Provisioning / reefer lid

We got most of the non-perishables down to the boat over the weekend.

and tonight we prepped two of our early dinners.  We made beef stroganoff and chicken enchiladas to "heat and eat" on the trip.  We are also taking a Stouffer's Lasagna and a stew from a crew member's wife for "heat and eat" dinners, then the rest of the trip we will prepare and cook the dinners while underway.

Also tonight we did most of the work for replacing the lifting handles on the reefer lid with latching handles.  These are "just in case" of a knock down or inversion, so the lid does not go flying. 

A Docking Story

This is off my usual Pac Cup topic but I was just sharing this with someone and thought you might enjoy this little anecdote:

Last Wednesday night we had just tied up our friend's trawler we'd taken out for a spin when a 42'+ sailboat was coming in two slips up, and coming in fast. It was just the skipper and one guy who was at the stern with the skipper. I ran over to grab the bow dock lines (there were none ready!!) and the skipper was NOT slowing down. I yelled* "REVERSE! REVERSE!" Skipper casually replied "I lost my reverse". The bow rode up on the dock and came out of the water a good two feet. Once we got the boat stopped the skipper said "oh I'm in the wrong slip". I won't go into the comedy of him and his one crew trying to use dock lines to leverage the boat back out of the wrong slip and make a U turn to back into the new one. Suffice it to say my husband and I took pity on them and helped them. Plus their correct slip it next to our friend's trawler to we wanted to look out for him!

*we have a "no yelling while docking" policy unless bodily harm, death, or severe property damage is imminent.  I was holding on to the guy's bow pulpit so I was somewhat concerned about bodily harm to myself but more that he was going to take out the dock or the dock box, or put a hole in his bow!

Since this story is out of context and not all my readers are boaters, I will explain a little about docking a boat.  Have you ever struggled to park you car in a narrow spot, where maybe the cars in the adjacent spots are really close to the lines?  That is what getting a boat into a slip with docks on each side is like.  You have maybe a foot of clearance on each side and you are trying to slot a 40+ foot (at least in our case) boat into it.  So not only is it like trying to get a car into a narrow spot but it is not just a matter of turning at the right angle to not hit the neighboring cars.  You have wind and current influencing the speed and direction of the boat AND you have no brakes.  The only thing you can do to slow down is shift into reverse, but doing so also changes the direction of the boat--oh I have to explain THAT to. 

Ok so in a car, you turn the steering wheel, it turns the wheels, the car turns.  In a boat, you turn the wheel, it turns the rudder and the rudder attempts to move the boat the way you turned the wheel BUT as I mentioned you also have the force of the wind and current.  There is another factor that comes into play in reverse and that is the force of the water that is being moved by the propeller.  The effect is called "prop walk" and it causes the boat to want to back up in a particular direction (based on which way the propeller spins) regardless of which way the rudder is turned.  You have to factor in prop walk into your planning for any maneuver that involves backing up. 

If you are not a boater you are probably now thoroughly confused.  So imagine again that you are trying to park in that really narrow parking space and you are driving a big SUV on a really windy day and you are being pushed by the wind into one of the cars next to as you try to turn in.  So you throw the car from forward into reverse to try to correct and instead your car starts going the opposite direction from where you want (but at least you slowed down) so you ask your spouse to hop out of the car and push you away from the car you are being blown into.  Can you imagine that you and your spouse might be a little tense and be inclined to yell?  Thus we have the no yelling rule.  Yelling really doesn't help, it just escalates the tension.  Unless someone is going to die!  Then you need to get the skipper's attention.

And as I learned so many years ago from Bryan Jones, my horse back riding instructor, "you can't steer if you aren't moving".  You can't solve this problem by coming in super slow and thinking you are going to be oh so careful and slide it in just right.  If you aren't moving forward, the boat is not going to respond when you turn the wheel and the wind and current are going to take over.  Even though most marinas are protected by a "breakwater" there is still wind and current inside the marina!  All in all docking can be quite exciting!

I hope this gives you a little taste of what this yachting stuff is like.  :)  It is not all sunsets and margaritas.

Making Progress!

