Hints & Tips

Cruisers and live-aboards all share a similar set of problems and many of our solutions are also similar.  But we all also seem to come up some unique approaches as well.  Indeed, one of the parts I most enjoy about cruising is coming up with creative and functional solutions to problems.  This page presents a number of ideas that seem to be almost unique to Daydreamer, at least amongst the necessarily limited number of cruisers with whom I've had contact. 

Make your boat easy to identify from a distance

We decided to make Daydreamer easily identifiable from a distance in both the daylight and the dark.  There have been many times we were glad that we had done so. 

To make Daydreamer identifiable during the day, we painted the top 1/3 of the mast international orange.  It's easy for friends or repair techs to find us in a marina surrounded by 100's of white and aluminum masts.  If we're off in an anchorage by ourselves, cruising friends sailing past can see it's us and come on in for a get-together ... and for those cruisers that don't care for us (there must be some!), well, they'll just keep going.  And any thief contemplating stealing Daydreamer had better round up a can of white paint and a bosun's chair first. 

The case that really made the point to us was in Tenacatita Bay, Mexico.  The anchorage is in the NW corner of the bay and there's a hotel about 5 nm away in the NE corner of the bay.  For a moderate fee, the hotel would let cruisers use their facilities for the day, including the buffet lunch.  A bunch of us yachties had gone over to make a day of it and were sitting around the pool, beers in hand, shooting the breeze -- undoubtedly talking about battery management or refrigeration or another of those perennial topics amongst cruisers.  A bit of a northerly wind came up and we could see that one boat in the anchorage started to drag anchor.  The boats were too far away to easily identify but by squinting a bit, we could see by her orange-tipped mast that Daydreamer was holding firm ... we were able to stay put and finish our beer while almost everybody else scrambled to get back in case it was their boat that was dragging.

For ease of identification at night, we stuck retro-reflective tape onto the mast in a unique pattern (in our case, it's just 4 vertical strips below the lower spreaders -- nothing special but it does the trick)  As long as we remember to carry a good flashlight in the dinghy, we're able to find Daydreamer without wandering through the anchorage like a lost puppy.  Now, you might not think this is much of a problem but consider the following situation.  Musket Cove Marina, in Fiji, maintains a mooring field with what seems like 100 moorings.   They also have a bar ashore for cruisers that has cheap beer (blessings upon them) and most every night have a bring-your-own-meat barbeque next to the bar.  Trying to find your boat on moonless night after a few beers ... well, what with the limited to non-existent shore lights, it can be difficult to maintain your orientation in the mooring field much less identify one nondescript boat amongst all the other nondescript boats.

Of course, if everybody paints the top 1/3 of their mast orange and puts a few strips of vertical reflective tape on their mast, Daydreamer will no longer be easily identified.  So you need to come up with your own unique design -- you'll know it's worth it when you're driving back to the boat after being away a while and know your boat's OK as soon as you can see the masts in the marina.

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12 volt outlets

Every boat needs at least a few strategically located 12 volt outlets.  The cigarette lighter type is pretty ubiquitous but it always struck me as kind of an unnaturally perverse act to use a plug that tries to push itself back out of the socket.  I mean, talk about contrary!

Daydreamer came from the yard with 110V outlets throughout the boat and almost every 110V outlet pair had a 12 volt outlet pair right next to it.  The yard hadn't used the cigarette lighter type outlet but rather had used the old-fashioned polarized 2-prong 110V outlets, the ones without the separate grounding pin.  Well, the opportunity for an expensive error was manifestly obvious but I reckoned that I was smart enough to keep them separate.  And I continued to maintain that opinion right up to the day I plugged our 12V TV into a 110V outlet and let all the magic black smoke out.  It was obviously past time to replace those 12V outlets with ones that would be idiot-proof.

Looking around our friendly electrical supply outlet, I found just what I needed, a standard US 220 Volt, 15 amp outlet.  Outlets and plugs are readily available and, being commodity items, inexpensive.  Unlike those cheesy two pin connectors sold in various chandleries, the ones for the big bucks with the tiny bitsy screws, these outlets are easy to hook up and have large connections, good current-carrying capacity, and you can tell the positive connection from the negative just by looking at 'em (if they're wired appropriately).  And best of all, there's no way to stick one of these 12V plugs into a 110V outlet, or vice versa, at least without recourse to a hammer and pliers.

I bought a handful of these outlets for under $100 and replaced all the old 12v outlets.  A double handful of compatible plugs has allowed me to replace all those cigarette lighter-type plugs and have spares for the future.  There are even cable end sockets available; I used one to make up a 12V extension cord.  For those applications where I'm forced to use a cigarette lighter type plug, and there are a few, I just made up a couple of short pig tail adapters with a Daydreamer-standard 12V plug on one end and a cigarette lighter socket on the other.

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Flag Halyards

This is a pretty mundane topic, all in all.  Most cruising sailboats have a flag halyard or two that run up to a small block or eye on the spreaders.  The halyard itself is usually a continuous loop with a couple of snaps on it to attach flags or is split at the snaps, letting the flag itself close the loop.  Some kind of cleating arrangement at the deck level allows the halyard to be fastened in place.  All well and good and simple as can be.

