Cruising Chute

In the spring of 2011 I collected a new spinnaker and a code 0 cruising chute (drifter) from North Sails. They proved to be a good investment in 2011 (not) because Little Grace did not make it to the water when refurbishment had to stop due to the projects of converting our barn, so the horses could live at home, and starting our own veterinary clinic from scratch.

You can imagine I was keen to try the new sails this year and in a previous post I wrote about a test of the running rigging (see A - Z of Refurbishment and Ongoing Improvements in the panel on the left). However, don’t imagine a scenario where this keen sailor now goes out with the single minded intention of sailing an appropriate course in the right conditions to test the new sails, oh no.

Little Grace is berthed about an hour and a half from where we live and since she has been back in the water we have used her for weekend cruises. This has meant that any test of the sails has to fit in with the passage plans. The passage plans themselves have to fit into parameters such as getting the boat Friday night, getting to our destination so we have time to relax, enjoy it and giving the dogs a chance to stretch their legs on Saturday. Then getting home on Sunday with enough time to sleep before work the next day. 

The criteria for testing the sails within the passage plans was light winds in the right direction and enough sea room to get out of trouble if it all goes pear-shaped; it never happened. There have been light winds in the wrong direction aplenty. On the rare occasions it was on the beam or aft there was not enough sea room or the leg was too short.  Instead of returning to harbour at the end of our trips on the light wind sail friendly dying sea breeze, as had been my expectation from the normal conditions, we have had a reef the main or sailed at near hull speed under headsail alone. Except, of course, when the wind has been against us and we have had maintain a long tack to windward in the last leg. Even on one of those occasions we did it under headsail alone, just to prove the boat could and she can, very well.

The last weekend was just the same. I prayed for the light winds that had been forecast to be where we needed to reach at the beginning of our shorter than usual passage plan. The wind should have come from the west but the main island caused it to back to the south and it was a case of pinching to keep our southerly compass course down the east side of the main island and then going west, with the wind on the nose, when we got to the corner.   

In theory there was a short section of the route where there was just enough water to leeward after we had to bear away into a channel to go north again. It was there and the video below shows the result. On the return journey it was back to a reef in the main and the number 2 genoa being ample to maintain near hull speed.

I set the cruising chute from the foredeck, raising and lowering it at the mast. At the beginning of the video you can hear the engine running in neutral. It was on standby, just in case; after all we did not know if the sail would fit because it says Hurley 20 rather than Alacrity on the bag, yet alone if I would get it to go up cleanly. There was not that much room to leeward and what there was got narrower. As it turned out the sail is perfect, as you would expect, and all went well, which is a surprise.

Code 0s are favoured for cruising boats because they are made of stronger material and have a luff and cut that gives greater windward potential than other spinnakers. Given the changes in wind direction due to the islands this last point is an asset; the video shows it. The apparent wind meant we were just on the edge but we only had to bear away a little to both stay very close to our compass course and allow the sail to fill and show the potential of things to come. 

An old photo I used to explain the pulpit dimensions to North Sails when ordering the cruising chute. You can see the hole use to secure the strop above the bow roller in front of the forestay fixing.

For the technically minded the tack is fixed to the deck, a strop attached in front of the forestay in our case because of the pulpit. The strop is attached where there is a hole that seems to have been intended for a pin to secure the anchor above the bow roller. The luff on our chute is loose and tape, as opposed to wire.

Battery

I have updated the Under the companionway post to show the position of the battery in relation to the rest of that area and the use of the step in particular.

Handheld GPS Holder

Although the handheld GPS is very convenient to use, actually holding it when helming is not convenient, particularly if the conditions are tricky. Of course, these are they very times when having the GPS loose in the cockpit is rather risky.

Until now we have put the GPS in one of the halyard bags when it is not in use and had to retrieve it each time it is needed.  This caused my constant anxiety that the day would come when, at a time I forgot to be anxious, it would get entangled in a line and flipped overboard, even though the lines are stowed in the elastic either side of the bags rather than in the bag themselves.

For some time I have considered how to keep the GPS safe and on view all the time, so whoever is navigating only has to glance at it to get the information they need. I have seen one boat owner use a standard boat mount next to the companionway but I think the odds are that if we used one it would be garroted and the GPS catapulted to Davy Jones’ Locker.  If not that fate, I or the dogs would catch it under our feet when stepping into the cockpit.

