THE BIANKA LOG BLOG

DECISIONS, DECISIONS!

2013-05-18T06:00:00.000-04:00

You may recall that BIANKA although being dragged a thousand feet across the harbor during superstorm Sandy there was very little damage to her. The same could not be said for my dinghies Honda BP2 outboard. Which sat on the harbor bottom for several days after the dingy flipped over at the dock. I was lucky enough to snag it with a grapple borrowed from the boatyard and bring it up on the dock:

A couple of fish and crabs fell out of it as I bought it up on the dock and I discovered more after I took off the cover and rinsed the motor down with fresh water.

I was hoping to be able to remove the carburetor ASAP but, found some long rusted nuts prevented that from happening. So after removing what I could and spraying the unit down with WD-40

and hitting the rusted nuts with PB Blaster , heat and whatever else I could think of. I had no success. So I left it for a while. The winter was cold and the idea of spending it in the cold garage was not that inviting. So when it warmed up I again started to work on the engine. I found that over the winter the hard to remove corroded nuts were able to be removed and I was finally able to get at and remove the carburetor. Which by this time had started to corrode rather badly:

I could buy a new carburetor for about under a hundred and fifty bucks. That's just to start. So I started thing maybe it's time to just stop trying to revive the outboard and move on. Maybe sell the engine for parts and get a new outboard. I don't really use the outboard much in fact it's been about two years since I last had it on the dingy before Sandy dumped it onto Davy Jones locker. The outboard came with BIANKA when I bought her in 1995 so it's not like it's a new motor. The corroded nuts attest to that! I thinking perhaps it's time to make BIANKA an all electric boat with a new electric outboard for the dingy too! Decisions, decisions.

THOUGHTS OF AN ELECTRIC SAILOR: Lost in the Marine Store

2013-05-15T06:00:00.000-04:00

Recently I went to my local West Marine store looking for a shaft zinc. In my wanderings I found myself in the engine supply aisle. As I looked down at all the fluids, fittings, tools and parts in that location I smiled at how I no longer needed any of them since I converted to electric propulsion.

A CAPT. MIKE TIP OF THE HAT: Swann Communications & their Freestyle HD Camera

2013-05-12T07:08:00.000-04:00

I've got several video cameras that I use on board BIANKA. From GoPro, Canon Powershot to the one built into my Blackberry phone. They all come in useful for various purposes. But, one I've been using a lot has been the Swann Freestyle 1080p HD Waterproof Sports Video Camera. It is small like the GoPro but, comes with a lot of accessories that that GoPro charges extra for. Things like a remote start and LCD screen are included with the base unit. I also like that it has separate buttons to either shoot video or stills. Unlike the GoPro which requires pushing several buttons to change how you want to shoot. On a recent trip to the Spanish Virgins my Swann stopped working. It seems one of the battery connectors broke. Not sure when it happened but, it was not something I could fix. Since the Swann warranty was for a year I contacted them for a repair. After getting receiving the shipping information I sent it off. Then the other day I got the package back from Swann USA. It was not the camera I sent to be repaired my camera but, they had sent a brand new camera with all the accessories. All I can say is WOW that's great customer service. So that's why Swann and their Swann Freestyle Sports Video Camera get a tip of the hat from Capt. Mike.

Here's some of the video I've taken with the camera. The first is from a recent trip to Vieques:

and here is a timelapse of Dawn arriving on Hook Mountain as BIANKA sat at anchor:

NEW YORK HARBOR SURVEY UPDATE

2013-05-08T06:53:00.000-04:00

I mentioned a few posts back that NOAA and the Army Corp of Engineers where doing post superstorm Sandy surveys of New York Harbor. Making sure the channels were clear of debris and shoals. I hoped that they would also do surveys of the areas around the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. I and other sailors often use these areas for anchorage as we wait for a favorable currents to help speed us up the Hudson (North) River. I am glad to report that is the case NOAA has recently released a graphic of some recently completed surveys of those areas made in April:

As you can see the survey includes the whole area around the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island and also the basin where the the Liberty Landing Marina is located. These new surveys should lead to some new chart data and comfort that there are not any new surprises waiting below the surface in these areas for smaller cruising sailboats following Hurricane Sandy.

