Topics

Hauled out this morning in quite a rush, and finally got a chance to look closer at the existing transducer. Didn't budge, and I couldn't quite get my pipe wrench around it. During this time on the hard, I'm finally going to install my DST 800. Anyone done that? I vaguely remember reading something about it being flush mounted, but I can't find anything on this forum. Any advice you'd provide?

Buying a new dinghy, and would appreciate some thoughts. We don't have an outboard either, but will be getting something around 9.9 horsepower (or lower).

It needs to be durable, since we are going to be spending most of our time at anchor. I'm thinking a rigid inflatable will be best, but it's freaking hard to find them outside of west marine. I will shop defender as well. Thoughts welcomed.

So on our last sail, the motion of the ocean was too much for the poor Raritan water heater, and it finally succumbed to the rust around the bottom of it. I went ahead and got it ripped out. I pulled up the platform it sits on (that bolts through the bulkhead forward). The visibility is incredible.



Cleaning it all up, now that I have access, prior to installing the Kuuma water heater, I'm going to be rewiring the 12 volt system. I'm going to use a 4 AWG feeder to reduce the number of wires going back and forth, and organize and label them.

You will notice that I have the hose to the thru hull disconnected in that picture. That is due to the placement of the heater. I was initially going to just get a 90 degree elbow at Lowes, but I looked a bit closer at the thru hull, and decided I'm going to at the very least reseat it, until I found 90 degree 1-1/2" fittings for under $5.



Not too huge of a deal, until you look at the dry fit of the water heater.



Once the electrical is up and out of the way, I'm going to use the area on the main bulkhead starboard of the tabbed in coolant box for a whole house water filter. From there, it hits a manifold that splits off to the cold water and the hot water feed. Since I am kind of in wiring mode, I am going to wire up the 120VAC heating element to a timer switch kind of like this one, since I don't want to leave it on on accident. Might use the inverter controller that I removed (causing the hole in that bulkhead you see).

I have to say, no day job, and just boat jobs keeps me pretty damn busy, but I'm liking it.

Well, things have been moving.

First of all, it's my pleasure to officially introduce to this forum to Sailing Vessel Encantado, hailing from Hanging Lake, CO. She is a 1977 Pearson 365, Hull 141, Ketch rigged. Encantado is spanish for Charmed, but the name of our boat is sourced from Brazilian mythology surrounding the Amazon River Dolphin, trickster shape-shifters.

I'll come back around to the inevitable boat work, but I really wanted to let folks know that I have untied the lines. We left Loggerhead Marina for the last time just before 8. We went out Port Everglades, and flew the genoa up to Lake Worth. No wind, but I still needed to complete the sea trial of the autopilot, so I was good with this. I did not expect as much flapping of the sail (I didn't really believe 0 kts of wind), and furled it instead of risking damage. A loud journey, but the carbon monoxide detector didn't go off (there were some mild concerns), and the cats got used to it within about a day and a half. We motored 48.8 nm to Lake Worth, and spent the night in a marina (there were some issues with the windlass that caused us some concern with trying to anchor overnight). We got up the next morning, head back out to the open ocean, and tried our hand at flying jib and jigger with 10kts off our starboard quarter. Took a little bit of experimentation, but I think I got the feel as to how the boat balanced with this sail plan. We got a touch of a late start, so we turned on the motor. I noticed a fuel leak from one of the injectors, so I turned off the engine, and fixed it while still making about 9kts SOG (that gulfstream is no joke!!). Felt like kind of a bad ass. 49.2nm, and we pulled into the Fort Pierce inlet. After this, it was all ICW. The plan was to head north until we found an anchorage to try, with a bailout plan. Well, we thought we found a place that would work, but it looked a bit shallow to me. We still wanted to try it, so very slowly moved towards what we heard was a cut. It got shallower, so at this point we were idling forward, and I was just about to put her in reverse, when all of a sudden I became that kind of sailor. I had some appreciation of the weight of this boat, because even full throttle in reverse didn't release us. So we stopped, and tried to figure out a way out of it. Only way I knew was to raise a sail to tilt us. The boss wasn't certain we could control where we went with the sail up, and it wasn't really wide. I wasn't that concerned with the wind direction, and while it took about 10 minutes to convince her to try, as soon as we did, we were back in the channel before the genoa was halfway unfurled. Felt pretty good. But we decided to utilize our bailout plan (it was getting dark), and head south a bit to a marina. We snuck into a very tight slip for the night. We wound up covering 20.9 nm that day. The next morning was a 34.7 nm motor further up the ICW to the marina we are currently at. A bad wind cropped up as I was backing into our slip, so we pulled in bow first. With the positioning of the pedestal on the finger of this giant slip (our boat neighbors for the first couple of weeks had a 53' Gulfstar Ketch, and they still had 15' on the front and back of the boat), we have the coolest freaking view from our cockpit, and I have seen dolphins every day we've been here. Super awesome.

