Santiago a hot day and were travelling tonight

Today Howard and I have been walking the town looking at the sights, there are some very grand buildings, lots of parks and fountains.  

 Its a seriously hot day by my standards, probably around 35 deg C, and while the humidity is low its warmer than Im comfortable with.  Id have given a lot to be able to strip off and sit alongside these two, but that guy leaning on the pole in the background though that it might not be the best idea.

 One of the many ornate and imposing buildings here, theyre well lit up at night and this part of the city is well worth a walk just to see them.

 There is a park with walk and cycleway right through the city, it runs alongside the river below which is carrying the last of the summer melt from the mountains you can ( just, look hard and youll see them) see in the background.  

Weve changed some money, got packed up and checked out of the hostel BellaVista ( recommended by the way, good place if you like hostels) and are shortly off to catch the overnight bus to Porto Montt. That’s way south, about a 10 hour drive so we’ve booked on an up market bus with lay down seats and more space per passenger.  Yes it has a restroom!

 While walking the town we met some very nice gentlemen, mine is a policeman, Howards was sitting in what might have been a barbers shop.  While his friend was better dressed mine was a bit more active.

In the morning we’ll pick up a Chevy Spark rental, actually a Kia Picanto with a Chevy badge on it, and from there we drive to Punta  Arenas to do more toward the “expedition “  that will happen next Southern Summer.  We need to find storage,  sort things out with customs, find accommodation and check out things like launching and docking facilities for the boat. 

We’ve been told that the drive is something special, there will be pics!

Its really hot today, so I’m in the hostels upstairs courtyard where there is a little breeze, looking over toward the mountains and the cablecar that runs through the zoo.  We’ll check that out when we get back on 23^rd,  its not until 26^th that we fly out so there will be time to do some tourist things after the government things are done.

In which IAZ P boldly sails forth to new adventures

AHOY Mateys, Intrepid Readers, and friends!  I report to you this fine spring day that "I Am Zinea, Pterodactylus" has exchanged sailors in a happy fashion and is southwest bound from New Hampshire to the bustling and exciting 6th boro of New York City.  She is now in the hands of Capn Patrick Danger Danger and his nefarious gang.

Lots of symbolic appropriateness going on in this picture

Oh! Poseidon look kindly on IAZ,Ps new crew! I now shall recite to you this slightly modified age-old Goat Island Skiff plea. Amazing aquatic one, please receive it with benevolence:

May they enjoy fair winds and following seas,
High adventure and times of quiet relaxation,
May they always find the port before the storm,
and may she never abandon her crew in their most dire moment of need. 

Appropriate beverage-esque ceremony to follow.

I am happy to see this happen.

Thank you everyone, for everything.  Too many people to list, so many unknown peoples, it doesnt matter, thank you all.  IAZ,P has been such a wonderful experience in my life.  Please continue to follow GIS Amateur Style as we slowly segue fully into Sea Pearl 21 adventuring with "Scout" who has been featured in several previous posts, such as this one.

HUZZAH
HUZZAH
HUZZAH!!!

Tweaking the rig

I have been sailing twice more.  Both days were beautiful, one was with a good friend, and the other was solo.  I am constantly tweaking the rig and continuing to discuss it here, as I wrestle with sailing this boat solo (she sails great with a crewmember).  Shes kind of beating me up, but in a good learning-curve kind of way.  Each time solo, I understand her better, rig her better, underestimate her less, and am having more and more fun.  Its summer, the water is warm, and now is the time to push it, so I can be safe when further from shore or when the weather goes bad.  This is the time to answer the big questions.

Next week will see some changes to the rig, some slight work done, and hopefully a good day with honking wind to experiment with.

No camera on the past two trips.  Too bad too, I had a great picnic anchored below some towering white pines in a nice breeze on a beautiful summer day.  Next time!

Elan 400 Review

Here is an interesting new yacht from a British designer, Rob Humphreys, and Slovenia based Elan Yachts. The Elan 400 is their latest collaboration and it is indeed a unique boat. It is a racer/cruiser with twin rudders, hard chines and a very distinctive look. Its a look that I find visually quite attractive.

