Lazy jack repair

When we arrived to the marina this weekend, the Vberth was dry as a bone, so my anchor locker fix is holding. That meant a day of sailing instead a day of repairs.

The bay wasn't wild enough to be scary, but it was choppy enough to keep us on our toes. I only managed to snap a couple photos with the iPhone while we were out because it was just too rocky to bring up the expensive cameras.

However, no amount of rocking and rolling could deter Tex from napping. He'd get rolled off the cushions and then just climb back on top of them and flop down again.

At some point during the ride, the wind whipped around the lazy jacks enough that they came loose, so I actually paid some attention to them -- or what was left of them -- while cinching them back up.

The U-bolts that held the line in place towards the end of the boom had chafed  the line through on both sides. I dug through our storage bins and found more line of the same size. We don't really use the lazy jacks, but since it was easier to tape one line to the other and work it through the system than it was to climb the mast and remove the dangling blocks, I replaced the line.

For the most part it was smooth operation, but I was a little ticked that the U-bolt tore up the new line a but before I even finished getting it into place.

Despite the nick in the new line, it's now working properly. Dixie Belle kept a strict watch through the entire process.

Another job done -- that I wasn't planning to do.

And afterwards I was rewarded with a steak so fat it was actually too heavy for the neighbor's grill. The arm collapsed halfway through the grilling process, and he barely saved them from ending up in the water!

Lessons learned: Don't bother with lazy jacks, and don't overload cantilevered grills.

Our First Race

We were lucky enough to be invited to race in the first icicle series race of 2014 this week. At first Fred planned to go alone, not knowing how much space there would be for crew.  After a little bit of pouting from me though Freddie secured me a spot on deck. I knew going into the race that this was going to be pretty scary for me. Going quickly around other boats while heeling, and being splashed by cold water are not my favorite parts of sailing. I had already thrown a fit to be invited though, so there was no backing out now.  

We arrived at the Antares around 10:30 a.m. after a quick trip to west marine to buy Freddie some new sailing gloves and shoes. In hindsight what we really needed was some waterproof pants. We quickly found the Cal 40 and began to meet the crew as they arrived.

We cast off around 11:30 as our start time was at 12:05. We motored for very little time before putting up the sails. It's amazing how quickly things get done with a full crew. However, I immediately understood why everyone was wearing full foul weather gear. The cold waves immediately came crashing over the boat as we passed Kemah Boardwalk. The water started at the bow but ran like a river down the side of the boat. Of course me and Freddie are sitting on the rail as ballast and had a stream of cold water instantly soaking the butt of our jeans.  

The sail boats circled around under sail near the start line. It felt like we were fish in a bucket. Boats were narrowly missing us on either side. Some people were playing chicken with other boats. I guess these racers have a love for danger that I will never understand.

Finally the first leg of the race kicked off. It was a broad reach, and we were gaining on a lot of boats. I couldn't believe how much the boat was tipping, or how fast we were going. It's amazing to be so close to so many other sailboats. It's interesting to see the different strategies. Some people heel over so far I swear I could almost see their keel.  

After a yelling countdown from the captain we turned the first marker, an abandoned oil platform, and the crew was already putting the spinnaker up. Our giant orange sail was quite the sight to see. They are so light weight, and seeing them put up with such ease makes me want to try it. Although I don't know that it has any practical use for cruising. Maybe a screecher is more of what I want. 

On the last leg of the race we were close hauling with the boat tipped as far over as she would go when we hear a thud, and the captain yells "I've lost steering!  Let the sails loose!" Everyone started to panic in what can best be described as a Chinese fire drill. First the crew manning the sails lets them completely out so as to slow the boat down. Then another crew member jumps down into the cabin to inspect to see what the problem with the steering is. Meanwhile someone else is emptying out the lazarette looking for the emergency tiller. Lawn chairs and cushions are being passed around the boat frantically. Meanwhile someone produces the emergency tiller from the cabin and we all wonder why we emptied the lazarette in the first place and begin putting everything back. Before they even get the tiller in place they are already trimming the sails back up and bringing the boat back up to speed.  

After drifting around, the only way for us to go was directly through the lines of boats that had been behind us. We had right of way and just sailed right through the column at full speed. The skipper was yelling "starboard" as we went through, and no doubt the other boats cursed as they had to let out sails and slow down trying to avoid hitting us. We had one more tack and we were on our way to the finish line.

