Gear – Page 3 – Interested in Learning How to Find, Select and Eventually Live On Board Your Own Sailboat? You're in the Right Place….

Two heads are better than one….or so we’ve been led to believe…

First and foremost…..Merry Christmas from the crew of Kitty Hawk……

The casting net Christmas Tree ….an ingenious design by our friend Joan….

Well….this month has been a busy one….we’ve had a total of seven visitors on board Kitty Hawk and have two more on the way. We’ve done a lot of work to Kitty Hawk to get her ready for the next leg of our journey. Like any aspect of life on board, using any system can and eventually will, expose any deficiencies or lack of maintenance.

During this month, we rebuilt both pump assemblies of our forward and aft heads. For those not up to speed on nautical terminology, a head is a bathroom and also the name of the actual on board toilet. So if you say “I’m going to the head” you just mean you’re going to the restroom. If you say “the head is clogged” you mean that the toilet has failed to deliver whatever was deposited in it to the intended destination, decided to stop the flow of other materials in the future and by extension, ruined the Captain’s day.

Now, you may ask yourself, “Why call it a head?”….good question. In the old days when ships could generally only sail downwind, the placement of the head was in the very forward most area of the ship. Also, near the figurehead that many ships of that day sported for numerous superstitious, decorative or identification reasons. The natural wave action of the boat moving through the sea provided a “flushing out” as the seawater moved into and out of that space through openings in the hull just above the waterline. Also, since the vessel was sailing downwind the smell was being carried away from the rest of the boat.

During our rebuild of our heads, (which are Raritan Compact II manual heads, which means they must be manually pumped to drain and introduce water as opposed to electric heads which just require the push of a button) we ran into an issue where the pump assembly, simply would not stop leaking. We disassembled and reassembled the unit about a half dozen times. It had what we thought was just a difficult seal around one of the bolts that holds the pump to the base. My brilliant wife said “could there be a crack in that we can’t see?” Well, long story short even thought we couldn’t see or feel a crack…there was one…..once we we replaced the pump housing….voilá…no leak.

Once the pump was removed we could see the hairline crack on the backside….it looked like a mark from a wrench…..we made sure to inspect all of our spare units and discarded any with a similar mark….so we threw away three of them….which will cost about $110 a piece to replace….ow.

Since we had two sets of visitors it was only right that during each visit one of our heads clogged. Our aft head was first during the first set of visitors and then our forward head lines clogged. Maybe two heads really are better than one ? Haha….you don’t want to be without a head at all. I had even made the comment that “if the aft one has clogged the forward one can’t be far behind” how regrettably right I was. We were glad it happened where we were, rather than away from easy access to transportation and parts. Plus, I had assistance from one of our guests when the forward head clogged. The upside is we have rebuilt pumps and brand new lines for both heads now. These clogs are mostly caused by calcium build up from using salt water to flush the heads. We are considering changing to composting heads in the future but for now they are just too expensive plus we should get four or five years of use after this rebuild.

On the upside…between clogged heads…..a neighbor and I landed an enormous Redfish….so two heads did work better than one in that instance……sadly, it was over the size limit to keep but may have been a state record…..

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Welcome to our newest sponsor… Bikewagon.com

We are very excited here aboard Kitty Hawk to welcome our newest sponsor Bikewagon.com…..

Transportation is critical when you’re away from (or without a) your car for months, or years, at a time and these bikes fit the bill perfectly. They are comfortable, light, have a wide gear range and are easy to fold and store when not in use. Don’t get stuck with a tiny slow bike….check out bikewagon.com !!!

We recently received our new Montague Paratrooper folding mountain bikes from Bikewagon and we had a great experience. Dale and the folks at Bikewagon helped us screen, evaluate and finally select our new bikes and accessories.

If you are looking for a new folding bike for a sailboat (or for a regular bike or folder for on land) check out their website and see what they have to offer. (Don’t forget to mention you saw them here at learntoliveaboard.com too!!!)

Our new bikes only took about five minutes to un-box and assemble. We can have them off the boat and on the dock fully assembled in less time than that now, after a little practice.

They’re so pretty !!!!…..

The best part is, for a full size bike, they fold and store in the salon out of the way while we are underway…..

As soon as I can find a reliable video editing app I will add a video of Kim assembling the bikes in Oriental before we departed……

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Upgrades…..then…..Southbound and Down…..

Well, it’s been a pretty eventful month, or so. We took advantage of our time in Oriental to upgrade our battery banks wiring and a few other things. Some of our battery bank cables were undersized, not properly crimped, our banks lacked a main fuse and our smaller bank had been wired in a slightly less than a fully efficient manner. We also installed two Bogart/Trimetric (Model TM-2030-RV) battery bank monitors which have made keeping tabs on our charging and battery bank status much, much easier. That’s one of the things about buying an older boat, she’s been through a few owners and while some were meticulous, some weren’t, and if a system is working one owner may never have had the need to address or investigate the status of the individual components that may not have been exactly “up to snuff” when installed by the prior owner, owners or contractors or the standards have changed over time in favor of better, safer or more efficient methods..

