Power, or the conservation of energy

I am sure that my good wife Lynne will admit if pressed that I can be a bit of an obsessive.

My obsession of choice this month is power and how to conserve it while being away from a friendly recharge point in a marina.

Digging around in Dark Tarns many lockers is not only an education it is also for me at least an admission that some years ago I had exactly the same thought and followed it up right up to the point where I should have climbed the mast.

I offer the following.

This is a replacement for the 25 watt masthead tricolour bulb, it draws about 3.5 watts and lights up like this............

Totally waterproof and good for 50,000 hours. I have also saved 21.5 watts, assuming I am prepared to climb the mast and replace the existing bulb. Dark Tarn has at least one other 25 watt navigation light and a couple of 10 watt ones. So tomorrow I will remove all the navigation light bulbs and order replacement LED bulbs. Obviously this will need a trip up the mast however this will mean saving up to  4.5 amps every hour we are at sea, assuming the nav lights are on obviously, in the case of an Atlantic crossing could be 20+ days, x 10 hours of darkness, that is a lot of amps.......

The wind generator could easily cope with the reduced power demands if all the navigation lights were LEDs

So I know what I'm about come the morning...........

More tinkering

When we first came through the sea-lock to Newry, seems like ages ago now. Kieran the lock keeper and his young assistant were handling the lines ashore ( the dock being about 25ft deep) as Kieran began to fill the lock the back suction began to force Dark Tarn towards the upstream lock gates. At this point Kieran on the bow line locked off the line and his young assistant on the stern line did.....nothing. This is exactly the opposite and wrong thing to do.

  Dark Tarn surged forward and as the bow line came as tight as a guitar string the slack stern line allowed her bow to career in towards the lock wall with an horrendous crash.

  Needless to say, Dark Tarn is incredibly strong and the only visible damage was a slight inward bend in the bow roller cheek, only about 3-4 mm but enough to prevent the roller from, well, rolling.

  It has also been driving me mad trying to think of a way to fix it, I bought a large lump hammer and hit it a lot, Zip, nada, nothing.

 I decided to use the lump hammer to hit a tapered piece of wood in between the cheeks of the roller in order to force them apart and free the roller. Didn't budge a millimetre.

Occasionally I would broach the subject with other boat owners, " you need a hydraulic jack" , they said, unfortunately they don't make 2 inch car jacks otherwise I would have bought one!

" you need a welding torch, heat it up and hit it with a hammer", we only have an arc welder on board.

  I resorted to a technique which has worked for me before, I sulked at it, occasionally glaring in its direction............that didn't work. It sat defiantly bent and firmly not rolling

After four months it's fixed! I bought a large nut and bolt, M20 if your interested. I then cut the bolt down to just under the width of the bow roller, this took two hacksaw blades to accomplish. Then with Lynnes assistance ( definitely a four hands job) the nut was run onto the bolt the whole thing placed between the cheeks of the roller and with our two biggest adjustable spanners we  unscrewed the nut back up the bolt thus expanding the 6mm steel plates of the roller cheeks. I placed a finger on the roller and it turned freely. So simple, and for a total cost of 90p.

Optimus 157 paraffin stove, " Batspis"

I record here verbatim Mike " the Stove" s answer to an e-mail request for help in fixing, or should I say basic maintainance of our much loved paraffin stove. Namely replacing the graphite packing around the control spindle and reassembling the needle valve etc. for the oven burner. Now if you were born circa 1938 this would really be grist to your mill, but for me it's a bit more complicated. There are no instruction books  around for this particular model of stove, built in Scandinavia, I believe Denmark " Batspis" literally means boat stove in Danish. So I am forced to rely on that wonder of the age, the Internet. Thank God people like Mike exist.

 Hello again, 

1). Place the control knob on the spindle with an obvious mark at the top, (or mark the knob with a dot of paint).

2).Turn the control knob so the dot is now at the bottom.

3). Carefully push the point of the cleaning needle into the end of a matchstick.

4). Position the needle in the hole in the burner, ensuring the rack on the needle faces the right way to engage in the spindle.

5). Gently rest a finger on top of the matchstick and return the control knob to off and the dot is back to the top. The needle will wind down into the hole in the burner.