Obviously we didn't have very active roles this time out. We mostly added ballast and shot photos -- although we did help take down and stow the kite and occasionally unsnagged a snagged line. Thankfully the "icicle series" did not live up to its name since it was about 60 degrees Saturday. That really helped the wet jeans be less miserable. However, Mary is correct that next time we're wearing different pants.

It was interesting to see the difference in fore deck crew versus cockpit crew. The fore deck guys basically stand up front getting soaked and beat up the entire race. Meanwhile the cockpit crew are sitting back, staying dry, and sipping beers when they're not trimming lines. Hmmm.

Despite losing the steering cable, the Antares still took third in class. Once docked and cleaned up, the end of the race was celebrated with a shot of rum. It's been a long time since I've had straight rum. Mary took one small sip and passed hers on to me. I get the feeling this is a taste we'll have to acquire if we keep racing.

Will we go again next week? The juries still out. It was storming Sunday morning, so I got zero work done on Gimme Shelter this week and the list of repairs is growing. If we want to be making overnight cruises by March when it's warm enough to sleep without a heater, I may have to spend some Saturdays at the dock. We'll just have to see.



  

Welcome 2014

I woke up January 1, 2014 in the same clothes I had been wearing in 2013. My head was pounding, and I decided that meant our New Year's Eve celebration was a success.

I did my best to quietly tiptoe past the others sleeping in Gimme Shelter -- at least as quietly as one can be in a small boat with two dogs that are extremely excited about taking their first walk of 2014.

Our celebration hadn't been anything fancy. We just hung out on Pier 7 of Watergate Yachting Center with our neighbors on the Tina Marie and our new next-door neighbor with a Beneteau 39. We rang in the new year with two guitars, bongos, a tambourine and some magical vocal harmonies followed by a champagne toast.

Oh yeah, and the fireworks ...

Although they went off at 10 p.m. (I guess Tillman Fertitta celebrates on Greenland time?) we watched the Kemah Boardwalk fireworks exploding over Clear Lake Shores. It wasn't quite as magical as when we anchor out to watch them, but we did have an excellent view from our pier, and since we weren't bobbing around I could actually set up a tripod and catch some long exposures.

I was reflecting on 2013 as I walked the dogs around the marina. It was an exciting year. Our voyage to Offats Bayou aboard the Seahorse in March was the first trip we'd taken past Redfish Island and by the end of April we'd sold the Seahorse and bought Gimme Shelter. We also made our first trips to Double Bayou and Haborwalk. We re-plumbed toilets, we faced storms, we ran into submerged objects. It was exciting stuff.

Christmas brought Mary a new inflatable PFD with a built in harness, so that she can't pull a Natalie Woods on me. Santa also brought me a new electric screwdriver to replace the one I lost overboard, and a fuel level sender, so we'll actually know how much diesel we have in the tank. That will be the first project of 2014 -- quickly followed by the replacement of the  refrigerator lid, which seems to have rotted out and fallen off after it iced up and frozen shut back in November.

Of course, the boat repair list for 2014 will be just as long as it was in 2013 as we're going to need a bottom job this spring, and we're definitely installing air conditioning this year. At some point I also have to suck it up and climb the mast to fix the anchor light. 

Although 2013 was exciting, there were still a few resolutions that I never accomplished. My resolution for both 2012 and 2013 was to learn to use a spinnaker. I just never had enough crew and the right weather conditions to make it happen on the Seahorse, and Gimme Shelter doesn't have a spinnaker. However, we're kicking off 2014 in a big way by reporting for duty on Saturday as crew for the Antares for the first race of the Icicle Series. It will be our first time racing, so we hope to learn some new tips and tricks that will make sailing Gimme Shelter easier. Maybe we'll even get to fly a spinnaker.

Going cheap and getting burned

I always get on to Mary about planning and taking logical steps -- not jumping into purchases before we have measurements, not sending out wedding invitations before we have a set date and location -- that kind of thing.

When we bought Gimme Shelter, the mid-ship Bomar hatch had a cracked lens and was leaking. It's been on the never-ending to-do list but didn't take priority until I ended up sleeping under the hatch in the rain and realized just how badly it was leaking. That's about the same time we realized the leak was also seeping into the headliner and warping it. It was time to move it to the top of the list.

