Alcatraz Redeux - with pictures

When wind and tide cooperate, getting to Alcatraz is a breeze (pun intended - of course).

Today was a mixture of sun and clouds and (happily) some wind as the afternoon wore on. I started out wanting to try sailing Laelia with the main being the only sail hoisted. It is convenient sometimes to be able to tack back and forth without having to take care of the jib every time I tack. Laelia does not do this well. In a 10 knot breeze she gets up enough speed to do it - but she does it reluctantly. When the wind dropped, she wouldn't do it at all.

The wind picked up as I got out toward the slot - blowing 10 to 15 knots straight in from the Golden Gate bridge. To top it off, the tide was coming in and would be pushing me toward Alcatraz. Perfect!

I unfurled about half of the jib and set off. Pretty soon we were flying along at 5.5 to 6 knots. The wind was a steady 10 knots with occasional gusts higher. The waves were going pretty much the same way I was. Easy sailing!

In short order, I was getting close to Alcatraz - a little too close for comfort. I had to tack away to keep the incoming tide from pushing me onto the rocks at the western end of the island. I misjudged the speed of the current and ended up having to tack twice to make it past the end of the island.

In the second picture, I am sailing past the south side of the island - the side facing San Francisco. I can imagine how tantalizing it must have looked for prisoners to look out toward the city - so near and so far away!

Rounding the eastern end of the island, I got a picture just for Don Lundquist so he can understand why I don't pick up prisoners! And then there's the problem of no more prisoners. Oh well!

Rounding the island, I ran into an area of confusing winds - quick direction changes and variable strength. I was in the turbulence caused by the wind flowing over Alcatraz and back down onto the water. The turbulence last only a few minutes before I was through it and back into steady wind.

The picture to the right is the northern side of the island.

I headed back to Sausalito. The sky was getting progressivly darker and the wind was starting to pick up. The wind was from the right direction (close reach) for me to hoist the mizzen for an extra boost. For most of the trip back, Laelia was flying along at close to 6 knots.

As I got close to the channel to the marina, I started dropping sails - first the mizzen, then the main. That left Laelia sailing along quite nicely at 3.5 knots with just the jib.

I sailed past a Coast Guard boat that was headed out toward the bay as I was coming in. About the time I got to sailing under jib alone, I glanced back and saw that the Coast Guard seemed to be interested in me! They pulled along side, said something about checking for illegal boats coming into the bay and asked me for identification and boat registration. I passed them over and they pulled away a few feet after telling me to keep going toward my slip.

About five minutes later, they pulled along side again and handed back my documents, wished me a good day and departed. They were quite courteous during the whole thing.

I was relieved! I thought they might be doing safety inspections and I'm sure they could have found something to be unhappy about.

Getting back into the slip, I was very happy that the ends of the slip were heavily cushioned. I misjudged the amount of correction I needed for the crosswind and hit the corner pretty hard with the side of the boat about six feet back from the bow. Laelia weighs in at a litlle over 17,000 lbs so it could have been ugly. Thanks to the heavy duty padding, no damage was done - except to my ego.

By now, the sky was looking pretty ominous. I got Laelia all buttoned up and came below for a beer. As I write this, the beer is almost gone, the wind is howling and the boat heels over a few degrees every now and then. I am happy to be here and not out on the bay trying to get back!

Heaving to, reefing and other sailor stuff

All this job hunting activity is stressful. I needed a day to go sailing. Today was the day.

So far, my sailing has been pretty much basic stuff - learning how to get Laelia moving well, practicing tacking and gybing, etc. Today I wanted to start working on some of the things I will need to know when I get out on the ocean and things start getting a bit rough.

I got started about 11:30 - plenty of time to get out to The Slot before conditions get interesting. There was a fair breeze blowing when I got to the place where I usually start hoisting sails.

One of the things I often hear when I tell another sailor I have a ketch is "when the wind picks up you can just drop the main and sail with the mizzen (the little sail toward the back of the boat) and the jib". That's what I tried first. It works well except that having that little sail at the back of the boat makes Laelia try hard to turn into the wind. I can deal with it by using the rudder to keep it from turning into the wind. I briefly saw 3.5 knots under jib and jigger (the other name for the mizzen) and then the wind went away.

I could see wind lines farther out on the bay so I started up the engine and motored out to where the wind was blowing.