But I was always bothered by the cleating setup.  If I cleated using the halyard singly, I had a hard time getting it tight.  If I cleated with the halyard doubled, I wound up with a big gob of line on the small cleat I used for that purpose.  At least once, when trying to fly a quarantine flag in windy conditions and a lumpy sea, I'd run out of hands (1 to hold onto the boat, 1 to hold onto the flag, and the third hand(!?) to hold onto the halyard) and had the wind blow the loose flag halyard away and wrap it around a shroud, just out of reach.  AAARGH!

My solution was to use an inexpensive dinghy ratchet block at the deck level, set up the halyard as a continuous loop, and keep the halyard tight using a bit of bungee cord from the ratchet block to a convenient place, like the old halyard cleat.  I use a couple of bronze snaps with fixed eyes to attach the flag.  Simply pull a loop of the halyard through the eye and over the snap and line friction will hold the snap in place.  The snaps can be slid up and down the halyard using a bit of force so as to fit different size flags.  Simply snap the flag onto the halyard, set the ratchet on, run the flag up to the spreader and the ratchet block will keep it in place.  To lower, release the ratchet and bring the flag down.  Simple and easy.  Sunlight will eventually deteriorate the bungee cord, so plan on replacing it every few years.

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BBQ Light

We do a lot of cooking using the barbeque on our stern rail.  We like the flavor, it splits up the cooking chores a bit, and doesn't heat up the cabin as the stove would.  In Alaska, 22 hours of daylight at the peak of the sailing season meant that we never had any problem seeing what we were doing.  Even in the late spring and early fall, the long, slow sunsets  and extended twilights left us plenty of time for cooking.

It's a bit different in the tropics.  Once the sun gets into sunset mode here, it's gonna get dark Real Soon Now.  I've lost track of the number of times I've been out back in the dark with a flashlight stuck in my mouth trying to coax some hamburgers to at least medium rare.  Now I'm always happy to go out there in the dark and turn on that light that I installed over the barbie as part of our stern arch refit.  It's so very nice, I'm really surprised more boats don't have one.

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Teak deck care

I've talked elsewhere about teak decks and the need to avoid harsh chemical cleaners and aggressive with-the-grain scrubbing.  Here are the details of my deck care program. 

First, I never scrub the deck with a bristle brush, even across the grain. 

I do clean the deck 2-3 times a year using the following cleaning solution (from Linda & Mike on s/v Autumn, La Paz):

In a 2 gallon bucket, mix together; 

Apply to teak deck using a string mop, going over the same area a few times if the deck is dirty.  A bit of a soak followed by more scrubbing helps to deal with the really grotty bits.  Rinse with clear water using a soft spray.  Keep rinsing until runoff water runs clear.  Repeat if needed.  DO NOT put any kind of teak oil or sealer on the deck, just let it be.

If you'd like your decks to look close to pristine, follow the cleaning with a bleaching solution consisting of about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of oxalic acid crystals (sometimes sold as wood bleach) dissolved in 1 gallon of hot water,  Apply with a mop and let dry. Rinse with copious volumes of water.  Enjoy.

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Masthead steps

It's can be really difficult to work on your masthead while sitting in a bosun's chair.  In my case, I can't get my bosun's chair high enough to be to able look down on the masthead fittings.  This means that fiddly tasks, like checking wiring connections in the mast head tricolor, can't be seen very well and may need to be done by touchy-feely, which is always entertaining when you're suspended 60 feet in the air.  A couple of fold-out steps strategically spaced directly below the masthead helps to rectify this problem.  I positioned the steps far enough below the mast head so that when I stand in them my chest is level with the masthead.  A chest safety harness clipped to and around the masthead allows me to use both hands.

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Going up the mast

All of us cruisers will probably get to do this at one time or another and it's often a real "E" ticket ride.  Methods for getting up the mast vary widely, from steps that go all the way up to fancy halyard climbers to multipart ratchet block and tackles.  Well, I'm getting older and I'm not super fit either, so I wanted an easy and safe way to get up there.  I think the "no sweat" part is really important as the harder it is to do, the less likely I am to go up to check things out.  Plus, I'd just as soon my muscles aren't shaking from fatigue when I get up there.

So I have my wife hoist me up using the rope capstan on the anchor windlass.  I tie a spinnaker halyard to the bosun's chair and lead the halyard tail from the masthead forward to a block at the bow, then back to the windlass.  A push of the button and up I go.

It works really well but, by itself, leaves a few things lacking safetywise.  You see, the halyard runs through a masthead block which is shackled to an eye bolt or "U" bolt which is, in turn, fastened to the masthead crane which sticks out of the masthead a ways.  The load on this daisy chain of fittings is at least twice my (very substantial) body weight and the failure of any one of them would see me tumble to the deck with injury or death a likely outcome.  From a safety point of view, it's best to be hoisted on a halyard that runs over a sheave in the masthead box.  That way, if the sheave or its axle fails, I'll still be kept up by the halyard going through sheave opening.

