keltiks' 1980s Ross 35

[keltik]

Had the lift out

And wash down

Wasn't that bad in my opinion.... but that's not bad for a cruising boat. For racing - that amount of slime seems to have cost us about 0.8-1.0 knot of speed.  Which when you're only doing 7ish knots is a fair percentage penalty.

Also managed to confirm the 2.3m draft and got an approximate weight thats close enough to the data sheet.  So yeah, the haul out was good.  No nasty surprises.  A couple of bare patches from where the props were placed the last time it was painted, and a couple bare patches on the keel where we might have found the bottom of the harbour.

The 2 handed race was immediately after the wash down - 3rd place and VERY close to beating La Vida for 2nd 

[keltik]

Then Sunday did the open series race with equally pleasing results.  3rd place after a great battle with Rimfire.  We had our yellow gennaker up because I didn't feel comfortable getting a spinnaker up with how little experience the crew had on this boat.  In hindsight, should've just licked the stamp and sent it.

It felt good this time because it was a lack of crew skill and tactics that cost us the most time - rather than having everything trimmed as good as we could and still watching boats we should be competitive with sail past us.

Got a couple other small upgrades going on which i'll detail next time on BOAT STORIES.

[keltik]

Round 6 of the open series resulted in a well earned 2nd place. First race I've done without the old man on board.

We got our Spinnaker out for a short time but it was flying pretty unstable.  It's hard to explain exactly why without better diagrams than I can manage on my phone - so that's a story for another post.  If we had kept it up for the whole downwind leg - I think first place was on the cards. 

[keltik]

Then in the next 2 handed race, the wind direction was almost perfect to fly our new "jib top" trademe special sail.  A long downwind leg followed by a long reach back up the harbour.  New sail was very good, but the skipper let the team down. 

I managed to park the boat in an area with bugger all wind behind Matakana and LOTS of tide.  Instead of taking the hit, going backwards and getting out of there, I stuck it out with Rimfire and La Vida.  Then we had a mint drag race but the rest of the pack had disappeared into the distance.

Ended up somewhere in the middle. Still it was a mint day out with some orca joining the race.  Next post I'll detail the spinnaker problem and what I've just dropped a bunch of money on...

[keltik]

Here's the first bunch of money, a proper autopilot.

Looks basically the same as the old tiller pilot but there's one big difference.  On the tiller pilot, all of the magic is self contained in one box including the ram to steer the boat.  On this one, the ram is separate and the smart stuff lives elsewhere.  So down under the rear bed, there's a compass/gyro sensor and a motor controller box.

The compass sensor thing, the ram controller and the control panel display all link together on a high speed bus.  Because the sensitive bits can be below deck and far away from speakers/metal stuff that cause interference - this should solve my previous problem.  Also the newer compass gyro thing is all solid state instead of a bullshit 40 year old design gimbaling fluxgate compass like the old ones.  Plus its got the smarts to learn sea states and how the boat is handling then make proactive adjustments as the boat rolls down waves.  We'll see just how good it is once the commissioning is finished next weekend.

With more data, the new autopilot can be more accurate.  I haven't yet figured out a way to tell it rudder position - but boat speed and wind direction would be useful.  It will use speed through the water to adjust the amount of steering movement used as the rudder will be more effective at higher speeds.  To get the autopilot talking to my previous generation instruments, I had to add in a converter which takes the serial data and whacks it onto the new style bus.  Adding my chart plotter onto this bus also gives the autopilot heading data so it can steer to a set waypoint.

I also added a new generation multi-function display onto the bus which can replicate any instrument (currently showing True Wind Angle and True Wind Speed).

This means the 2 instruments at the back of the boat (seen left and right above the speakers) can be used by the person steering when there's someone in the way of the other instruments (grey squares on the cabin bulkhead).  And there's ALWAYS someone in the way of the depth gauge when you're in shallow water trying to pick the right time to tack.

