screwed and maybe glued in place directly on the fiberglass liner (in other words, is overlaying a sheet of fiberglass).  Is this true?  I had assumed that there were stringers and some space under there.
Thanks in advance for any responses!
Wayne

Do you really need more pressure?  Flow will increase with pressure, meaning you will run through your water tanks more quickly.  I've gone the other direction . . . reducing pressure to some faucets where not so much water was needed.

When someone flushes water goes into the tank and displaces air which comes out the vent.  Nothing is going to change that.  I moved my vent forward and below the rail (the new vent hose goes into the port vberth locker and out).  Odor still wafts back to the cockpit when someone flushes.  I'm using Odorlos?  Odorless?  Something like that, and it helps.  A couple of years ago I installed a tank sensor.  I forget the brand, but it is one of those things that has three little floats that extend down into the mucky goo.  A hole 2" to 3" in diameter was needed through the top of my tank, with a screw in fitting of the same diameter.  This sensor has proved to be one of the best livability improvements I have made--no more guessing how full the tank was.  They aren't terribly expensive.  If you are going to cut a hole into your tank, might you consider a 'two birds with one stone (or hole)' approach?

A few years ago I had a yard do some work inside the binnacle, and when I picked up the boat it wouldn't shift properly into gear.  It turned out that there was a screw pretty far down in the binnacle that had come loose; all this screw did was to hold the cable in place, but without it there was too much slack in the cable.  Just another possibility . . .

I'm most comfortable in my usual spot behind the wheel looking over my shoulder.  Also, when backing and turning in a fairway you need to watch where the bow is going--having the boat rotate too quickly and put the anchor raking the sterns of boats 'across the way' wouldn't be a happy moment!

I dock stern to for the convenience. Usually I have a bit of a cross breeze, almost always from the same direction.  When backing in, I make my turn to port so prop walk is my friend helping to rotate my boat in the direction I need.  And yes, the cross wind does grab hold of my bow.  My technique is to go down the fairway, which will be into the wind, perhaps six boat lengths past my slip, turn a few degrees (10?) to port just before I go into reverse. By going several slips past mine I have 100' more or less to get on plenty of way, straiten and position the boat in the fairway,  and to get the boat firmly under control before I need to start my turn.  With a cross wind there is no substitute for a firm hand on the throttle; the rudder needs to be grabbing water solidly or all is lost.  As I make my turn I can shift between reverse and idle as needed to pull the stern more quickly to port.  The cross wind is also now helping to swing my bow in the direction I want--to stbd.  At this point I need to be moving along at a decent clip because the bow will continue to rotate to stbd because of the breeze, so I need to get into my slip without putzing around.  Forward thrust is waaaay more powerful than reverse thrust, so when it is time to slow down and stop I go into forward, turn the wheel to give prop wash across the rudder to make my final longitudinal adjustment (usually to overcome the bow falling off) as I use more or less throttle as needed to come to a stop.  This whole technique was demonstrated to me by a 'boat jockeying' pro.  The first few times I did it alone were pretty stressful, but the real key is having plenty of boat speed so the rudder can really control the stern of the boat.  Now I find dead calm days are the challenge--I'm so used to the wind helping to push the bow around that I often understeer on a calm day.  And above all, since forward is so much more powerful than reverse, when my approach isn't looking right it is easy to abort and go it again.  I think the last point is really an unappreciated benefit of coming in stern to.  The power of forward gear to bring a boat to an almost immediate stop, and the use of prop wash when in forward to help 'harden up' a turn if needed.

Steve, my boat came with 20' of chain which didn't reliably get the job done.  I now have 75' of chain at the end of my rode.  Personally, I wouldn't tie off to the cleat in the anchor locker; I don't know how the cleat is attached, and it is a lighter cleat than the ones on deck.  As others have said, the windlass is not designed to withstand the loads of anchoring.