I get the same effect by using a spare jib halyard as a separate static line and a piece of mountaineering equipment called a "jumar".  A jumar is a device that is clipped onto the static line and acts much like a rope clutch in that it will slide up the rope but not down.  I fasten the spare halyard tail to a winch and cleat and tie the free-hanging section forward of the mast to another cleat with a bit of slack in it so I can swing out to check the spreader tips.  (If we were at sea, I'd set the static line up tight, to keep me from swinging away from the mast.).  I fasten the jumar to the bosun's chair with a locking carabiner and clip the jumar onto the static line.

Now, when my wife hauls me up using the spinnaker halyard, the jumar, handle in my hand, slides right along the static line with me.  If anything goes wrong with the hoisting line, the jumar and static line immediately take up the load.  On descent, my wife just eases the spinnaker halyard by surging it on the capstan drum.  I can allow the jumar to slide down the static line by holding the internal rope brake back against a light spring, pinching it between my thumb and forefinger.  If something goes wrong on descent, I just ease my grip and the jumar locks onto the standing line.  Sweet, not sweat!

Note: "Jumar" is a brand name and an example of a device called an ascender.  There are a number of other ascenders available that would probably work just as well and a prussick knot might do in a pinch.  If you can't find a mountaineering shop but a good chandlery is handy, you may be able to find a similar equipment in a climbing harness made by ATN called a "Top Climber", which includes a bosun's chair, two ascenders, and some foot loops (feet loops?) that will allow you to climb up a halyard by repeatedly sitting down and standing up and sliding the unloaded ascender(s) up the halyard in turn. This works okay by itself but the anchor windlass is way easier.

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Finding Topside Leaks

When it rains, do you ever have any drips inside your boat?  Were you always able to find the deck fitting that needed to be rebedded to stop it?  Or did you try to find it by putting a hose on deck and moving it around to see when the drip starts and stops?  And how well didn't that work?  Or did you just start rebedding at the closest fitting and move out to further ones until the drip eventually stopped?

If so, you know there's often no apparent connection between the location of a drip inside and the source of the leak outside.  However, there is an almost foolproof way of finding all your deck leaks and you can be comfortable that it'll work OK because it involves the use of the sailor's friend -- duct tape.

The idea is to seal up the boat as air-tight as you can get it, then lightly pressurize the interior with a high volume air blower and spray the deck etc. down with a soapy solution.  The pressurized air will get out any place water can get in (and then some) and bubbles in the soapy solution will show you where the topside leaks are.

Take a roll of duct tape and seal up every vent and opening you can find including lazarette hatches, dorades etc. etc.  Close every sink and head thru-hull.  Rent a high volume, low pressure blower from a convenient rental outlet (electric motor driven squirrel cage blowers are commonly used to dry out flooded carpets etc. and provide ventilation in closed spaces so they tend to be easy to find.  I haven't tried it but a leaf blower might work in a pinch.)  Depending on your specific situation, you may also want to rent some flexible ducting too.  Hook up the blower so it blows into your boat - thru a port or companionway slide perhaps - use some more duct tape to seal it up, maybe using a bit of thin plywood.  Mix up some dishwashing detergent and water in a garden sprayer or something similar as if you were getting ready to blow some bubbles, BUT DO NOT spray it on the boat yet.  Now start the blower and find all those hidden holes, e.g. coaming bins, and venting spots that you missed the first time and seal them up with duct tape too.  The boat doesn't have to be air-tight by any means but huge openings will let too much air out to maintain a pressurized interior.   Now you can turn the blower on again and proceed to spray the soapy solution all over and look for bubbles.  You'll probably be amazed and perhaps a bit dismayed at all the leaks you'll find.  Happy caulking!

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Dental Tools

The title of this hint is pretty self-explanatory.  Your life aboard and many of the little maintenance and repair tasks will be made easier if you have onboard a selection of dental picks.  They're great for getting out that last little bit of masking tape or removing an "O" ring.  I wind up using ours at least once a week.

You can sometimes find cheap sets of dental tools on sale at boat shows.  These are ok for light scraping and picking but their metallurgy isn't good enough to handle any prying.  Better to make friends with your dentist or dental tech and see if you can talk them out of their worn out tools.  The professional tools are incredibly strong.  BTW, be sure to bring along a couple of wire coat hangers too!

Barograph/Thermograph

Weather is hugely important to yachties and anything that can give a bit of a heads-up is valuable.  Barometric pressure change is one of the leading indicators that something different may be headed your way.  Consequently, aneroid barometers can be found on most boats and give a readout of current pressure.   But it's the change in barometric pressure that you really need to watch and barometers don't do a good job of showing the changes and they're really poor at reflecting the rate of change.  You really need to watch out if the barometric pressure suddenly plummets at 1 Mbar per hour for a half day or more.  If you only check the barometer once a day, you might well miss that precipitous drop and be caught unprepared.

If you want to be rigorous and write down the barometric pressure every hour or two, you'll be able to see those changes.  It's a lot easier to have a recording barometer -- or barograph -- which shows barometric pressure over time on a strip chart.  Sudden changes are immediately apparent.

Several types of barographs are available.  One is an aneroid barometer with a pen and clockwork strip chart instead of a needle and dial.  These are delicate and "fiddley" and expensive.  There's also a solid state barograph available with an LCD screen strip chart.   Much  less delicate and REALLY expensive.

