We're looking for the trash fence...

Not many updates from us in a while, too much fun, too little wifi. I did want to take a second and throw up the link to the Baja Ha-Ha XVIII Flickr group I created. https://www.flickr.com/groups/bajahahaxviii/

This has nothing to do with Latitude 38. If you want your pics published you need to follow the link Andy Turpin sent out to Smug Mug.

If you don’t care about that, don’t want to upload 5 photos at a time, or just prefer Flickr, then the group is a great way to do bulk uploads and share your pics. The group is public anyone can join. I tried to tag all my photos with names of people and boats and the locations are mapped in Flickr or in the EXIF data on the images.

More stories about the trip to come…

Sorry for such infrequent updates, but we’ve been busy getting all of our friend married -- wedding number 3 in as many weeks is Saturday -- as well working on boat projects.

Wedding number 1, over the 4th of July weekend, was in Cle Elum. Lars and Jenny we’re absolutely beautiful and to be able to have all of our Burner friends together for a solid three days was an absolute gift. The weddding was meant to be a “Goofball Wedding” so I had to bust out my green PeaBear costume for the ceremony! (Have to find a pic of that still)

Wedding number 2 was in Roche Harbor and we took the boat up. The weather didn’t cooperate too much with sailing, but we did get a few hours in, used the Hydrovane and even had to put a reef in the main, I was glad I finished finished installing the reefing hardware on the main boom the day before!

Julia’s and Jason’s wedding was held at anchor on the biggest spinningest raftup I have ever been on. The AnderGuards (as we call them anyway) are an awesome couple and know how to throw a party. Some of us water people went ashore to partake of the Roche Harbor Bar as well. The lamb burger isn’t all that, skip it. The rum runner is delicious, have 3 instead!

On the way back we went to Blind Bay on Shaw Island. We went for a long walk on the island around the bay and enjoined some very good ice cream from the Shaw General store which first opened in 1899!! That night we took a dinghy of wood to Blind Island for a night of fire and marshmallows.

The night after was spent in La Conner, WA after handling the tricky navigation of the Swinomish Channel. The depths in Swinomish are supposed to be 6’8” at low tides, but can be a bit all over the place (usually deeper, but sometimes not) given that they don’t’ dredge it as much as they used to. La Conner is very cute town and if the Swinomish channel has been scaring you off, don’t’ let it. Just plan to go in with at least +X feet of tied where X = (7’ + Your Draft + 2 feet) and you should be fine. Also, don’t’ leave La Conner until you have similar depths. Aside from that I think it’s very doable but WAY easier for those shallow draft Bayliner wake machines.

Since we got back I changed the oil, installed new oil cooling lines which were leaking, changed the raw water impeller and the zinc in the heat exchanger.

Dawn has been working on organizing our medical kit and working on the sail covers. Because it was too windy to sew on the dock, we spent about 4 hours in the conference room at Windworks sewing all the main stitching for the covers. Dawn ran the machine and I manhandled the cloth to allow her to sew more easily. We can’t thank Greg and the staff at Windworks enough for loaning us the conference room. That was absolutely awesome!!

Wedding number 3 is tomorrow, I’ll save that for the next post, and we’ll do some more technical posts on the sail covers as well.

whew… I’m going to need a vacation after this 3 week vacation!

A week ago I met with Jim from Puget Sound Sails to checkout the loft, take a look at some different sail details and then we did the deed and put the earnest money down on a full set of working sails--main, mizzen and genoa. Jim has ben great all along the process thus far, very open to questions and free with his knowledge.

Over the past three years at the Seattle Boat Show and Strictly Sail Pacific, I met with sailmakers in Washington, California and even looked into some offshore lofts. Since this was our first sail purchase I decided to go with someone local who could be available to look at things on the boat, do the onsite measurements and who had a great price!

Dawn and I are excited about the new sails to in 6-8 weeks to see how well Deep Playa can really go!!

I’ve been working on a document describing the refit we plan to do on Deep Playa. I thought it would be good to share it with all of you and see if anyone has feedback but also so others might benefit from seeing what I’m doing.

Here’s the first half of the document, still lots of specifics to figure out, but a good start.

Overview

This refit plan for Deep Playa includes replacing the standing rigging, re-bedding and improving the deck hardware, replacing and improving the running rigging, and new bottom paint and hull polishing.

This section will cover the highlights of the projects by area (Rig, Hull, etc) but the meat of the document with all the details will cover the projects in the phases they will be carried out.

This document will be reviewed with several yards and riggers for additional input and to help select who will do the work.

We like to do our own work where it makes sense (saves us money, teaches us key maintenance or survival skills) but there are times where specific expertise or time consuming work makes more sense to be done by a professional . To what degree we do things ourselves is to be determined.