We got a TON of Pac Cup prep done this weekend.  I took some pictures of the provisions but forgot to take the camera to the boat!  I hope to have a ton of pictures to upload tomorrow night.  We have all the non-perishables stowed, everything that we had to take off for the weighing organized and back on, a bunch of little niggling projects done and we are so close to being ready!  We have a few last minute things yet but we still have time AND we have some fresh recruits in town for the weekend festivities who can be put to work on some of the items! 

What is this ratings stuff?

 From Wikipedia:

The handicap number assigned to a class of yachts is based on the yacht's speed relative to a theoretical yacht with a rating of 0. A yacht's handicap, or rating, is the number of seconds per mile traveled that the theoretical yacht should be in front of or behind that yacht. Most boats have a positive PHRF rating, but some very fast boats have a negative PHRF rating. If Boat A has a PHRF rating of 15 and Boat B has a rating of 30 and they compete on a 1 mile course, Boat A should finish approximately 15 seconds in front of Boat B. Results are adjusted for handicap by the race committee after all competitors have finished.

The Pac Cup is a 2070 nautical mile course.  When our rating went from 88 to 63, we lost 25 seconds per mile.  So for the race that is 51750 seconds.  862.50 minutes.  14.375 hours.  More than half a day!  We did not think we could sail to that rating.  In other words, we did not think the boat was fast enough that we could afford to give that much time to our competitors and still be competitive.  With that rating we could expect to correct out (the finish order after the ratings corrections are applied) to last place.  We are not expecting to win the race but it is depressing to start a race knowing that you have no shot at doing well!  By having the boat weighed we got almost half of that time back--6.9 hours over the 2070 nm course.   That seems more realistic for the boat's performance and puts us on the "slower" end of the group we are starting with.  Considering how we have done against these boats in other races over the past year and a half, that is where we should be.  So we hope to be more competitive within our division and the fleet with our "correct" rating of 75.

There are two other boats in our division with the same rating.  Like Ay Caliente in the Ocean Races, we will know in real time how we are doing against these two boats.

12 days to go!

We need another drumroll for this one!

New downwind rating..... 75! Yes!

So they weren't kidding about weight being a significant factor in the downwind rating!

Drumroll please.....

from the measurer:

This afternoon I weighed this boat on a certified load cell at Berkeley Marine Center.

The boat was in ORR Measurement trim, all sails removed, life raft removed, all water and holding tanks empty. The fuel tank had approximately 50 gallons in them. The weight of that fuel was subtracted from the load cell rating. I did a complete review of the interior of the boat. All equipment was in place including cushions in the main and aft cabins. The only items not on the boat where the forward berth cushions. The bilges were dry.

The weight was 21,275 pounds.

The load cell was certified last January by the Manufacture in the UK.

Now... for the new rating... stay tuned.

Weighing

I have been getting texts from the owners on how the weighing is going.  They got up to Berkeley in about 2 and a half hours (that is pretty fast from Coyote Point) and went to pump out.  (Water and waste tanks must be empty and pump out at CP is broken.)  They were getting buffeted by an 18 knot breeze inside the marina! 

Once they pumped out they headed over to the haul out area to wait at the dock until the weighing apparatus was set up on the travel lift.  Once they got it all rigged, the Marine Center people let the owners know that, oops, they were going to have to detach the backstay and back the boat in.  Detaching the backstay is okay, but there is that little part about the SSB antenna!  They had to get the yard's electrician over to detach it, then they were able to get the boat in the lift. 

Still waiting on the weight... they are lifting the boat out of the water now. The official measuring guy offered to saw off the arch for us. 

Weights and Measures, things left to do...

Tiki J is being motored over to Berkeley right now to be weighed. Getting the boat weighed involved taking most everything off of it, including the sails. We spent five hours unloading it yesterday and moving everything to the owners' garage.  The owners left the marina around 9:30 this morning and will meet the "official measurer" at 2 pm to have the boat hauled out of the water and weighed.  At least now we will KNOW what the boat really weighs and we can stop the endless speculation on how much the radar arch and all the other "extras" added by the original owner put us over the book weight of 19,500.  It was amazing to see how much higher she was floating after we took everything off!  We have had guesstimates ranging all the way up to 25,000.  We should have done a pool on what the weight will really be.