[keltik]

Rather complicated post coming up.  The second big purchase was this;

Well not this exactly, but the reason for installing a longer track on the cabin top.

To make sense of this, lets look at some sails.  These are my 3 regularly used headsails (go on the front).  At the bottom, we have the #1 Genoa in grey.  The next white sail is the #2 Genoa and the third multi-color sail is our #3 Jib (there is also a #4 jib but its a shit day when that has to come out).  Since this is primarily a car forum, I'll explain a little more in case anyone is interested.

Big genoas are great for making lots of power.  As seen on the previous page, La Vida has a big genoa and relatively small main sail.  My boat has a big main sail.

Because these big genoas are so long - they have to go outside the wires that hold the mast up (shrouds).  Every time you tack, the wind has to blow the whole sail around the mast then some poor sucker has to crank it in tight with the winch.  This takes time.  But if you're making lots of power with the sail - its worth it.

There's also an effective limit to how tight you can pull them in towards the centreline of the boat as the sail can only come in as far as the wires holding the mast up.  Beyond a certain point - the wind tends to accelerate through the 'slot' between the genoa and the main and will push on the back side of the main "backwind" reducing its effectiveness.  Again, if you have a huge genoa making power and a small main - not a big drawback.

What I've learned so far this year, is that around Tauranga harbour, its better to be able to tack quick.  And on my boat, the quicker tacking outweighs the benefit of a bigger headsail since the mainsail is still making lots of power.  

So when we run the #3 jib - because its shorter, the ropes controlling it can be run inside the shrouds - which is what that track on the deck is for.  This means it can be run tighter for better performance going into the wind.  It also doesn't have to blow all the way around the mast during tacks and its way quicker and easier for the guy on the winch.

You can see the better angles quite well in this pic, and how short the track was previously (also look at the wool tufts on those sails - beautiful laminar flow!)

Now the #3 jib in the above pic is falling to bits, we put another tear in it last weekend so its time for it to be thrown away.  I do have an older less good #3 jib which will replace it as our preferred sail for winds around 25-30knots.

The local sailmaker is building a new #2.5 jib which will be a slightly larger area than the existing one.  Specifically designed to be efficient from 15-25knots of wind.  So this will become the favourite sail for use around the harbour or on windy days.  The longer track will give us more control over the shape of the sail as the position of the pulley on that track changes the angle you're pulling on the sail- thus changing how tight the bottom is vs the top and its overall shape.

Pics of the sail to follow in a couple weeks once its finished.

[keltik]

And the final update for this week, I've been noticing some oil in the bottom of the engine bay occasionally.  Too clean to be diesel engine oil, too viscous to be refrigerant oil and too non stinky to be gear oil.

Solved the mystery today.  The gearbox oil is milky and specifies normal 15w40 engine oil. So water must be leaking into the drive leg past the prop shaft seal and displacing the oil out of the breather.  

This means the boat is coming out of the water as soon as the new seals arrive. Since all of the hardware is immersed in salt water 24/7 I'm sure disassembly will be a breeze....

[keltik]

Had another lift out and drained a gallon of milkshake out of the sail drive.  Filled it with new oil since the seals I need are on backorder and the oil is cheap. I temporarily added a header tank to the gear case (using a Mondeo clutch reservoir from pickapart) so the oil level will be above the waterline hopefully slowing/stopping the ingress of seawater.  It's working so far and should get me through till the new bits arrive.

The new jib also arrived and looks good. Haven't tried it in anger yet but it flew nicely on a trial sail up the harbour in light winds.

The autopilot is also working great!  All set for the mega exciting Legends regatta on labour weekend.

[keltik]

Had the next round of the short handed series on the day I picked up the new sail. 

I was really looking forward to flying it as I was expecting 15-20knot winds but the sailmaker (who was also in the race) suggested I might want to use something smaller as it was going to get exciting. 

Taking his advice, we double reefed the main and put up our #4 jib, the smallest in the collection.  The wind built through the race until it was howling over 30 knots and the harbour was getting rowdy.