Standing Rigging

The wire rope standing rigging appears to be original and it is overdue to be replaced. Replacing it involves dropping both masts, replacing all of the wire rope, inspecting an possibly replacing the chain plates, inspecting and possibly refinishing the spars, having new wire rope rigging made and then re-rigging the boat. At the same time any electrical, communications or running rigging projects that affect the standing rigging and the spars need to be done as well.

Planned Upgrades

• Adding a isolators to the main backstay for the SSB antenna
• Conduit for in-mast wiring
• Strong Track
• Running Rigging Related
• Route all halyards internally
• Add Spinnaker and Mizzen staysail halyards
• Rope clutches for main, mizzen, jib spinnaker and mizzen staysail halyards
• Inspect sheaves and probably replace, internal routing probably changes them all together
• Spreader Boots
• Electronics & Communications

Main

• Masthead NMEA 2000 weather station
• Masthead VHF Antenna
• Masthead LED Anchor and Nav Lights
• Masthead Davis Windex
• Spreader LED lights
• Foredeck Light
• Hailer Mount
• Ensure the crane has all that is necessary for planned sails
• Spinnaker halyard

Mizzen

• Masthead NMEA 2000 GPS
• Masthead AIS (backup VHF) Antenna
• Spreader LED lights
• Foreword Light
• Self leveling Radar Mount
• Ensure the crane has all that is necessary for planned sails
• Mizzen staysail halyard

Open Issues

• Refinishing the spars – What’s the cost
• How many things that are bolted to the spars need replacing?
• Main and Mizzen reefing are a mess
• Rigger needs to be identified
• Rigging Inspection Needed

Running Rigging

All of the lines for the running rigging except for the Jib Halyard and the Mizzen Sheet are in a very sad state and need to be replaced. In addition to that there are several very flawed installations such as the main sheet winch and main traveler which are also functioning poorly. At this point based on pricing and helpfulness I am plan to use Garhauer almost exclusively.

Planned Upgrades

• Move main sheet winch inboard
• Replace main traveler
• Add rigid boom vang
• Increase main sheet purchase

Open Issues

• Can I get a bulk discount from Garhauer?
• Should we do this before we make decisions on our sail maker?

Deck Hardware

Beyond the rigging fittings which will be pulled and rebedded all other deck mounted hardware will be rebedded as part of this the lifelines will be moved to the toe rail as well.

Planned Upgrades

• New Garhauer toe rail mounts for life lines
• New lifelines and fittings
• Bow trim piece is broken and needs to be replaced
• Moving the windlass foreword and the hawse pipe out of the berth
• Add additional bow roller

Open Issues

• Will we use wire rope or line for the lifelines?
• Should we add any fittings for jack lines?
• Can we afford new stern pulpits placed on the toe rail? Would include:
• Bimini
• Solar Panel mounts
• Stern reel mount
• Close the Bow Tank Hole?
• Will a horizontal windlass be needed
• Can the existing windlass handle two anchors
• Will the toe rail track need to be shortened to accommodate the lifeline changes

Hull Work

The main two parts of this project are new bottom paint and polishing the gel coat. In addition to that we want to evaluate all the thru-hulls and see if any might be eliminated as well as make modifications to our ground tackle management.

Planned Upgrades

• Remove unused thru hulls
• Toilet overboar
• Toilet intake
• Stainless steel on the bow to protect hull from anchors
• Bow padeye for anchor snubber
• Rebed and inspect starboard hatch
• Combine knot meter and transducer
• Inspect cutlass bearing and plan to replace
• Upgrade transducer to one with temperature, maybe not a thru-hull; maybe add or instead use fish finder type.

Open Issues

• Do we “plug” or glass closed unused thru-hulls?
• Should we close off the galley sink intake?
• Is the crazing in the gel coat around the hull a problem or just an age issue? Will polishing clean it up? Should we even care?
• What Hull paint should we use? Need to look at the PS articles and compare NW to CA paint results

Headliner, Portholes and Hatches

Removing the headliner is a necessity todo all the other work; we plan tO replace it at the same time as well. The damaged teak along the cabin top will be covered so it blends with the new white headliner as well to create a visual lift to the salon. The leaky and sealed closed portholes will also be replaced with the New Found Metals portholes we acquired this summer. The hatches are also questionable (the aluminum is brittle in places) and leaky they will be replaces as well while the headliner is out. In the final installation the teak colored strips holding up the headliner will be painted white to blend them with the headliner.

Planned Upgrades

• New Found Metals Portholes
• Replace hatches
• New headliner
• New cabin top wood (cover up teak)

Open Issues

• Brand of hatches TBD, New Found Metals is supposed to be making hatches this fall
• Headliner material is TBD, Originally wainscoting was the plan, are we really over that?