Tcm update, and stingo

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tcm

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I finally got back to the canaries after a quick wizz round st lucia, st martin, and st tropez. Swmbo has also been sailing with me in st lucia, guadeloupe, st martin, vilamoura, st tropez, puerto banus, gibraltar, and lanzarote, but has been to every one of these via gatwick, the cheat.

Off again in november, and stingo is hopefully coming too as First Guitar. He reckons it wd be a good idea to go to brazil, and i originally said ner, but now it's maybe. I hav to run it past the other crew first, really.
 
Mojomo leads the yachting world with Democratic route planning /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

What next ? A tumbril on one of the foredecks ?
 
TCM - your slacking on the mailasail log entries recently /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif keep them up on passage your adventures are a great read.
 
[ QUOTE ]
He reckons it wd be a good idea to go to brazil, and i originally said ner, but now it's maybe. I hav to run it past the other crew first, really.

[/ QUOTE ]Yep, but we need to leave Cap'nsenseless's watering hole in the Canaries by the 1st Nov at the latest in order to do it - we cross the doldrums twice and more importantly, we cross the equator twice. Since you haven't done that yet - may Davy Jones's ceremonial chum basting begin. TCM - you're gonna stink!!!
 
As a very experienced Catamaran cruiser, it would be very interesting to hear what toys you fitted to the boat, and what you found usefull, plus info on useless/difficult/maintenance intensive etc would be of immense interest to me
 
for Talbot

Hum not realy "very experienced", or at least i don't feel it yet.

Mojomo has had 15 months of living on board the thing all day every day in 21months since launch, during which it’s done four transats and a lap of the western med. So this is a pretty full-time boat perhaps as much used as the most-used charter boats although hopefully a bit more loved. I belt around various places and swmbo likes being on the boat too - she's been to canaries five times, french riviera, guadeloupe, st lucia, st martin three times, portugal, malaga, la rochelle, and gibraltar...all via gatwick. So i suppose it's more like a floating delivery lorry carrying a 3-bedroom flat.

Mainly, the boat is fab. The layout is great with big owners cabin up forward, two twins aft and the “library berth” gives seven. On passage I snooze on the sofa so anyone can find me – comfier than a forward berth too. The only things I’d change is to flip the layout through its fore-aft axis – so we’d be helming at the starboard side, looking out at our give way zone. At anchor the big cockpit, easy access to stern swimming, and usual cat stability makes it a good party boat that even quite picky powerboaties seem to like.

An early hohum choice for new boat buyers is the pah, nonsense stuff like fabric colour, but this is important, and mojomo’s beige theme works well – seems a lot better than say navy blue which is sometimes smarter but shows the salt, and beige ages gently rather than looking old quite soon like a real colour – red or green frinstance sparkle when new but age badly.

The boat has teak cockpit which I though a bit of a waste and does get hot at elevated 35degrees plus temperatures. But good grip underfoot if water joins you in the cockpit. Yes, you can use Wessex Chemicals (or snappy teak or other two-part cleaners) whilst underway and rinse with lots of buckets of water if you want the boat to look hah kerpow very whizzy smart when you arive instead of a bit of a state. I don’t much fancy trying picking up seawater with a bucket unless someone is there to watch as I fall in. Oh, and a spare bucket, the blue ones, they’re very quick to choose a different route.

Um,. The gear. Right well we have 4-cylinder Yanmar engines 54hp with yanmar 50saildrive and feathering props, Onan e-series generator, 240v Dessalator watermaker 160lpm and I would spec all these again, very solid. The motors have done 1900 and 1000 hours each, many oil changes, three filter changes, and no problems. The genny has chewed two impellers, but gave a warning, stopped, and continued happily with new impeller.

I swap the 5mu and 25mu pre-filters on the watermaker about every 2-3 months, found nice cheapie 6 euro jobs in a diy shop in southern france, rather than ooer marine shops selling the same thing for 20euros.

Picky department: oh gawd, the shower and taps in sailing boats are manky, eh? The damp salty air attacks the seemingly budget gear rapidly, so mirrors and any chrome looks ten years old in as many months. I have replaced some of the stuff with stainless steel bits and pieces from John Lewis – and that’s gone a bit rusty too, dammit. Likewise all the poppers were not actually stainless, so I had a nice couple of days grinding them out, drycleaning things, and refitting stainless, which has solved the excessive rust.

Of course, the real problem is that the air is damp and heh, being at sea don’t help. But being in a plastic bucket probly means the situation is as bad as it can be: I have bought dehumidifiers, one per hull, and everything is noticeably drier.