The boat was ok with those conditions, but with maximum heel on - I managed to fall down the cockpit and mildly injure myself. So we withdrew from the race with a DNF.

[keltik]

Legends regatta came around, all the smart people headed up to Mercury Islands on Thursday night to avoid weather but as I had entered a race on the Friday - we left Friday morning for a 7:30am start. Conditions were lovely. 

They didn't stay that way. 

We started the race with our #2 genoa, but the wind was lighter than expected at 12knots. So I did a sail change and put up the big #1.  A couple hours later the wind had built to 15knots so another sail change back to the #2.  Then it got up to 20knots so we reefed the main.  Then 25knots.  Each sail change was really tiring, we only had 2 people on board and I'm not the fittest person. 

The boat was on the wind speed limit for these sails and the sea state was building... so I was saving up energy for another sail change to the #4 jib when crewmate/dad went down below and found a lot of water in the shower/toilet floor.

He tried to investigate, turned on the shower drain pump but had to come up on deck for a bit of a spew. 

I went down to investigate and found the shower drain pump hose broken off and the pump running but refusing to prime.  As the boat was heeled over to one side, the water was contained to the shower/toilet compartment but was almost knee deep. 

[keltik]

There are no photos to accompany this post, so you'll have to use your imagination.  I'm sitting knee deep in dirty water with the boat pitching all over the place. I tried bailing the water  into the sink but the sink wouldn't drain. So I'd bail it into the toilet, then flush the toilet when the bowl got full. Then spew into the toilet, then it would all slosh out when we got a wave, them bail it all back into the toilet, flush and repeat. 

Water was coming out of the shower drain pump and seemed to be siphoning in from the sea. I guess the level of the hose was below the water line with the boat leaned over. So I shut off the drain valve through the hull. 

Eventually got rid of all the water and went back up on deck for another spew.  Dad was soaked through having had a load of spray come over the boat.

The wind was up to 28 knots, we were on the edge of control and needed a sail change and another reef in the main.  Slipper island was only half hour away so we decided to drop sails and motor there to check on our leak and recover a bit.

While motoring towards slipper island, dad went down below to change and found the carpets soaked, his bedding damp and with shit weather forecast for the next few days - nothing was going to dry out.

The Whitianga race was a DNF, the Mercs were still at least 5 hours away and we would be motoring head first into the wind and chop making 5knots at best.

So we turned around, pointed the boat back at Mt Maunganui and put the mainsail up. With 25knots of wind behind us, we spent most of the ride home blasting along at 8-10 knots with bursts up to 14knots surfing down the swell.  Made it back home in 4 hours and had a great time doing it.

[keltik]

Lessons learned: 

Sail changes are a lot harder in choppy seas. Do them early. 

I knew beating into the wind is hard work but underestimated how miserable it gets on a long trip.

Fix that shower drain pump and sink drain and make sure the same thing can't happen to the toilet outlet.

If lots of smart people leave the day before, they might be on to something.

[keltik]

Time for the next project, the main sail is very much on its last legs.  The fabric has worn to be paper thin in places and there's 2 or 3 small tears developing.  I think its about 10 years old and has been used hard in that time, so its justifiably end of life.  As sails wear, the fabric stretches and they lose a lot of the nice airfoil shape - making them more draggy, less efficient and harder to trim. 

Talked to the sailmaker about getting a new one - the new sail will be made to suit the shape of the rig, so If we're not happy with it, now is the time to change things.  So what is the current issue?

Weather helm.  Here's my simplified understanding as a novice;

The boat rotates around a point somewhere in line with the keel.  If the front and back sails don't produce equal amounts of torque around this point, the boat will always try to turn itself into the wind and the helmsman will need to apply opposite rudder to counteract the force.  This creates drag and makes the boat slower.  A small amount of weather helm is considered good, but any more than 5-10 degrees of rudder angle is universally agreed to as being bad.  The boat currently has a LOT of weather helm when the wind angle is at 70-90 degrees.  This can be countered by reducing the amount of power the mainsail is making, but thats reducing overall power and speed.