On Daydreamer, we use a computer-based barograph and thermograph (temperature recorder) made by Conex-Electro, of Bellingham, Washington.   This is a small black plastic box that records temperature and barometric pressure at intervals you have specified.  It's powered by a 9 volt battery so it can continue to accumulate data even while the computer is off.  Software on a computer can download the accumulated data through a COM port and display it on a strip chart on the monitor.  This provides an historical record and if left on will update the strip chart in real time at the specified interval.  The strip chart display itself is functional but rudimentary. I'd like to have an alarm function for rapidly changing pressure and a filter function to reduce the diurnal pressure swing ... well, maybe later.

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Weather Satellite

Weather is hugely important to yachties and anything that can give a bit of a heads-up is valuable.  One of the main bits of weather data most of us gather are the weather charts broadcast over HF radio by national metrological authorities around the world - the weather fax.  These charts are very valuable but they suffer from a major flaw.  The data they're based on have come from many different sources which is then composited and analyzed and crunched and manipulated.  By the time the chart's ready to be viewed by the public, the data it's based on is way more than a few hours old.

It's always a good idea to try to do a reality check against what the fax may show .  For example, if the weather fax is predicting clouds but the sky is clear, it may be that the fax shouldn't be relied on too heavily.  But you can't see very far from deck level so a "look around" means your reality check has some pretty severe limits.  You can get a much better reality check by finding out what the weather satellites are seeing right now.

Most of the satellite pictures we see on television come from geostationary weather satellites that are in synchronous equatorial orbits ...  they appear to "hang" stationary over a given point on earth.  With the right equipment, it's possible for a private individual to receive the transmissions from these satellites but it requires a very high gain stationary antenna, which just isn't practical on a boat bobbing around on the ocean.

So, what to do?  It turns out that the geostationary satellites are not able to see the higher latitudes and polar regions all that well because of the low angle they have to that area of the globe.  To get around this limitation, some national weather authorities, most notably the USA's NOAA but also Europe, China, and Russia, have launched polar-orbiting satellites.  These satellites orbit from north to south and back over the poles so as to have a better look at that area.  They also have a low enough orbit that their signal can be received on a boat using just a little bit of specialized equipment. 

The satellites continuously scan a swath of the earth's surface along their orbital path and continuously broadcast what they see.  The broadcast is line-of-sight and if a satellite is passing within your view, you can receive its transmission and see what its seeing right then.  Each NOAA satellite has both visible and infrared scanners and, typically, will make two passes within view every daylight period.

Receiving and viewing the polar weather satellite images requires 1) the proper antenna, 2) the proper receiver, and 3) a computer with a sound card and imaging software.  The radio transmissions from the satellites are right-circular polarized, so a specific antenna design is needed to match this polarization.  They usually look like "egg beaters", although a turnstile antenna can also work.  The receiver needs to be able to pick up WideFM transmission at 137-138 KHz and output an audible signal to the computer's sound card, which will convert the audible tones into lighter and darker pixels.  The imaging software will take that data and present a picture on the monitor that represents what the satellite "sees".  There are several firms that sell complete packages of software, receiver, and antenna and these can be a good buy.  It's also possible to "roll your own" as we did on Daydreamer using a manufactured antenna, an ICOM PCR1000 wide band receiver (there are others that'll work too), and public domain and commercial software.

You'll also need to know when to listen for the satellite's passage and to do that you need to have a current set of "Keplerian elements".  These are the mathematical values that characterize the satellite's orbit and allow your display software to calculate when the satellite will be in view.  They are readily available over the internet and may be downloaded at sea using Sailmail or WinLink.

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Hatch Covers

Maintaining ventilation and good air flow below decks while in the tropics is really important to keeping things comfortable.  It's not too hard to do when at anchor, what with wind scoops and all, but keeping the air moving while on passage can be a problem if there's a bit of spray around, as often the case.  Dorade vents and similar water traps work OK but seem to have very limited air flow.  We wanted to be able to keep some hatches open in moderate to fine conditions while still keeping spray out of the interior.  So we designed a convertible hatch cover ...

The fittings on the deck consist of teak risers forward and on both sides of a hatch.  A bolt rope track on top of each riser takes the bolt rope sewn on the bottom edge of the hatch covers.  The risers aren't continuous but rather have breaks at each corner for drainage and are high enough to serve as stream breaks to keep green water on deck from directly hitting the edge of the hatch ('tho we really haven't had that problem yet).

We see a lot of fabric covers that just fit over the hatch lid.  Maybe this is to reduce sunlight fading of upholstery or some such but is sure makes things dark inside!  On our design, a clear plastic insert in the middle of the cover lets the sunlight shine through.

Daydreamer has five of these on-deck hatches but only three hatch covers ... the two hatches over the saloon and the hatch over the forward head.  Since there's just the two of us, we normally keep the hatches over the two forward staterooms dogged and while we did install the on-deck hardware for these two covers, we haven't yet sewed them.

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Alpenglow Lights

The best area lighting fixture I know of is made by Alpenglow Marine Lights.  Their current models make use of a compact fluorescent bulb for white light and red LEDs for night lighting, with optional high and low power selection. 

