Chainplate progress

Well, Everlasting Moon is out of the water and 4 of the 6 chainplates are off.....and one kind of fell apart as it was removed. Crevice corrosion caused by what must have been a small leak around the cap weakened the stainless steel and the top flange of the reinforcing angle splintered as soon as a little pressure was put on.

The chainplate design on the Endeavour 32 is pretty stout, with the chainplate assembly made up of an angle that bolts through the hull and nestles underneath the toe rail, and the chainplate is welded to the support angle with a gusset at the attachment point. Here's a sketch of the assembly (copied from Roger Long's website.....Cruising on Strider - 2011WinterProjects)

In the photo below you are looking at the top of the (starboard side forward lower) chainplate reinforcing angle and the chainplate is projecting up toward you out of the picture. The corner that cracked off is really brittle, and I don't think it would have taken much force on the stay under sail to separate the chainplate from the angle at the weld. Glad that didn't happen out on the ocean in a blow!




The other chainplates didn't look quite this bad, but I decided to go ahead and have the folks at Sunshine Welding make all new chainplate assemblies, along with the backstay chainplate. Better to play it safe and replace them all at once shot.

While Moon is out of the water and on the hard she's also getting a bottom job, buff and wax on the topsides, and all of her thru-hulls and seacocks serviced.

 

 

Camilla at Mermaid Marine Services is taking care of everything, and she does an awesome job. I don't have any stake in the business, but I would give her a strong recommendation for anyone on Space Coast looking to have work done on their boat.

Hopefully the weather will cooperate and we can get the work done and Moon back in the water in about two weeks. I'll try to get a few pics of the new chainplates before they go in.

Once she's back in the water it will be time to re-tune all of the rigging, service the engine, and get her provisioned and ready to sail down to Fort Lauderdale in April. That's gonna be a hoot - bro Pat and Zeke are coming down to crew and we are hoping to get over to West End on the way if the weather is favorable.

Time for some chow. Later......

Chainplate craziness

Hey friends - doing a little maintenance stuff on the boat to get her ready to sail from Merritt Island down to her new home in Fort Lauderdale in April, and have run across an unexpected little mystery / project that needs tending-to.

I've noticed some rust on the outside of the hull for a while, and have put off checking it out. This morning, having some time on my hands I decided to spend a little time on it. The main source of the rust streaks on the hull is the little speck on this picture between the two starboard aft lower chainplate though-bolts:

Really odd....the chainplate on the inside is an angle with a flat surface against the hull, so not sure what could be sticking through the hull like this unless the chainplate inside is really rusted.

So - let's pull the trim off the inside of the boat and see what we find there:

Great - the builders globbed a crapload of sealant all over the plates, on the inside of the boat. Protecting the stainless from condensation?

After 30 minutes or so of work to dig through the glop, the chainplate is starting to appear:

After another 30 minutes the chainplate is fully exposed, and there's no indication of what could be poking through to the outside. Dadgummit. The plate looks pretty good - don't like the rust on that one bolt, though.

Guess it would do to expose the others to see how they look now that I'm this far into it....here's the starboard upper:

Wow - this one doesn't look so good. Not good at all. Double dadgummit.

Time to remove the rest of the interior panels to expose the other plates. May as well replace all of these at one shot and be certain they aren't going to fail, and while I've got the underside of the side decks exposed I can remove and re-bed the lifeline stanchions. And see what that little speck of metal is that's sticking through the hull that caused all this investigation in the first place.

I'll be having the boat hauled in a few weeks for a bottom job and hopefully if I do all the work to expose the chainplates from the inside the rigger can get them off and replaced fairly quickly.

Stay tuned for more!



UNTIE THE LINES - a weekly solo sailing documentary (Trailer)

Hey friends......wanted to share this link to another interesting sailing video, or series of videos, actually, about the sailing life and fixing up an old boat for voyaging. Girl Power rocks!

Adding to infinity = -1/12

My first memory of bumping into the idea of infinity is from a geometry class in grade school where we were learning about lines and rays. Teacher took us through the idea of lines and rays, explaining that a line continues without end in both directions, while a ray, of course, is fixed at one end and continues without end in the other direction.

Then Teacher asked us which was longer.

I still puzzle over how infinity can be so simple and so irrational at the same time.

Bro Jim left a copy of The Elegant Universe at the house after being here for the Big Game, and I've enjoyed browsing through it and reading the progression of unification theories vying to resolve the sibling rivalry between relativity and quantum mechanics. The book focuses on String theory, with the author's awesome descriptions of  messenger particles, 11-dimensional supergravity, and the myserious M-theory. The book is over a decade old, and I would assume a lot of progress has been made in pushing the envelope of human understanding of the physics that describe the makeup and behavior of the universe since it was first published. The progressive march of human understanding of the world carries on impressively, although I wonder sometimes how far along the infinite path to total enlightenment we have really gotten.