I DID take measurements before I started. Unfortunately I only measured the length and width of the hatch, not the thickness of the acrylic lens.

Honestly, I was a little excited when I started this project because I thought, hey, this is going to be cheap because I can just use stuff from Home Depot instead of having to buy ridiculously priced boat parts to fix this.

Off I went to Home Depot and grabbed the only smoked acrylic they had in stock, which was only $25. I scored it and snapped it to the size we needed and then proceeded to cut the old lens free, so I could trace and cut the rounded corners. Everything was going to plan.

Once I removed the old lens, I immediately noticed it was much thicker than I had estimated. I weighed the pros and cons of replacing it with a thinner lens and decided that while the thinner one may crack sooner, if it lasts a year, it was worth it and we'd have the leak stopped, so let's just be cheap and progress with the project.

The first setback came when my dremel tool died after rounding just two corners. It was a really hot day and the tool was even hotter, so it wouldn't charge when I set it on the charger. I could have gone and bought a new corded dremel, but I was being cheap and didn't really want to have to go buy new tools for this project.

I got impatient and grabbed the jig saw. I was rounding the last corner when a big chunk snapped out of the plexi. Time to start over.

I carefully measured and scored another piece. Unfortunately, the snapping didn't go so well.

I was down to the last portion of my sheet large enough to make a new hatch. I decided scoring and snapping this one was too risky, so I began cutting it with the somewhat charged dremel. It died again. I let it charge another half hour and then got another five minutes out of it. After suffering in the heat all afternoon my neighbor loaned me his corded dremel and within 10 minutes I finally had a correctly cut sheet of plexi. Why didn't I just save myself a ton of frustration and go buy a new dremel in the first place?

Once the lens was cut, I rummaged through the toolbox and grabbed a very old tube of silicone, unplugged it with a drill bit and used that to seat the lens. Why did I use old silicone?

The next morning I stopped by West Marine to see what kind of UV protected silicone they had for the outer bead. The cheapest stuff was $16, so I went back to Home Depot and grabbed some indoor/outdoor waterproof window silicone for $3. The cheap disease had me in a death grip at this point. I was going to get this lens replaced for less than $30 and then brag about it over beers for at least the next two weekends!

Mary took time to mask off the lens, so our outer silicone bead would look nice.

I then went to town with the white silicone around the edges and did my best to get it into a nice smooth bead. It didn't look half bad.

One last job remained -- screwing the hatch dogs back onto the lens.

One problem -- the lens was too thin to snug the dogs up.

(As an aside, Bomar has a horrible latch design. These sort of mushroom shaped stoppers stick down through the hatch on a very small O-ring and then the handle screws onto them. Then the entire piece turns. It's like a third grader engineered it. In fact I called their customer service department to ask if they had an updated design because cinching down an O-ring when you still need it loose enough to turn is never going to be a great seal. The Bomar lady on the phone got pretty defensive and said if the O-rings on a hatch that was 31 years old were leaking, that certainly couldn't be considered a design flaw and I just need to do proper maintenance. I'm just going to say that the dogs on the Lewmar port on my Starwind sealed on the outside and only turned internally, so there was no chance of a leak ever. They could also be tightened or loosened. In other words, Lewmar actually engineered a real solution, they didn't just poke a stick through the hatch lens and call it good.)

We'd spent Sunday morning cruising through other marinas in our friends dinghy and showing off the pool of the new place, so at this point it was late Sunday afternoon. Once again it was super hot, and we were starting to get pressured for time.

I made a run to West Marine for large washers that I could shim the latches with. Now they DEFINITELY weren't going to be water proof, but maybe I could at least get them tight enough to lock the boat.

I think it was during my second attempt to install the latches that the unthinkable suddenly happened. I tipped up the latch for a better angle, and the lens fell out of the frame.

Yes, the super old silicone from my toolbox that I'd applied the previous day completely failed to hold the lens in the frame. I managed to grab it before it fell completely out and got white silicone on everything, but the damage was done. It was at this point I began cursing, and I'm not sure poor little Tex will ever be the same after hearing the things I said to the boat.