The wind was blowing pretty good in The Slot, 10 - 15 knots. That got Laelia moving again at about 4 knots. Great! Next, I wanted to try heaving to under jib and mizzen.

Yes, I've heard the jokes about heaving to!

Heaving to is a maneuver that is used when it is getting too windy and rough to keep sailing up wind but you don't want to lose too much ground by turning around and letting the wind blow the boat down wind. It is done by tacking but not letting the jib come across the boat to the other side. That means the wind pushes the jib against the boat and acts like a big air brake. In the picture, you can see the mizzen toward the left. It is being blown to port. The jib is plastered against the shroud with the wind blowing against it instead of along it. It stays there because the sheet (the rope) at the lower right is holding it there. The steering wheel is turned all the way to the right to try to keep Laelia pointed into the wind.

It didn't work quite as I would like. I think that partly it was because I have a lot of the jib unfurled. If I would roll some more of it up and make it smaller, it would help. I'll try it next time. As it was, Laelia slowly drifted downwind and gradually turned so she was pointing downwind. If I had left her alone she would have gybed and we would be off and sailing on the other tack. Not quite what I wanted.

I decided to try hoisting the main with one reef in it. That means that I didn't put all of the sail up - just the top 3/4 of it. The rest of it stayed bunched up along the main boom at the bottom. Having the main up generates more turning force and I hoped Laelia would turn more into the wind and stop trying to get sailing again. That was a bit better but I think I need to try all of this with less of the jib deployed. It would also help to not have the mizzen up.

With all of the sail work, I was up and moving around a lot. Suddenly, I felt that feeling I knew all too well from my early sailing days - queasiness and dry mouth. The heaving too experiments were about to turn into just plain heaving.

I gave up on the experimenting and headed out toward the Golden Gate again. Sitting at the wheel and looking off toward the horizon got the symptoms under control. It was a reminder that I need to get some more sea time under my belt before I head off shore - unless I want to spend a week being seasick like I did when I sailed to Hawaii.

Now we were on the wind (sailing up wind). When Laelia is hard on the wind, the air flowing off the main pushes on the back side of the mizzen (backwinds the mizzen) and the mizzen doesn't help Laelia go faster. Besides that, the trailing edge of the mizzen flutters. It is annoying to listen to and it is hard on the sail cloth. I dropped the mizzen. Laelia was quite happy now. With the main reefed and the mizzen stowed, she was doing 5 knots.

Two tacks and I was getting close to the bridge. The wind was coming in directly off the Pacific and there was a pretty good swell running. I watched another sailboat about a mile away to try to determine how high the waves were. The top of the boat's cabin nearly disappeared when they were at the bottom of the swell so I'm guessing the waves were about four feet from crest to trough.

It started to get rough enough that there was a lot of crashing and banging as Laelia cut into the waves. Spray started flying the length of the boat. I hadn't put on foul weather gear and I didn't really care for getting wet so I turned around and headed back to Sausalito.

As soon as I turned down wind, it was a different world. Now I was going with the wind so it didn't seem to be blowing as hard. I was going with the waves so they weren't throwing up spray. They weren't going a whole lot faster than Laelia. Under these conditions, Laelia did what most sailboats do - she rolled a lot.

The sail back was pretty uneventful. I lost the wind before I got to the Spinnaker Restaurant where I usually drop the sails. That meant a boring 20 minutes under power before I was back to my slip.

All in all, it was a very satisfying sail. I learned some more about how Laelia handles. I have more things to try next time I am out. Nothing broke. What more can I ask for?

Out the gate - and back

I've been off the boat for the last five days enjoying Judy's company in Placerville and an evening with old friends from my Silicon Valley days in the early 80's. By this morning I was eager to get out for a sail. The weather god(s) cooperated and I had a bright, sunny day with an unusual feature - WIND!

It started off like most of my other outings. I motored out the channel and started hoisting sails about the time I passed the Spinnaker waterfront restaurant. There was very little wind but with the help of my new tell-tales, I was able to keep Laelia moving for a while - then I drifted. I had to start the engine and motor for about 1/2 mile to keep from being pushed onto the rocks at Pt Cavello. Just after I started the engine, a seal popped up about 10 feet from the boat and just stared at me as if to ask why I was invading his territory. I bade him/her a good day and left the area.

