We've Moved!

We've moved both the boat and our blog! Now the boat is in San Diego, CA and we're living aboard while shopping for our dream boat. The blog has also moved to http://sailing.486.us

I'll need to pull our old content from here and add it to the new blog. It's cool because we're using wordpress now and I'm able to do that kind of stuff.

-Nate

Fuel Tank Leak

Airborne has a leaky fuel tank. Natalie and Josh already cleaned up the few gallons of gas that were in the bilge and have the boat aired out. The tank resides under the aft starboard berth. I don't know if the tank is original, but it is steel and it looks like there has been rusting around the edges that caused the leak. The next step is to cut out an access hole to pull the tank. The cuts shown in green are the best idea now. There's also dark green strong backs shown that will be added after the new tank is installed to reinforce the cut areas so I can still sleep at night.


After the fiberglass over the tank is cut and the fiberglass securing the tank to the hull is removed the new tank can go in. It looks like a new custom tank will have to be made out of metal or an existing tank made of plastic will have to be modified to fit in the space. A new tank from Catalina will cost over $500 plus shipping and handling. I'd rather pay a local to make the tank than get one shipped up from California for that price. I'm still on deployment so thanks to Josh for starting the project.

Here are more pictures:


View down at the aft starboard bert with covers removed


View from midships aft of the motor and tank


Crud inside the tank. I guess it was time for replacement anyway.

Just had to share

I just had to share this awesome picture of Koku the sailor dog. I hope he still has his sea legs the next time we go sailing.

The joy of crabbing

It's hard to beat getting off work and heading down to the dock to get aboard your boat with your wife, buddy, dog and a can of can food. Fire up the motor, cast off all lines and then head out for a 15 minute motor past the warships tied snugly to their berths looking at the sailors standing watch in their dress white uniforms. We always wave and raise our beers to my shipmates on USS Momsen while heading out to drop the crab pot. In goes the cat food, the pot is dropped over the side and off we go for an evening sail. The wind is just right to take us south of Everett towards the tip of Whidbey Island across from Mukilteo. Then we tack North towards the east side of Hat Island and then back East to try and locate our pot among all the red and white bobbers. Our reward for an evening like this is one big tasty crab.

Changing the zincs

Since Airborne has been hauled out I changed the zincs. Right is a before picture. I'll take an after one later in May before her keel is wet again. Other layup maintenance includes flushing saltwater from the cooling system with freshwater. I also bought new fuel filters to help with random depowering of the engine. The fuel filter will be installed after Airborne is docked back at NAVSTA Everett.

Hauled Out!

I have mixed emotions today about hauling Airborne out. I'll be gone for about two months and not able to sail her so it seemed like the right thing to do. I arranged the haul out service from the Port of Everett Marina. The process was really easy:

All I had to do was haul up the bumpers
Pull in to the slings
Throw the motor in reverse
Turn off the motor
Scurry forward to keep from ramming the wharf
Scurry up the ladder ashore as Airborne swings up behind me.

The peace of mind I'll have that she's safe an sound ashore is worth it.

The Long Awaited After Work Sail

It's been a while since I last updated. Here it goes!

Thursday was awesome! I got off work and gave Natalie a call to come pick me up. It was 4pm. Then I called her back and said "Let's go sailing!" I'd been dreaming of the day I'd be able to get off work, go down to the boat and then set sail in the evening to relax. The wind was about 15 knots from the West. I had the boat all prepped when Natalie arrived all she had to do was hop aboard. We motored out of the Naval station and as we passed the USS Abraham Lincoln I hauled up the jib and main. Before we were out Port Gardner we were under sail, making 5 knots!

I can't wait to try again next week! It was my dream come true.

New Links:
Printable NOAA Charts : Cool because I just downloaded and printed Approaches to Everett on an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper. When we go to the San Juans this summer I'll print up all the area charts and store them in plastic sleeves in a notebook in case the GPS and netbook go down.

Lost Soul for Sale: I was cruising posts on SailNet and came across one about Lost Soul, Bob Bitchin's former boat being for sale. I thought, "kewl."

Milltown Sailing Association

Recently Natalie and I joined the Milltown Sailing Association located here in Everett. They have a very strong racing and cruising program. The folks are just great! Since joining we've raced twice and cruised down to Kingston, WA.

Below is a video of our last race. We're in the 2nd class of boats and followed the race winner "BitterSweet" across the finish line by 2 minutes and 10 seconds.

Blakes Lavac Taylor Kerosene Heater

Onboard Airborne I have a small cabin heater designed to run on Kerosene or Diesel fuel. It's model 079D. I was having trouble with lighting it and it staying lit so I looked online for user's manual and found the following instructions:

1. Open front port and chimney flue
   
2. Put 20cc of Methylated Spirit (Denatured Alcohol) in the burner pot
   
3. Light through the front port
4. Wait about 4 minutes for the burning alcohol to heat the center stool and allow auto drip
5. Press and hold the blue button, starting the flow of fuel
6. Adjust the drip rate for 80-110 drips per minute

Enjoy the warmth! I usually start to heat the cabin using an electric 115 V portable heater and then start the kerosene stove when I'll be onboard a while. After the kerosene stove is warm, about 30 minutes, I can cut off the electric heater when It's 45 degrees outside. Inside the cabin we can get it up to 60 degrees, quite comfortable when outside it's below freezing!