There are people coming out the boat every day this week to work on various thing, including installing a new refrigeration system. Saturday we hope to organize everything in the garage and decide what goes to Hawaii and where it will be stowed, then stow it all by Sunday. We also have most of the non-perishable food in our spare room which all needs to be organized and stowed. Then on the 4th we have to buy and stow all the perishables...

Here is the schedule:

6/23 - Wed - Autopilot repair

6/24 - Thur - Autopilot Repair

6/24 - Thur - Alternator Regulator reprogram for AGM, install temp sensor

6/25 - Fri - Reefer install

6/26 - Sat - Reefer install

6/26 and 6/27- Sat and Sun - Organize gear and load boat

7/3 - Sat - Skippers Meeting and Pac Cup Bon Voyage Party

7/4 - Sun - Purchase and stow perishables

7/5 - Mon - Any last minute items, stow personal gear

7/6 - Tues - DEPARTURE!

Another Ratings Change??

We were notified by YRA yesterday that there was an error on our PHRF certificate that they had just noticed and corrected, resulting in a lower downwind rating.  This is the third downwind rating we have had this year.  Our regular rating is 81.  Our original downwind rating was 39.  Then we requested a change as we would carry only symmetrical spinnakers.  We expected 3 seconds for that but our new downwind rating came in at 88.  Believe me I called to make sure that wasn't a mistake and I was assured it was correct.  Yesterday we received notice that one of our spinnaker measurements had been reported in meters and they had converted it to feet and recalculated our downwind rating as 63.   It will probably change again as I sent the new certificate to our sail maker to check the converted measurement and it was listed as a foot larger than it actually is.  We shall see where we land but it looks like we will still start Tuesday at 12:15 as there are a couple of boats with lower ratings than 63.

Edit: the sail measurement correction did not change the new rating of 63 so now we are discussing potentially having the boat weighed and trying to get another new rating before the race.  We have had several people tell us our boat weighs more than what J boat says as we have a huge s/s radar arch.  Two people from the PHRF committee said that the weight makes a "significant difference" in the downwind rating.  I just talked to the official measurer and he guestimated it could be 5000 heavier (that is 25%) than the "official weight" and he has never even SEEN the boat or its arch.  Why couldn't this have happened BEFORE the last minute???  LOL.  Gotta love this yachting stuff.

Running Out of Time

Just in the past few days I have gone from feeling that I have all the time in the world to finish getting ready for the Pac Cup to feeling like there is not enough time!  For instance, I was grocery shopping for home last night and thought I'd pick up a few things that I know we need for the trip.  This morning I was marking them off the Pac Cup shopping list and realized I have barely made a dent in the list.  WHEN am I going to buy all this stuff?  WHEN am I going to figure out where to stow it all?  WHEN am I going to make and freeze the dinners for the first three nights?  WHEN am I going to pick up and stow all the perishables?

I am not panicking (quite yet) but the reality of how little time we REALLY have left is starting to sink in!  Less than three weeks!

Baling Wire and Chewing Gum

I received a comment in an email from one of my readers:

This boat sounds worse than my Dad's old '41 Ford that he held together with chewing gum and bailing wire. But you people are paying big bucks for these repairs and are going across the Pacific Ocean in this thing. My sister and I only drove the old Ford around town! I guess you're feeling confident about the condition the boat will be in at departure?

My readers that have a boat will probably recognize that this comment came from someone who doesn't.  :)  Honestly, if this was a power boat I probably WOULD be nervous but since it is a sailboat and we have had ZERO problems with anything to do with the sailing aspect of the boat (well, other than user error) I know we can get to Hawaii.  Not having a refrigerator is a bit of a bummer but certainly not insurmountable.  We already have a plan for that and since we still have a working holding plate in the reefer box it actually stays quite cold if you put something in there (i.e. dry ice) to freeze the holding plate's eutectic solution.  I anticipate having no problem keeping the box cold into the second half of the race.  Then we start eating spaghetti with canned meat sauce, snickers bars and stuff like that.  If you have seen "Morning Light" (the Disney movie of the young people who did a Trans Pac race a few years back), we will be eating MUCH better than they did!