Elan 400: Slovenian Speedster

Lets start by studying the hull. In the plan view, notice that its rather full in the bow at the deck level, fairing into a  moderate beam of 12.69 feet. It carries that beam all the way aft where we find hard chines and a near vertical transom. At 16,500 pounds displacement the Elan 400 has a displacement/length ratio of 141. This is not much lighter than my unabashedly cruisey Beneteau 423, which has a D/L ratio 154. But coupled with a sail area/displacement ratio of 21.1, the Elan will be much quicker in all conditions than my slightly underpowered Beneteau, which has a SA/D of only about 16.0.  With these data points, its clear that the Elan is a pretty sporty ride, but what about those chines and the twin rudders? Do they offer any meaningful advantages or are they there merely for style? Starting with the chines, I would say that they do little, if anything, for performance.  Dont get me wrong, chines have been shown to enhance performance on sailboats. But in my opinion they only make a difference when a boat is in planing mode, which wont be very often for the Elan. I should point out that the Humphreys firm has designed at least one VO70 with chines, and I am certain they make a critical performance difference on such a light and powerful boat. But the 400 is a family style racer/cruiser and I think the chines are there more for style than planing performance. There is nothing wrong with this, they add visual interest and certainly dont take away any performance potential.

Humphreys VO70 at speed. Notice the chine at work, and the weather rudder almost completely out of the water.

What about the twin rudders? Once again, on a VO70 they make a lot of sense. But does that translate to a racer/cruiser like the Elan 400? It would be very interesting to compare a single ruddered 400 with a twin ruddered version. I have no data to support my opinion, but my gut feeling is that in most conditions that average people sail in, the single ruddered boat would perform as well or better than her twin ruddered sister. Here in southern California, we have lots of kelp and I can foresee plenty of fiddling around with a kelp stick and a fair amount of strong language as a racing crew struggles with kelp on our local offshore races. When I think of the added weight, drag and cost of a twin wheel-twin rudder arrangement, I would demand a meaningful improvement in performance from the two rudders and I just dont think its there in typical conditions on a boat of this type. With all that said, Id love to go for a ride on one of these boats.

With its powerful hull,  bow pole, non-overlapping jib and svelte cabin trunk, the Elan 400 is a sporty looking ride.

Moving on to the deck, Im impressed with the innovative features incorporated into it. The transom is wide open, with a seat panel spanning it. This panel is removable and doubles as a gangplank, complete with wheels on the shoreside end,  for when youre Med moored in Monte Carlo. The transom also has a drop-down panel making it into a water-level swim step with boarding ladder and transom shower.

The cockpit is beautifully laid out for racing.

The cockpit itself is very well laid out for a racing crew, with plenty of room to move and ergonomically sensible access to winches, etc. The twin wheels are mounted on fairly lethal looking pedestals and give the helmsman a great view. The general arrangement is typical of the modern racer/cruiser, with short seats forward and wide open space aft. The traveler is mounted on the cockpit sole, which I think is the best place for it and the halyard winches are on the cabin top where they should be. The designers have incorporated a number of tricky features into this area. There is a cleverly designed dining table that retracts into the cockpit sole, retractable footrests for the helmsman, and a recess near the transom for the life raft. Add covered bins for sheets and a retractable companionway hatch board and youve got a pretty busy cockpit. Yet it looks clean and elegant!

Beautifully detailed deck

The rest of the deck is fairly conventional with a low and aesthetically pleasing cabin trunk, jib tracks mounted close inboard and an anchor windlass and locker forward. The boat is equipped with inhauls for the jib, which is an indicator of how serious Elan is about racing performance. Your average cruising sailor wouldnt know what to do with them.

Elan offers the 400 with either two or three cabins. I chose the two cabin version mainly because I prefer to have a dedicated nav station instead of a fold-away chart desk. I think those things look great at boat shows but are not particularly useful. Of course if youre sailing is limited to local waters you have little need for a dedicated chart table and the space would be better used for other purposes.

Sensible layout for casual racing and weekends at the island.

The accommodations plan incorporates a good sized forward cabin with a V-berth, seats and storage lockers. Elan thoughtfully refrained from pushing the berth too far forward so the foot of the bunk is reasonably wide. As in the rest of the boat, there is a plethora of locker doors that conceal lots of fairly small shelves. In spite of all those doors, it looks like usable storage space is somewhat limited. This is because the builder has pushed the lockers well outboard, making them quite shallow, The trade-off is the visual sensation of bright, wide open space below.  I think this is perfectly acceptable given that the Elan 400 is not intended for living aboard or long offshore passagemaking.

In the three cabin version, the chart table folds away to make a full length settee on the port side of the salon.

Given the intended purpose of the boat, the galley is adequate, although you may wish for a bit more storage space here. The aft stateroom is quite large and comfortable looking. The hard chines may contribute to the extra space here, or it could just be that the transom on the 400 is in the neighborhood of eleven feet wide.

The 400 looks fast.

