We're looking for the trash fence...

Dawn and I are headed down to Oaklands for the Strictly Sail Pacific show this weekend. It partially just to get away and partially to get stuff done. Although as usual when you plan to leave rainy Seattle its going to be beautiful in Seattle during that same window. Oh well... at least we won't have to make the bed.

Here some of the things we're going to be looking into at the show:

• CQR Anchor and Bow Roller - We need a 60 pounder to go with our undersized 35lb Bruce
• ICOM VHF - We sold our cheap VHF and I'm set on ICOM. I just need to decide between the 504 and 604 and of course we're looking for a deal!
• NEMA 2K - I'm not ready to do all of this all at once so what's the best place to start. Can I get a breakout box a GPA antenna and a USB module as my starting point?
• RADAR Chartplotte Nav Software - At some point we nee dto upgrade our old power hungry RADAR and when you pick your RADAR you're also picking your chartplotter and nav software (if you want to do any overlays) because RADARs are all proprietary and only work with their brand plotters and software. At least that's what I recall the speaker from Rose Point Navigation saying at the Seattle boat show.

That's a lot of the big stuff, there's lot of small stuff too.

I'll be twittering deals and cool stuff as I move around the floor. My twitter account is DeepPlaya. Another good account to follow is StrictlySailPac. If you're also going be tweeting at the show use the tag #SSP09 on your posts so we can all follow along with each other.

If you have not noticed check out the SSCA Forums which I recently helped them upgrade to phpBB3. The new version has a much nicer look and a few must have features including email subscriptions to forums. I’m awaiting a more enhanced version of the email subscriptions and RSS Feeds to come out and then we’ll really be Web 2.0!

Seattle Maritime Academy Slug: so-much-to-learn-so-many-tools-to-buy Status: published

One of the things about making this decision to go cruising is all the cool stuff you get to learn.

Tonight was the last of our Marine Diesel class at the Seattle Maritime Academy. The class was 11 weeks long (roughly) and was about 1/2 rambling lecture and 1/2 hands-on completely unguided lab work. The class could have been much better run and organized but in general coming out of it I feel like I know a lot more about Diesels to the point of being knowledgeable enough to do some of my own work, to have an informed conversation with a mechanic and to have a sound basis for doing research to figure out how to do things I can’t do right now. I’d give the class a C+. I' was going to go lower, but I think the fact they actually have smaller diesels (like we have) was worth the C+. So it was passing, it accomplished the goals, but it also had a lot of wasted time. Judging by the amount of people who dropped out and frequently didn’t show up; I think many might score it lower.

One of the big outcomes of that (and of the Brion Toss Rigging workshop) is that I put together a big tool order tonight and will stopping in to get some Craftsman toys tomorrow. I like Craftsman tools, I’ve never broken one yet, they are reasonably priced and if I did break one they’d replace it! Did you know on www.Sears.com you can order things and pick them up in the store? Very handy and saves shipping since I wouldn’t have been saving sales tax. I’ll post some list of things and pics of things when I do a full tool inventory.

Next on the course of learning is the Mahina Offshore Cruising Seminar 4 April 2009 in SeaTac, WA. I have good things about this seminar, I’ll let you check out the site yourself and I’ll post more when we’re back.

We stumbled on to the upcoming Mahina seminar because we’re also going to the Strictly Sail Pacific show in Oakland, CA 17-19 April 2009. I didn’t want to invest a whole day in SF on the one class so taking it here in Seattle is ideal! We’re very stoked (they say that in CA right?) to be going to the Strictly Sail show as we’re going to also use the time as a little mini-vacation as well. I’ll post more about that when we’re down there or when we’re back.

Systems - Hull, Systems - Plumbing Slug: flu-impacts-productivity Status: published

Two weeks ago I took off work on Friday to work on a bunch of projects one of which included using epoxy and I wanted to take advantage of the warmer weather and have an extra day to get things done. That Friday went pretty well and I worked on cutting the hole in the cabin top and sealing the edges with epoxy so I can install the mushroom vent for the composting head (more on that to come) but about 11pm that night the Flu (or maybe food poisoning) hit me and I was down and out for about 4 days. Well this weekend I’m feeling much better and Dawn and I are ready to tackle the to do list. Here’s the goals:

• Finish Installing the mushroom vent in the head
• Wire up the DC power to the fans in the composting head
• Change the Oil, Oil Filters and Fuel Filters, remove sediment and water (don’t think we have any water) from the RACOR catch bowl
• Check the Port water tank for a leak. I think one of my fittings is leaking :-(
• Check the Propane tank overboard vent – I’ve not expected this since the purchase. I want to make sure its not clogged or broken
• Secure the Plumbing – All of the plumbing is working great but all the lengths of hose need to secured under the salon floor. Not hard, but time consuming since the work space is so confined

That list feels a little ambitious, but I think we can get it done. I have a bunch of pics from cutting the hole in the cabin top for the vent and I’ll take some more as I get everything installed and do a write up about the installation process.

