Monthly Archives: August 2018

If at first you don’t succeed….

When I purchased new sails for Terrapin, I also bought a spinnaker.  The spinnaker is used for downwind sailing when the wind is between 90 and 180 degrees off the bow.  Paradoxically dead downwind sailing or “a run” is generally one of the slowest points of sail, mainly because you are relying on your sails to be “pushed” by the wind directly behind them.  Conventional main and jib are not really designed for this.  Instead, conventional sails are designed to be a curved airfoil, like a vertical airplane wing.  The wind passing over the front of the sail provides “forward lift” and propels the boat forward.  In some cases, this can propel the boat faster than the wind speed as in the recent Americas Cup catamarans.  The spinnaker is a large light balloon like sail that catches the maximum amount of wind from behind to improve downwind sailing performance.  It is generally used for light wind of less than 15 knots.

The spinnaker is also somewhat tricky to rig and deploy and I had no experience with them other than reading and watching YouTube videos.  We have been on several stretches of long downwind sailing on Terrapin during our recent cruise to the Keys and have been frustrated with the slow speed.  Finally, one day I decided to test out the new spinnaker.  I think I made every mistake in the book and paid the price.  With Laura at the helm, I went to the bow and pulled the spinnaker out of the bow locker.  It is in a rather large bag and pretty unwieldly.  I hooked it up to a bridle that ran from one bow to the other with a shackle to attach to one of the lower corners of the spinnaker, called the tack.  The other lower corner of the spinnaker is called the clew and is where you attach the sheet that runs to the cockpit on the leeward side and controls the shape of the sail. By adjusting both the bridle position side to side and the sheet, I can control the position of the spinnaker and the amount of “ballooning”, or so goes the theory.  The spinnaker is in a sock about 40’ long and designed to be raised and unfurled in two steps: 1. Attach the head of the sail to the spinnaker halyard and hoist it up to the top of the mast. 2. Pull on another line running from a cuff around the bottom of the sock to the top of the spinnaker and then back down again. Pulling on this line raises the sock and allows the lightweight nylon spinnaker to unfurl and catch the wind.  To douse the spinnaker, you pull the sock back down with the same line.  So, I hooked up the tack and clew and raised the sock on the halyard.  So far so good.  Except that by the time I had done all this, the wind speed had increased to about 15k, gusting to 20.  I should have stopped right there.  Hindsight is 20/20, right?  Well, I raised the sock and all hell broke loose.  The sheet running to the cockpit wasn’t secured and came loose, allowing the spinnaker to flap uncontrollably in the strong wind.  It started to wrap around the forestay where the genoa is rolled up on a roller furler. I had also left the two genoa sheets attached to the genoa and these quickly became tangled with the spinnaker lines.  I tried to bring the sock down but it was jammed.  I spent what seemed like an eternity trying to control this crazy flapping spinnaker, but it was probably about 10 minutes.  I finally went to the mast and lowered the halyard lowering the whole mess to the trampoline.  Exhausted.

Lessons learned:

  • Don’t try to fly the spinnaker in wind stronger than 15 knots, at least until you have plenty of experience.
  • Attach the sheet and tack more securely.
  • Make absolutely sure the sock is free and clear of all lines and on the proper (leeward) side the forestay.
  • Remove the genoa or jib sheets so there is no chance of getting tangled
  • Clear the deck of all stuff, fenders, docklines, etc.
  • Practice with raising the spinnaker at the dock before attempting to use it under sail.

Well, after digesting and re-enacting the scenario in my mind, I finally got the courage to try it again when we were sailing downwind in much lighter wind.  This time it worked perfectly!  What a good feeling to pull up the sock and see this beautiful sail catch the wind and feel the boat accelerate.

Flying the spinnaker on Terrapin

Downwind sailing under spinnaker alone

Midsummer night’s dream

Like last year, I plan on flying down to Punta  Gorda mid-summer to check on Terrapin and do a few  maintenance items so we won’t have as much to do in November when we want to go sailing. The number one priority before splashing Terrapin in November is to remove all traces of barnacles on the bottom, the prop shaft and propellers.  Then put on another coat of bottom paint.  Bottom paint on boats is a whole science/art in itself.  Most boats in warm tropical waters have some sort of soft ablative paint.  The ablative material is usually copper suspended in the paint.  I’m talking a lot of copper!  The copper is supposed to retard growth of marine organisms on the bottom, but it is only a partial solution.  The other property is the fact that the paint is soft, particularly when it is wet.  This allows the paint to slowly sluff off over the season when the boat is sailed or when scrubbed with a pad.  So, bottom line is that there will be some bare spots on the leading edge of the hulls and keels that will need touching up. So, I plan to spend a few days scraping barnacles and touching up the bottom paint.  It’s also a good opportunity to check that there is no water leaking inside or bugs.  Last year, we had a few ants in the cockpit and some wasps making a home in the boom, but nothing terrible.

I will also be checking on the batteries.  Terrapin has four deep cycle golf cart type batteries to serve as the house bank, and two starting batteries for starting the diesels.  Lead acid batteries do not like to sit for long periods of time without being charged as they will self –discharge and go dead after a while.  Terrapin has a 145W solar panel and a charge controller that monitors battery voltage and delivers the proper charge from the solar panel.  Last year, this worked perfectly and kept the house bank fully charged.  However, the solar was not hooked up to the starting batteries and they had lost quite a bit of charge over the summer.  This summer, I hooked up jumper cables to the start batteries so they should also be charged by the solar panel.  We will see how they look.  I will have another separate post about battery charging.

50 ways to leave your lover

It is now the beginning of August, 2018 and our commuter cruiser lifestyle is going according to plan.  Terrapin is once again tied down on the hard in Safe Cove Boat Storage in Charlotte Harbor, FL.  Laura and I are back in Lexington and enjoying our work, knowing that we will be back sailing in November. We had Terrapin hauled in mid-April and then lived aboard on the hard while we got her ready to weather the six months in the southern Florida heat, sun and rain.  The first step after hauling was to have the yard guys pressure wash the bottom.  Terrapin had been in the water for 6 months and we had been sailing for about 3 months during that time.  The more you sail, the cleaner the bottom stays.  But a month sitting in the marina is plenty of time for all kinds of marine growth to accumulate on the bottom, from easy to remove algae/fuzz to PITA to remove barnacles.  I had the bottom cleaned by a diver twice, but there were still quite a bit of barnacles on the bottom and the props.  Most were removed by pressure washing and scraping, but there are still plenty remaining on the boat.

For those who are interested in commuter cruising, here is our checklist for prepping Terrapin for storage.  Unless you want to pay someone to do everything, you can’t just drop the boat off and wave goodbye.   If you want to protect your investment and have a boat that will be ready to sail in the fall, there is a substantial amount of work prepping the boat for storage.  For some, this could  be a deal-killer.  For us, it was a labor of love.