Converting 220V Compact Fluorescent Bulbs to 12V:  

Fluorescent bulbs for these lights will run a long time but they will eventually burn out.  You can carry spares purchased from Alpenglow, and we did just that, but you may eventually reach the point where a convenient source of 12V compact fluorescent bulbs is needed but not available.  Fortunately, it's easy to convert 220V AC fluorescent bulbs, available throughout much of the word, to operate on 12V and that's just what this hint is about (a tip o' the hat to Henry and Gail on s/v Maritime Express).

The compact fluorescent bulbs used by Alpenglow have a bayonet-type base connection that plugs into a socket in the lamp housing.  In the middle of the bulb's base is plastic rectangular "box" that is hollow and flanked by the electrical connecting pins.  Our objective here is to remove a couple of components from inside that hollow "box".

First, take a sharp Stanley knife or Exacto knife and cut off the bottom of the hollow "box" along the red lines shown on the diagram to the left; this won't be too hard since the walls are of fairly thin and usually not-too-brittle plastic.

Inside the hollow box, you'll find a wire coming in from each of the two fluorescent tubes that go up from the base.  Connecting these two wires will be a couple of electrical components that look like a small neon lamp and a capacitor.  Cut these components free from the two wires using a wire cutter and remove them from the base, leaving the two wires remaining in the base to hang free (i.e. not cross connected).  Take a bit of caulk and squirt it into the hollow base, smooth off the bottom and let set up.  You're done.

Converting to red LED night light:

When Alpenglow was first starting out, their red night light did not have LEDs but rather used a smaller compact fluorescent bulb that had been dipped in a clear red coating.  I'm one of their earlier customers who has this kind of light and when I first saw the newer fixtures with the red LEDs, I kinda wished I had waited.  (This, of course, is a familiar feeling to anybody buying computers or related hardware ... something to do with pioneers and arrows in their backs.)  When one of our red-coated fluorescent bulbs burned out recently, I reckoned I might have a bit of trouble finding a replacement since we had already used our last spare.  I mean, I knew how to adapt a 220V bulb, as above, but the red coating was going to be a problem.  I decided to convert my high-low night lights to LEDs.  So that's what this second Alpenglow hint is about. 

On the surface, this seems like no big deal.  But I wanted the modified light to have the same switch setup as the unmodified lights, which complicates things just a little.  These lights have two switches.  One of the switches changes from red to white and back, the other switches from low to off to high power and back.  When both switches are operated with the handles or rockers pointing out, the light is on high and white.  When both handles are pointing inward, the light is on low-red.  I figured out a way to do this, so here goes:

The diagrams above show the before and after electrical circuits.  Diagrammatically, it's pretty straightforward but I found the actual desoldering and resoldering of the capacitor on the Hi/Off/Lo switch to be a bit of a challenge because of close leads and limited space. 

I used 6 high output red LEDs with a 15 ohm resistor to prevent thermal runaway.  The 800 ohm resistor was trial and error to give the low level lighting I was looking for.  It might be just right for you ... or not, depending on the characteristics of the LEDs you use.  Use wire with white insulation to minimize visible wiring when the light's reassembled.

Working out a mounting arrangement for the LEDs can take a bit of thinking.  I found a white plastic U-shaped channel at Bunnings (New Zealand & Australia) that had been intended to be used as a drawer slide.  It had a couple of standoffs for screw mounts and the channel was the right size for the LED wires.  You'll have to find your own solution for this, which'll depend on what's available to you.

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Duplex Anchor Snubber (for all-chain rodes)

Under light to moderate loads, anchor chain catenary or "sag", provides a lot of load cushioning.  A gust of wind that pushes the boat back will cause the anchor chain to be picked up off the bottom and pulled straighter but the chain is heavy and pulls back down.  Under large loads, the chain can be pulled straight and, once "bar tight", looses any cushioning capability for additional loads.  This, in turn, can cause momentary surges to be instantly transmitted to the anchor, which can in turn pull the anchor free.

Cruising books often suggest that a snubber line be used when anchoring with a chain rode.  Usually this takes the form of 8 to 12 feet of relatively light nylon line, say 3/8", with a chain hook on one end.  The chain hook is put on the anchor chain and the other end fastened to the boat somehow ... chock, anchor roller etc. depending on the specifics of the boat.  Then the chain is let out until all the load is on the line and some excess chain is then pulled out and allowed to hang loose between the anchor roller and chain hook.  This lighter line adds a bit of "springiness"  to a load that might be heavy enough to stretch the anchor chain tight.   Additionally, the loop in the chain reduces noise from the chain dragging on the bottom being transferred into the cabin of the boat.

We used a snubber line just like this for many years and it worked just fine until one night it failed, just when we really needed it.  We had anchored off the village on the north side Makemo, an atoll in the central Tuamotos, and set our snubber line.  I dove on the anchor and found it set well in a patch of sand with a few low coral bommies scattered about the area. Life was good for a couple of days until one night the tail end of a cold front decided to play tag and and we were it. 