SPRING OUTFITTING: Flare Check

2013-05-05T06:30:00.000-04:00

While I was doing some of that preliminary organizing I came upon my Olin flare kit:

. So I thought this was as good a time as any to open it up and check to make sure what flares where inside and if any where out of date. Which is a no no with the Coast Guard and just not a good idea in general.

In my Flare Kit there are both hand held flares and 12 gauge aerial flares:

I was glad to see that non of them were out of date and I could get through the sailing season without having to buy new ones. I hope to never have to use one but, it is important to have them available just in case. Spring outfitting is a good time to check them and make sure they are not out of date.

A LITTLE ORGANIZATION PLEASE

2013-05-03T06:18:00.001-04:00

The winter was cold and wet so other than a few quick checks I did not spend much time on board. So the cabin pretty much stayed somewhat disorganized from the post Sandy cleanup:

As you can see there are some things that really have no place in the cabin. Like the fender thrown in as I was buttoning up before the boat was pulled it really does not belong in the cabin. Also the piece of Lexan that use to be secured to to the solar bimini but, was not secure enough to survive the 95 MPH winds of Hurricane Sandy should be out of here. So now that it's time to start getting the boat ready for spring outfitting a little organization might is in order:

It may not look like much improvement but, dropping the table down and having better access to various tools and parts really helps me find things as I go around and do some spring boat maintenance. Once the boat is ready for launch then everything gets stowed away properly. But, for now having things very accessible is the plan

FROM BIANKA'S BOOK SHELF: ELDRIDGE TIDE AND PILOT BOOK

2013-04-29T07:10:00.000-04:00

One of the things that signals the start of the sailing season for me is buying a nice fresh copy of the Eldridge Tide and Pilot Book 2013 . If you are sailing through the waters anywhere from Maine to the Chesapeake this is the one book to have on board. Just make sure you have this years edition. By the end of the season my copy of this book will be well dog eared and beat up from the crisp pristine condition it is now in. That is because I use just about every time I leave the harbor. It is one of the items I bring into the cockpit before heading out along with items like binoculars, horn and the handheld VHF radio. I will refer to it a number of times on just about every sail trip I take. The Eldridge has most of the tide and current information you will ever need to transit the waters of the northeast coast of the U.S. and has been providing that information for well over 100 years. Yes, you can get some of the same information on many chart plotters and computer programs. But, the Eldridge Tide and Pilot Book 2013 being a paper publication will always work and allows you to quickly find the information you need without going through a bunch of menu screens. It also contains various interesting articles concerning tides, currents, fishing, astronomy and seafaring history. I often bring it down to my cabin and peruse it when planning for the next days journey before nodding off to sleep. If you know of a northeast sailor or someone who will be sailing in the northeast U.S. waters who does not have a copy on board it would make a great gift.

SURVEYING AFTER SANDY

2013-04-27T07:30:00.000-04:00

It seems the Army Corp of Engineers and NOAA have been busy the past few months re doing surveys of the major commercial waterways and channels of the New York and New Jersey waters. I hope they will also survey the basin behind the Statue of Liberty and also the area north of Ellis Island. These areas are used as anchorages for smaller boats waiting for favorable currents going up and down the Hudson (North) River. BIANKA and I used the Ellis Island anchorage a few days before Sandy raked the area last year. It would be real good if they were to be surveyed and cleared of debris post Sandy before sailors start using them again during the upcoming season.

A GOOD DAY FOR A VOYAGE

2013-04-24T06:24:00.000-04:00

Thinking about Joshua Slocum today.

"I had resolved on a voyage around the world, and as the wind on the morning of April 24, 1895 was fair, at noon I weighed anchor set sail, and filled away from Boston, where the Spray had been moored snugly all winter. The twelve o'clock whistles were blowing just as the sloop shot ahead under full sail. A short board was made up the harbor on the port tack, then coming about she stood to seaward, with her boom well off to port, and swung past the ferries with lively heels. A photograp her on the outer pier of East Boston got a picture of her as she swept by, her flag at the peak throwing her folds clear. A thrilling pulse beat high in me. My step was light on deck in the crisp air. I felt there could be no turning back, and that I was engaging in an adventure the meaning of which I thoroughly understood."