Now, the damage. As some of you know, this boat has been sitting in a marina for a couple of years. It turns out that the motion of sailing or motoring was enough that a pretty significant chunk of rust on the water heater gave out, totally messing up our freshwater system. Not a huge deal, since we turn off the water pump when under way, but it was a pain. I pulled out the tank, and with the access created, I immediately started reworking the wiring. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to replace the board the water tank sat on, but I have removed it, and am giving it a chance to dry out. I'm also adding another filter into the pressurized water system. This would be inconvenient, but the water at this marina is really nasty well water, with large amount of salt and sulfur (even going through 4 filters!!), so we've got gallons of water we use for drinking and the like. We're here until the 15th, and hopefully by then I'll be done with the electrical rework and installation of the water heater, and we just need to fill up our water tanks, and start making our way South again, but anchoring. Not sure what our plan is beyond that, and I'm totally fine with it. Otherwise, we might go to a different marina to finish the work. Our first boat neighbors (the ones with 53' Gulfstar) were a Canadian couple who have been together for a year, but each has been independently sailing for the last 20 years. Very knowledgeable, and he gave me a lot of good advice. One of which is that he introduced me to Kano Aerokroil. Amazing product. It completely freed up one side of the whisker pole that heat and PB blaster couldn't break through. The next guy who is currently in that slip is a Spanish solo sailor with a Panda 38, and he had a tough go coming from Texas this year, including all electronics failing for 3 weeks, hand steering, etc. He's super big on redundancy, so quite helpful to talk to. If he thinks my plan is overkill, it probably is.

I'm working on refurbishing a free whisker pole. I am probably going to wind up getting new ends for it. And as I started looking into it, I realized I don't have a spinnaker ring on the mast. What kind of setup do you have when you need to pole out a sail?

I know that is a super general question, and the answers would vary wildly, and all depend on how I'm going to be sailing. Well, I don't exactly know as of yet.

Essentially, here is the situation. We're leaving the marina in December, and while we may dock for a few weeks, we're making the transition to living at anchor. I'm not even sure if we're going to leave the country or not. We're still about a year away from our next planned haul out time frame, but I'm not sure we'll have access to the mail or parts at that point. So the thought is that right now, time is at a premium, but money is flowing in. So I was thinking of buying some stuff and storing it for when money is at a premium, but time is plentiful. I was just curious what jobs or equipment you would want to do, or what you've experienced in your cruising. We're not going to be crossing an ocean in the next couple of years, and will probably stick with the Caribbean.

I'm thinking of things like a throughhull Depth Speed Temp NMEA 2000 sensor, anemometer (B&G maybe), autopilot (CPT - hopefully will actually be installed before we leave), wind generator (I'm still not sure about putting it on the radar platform on the mizzen - seems like it would make a mizzen staysail a bit of a pain - plus if I could mount it to the top of the mizzen mast, it'd be out of the way, plus more effective higher up like that).

So many ideas running around my head, and such a lack of ability to figure out what words to google, so thought I'd open it up for a conversation. 

This is my first boat. I've tried taking her out 3 times, and succeeded twice. I'm in south florida, and have 3 bridges to get to the ocean (which I can pull off in 30 minutes if I plan right) over got the westerbeke 40, with a 4.108 (I think). Injector pump yes been rebuilt, injectors replaced. Fuel filters, oil filter as well. Even upgraded the belt to a green stripe.

Holy hell she's loud below. And the sink of diesel lasts for at least 6 days. Is that normal? Or do I have a dumb ass super power of an acute sense of smell?

I'm on mobile right now, and doing some research. I'm going to get a new VHF, and I'm thinking of getting one with AIS. To that end, I see that some of them also have built in MOB sensors. Are those worth it? Is it worth it to have it attached to the VHF? I'm not even sure if the VHF is supposed to stay on for longer passages. I mean, I imagine yes, but I'd guess that in reality, no.

