keltiks' 1980s Ross 35

[HighLUX]

Ahhhh yes boats are great investments 

[keltik]

Race report - Karewa Series Race 1

2nd across the line and 1st place on handicap. It was a very light wind day with average wind speeds of 5-8kts.

Sadly no interesting pictures have appeared. But we fuckin aced it! A good start, the right sails, the whole crew worked well and the boat responded.

[keltik]

As for the winter series...

And the open series? 

[keltik]

Race report - Burton Sails short-handed series race 1

Pretty light winds, only 6-8kts for most of the race. Spent 3 hours chasing this guy again.

They also sent me a photo at the same time

The division we were racing in doesn't permit spinnakers. Somehow.... We finished ahead of everyone in division 2 which does permit spinnakers. 

Division 2 started the same time as us, not 11:20 as shown above (which means elapsed time calculation in the last column is wrong). So to finish 5mins ahead of Whistler and nearly 20mins ahead of Bondi Tram is a great success. 

Half of that success was some good tactical calls and the other half was running a good sail configuration for the downwind legs.

On Friday I read an article from yachting magazine about using the spinnaker pole with a genoa and the most effective wind angles to do it.

On Saturday it went into practice and paid off.

[keltik]

In other boat maintenance news, after 2 years I've finally replaced the shower drain pump. 

The previous setup was a bit of a bodge using an inline bilge pump lying on its side. So it didn't prime well and couldn't drain the last 2 inches of water out of the sump.

The new setup uses this slimline bilge pump which draws from the underside and sits right down in the lowest corner (there's a teak grate that covers that hole).

A diaphragm pump with duckbill valves would be the correct piece of equipment for this, but as it will only be used for one week per year - the extra $300 seemed overkill.

Also added the latest plaques to the chart table lid. Feels good man

Next weekend I'll tackle the blackwater tank and pump.

[keltik]

What is an "ElectroScan"?

This fuckin thing;

Poops go in the bottom left, the first motor blends it up into the most disappointing chocolate milkshake, 20amps of DC go through an electrode plate in the middle which converts the salty sea water from the flush into hypochlorous acid.

The milkshake/acid mix goes into the right chamber on the next flush where it gets stirred about and sterilized. Then the next flush pushes it up and out of the right hand pipe and dumped overboard.

Brilliant in theory. But in practice, you're still dumping a cloud of finely blended toilet paper and waste products into the water. I've got no problem doing that at sea but I'd rather not swim in it. 

Also, infrequent use means the electrode plate gets a build up of uric acid crystals on it.

In a perfect world, you would flush fresh water through the unit then suck all the water out with a little pump if it's not going to be used for a while. 

I can't predict when I'll next need to take a piss at sea so haven't been doing that. 

The macerator motor occasionally draws too much current and trips a fault, the electrode current has been getting low lately meaning it needs a special cleaner put through it. 

Plan B. Get rid of it and fit a tank.

[keltik]

A typical simple holding tank installation would put the tank above the waterline. You leave the outlet valve closed, the tank fills up - then when you're a safe distance from land, open the valve and gravity does the environment crimes for you.

The easiest retrofit tanks are 20L jobs which you just bolt to the wall inside the toilet/head compartment.

The main reason I decided against this was that 20L might not be enough. It might get you through the night, but it's mighty inconvenient when the tank is full and firing nasty stuff out the vent line.

So we're going with a 60L tank mounted in the same place as the electroscan unit. 

As this is not going to empty by gravity, I've added a diaphragm pump. It will be easy to add a Y connection before the pump and run a riser up to deck if I wanted to use a sewage pump out station.

Everything lives under the forward bed.

As the solenoid pack for the windlass was in the way, I moved it to the other side. It's supplying a hundred or so amps so had spare power for the toilet flush pump and the diaphragm pump for emptying the tank.

Added some fuses and a switch.  Kinda hard to make all this stuff neat but this will do. 

[keltik]

Replaced all of the hoses while I was at it. Probably not necessary but it meant I could have as few hose joins as possible. The vented anti-syphon loop inside the head compartment was starting to crack and was leaking salt out the cracks. If that bit is starting to go, might as well renew the lot.

That white PVC sanitation hose is a right cunt to work with.  Comes on a roll and refuses to lay flat until you smoke it with the heat gun.  Then only one shot to heat the hose and push it over the barbs on each connection. It does NOT come back off. And every connection you undo doesn't leak coolant or oil or ATF on you...its far less palatable.