Since BIANKA is still currently on land and blocked by other boats in the boatyard the next best thing might be to start reading SAILING ALONE AROUND THE WORLD again. The book was one of the first books I loaded onto my Kindle E-reader. The book always seems to get my cruising juices flowing and today being the anniversary of Slocum's departure it seems like a good day as any .

LORAN LIVES AND A HAPPY EARTH DAY ENDING!

2013-04-23T07:30:00.000-04:00

I was sad when the U.S. Government shut down all theU.S. LORAN transmitting stations back in 2010. That action rendered my Kings 8001 unit obsolete. Still, I kept it aboard for a while until I thought I might be able to recycle part of it even if it was just the case. I posted about my plans for the obsolete unit here. Then about a month ago I received an email from a fellow in Norway who had seen my post and wanted to know if I still had the boards. It seems that LORAN is still alive and well and used on the waters around Norway. Who knew? He also mentioned that he had a non functioning Kings 8001 unit and would like to acquire the boards so he could try and repair his unit. This is what I call a win win situation and so yesterday on Earth Day I sent the LORAN boards off to Norway to hopefully continue to help guide fellow sailors on their way as it did for me. I love when things can be recyled!

THOUGHTS OF AN ELECTRIC SAILOR: The Battery investigation one year later

2013-04-21T18:20:00.000-04:00

I was thinking of the disturbing battery issue I had on board last year. When all of a sudden one of my batteries refused to complete a full charge using my Dual Pro Quad 4 battery charger. It took a few times of repeated charging but, finally the battery came back to being comparable to the other batteries in the 48 volt propulsion string and has stayed there ever since.

Some thoughts on what happened:

1) The main cause seemed to be that I was hanging a 25 milli amp load on this particular battery to run the Paktrakr Battery Monitor. I had done this years before with no problem but,

2) I had also removed the 48 volt Marine Air X Wind Turbine over the winter to replace it's blades and have it repainted. So the only charging that was happening was from the 48 volt solar panels and an occasional charge from the Dual Pro when I check up on the boat. During the winter solar availability was limited to short daytime charging. So that 25 ma drain started to add up. Possibly sulfating the battery enough to prevent it from ever really getting a full charge over the winter months because of the constant 25 ma load.

Over this past winter I no longer had the Paktrakr hooked up to that battery and I had the 48 volt Marine Air X wind turbine also helping with the charging. The battery that was causing the trouble last year now charges with the rest of the batteries. The lesson learned is that to avoid taking any load off a single battery in a series string. Also when a battery suddenly refuses to charge all is not lost and one may not need to run out and get a replacement battery.

TOOLS OF A SAILOR: Another Use for an Inspection Camera

2013-04-18T10:37:00.000-04:00

I've mentioned before how an inspection camera comes in handy for various projects on board. With the confined spaces on board a boat that are difficult to inspect a borescope or Inspection camera is handy to have around. I've used it to inspect the inside of a fuel tank. I found another use this spring that shows a another use for the camera. Last fall just before Superstorm Sandy arrived I found one of my deck scuppers clogged and that the water on the deck was not draining. I was able to clear it enough so it drained but, I was not sure if I had cleared it completely. Then the other day just before I was heading down to the boatyard I thought why not use the inspection camera to see if my through hull drain hoses were all clear of obstructions. Why not indeed:

I tried the camera in several of the drains and did in fact discover that there were some reeds stuck high up in the galley sink drain hose:

There were some issues trying to get the camera up into some of the drains that had more severe bends in the hose run. But, I have a plan to modify the camera to make it easier for inspections of these drains in the future. I'll post about that sometime in the future.