At the moment, our mast is raked backwards quite a lot.  Most online sources think 3-4 degrees is a good number.  My bucket trigonometry estimates we have around 6 degrees.  We want to move the whole sail plan forward a little relative to the pivot point.  This can be done by reducing the amount of rake and putting the center of effort closer to the pivot point (around the keel).

So this weekends project is to adjust the rigging to take some of the rake out of the mast.

The art is in trying to keep a 15 meter long aluminium extrusion arrow straight using only tension on the supporting wires.  I've never tried this before, but we'll see how we go.  Unfortunately, a bendy mast profile with fractional rig and multiple swept back spreaders is one of the hardest configurations to get right.

With adjustments needed on 3 different stays each side of the mast to keep it straight and tight and inducing the correct amount of pre-bend.  Reading can only teach so much.  Only one way to learn I guess.

 

[keltik]

Hanging a rope straight down from the top of the mast to the deck is the generally accepted method of measuring mast rake.  With my adjustments, I've managed to move the line forward around 60cm.

Is this enough? Maybe.  Went for a sail with the new angle and things felt better.  I don't want to go too far forward or will end up with a different set of problems but things seem much closer to balanced.  It looks a lot better.

 

[keltik]

Part of the job is tensioning the rigging in the new position.  In the first attempt - I just cranked the rigging screws up to what felt right.  This is one of those jobs where too little tension can cause the mast to collapse so its better to be sure.  So i went out and bought a hilariously overpriced tension gauge.

Was shooting for about 950kg of pre-load on the main support wires, my previous attempt to what felt good'n'tight was only about 500kg.

The other wires control the shape of the mast.  Basically, we are trying to pull the top of the mast down so hard it bends in the middle a little.  Then we can limit the amount of bend using tension on the other rigging wires. We're shooting for a nice even curve all the way along the mast.

The pre-bend is used to ensure the mast stays bent in the correct direction.  If we get enough load into the rig to over-centre or reverse the bend - the mast isn't supported in the other direction so it will collapse.  What's the ideal amount of pre-bend?  That seems to be a bit like asking whats the best engine oil.  You'll get a bunch of opinions that might be right but never seem to agree.  So I dialed in a bit of bend that sorta looks right compared to a bunch of the other boats around me.  The sailmaker reckons its adequate.  There's still room for adjustment and getting the settings right will be a lot easier with the tension gauge.

I'll put up some pics of the new sail being made, the process seems pretty interesting.

In the meantime, my new prop shaft seals still haven't arrived and the gearbox oil is getting milky again.  There's also a sad amount of pubes growing along the waterline on one side - the side I've been cleaning most frequently.  So its really time for another lift out and a new coat of antifouling paint.  I was hoping to postpone it a bit longer and do it in time for the winter series, but the growth is getting bad enough I cant ignore it.  Since we're getting lifted out to do the drive leg oil - might as well throw more money at it.

[keltik]

Yeah the antifouling paint is pretty chooched

And my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard

[keltik]

Installed a slightly larger gear oil header tank and fitted it a little higher. Hopefully this slows the water ingress until my new seals turn up. Thanks Mazda 626 at pickapart

Sailmaker has got the design of the new sail sorted

And I've been trying to art up a logo for a crew shirt

[keltik]

Boat yard guys must be paid per job. Lifted out at 8am, washed and wet sanded by 12.

Patched, masked and dry sanded by 2.

Sprayed by 3.

Tomorrow they'll re-coat the propeller. On Friday morning I'll refill the gearbox and replace the zinc anodes on the prop then back in the drink that afternoon. Just in time for Sundays race

[tortron]

 

Digit extract 🫠

[johnnyfive]

How much harder will this go minus barnacles?