6). Before reassembly check that the stove is turning off by putting four or five strokes on the pump. Watch at the hole in the burner, no fuel should 'well' up.

7). Replace nipple and burner caps, stove is ready to pre-heat and use.

If fuel wells up at (6) above, (stove turned off, needle only fitted), the needle is still one tooth too low causing the needle to foul the bottom of the burner before the tapered spindle has shut off the fuel.

Release pressure wind out needle and retime from (3) above.

 

Regards,

Mike 'the Stove'
e-mail spares@base-camp.co.ukwww.base-camp.co.uk
The largest U.K. supplier of spares for
kerosene stoves & lanterns.
Try us first!

 Needless to say, those carefully described instructions saw the burner working beautifully and Lynne celebrated by creating a lovely shepherds pie.

Which got me to thinking.................

Our Stove suits me because I hate gas on a boat, it is a risky and dangerous fuel and the only reason it has become so universal is because it's convenient. Which is not to say it's safe which it isn't. Gas is heavier than air and will inevitably sink into the bilges and be an explosion hazard.

However as well as being safer our 25 year old cooker has another trick up its sleeve, it's repairable. Hence, and thanks to Mike, we have a small box, full of even smaller parts like the aforementioned graphite packing, along with washers ( fibre and aluminium ) circlips, needle valves, nipple jets, burner caps etc. necessary tools like nipple spanners and prickers, which even now have Lynne in hysterics!

In some way it also reminds me of catch 22, and the character of Orr who built a little stove with impossibly small parts so Yossarian would be warm in his tent while Orr was paddling his liferaft to Sweden.

Getting back to reality, with Mike " the stove" s help I am now more confident in stripping and rebuilding our cooker. It's very satisfying to repair something, I feel I have moved on from being a " user", however still have some way to go before I can claim to be an "enthusiast", I'm somewhere along that line though. Still a long way from Mikes "guru" status!

Jobs, jobs, jobs

A delightful change in the weather ( thank you high pressure ) meant that Lynne could get over her woman flu and spend some time outside, she busied herself with one of those round tuit jobs that seem to accumulate. One of these days I'll get a round tuit! In this case it was stencilling our name and MMSI number on the life buoys.

I pretended to be still thinking about the liferaft location on deck.

Another period of settled weather and we will have to drill and fix permanently, along with the securing straps and HRU, ( hydrostatic release unit )

Meanwhile Lynne did a great job of the stencilling, this isn't for decoration it helps the authority's to trace the owners and vessel the lifebouy belongs to in the event it has been deployed and lost. It can avoid false alarms and resources being wasted on a fruitless search.

Our neighbour Nicky decided to have a trip to the sea-lock and back and we chatted while I helped with his lines about drying out in Carlingford harbour in the spring for a scrub off and anti foul. Nicky is going to show me exactly where to dry out against the harbour wall,and will also lend us a petrol power washer thus neatly avoiding the £450 hauling out costs at the marina. An important consideration for us being on a budget. Also very much a learning experience for me never having done it before.

Nickys boat ' Freebird ' returning from a trip down the canal. A lovely winters day. As the sun dropped low and we fell into shadow we retired below for tea and scones with cream and jam. We are going to need to go on a diet come the spring!

Inheritance

A few weeks ago as is my usual habit I messaged Dark Tarns previous owner with yet another small enquiry as to the ins and outs of our boat. At this point it is important to understand that boats are one offs, a never to be repeated collection of fudges fits and fixes. A bit like people in that they are all, with the exception of mass produced AWBs, ( average white boats ) unique. Hence the calls to Chris, he was if you like Dark Tarns second father, responsible for the best part of twenty years of modifications and improvements. The particular enquiry regarded the spinnaker pole up haul arrangement. A not crucial enquiry but really a chance for a chat. My text was not answered.

  Wandering back along the Quays last night I was pondering Chris's lack of a reply and I decided to be very rude and phone him up.

  I was surprised to be speaking to a stranger who happened to be in Chris's house, of course it wasn't a stranger but Chris's brother.

  Chris had become ill around the first of January with a recurrent bout of an up until then dormant chest infection. He had spent the remaining time in hospital and died on Saturday evening, that would be the 1st of February.