As I was motoring, I noticed foam streaks in the water - signs of rip currents. As I motored across the streaks, Laelia would slew as much as 15 or 20 degrees when her bow was in one current and her stern was in the other.

As soon as I cleared the point, the wind started to pick up. In short order it was blowing 15 - 20 knots from the ocean into the bay. This area close to the Golden Gate Bridge is known as The Slot. On sunny days like today, the usual scenario is that about noon or a little past, the land mass starts to heat up, the air over land starts to rise and it sucks air in off the Pacific. The Slot makes a nice little venturi and accelerates the flow making for some exciting sailing. That's the way it worked today. I had the full jib, main and mizzen up when I hit the slot and in no time the boat was moving at 6 knots - my all-time high speed in this boat.

The boat was a bit over powered and heeling more than I was ready for. I hadn't put things away below decks well enough to deal with this kind of sailing. I turned down wind for long enough to roll up the jib about 1/3 of the way and then turned back toward the bridge. Laelia kept trying to turn into the wind and I had to work to keep her on course. Since she is usually quite well balance when she is on the wind, that meant she was out of trim. I dropped the mizzen and she was balanced. The mizzen hadn't been giving much help. When Laelia is close hauled (going up wind as much as possible) the mizzen is back winded by the air coming off the main and supplies little, if any, drive.

Perfect! The boat was moving about 5 knots and heeling about 10 degrees and well balanced - quite comfortable sailing. In short order, I was under the bridge. Shortly after passing under the bridge, I tacked. There was a tug coming up the deep water channel with a big barge in tow and I didn't want to be involved.

As I neared the south shore, I got the view you see to the right. Under the rightmost portion of the span you can see San Francisco. Just to the left is Alcatraz.

Just past the bridge, there was a distinct change in conditions. I could feel and see a 2 - 3 foot swell rolling in off the Pacific. This mixes with the local currents and the topography of the bottom to produce a stretch of water along the south shore known as the Potato Patch. It is aptly named. The water is lumpy and bumpy.

The last time I passed through this patch of water in 1982, I was helping my friend, George, move his boat down the coast to Santa Cruz. I made the mistake of going below to try to do some calculations for a sun sight that I had taken to keep myself in practice doing celestial navigation. I was immediately, violently seasick. That was only the beginning. I was seasick for the rest of the trip. We took two hour shifts steering the boat during the night. Every half hour or so, I would have to lean over the rail and try to empty my already empty stomach. Not fun!

I am happy to report that this was not the case today. I managed several more tacks before turning back toward home. I took this picture just before turning back.

I look forward to the day when I get to this point and keep on going!

Going back, I was going downwind. That meant that the boat speed was subtracted from the apparent wind and the day now felt warm and balmy. Going downwind, Laelia is not a lot of fun to steer. She wants to veer left and right as she rolls. With the swell rolling in, she was doing a lot of rolling and veering. Possibly, you can see a bit of the swell running in this picture. The Marin headland (north shore of the Golden Gate) is to the left.

As I passed under the bridge, I turned a bit to port to head toward Sausalito. Now the wind seemed to be in a place that would let me run wing and wing. It turned out to be a frustrating exercise. As the boat rolled, the jib would collapse and dump the wind. After the boat rolled a few times and the wind was just right, the jib would fill with a loud BANG and the whole boat would shake. I was afraid this would break something or split some seams in the jib so I gave up on that idea and gybed. If I had Laelia fully outfitted and we were on the open ocean, I would use a pole with one end attached to the main mast and the other to the corner of the jib. This would keep the jib from collapsing. I would also have a line running from the end of the main boom to the bow (front) of the boat to hold the main well out to the side and to make sure that it didn't swing across the boat in one of the rolls - an accidental gybe - and break some of the equipment.

Gybing is a delicate maneuver. Today the wind was coming from behind the boat and the main was on the port side of the boat. I wanted to turn far enough to port to get the main to come across the boat to the starboard side. If I just turn the boat until the main comes across by itself, it will swing across suddenly, fill with wind and slam against its sheets (ropes). With the amount of wind there was today, that would probably break something. I spent about five minutes pulling the main in with one or two hands and steering the boat with the other hand. Laelia was doing her trick of veering with each passing swell so it was a juggling act until I could get the main pulled in almost to the centerline of the boat. Then I could turn and let the main come across without damage since it could only swing a very short distance before getting to the end of its rope.