The wind kicked up out of the SSW and was soon gusting over 30 knots.  With about 5 nm of fetch across the atoll, the wind-generated waves were appreciable and Daydreamer was hobby horsing dramatically, the bow dropping to within a few inches of the tops of the waves.  Unfortunately, drifting around at anchor for a few days had wrapped our anchor chain around a bommie so we didn't have a large amount of effective scope out.  We couldn't let out much more scope as we would have come too close to a mooring behind us.  The loads were pretty extreme and after about 20 minutes, the snubber parted.  Without the snubber, we began to worry that the rode might cut through or break off the bommie it had wrapped around, then we'd fall back and fetch up against the anchor, which might then pull out from the sudden off-center load.  Bad news as the coral atoll wasn't too far behind us.

So we started the engine and began to power ahead at a fast idle to unload the anchor a bit while I rigged a replacement snubber.  It didn't last very long either.  We wound up going through 3 different snubber setups before the fourth held.  Every time we tried to use smaller diameter line, it chafed through, no matter what kind of chafe protection I tried.  The loads were large enough that just the 2-3 inches from the hawse horn through the hawse fitting allowed the line to stretch back and forth enough to saw through anything I tried.  I eventually wound up using our 3/4" 3 strand nylon dock lines led thru the P&S bow hawses and rolling-hitched to the chain.  This line was strong enough to not stretch appreciably where it went through the hawses and lasted the rest of the night.

Obviously a better design was called for, one that used heavy line with good chafe protection at the hawse.  I decided to use more of the 3/4" 3 strand as the foundation of my new snubber, which was set up as a bridle through both bow hawses to a stainless steel plate that's slotted to fit over and hold a chain link.  The bridle lines are spliced to shackles using a chain/rope splice and the shackles are fastened to the lower corners of the slotted plate.  Where the lines go through the hawses, I wormed, parceled and served the lines and ran them through a short bit of hose. 

The 3/4" line doesn't have enough elasticity to be a good snubber by itself, at least under moderate loads, so I first tried to use some of those black rubber snubbers in the bridle, the ones that are intended to add some shock absorbing capacity to dock lines.  They didn't hold up.  I eventually ended up taking four 3 foot sections of spare 3/4" line. putting eye splices into each of them, then splicing the tail piece of each eye splice into the bridles so that I had an eye in the bridle outside each hawse and in each bridle near the chain.  The eye splices wound up about 10 feet apart on each bridle.  I then tied 8 feet of 3/8" nylon double braid between each eye splice on a bridle line using double becket hitches.  So, in use, loads first stretch the 3/8" double braid.  If the load is large enough, the double braid gets fully stretched and the 3/4" 3 strand also takes up the load.  Now I've good elasticity and little to no movement takes place where the lines are attached to the boat, so chafe isn't a problem.

In retrospect, it might have been possible to avoid all those eye splices by simple tying the 3/8" double braid to the 3/4" 3 strand using a rolling hitch on each end.  If I were doing it again, I'd give that a try first.

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Galley Safety "crash" bar

Daydreamer didn't have any kind of safety bar in front of the stove when we bought her yet I knew that we'd need something before we headed out into the big blue.  I looked at a lot of other boats, considered many options, made a few mock-ups and, no doubt, burnt through more than a few "brainial" neurons trying to come up with a solution.  But I was never able to come up with something that was both safe enough and stout enough for use on passage and still be convenient in port.

Oddly enough, the previous sentence both characterizes the problem and carries embedded within it the solution.  I was trying to get one bit of equipment to do more than was appropriate.  The galley was great in port just as it was -- no additional bracing or similar "stuff" would make it any better but, more likely, would make it worse.  On the other hand, we don't do a lot of fancy cooking when on passage.  In fact, we don't do much more than microwave frozen casseroles and heat water for ramen noodles and coffee/tea/hot chocolate if we can get away with it.  The answer was to come up with something that would work at sea and be easily removed and stowed away in port.

What we now use is a piece of 1 inch stainless steel tubing that runs the full width across the "U"-shaped  galley facing the stove.  It's far enough away from the stove that on port tack the cook can lean on the bar and use both hands while cooking.  Since it runs fore and aft, the cook can get to the sinks and refrigeration without any major problem.  It does make access to several of the drawers slightly inconvenient but not badly.  (It's probably for the best anyhow, since that's where we keep the snacks!)

Starboard tack is handled by a seat belt scavenged from an auto wrecking yard.  The outer ends of the seat belt are sewn to stainless steel rings that slide on the bar.  To use, the cook steps up to the bar and clips the seat belt around their waist and pulls on the free end to tighten it up.  With legs braced fore and aft, the cook can stay pretty secure no matter how much the boat is bouncing around.  In port, the bar is removed by loosening the set screw in the retaining clamp on aft end of the bar, sliding it sideways, then wiggling the bar out of its fixed mounts.  It stows vertically and unobtrusively in a couple of clips on the bulkhead by the companionway.

See how to use and make a bar like this HERE.

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More Even Oven Heat

Daydreamer's stove and oven combo is the excellent Dickinson "Mariner".  While this stove works quite well and is most reliable, it has a couple of deficiencies ... and it seems that these problems are common to any number of other ovens found onboard boats.