SIGNS OF THE SAILING SEASON

2013-04-16T08:53:00.001-04:00

It was a cold winter with blizzards and other snows. I did not get down to the boat as much in previous years. So it always please me when I finally see the moorings are in the harbor and the firsts boat start to appear on them. The sailing season has begun:

APRIL15th TIME TO SING AN ACCOUNTANTSEA SHANTY

2013-04-15T08:58:00.000-04:00

and if you are in the mood some rap Remy has it:

TROUBLE DOWN BELOW: Bilge Pump Switch

2013-04-14T12:28:00.003-04:00

I mentioned that after the two plus feet of snow that the blizzard NEMO dumped on the Isle of Long I found BIANKA's bilge half filled with water when I finally was able to check on the boat. Since I could empty the water by activating the bilge pump with the manual switch it was apparent the automatic bilge switch was the problem:

Because of some freelance work commitments I was not able to replace the switch for several weeks. I emptied the bilge and hoped for the best. When I finally got back to the boat yesterday I was glad to find only about an a half inch of water in the bilge. It seems the blowing snow of the blizzard had found some ways into the boat where normal rains do not. The bilge switch that failed was a Rule Super Switch that had worked reliably since I bought BIANKA in 1995 and may have been installed when the boat was commissioned in 1986. So it had a pretty long life in the Marine environment. When I remove the switch I was surprised to find there were two parts that made up the bilge switch. There was the float switch it's self and an optional guard case that it fit into:

Since I never had to mess with it in seventeen years it came as a surprise. The case helps keep debris away from the floating switch and also has a button you can push to test the switch to make sure it is working. This helps to make sure any debris will not cause the switch to stick in either on or off position.

In my researching for a new bilge pump switch I read several reviews the the newer bilge pump switches were a little more trouble prone. As they changed from a mercury switch to a metal ball conducting between to contacts. Some reviews mention the switches not lasting too long before failures. So I look at other choices and settled on a Water Witch 101 control.

The Water Witch is an electronic switch the senses water between two electrodes to turn the bilge pump on. It was also considerably smaller than the Rule switch it was replacing:

The install was pretty simple and the manufacturers web site had a diagram on how to wire it up for my particular installation. I have a switch panel on board where I can manually power the bilge pump via a switch or switch it over and have a bilge switch automatically turn the bilge pump on once the water rises.
I used Anderson Powerpole Connectors to connect the switch and bilge pump. This will allow for easier trouble shooting and/or replacement in the future.

I waterproofed the connectors with some Marine Adhesive Goop and will further waterproof it later with some heat shrink and additional sealant in the near future. With the units wired up I tested it by putting the switch into a plastic cup and then added some water:

The pump operated as expected after a short delay to prevent cycling of the pump the bilge pump turned on. I then removed the switch from the water:

Again after a short delay it turned off. Convinced that the switch was working correctly I installed it into the bilge by attaching the switch unit to the bilge pump hose with a cable ty:

Well that's one pre launch project finished now on to the next one.

200,000!

2013-04-13T09:54:00.001-04:00

Somewhere in the night the BIANKA LOG BLOG reached 200,000 page views. Just wanted to say thank you to all those who come on board here.

BUH BYE SANDY!

2013-04-11T20:37:00.001-04:00

"Sandy has been retired from the official list of Atlantic Basin tropical cyclone names by the World Meteorological Organization’s hurricane committee because of the extreme impacts it caused from Jamaica and Cuba to the Mid-Atlantic United States in October 2012. "- NOAA

No complaints from me. Even though I was one of the lucky ones. The day after Sandy hit I found BIANKA over a thousand feet away from where I last saw her the morning before. She was still attached to the mooring just not where I left her. Here is some video I took of Long Island Sound in the morning before Sandy hit. Already Long Island Sound waters had covered the beach and were starting to crash onto the parking lot:

Here is a short video of me just barely making it off the spit area as the rising waters covered the roadway leading away from the harbor:

ANOTHER ELECTRIC BOAT: The Archimedes Project

2013-04-09T09:07:00.000-04:00

Sail maker Ed Botterill asked me in an email if I had seen or heard about solar panels integrated into sailcloth material. My answer was no, but, when I look at the 540 square feet of sail that BIANKA uses it is an intriguing idea. Though I expect there will have to be many boats like BIANKA powered by electric propulsion on the waters before that type of solar technology becomes available Though I have to admit sometimes when I'm sitting in the cockpit nursing a cold beer I think about how things would work with a deck full of solar panels instead of sails. A new sail would cost over $5,000 and that could buy a lot of solar panels too. Well, a fellow named Carter down in Florida has actually done it and is currently underway doing sea trials with his boat.
He took an old run down sailboat with rotten wood masts:

and converted it into a solar powered trawler with 5 kilowatts of movable solar panels on deck:

Carter and his wife are on board under going sea trails with the boat along Florida's Gulf coast in preparations for an eventual trip doing The Great Circle Route.
So if you see this unique electric boat in your travels tell them Capt. Mike says hi!