Hopefully I won't be needing to do that again for a long time.

Next weekend's job is clean everything up and get the boat ready for labour weekend at the Mercs

Oh yeah, we had a race on Saturday to Bowentown and back. Won the division which was nice 😀

[keltik]

Who likes good news? Everyone? 

Good news everyone! 

Made it to the Mercs on labour weekend for the 2025 Legends regatta.

30 boats in attendance. We had a nice gentle sail up with not much wind. 10hours 45mins. Used the engine for a bit because we got bored and wanted to get there before dark. 

Had 2 races while there. Did ok but got bumped into the racing division 1 with the big boys. 

Unfortunately, I think I've proven in certain conditions, I'm as quick as the slower div 1 boats and faster than anything in div 2.  Not sure what this is going to do for us standing in next winters racing series. 

Used the oven on the boat for the first time, the new shitter plumbing worked perfectly, the fridge/freezer worked well and even the shower worked. New battery was good, all the electronics worked mint and the anchor held beautifully and set with ease.

[keltik]

Did manage to hit a submerged waratah and explode the dinghy 

Nice to know that the dinghy will remain afloat with 3 people in it and 1 of it's 3 chambers completely deflated. 

The tear has been patched by a local dinghy repair guy after we got home.  Also managed to rip the chartplotter off it's mount and smash the bracket to bits again. 

Glue can't fix it this time so I'll make a new simple bracket out of some aluminum flat bar.

[keltik]

The run back from the Mercs was a good time.  Had a beautiful peaceful morning with 10-12kts of breeze behind us.  We were expecting the wind to pick up a lot so ran the smaller sized spinnaker and the main double reefed.

Had a lot of dolphins join us, saw a whale, some penguins and some gannets. All of the animals. 

By Whangamata, the wind kicked up to 20kts so we dropped the spinnaker and switched to the jib top headsail.

Sadly, there are no photos available of the afternoon. The wind blowing 30+kts, 2 meter swell following us, rough sea state and we just fucking sent it. 

Average boat speed was 10.5kts with frequent bursts up to 13.

Between Bowentown heads and the mount entrance, we decided to try for a speed record. Surfing down the swell with the gusts at the right time, I think 16.2kts was the peak.

 By the time we got to the finish line at the mount, my arms were dead from trying to hold the course steady running dead downwind. Getting pushed a little too far to the right would risk the mainsail and boom slamming over to the other side uncontrolled, possibly damaging the rig and probably killing anyone in it's way. So a lot of concentration was involved.

8 hours 53 mins for the return trip. I think we could've knocked another half hour off that with a more aggressive sail choice at the start. 

A great weekend had by all with minimal damage.

[keltik]

Race report - 3 Island 

Weather forecast was for a reasonably steady 15kts coming from the west. 

I drew this little diagram to show the course and predicted wind angle at certain points. Purple is predicted and red is actual.

Tacking into 18kts of wind to Karewa Island, then the wind turned a bit more northerly and built to 25kts so we were close hauled all the way to Mayor Island.... But with some rain and a horrible choppy sea. Everyone was still in a pretty good mood tho. 

Behind mayor Island, the wind dropped to nothing. After bobbing around frustrated for a bit, we put up a spinnaker and tried to run away from the island to find some more breeze.  Instead a poorly executed gybe resulted in the spinnaker collapsing and wrapping around the forestay. Looks like this; 

So at this point, you've got a sail trying to tear itself to bits, wrapped tight around the forestay so you can't pull it down, the top still full of wind so you have limited control, in a messy sea state with the wind getting stronger, with 4 crew members asking what do we do now? 

That's a very good question. No idea. 

Step 1. Stare at the problem for a while and watch it get worse. 

Step 2. Release all of the ropes and try pulling the sail down... No good. 

Step 3. Try unwinding the wrapped sail from the bottom by hand. Somehow the wrap seems to double back on itself half way up and unwinding it is not working. 

Step 4. Try turning the boat into the wind. Half way through the turn, the wind pressure on the filled bit of sail at the top of the mast heels the boat right over and you lose steerage. Guess we're headed for Chile until this resolves itself.

Step 5. Get a harness on and get winched up the mast with a knife. Cut it free if necessary and let the sail maker sort it out later. 

During step 4, the mainsail gets gybed onto the other side. The wrap starts unwinding itself as you've now reversed the direction of turbulence off the mainsail which caused the mess in the first place. The wrap loosens enough that the crew can pull the sail down.

