Just wanted to make a quick post to thank two of my friends for their amazing contributions to The Ripple.
First up, big thanks to Rhys for building me a new cockpit deck! When I first bought the boat, the old decking was in shambles, badly rotten with a number of broken slats. One day I asked around to find someone that had the required tools to build a new one, thinking I could come by and use them sometime. Before I knew it, Rhys showed up at my boat, took some measurements, and a few weeks later, presented me with a brand new deck!
Amazing stuff!
I'd show you the "before" shot, but evidently the old one was busted, that I took it off the boat before I could even photograph it. The new one looks amazing though, so that's all you really need to see.
Next, big thanks to Nish for his similar contribution in building me some new steps. Again, the old ones were wooden and had seen far too many days under the sun. Nish came by before I went on vacation in July to collect the old ones. When I got back, he had cut, sanded and varnished two brand new ones!
Here are the old ones...
...and here are the new ones after I installed them last night...
Bit of an improvement!
So ya, big thanks to both of you and to everyone that's helped out on the Ripple so far. It's made the whole adventure even more enjoyable for me!
This past weekend, I decided to finally take the Ripple away from her home port for an over-nighter to Keats Island. Specifically, out destination was Plumper Cove Marine Provincial Park.
Plumper Cove is about 25 nautical miles away from my marina, on the northwestern edge of Keats Island. Getting there involves sailing west out of Burrard Inlet, north up Howe Sound and then west past Bowen Island to Keats.
The Route
The crew consisted of myself and 3 friends. I had asked everyone to "pack lightly," being not totally sure of how much stuff the Ripple could hold. When everyone arrived, I was pleasantly surprised to see everything get stashed away nicely.
We left port at around 9am on Saturday morning. The weather was forecasting 5-15 knots of wind from the west/northwest. Unfortunately, that meant a dead headwind for the first 8 miles of the trip. This seems to be a pretty common occurrence for cruising around the BC coast in the summer. Rather than spend hours tacking back and forth out the Burrard Inlet, we decided to just motor that leg, in hopes of being able to pull the sails out later on.
Motoring out of Burrard Inlet
The crew taking in the sights
Motoring west went smoothly until we neared Point Atkinson, where we planned to turn north into Howe Sound. Within a mile or so of Lighthouse Park, the waves, which were coming from the west across Georgia Straight, grew significantly in size and made the going pretty uncomfortable. I decided to put the main sail up to give the boat some more stability. We also altered course slightly so as not to head directly into the waves. Soon enough, we'd rounded Point Atkinson, and once we were in the lee of Bowen Island, the waves settled back down. We all breathed a sigh of relief.
This ship was tied up right by my marina. Impressive craft to say the least!
Motoring up Howe Sound, the wind was quite light, which made it easy motoring, but not sailing. I had already mentally prepared myself for the likelihood of having to motor most of the way, given the forecast. The spectacular views of the Sea to Sky mountains certainly helped to "ease my pain".
Easy to get lost in that view
Before long, we rounded the NE corner of Bowen, past Finisterre Island (which is more of a rock than an island if you ask me) and started west towards Keats. We passed Halkett Bay on Gambier Island, which is another destination I would like to check out soon.
Looking north towards Squamish. Black Tusk waaaaay off in the distance.
As we approached the western edge of Bowen Island, the wind picked up beautifully, blowing up from the south and putting us on a perfect beam reach to Keats. I quickly threw the genoa up (my BRAND NEW genoa no less!), trimmed the main out a bit, and shut off the engine.
On a perfect beam reach approaching Keats Island.
The Ripple continued along at the exact same speed we had been motoring, on a direct course towards our destination. The thing dreams are made of! In hindsight, I should have taken a longer video!
The wind carried us to within a few miles of Plumper, at which point we dropped the sails and motored into the cove. It was around 3:30pm, and we were all wondering how busy the anchorage was going to be. Being so close to Vancouver, I had been told it was a popular spot. The hope was that one of the public mooring buoys may be available. Just in case, I decided to ready the anchor before entering the cove.
Plumper Cove
Good thing I did. All the buoys were taken, and the anchorage was quite full, with probably 15 or so boats at anchor already. Having never anchored this boat before, and not anchored any boats in a number of years, I was a bit nervous about where to go. We ended up doing a few laps, looking for a good spot. Somewhere along lap 2, a nice fellow on a BEAUTIFUL Bayfield 32 told me the depth he was anchored in for reference. I thanked him and told him this was my first time anchoring, to which he replied, "Don't worry about it... we've all had a first time".