What are your thoughts? I can probably do without one, but in case it is, might as well make that decision now when I have money and easy shipping, right?

Hello all. So we're doing our best to go out sailing as often as possible. And now, it's time for some instruments. For now, the hawkeye depth sounder will work, even though I'm not a huge fan of the uber temporary install we have. So next is a wind speed indicator and an autopilot. I found I was focusing too much on the compass bearing instead of the wind at first, and then I couldn't see the passive indicator from the wheel with the bimini up, and the only hint I had was when the sails started luffing. Now, I know a good chunk of this is practice, so I'm not worried, but it did highlight a few things. A wind vane is definitely something I want, especially for longer passages. The idea of it just appeals to my romantic side, and the lack of electricity usage appeals to the idea of simplicity. But that's not the kind of sailing I'm going to be doing right now. It's around coastal around Florida, until we start venturing further. Now, based on some calculations, specs, and comments here, I don't want to do a wheel drive unit, as I don't think it would be anything but temporary, and for the cost, it's only a bit more to install a beefier one under the cockpit. I am right at the first phase of beginning to install instruments (I don't count the depth sounder for some reason), so if it turns out to be easier to stick with all the same brand, now would be the time to pick that.

So what do you have for self-steering? Weaknesses? Strengths? What kind of sailing do you do? Recommendations? We're thinking within a year to jump to the islands, and start cruising out way South. There is a lot of information out there, and real hard to find decent used things.

So now that the Streamstay is getting rebuilt, we will ideally soon have a functional roller furler. Which is neat and all, but it's really just a spinny piece of metal. It's not that cool until I put a sail on. To that end, I looked at the initial documentation (and I found some resources here too) since this is the original unit.

Luff		Leach	Foot
39' 3 1/2"		22' 8"	36' 7"

I checked Pineapple Sails, but they didn't have anything that wasn't way too small. Second wind has a bigger selection, but still not quite the correct size. Obviously, I can't go bigger, but I don't want to go that much smaller. For coastal and caribbean cruising is what this would be used for at this moment in time.

Currently off to go get a new Halyard and doing some electrical work. Again, I'll post those details in the appropriate section.

Well, huh. The engine starts and purrs. It's nice. Doing some more maintenance and checks before going out tomorrow. Unfortunately, it looks like something got missed or just finally failed.

Take a look at this video (you really only need to watch for 20 seconds, the rest was messing with the phone). I'm going to have Ray come back and take a look at it, but from what I understand, this must be one of the seals having failed (or a bolt missing). So, once I have this working, and something like this happens again, would the route be to just replace the impellers?

I did stumble across this quote from S/V AMITY in an old thread:

    In process of rebuilding the W-44 raw water pump.  Have stripped the Westerbeke red off down to the bronze and will not be repainting it for inspection purposes.  By that I mean if/when the pump shaft water seal begins to fail, we will be able to detect the leak much sooner since bare bronze will quickly develop green surface corrosion.  With a painted pump, a leak can remain undetected until the paint starts to fail (if it does) and the water slinger has had a chance to mist seawater all over the engine.  Many rusted engines got that way thanks to a weepy pump.

So the fact that it's green is actually a sign that something is going on, and I can use it as such. I think I'll clean the hell out of the thing once it's off, and put that on my list of things to check.

So no sailing on this boat tomorrow. Still might go out with someone else.

As we move more into sailing mode, we're evaluating more. We know we don't have a headsail. I'm keeping an eye out for one that will fit from https://www.secondwindsails.com/ or http://www.pineapplesails.com/usedsail/index.htm. But now that we moved to checking the roller furling, it didn't move more than an inch.
So we started researching it. It seems so simple! There is a headstay/forestay, and around that is an extension aka a foil. That contains the groove for the luff tape of the headsail. The drum on the bottom just allows remote spinning of the foil. So we know the drum isn't siezed. But looking closer, the foil is jammed up at the top. The only movement comes from the bend in the metal of the foil.

I'm planning on going up the mast this weekend (better half wanted more backup the first time), and I'll try to find where it's stuck. I'll spray some wd-40 and try to break it loose.

Is there anything I need to be aware of? I am a bit concerned that the forestay is original, since the PO said she got rid of the headsail because it was dry rotted. But I'm not sure.

During the course of troubleshooting my engine (westerbeke 40), I replaced the racor filter, and the one on the engine. I cannot for the life of me figure out which bolt is the air vent so that I can prime the system. I'm sure it's just something stupid I'm missing, but any advice?