Overall, there is much to like about the Elan 400. The tall rig with non overlapping headsails provides lots of horsepower. The twin rudders should provide precise steering and the deep keel will keep the boat on its feet. As I mentioned before, to my eye this is a pretty boat that has excellent performance potential. While the squared off trapezoid shape deadlights in the hull could have been more artfully designed I expect the Elan 400 to turn heads wherever she goes. I took all the photos shown here from Elans excellent web site and I invite you to visit www.elan-yachts.com to learn more about this interesting boat.

Happy New Year to all

As I write, sitting in my bunk watching the sun set over the estuary, its 8 15 pm on New Years Eve.  Traditionally a time of good wishes to all, a time for making resolutions about what will or will not be happening next year, a time for family and friends and a time for reflection.

To be sure its only another marker on an artificial calendar, but it’s a useful marker, one that is close to the longest day of the year where I live and the shortest where a lot of my friends live. It’s a time when we get holiday breaks, some of which have theist backgrounds, some that are pagan but its still the end of year break.

Its also a time when advice tends to be handed out, much of which causes me to look at the advisor and think, you should take your own advice buddy and if you did you’d be better off than you are, but occasionally there is a gem.

Heres one that I heard yesterday.

“When making New Years Resolutions, don’t make ones you know damn well you wont keep, don’t make ones that you know are beyond your ability, but try making one, and ones enough, that is well within your capacity to achieve, and work on it until its done.  You’ll get a lot of satisfaction from that, whereas to vow and fail just reinforces a defeatist position.”

That’s good advice, a bit wordy though. I’d put it thus--- “Get yourself a mouthful of lifes good things, but don’t bite off more than you can chew”.

All the very best to everyone for 2016.

John Welsford.

The new boat the design and the first piece of ply cut

Long Steps, the build has begun.

I’ve four frames drawn, the stem, and the spine for the forward section, the mast box and some of the detail around the “cabin”.

The drawing is progressing in my “spare time” as I’ve other jobs to get completed before I’m really free to get on with my own project, but I need a break now and again and wanted to get started on “Long Steps” so the overall timeline does not become impossible.

To give an outline of “the project”.  I have thoughts that as the numbers on my birthday cake are getting alarmingly large, its evident that if I am to have that life defining adventure then I’d best get on with it.

A second motivator was an article in the newspaper last year that described the adventures of a young woman who’d kayaked alone right around New Zealand. It took her a year to cover the distance of around 2100 sea miles, with a few of breaks along the way. What an adventure, she’ll remember that forever.

I’m not quite as ambitious as that, but to get around the North Island is workable.

That’s about 1300 nautical miles, only a little less than the distance  around the British Isles, or the distance from San Diego to Seattle. About, don’t quibble over the odd mile or three.

In an open sail and oar boat. Mostly open anyway.

The circumnavigation of Te Ika a Maui ( North Island of New Zealand)  has some challenges, I’m planning to try local voyages first, and have put a lot of thought into the design,  so, below is a pic of the working drawing.

She’s 5.520 metres long, 1.660 wide, I’d expect a dry weight of around 220 kg.

That’s 18ft 6in x 5 ft 5in x 460 lbs.

Sail area 13.5 sq m / 145 sq ft.

One of the “interesting” things about the planned voyage is that there are at least two long stretches with either bar harbours with prevailing onshore winds or no shelter at all, even in favourable conditions these two stretches of coastline could take up to three days to cover so nights at sea have to be provided for.

Shallow draft is a must, there are some shallow river harbours in some places, but much of the course will be in very open waters, so this is to be essentially a blue water capable boat.

Now I’ve mentioned this to people who’ve banged on about Shackleton and Bligh, but I’m not that tough, so safety, self reliance in emergencies and a modicum of creature comforts are all part of the design brief.

What I’ve done is to take the midsection of the very successful SCAMP design, with its high up bouyancy, sheltered “veranda”, self draining cockpit and water ballast.  The same offset “board” and lying down space is there, along with the massive dry storage that the little boat offers.

This is fitted into a hull shape similar to that of the “Walkabout” design, that boat is very fast under sail, rows well, is easy to right if capsized, and is a very good load carrier.

The ducks and batten marking the curve of the stem.

I started the build today, drew out full sized and cut the stem and spine, cut and glued the doublers around the stem, cut and finished a stack of cleat material and sanded the whole lot so they’re going into the boat almost completely “finished”.

The first cut, thats a Makita 10.6 volt cordless circular saw, nice tool, very accurate, light and easy to use. Its great on plywood up to about 12mm.