Admiring the view of the full moon setting in the western sky during my drive in to work this morning I was reminded of another childhood brush with the infinite in the form of a rambling, drunken, and apparently brilliant math professor who lived down the street from us. We grew up in a small college town in Alabama, and although this was normally a pretty quiet southern town you never really knew who or what you may see on the street at any given time because the college attracted such a wide range of characters. One of those characters was our neighborhood math prof who would routinely be seen wobbling down the sidewalk, beer in hand, a number of dogs and kids trailing behind, mumbling mathematical expressions all the while. He inspired a mix of awe and pure terror in the neighborhood kids, but pretty much just pure disgust in the neighborhood moms.

Relativity in action, huh?

I wonder sometimes if he behaved as crazy as he did because his mind was blown-out trying to get a good grip on infinity and failing, or if he had actually gotten a glimpse of what infinity really is and it was way more than his head could handle.

Anyway, getting back to purpose of this post, I was looking for information online this evening regarding the Goseck Circle, and wandered down a rabbit hole of science and astronomy websites. Along the way, I found this little video that shows how adding all of the natural numbers from one to infinity equals -1/12

Who would have guessed?


Crazy out.

Good Short Fiction

Here's a very nice short story I chanced upon in a random jog through blogland this evening: Men Have Names

Sailing the dream - the video

A friend shot me an e-mail today with a link to a series of youtube videos titled "Sailing the Dream".....seeing the title on my post yesterday apparently reminded him of the charming story this old sailor tells of building a boat from scratch and sailing it with some friends from Canada to the Virgin Islands. Very cool stuff.....

Sailing the Dream - Part 1

Sailing the Dream - Part 2

Sailing the Dream - Part 3

Sailing the Dream - Part 4

Sailing the Dream

Yesterday was rainy and windy here in Merritt Island, with little squalls blowing through in the afternoon and a small craft advisory issued. I had a nice, lively sail in the Banana River, and contemplated going through the lock and bouncing around offshore in the afternoon but opted for tossing out the anchor, having some lunch, and taking a nap instead.

There is nothing more tranquilizing for me than the gentle motion of Moon swinging on her anchor and bobbing in the swell. Dozing on the port settee I soaked in the sounds of the wind in the rigging, waves lapping on the hull and seabirds in the air, and dreamed of secluded anchorages in
far off tropical islands.......

Zeke kicked down a copy of  An Embarrassment of Mangoes as a gift recently, and after my luxurious and way long nap I enjoyed reading that couple's accounts of quitting their jobs, buying an old sailboat, and traveling from Canada to the Caribbean. Their story is in parts heartwarming and sobering, as Ann, who narrates the book, doesn't shy away from including the incidents where things go wrong on the journey and the doubts and fears that she and her husband Steve deal with during the process of deciding to ditch their successful careers and do something different with their lives. It's a great read, and, enjoyably, the narrative includes a lot of detail about the food they enjoy along the way and includes a bunch of recipes for the local specialties they encounter.

And now, after a peaceful night at anchor I am enjoying a hot cup of coffee in the cockpit, watching a chilly morning breeze push a light chop across the river. A pot of grits is simmering on the stove, and soon there will be a cheese and chorizo omelette in the works. We still have the small craft advisory, so after breakfast I'll have to choose between getting some exercise offshore or taking a more relaxed tack by staying in the River. Either way, not a bad way to spend a Sunday.....just wish you could be here too!

Work - Life balance

At our annual manager's meeting a few weeks ago the boss showed us a TED talk video (click here!) by Nigel Marsh about work - life balance, and in his talk he made a couple of points that stuck with me.....one being that corporations, even the good ones, are geared to suck every last bit of time and energy they can from their employees, and the other is that it is up to each individual to define where the line needs to fall between work and the rest of your life.

Not revolutionary stuff, by any means, but I was surprised that this was the focus of a corporate manager's meeting, even though I definitely work for one of the good ones.

I've been struggling with that a bit lately, with way more focus on the work side of the equation, so, despite being way behind on a number of important commitments, I took the opportunity to enjoy a marvelous day on the water with some friends from B-dock today. Larry took his Westsail 32 out with his friend Steve, James took his Westsail 32 out by himself, and Roger skippered his gorgeous Bristol 32 by himself. The day was sunny, high in the low 80s, light breeze in the 5 knot range most of the afternoon.

I wish you all could have been here, but since you weren't, here are a couple of pics....all from cell phones so the quality is kinda iffy:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I enjoyed a cheeseburger with the guys at the marina restaurant after getting the boats situated, and now I'm typing this by the glow of the lamps in the salon on Moon, enjoying a glass of Madeira and the sounds of fish jumping outside and a light breeze tinkling the rigging on the nearby boats.

 

Thanksgiving in Asheville next week is going to be awesome, and then it will be back to the grindstone in a big way with new projects starting up and a few others winding down.....

 

Peace out friends.

Sailing Alone Around the World - Joshua Slocum (Video)

Got this link from a  friend......interesting background on Slocum and the age of sail he lived in......

Vanishing Sail

Hey friends, check out what looks to be an amazing documentary in the works focusing on the disappearing art of making and sailing wooden workboats in the caribbean.......