My first thought was to adapt a holder for a handheld compass and mount it on a washboard. I did not get round to mounting it because I hesitated to compromise the integrity of the wood and invite it to rot. It is lucky that I did because in tests we found that you can’t see the GPS screen if it is at the level of the first washboard and having the second one always in place is not an option. A hinged flap that folds back into the cabin, as others have done, was a possibility but I was reluctant to invade the domestic snugness of the cabin with boaty things more than already necessary.

Back to the drawing board

Tuulia identified the sensible place to secure the GPS.......

............which initiated a new design challenge.

A winch handle holder with the front panel and a hole to allow fitting cut away. The hose  inside causes the GPS to sit at the correct angle.

A perfect fit. The holder is kept in place using a keyring purchased at a chandler that opens like a claw. The wrist strap is also attached at this point, so there are no more anxieties about the GPS abandoning ship.

Although the positioning is a little inconvenient for anyone using the companionway it is more than made up for by the advantages.

Under the companionway

Like most small boat owners and the owners of larger boats for that matter, there is an endeavour to optimise the space available. Here you can see how the space under the companionway is used on Little Grace.



The flare, in a handy position protected from my big feet by an overhang, is white. The black round shape you can see is the back of the Whale pump, which is accessed from the cockpit. The rescue line is held in place by a fire extinguisher holder.

The step is also the cover for the battery and a convenient place to stand a water bottle when poring water from the tap at the bottom. The step and the bilge access have Treadmaster on but the rest of the sole is varnished for ease of cleaning. The fire extinguisher and fire blanket are away from but within reach of the cooker and, like the other things here, can be accessed by reaching in from the cockpit.

When Little Grace was purchased she had a water tank under the cockpit with an external inlet. The tank was condemned for use as storage for drinking water and in its day its weight, when full, must have altered the trim of the boat in an undesirable way. Added to which filling it up would have meant getting alongside where there was a hose for drinking water.

The old water tank was removed and we use the 10L cans you can see, which can be carried to the source of water if necessary. The water inlet is now used for the fuel pipe or capped when the boat is unattended (Open story in new window).

As the water bottles are portable they can also be used as movable ballast, namely moved to the cabin sole between the cooker and the Porta Potty to bring the trim forward when pushing through waves. If you click here you will see a cutaway in the edge that retains the cabin seats at the aft of the cooker and Porta Potty boxes. If the water is moved forward a wooden strip, normally kept in the quarter birth, is placed in them and therefore across the cabin to restrain the water bottle and anything else placed in that area. This arrangement has only been used once so far but in terms of practicality it worked well.

There is enough space for the addition of bottled water or soda. Although this can easily be stowed elsewhere there it is both secure and easy to access. The Clear pipe is from the electric bilge pump, which is located under the bilge access hatch you can see in the first photo.

From the shape of the wood behind the separate and removable step that fits over the battery, you can see that the water bottles are very well restrained and not likely to move from their position. (Click here to open a photo showing the basicstructure in a new window)

The switch for the Whale hand blige pump is located on the port side, you can just see it in the first picture. Whereas the electric pump is centered under the cabin sole each of these pipes goes to the glassed in and painted keel heads, which are lower than the rest of the bilge.

Rigging for light wind running and reaching sails

Here is the setup for the drifter and spinnaker. In these videos you can see the arrangements in the first test of the gear using a poled out genoa rather than the drifter or, in the case of the pole, the spinnaker - one step at a time.

In the first video you can see the arrangement for sheeting to the quarters. The Barton blocks clipped onto the cleats normally live clipped onto the pushpit so they are out of the way when the cleats are needed for mooring. The turn around the other cleat, that also acts as a fairlead to the cam cleat, is deliberate and there is room for a second turn if needed.

In the second video you can see the rigging for the pole, well at least the principle. When rigged for the spinnaker the downhaul for the pole will be the white line that you can see in the clam cleat (in the vieo it is rigged as a downhaul for the genoa). The red line will be replaced by the halyard for the spinnaker that will be rigged via the double standup block you can see the foresail halyard rigged through. The uphaul for the pole is bungee cord that is clipped onto a D ring attached to the mast just within my reach. This means that only one line has to be adjusted to change the vertical angle of the pole.