The managing partner made a significant discovery through this latest boat yard experience.  He was continually being told that he was better off repairing what we had instead of replacing the troublesome items because the equipment we have on board is "the best."  For example, we have "the best" refrigeration system, "the best" electric heads and "the best" autopilot.  The reefer is now kaput, the electric heads are currently working after MANY visits from "the head guy" and many parts being replaced and the autopilot has NEVER actually worked despite numerous expensive parts being replaced. So the discovery Scott has made is that when the shop tells you the thing you have is "the best" and you should repair instead of replace you MIGHT want to consider ripping the damn thing out immediately!!  What it is actually "the best" at is lining the repair man's pockets and not actually WORKING!!!  Or maybe we just have bad luck!  All the items that ARE new (where Scott went ahead and ripped out the old and put in new) work just fine.  But it IS a boat so it is only a matter of time!  Hopefully a LONG time though.  We are running short on baling wire and bubble gum!

This weekend we slummed it on a friend's power boat on our yacht club's cruise out.  Here we are setting up the lounge chairs on the top deck.  It was such a hassle to go up and down the steep ladder to get more beer but we managed somehow.  Before long we had four plastic chairs up there along with the steamer chairs as we had so many visitors.  One person jumped in to swim back to his boat.  :)  Tons of fun.

News From the Yard

Tiki J has been released from the yard but unfortunately not because the work is done.  The autopilot either needs a major overhaul or to be replaced.  This is after the yard checked it out thoroughly earlier this year and replaced the ram (I believe that is the correct term for the arm that attaches to the steering quadrant below decks and actually does the steering at the computers commands).  The rudder position indicator did not fit the new arm so one of the crew fabricated a new bracket to attach it.  We weren't able to get the system working so asked the yard to trouble shoot.  The first new diagnosis was that the rudder indicator was faulty.  So they replaced it.  Oh wait the drive unit needs to be sent back to the manufacturer and reprogrammed--I think that was the final diagnosis.  Or they may be waiting on a part.  I can't remember which but in any case it sounds like Tiki J is headed back to the yard after the weekend cruise out.

The other problem we took Tiki J in for was that the motor had cut out on the way up the coast and that seemed to be related to gunk in the tanks clogging the fuel filters.  This has been a recurring problem so we previously had a fuel filter pressure sensor installed.  It is really cool because you can actually see the pressure building and building as you hear the RPMs getting lower and lower.  When the pressure gauge gets into the red zone there is usually a complete loss of engine noise... since the motor is getting no fuel it dies.  We have a two filter system so the idea is that when you see the pressure starting to rise you switch filters in the theory that you have clogged one but the other one should be okay.  Unfortunately this has not proved to be the case in the few times we have had this issue.

Sooooo the yard took out all the fuel, cleaned it, cleaned the tanks, blah blah blah everything should be FABULOUS.  Last night when the owner and another crew were moving it from the yard to the cruise out yacht club they watched the pressure gauge going up up up, heard the RPMs going down down down and rushed to take action before silence ensued.  Switched the filters, switched the tanks, switched the tanks, switched the filters.  Didn't seem to make much difference and the pressure and RPMs spontaneously went back to normal.  They have now concluded that the fuel line needs to be replaced since that is the only thing that hasn't been cleaned out yet!  Though at the rate we are going we aren't going to need to run the motor to charge the batteries on the trip as we aren't going to have anything drawing power!  The delivery crew might want a motor though.  And an autopilot.

We are looking forward to relaxing at the cruise out this weekend and then getting back into the hard core boat prep for the last three weekends before we take off!

Logos, Tikis and Whanot...

Neophyte commented that a pineapple logo would be cool.  I designed a pineapple logo for Pineapple Girl and we had it painted on the bow and also had it embroidered on our "PG" shirts and hats.  I don't seem to have it right now but I will add it to this post later,

This is an embroidery proof of the Tiki J logo.  On the side of the boat the Is are the Tiki head.  The Tiki head is on our spinnakers as well, with red eyes.