After yet another lap, I picked a spot and dropped the hook. After the line was out, we were all a bit uneasy as to whether it was holding, so we spent the next 25 minutes staring at inanimate objects on the shore and trying to see if they were "moving". Eventually we all assured ourselves that were set. I promptly cracked a beer to calm the nerves. We made it.
Anchored at last!
The evening was spent cooking kebabs on the BBQ and swimming off the side of the boat. I had brought my inflatable dinghy (which I've decided to name Drip), but none of us had the energy to pump it up after a long day in the sun. So we blew up my Canadian Tire, one man swimmer's raft instead and took turns floating in the cove.
Tough life
At one point, the wind shifted significantly and we watched a large catamaran swing around on their anchor line, right into another sailboat anchored near by. The crew of the cat fought off the unattended sailboat (the skipper and his wife were ashore at the time) with boat hooks, and pulled in enough anchor line to avoid much of a collision. When the skipper/wife returned, there was a bit of an argument between the crews as to who was at fault. I overheard the cat saying they had 200 ft. of line out, which was a 4:1 scope for that depth. Not unreasonable, but clearly pretty long for sure a crowded anchorage. The skipper/wife ended up pulling their anchor and moving elsewhere. I was just glad we weren't involved!
"Meat Sticks" aka kebabs for dinner
Evening in Plumper Cove, looking north towards Langdale
By 9pm, we were all ready for bed. We all wanted to stay awake to watch the Perseid meteor shower, but could barely make it to nightfall. I saw two solid shooting stars, at which point I felt satisfied and went to bed. In the night, some larger waves came into the cove from the south, making it a pretty rolly time. Our anchor spot was pretty exposed to waves from that direction. If I were to go back, I'd try to tuck up closer to the islands just to the west for more projection.
Sundown
Next morning, we had another swim, had some breakfast, drank some coffee and moseyed our way out of the cove. The return trip back to Vancouver seemed like it went way faster than the voyage out. We were able to sail the same leg from Keats to Bowen. From there we motored to West Vancouver, but with a bit of tailwind this time (not enough to sail on though).
When we reached Point Atkinson, we found a 5-8 knot westerly wind blowing up Burrard Inlet (towards home!). So we put up the sails and lazily surfed the small waves at 3 knots back towards the Lions Gate Bridge. On the way, we spotted a small porpoise swimming nearby! However, by the time I got my camera out, it was gone, so you'll just have to believe me. :-)
Lazy cruise downwind in Burrard Inlet towards Vancouver
We timed our 6 hour journey back with the slack tide under the bridge just about perfectly. I was quite happy about that. Quick motor back to the marina and the our journey was over.
So there it is! First trip is in the books! Overall it was a great success. Like everything though, I definitely figured a few things out that I will take into the next trip.
Things I Learned on this Trip:
Sailboats are much more stable with the main sail up, even if you're just motoring. So as long as it isn't going to cause issues, it seems like a good idea to put the main up (preferably when in calm waters!)
It's easy to overthink the whole anchoring thing...
Next time I will definitely inflate the dinghy before leaving the marina. Leaving it until your arrival, no one will feel like doing it!
I've always known I'm not designed to be in the sun all day, but I definitely need to get one of those big sun hats. I got absolutely cooked in these two days, despite my constant "sunblocking"
They say that a boat is a "hole in the water in which you pour money."
I knew this old adage probably had a lot of truth to it when I bought my boat. As someone that has a genuine fear of spending money, it's taken some effort to come to terms with how true that saying can be.
Kinda true... but worth it!
Since I bought my boat 4 months ago, I've been on a mission to fix it up to "my standards." However, the tricky part has been that "my standards" keep changing! I've found myself wanting to change things I originally found no issue with, and vise versa. And unfortunately, just about all of these "fixes" inevitably cost money.
As some fixes have proven to be rather costly (like a new genoa!), I've found it particularly satisfying to be able to solve problem for little to no money.
Example: my dock lines.
The lines that came with the boat were pretty worn out, so I knew I wanted to replace them right away. The first "fix" was to use some of the old line I had replaced in my running rigging (i.e. old sheets and halyards). However, after chatting with some people, I realised that the rope used for running rigging doesn't stretch well, and therefore isn't great for dock lines.
So, a month after cutting "new" lines, I went out and bought some brand new (and blue!) ones. Not a huge purchase, but some $$$ none the less. Problem "fixed"... for a 2nd time.
Blue dock lines!