The subject of this hint is a consequence of the small burner set right against the back of the oven's base.  When we first started to bake with the oven, we found that the small burner caused it to exhibit uneven heating.  For example, after baking a cake, we'd find one bottom edge a bit burnt and the opposite top edge or middle slightly underdone.  The burnt edge was the part closest to the burner and the uneven heat distribution caused that part overcook.  It would've been nice to have a large oven that allowed for a larger and better-distributed burner or even a convection fan but, to paraphrase Don Rumsfeld (in a much more tragic context), "Ya go to bake with the oven ya got!"

So, some passive and inexpensive improvement of the oven's heat distribution seemed in order.  A little  stoning seemed to do the trick.  That is to say, we bought a ceramic "pizza stone" (used to bake pizzas, what else!) and put it in the oven on a shelf directly above the burner.  Cakes, bread, or anything else goes on the shelf above the pizza stone, which insulates the item being cooked from the direct heat of the burner, absorbs and re-radiates heat, and generally evens out the heat in the oven.  The downside is that it takes a little longer to get the oven up to temperature.

If you're not familiar with pizza stones, our is circular, about 12 inches in diameter and 1/2 inch thick, of fired but unglazed ceramic material.  Our first pizza stone cracked while in use, we suspect from a pretty intense thermal gradient.  So we just got another stone and put it on top of the first, cracked one.  We got our pizza stones at kitchen supply store but they're generally available where ever cooking implements are sold.  We've even seen them at supermarkets.

The small size of the oven doesn't help but that is just part of the deal when you live on a boat.   If, around Thanksgiving you notice somebody in the meat section of a market putting a tape measure to one of the smaller turkeys, it's a odds-on chance you're looking at a live-aboard.

I understand that this stove is no longer available.  It was apparently originally made in New Zealand and the company that made these fine stoves is no longer in business.  I'm told by a cruiser that had it done that some of the folks that originally made these stoves kept both a supply of parts and and a strong sense of pride in what they were doing as they were very happy to have the chance to refurbish his.  If you're in New Zealand with one of these stoves, I'd suggest you do likewise.

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Navigation Table Surface

Most navigation stations I see have some kind of varnished surface for a plotting area, usually a lid over a chart storage area or some such. This looks OK, at least for a while, but leaves a bit to to be desired as an ideal drawing and writing surface.  After a while, surface punctures from compass and divider points and the inevitable scratches and slight dings that accumulate on horizontal surfaces can make it difficult to draw a smooth, straight line.

If you are old enough to remember the days before computer-aided drafting, back in the days of draftsmen and drafting machines or even (horrors!) Tee Squares, you may also remember that draftsmen had (and still have, for that matter) the same kind of drawing surface needs as navigators.  And the solution to that problem can be found on the top of just about every drafting table extant, draftsman's "linoleum".  This material, nowadays usually made of vinyl, is a thin (maybe 1 mm) sheet of moderately firm plastic.  Punctures "heal" and impressions smooth out ... you can make a dent in it with your fingernail, for example, and the dent will disappear in a moment.  It's usually a light, matte green or a matte cream/light beige in color, often one color on one side and the other color on the back.

A sheet of this material sufficient to cover a typical nav station plotting area will cost less than $100 at most any engineering supply house and even many office supply stores carry it.  Cut it to fit and stick it to the plotting surface using double sided tape run around the edges of the area.

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Dinghy & OB handling

We had always carried our dinghies on the foredeck, launching and retrieving them with a halyard.  We eventually started using a spinnaker halyard that was run to a block at the masthead, then through a block at the bow and back to the anchor windlass.  This allowed us to use the anchor windlass to do the lifting, which was much easier than the "armstrong" approach of using a halyard winch at the mast.  While the dinghies always wanted to settle back onto the mast when they were lifted, it was a relatively easy matter for the first mate to "man" the windlass and the brawns of the outfit would then muscle the dinghy over to the side where we'd then lower it into the water.  We'd then pickup the outboard motor with the same halyard rig, lower it over the side and fasten in onto the transom of the dink in the water.  Our observation of other cruisers showed that those that carried their dink on the foredeck usually did something similar, though many used some kind of crane setup aft to handle the O/B.

This approach worked for us for years with reasonable success but it could be a very difficult proposition to launch, or worse, retrieve the the dinghy in a rolly anchorage.  Handling a 25 Hp outboard could really be a problem!

After almost 10 years, our rollup inflatable dink became unreliable, so we sold it, the 25 hp O/B, and the hard dink too and bought an aluminum RIB and 15 hp O/B.  The new dink could stow on deck either upside down or right side up and we soon found that we could attach or remove the O/B from the transom with the dink on deck.  Glory be and halleluiah, no more difficulties with those heavy O/Bs in those bouncy anchorages.  But there was a downside in that when the dink and O/B were picked up, it was a heavy and awkward package, enough to become a real handful.  And it had a real tendency to get away and bang up against the spinnaker pole or mast.  Not good.

We eventually developed a static line setup from the dink to the pulpit that forces the dink to hang from the lifting harness right over the deck chocks and solved that problem.  It's now just a matter of a couple of minutes to pull the dink from the water and set it upright in its deck chocks, so we do that every night now.    That way, it's safer from theft, minimizes bottom growth, and we're ready on a moment's notice to pick up the hook and get out of there if things deteriorate in the night.