I run the boat on essentially unlimited diesel budget, so if the solar panels are doing anything I can’t say I’ve noticed. They might run half a fridge, maybe, but we have fridge and freezer on all day every day, generator for at least an hour for watermaking and engine(s) if the speed drops below 6 knots.

Good mileage from the yanmars – 3.5 litres per hour at 2000rpm gives 6knots motorsailing with clean hull and 1200nm range on standard tanks.

Parachutes, seabrakes, mini tyres: I have got these but can't say i have been in sea big enough to try them, max we've seen is steadyish 35knots/5metre sea and (another time) gusts/squalls towards 50knots, and trundling downwind was always OK. There again unless thikngs got very much worse - like repeated waves crashing into cockpit - I'm not sure i would oho! choose this as just the very best time to prat about with a nice gizmo...

I have dug around a few boats and this Privilege must be up there in terms of a Nice Installation: every valve, filter, pump etc is nameplated, every hose and electric wire clipped neatly. The enginerooms and underfloor all looks pretty smart and completely spaghetti–free. Even the cold water and hot water are in blue and red hose.

The ACMO stainless fittings, guardwire ends etc go rusty a bit quick.

The mastervolt charger and inverter are trouble-free, but the (also mastervolt) retrofitted isolation transformer was somehow too picky about the shorepower, so we shorted it out and threw it overboard – the idea was to have trouble-free shorepowere, not warranty headaches and no shorepower. Actually, all I really wanted was a galvanic isoltar, not a bill for 2k euros, but anyway, Tome said it would be very fab bit of gear, which it might have been, altho not that great.

Dyneema replacement main halyard has been very strong but needs a lot of care ( or more than we had) fitting it – with twists from new it’s like steel wire, needs disconnecting from sail and up down untwisting for a couple of hours.

Yamaha outboard was ok until it got nicked, and the 15hp since then has been a first-time starter too. The zodiac 310 Rib also no problems or leaks – no need to repump even months after inflating. But best would be to have the biggest tender and motor i can get on the davits.

The builders have been pretty sensible with most bits of gear – if there’s a dominant world "name", they use that so we can get fixes and spares easily. So it’s Jabsco all round for pump and bogs, Lewmar hatches, Raymarine nav gear, Harken winches, Eno gas hob and oven, all fine. The gas set-up is very good actually – space for big 15kilo gas and a spare which lasts at least 3months even with a lot of real cooking.

The raymarine stuff has been *mostly* okay, and we’re getting there. Biggest culprit to start with was the autopilot drive arm (the thing that actually pushes the rudder a bit this way and that) which some of the guys at Raymarine insisted was man enough for the job when it obviously just wasn’t. Raymarine rated the unit to a 20-ton boat which is over-simplistic, surely – the forces on rudders (and hence on that drive arm) are going to be bigger on a big-beam catamaran churning over waves than they are on (say) a fast powerboat of the same displacement. And not many powerboats are gonna spend long enough at sea to wear out the needle roller thrust bearings in under a year like ours. So, with a bit of cajoling they gave me a credit on the mechanical unit and I upgraded to a hydraulic unit their “Type 3” I think it is.

Next Raymarine problem has been the E80 screen, which didn’t like having the brightness turned down- it flashed madly, as though about to go bang. The second unit did the same, and didn’t always start smoothly. We’re on our third unit now, and Mark Goodwin at Raymarine UK has been very good helping us getting things sorted, at last.

The raymarine radar works, but isn’t brilliant. With an old autohelm monochrome ( I thought the same family of manufacturers?) and/or with a Furuno open array, I could count seagulls flying around the stern without turning round – no such resolution with this. I’m planning to get another radar and screen fitted, whivch I suppose isn’t a sign of total confidence, really. Oh, and now the VHF doesn’t seem to transmit either, ahem. No problem picking up the abuse from Philipino monkey-baiters around Gib, though

I see lots of catamarans with internal “nav stations” as though the boat is piloted primarily from indoors. Really? Nice place to do computer stuff, download weather files and send emails but shorthanded I think I’d get to the helm rather than any nav station. There again, we’ve only ever used the saloon dining table once, so maybe a gigantic nav/drinking/chatting and tv-watching station would be best in the saloon, at least if in warm waters.