So I know that our ketch hasn't been sailed much, but we're taking her out for her inaugural sail tomorrow. We got the fridge situation sorted, and we're ready enough for a day sail. I want to try out multiple sail plans, and really start messing with some canvas. As I was doing my initial dry run (raising sails in the slip, etc), I realized that I currently don't have a halyard for the mizzen. The topping lift does run all the way back to the winches, so I used that to hoist it the first time. Is it okay to sail like that? Is that by design?

I'm pretty sure there is a way to efficiently use the foot pump (or any other faucet that is within 2 inches of the edge of the sink), but I couldn't figure it out. Even with the foot pump, I was using so. much. water. Washing hands (which is a bit important these days) was a pain, and so was washing dishes. Seriously, try to rinse off a bowl where you can't actually get the entire thing under the water no matter how I position it. Again, I'm pretty sure there is a method that I'm missing, and I might keep the foot pump short for now, just so I can figure out how to use it (maybe something like this collapsible wash basin?

Anyway, I got frustrated with it, and we started doing some research. Made some measurements, shopped about, and eventually settled on the Lordear Bar Sink Faucet. The original plan was to install it centered, and replace the existing faucet. While I did keep in mind how the further to port the lower the clearance, I kind of missed that slight slope aft. It would have installed there fine, but we needed to make the faucet holes a bit bigger, and I'm pretty sure that we wouldn't be able to get full range of motion out of the faucet. So we removed what I think was the original (non-functional) raw water hand pump, only had about 5 millimeters we had to shave off the sides of the existing hole (only about 3 mm to fit the faucet, but at the angle we had to install it, needed just a wee bit more room. The better half went to town using the side of a drill bit, and in about 15 minutes, had it good. The plumbing underneath was a bit of a PITA. Hot water was a (I now know) a PEX line, and it was a standard garden hose sized line for the cold water. But the connection wasn't standardized, and I didn't have any of the extra couplers needed to get the pex connected to a 3/8" compression line, same deal with the other hose. I don't know if I really went into the back story, but we sold everything before coming out here. We didn't even have a hammer. So it adds a bit of difficulty not having the tools needed. Add into that, Florida Home Depots. I have never seen a more useless home depot since I moved here. So some trips to harbor freight, multiple trips to Home Depot, and we still wound up not being able to hook up the larger hose. Well, I found a rusted coupler, and with about 15 minutes of cleaning, was able to get it to work. And I have to admit, I'm super excited about it.

Forgive the crazy mess in the galley, as we're still figuring that out. But here are some pictures!

Just enough clearance!!



Swivel to port, things get a bit close. Fortunately it has an extendable head, so there is no risk of it getting jammed over there.



I can move it completely out of the way of anything!!



Plus I can pull out the sprayer, and hit anything from any angle!! Also, I can now fill up our filtered pitcher thing for drinking water (still haven't quite figured out how to get the tanks clean enough to drink out of, so I usually used an RV inline filter from the hose at the dock to fill up the pitcher).




Not my first boat job, as I've rewired a few things, but the electric jobs seem to be way easier than the plumbing ones on a boat.

Hey there folks!! I have to say that I'm absolutely stoked to be here. I joined and commented a little while ago, but transitioning to boat life involves a lot of logistics (as I'm sure you are all aware), and they were stressing me out.

First, allow me to introduce myself. My name (as may be obvious) is Jordan. I'm a 35 year old Software Engineer by trade. The much better half is known on forums as MXT. She's a bit older than I am, and we've been together for 11 years last January. I did have about 5 "lost years", where I kind of fell apart completely. The end result of that was to leave Colorado in August of 2019. I flipped a coin, choosing between East and West coast of the US. West coast it was. However, MXT said it'd probably be better in Florida. She was going to follow me on this hair-brained adventure, and has fully adopted it, so I agreed. After lots of looking, in March, we purchased the boat known as KAPALA. So yeah, we bought a boat literally weeks after a pandemic was declared. KAPALA is a 1977 Pearson 365 Ketch, Hull #141. During the ~6 months of boat shopping in earnest (I had to find a job and a place to stay), Pearsons weren't really on our list. We were really eyeing the S2 11C (36' center cockpit) that seemed to hit all the boxes we had identified. We looked at a Catalina 30' first. Doable, but no room for our bikes (we are from Colorado, and she followed me out here with our bikes and a Nissan Versa worth of stuff - everything else was given away or sold), so we adjusted our length guidelines up to 38'. We looked at a few Hunters, a Jenneau, a Benneteau Pilothouse, and a few others.

