Jasmine - Polishing Hulls

I'm collecting information regarding how to restore my gelcoat hulls. Below are some links:
It seems that the process is:

(1) Wash down boat with soapy water
(2) Remove oxidation
(3) Polish
(4) Wax 2 or more times

http://blog.boattrader.com/2014/06/restoring-gelcoat-like-pros-elbow-grease-required.html
https://www.westmarine.com/WestAdvisor/DIY-Maintaining-Your-Boats-Gelcoat-Finish

Lightship and Great Vallejo Races

The Summer racing season is upon us and I've enjoyed and learned a lot from the experience on Tesa this year. The Vallejo race involved a number of challenging factors, such as closely following a course boundary, extracting performance from light air days, covering and avoiding cover from tacking competitors, and a great deal of spinnaker practice. While I didn't partake in the Saturday night festivities at the Vallejo Yacht club, I did get to see a number of "big" boats such as the always interesting Legalus, Bodacious, Oncore, a number of Melges "rocketship-esque" boats and some new (to me) classes that I'd not seen before. Once skippers and crew freed themselves from the confines of their own side rails and came ashore, the party was on. Our hosts were jovial and welcoming and very organized this year with new docks and plenty of space for the 60-80 boats that I saw on display.

Great Vallejo Race: Image Courtesy of Sandy W.

Before Vallejo, we had a great Lightship race where it was windy as usual on the way back through the gate.

Lightship Race. Courtesy of h2oshots.com (in case you missed the h2o-mark)

Hobie 20 - Rigging Jib and Spinnaker Sheets with Alternate Layouts and Hardware.

I have a few items to address on Jasmine:
-> Jib Sheets were rigged in the original 1992 style with the original 1992 Harken Ratchet Blocks. These are "bullet-proof" and still work, but I'd like to consider a more modern auto-tacking jib from the cross bar. That said, the Hobie 20 Jib is cut "full" so that I don't think I can use the stock Jib in that manner, because the clew comes back too far.

At the moment, I'm trying out some hand-me-down Garhauer blocks on the jib (with no ratcheting feature), and I need Stainless springs to keep the blocks "perky" and pointed towards me when I single hand. That way I can cleat off after I've hauled the Jib in after each tack.

-> Spinnaker Halyard and Sheets. I want to run spring ratchet blocks from the front cross bar to allow the Spinnaker to be trimmed in, and I need a better Halyard Douse System. (1 & 2) Link Below

Below are some links for each topic as I research exactly what I want to do. There are also some instructive videos about what others are doing:

Spinnaker Layout on Beachcats.
(1) http://www.harken.com/content.aspx?id=3913
(2) SNU Site: http://gobarefootstudio.com/PDFs/SNU_H20Spin_1.pdf
(3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pmckx-DuQt0
(4) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqxpx4gkiro

March: Redefining the Internet as a resource rather than a Distraction

March saw the beginning of a slightly drier period as had been buffeted here in Northern California by a number of tropical storms over the previous weeks. With the clear blue sky came colder temperatures dipping into the high 30's. The Oroville Dam Situation improved with water levels hovering around the 850ft level required to lift the evacuation warning. This weekend we are due for a bit of rain, but from the Northerly direction which is said to be much less severe.

I've identified my yearly to-do list for 2017, and it involves backing away from the encroachment of technology and "screens" into a lot of my daily life. This is much easier said than done however. Youtube and Television in general are the top culprits in my experience that allow one to drift down the river of complacency and inattentiveness. Within YouTube, it is so extremely easy to be distracted as videos are queued up ad infinitum on an array of topics. If you start to stray down the path of casual watching, more "click bait" videos await and to an extent, begin to shape your future selections. The only way to break away is to pull the plug or close the whole thing down. These habits, more than any others are the ones I seek to break this year.

Reading, organizing and gathering with others are high on my list of activities to cultivate. Also high on the list are more carefully considering the effects of emails and other rapid forms of communication before I dispatch them. I may even get some letters written this year, and have tried to do so at a rate of at least once a month. Although my approaches can probably be considered "retro" by many, I see the need to gather and associate now more than ever. The Internet has become commercialized to an extent that unless you know exactly what you are looking for, it makes sense to hold off before staying engaged with it. Every browsing window now has commercials as sub-windows with attention grabbing items that are literally fine tailored to be something that would pull you away to some commercial pursuit.