For weather, voice and email we use an Iridium satphone, Mailasail and Maxsea to show the gribs, all nicely set up by an auld expert friend and still all fine. I use about 300minutes per transat, enough to send plenty of hi there texts, send diary updates (uses 30 seconds ish) get forecasts most every day (2 minutes) and a few chats to swmbo about how her flight is going to be too early or late (15 minutes minimum). There is a fabulously complicated (German) weatherfax thing which needs tuning at the right time and plugging to a computer for a poor resolution pic of the north atlantic and hence which I don’t use other than as a rather expensive barometer. I think I might pay a visit to the auld expert and perhaps gettim to set up a standby puter at his ususal very reasonable rates.

What else? Oh yes, heh, the sails. These are French made of course, Incidences in la Rochelle. St martin Incidences sez they’re a different outfit, but have the same logo, so praps it’s a franchise, not sure. If there is anything wrong with the sails then it’s probably my fault, although that’s how sails often feel – you put them up, adjusted them and that’s why they wear out, see? But the pro skipper who helped the original owner transat to the Caribbean used the crusing chute and the long jib sheets mangled the plastic sheathing on the shrouds, so long-time sailing can be more expensive than diesel. Also the battens pop out if we let the sails flog at under say 7 knots apparent. That first transat was 17days without engines much if at all – ours are 14 days with lots of diesel and not much cruising chutery. Those shrouds do seem to be set a long way aft – we can’t loosen the main very much to have a swoopy curvy main as some cats can do, meaning that we can only really sail at speed with standard sailplan with wind say 50 to 140 degrees off the bows – half of 360 degrees is motorsailing time. But inside those wind angles the boat steams along happily.

Some prospective catamaran owners (hi gludy) are promised “200 miles a day crusing” on a 50 foot cat which I think a bit optimistic – you would need lucky/trade wind, or not be bothered about destination, and work the sails a whole lot to do 200 miles each and every day. We’ve sailed 200 miles (or a bit more) on only perhaps 1-2 days per transat, really. No, you can’t motor at 8 knots unless you stop at lots of fuel docks.

I’m running out of things to say. Or am I? IKEA do nice comfy cheap floor rugs with rubber backing, nice under bare feet here and there, but get the beige variety, not the navy ones which fade. For cooking, have a look at pans from kuhnrikon.co.uk which allow handling straight from galley to table each in their own sleeve. I'm goingh to replace old yeast after a transat – very depressing to work away with old yeast and end up with a lump of wet flour instead of bread. Ipod connectors to the sound system means people can bring their own music, although Stingo’s rule of not playing it when anyone’s asleep, and anyone having a veto is valid. If you can, making actual live music (from a musical instrument...) is far more uplifting and fun than replaying someone else's efforts. Sun protection on the top of bare feet in a hot climate is important. Biafine or Binaderm for skin stings or sunburn is useful in the medical kit. Iternol B6 (especially the suppositories!) for seasickness seems to work when other stuff doesn’t. Frigoboat fridge and freezer have worked trouble free and silently. You can never have too many full Allen key sets, screwdrivers, onions, gas lighters, new replacement lines (not just old bits), packets of chewing gum, Hobnobs and bread knives. I needed the spare loo pump, and also have a spare fuel transfer pump to get the fuel to the engine/generator from “wrong” tank. Heavy anchor and chain, and chuck loads out seems to work when it’s time to stop, but this boat can get sideways and drag in F7+ if the mainsail isn’t fully zipped away. Doing a man overboard drill once out of sight of land is a good way to convince everyone to clip on. Kollision Kit sell 1-litre tins of the fast-setting underwater epoxy to help plug even quite big hull damage or snapped-off props/rudder/seacock holes – an axe would be a good idea to get rid of furniture or woodwork blocking access from the inside. Kraftwerk ratchet spanners are very lovely tools. If you have a Mcmurdo PLB, fix the obvious manufactiuring defect of rubbishy lanyard connection to the unit by refixing the black lanyard direct around/under the battery screw and discard the flimsy plastic connector to same, and sepretly get rid of the badly-sewn weedy cheapo yellow pouch which won't survive even hefty handling in the shop where you bought it. Matches and electronic gas lighters will give up after a week in damp air, ordinary cigarette lighter (even with no gas innem) better to light the gas. Save on bottled gas with the special pans as above, also finding how heavy a kettle feels with water for 1-4 cuppas, and instead of peeling spuds consider using nice (French) instant mashed potato called Mousline made by Maggi that doesn’t taste like ghastly Smash, honest. I got bored with extensive manual log writing – the main things to write down are lat/long quite often esp with small crew eg just two (so you know how far back you/helicopters should go look) and compass reading handy for if the lectronics all goes bang at the same time. Use different coloured kitchen roll and loo paper to help avoid people chucking the heavy stuff down the bog. If leaving the blocked bog half an hour doesn’t work, a big sink plunger helps unblock it but you do this by pulling suction to loosen the block, not ramming it tighter, and hence the wooden plungers are not so good as the rubber head comes off, and plastic-handled ones much better. Daub chocolate bits on your face after unblocking the bog is an excellent gag (sic) to play on the rest of the crew. Practising replacing an engine impeller, and a generator impeller, and bleeding an engine before leaving would been a good idea - I got away with it by having an actual diesel fitter as crew on first transat who showed me how whilst underway. Don’t get a saloon clock with a tide needle/arm as it makes it harder to read quickly from a distance, or unscrew the thing and Tippex over the useless tide needle if you have one already. Can’t think of anything else at the moment.