INSTRUMENTATION PART 10: CURRENT METER INSTALLATION

2013-03-30T06:56:00.000-04:00

With the battery voltage meter part of the instrumentation project finished. It was time to move on to the important current meter part of the project. BIANKA already had a Xantrex XBM battery monitor but, to see it required that I move away from the helm and lift a cockpit hatch and bend down to see it. It was awkward and inconvenient to look at while underway.

I went looking for another meter that could measure the current being drawn from or charging the battery bank. But, the catch was I did not want to have to put in another shunt for measuring current in the battery circuit like the XBM battery monitor already used. I wanted to keep any extra connections to a minimum. To do that I needed to use a hall effect type of current meter. It determines a current value by measuring the magnetic flux around a piece of wire with current flowing through it. I found exactly what I needed with a company called Devicecraft. They had a hall effect current meter with a transducer that would fit the 2 AWG wires that connect to BIANKA's 48 volt electric propulsion battery bank.

The hook up is farely simple.

The display required a supply voltage and three wires that go to the hall effect transducer. I needed to run the transducer wires about eight feet and used some Twisted Servo Hookup Wire, normally used in things like model cars and planes:

Like I did for some of the wires for the battery voltage meters part of this project I enclosed the transducer wires in a Techflex General Purpose 1/4-inch Braided Cable Sleeve. This was to keep the wires together and also protect them from chafing.

The 100 amp Hall effect sensor will fit over the 2 AWG cable that is used in the my electric propulsion system but, would not fit over the existing lug. So I needed cut the existing battery cable. I used a ratcheting wire cutter like a Klein ratcheting cable cutter which cuts heavy duty battery cable easily:

and makes a nice flush cut:

I took the opportunity to trim some other 2 AWG battery interconnections that were a little too long from my initial electric propulsion installation five years ago too. The Hall Effect transducer has a polarity in terms of it's display. That is if you a drawing current from the battery the display should show a negative sign in the display. Likewise when charging the battery it is useful to see the current flow as positive (no minus sign) on the digital display. In order to make sure I got the polarity right I used some of the trimmed battery cables and a jumper to check the polarity of the meter.

Once I had established the proper orientation for the sensor I put it on the battery cable and crimped a new lug on the end and reconnected it to the battery. I then ran the sensor wires up through the cockpit wire conduit I made and into the helm area using one of the Fiberglass Wire Pull Rods I carry on board:

It was then just a matter of hooking up the sensor and power wires to the current display and the instrumentation project was finished:

I mounted it the box temporarily at the helm and used it on my fall cruise up the Hudson River and back. I still need to make a permanent platform for the box at the helm location but, that is a project for another day.

HELM INSTRUMENTATION PROJECT PART NINE CLICK HERE

HELM INSTRUMENTATION PROJECT PART ONE CLICK HERE

A FEW MINUTES OF NATURE: DOLPHINS

2013-03-27T10:06:00.002-04:00

A few years ago I was on a freighter heading from Houston to Mexico and South America. Every morning I would take a walk around the ship. One morning in the Gulf of Mexico I peered over the bow and found a pod of Dolphins hitching a ride on the bow wave. I must have watched them for twenty minutes here is a small sample of that magical moment:

THAT WAS QUICK

2013-03-24T08:00:00.000-04:00

I went down to the boatyard again on Friday to look for the Kings Loran manual that a sailor in Norway asked me about. While there I found out my new 500 pound mooring was already rigged up and ready to be dropped. But, that also meant the bill would soon be coming in the mail too. At least I'll be able to relax a little in case another storm like Sandy heads this way knowing the mooring is 200 pounds heavier and has some new chain on it.

A CAPT. MIKE MONEY SAVING TIP:Defender Marine sale

2013-03-22T19:43:00.001-04:00

Capt. Mike loves to save a bit of money. As luck would have it Defender Marine is having it's annual warehouse sale for the next two days. If you need something for the boat you might want to check them out while the sale is going on and pick up what you need.