I had a very pleasant sail past Pt Cavello and the Sausalito waterfront and started dropping sails after I passed the Spinaker Restaurant.

Getting into the slip was more interesting than usual today. There was a significant cross wind blowing from left to right as I entered the slip. It doesn't take much wind to push the boat around so I was at bit nervous about the whole maneuver. I managed to get in without any damage. I wouldn't call it graceful but it worked.

It was another good sail with more lessons learned. I need to add reef points to the main so I can reef (pull it part way down) and not have a bunch of sail flapping in the breeze. I really, really need a wind vane to steer the boat while I manage sails. It would have been extremely difficult - if at all possible - to deploy the pole to hold the jib out when I was running down wind without something to steer the boat for me. I need to have the pole set up so it is easier to get it into position. These are all things that are not too hard to remedy - given time and money.

It was tantalizing to be outside The Gate and looking south past Land's End. Another tack or two and I would have been in the clear and able to run south. The day will come!

When is a tell-tale not a tattle-tale?

A boat is a collection of a huge number of details. A bunch of them get taken care of by the builder. Some more have been taken care of for me by previous owners. There still are quite a few left for me.

On my short outings so far, one of the details that I have been reminded of is the lack of tell-tales on the boat. Sailboats are dependent on wind. The direction and strength of wind is what tells me which sails to use and how to trim them. When the wind is blowing more than about 10 knots, it is not too hard to get the general idea about where the wind is coming from. When the wind falls light, it is harder to tell. Even when the wind picks up, it helps a great deal to have a visual indicator to figure out the exact angle the wind is making with respect to the boat.

Without some form of wind direction indicator, I am left to the old-time devices to figure out wind direction. Face into the wind and feel the cooling breeze on both cheeks. When they feel the same, I am facing into the wind. Alternatively, turn my back to the wind and feel the breeze on the back of my neck. When it feels like my neck is being cooled equally on both sides, I am looking dead down wind. These indicator are easily invalidated by physiological factors and even the clothes I am wearing. When the wind is quite cool, one cheek gets slightly numb and the balance of feeling is destroyed when I look into the wind. When I am wearing foul weather gear with a hood or even when I wear a life vest, the back of my neck is partially covered and that source of information is useless.

There are expensive bits of electronics that use a wind vane mounted at the top of the mast. The direction the vane is pointing is reported by a display mounted in the cockpit. Laelia has one of those but according to the display, the wind always blows straight across the starboard rail at right angles to the boat direction. If I were a wealthy yachtsman, I would call an electronics repair guy and have the problem fixed. That may happen someday but in the mean time, I need a less expensive way to deal with the problem.

That's where the tell-tale comes in. A tell-tale is just a piece of fabric tied to a shroud to help me figure out exactly where the wind is coming from. In the picture to the right, the tell-tale is the little red streamer flying from the shroud toward the right side of the picture.

For once, I didn't have to go to West Marine and part with my all-too-scarce dollars to add something to the boat. I stopped at North Sails and asked for some scraps of spinnaker cloth. They gave me one big enough to take care of my need for tell-tales for years to come. Spinnaker cloth is very light weight nylon with extra threads in it to make it rip resistant. When I cut it into narrow strips like this (1/2" x 6") it flies in the lightest breeze and gives me a good visual clue to wind direction.

Ah, would that it were so easy to tell which way the winds of fate blow. Knowing which way to turn in my life seems a dark mystery at the moment. I keep having tantalizing contacts with people who tell me my perfect job is out there and they will put me in contact with the company that will hire me. So far, that has resulted in two phone screen interviews and no offers. Without a job and money coming in, I can't do much more than go for occasional daysail trips, do basic daily maintenance and pray that nothing expensive will break.

To add to the money woes, when I figured out our taxes for 2011, I discovered that I had made a mistake and not nearly enough money was withheld for income tax. That adds to the urgency to find a job and start having some income.

On the positive side, Judy and I are making our peace with our differences. We have been wrestling with the changes in our situation and the effects on our relationship since I retired in June and especially since I bought the boat. We know we love each other and that it is important to keep our relationship alive. I will be spending more time in Placerville with Judy and less time on the boat for now.