I tried to paste in a little better version but can't get it to paste. :p  phooey.

My dad sent me this Tiki definition from Wikipedia and asked how our boat name fits in with this:

Tiki refers to large wood and stone carvings of humanoid forms in Central Eastern Polynesian cultures of the Pacific Ocean. The term is also used as it relates to Māori mythology where Tiki is the first man. In the Māori language, the word 'tiki' was the name given to large wooden carvings in roughly human shape, although this is a somewhat archaic usage. The carvings often serve to mark the boundaries of sacred or significant sites. In Māori mythology Tiki is the first man, created by either Tūmatauenga or Tāne. He found the first woman, Marikoriko, in a pond. She seduced him and he became the father of Hine-kau-ataata.

We are more about the fun of the "Tiki Culture".  Again from Wikipedia:

Tiki culture refers to a 20th-century theme used in Polynesian-style restaurants and clubs originally in the United States and then, to a lesser degree, around the world. Although inspired in part by Tiki carvings and mythology, the connection is loose and stylistic.

Since Tiki J has been in the yard we have been using a friend's power boat.  It is a trawler so it is like a sailboat with no sail!  We moved it from San Mateo to Alameda yesterday, which took over three hours if not four.  No faster than in the sailboat.  We had a nice little rocking motion going as we were getting hit by chop.  Felt JUST like we were sailing but with no heeling over.  Is is huge inside and it has an actual "real" shower much like one would find in an apartment on shore, versus having the bathroom sink faucet pull out into a showerhead and the drain be in the middle of the bathroom floor-- though there is a LOT to be said to having the entire bathroom (that is head in nautical terms) be waterproof and "hose down-able." 

It was very nice to pull into Encinal Yacht Club last night and sit on their deck eating cheeseburgers enjoying the view of the Alameda Estuary.  We are looking forward to spending the weekend there this weekend.

In the Yard Again...

So the boat is back at the yard.  I believe this time it is for the fuel / tanks after our incident with the motor dying on Saturday, and having the autopilot looked at as we have not been able to get it to work.  We figure the return crew are probably going to want that!  It SHOULD work now as we had a new ram arm installed and one of the crew got the rudder position sensor to fit on the new arm, we attempted to calibrate it twice at least, but still no luck with it.  Argh. So far I do not believe we have a decision on the refrigerator.

I see I forgot to mention Ay Caliente in my posts on Memorial Weekend / Spinnaker Cup.  I don't think I had ever actually met any of the crew from that boat and I finally did over the weekend.  I have said before that they are my favorite competitor in OYRA since they rate the same so we have instant feedback on how we are doing compared to them (plus they usually do well so if we are doing well on them we are doing REALLY well.  that is rare).  Also I have to like them since they have a big chili pepper as their logo and they have it on their spinnaker.  Gotta love people with a big logo on their spinnaker.  Makes the whole thing more fun.  So anyway I talked to I guess the owner in Santa Cruz and commented on their spinnaker blowing up at the end of the Farallones race.  His reply was along the lines of "wasn't that AWESOME!!!!"  Okay I REALLY like this guy now, so laid back and just out there having a good time!  Love it!

Wow so I googled them to get a picture and see they have their own webpage.  Their motto is "this boat was built for fun."  NICE.

Spinnaker Cup

See photos 570-595 for our fabulous start to the Spinnaker Cup

We participated in the Spinnaker Cup Race from San Francisco to Hawaii Monterey (got a little ahead of myself there!) on Friday, May 28.  We did the race last year on Tiki J and placed second in our division.  Prior to that I had not done the race since 2004 when we snapped the rudder off Pizote, a Santana 30/30 GP that my husband, Matt, owned with his brother Mark, several miles offshore from Monterey.  Before that Matt and Mark had racked up many division first and second place trophies in various boats over the years.  Sail number 295 in the photos linked above is Mark in the Catalina he bought in 2005.  (We sold Pizote after we had the rudder repaired.)