The spine, stem, and mast box support will have B#1  B#2 and B#3 slotted over it egg crate style.

The jigsaw is a Makita 4200 BV, Ive had it for over 30 years and its done a huge amount of work.

Good machine.  As is the Japanese saw, wouldnt be without either of them.

Doublers cut out, the edges radiused with a router and all glued up. Progress already!

Tomorrow will see B#1 and B#2 cut out, I expect to be putting the whole lot together on the building frame in January, I have to extend the floor in the boatshed, plus have an adventure in the Straights of Magellan which will soak up a few weeks around the end of the year.

Plus I still have to get some work done.

But I’ve started. The boatshed / workshop is not empty any more, the symptoms of empty workshop syndrome are under control again.

Painting Priming

We are now in the finishing stages of this particular Goat Island Skiff.  Shes coming down the home stretch, I tell you!

To be honest with you, dear intrepid reader, I am several posts out of date with the current going-ons.  Work has been a killer recently and I just cant get on top of it.  Back to work tomorrow to boot, and I still havent done my laundry.  Lets just say time at home is at a super mega premium.

The boat, once faired, was ready for priming.  To accomplish this, I wanted a good sanding job over her so the primer would adhere real nice like.  Using stacks of 120 grit discs on my random obit sander (ROS) I spent a bulk of a day sanding her down to a nice matte finish.

 You can see the Quick Fair that I gushed about in the last post.  Also notice the buckets, without the towels on them.  This was a slip-up on my end, and they ended up gouging the transom.  Smooth-move Ex-Lax!!!  Im such a moron.  The boat is taped up, including the ends of the ply.  These are kind of critical since they are exposed ends of ply that will be submerged at times.  They are well encapsulated in epoxy and I will paint them as well.  This adds protection, and a classic look.

Then, for the first coat of primer!  I used a quart of Interlux Pre-Kote primer, slightly thinned with Interlux 333, a thinning agent.  This stuff is mega-not-cheap, as in 34 bucks a quart, or 136 bucks a gallon, if youre the type that enjoys heart attacks.  It is a high-build primer, which means it will fill small irregularities in the prepped surface.  In practice, the painter will apply one coat, sand it down leaving the crevasses filled with primer, and then throw on another coat of primer, lightly sand it smooth, and then top-coat.

Initially the primer went on rather thick, I didnt thin it at first.  A few drops helped things along immensely.  I used a roller, and the roller would apply the paint unevenly, heavy where the roller initially absorbed the paint and then thinner on the other sections, leaving a speed-bump appearance to paint coverage.  Later research at the paint store revealed some roller tricks, which I will cover later.  Here is the boat, with the first coat of primer.

Then, its time to sand away!  Again, using the ROS and 120 grit discs.  I sanded outside, as this stuff tends to blow dust everywhere, which it did.  My father-in-law has a little car in the garage that he fawns over, I didnt want to get it dusty.  Fortunately, I had good weather, and was able to charge ahead.

Shes looking like a proper work-boat now.  This took a few hours.  I used many sanding discs, about one every three to four feet initially, and then in subsequent passes a increased the acreage with a disc.  The point is to get a good clean cut and not be pressing down trying to get a filled-up worn-down disc to grind away, smooth is the point. Speaking of smooth, this primer, albeit dusty, was quite smooth to the touch, surprisingly so.  After this, I de-dusted her by blowing with a shop-vac, vacuuming with said shop vac, and then rubbing down with cloth soaked in something flammable or toxic, like 333 or de-natured alcohol.  After that dried, the next coat of primer

WOW!  Shes coming along now!  AND THEN I had to leave for work, and I left her for 5 days.  This was not necessarily good, because this primer can absorb humidity, which can then prevent adhesion of the top-coat.  For 5 days I chewed my fingers down to bloody stumps pounding on Intellicast looking for possible bad weather.  I left explicit instructions with my parents-in-law about when to have the garage open or closed.  Fortunately, things turned out great weather wise!

More on painting later.  Im also varnishing my mast.  My wife is helping and she is doing a fantastic job.

Notice the tree is green.  This means GO, as in GO SAILING, as in FINISH THIS BOAT.  Im trying!  Im trying!

When I got back from my trip, I immediately set to sanding the second coat of primer.  Again, same as before, but a little less aggressive this time.  I wanted to keep the primer, but wanted to smooth it out.

Thats not my dog.

The paint and the sun illuminated some things on my boat.  When I faired the boat with Quick Fair I was absolutely anal to make sure I got smooth chines.  I wanted to make sure I had the fairest boat I could possibly have.  I actually spent hard-earned days off fairing and then waiting for it to cure so I could sand it and then fair again before I started the long painting procedure.