I calmed down, I gummed the lens back down in the frame and squished the white silicone back into place -- destroying the nice bead -- and I left.

Mary wanted to tarp up the boat in case it rained, but I just didn't care. I wanted to go home. I was tired of that hatch. I was tired of plexiglass. I was tired of silicone that didn't cure. I was tired of the horrible latches that only fit one particular thickness of plexiglass. And above all, I was super mad that I had been so cheap and muddled through this project instead of being patient and buying the correct tools and supplies for the job.

This morning I ordered a sheet of 1/4" acrylic for $36 and a tube of black Dow Corning 791 for $15. I'm also going to go pick up a new corded Dremel for $50.

Instead of telling stories about how I replaced my window for only $30, I'll repeat my cautionary tale about how I once went cheap, ruining an entire weekend, just to end up spending all the money I should have in the first place.

Destination Review: Harborwalk, Hitchcock, Texas

After passing beneath the Galveston Causeway, if you head west along the ICW you'll find Harborwalk Marina in Hitchcock, Texas. www.harborwalk.com

The marina suffered major damage from Hurricane Ike and just re-opened with newly renovated facilities in 2013. 

We were able to reserve a slip two weeks in advance with no problem, but there were quite a few transient boaters staying the weekend. 

Slip fees were $75 a night with electric and water hook-ups. The marina boasts a pool, an outdoor bar, a restaurant, a ship store with sandwich shop, a bait shop, gas docks and supposedly pump out facilities although I never got a clear answer on where they were and if we could use them, so don't count on being able to pump out there.

On paper and in the photos, it seems great. Unfortunately, Harborwalk really let us down.

We had a rough sail with strong headwinds, so we didn't arrive until near 5 p.m. on a Saturday. The pool bar stayed open to make us one strawberry daiquiri, but then closed up for the night. At that point Floyd's restaurant was the only thing left open, and with 30 or so boaters waiting for tables as well as a steady stream of locals, there was an hour wait to be seated.

Some of our friends opted to place an order for carry out, so they could eat back on the boat, but they were greatly disappointed with quality of food -- think Chilis quality but at $25 an entree.

Although very willing to pay Harborwalk prices for drinks, we were left without a bar, so we spent the evening sitting in the pavilion drinking the beer we brought, playing guitars and getting eat alive by some of the biggest mosquitoes I've ever seen. 

Harborwalk is built in a swamp with standing water everywhere. Our Deep Woods Off and citronella candles didn't even seem to phase the swarms of mosquitoes.

Normally, this would have been a great evening despite all the mosquitoes, but there was a tension in the air over the fact that we had brought our own coolers. Was it allowed? Was it not allowed? As I said, we were perfectly willing to buy our drinks from Harborwalk, but weren't given the opportunity.

All evening there were also locals pulling up in small motorboats that would just tie up to the dock and then stand beside their boats drinking beer and smoking cigarettes with their stereos cranked up as loud as they could get them to play while shouting to one another over the music -- incredibly annoying. 

Sunday morning we went over to the ship store to pay for our slip rental and then went to the pool to enjoy the water for an hour or two before heading back to Kemah. Unfortunately, a security guard promptly showed up to tell us that we couldn't swim in the pool unless we were members. We calmly explained that we had paid for slips and those were our boats tied up right in front of the pool. He then said we need wrist bands to be in the pool and once again insisted we get out. You know, it would have been nice of the guy in the ship store who took our slip rental money to give us wrist bands or even mention wrist bands in any way. 

At this point I was just fed up with the attitude of the staff and with whole place in general, so instead of walking back to the ship store to get wrist bands we decided to start the trip back to Kemah.

Harborwalk
Hours: 9-5, Mon-Sat, 10-5 Sunday
1445 Harborwalk Blvd, Hitchcock, Texas 77563
Toll free 866-435-8777 or local 409-935-3737

Harborwalk gets a big thumbs down. I've never felt more unwelcome for $75 a night.

Dead batteries, dead bodies

It was a rough Friday at Marina Del Sol.

July 4th, Gimme Shelter had left us stranded, batteries flat-lined after only four hours at anchor. Thankfully that $169 annual membership to SeaTow finally paid off. It just took a phone call, and we had a SeaTow boat there with jumper cables.  The only bad thing about SeaTow is that both times we called there was at least an hour wait, but to be fair, tow trucks aren't very fast either.  