However, after only a few weeks, I noticed that some of my new lines were already showing some wear at spots where they were chafing against the boat. One of them actually wore down so much that you could see the core of the line... in only a few weeks. Not good.
The result of chafing
So, "fix" number three came in the form of chafe guards made out of plastic hose... purchased at Rona for $0.67 a foot.
The guards protect the lines where they rub on the rail of the boat. They're a pretty tight fit around the line, so they should stay in place. And being clear plastic, they aren't too bad on the eyes either.
So for about $3.60, I've significantly extended the life of my dock lines. Not bad. If only I can find a few more cheap fixes like that!
I'm what you could call a classic "over-thinker". For just about my entire life, I've pretty much always been one to spend a good while pondering over the possible outcomes of an action (often to excruciating lengths) rather than just diving in. Financial purchases are a big one (i.e. taking 5 years to talk myself into buying this boat!), and sometimes unfamiliar projects can be as well.
Not to say that this is necessarily a bad thing. I'd like to believe that my "over-thinking" translates into "over-preparedness" in the end! However, most of the time when I finally just jump into whatever I've been stressing over, it's not nearly as bad as my mind made it out to be.
Yesterday's project was a perfect example.
When I bought my boat, a number of the blocks were looking a little old. A number of them were showing signs of wearing out, and I wasn't too sure how long they would last before they'd have to be replaced. Here's an example of what I mean.
A "tired" turning block
This is a turning block for one of my genoa sheets. Essentially the sheet (or rope you use to control the sail) comes back from the sail at the front of the boat and "turns" 180 degress through this block to go to the winch. It helps to give your mechanical advantage when your pulling in the sheet, or powering up the sail.
As you can see in the picture, this block has seen many a long day. The pulley wheel was worn to bits and the wooden spacer that lifts the block off the deck was all but decomposed. Not ideal.
In fact, after a solid day of sailing in 18 knot winds a few weeks back, the pulley wheel was actually even more shredded than it is in that picture. Long story short, it needed to be replaced.
So how do you replace a turning block? Well, it's 3 "easy" steps.
Step #1 - Find a Replacement
Seems simple enough, right? Well not entirely.
My first challenge was to figure out what you even call the type of block I was looking for! As this blog has already demonstrated, there are approximately 1,295,385 different technical terms related to sailboats, so it took a bit of creative Googling to find what I was looking for.
Turns out, it's called a "cheek block". The more you know!
Googling also told me that Merriman Brothers, the est. 1898, Boston-based marine hardware company that made my old block, had closed its factory in 1995. So a direct replacement wasn't going to happen. Closest thing I could find was this Barton block.
The replacement
Step #2 - Make a new wooden spacer
I live in an apartment in Vancouver, so needless to say, I don't have a wood shop. Thankfully though, my friend Rhys does. Last week he was kind enough to cut me some pieces of wood he had lying around. Bit of measuring and drill work on Saturday morning and I had the makings of some deck spacers (and thankfully no holes in my galley table!)
From there, I went at them with sandpaper. I'd forgotten how satisfying it is to work with wood. When I started, the spacers just looked like two pieces of scrap wood (exactly what they were). But after 25 minutes of sanding, they were starting to show some promise.
Four or five coats of varnish later and they actually looked pretty awesome!
Step #3 - Bolt the block onto the boat
Well, once again, not quite as easy as it sounds. As it turns out, Barton decided to alter the bolt pattern of their block ever so slightly from what Merriman had gone with. Two out of four holes matched up fine, but not the others. So this meant I had to fill the old holes with epoxy and then drill new holes.
Terrifying...
Filling the holes was pretty straight forward. Take some duct tape, add lots of marine epoxy and I'd made a proper mess, but filled the holes as well.
Filling the old holes with epoxy
All weekend I stressed about drilling the new holes. I researched drill techniques, drill bits, etc. for most of the evening on Sunday. The idea of putting holes in my boat, regardless of how tiny they were, had me worried.
Monday night, the epoxy was dry and it was time to do it. I was nervous... My buddy Nish came by to help. He also brought beer, which helped with the nerves. After sanding the excess epoxy smooth and consuming a few of the beers, I kicked my over-thinking to curb and drilled out the four holes without issue. Classic over-thinking...
Nish with some contortionist moves to bolt the new blocks into place
I added some butyl tape to the bolts before putting the blocks on and countersunk the bolt holes a bit. This helps to water-seal the holes. All the bolts actually lined up and the blocks plopped into place perfectly, much to my surprise!
Pretty varnish and some butyl tape
The finished product look pretty damn slick if you ask me! Nish and I enjoyed a success beer, and I couldn't stop admiring our work!