Linux GPS

As I eluded to in my last post the Linux GPS software OpenCPN is working great! It accurately plots the course and works with my DeLorme LT-40. All I had to do was install the GPS daemon. In Ubuntu all you need to do is enter the following at the terminal:
sudo apt-get install gpsd
Then I added this script to my box and run it when I run OpenCPN:

#!/bin/sh
sudo killall gpsd
sudo gpsd -n -D 2 /dev/ttyUSB0
xgps -speedunits knots -l

Many thanks to Thomas, user cagney over on the Cruiser Forums, he wrote the code. Just save it as a text file and make it executable. I named mine startgps and run it like this:
./startgps

I'm excited by the options to include AIS and autopilot functionality with OpenCPN but don't have the hardware to try and integrate.

Sailing to Langley

Last weekend Natalie and I made our first overnight trip out to Langley. The town of Langley is located 9 miles away from Everett on Whidbey Island. We set out on Saturday morning at about 11 am with winds forecast at 6 to 11 knots. As we left port the visibility was great, able to see all the way to Mt. Baker. With the great visibility there was no wind. We motored out towards Gedney Island, in the middle of Posession Sound on our course for Langley. There we found wind and made 4 knots in the general direction we wanted to go.

On the way over I got to use my Netbook with OpenCPN and it performed well, plotting our position and changing charts automatically. I will buy paper charts to compliment the areas we'll be sailing for future adventures.

Pulling in to Langley was easy but I was nervous because the guide book said "approach the entrance from the South" and all I could see was island. We actually approach from the West, then turn North. Too far south and there might not have been enough water. I'd arranged mooring before by emailing the harbormaster at PortofSouthWhidbey dot com. Harbormaster Rick assigned us berth B-7 and it was easy to find. When we came in he met us at the slip to help us tie up along with a friendly dog. The cost for overnight moorage was $28 including electric hookup.

From there we explored Langley on foot, our dog Koku in tow. From the statue of the boy and his dog overlooking the Sound to the many shops lining the streets Langley made a great first "Liberty Port" for Airborne's crew.

Later that night we put the in port systems through their paces, cooking dinner on the stove, steam setting off the smoke detector. Lighting the kerosene stove for heat, augmented by the electric heater brought the temperature inside up to a comfortable 67 degrees. I even shed my sweatshirt it felt that good!

The next morning with the boat still covered in frost we cast off our lines and motored back to Everett. We used the Tillermaster for most of the trip and it operated flawlessly. All in all it was a great shakedown trip. All our systems worked well and now we're ready to go further, Kingston, here we come!

About my boat

She's a Catalina 27, made in 1973. Yes, I know that she's old but in very good shape. I took a look at boats from the 80's that weren't cared for as meticulously as she was and I'm very impressed. Here are her characteristics:

Leading Particulars:
LOA: 28 ft
LOD: 26.8 ft
LWL: 21.8 ft
Beam: 8.8 ft
Draft: 4.0 ft
DraftMin: 3.0 ft
Displacement: 7,300 lbs
Ballast: 3,150 lbs

Major Systems:
Kerosene Heat
Marine Head
Potable Water
Propane Stove
12V Power (Shore and Ship's)
115 Shore Power
Atomic 4 Engine
Electronics

I bought Airborne as the third owner since her initial commissioning in 1973. She was held by a gentleman who moored her in Friday Harbor until 2009 when I became the lucky owner. She was surveyed in Fall 2009 by Stephen from Global Marine Surveyors, Inc and given a clean bill of health. Later I will go by each major system to give a better idea of the overall boat makeup.

Installing a free chart plotter

Since I began boating I've wanted to know where I am at all times. It's important so I know the depth of water around me so there's no embarrassment of running aground. I've been using computers for a while and prefer using my Mac or Linux computer and thought it would be a great idea to use my Asus Netbook as a chart plotter. After much searching on the web I found OpenCPN. I initially found good info about it on the Sailnet and Cruisers Forum. The project is Open Source and seems well supported and is under development.

Installation:
To install I went to the SourceForge Website and downloaded the .deb file since I'm running Ubuntu on my Netbook. Note that this method of installation works only for Ubuntu.
I opened the terminal and tried to install the package:
sudo dpkg -i opencpn_1.3.4_i386.deb
An error was returned saying an unmet dependancy needed installation so then I installed libwtxgtk2.8-0:
sudo apt-get install libwtxgtk2.8-0
Then I tried installing the package again:
sudo dpkg -i opencpn_1.3.4_i386.deb
Success!

Then I opened the program and it didn't have any charts loaded so I downloaded them from the NOAA website. I navigated to the west coast and chose "Download RNC" from the right side and then chose "OK" on the next website. I unzipped the files to my home folder.



Next, I opened the "Toolbox" by clicking on the wrench icon. At first I found it tricky to get the "Charts" tab to open. It requires a quick double click action. Then I selected the charts directory and it sucked all the charts up and I was ready to go!

It took about a half hour to get everything installed and I'm happy it's working now!

Next I have to get back home to my boat and plug in my GPS Receiver, a DeLorme Earthmate GPS LT-40. I've researched online and there is kernel support so all I should need to do is plug it in, start the computer, check dmesg and find the line about which device I should tell OpenCPN to look for the GPS input on. It'll probably be something like /dev/ttyUSB0. More on that later!

Online Sailing Log

For anyone who's interested in sailing from Everett, WA this is the blog for you! I've recently purchased a 27' Catalina and you can follow my wife, Natalie, my dog, Koku and I sailing around Everett, Washington.