But even this development is shrouded in uncertainty. I need to work and I will have to go where the work is. There's not a lot in the Sacramento area so I will most likely not be able to stay here in Placerville. Hopefully, something will turn up in the SF Bay area so I can at least get home on weekends.

In the mean time, I will be spending a couple of days a week on the boat doing whatever I can to get ready for the voyage. Our weather has been unusually warm and sunny for this time or year. I hope to take advantage of some more of those days. That will include going sailing and putting those tell-tales to work to tell which way the wind blows, how to trim the sails and how to set my course.

As for the winds of fate, I still have no tell-tale. Time will tell which way those winds blow.

Luff and puff and wing it past Alcatraz

Tuesday

I didn’t hear any wind last night – just rain. I was so sure it wasn’t blowing this morning that I took my time about getting out of my bunk. When I did finally poke my head out of the hatch, there was wind. Not a lot, probably 10 knots or so. Drat! I wasted some good sailing weather. It was gray and overcast with rain showers forcast.

I ate a hurried breakfast, put away the few things I had gotten out since yesterday’s sail and by 9:30 I was on my way. The wind was coming from the south-east, directly from Alcatraz. The good news was that it was a nice steady breeze. In short order, I had main, jib and mizzen up. I was close hauled - sailing as close to straight upwind as I could – about 45 degrees off the wind. The log (speedometer) was showing 4.5 knots, making me a happy sailor.

That all lasted for about 45 minutes. That was long enough to make several long tacks and get about mid-way across the bay toward San Francisco and a little closer to Alcatraz. Then, gradually, the wind fell off and before long, I was drifting. The sails were flapping like grandma’s laundry line as the boat rolled in the swell and the occasional wake of the many ferries that run between The City and Marin County.

But, curiously enough, I was drifting slowly toward Alcatraz. After a while, I was getting close enough that I was starting to think I might have to use the engine to keep from getting pushed onto the rocks of Alcatraz. But fate was kind and a breeze sprang up – this time from the north. That let me sail on a nice comfortable close reach – the wind was coming from a direction forward of the middle of the boat but not far enough forward to be close hauled.

The wind held long enough for me to make it the rest of the way to Alcatraz! As I passed the island, my course changed enough to be running wing and wing for most of the length of the island. Unfortunately, because I was expecting rain, I didn’t have the camera on deck. The boat requires that I pay close attention to steering when running wing and wing so I couldn’t duck below and grab it.

I rounded Alcatraz and started down the other side of the island. The wind had shifted a bit more to the north-west – blowing directly from Sausalito. In short order, I was close hauled again to make it back to Sausalito. Why is it that the wind so often blows from the place I am trying to get to? Ah, for those wonderful days of sailing downwind in warm water and warm air!

The wind picked up briefly to the point that I was starting to think about shortening sail – changing my sail arrangement so I had less sail up. The easiest thing to do is to roll up the jib. It is wrapped around the forestay like a big rollup window shade.  I tried that and found it wasn’t all that easy. By the time I figured out what I needed to do, the wind had dropped off to the point that I didn’t need it.

Now an urgent situation arose – a call of nature. What to do? The boat won’t steer itself reliably long enough for me to run below and use the head (toilet).  What I ended up doing was heaving to. No – it has nothing to do with being seasick. It is done by tacking the boat but not letting the jib come across the boat to the other side. Now the main and mizzen sails are trying to drive the boat forward but the jib is acting like a big brake. I turned the steering wheel in the direction to make the boat try to tack again and locked it in place. Now the boat was barely moving and was lying pretty much broadside to the wind and moving at about ½ knot. That’s a nice stable situation that gave me enough time to run below, dig through all my layers of foul weather gear and do what needed doing.

One might ask how a single person can take a boat on a long trip if it is this hard to get a couple of minutes just to go to the bathroom. The answer is that there is a device similar to an autopilot known as a wind vane. It is a clever arrangement of a vane to sense wind direction and mechanical linkages that end up steering the boat. I had a device like this when I sailed from San Diego to Honolulu. I steered the boat for about half an hour out of the 23 day trip. The wind vane did the rest leaving me free to tend the sails, navigate, cook, read and sleep.

