Day Sail

On Friday 27 December I took the boat out in the company of fellow sailor and friend Peter Austin with his wife Lynne.  We sailed to the south along the shipping channel then dropped anchor at Woodman Point for 90 minutes of lunch and relaxation.
 

Lunch Aboard Pachuca

The SW wind had been stronger than expected and we sailed with one reef in the main and perhaps a third of the headsail rolled out. We had water over the deck which brought out two things, one good and one not so good.

The good news is that after starting off with a bone dry bilge I found about one spongeful of water in the bilge when we were back at the pen, which could have been easily been caused by water loosened up during the sail.  I say that because it took me about 2 days to dry the bilge after I had discovered that two of the drain tubes between the bilge sections were still plugged up, and the water kept seeping into the bilge for 2 or 3 days after I removed  the plugs. 

The not-so-good finding is that the new you-beaut solar vent over the head cannot be removed and replaced by a plug like the old one, as far as I can tell. The water was skating along the deck then going into the vent and down into the head. This is completely untenable for heavy weather sailing and on my next visit to the boat I will have a better look at the setup.

 

Once again the boat performed very well.  However, we did discover that the boat had drifted perhaps 100 meters in spite of 30m of chain having been put out.  This was no doubt due to the sea grass on the ocean bed and has made me consider replacing the 35kg Delta anchor with the heavier 45kg Manson anchor. But this may be moot because as Brenda pointed out later, there is no need to disturb the sea grass when the club has two moorings available for its members (one of which was free during our visit).

Sea Trial

On Saturday 14 December we took Pachuca out on her sea trial.  I was accompanied by Ron Viney an experienced sailor and good friend whom I have gotten to know during our years of participation in the club's annual Bunbury Cruise.

Ron arrived at the boat at 9 am sharp and at 9.30 we were under way using the motor because the wind was so light.  The first test we did was to motor the boat in a 360 degrees circle to confirm that the autopilot's flux gate compass was working correctly. At the shipping channel we hoisted sail heading south and by the time we reached the southern end of the channel we were  under full sail: mainsail  all the way to the top and genoa fully rolled out.  It was all very pleasant because the apparent wind was only around 14 kts. 

We then turned around and sailed to Woodman Point where with Ron at the bow watching things I dropped anchor over a sand patch using the new control system where I can both drop and raise the anchor from the cockpit. The new winch and control performed brilliantly, which was the highlight of the sea trial.   I was amazed at the speed of chain travel from the new winch.

There were some procedural stuffups because it had been about 2 years since I had sailed the boat, but in general things went very well.  There was a problem with the connection of the mainsheet to the traveller (since corrected) and Ron pointed out that the jib sheets were too short for the larger genoa sail, estimating that I would need sheets 3.5 m longer. The following week I purchased a new  port sheet 13mm in diameter and16m long, with the starboard sheet on order.  

This successful sea trial marked the end of the difficult and expensive 15-month refit of Pachuca.

Preparations for Sea Trial

During October I made more preparations for Pachuca's sea trial. 

I've got four head sails in my inventory.  The best sail is the newest one, supplied by North Sails in Argentina in April, 212.  However, it is a 9.3 oz cruising sail much too heavy for coastal cruising in this area.  Another is the laminated sail provided by Tasker in 2008.   Its stitching had failed on the way to Cape Horn, was repaired by Pato Salas in Argentina, then this spring Steve Hartley assessed the sail, did more remedial work, and declared it fit for use.  Steve also declared the boat's original genoa that I had blown out when crossing the Australian Bight in 2008 to be salvageable and did much remedial work on it, including the expensive step of replacing its worn out UV protection along the leech and foot.  The other original head sail, while salvageable, was not repaired and put aside because it is of lighter cloth and not required.  The repairing those two sails obviated the need to order a new jib, not only saving me money, but also avoiding the pain of disposing of old friends that have served me well.

I elected to put up the original heavy jib rather than the laminated sail, which I decided to hold back for long distance cruising, be it by me or a future owner.  During our subsequent sea trial in mid-December I saw a familiar slit under a section that had been patched by Steve and realized that this was the sail that took me around Cape Horn after the massive stitching failure of the laminated sail only about two weeks out of Mexico.

I noticed that the starboard spinnaker pen line was almost worn through due to constant rubbing by a stanchion that was directly in line between the post and the deck cleat.  Kim Jamieson's solution was to produce a longer springer that reaches another deck cleat about a meter closer to the bow, thus avoiding the stanchion.

I purchased a new jib halyard.  The existing halyard over a meter too short, necessitating the need for a "messenger" line every time I dropped the jib.  The riggers had extended the jib during Pachuca's recent refit but, alas, the extension was too short.

Calculation of the length of the new jib halyard had to be accurate, and on the internet I found the equation L=(2.1xI)+Y+1, where I = (distance along the front of the mast from the highest halyard to the deck), Y = (distance from mast to halyard winch), and the constant 1 is "to be sure" fudge factor.  Using Pachuca's values of I=14.9m  and Y = 3.4m yielded a halyard length of 36m.  I confirmed that result with my own calculations and found it to be extremely accurate.

I also replaced the roller furler line purchased in Brazil which was wonderful to handle because of its thickness but filled up the drum too fast, preventing full extension  of the genoa. The new line is 3m longer at 30m total length, with diameter reduced to 8mm.

I put up the mainsail without a problem over two days working as patiently and methodically as possible.  On the third day I faced raising the genoa, which I knew would be difficult working alone.  I had just fed the tip of the luff cord into the track and was about to start pulling the halyard with one hand and feeding the sail with the other when I got an unexpected visit from my neighbor of two pens up the jetty.  He introduced himself and wanted to meet him because he knew that I placed him in the club's Cruising google group.  We chatted for a while before I asked to be excused so that I could complete my work before the afternoon sea breeze came up and he asked what I was doing.  He then asked if he could help.  Of course I said Yes and we then spent a difficult 30 minutes feeding the sail up the track, immeasurably helped by his suggestion that we try spraying silicone lubricant on the luff and track which I happened to have on board.  I thanked him profusely for his help, marveling at how he had appeared out of nowhere at exactly the right time.  (I've learned to accept these recurring experiences of serendipity at face value with no need for an explanation, but with much gratitude knowing that they are not random.)