But it was a single day that started the journey that wound up with me writing this from the cockpit of our boat. We broke down the boats we were interested in, used some Google Maps APIs to identify how far away each boat was, and grouped them so that we could see as many as we could on each trip. One grouping was about 2 hours North of Hollywood, Florida (where we rented a week by week place with free A/C and internet). There were 3 boats in that location, and the evening before, we had confirmation from all 3 owners. We woke up early, made some breakfast, and head out. We met the first guy, with a Pearson 365 Ketch (it may have even been a '77). Seeing a boat without a quarter berth was surprising, and we liked it. But this boat was at the higher end of our budget, plus there was no prop installed. While we were at the Marina, the boat next to us head out for a day of sailing. Also, one of the other 2 boats cancelled (as seems to happen in Florida), and when I told the next guy of our opened schedule, he suggested sailing (thanks Bruce!!). We agreed. He rowed out to a Pearson 35 on the hook. Besides Sunfish (which we learned how to sale a couple of weeks prior...followed by joining the Gulfstream Sailing Club right before coronavirus shut down the meetings) and theoretical knowledge (meh, I suppose some sailing on the Chatfield Reservoir in Colorado and Lake McConaughy in NE as a teen), I had no experience. I told this all to Bruce, and he proceeded to walk us through the steps required, and then we sailed. It didn't take long after the sail that we decided that boat wouldn't work for us. We saw 32' boats that had a layout that would work for us, but the Pearson 35 seemed too small. The funny thing was that each boat we saw thereafter was compared to the Pearson 365 in the marina. It was weird, but we felt the same way (granted, for me, sailing the 35 was my anchor, and the beam and salon on the 365 was hers). We kept looking. We drove further and further away. Trips to the keys, and we were planning a multi-day trip to the other coast, with about 10 boats to look at. But MXT noticed something. A boat we had looked at before (but our of our budget) that was close just dropped its price. She looked good! A Pearson 365 Ketch quite literally a 10 minute drive away from our sublet. And the boat was at a Marina we had looked at previously, and considered too expensive.

You know how they say that one buys a boat with their heart, and not their brain? Well, I kept waiting for it to happen, with every intention of smooshing down those feelings. It turns out it was more subtle than that. We'd been comparing boats to the earlier 365 we saw without being able to definitively say why. And when we stepped on board KAPALA, well, it just felt good. Not overwhelming, just good. It seemed like a good place. And considering our goal is to do a lot of off-grid cruising, a good place as our home seemed like a great idea.

Now, I've had this draft in progress for more than a week, but didn't complete it. Boat jobs took over. There are some major issues we're currently tackling, and I wanted to ask advice. But without a bit of background, I didn't feel right about it (that's my own thing, I know).

I'll make specific threads with specific questions relating to what we're tackling, but a quick look at the Effin' To Do List (this is what we've named the list of stuff to do...based on Brave or Stupid) shows that right now, I need to build out a map of the electrical systems, map the plumbing system (she's only got 2 of the 3 water tanks), I need to figure out how to get up the masts (currently, we're thinking bosun's chair with a ladder - better half is not okay lifting me up on her own...we may just find someone else to lend an extra hand). I need to install spreader lights, check the mast light that doesn't seem to turn on, and run the line for the flags from the main spreader. The mizzen doesn't even have a halyard, and I need to figure out how to run it. We have a Nature's head composting toilet, and I'm debating plumbing a pump to the liquids container to tie in with the head sink outlet. Currently, a roller furling is installed, but I don't know if one of the two extra sails I've found will seat in the roller furler (or even how to setup a roller furler). We have an uber temporary bimini, with good fabric, but a weak structure. I've been trying to figure out how to design a dodger/bimin that doesn't get in the way (this current one will not allow a full rotation on the aft-most winch for the mizzen...I think). I still haven't figured out what I want, but I'm thinking of converting the wire lifeline from the aft assembly to the first stanchion will be the best framework (plus it would be cool). Again, I am going to be posting more specific questions, but I really wanted to get an introduction done.

Oh, and this boat will be rebranded, and I'm planning on documenting her (again...she used to be in the 80s) with the USCG.

So very glad to be here, both on this forum, and in the cockpit, with a rum in one hand.