I added a new page to the site, which is basically a cut and paste from one of old sites (the three generations of the site old). It has has some useful links but the thing I usually like to check out is the West Point weather information. I can look at that while I'm at work and feel bad that I'm stuck in the office and not out sailing. ;-)

Anyway, here's a direct link: https://www.deepplaya.com/page/Puget-Sound-Sailing-Links.aspx, but you can also just go to www.DeepPlaya.com and look at the Pages links on the left hand side.

BTW, today its sunny and 12kts of wind, definitely a day I'd rathe not be in the office. This weekend I'm going to be changing filters and fluids so we can start the engine and leave the dock when we fill like it. The sailing is just around the corner!!

From SNL… I think this sums up my life these days :-)

I mentioned before that Dawn and I are taking a Marine Diesel Class and I’m taking a Marine Electrical class at Seattle Maritime Academy. Well there’s only one more day of the electrical class left and we’re about halfway through the diesel class.

The Electrical class has covered all the basics of electrical theory which centers around Ohm’s Law. We’ve built some simple circuits on a bread board and tested voltage, resistance, etc with a volt meter. We’ve also done a bunch of calculations to determine wire sizes needed in certain applications. Last night we were a little more hands on and practiced some soldering. I’d show you the results but they’re not that interesting, instead check out these videos.

Intro to Ohm’s Law

How and Why to Solder Correctly

Systems - Electrical, Systems - Entertainment Slug: installation-weekend Status: published

This past weekend was a good one in terms of getting things. It started out with a personal economic stimulus package when we dropped some coin at Fisheries for supplies. Mostly I stocked up on spare filters, electrical wiring components and 100’ of wire I’ll use when I put in the new speakers that I bought elsewhere, more on that later, here’s what did go in this weekend.

LED Lighting

When we were cleaning the boat this summer we pulled out the reading lights in the salon. We didn’t like how they looked, some of them didn’t work and they were a bit rickety. At boat show this year we looked at all kinds of lights some with built in LEDs and other that could take an LED bulb. There weren’t as many choices as we though there were going to be, and in the end we ended up going with two lamps from ABI. One is a classic bulkhead bell type reading light and the other is similar but is mounted on a swivel, like a podium microphone.

For LED Bulbs, we chose Dr. LED bulbs for these new fixtures and LED replacement bulbs for all the existing reading lights as well. The Dr. LED bulbs put out a nice light and they aren’t nearly as hot as the old bulbs which were so hot you could burn yourself on the fixture when pointing the light. They’re a tad expensive (ok a lot expensive) but they also reduce the energy we use which means running the engine less!!

Sirius XM Radio Antenna

When I put the new stereo in this summer, we were using the little hockey puck style antenna which we ran through a hatch and let it sit free on the cabin top. The new antenna is a Shakespeare SRA40 which I have mounted temporarily on the dodger hand railing. Eventually I plan to relocate this, the C.A.R.D., and GPS antennas, which are mounted on the other side of the dodger, to the mizzen mast or a stern mounted antenna pole. I’ve not decided yet. I think the Mizzen mast may be the only option give the mizzen boom’s swing through the stern area. I’ll decide all that when we starting working on the rigging and hauling the masts. I think the radio already holds the signal better and we’re just sitting at the dock.

That is the title of the class Dawn and I started on Tuesday at the Seattle Maritime Academy which is a department of Seattle Central Community College. We got there at 6pm as the website said, the instructor seemed to be there milling around rummaging through things in the front of the room and people were trickling in and he started the class at 6:30 with barely a hello, barely introducing himself and mostly he ranted on about the facilities maintenance and then he told a pretty long story about the VP of SCCC selling a barge (and losing 9 classrooms and labs which sat on the barge) for \$24K when the barge surveyed for \$94-100K allegedly the buyer sold the barge on EBay for \$130K.

Ooookaaay…… is what I was thinking at this point a little confused and starting to get upset.

He finally started talking a little bit about engines and along the way gave some miss information about biodiesel, gave some smarmy answers to questions about propellers. He also mocked the environmental laws, tax laws, ‘liberals’ as he frequently put it. Its like we teleported Crazy Cooter from the Dukes of Hazard to Seattle and asked him to be as offensive as possible.

In general the guy was a surly boat engineer, that’s fine, but we also didn’t cover very much information, didn’t provide an outline of the class and didn’t give a general engine overview for orientation purposes.

We did cover 2 stroke and 4 stroke cycles, which was interesting. We did cover how fuel usage rates relate to the HP output of the engine, and how that can also be calculated by measuring the fuel exhaust temperature.

I really really hoping the class on Monday was just the guy having a bad day. I was really excited about this class and if its not going to improve I’ll have to find something similar somewhere else, but it will probably cost a lot more. Here’s hoping tomorrow goes much better. He handed out a bunch of handouts I need to read now.. yay homework. ;-)

Here's the new composting toilet bolted down to the new tile floor. Looking very spiffy !!