All done!
So it turns out drilling holes in your boat and mounting new deck hardware is actually pretty straight forward!
Since buying The Ripple in March, my list of "Boat Jobs" has been steadily growing, despite my best efforts complete some as I find new things (and yes, for those wondering, I DO have an elaborate Excel sheet keeping track of them all... This is me after all!)
So after finding myself in Vancouver over a long weekend (a somewhat rare occurrence for me), I decided to take advantage of the sunny weather on Sunday and tick a few key jobs off the list.
Awhile back, I bought myself 600 feet of 3/8th inch line and went about replacing just about all of the running rigging on board. One of the lines that I didn't replace though was the genoa furling brake line, which apparently has to be a 7/16th inch rope, according to the specs of my furler... 7/16th, aka 1/16th of inch larger than the my spool of brand new yacht braid. I emailed the company to see see if that 1/16th inch was all that important, and was told it was. Lovely.
My ratty old genoa line
Not replacing that exact line was particularly painful for me to deal with because it was pretty much in the worst shape of any of the old lines. Every time I'd go to my boat, it would stick out like a sore thumb to me. Pretty and shiny sheets... ugly and ratty genoa line. SO, in order to allow myself to sleep again at night (joking), I ordered another 60 feet of 7/16th yacht braid.
Old vs. New
I've long felt that if you're going to fix something that's broken, you should try your best to make it better than it was before. So with that in mind, I decided to re-route my genoa line to the outside of the safety rail, so that it's not lying on deck where people could trip on it. 20 minutes of wrench work and I had all the blocks flipped around and ready to go.
Feeding the new line through my furler
Lookin' good!
The final bit of the job is splicing the two ends of the line together to create an endless loop. As a total newbie to the world of splicing, I'm a bit intimidated by this job, regardless of how easy Youtube makes it seem. I'm planning to do a practice round with my extra 300 ft of 3/8th line before trying it for real.
I can sleep easier tonight knowing that ratty line is gone!
I also spent a bit of time hanging some metal hooks down below to hang a curtain by the head. Small boat means the head (aka toilet) is pretty, well, public. However, there was a heavy cloth curtain on board that seemed to be a cover for the hanging locker. A few drill holes later, and I've got a pretty effective "bathroom door", as well as a door to the v-berth.
This week, I'm planning to replace two turning blocks for my genoa sheets that took a pretty good beating the last time out sailing. That should be a fun little job, as I have to fill some old bolt holes in the fiberglass with epoxy, and then re-drill for the new blocks. Once again, never done that before...
The old "to be replaced" turning block (also called a Cheek Block); note the pulley wheel is all worn out
My dad flew out to visit from my hometown of Pittsburgh, PA this past weekend. Earlier in the week, the weather was looking pretty damp, so while we hoped to get a day out on the boat, it wasn't a sure thing. Thankfully, the weather cooperated ("Little boys who are liars grow up to become weathermen") and we were able to take The Ripple out on her 2nd voyage in Burrard Inlet.
Calm conditions when we first got out into Burrard Inlet
My dad did quite a bit of sailing in his younger days, both on Lake Superior during his undergrad and out of Seattle during his PhD. However, while we motored out from the dock on Sunday, he mentioned that it had been over 20 years since he'd been on a boat like mine. Pretty cool that I could provide that opportunity to him.
My dad
In addition to being a neat opportunity to spend with my dad, it was also a fantastic day of sailing! On The Ripple's maiden voyage, there was just about no wind the entire time we were out. At the time, it was probably a bit of a blessing as I was trying to remember how to sail while figuring out the systems of "new to me" boat. But anyone that's been aboard a sail boat knows that it's WAY more fun to cruise along with a steady/stiff breeze than to bob back and forth and a doldrums.
Plenty of sun and wind!
Sunday also provided a chance to see just how my boat handles under sail. And I'll admit, I was quite impressed! We had westerly winds between 10-14 knots, which is just lovely sailing conditions. The highlight of the day was definitely seeing my dad back in his element though!
A big part of the enjoyment I've had in owning The Ripple so far has been figuring out how things work. Now, I've been around sailboats for a large portion of my life: dinghies from a young age and keel-boats (well, specifically ONE keel-boat) since I was about 22. So I like to think I at least "know the ropes" per say about sailing and how boats works. That said, actually OWNING a boat has proved to be pretty exciting as I find more and more new things.
Yesterday was a perfect example.
