on the water « Means of Seeing

December 11, 2007

Wish List

Filed under: Centaurea,gadgets — osteoderm @ 4:47 pm

I was just talking to my mom on my new phone, and among other things, she suggested that I put together a little wish-list of boat parts, now that Christmas (and incidentally, my launching) is coming up.
Right now, I’ve been pretty focussed on “the essentials”; those things that get me up and running, let alone all the extra bits that help out, but aren’t necessarily mission-critical. As such, my immediate list of wants overlaps closely with my usual to-do list.
Right now, it’s pretty short:
– 300′ of 9mm 1×19 Type 316 stainless wire (for standing rigging)
– 300′ of 10mm Sta-Set-X line (for halyards)
– A head gasket, freshwater pump, exhaust flange, and exhaust gasket
– An Airmar NMEA 2000 Triducer
That’s really all I need to get sailing, along with a few misc. sundries.

Buuuuuut, if there’s any benevolent fairy-godparents out there, I might expand the list to include:
– Anchors: a pair of 35lb Delta Fast-set, a 75lb three-piece Luke fisherman
– Sails: a main, an asymmetric reaching spinnaker, a lapping daisy, etc.
– A Maretron N2K control head
– A chartplotter: Raymarine E-series or Furuno NN3D
– Radar
– Ummm… Hard to come up with more… 🙂

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December 7, 2007

boat jewelry

Filed under: Centaurea — osteoderm @ 3:58 pm

Today I dropped a few hundred dollars on boat jewelry. Boat jewelry is a pretty fluidly-defined thing, as most boat stuff is. For me, it’s that gear aboard that is just a little bit more expensive than it absolutely needs to be.
In some areas, such as, say, personal comfort or aesthetic, I can do without. Take my water system: basic, un-pressurized, running off a foot-pump. The shower: a bagful of water with a spout. The oven: non-existant.
But when it comes to sailing gear, I draw the line; it might mean a few jewelry purchases, but the boat is primarily a sailing machine, with everything else secondary to that. At least, that’s how I justify it.
I recently picked up a beautiful mainsheet traveller for a song. A proper Harken ball-bearing high-load mainsheet traveller with high-purchase controls has been on my “when I win the lotto” list for, well, forever. Now I had one, less end-controls, so… I went out and bought myself (er, bought THE BOAT) the appropriate Harken Carbo AirBlocks and offshore Cams to complete the deal. Jewelry; I could have done with the crappy old phenolic bearing-less blocks I had kicking around, but really… this is a sailing machine. A machine. Seriously.
Another semi-guilty purchase: a Spinlock XAS double ropeclutch for my reefing lines. Mainsail reefing, being a potentially do-or-die proposition, deserves the best gear. Ahem… Of course, I could have gotten away with a couple of (essentially free) hand-made teak cleats and a couple bucks worth of stainless fasteners instead of a $125 clutch, but…. boat jewellry.
The last purchase today was a VERY beefy stainless 10″ Seadog foredeck cleat. I had another (slightly less beefy) cleat ready to install forward, but the one I found today was a perfect match to the other side of the boat… and SO much more burly.
I belay my anchore rodes to these cleats, people! They NEED to be the heaviest-duty available!
Or some rhetoric like that. At least this boat will be about the sturdiest sailing machine out there…

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December 4, 2007

Suzuki sailboat

Filed under: Centaurea,friends — osteoderm @ 4:22 pm

I installed my new mainsheet traveler today. It came from the same sorce as that awesome pair of crazy-cheap winches; superseded J-120 raceboat eqipment. It’s almost comicly large, sper heavy kit, bt it looks great in the cockpit! Abot the only thing worse than no traveler at all is a crappy failing ndersized traveler, and this one is none of that. It’s a Harken “Big Boat” unit, sized for “50′ to 70′ boats”; definitely overkill.
I need to make up some end-controls yet, as it came without. In lieu of on-track controls, I’m going with off-track ones to get maximum travel. This meant I needed some sort of end-stop to keep the car from sliding right to the end of the track and spitting bearings everywhere. It took me a bit of head-scratching to come up with something…
In the end, I went with a pair of Suzuki Samurai front leaf-spring bushings, mounted with 3/8″ bolts through stainless compression posts. Chris and Cory would be proud…

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November 30, 2007

guilty? I’ll try not to feel it…

Filed under: friends,sailing — osteoderm @ 4:30 pm

This was a short work week. I caught this cranky horrid cold over the weekend, and it knocked me out for Monday and Tuesday.
So here I am, again, feeling a little behind on projects, but an opportunity has come along for a little stress-free vacationette, and I’m taking it.
Tomorrow I’m sailing with a friend and client over to St. John aboard his hot-rod Newick 38 trimaran. I’ve often wanted to go for a ride on this rocket, and despite being offered numerous opportunities, I’ve always bowed.
I’ll stay at the owner’s place up on the mountain tomorrow night, then catch a ride back to Tortola with another sailing friend, aboard his lovely little Rhodes-designed Swiftsure 33. This is the same boat I sailed to Antigua a couple years back, a real little gem.
I hmm’d and haw’d a little bit, guilting over the time spent away from my work, but I’ve got to face it; I’ve been burning both ends of the wick all summer now, almost a year (!) without any sailing at all, and it’s time to get out and remind myself what I’m really actually working towards…