Having taken care of business, I got the boat headed toward Sausalito again. The wind had shifted enough to the west that it looked like I could make it back to Sausalito in one tack. Then it died. I waited for about 10 minutes hoping it would start up again. It didn’t and I was drifting toward the Marin County shore. I cranked up the diesel and motored the rest of the way back – about 30 minutes under power.

I pulled back into my slip almost exactly five hours after I left. A good day’s sail.

And I finally made it to Alcatraz!

Curious about the title of today's blog? When the wind alternately blows (puffs) and drops off (leaving the boat flopping around with no wind - luffing) sailors describe the conditions as luff and puff. I was wing and wing (see yesterday's blog) going past Alcatraz. And there you have it.

Once More Toward Alcatraz

Monday

I got up and hustled around this morning but somehow it was after 11 before I was backing out of the slip. My usual fan club was waiting to see me off.

These guys hang out here on the breakwater between the slips and Richardson Bay. I can tell when the wind is blowing from them toward my slip without ever sticking my head out the hatch. The smell is distinctly fishy!

The day looked like it would be a repeat of other days – not a whole lot of wind. It was out of the north so I had the wind at my back.

I got the sails up and for the first 15 – 20 minutes, I was able to run dead downwind with the main out to the port side of the boat and the jib to starboard. (That’s wing and wing in sailor talk.)

When I got out a little farther into the bay, I changed course to try, once again, to sail around Alcatraz. That was the end of wing and wing. Now the main is out to starboard along with the jib.

The wind picked up a bit and it was from a direction that allowed me to hoist the mizzen (the little sail toward the back of the boat. You can just barely see it at the top of the picture.) That added about a knot to my speed and I was up to 3.5 knots immediately. Over the next two hours, the wind picked up enough to see 4.5 knots on the speedometer (known to sailors as a knot meter or a log.)

 

I thought I would surely make it around Alcatraz. I got this close. That's the Oakland Bay Bridge and the SF city skyline in the background.

Then the wind dropped off. I could keep the boat moving at 1.5 to 2.0 knots but that wasn’t good enough. The tide was going out and after a while I was losing ground. I finally gave up and turned around.

The sail back was a lot more fun. I was trying to go where the wind was coming from. Since sailboats can’t go straight into the wind, I had to zig-zag (tack) always pointing the boat as close to the wind as it would go. This boat seems to be able to get within about 45 degrees. Once again, the wind picked up for about a half hour and the boat was moving at about 4.5 knots. As I got close to Sausalito, the wind died again. That was OK with me since I would have to motor up the channel to my marina anyhow. The channel is sufficiently narrow that tacking a boat this size would be a lot of work. It would mean tacking about every 3 – 5 minutes – a lot of work.

Tonight it is supposed to rain and the wind is supposed to blow. I’m hoping it will still be blowing tomorrow morning. I am feeling comfortable enough with the boat to want to try sailing with more wind than I have been seeing.

Maybe I can make it to Alcatraz.

Havin’ Trouble Keeping My Cool

Sunday

I’ve been off the boat for a couple of days and got back yesterday afternoon. I took off Wednesday, had dinner with daughter Suzanne in Davis and then went on up to Placerville. Judy and I had a delightful couple of days together. I hit the Placerville library book sale on Saturday and came back with some cookbooks and a couple of books on sailing. I need some lessons in sail trim – the art and science of setting the sails to make the boat move as fast as possible.

I have to confess that after the wonderful days together I especially missed Judy when I got back to the boat. It made me wonder why I was in any hurry to get back. I am running short of things I can fix up on the boat without spending money. Ah well – press on!

I’ve been having trouble keeping my cool. As I mentioned before, the refrigerator doesn’t work right. It wasn’t so much of a problem when I first moved aboard. It was cooler and I wasn’t trying to keep any perishable items. That is changing. I want to expand my culinary adventures a bit. Rice and soup get old – fast. I’ve been buying a few fresh veggies, eggs, and a few other things that do better when kept cool. The weather is not cooperating with my desires. It has been unseasonably warm and sunny. The boat actually gets a bit stuffy if I don’t open it up during the day. When I came back to the boat yesterday, the boat was warm enough that the icebox/refrigerator was also getting warm.

Faithful readers will remember that when I bought the boat, I noticed that the refrigerator wasn’t working. The previous owner swore that it worked – the condenser on the inside of the refrigerator had frost on the after he turned it on. (The condenser is that white thing that wraps around inside the refrigerator on the back side and the right side. It is the part that actually does the cooling.) After some negotiation, the owner agreed to drop the price by a couple hundred dollars to allow for repairs.