   I was speaking to Chris's brother while looking at Dark Tarn, speaking of Dark Tarn, explaining that we were the new owners. He remembered Chris speaking of me, and our delivery trip, he then went on to explain how Chris had put so much of himself into the boat, I could only agree then looking at our boat sitting calmly at rest, I wondered how much of her had died along with Chris. I quickly realised that far from that, Chris lived in every small lined up screw head and the very fabric of her. He would forever be a part of her story.

Chris Hall, a lovely man and a beautiful human being. Chief scientist, wonderful fastidious custodian of Dark Tarn. We will miss you.

A part of you will forever voyage with us.

Boat sitting

The schooner ' Soteria's owner Vicky is visiting friends and family in the canaries so I have been drafted in as boat sitter.

Soteria is on the left, the other boat is Silvery Light. My responsibilities largely involve pumping these elderly ladies bilges and maintaining their batteries. Due to the local councils recent dictates around electrical supplies this involves a degree of swopping supply cables.

   This morning proved to be exceptionally cold, with a freezing mist hanging around most of the day and ice forming in the canal. I fell into conversation ( if you stay still in Ireland for longer than two minutes this is an inevitable consequence) with Gerry, Shining Lights owner. He was explaining his plans to restore the boat by means of a lottery grant. I wish him well, these lovely ladies need to be seen and more importantly used.

   Soterias future is far from clear, I would love to see her once again cruising the Canary Islands under full sail. I suspect Vicky is using her time away to think about possible futures.

   I must admit when I am in Soterias cosy saloon, I wish the wood could speak, I bet it has some great stories to tell!

She is similar to a boat I know well and have sailed aboard for a time, the ' Spirit of Fairbridge' also a boat which is used to mould and influence young people in a positive direction. In Soterias case this is very much a Christian ethic.

   However for a few weeks at least I bestride the decks and imagine myself shipping copra from the outer islands or even dodging pirates in the Sumatra straits.....

Now if I only knew someone with a parrot who needed looking after...............

Here are a few photos that remind me of happy times aboard ' Spirit of Fairbridge'

Spirit at Portavadie in the Clyde.

A Cracking sail!

A peaceful evening at anchor in Loch Fyne. The bosun on anchor watch.

   

Preventers

More thinking of future sailing, up to now Lynne and I have very casually rigged an ad hoc boom preventer to avoid or ' prevent' the boom crashing across the boat when sailing down wind. On one notable occasion this meant Lynne having kittens watching me leap around on deck in horrible waves, suffice to say she wasn't happy with this display of macho bravado!

  Crossing oceans in the trade winds will require a different approach, a bit more considered taking into account that downwind sailing will be the norm rather than hammering upwind in a gale or motoring through flakey headwinds or non existent breezes. A couple of years ago I was lucky enough to be able to sail aboard one of the BT Challenge boats that raced around the world, 72 foot steel racing machines. They had permanently rigged preventers so I thought a bit and adapted and expounded on the original idea.

The basic theory is that it should be possible to rig a boom preventer without having to stand up at full stretch attempting to catch the end of the boom on the 'downhill'  side of the boat, a potential disaster!

A look at my very bad sketch should make some points clear.

  The basic idea is that we will have two permanently rigged lines on the boom, one port the other starboard. We also have a line on deck rigged from a block forward to somewhere adjacent to the mast. This will run back to a third winch on the port side to tension the preventer. From the base of the mast and safely secured It will be possible to attach the deck line with a bowline knot to the boom line, this will be a very strong Dyneema rope with a breaking strain of around three tons, it also being Dyneema doesn't absorb water. This is actually quite important when big swells mean you are dipping the boom in the water. All this should be safely accomplished from a secure position at the base of the mast rather than any ariel gymnastics balanced on the edge of the boat.

I think this a very important modification, so important I am going to get riggers to do the splices as I have no experience of splicing Dyneema ( this stuff is stronger than steel, as long as the splices are good ).

Apparently there are over twenty casualties a year from being struck on the head from the boom or associated tackle. As we are essentially short handed permanently we need to look after ourselves and make the whole process of rigging a preventer safe and easy. I'll post a picture when it's done!