So imagine my surprise when I get her out in the sun after she was painted in something that shows shadows really well, like, lets say, a white primer.

OH THE PAIN!!!  WHERE DID THIS COME FROM?  Im heartbroken, a little bit.  I put in the ruler to help you judge.  Its a 16" ruler.  I swear on whatever holy tome of your choice, that I did not notice this when it was in the garage.  I even used setting-sun light to grab inconsistencies like this on the boat, and didnt see it.  It happens sporadically on the port chine, specifically.  The starboard came out pretty bitching if I may say so myself.  Needless to say Im disappointed.  My friend Matt who is always swatting away the mental flies that cloud my judgement was good enough to say something that went like this:  "Im sure I wont notice it, just add it to your laundry list of items you want to take care of next winter, theyre going to rack up anyway as you sail it this year."

Hes right.  If I was home every night I would take my time and lollygag around and be able to fix this.  Time for me is at a premium.  Every day I spend on details like this could translate into weeks and/or months of delays for me.  I screwed it up, I have to live with it for now.  Its actually not that bad, in this picture it looks horocious (new word), but in reality its not that bad.  Surface scum will obscure it anyway.

Buying the rope for the new boat

Well, we’re past the spring equinox, so its autumn for a lot of my friends in the northern hemisphere, the best time of year many tell me.  We’re into spring here, warmer, more sun, and the orchards and fields are covered in flowers. 

It’s a lovely time of year, while there are still stormy days to come the promise of summer is very evident and it’s a real incentive to get on with getting boats ready for the season.

I’ll have to haul the ship out this summer, its three years since she was antifouled and the topsides need painting, so I’m buying sandpaper, getting all the gear ready and will be all ready and prepared when the time comes.

George and Pam are getting some new steelwork done on the old slipway cradle at the Whangateau Traditional Boatyard and if that’s all done, that’s where I’m going.  I’d rather that they had the bucks than the corporate that runs the local marina.

I went out to day and happened past “Quality Equipment” in Glenfield on Aucklands North Shore. They’re rope manufacturers, and have a “rope shop” which is open to the public.  The prices are very very good.

Leon is the man there, good guy. 

So, with rigging SEI in mind, plus some replacement  ropework needed on the good ship May, I stopped in and came out with a 100m roll of 6mm yachtbraid for halyards and controls, and a 100m roll of 4mm polyester solbraid for reefing lines on the smaller boat.

Yes I’ll have lots left over, but there will be other boats, and buying this way cost about $180. (US$113), That’s a lot of rope for the money, way less than the price the “yotshops” sell at.

Yes they do cut lengths although the best way to buy is a full roll. (Split it up among you and your friends). They’ll ship to you as well. (within NZ that is)

www.qe.co.nz

Email Leon at   leon@qe.co.nz   Tell him I sent you, it might help my discount next time I’m in there.

 Lots of "string", in imperial measure about 325 ft on each. Ive already got the mainsheet on another roll bought for a boat a while back.  I keep a fair inventory, some people see my shop as being a ships chandlery in itself, I suppose that theyre right, except its one with only one customer.

My next stop was not such a happy one.  I’ve a Bosch GEX 125 random orbital sander, its probably 15 years old now, done lots of work, had a couple of bearings and a new set of brushes, and while effective enough is not my favourite tool. But I because I have it, I use it.  
I generally have fine paper on that and coarser paper on the Festool Rotex which IS my favourite tool of that type. But its worn out the velcro on the pad, so I went to the Power Tool Shop in Wairau road, yes they had one in stock, yes sir here it is.  That will be $89 thank you.

It should have been wrapped in gold leaf!

The tool is not worth that,  so the Power Tool Shop still own that part, and unless something changes that’s the last Bosch tool I’ll own.

I did though manage to find a pair of oars at a deal that was not a lot more than the cost of enough high grade lumber to make a pair.  theyre heavy and a bit clumsy, the usual off the shelf ones, but with some effort with a sharp plane and spokeshave theyll be good.  

2.4 m oars. When buying like this I regard them as partly shaped blanks. I take care with the grain orientation of the shafts, and try to ensure that the pair are as evenly matched as possible although 8 footers are not commonly stocked now, most being bought for yacht tenders so are little 6 ft 6in ones, thats way too short for SEI.

Ill be running a "wot I did to these oar blanks" in a future blog, youll hardly recognise them when I finish with making shavings.

Time to go and paint the mast for SEI, she’s looking good.

John W