As I mentioned a few days back, I turned the refrigerator off until I could get the repair guy out here to look at it. I turned it back on a few hours before he came to look at it and of course it was working just fine when he got here. I left it running after he left and by morning it had quit cooling again. The compressor motor runs full time but the condenser is not at all cool. The only way I can get the motor to stop is to go out to the cockpit, open up a locker and pull a fuse.

In the picture to the left, the cockpit locker is under that open lid in the cockpit seat to the right of the wheel.

By the way, the refrigerator compressor lives in this locker too. In household refrigerators, the compressor is that little motor that purrs away at the bottom of your refrigerator. On a small boat like Laelia, it is a good idea to keep it out of the living area because it is noisy and it takes up room. On Laelia it lives on a shelf in that same cockpit locker, tucked way up high and well back from the locker lid so it will stay dry.

Here’s what it looks like.

The refrigerator itself looks more like an icebox. It is under the counter on the right in this picture. Access is by opening the doors in the top of the counter.

It isn’t very big. Notice how much of the room is taken up by the egg carton in the picture to the right.

Sailboat refrigerators normally open from the top like this because it helps to keep the cool air in the refrigerator. Remember that cold air is heavier than warm air. With a side opening refrigerator like we have in houses, the cold air pours out in an avalanche every time we open the door. Since we need to conserve power on a boat, we open from the top and most of the cold air stays put.

Inquiring minds will want to know why I want to turn the refrigerator off and on. Well, it’s like this…

At the moment, the boat is in a slip with a connection to normal household electricity. Boat people refer to this arrangement as being connected to shore power. While I am on shore power I have a battery charger that keeps the batteries up to full charge. I need this because the refrigerator runs off of the boat’s batteries and it draws a lot of current. If I have no shore power, the batteries would go flat before long.

When I head offshore for a few days or more, the refrigerator might easily drain the battery to the point that I couldn’t start the diesel engine to recharge the batteries. That would be a double bummer since it is really nice to have the engine when maneuvering around the dock at the end of the trip. What I would like to be able to do is turn on the refrigerator when I know the batteries are in good shape and turn it off once the refrigerator interior is well cooled. When I am sailing the batteries will be charged either by running the engine or (someday) by solar panels.

That leads to today’s project – fix the wiring. It seems like no project of any size can get under way without having to empty one or both of the cockpit lockers. This project was no exception. All that stuff you can see in the picture (and more) had to be removed. Then I had to figure out the wiring. Remember - the boat is 33 years old and has been through three previous owners. Each of these owners has had equipment installed or removed. Each operation requires some wiring or leaves behind some wiring that is no longer of any use. One might think that unused wiring would be removed along with the device that it supported but this is not the case. Some owners do their own work and they are lazy. Others have it done by workers who are being paid $70 to $120 per hour. The owner wants the work done quickly! Either way, unused wiring is left in place. Sorting out what is in use and removing the unused portions took most of the time on this job.

The investigation turned up the interesting fact that the refrigerator motor was wired directly to the boat battery switch. The only way to turn it off (other than the fuse) was to turn off all DC power to the rest of the boat. Since almost everything runs off DC, this is not a good situation.

After several hours work, I had the wiring rearranged to my satisfaction. The refrigerator runs off shore power when it is hooked up and the circuit breaker is turned on for the AC/DC converter. If I turn off the AC circuit breaker or disconnect shore power, the refrigerator continues to run off the battery until I turn it off at the DC circuit breaker panel. The black rectangle above and to the left of the companionway ladder is the DC panel – much more convenient to use than pulling a fuse in a holder buried in the cockpit locker.

Yet another step toward being ready to head offshore to exotic locations!

The only other activity of note today was ripping CDs to my laptop so I can have music when I am out of reach of radio stations. CD players don’t last too well in the marine environment – too much moisture with a high salt content. The best thing to do is get my CDs onto the iPhone and play them from there.

Tomorrow I hope to get out and do some sailing. The wind is supposed to be about 10 knots coming from the south. That should make for a pleasant day’s sail. Tuesday is supposed to be even windier. If it isn’t too bad, I may try to get out two days in a row.