OK, so the race...  The pin end was definitely favored at the start but meant coming in on port tack.  We'd watched the prior three starts and had a good strategy lined up.  It was flooding so we'd come in towards the pin from the left side, sailing high and letting the current push us down below the pin just in time to round and head up across the line at the starting gun.  We had a man on the bow but unfortunately he did not realize we were in our start sequence and did not know that we were planning to duck below the mark, so he was not calling where it was.  Our tactician was calling for the driver to turn down but since the bowman was not indicating we were going to hit the mark, the driver stayed a little too high and we ended up not only hitting the mark but getting it wrapped around our keel.  There are over two dozen photos so I can only imagine this provided some entertainment for the onlookers!  You will notice I did not give any names above.  :)  Anyway, that kind of ruined our start plan and we were WAY late to the start.   Here is a cool picture of us going under the Golden Gate bridge.

Tiki J makes a run to the shore at the bridge. ©2010 norcalsailing.com

It is a long race so we started a watch rotation in the early afternoon.  I wasn't really sleepy when I was sent below but I "rested my eyes" for awhile.  My first shift driving was in daylight with moderate winds.  I had been trimming the spinnaker for Matt for the hour before which pretty much consisted of not doing much as he was driving to the sail.  When it was my turn to drive, the new trimmer was very actively trimming so I was trying to steer a steady course.  Staying on a steady course in the ocean is not easy, at least not for me!  The waves come in sets which are fairly regular but I did not find the rhythm easy to pick up on.  I was definitely counting down my hour and was very happy when the next person came up and I could turn over the wheel to the crew who had been trimming for me.  My last hour on watch I had no specific task and was able to enjoy the beautiful day. 

I can't remember the whole sequence of events as the 16 or so hours blended together.  I remember at some point we switched to the heavier spinnaker and at some point after dark (while I was below off watch) it was taken down when the driver began to feel overpowered.  The person driving at that time is absolutely unflappable so for him to say he was overpowered is major.  I believe the crew at the time said it was blowing over 30 knots.  I heard the commotion on deck and rushed forward to squirrel the spinnaker into the forward cabin, then promptly went back to bed for the rest of my off watch time.

I think it was when I came up for my second shift that we put a spinnaker back up.  We try to make sail changes at shift changes as there are more people up already versus waking people up.  We put up the heavy spinnaker and should have put up the light one as the winds were light by this time.  Since my second shift driving was not as windy it seemed a bit easier and I was not watching the clock hoping for my turn to be over quite as much.  The winds were fluky and it was hard to keep the wind on the correct side of the boat or keep the spinnaker full.  The driver after me is MUCH more experienced than I and he was having the same issues with the main wanting to flop over so I felt better about my performance.  After I went down at the end of my shift the wind lightened up quite a bit and we had a hard time making it to the finish.  I was down below with about a half an hour before my next shift when I heard the crew on deck discussing where the finish was.  There was a horn and then they were discussing whether the horn was for us and whether we had finished.  I heard one of them say something like "well there is nobody else around so we must have just finished."  Then the motor fired up and we went into the marina for the night. 

We ended up fifth, out of fourth by less than three minutes and out of third by less than twelve minutes.  We easily could have been fourth if we had pulled off our start strategy and there were other small mistakes we were kicking ourselves for that could have got us third.  I sure hope we do not miss a place in the Pac Cup by such a small margin as it is kind of depressing.  I am sure I will have fun whether we are first or last in our division. 

There was some discussion the next morning over whether the finish mark was in the GPS.  Matt insisted the  GPS had been set to "go to" that mark when he went off watch.  I checked out the GPS and found that the race instructions had the finish as 36 degrees 36.24 minutes N 121 degrees 53.11 minutes W and it was in the GPS as 36 degrees 36 minutes 24 seconds N 121 degrees 53 minutes 11 seconds W.  Subtle difference!  Have to watch that next time. 

Ugh well I have probably bored my two readers with the details.  And I probably don't even have them straight.  I really enjoy doing this race but it is tough as it means missing one of our yacht clubs cruise outs which are SO fun.  This year the cruise was to Sausalito for the first time and I heard rave reviews.  It is going to be a tough call next year for which to do!