oops yes i can: fooling about section: with a hardtop the kids can leap into the sea, very good fun. I painted one of the cockpit lockers light blue internally and with the drain plugged we can fill it with water for a nice swimming pool on very hot days in a marina. For kids big screen entertainment we have a projector and rig a white screen in the cockpit, plug the sound from computer into ipod cockpit speakers and get home cinema with about 95" picture. Isn't this what sailing's all about? Okay, no it probly isn't, but still quite good.

Finally, i have worked out how to make a B52: you put in cointreau and then carefully pour baileys which will land underneath that and then also carefully pour in kahlua which will fall underneath again.
 
Re: for Talbot

Thanks I have picked out some food tips from that lot.

Which Raymarine radar did you use?

The 200 miles a day I mentioned is based on what may cruising out there now achieve - but we will see.

What sort of crew do you have - experienced sailors?

How long did it take you to get competent with the sailing bit?
 
Re: for Talbot

After four transatlantics, I would reckon that you could call yourself "experienced" /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Thanks for that information. Much appreciated.

Personally I dont see all the point of trying to do umptymillion miles per day, it means that you are probably banging around and life is uncomfortable. seems like 150-175 nm is a more cruisy style.
 
Re: for gludy

dang i did a masive post and then lost it when the puter rebooted!

The radar is the normal radome thing you see on most raymariney boats.

Yep, experienced sailors first off, but the main useful skils u need on board are fixing things, not so much trimming sails finesse. A professional diesel fitter, a computer/comms expert and a friendly cynic, each with own-boat sailing experience and at least one transat between them would be ideal... which er is exactly what i had for the first transat. Hi there paddywackcocker, para and ljsadler!

After that i was ok with just one allrounder eg stingo, but still 4 crew with other v useful skills eg racylady is fab chef and cooks things faster than i can think of a recipe.

And after that it is ok with willing bods, not experts, and I rabbit on to show them what's where, how to call the helicopters etc. But i supply the bodegup er fixing skills, so if you don't know that you need lots of 10mm, 12mm, 13mm, and 17mill spanners, and hardly any 9, 11,14 15 and 16mill spanners you oughta have someone who does, at least a bit, or stay in range of ports.

I am still cr ap at sailing. Sailing slow is v easy, sailing fast not so easy at all. Put the main sail up, then the foresail. Trim foresail so the telltales flutter flat. Let out mainsheet so the mainsail looks a bit the same shape, ish. Reef a cat (it says) at *gusts* (not waiting until solid reading) of 20, 25 and 30 knots. Reef again overnight. If anyone even half suggests a reef, do a reef. When it gets scary windy, go downwind (never upwind) and start reeling in the forsail asap, and only then turn upwind to reef. Don't be too proud to use the engines, or both engines. Specify hydraulic drive unit cos the autopilot is on 95% of the time or more. This is most of what you need to know to use the sails to get places. Or at least, it is most of all i know sailingwise.

Did ya not look at privilege? You can gettem with massive full-width forecabin instead of "Morgue Layout" ie four+ double coffins.
 
Re: for gludy

Thanks for all the info.

I considered the privilege. I was told they had minimal saloon forward vision and so ruled them out on that score alone. I know they are well made cats. I asked where I could try one out but the agent never got back to me.

I was impressed by the St Francis in so many ways that I opted for it. Its am easy boat to handle and is fast whilst not being a racer critical with weight.

I wish I could combine the features of this cat or that cat together but I can't. No matter what you choose its a compromise.
 
Re: for gludy

Great Posts! Thanks!


It sounds like your having a great time. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
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