By this point, we're all a bit seasick. My adrenaline is at level 9 and the race is fucked. It's 2pm now, we started at 7am. The crew vote to just head for home instead of continuing. A 4 hour journey instead of at best another 6hours racing. 

We spend the next 4 hours hard on the wind again as it's shifted 90 degrees since the morning. 

I go down into the cabin and discover that fucking leak is back.

This time the sink, shower and toilet outlet valves were all closed. Maybe it was the flushing water inlet? Maybe something else.  More investigations required.

[keltik]

On the bright side, there were 3 key learnings this week. 

1) In the event of a spinnaker wrap, just gybe the mainsail and watch it unwind itself most of the time. 

2) A proper climbing harness would be nice if step 1 doesn't work. 

3) The longer races really aren't my cup of tea. I love the harbor and half day races but the longer ones just leave me a bit jaded. The crew also prefer the shorter races as there's more action and less time sitting around. 

So I'm going to rewrite the summer calendar a bit and find a way to have more fun.

I guess lesson 4 would be that when im tired and seasick and in a foul mood - blasting 80s power ballads and having a sing along fixes it pretty quick.

[keltik]

Heres some updates, the mayor Island race had zero wind - went for a swim then gave up waiting.

Improved the mainsail lazyjacks quite a bit. Now they are a bit more functional. New setup is on the right, original on the left.

Used low friction rings instead of pulleys/blocks and was pleasantly surprised by how well they work.

Used the boat for a Wednesday night race and it sailed like someone had left the handbrake on - so time for another haul out.

The bottom of the keel and the rubber cover around the sail drive leg have lots of growth, so this has been added to the repair list the next time we're out of the water for a bit. Need to get some new paint on the keel and prop speed coating on the drive leg.  Just scraped off the growth this time but it will be back within 2 months.

[keltik]

Then on a short handed series race, the swivel block for the mainsail sheet decided to snap off under minimal load. 

Jury rigged it with some dyneema rope and a spare pulley to one of the cockpit winches. Then the wind absolutely died. 

Started the race at 10am and finished at 5pm with an estimated average speed of 1.5kts or 2.7kph. A tedious day at best. Combined with the whitetail spider in my jacket and the 36 bites on my torso, I'd call it a miserable day.

[keltik]

The highlight of the year so far was a trip to Mayor Island for Waitangi weekend. Got out there and a few more boats from the yacht club had the same idea... 

An afternoon of delicious drinks, good swims, excellent sharns.

An evening watching satellites, a reasonably good sleep and a beautiful sunrise.

A+, would trade again. Need to do that more before summer disappears.

[keltik]

The current fix it list;

1) Adding some antifouling paint to the sail drive cover and keel. This is a temporary fix really, but should get me through to next season when I can paint the hull again.... Perhaps with a different paint this time. 

2) There seems to be 3 water leaks to solve, a little gets into the sail locker when it rains, a little ends up in the front bilge after rain and the water leak into the heads compartment when heeled over seems to be the toilet flushing water inlet. 

3) The plumbing for the fridge is a little unhappy. There's been plenty of salt water on this thing and I worry it's going to start leaking soon.

I don't know anything about R406a refrigerant - beyond what Google has told me. So opening this system could be a can of worms? 

4) Still need to do some gel coat repairs on the hull and deck.

[keltik]

Time for some maintenance before the winter racing kicks off.  Step 1: Haul out and wash the hull.

Step 2: Decide the current paint is not performing great. Wet sand a couple layers off. 

Step 3: Patch all of the nicks and dings with some vinylester filler. Sand smooth and prime the patches.

Step 4: Apply new paint. 3 coats with a little extra on the leading edges and waterline. 

Step 5: Decide to change the gearbox/drive leg oil one more time just to make sure all of the water and emulsion is gone. Snap the drain plug when putting it back in. Phone the supplier and find the part is 6 weeks back order from Italy. Have a little cry.

[keltik]

Step 6: Find a talented machinist who can repair or reproduce the drain plug. 

It seems some gorilla had been reefing on it for the last 12 months - vastly exceeding the recommend torque spec for an aluminum plug into an aluminum housing and cracked the sealing surface off the plug.

Luckily found the right guy for the job who lathed me up a new plug to identical dimensions including the 20mm hex socket.... While I waited!! So we were back in the water same day and made it to the first race of the winter series on Sunday.