The Universal kicked right over, and we were back in business. The alternator was putting out a strong 14 volts, so I knew one of the three batteries was the culprit.

The weekend finally came to resolve the battery issue. I wasn't looking forward to it for three reasons, there would be no air-conditioning while I had to power off to remove the batteries, the batteries are heavy as hell, and there's a huge mess of wires to deal with.  Luckily we have been having some unseasonably cool temps due to a week of rain although the humidity has still been pretty rough.  

 On my last boat, everything was wired to the fuse panel, and then there were only the battery selector and charger cables attached to the batteries themselves. I did my best to note which wires went where. On two batteries the black and yellow wires were negative. However, the third battery had a positive yellow lead and a red ground wire. Stuff like that drives me nuts.

It took me about half an hour to document the wiring and remove the three batteries. Then I carted them over to West Marine where not one, but two of these Deep Cycle dual purpose batteries tested bad. $350 later I was once again sweating buckets as I re-sorted the wiring and hooked everything back up.  The dogs and I just sat in the boat and sweated.

Mission accomplished. It was time for a couple cold beers and the Kemah Friday night fireworks. Everyone was in great spirits. Then I walked up to the car.  You left out the part where you were dancing hysterically to Katy Perry during the fireworks. My personal favorite part of the evening :).  

"Pssst, hey! Look at all the cops," whispered Big Jim, one of the Marina Del Sol live-aboards, as I walked past his boat in the dark.

I looked up the hill and sure enough, there were eight police officers in the backyard of one of the houses.

"They pulled a body out of the pool," he continued in a hushed but urgent tone.

I then noticed the knee of the body sticking up, just visible over the edge of the hill. I frantically began texting everyone down on F dock, "THERE'S A DEAD BODY OVER HERE!" as Big Jim told the story. I'm probably paraphrasing a bit, but here's his story as best I can remember:

The guy came home and turned all the lights on, and he turned the big TV on that you can see through the window, and he was in the house for a while. Then he comes outside and he says, "Bobby!" Then he dials his phone, and he yelled "Shut up" at somebody like he dialed the wrong number, and he redials 911 and says he needs police, and within two minutes the police were here. Then he jumped in the pool and pulled out the body, and now they're walking around shining flashlights on everything.

It wasn't long before my text messages and the flashing lights started drawing the rest of the marina over to E dock. Jim kept retelling his story, but my friend Matt's boat was just a couple slips down, and it has steps all the way up the mast. Normally, I would never board someone else's boat, but we needed a better look at this situation. Being down the hill was obscuring the view of everything.  I know Matt would have understood the need.

I texted Matt a pre-apology for getting on his boat and then ascended the mast. Here's the scene that unfolded in front of me.

Two officers were standing beside the pool with the body while others were in the house and one came down to the dock to start looking for witnesses.

If the drowning victim's name was actually Bobby, it would have been Bobbi -- because the victim was definitely a fully-clothed woman.

Some of the residents of these palatial homes that border the marina have boats in the marina, but it's very rare that any of them ever mingle with those of us without homes. As I talked to one of the officers who was looking for witnesses, I realized that despite walking past this house up to a dozen times each weekend for the past four years, I have no idea who lives there or even what they look like. Their tragedy had now become our sideshow.

I also realized that the poor drowned woman could have been floating in the pool all three times I'd already walked past the house that day going back and forth to the car, but you can't actually see the pool from the bottom of the hill, so there was no way to know or help.

Once we tired of staring, we all returned to the boats, but of course, the dead body continued to be the main topic of conversation for the rest of the weekend with speculation running wild as to accidental death versus suicide versus foul play.

I've been watching the news, but I still haven't come across anything regarding the incident.

This morning as I walked back to the car thinking about how you couldn't even make up the kind of constant drama occurring in Marina Del Sol, I came across this guy floating beside E-dock.

I've never seen a jelly quite like that in the marina before, and it's the first one I've seen at all this year.

We had planned to go sailing and test the new batteries, but instead we packed it in and came home.  Next weekend will be our longest trip yet in any boat, and we are pretty excited.  Hopefully we can remember all of our sailing lessons, and it will go a little smoother than our last trip.