So when I bought my boat, the previous owner briefly walked me through the 12-volt electrical system. During my viewing, he switched the battery selector on, flipped the "cabin lights" breaker, and presto, all the cabin lights came on, along with two small electric fans.
One of the cabin lights
In my head I went, "OK, that's simple enough... But odd that ALL the lights are on one switch. What if you only want the lights in the v-berth to come on? And does this mean that fan comes on every time you want light? That seems silly."
However, rather than ask about all that like a normal person, I somehow skipped over it. Peg it up to being somewhat overwhelmed by the whole boat buying process I guess.
Anyway, for the past 2 months I just assumed all that was the case. Lights were all or nothing. This Sunday, I decided to at least fix two burned out bulbs and see how hard it would be to wire some switches onto each light. Easy enough, right?
The light above the galley was one which I thought the bulbs were dead. So, off came the light cover, in go two new bulbs, on goes the power... no light.
"What the heck? These bulbs are brand new..."
Double check the wattage of the bulbs. Same. Hmm.
To isolate the problem, I decided to take some bulbs from a working light and swap them in. So I take the cover off a working light, pull the bulbs, swap them over, flip the power... nothing.
*scratches head*
I then put the new bulbs in the working light, flip the power... nothing... Working bulbs back in the working light... NOTHING
"OK WTF is going on here..."
Assuming I was not actually cursed to the point that everything I touch stops working, I knew I had to be missing something... and I was.
Light internals... Note the little metal tab at the bottom
The covers. In my attempts to expedite the testing process, I was replacing bulbs, but not putting the plastic covers back on the light before testing them. I was assuming they were just cosmetic, like a lamp shade.
Turns out, through some rather clever German engineering, the plastic cover itself works as a switch on these lights. Sliding the whole cover left and right allows you to illuminate one light, two lights, or no lights. But if the cover isn't on, the circuit doesn't connect and nothing happens.
One light, two light, red light, blue light.
Also means I can turn off the electric fans when I don't want them. Pretty sweet. Only took me 2 months to figure it out! Haha.
Now to get that old tape deck outta there and wire in a 2nd battery...
When The Ripple first came into my life, a lot of the running rigging (aka the ropes*) looked like it could very well be original (i.e. 30+ years old).
*Every time I would call something a rope, my grandfather would correct me, saying that there was no such thing as "rope" on a sailboat because every "line" has a proper name. Sorry grandpa!
So for one of the first purchases, I decided to buy a 600 ft. spool of 3/8th rope line. Well, on Thursday of last week, this arrived at my apartment.
That's a lotta line...
So on Saturday afternoon, my buddy Matt met me at the marina, and we dove into it. The goal was to replace the main sheet, both genoa sheets, the main halyard and the genoa halyard.
I also need to replace my genoa furler brake line, but I need to learn to end-to-end splice before I can do that... another day!
We decided to start with the sheets first, as they seemed the simplest. Take the old ones down, measure them out, cut new ones, and put them back up. How hard to could it be?!
Diving in
Well, turns out it's just about that easy, thanks in part to the rope cutting gun I decided to buy along with my spool. Nicknamed "The Panther", that thing is incredibly satisfying to use. Heats up in about 5 seconds, and cuts through nylon rope like butter. Definitely made the whole process move along a lot quicker!
The Panther
With the sheets out of the way, we moved onto the halyards...
Now, for those that aren't up on their nautical terms, a halyard is the the line you use to hoist a sail up the mast. My boat has two of them, one for the main sail and another for the genoa. The tricky part about replacing them is, well, they run through the mast, to the top, and around a pulley wheel... where you can't reach it.
My old halyards, waaaaaay up there.
So, in order to replace them, you have to attach your new line to the end of the old one, and then pull them through the mast. What makes it nerve racking is, if the end-to-end attachment comes apart while the line is up the mast, you can't reach it to pull the old one back down to try again. Essentially, you're hooped. Things to be avoided...
In order to "avoid this", I decided to WAYYYY over do the end-to-end attachment, which I did with sailing twine. After stabbing myself in the finger with my needle on the very first stitch, I ended up with this.
When in doubt, over do it... Not sure I could have quite hung from that, but I'm pretty sure I could have.
Anyway, after the attachment was all done, I said a few prayers, swallowed the butterflies in my stomach and pulled the halyard through without issue. Easy mode. The genoa halyard went even smoother, with a few less butterflies. It was almost like we knew what we were doing!
The cockpit immediately looks so much better with the old ratty lines gone and the new shiny ones looking all pretty. I also took my friend Charlotte's great advise and cut some of the old lines into new dock lines. Waste not want not!