A NEW MOORING

2013-03-22T10:55:00.000-04:00

I was working on board the boat yesterday when there was a tap on the hull. It was the boat yard manager asking me what I wanted to do about my mooring since they were starting to set things up for the up coming season. We had talked about increasing the size of the mooring ever since I found BIANKA a thousand feet from it's usual location after Hurricane Sandy. The original mooring that held BIANKA since 1996 was 300 lbs. It did an admiral job until superstorm Sandy came ashore last year. I could have jumped up to 400 lbs but, he mentioned BIANKA's bow mounted mast that maybe 500 pounds might be better. I had to agree. Might as well go BIG and not push my luck this Hurricane Season. I drove out of the boatyard singing the Bob Dylan song New Morning but, changed the lyrics slightly singing the chorus as "new mooring" instead.

BARNACLES AND BENETEAUS

2013-03-20T07:30:00.000-04:00

Another day of warmth arrived last week. So I once again took advantage of it and went down to the boatyard to check on BIANKA. A couple of the guys from the boatyard had a 36 foot Beneteau in the marine lift and were working hard on the bottom with scrappers. The boat was being voluntarily repossessed and had been sitting at a dock for three years. Here is what the bottom looked like after three years:

There were barnacles and other growth of course. But, most of the bottom was covered with thousands of nice sized mussels:

Somewhere in the above photo is a mussel covered sail drive. Below is another view:

I was severely tempted to gather a pound or two of the mussels and whip up some Mussels Posillipo for dinner.

But, I instead left them all for the Seagulls who with several hundred pounds of mussels piled up next to the dock will have thought they had died and went to heaven.

INSTRUMENTATION PROJECT PART 9: CONNECTIONS

2013-03-17T11:55:00.000-04:00

The battery end of the project has been wired up with fuses and Anderson connectors. The helm meter panel like wise has been wired and tested. So the only thing that remains is to connect the two with wires. There are four meters each monitoring one of the four 12 volt batteries in the 48 volt electric propulsion string. I thought about individual wires in a harness, duplex wire and various other cable types. Happily I found what I needed in a trash bin that fit my needs perfectly.
I was doing some freelance work in a building that was undergoing some renovation and found about fifty feet of E90298 cable made by National Wire about to be thrown out. It had ten 20 AWG wires inside a durable UV resistant cover. It even had a shield around the bundled wires. The wires were also tinned making it perfect for the marine environment on board as it would be more resistant to corrosion than bare copper. Best of all I could not beat the price FREE! I love to recycle where I can and this cable instead ending up in a landfill is perfect for the instrumentation project interconnection.

I love it when a plan comes together like this. Because I only needed eight wires to measure the four individual battery voltages it meant I had two spare wires that I might use down the road for something. The only issue I thought might be a problem is each of the 10 wires in the harness were different colors. Which could be confusing down the road in trying to figure out which wire was positive or negative when connecting or trouble shooting. But this was easily solved after I first assigned the color coded wires to each battery:

Because of the various colors used to connect the batteries I decided to cover each wire with two different colored heat shrink at the battery end. Red for the wires that went to the positive battery terminals and black for wires that went to the negative battery terminals. These would help avoid confusion and mis-connections even though the Anderson Powerpole connectors where color coded. It just adds helps eliminate confusion. It would also add another layer of protection for the wires:

.I also put on some General Purpose 1/4-inch Braided Cable Sleeve over the heat shrinked wires. This not only kept the wires together making for neater wire runs but, also added another layer of protection to the wiring harness:

All I needed to do now was crimp on the Anderson Powerpole pins and insert them into the proper color coded powerpole housing and the battery end of the instrumentation project was done:

For the helm end of wire I chose to enclose each pair of wires in white heat shrink:

and connect them to the helm panel meters box:

After an operations check out the project was just about complete. All that I needed to do was to add a little sealant to the back of the Anderson Powerpole connectors to water proof the wires and also inside and outside of the meter enclosure box where they connect up. I used Marine Goop. Once that was done it was time to move on to wiring the battery current meter.

INSTRUMENTATION PROJECT PART 8 CLICK HERE

INSTRUMENTATION PROJECT PART 10 CLICK HERE