Officially Entered in the Pacific Cup

Furthur is officially entered in the Pacific Cup, I just paid the entry fee! It looks like we'll have some really good competition in the double handed class; maybe they'll split the DHers into two classes so we aren't racing against a carbon fiber Mini Transat boat with a canting keel.

Photo Essay of the Deck Hardware Installation, Part 1

Arthur and the original pit set up.

Old School: A winch for each halyard and 8:1 vang with SS wire.

New School: 12:1 vang with Dyneema line lead to both sides of the cabin top.

Just mocking it up.

Halyard clutches and 2 winches instead of 3.

We taped over the holes to protect the balsa wood core from any moisture.

The tools of the trade.

Every battery drill I came across was dead, so I used this beast.

Using templates Cody made, I could accurately drill holes for the new hardware.

The view from Furthur's dry slip.

Dry, golden brown balsa core.

Each hole was taped from below and filled with thickened epoxy injected from a syringe. The holes for all the bolts were drilled over-sized, then the correct size holes will be drilled through the epoxy plugs. This creates a water proof barrier between the bolt and core to keep the core dry and strong.

The Office

Here are a few photos of the Speed Merchant trailer...

The Zen view out the back of the trailer

Getting ready to give Furthur a major upgrade

Last Wednesday Cody and I doublehanded Furthur from the mooring field off Eckerd back to DIYC. We decided against doing the delivery the Friday before; as there were intense squalls, driving rain, lightning, and a 51 knot puff at DIYC. The breeze was out of the south, which would have made for a crazy fun ride, but possibly at the expense of breaking something. Instead, we sailed in 15-20 knots out of the Northwest, too tight an angle to hold the kite, but good "leaving SF Bay" Pac Cup practice. The last leg to DIYC was a beat and I finally figured out how to get the SC27 to depower and point: just keep adding backstay.

With Furthur back on the trailer at DIYC, I can sleep a little better not worrying about the anchor dragging. Also, my order of parts arrived, except for the cam cleats. Cody and I plan on going to DIYC tomorrow to start unbolting old hardware and mocking up the new stuff. It's no good in a pile on my desk...

Santa Cruzin'

With a strong wind out of the East and no rain on Sunday, I figured the conditions would be perfect for a fast run to Eckerd. With 30 knots of wind at the DIYC club house, it would certainly be a great oppurtunity to get Furthur surfing with the spinnaker up. I got Sheehan, Arthur and Julia to come along, and due to our usual timeliness, Furthur wasn't launched until the sun was setting. I am pretty sure I have sailed this boat more at night than during the day. The wind didn't feel like 30 knots, but over 20, so we rigged up the #4 jib and took off. Arthur put four waypoints in the GPS that would take us safely to Eckerd, and the course to the first mark was just a little to high to carry the spinnaker in that much breeze. Instead, we worked up some and made sure all the lines were run correctly for a smooth spinnaker set.

Turning down some for the next mark, we were able to carry the 1.5oz Runner with the #4 up as a staysail until the angle became too deep to keep the jib up. With more water between us and the weather shore, the chop and swell increased until we were surfing nicely. No one was watching the GPS, but I would guess we were hitting 12-13 knots when there were waves to surf. I can't wait to surf some endless Pacific rollers!

We made the trip in just over 3 hours, probably our fastest run. I don't know the mileage, but Arthur and I plan on keeping track of these runs and probably racing against each other for fun along this route. I kept Furthur at the Eckerd waterfront overnight and slept onboard, then left before anyone noticed. Furthur spent the today rafted up with Arthur's boat, but tonight I will anchor her seperately. I have class tomorrow, but plan on sleeping on the boat tonight and borrowing Arthur's dinghy tomorrow to go to class. Here are a few photos of the boats rafted up at the mooring field across from Eckerd.

Rowing from Eckerd with Indian Key and bridge leading to the Skyway in the background

Looking toward Eckerd. Furthur looks so much smaller than the Vital 26 even though she is a foot longer.