As ever, what is read and focused on matters greatly. I have started to visit the library more frequently, and have these books on my bedside table currently:

-> Matthew Crawford's - The World Beyond Your Head (Recommended by a friend)
-> The Best of James Herriot -- Coffee Table book.
-> Autobiography of John Stuart Mill -- plan to take with me while traveling.

Within the realm of YouTube, I've tried to steer myself towards thoughtful Documentaries:
-> Chai Jing's - "Under the Dome" - Regarding Pollution in China https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6X2uwlQGQM

I also have Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities on my shelf awaiting to be read. I just completed Call of the Wild and White Fang. Finally, for the practical sailing aspect of things, I have a new book on Knots that I found at Barnes and Noble for a reasonable price. Gordon Perry - Knots.

Securing the Furling Hobie 20 Jib - Tack and Halyard tie off points. Still Struggling.

Update - August 2017: I made a soft shackle that I think solves this problem. More in a forthcoming post.

I took these photos quite a while ago, but the problem of how to effectively raise and lower the furling jib remains with me. At issue is how to secure both the halyard, which lives inside the zipper luff pocket around the forestay, and the tack. My Furler is perhaps an older model and there is literally one French Wichard shackle that can fit around it's girth and still have a small enough pin to go through. I usually try to shackle both the halyard end and the tack to the same shackle, but the tension is too great for that, and I often resort to using two shackles. The photos below should make this easier to understand. In theory the sail has a jam cleat that can accept line and "cleat off", but I haven't been able to make mine secure without slipping under sail.

Note the tack secured with captive pin Wichard Shackle.
 The black and white spectra line is the halyard after the extension line is removed following hoisting.

A peak at the red EP spinnaker made by the original sailmaker for the Hobie 20 - Skip Elliot and family.

Hobie 20 Mast Base Sheave (Block) for Main Halyard -- Replace with larger diameter block

My Hobie Main Halyard is the standard Hobie dimensions (D = 3/16"by 64ft Long), that is to say extremely thin to allow it to reside inside the mast going up and down without interference along any of it's length, while also being relatively strong, and it exits a 90 degree corner at the base of the mast around a sheave. This sheave is the pinch point when hoisting the sail, and if there is any cross wind or any excess friction in the sail track, the load on this component climbs greatly.

Typically, this delrin on delrin bearing sheave is used (29mm Harken Bullet Sheave #160), but I've noticed it worn or completely destroyed on a couple of Hobie 20's that I've encountered, and I decided to take action to prevent recurrence of failure on my boat.

As commented in the blue text-box above, the stock 29mm Bullet Sheave riding on Delrin internal balls burns out every 2-3 years or about 100 cycles.

Although pricey at about $33/piece at West Marine, I found that this 38mm wire sheave just barely fits with some very minor interference with the center bottom Cunningham Block which straps up from below and is pulled upward and out of the way when under any tension. The sheave cross-profile is design for wire, hence a much tigher radius, but it seems to fit snugly on the 3/16 rope halyard and the bigger diameter (38mm) translates into better pulling power in my tests so far. [Update 8/17: I've been using it now for 9+ months without too many issues -- it is crucial to keep the delrin spacers and sheave tight laterally so the line doesn't jump off the sheave while hoisting.]

The other option would have been to go with a solid delrin sheave, not spinning on internal delrin balls, but rather the through bolt itself. While likely stronger against all loading, this I felt would be a step backwards as the friction to spin it about the 1/4" bolt that secured it would have been far greater than that of the ball bearing versions. So I think my solution was a good improvement without many adverse trade-offs.

For reference, here is a link to all Harken "small boat" self-contained sheaves for your perusal: http://www.harken.com/productcategory.aspx?taxid=393

Burned out Delrin Sheavee

The Joys of "Cider" Kuzumochi サイダー葛餅の喜び

Recently I had the opportunity to taste two varieties of Kuzumochi, a mochi without the red bean in the middle and is "just plain mochi". It has a great soft texture, and you can dip it into soda like sugar that comes with the Mochi. The color is close to that of "Ramune" if you're familiar with that sweet kid's drink, also known in some circles as "Marble Soda" because of the captive marble in the bottle.

Tasty Kuzumochi from Arima, Japan
It comes with a dipping powder which is flavored like cider (red writing on the left of the package)

This "Cider" Kuzumochi brand was great and kicked off the search for others.

I'll get some pictures up of the actual Mochi when I can spare not eating it...