I put a gennaker on a furler on my boat.  I purchased two stainless tangs from MW--the heavy ones that are about 12"-14" long.  These are bolted to my anchor roller and extend forward to provide an anchor point for my spinnaker; a bail at the forward end holds them in place and provides the point to attach my Selden furler.  I used a turnbuckle bolted into the bottom of my anchor roller and projecting downward and bolted to the bottom of the SS bow fitting, thus creating a bobstay.  Since the anchor roller was never designed to handle upward loads I think this bobstay is really a key part of my setup.  I had a new crane manufactured for two reasons.  My gennaker requires a tight luff, and the factory crane is not strong enough to support the load (it is just a SS flat plate, and just bends downward with the load).  My crane has 'ribs' on the top side to counteract the downward pull.  The second reason is that I extended the crane forward several inches (6 to 8?  I really don't remember accurately) is in order to give the spinnaker plenty of room to furl.  The head of the sail is a little stiffer than the body, and kind of 'puffs out' a bit at the top.  I think it is pretty important to give the furlers room to operate without interfering with each other.  In really light air I can jib without rolling up; otherwise it is easier to just roll the sail up and jibe; I always roll it when tacking.

I also have a Sea Era; it is a great upgrade.  While my boat is a Mark II you will probably have to make roughly the same choices on your boat.  As Stu said, moving the bolts is easy; they are just lag bolts going into the liner (obviously be careful they aren't too long!!).  The bigger issue will be dealing with the macerator motor.  On my boat, I moved the head as far outboard as I could (I actually added a piece of 1/2" or 3/4" starboard to the platform--that is I raised the platform slightly so that I could move the toilet even farther outboard).  I mounted the motor on the right side (facing the toilet) and rather than running the hose aft and connecting under the sink/shower seat area and then forward to the tank I cut a new hole and ran the hose forward directly through the bottom of the storage locker to the holding tank.  Yes, I have given up the ability to pump directly overboard, but my boat lives on San Francisco Bay where the Bay and the entire Gulf of the Farallones (outside the Bay) is a no discharge area.  And I do have a separate macerator  pump out of my holding tank should I ever be somewhere where discharge of sewage is ok.

I'm revisting my posting from 2006.  I had a new boat then, and I did get used to the jam cleat and liked it just fine.  However, as my mainsheet has aged, or the jam cleat has aged, it started not reliably staying 'stuck' actually it started popping out a little too often.  This past winter I had another stopper installed for my mainsheet.
My boat came with four Garhauer stoppers on each side. The outside two were for the Garhauer traveler, one to port for my mainsail in-mast furling line, and the other two for jib halyards.  I replaced my second jib halyard with a spinakker halyard, and that rope clutch became home for my spinakker halyard.
I would for sure keep with the convention of mainsail controls to starboard, foresail to port . . .

Back in!
I would be backing in paralell to the transoms of the boats on the dock to the left in your picture.  You don't even need to make a 90 degree turn into the slip.  The trick to dealing with a cross wind is to get enough distance from your slip before starting to back to insure that you will have your boat moving smoothly backward and solidly under control when you start to enter your slip.  The more the wind, the firmer your hand needs to be on the throttle (yup, it can be a little breathtaking sometimes!).  Hopefully you will have shifted into neutral as your stern comes into the slip, then a little 'forward feathering' will bring you to a graceful stop with your transom a foot away from the dock (remember, forward prop drive is so much more efficient than reverse that is really easy to slow or stop a backing boat), and turning the wheel to bring prop wash into play lets you straighten out easily.  I back into my combined downwind/cross wind dock, and a real advantage on a hot day is I pop open the front hatch (I'm facing into the wind) which acts as a wind scoop and brings the breeze throughout my boat.

Also I dug up a picture under an old post called 'Rigging for an Asym Spinnaker' which I just revived . . .

Scroll down to see a picture of my A spinnaker setup . . . the tangs instead of a bowsprit, my little bobstay, and the blue spinnaker halyard . . .
Hope all of this helps!

Meerkata, please read my two long posts under the thread titled 'Asym Spinnaker and masthead modifications' . . . I just posed my comments so the thread should be adjacent to this thread.
Basically, I have done something similar to what you are thinking of doing; I have a code 0 with a continuous line furler and my setup works great!
Good luck; if you do your project well I'm sure you will really like it.