Soft hanks in action and new (to me) winches

After finishing a job at Speed Merchant, I started servicing the old Barient 21 primary winches from Furthur on the work bench, when I noticed the winch pawls were about to fall out of the inside of the winch drum. Over three decades of use, abuse, and probable lack of maintainence, the pawl had worn its socket in the winch drum and the pawl spring was trying to push it out. I asked Brian what he thought about pawls, and when he saw them his reaction was one of horror. The winch was essentially fragged; with any more use the pawl could wear the last bit of the socket holding it in. This would leave only one pawl to hold the entire winch load, and it would inevitably fail as well, leaving the winch useless. Not a good scenario while racing to Hawaii. The other winch was in almost as poor shape, and a replacement drum would be very difficult to find as Barient is no longer a company.

Luckily, Brian had a used set of Harken 32 winches from his J/24 in the trailer. After some discussion and haggling, I bought them from Brian and began tearing them down. Brian said they were only about 5 years old and had been rebuilt every year. He showed me the correct way to rebuild a winch, and using gasoline to dissolve the old winch grease, and each piece was soon clean. The most common mistake in servicing winches is to use too much grease, making them hard to spin when unloaded. The key is to use just enough grease on the bearings and a light oil on the pawls and pawl springs. After watching Brian service the first winch, I did the second one exactly as shown. I initially used too much grease on the bearings and had to wipe some off to make the winch free-spin easily, but other than that the servicing went well and I know the winches inside and out.

The innards of a Harken 32 winch during the test fit

The downside of the new Harkens was they did not have the same bolt mounting pattern as the old Barients. Therefore I had to fill all the holes and re-drill them. Because the Santa Cruz 27 has a Balsa-cored deck, it is crucial that any holes drilled for fasteners be water tight. Even if the fastener is bedded in 4200 (a type of marine sealant), the cured 4200 could eventually tear and allow water into the core. Therefore, it was necessary to go over-kill on the new winch installation.

After using the winch as a template, I drilled the new holes. This is always never-wracking, as you are DRILLING HOLES IN YOUR OWN BOAT, but also fun in a weird way. I then over-sized the new holes to 3/8" (the winch is mounted with 1/4" bolts) and put masking tape under the holes. The reason behind this is to keep water out of the core, you fill the over-size hole with epoxy thickened with filler, then when the epoxy is cured, drill the correct size hole for the fastener in the epoxy/filler plug. The epoxy plug separates the fastener hole and core, keeping the balsa dry and the decks strong.

I did this with Sheehan's help; she loves working with epoxy and fiberglass. I hate it. We even added a step to the epoxy process to further seal the core. First, she injected just epoxy into the holes with a syringe, then sucked it out before it cured. This is because unthickened epoxy will better penetrate and seal the balsa wood. Next, Sheehan filled the holes with thickened epoxy for a stronger plug.

When the epoxy had cured, I drilled the 1/4" holes, and bolted in the Harken 32s. I used some 4200 out of habit, but it may have been unnecessary. The new winches are excellent, they free spin more easily, have a lower 2nd gear ratio for more power, and far more abrasive material on the winch drums. This was a huge issue with the old Barient 21s, even with 4 wraps on the winch the line barely held.

The newly installed Harken winch.

I also got to try out the new soft hanks on the Thursday Night Full Moon Race and they work very well. The jib was no longer at risk of pulling out of the heafoil, sets and douses were fast, and it was easy to control the draft of the sail with halyard tension. The only issue with the soft hanks is they can be hard to get on and off. It will be interesting to see of this gets better or worse with time. It would probably be best to get bronze hanks for the sails we'll be taking on Pacific Cup, but for now the soft hanks are cheap and work.

Soft hanks on the jib and forestay

The wind for the race was very light and we had a bad start in lee of all the big boats. While tacking to get clear air, there was such a massive wind shift that we actually aborted the tack. This put us behind the fleet at the first mark, but we began to catch back up reaching with the spinnaker. Unfortunately, this was the only leg we could fly the kite on and we had a close reach/beat to the finish. There were a few funky wind shifts near the finish that we probably could have played better, but sailing at night without local knowledge makes calling the geographical shift difficult. Arthur did put each DIYC race mark in the GPS before the start, which helped keep us from getting lost during the race. Time in the boat will also help our speed. We corrected out second to last, but nothing broke and everyone had fun so it was a good race.