LET THERE BE LIGHT... Another boat mystery solved!

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...

The learning continues.

New rope! Errrr, lines!

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!

Lookin' good!

The learning continues...

Things I've Learned So Far - Part I

The plan is to keep a running list of things (well, major things I'd say... might get unwieldy otherwise) since buying the Ripple.

• How to lower, change and hoist a furling genoa single-handed
• Takes some planning, but is quite a bit easier than I expected! 
• A long halyard and a single turn around your winch let's you hoist from the forestay with one hand, while you feed the sail into the furler with the other.

Dropping my genoa to measure for a new one

• How to tie a Fisherman's Hitch
• My marina slip just has a bull rail to tie up to, which was a new thing for me. This knot has come in handy. 

Anchor or Fisherman's Hitch

• My apartment mailbox key looks a lot like my cabinway hatch key
• Found this one out the hard way after spending a good 5 minutes wondering why I couldn't open my hatch...

In other news, I just ordered a new genoa this morning. The sail maker came out and took some measurements last night. So in 5 or so weeks, I'll have a brand new shiny 140% furling genoa. Woot! #takemymoney