If you're interested, have a look at this series of photos that explains the system ... and if you carry a dink on the foredeck, you just might want to do the same.

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Dinghy Bag

A stowage bag that fits beneath the dinghy seat can be very handy addition to your dinghy.  In principle, seat bags are nothing special but we can suggest a couple of details that greatly improve their utility. 

First, a stiff bottom insert of plywood or, in our case, high density polyethylene will keep the bottom from sagging.  I set grommets in each corner of the fabric bottom, placed the reinforcing insert inside the bag, drilled through the insert where the grommets were, then bolted the insert in place through the grommets.  Quick and easy, the insert stays put but can be removed if need be.

We use zippers to allow access to the interior of the bag.  We had originally thought about just having a single zipper across the top of the bag.  But if the bag was a nice tight fit on the seat, we'd always be rooting around in the dark by feel and might have a hard time getting large stuff out.  So instead we set the zippers to allow full access to the interior.  Notice how they run from high in the center diagonally down to the corners.

We leave a variety of stuff in the bag; an anchor, a spare foot pump for inflation, patch  kit, bug repellent, flashlight (torch), wire cable and combo padlock and also like to include a hand held VHF radio too.  Over time and several upside down/right side up stow-on-deck rotations, this stuff gets all jumbled up in the bag.  To make finding the flashlight and VHF easier, we sewed in two pouches inside the bag and directly under the seat where they're stowed.

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Reeving Internal Halyards

There may come a time in your cruise when you need to replace a halyard that's broken or gotten pulled up through the masthead sheave by mistake.  You can't just get up to the masthead in a bosun's chair and feed the new halyard over the sheave and down the mast.  Obviously, some kind of weight will be required.  But often lead fishing weights are to large to fit through a sheave box, so what to do?

The answer is to use a better kind of weight.  We carry a 2-3 foot section of bicycle chain for just this purpose.  It stores compactly in the "bosun's stuff"  drawer, rolled up in a zip-lock baggie.  To use, tie a light messenger line to one end, feed the other end over the masthead sheave and into the mast.  Lower the chain with the messenger line until it reaches the base of the mast and can be fished out through the halyard exit box using a bit of coathanger wire or some such.  Untie the chain weight and retie the free end of the messenger line to the end of the halyard, pull on the other end of the messenger line and it'll pull the halyard up through the exit box, around the masthead sheave and into position.  Voila! 

(If the halyard's got an eye splice one the end with a snap shackle or some such to attach to the head of your jib, be sure to reverse these directions ... i.e. cut the messenger line from it's spool and tie the cut end to the halyard tail, then pull the halyard to the masthead outside the mast first and then on down to the exit box.  Lest you think I'm being patronizing, I speak here from direct personal experience!)

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Spinnaker Sock Downhaul

We carry two light air sails onboard Daydreamer, a 150%± genoa cut from spinnaker cloth and an asymmetric spinnaker (aka "crusing chute").  Both of these sails are hoisted free-flying and are doused using a sock or sleeve.  Dousing the genoa has never really been problem but then it's quite a bit smaller than the spinnaker.  The spinnaker can be more than a handful, particularly with gusty, shifting winds about, as it's quite large.  This hint is about a simple modification to the dousing procedure that can keep things from getting out of hand.

Ideally, dousing a spinnaker with a sock is a pretty straightforward process.  You just bring the boat around to more of a downwind point of sail, using the mainsail to blanket the wind from the spinnaker which promptly collapses, then pull the sock down and over the limp, slack, flaccid, loose, and totally relaxed spinnaker.

Well, that's the theory at least.  But if the wind is shifty and gusty or, even worse, if you didn't put up the mainsail and the wind has picked up a bit, dousing the spinnaker can be a different story.  Once you start to pull the sock down over the spinnaker, getting it a quarter or a third or half way down, a wind shift or gust can suddenly fill the lower part of the sail at which point the sail comes alive and begins to fight back.  When the spinnaker tries to fill, it tries to force the mouth of the sock back up the sail.  The only thing keeping the mouth of the sock down is the downhaul line.  And attached to the other end of the downhaul line is you (or some other poor sod of a foredeck hand).

Now, the tension on the downhaul line can be appreciable and you can only pull down with a force equal to what you weigh.  If the tension on the line is, say, 200 pounds and you only weigh 150 pounds, you're either going to let go of the downhaul or you're going for a very unwelcome ride.  Alternatively, if you weigh 250 pounds, you'll stay down but you'll feel frighteningly light on your feet.   And if you only have enough grip strength to pull 195 pounds, you're also going to have to let go of the downhaul.  In either case, some nasty rope burns on your hands are a likely outcome.

Our solution is to permanent reeve the downhaul line through a ratchet block that's fitted with a snap shackle.  After the spinnaker has been hoisted but is still in its sock, the ratchet block is then snapped to a convenient strong point on the foredeck ... we usually use one of the loops found at the base of the lifeline stanchions ... and the uphaul is used to hoist the sock, which pulls the downhaul line through the ratchet block.  Now when it comes time to douse the spinnaker, you can pull the downhaul line up through the ratchet block and exert more force that if you were pulling down.  And if a gust tries to force the sock back up, the ratchet part of the block can take the lion's share of the load and eliminate any rope burns.