Now that’s a pretty bad crimping job…it was covered by electrical tape……

We also added a Blue Seas electrical master panel to our AC shore power system that has a 30 amp, dual pole, ELCI (Electrical Leak Circuit Interrupter, if your boat happens to develop a leak of AC current into the water while plugged into shore power, which is extraordinarily dangerous, it shuts off the AC power). The breaker itself has a sensor in it that measures the amount of electricity flowing out and compares it to what returns and if there is a slight difference it trips the breaker. We discovered once we powered up this new panel that our water heater was wired incorrectly since the new breaker tripped as soon as we energized the circuit. As it turns out, the wiring for the water heater was a commercial type of wiring (IEEE marine cable, intended for use on Navy and commercial vessels….with this type of wire red is ground, black is hot and white is neutral, so our water heater was basically wired backwards, which still allowed current to flow through the element but the new more sensitive breakers caught the difference in the polarity/voltage returning and shut it down) since the color coding was different it must have confused whoever originally wired it. It took an extra fifteen minutes to correct this and then things operated perfectly. We also added a safety cover to the interior of our shore power plug connection which was missing.

I’d like to extend our gratitude to Jim Bonnett, the owner of Wavetop Technologies in New Bern, NC, for his assistance with the battery and AC upgrades. He’s been having some website issues but if you need any work he’s an ABYC Master Technician in a lot of fields (maybe all of them, I haven’t counted yet) . His current website is www.wavetop.com but he may migrate to a new one if his current issues prove to be linked to that web address. Jim is so educated about AC and DC systems and wiring it can make you dizzy just listening to him talk….he’s a very smart guy. You can also reach him at Jim@wavetop.com

We also painted our newly re-plumbed and re-opened forward shower stall…..

I also painted new length markers on our anchor chain and replaced the shackles…..

I decided to go with Red at 50′, white at 100′, Blue at 150′ Black at 200′ and Orange at 250 just before the chain runs out and the rope rode begins.

We’d also like to give some well deserved praise to Pete Waterson of Seacoast Marine Electronics (http://seacoastmarineelectronics.com/) in Oriental, NC. Pete is the owner and installed our new NMEA 2000 backbone wiring, AIS transceiver, a new Raymarine I70 display, a masthead anemometer and wind direction sensor which is now all tied into our Garmin 741XS chartplotter at the helm. Pete also installed a new VHF antenna and Windex while he was at the masthead. Pete also helped me (or maybe I helped him) rewire our binnacle wiring and add a power/ground bus to clean up the connections there and eliminate some voltage loss and an issue with a weak ground. If you find yourself in Oriental or nearby and need any electronics or assistance be sure to look Pete up. He’s a great guy and his office staff (Jill, his wife and Betsy) are super friendly and helpful.

We were later joined by our good friend, Mike, in Oriental, just in time for the Ol’ Front Porch Music Festival on October 17. It was a great day, beautiful weather and lots of good music and food. Apparently, this was a tradition among the old time farmers in the area and on Saturday nights they would come into town and play music on a variety of front porches around town. Time and progress being what they are, this tradition was slowly lost and has been revived during this once a year festival. The Carmona Brothers and Laurelyn Dossett were the final performers of the day and if you’ve never heard either of these, I recommend looking them up online.

Aaron Carmona and his traveling pooch (photo credit to Towne Dock)

We waited for some weather to pass and departed Oriental on October 20th around 8:00am. It was a nice trip. We arrived around 11:45am in Morehead City, NC since we wanted to make the first day short and non stressful…then Murphy reared his ugly head. As we approached Portside Marina in Morehead City a large tugboat that was bow in at the state port abruptly moved astern into our path. I was forced to throw Kitty Hawk into full reverse to avoid colliding with the tug. As the dust settled from that encounter we again proceeded toward the Portside Marina face dock. There was suddenly something very wrong. It took about five seconds for me to realize that for some reason we were no longer getting any forward propulsion. I immediately shifted to neutral, then tried reverse and got the same result….no response …I could hear the transmission shifting and assumed we had lost our throttle cable. After advising Mike and Kim that we were going to be coming into the dock at about 3 knots SOG (speed over ground) I called the marina hands on the dock on our VHF radio to let them know. We managed to dock pretty easily, all things considered, despite coming in at what felt like warp speed. Once we got settled, we diagnosed the problem and it was, in fact, the throttle cable that had broken just below the shift lever. I spoke to the owner of Portside Marina, Denard, who is a super nice gentleman. He not only found the part for us, but let his brother in law, who works at the Marina, drive me over to get it. The cable was replaced two hours and $27 later…..Portside Marina is the only place I’ve ever walked into and been immediately invited to partake in the employee lunch. They were having fish one of the guys had caught and a local restaurant fried them up for them….talk about hospitality !!!

Our trip South was Kim’s first long distance trip on Kitty Hawk….she got her first experiences in the ICW (and her first grounding, so that’s over and done with), navigated out of the Cape Fear Inlet and made two overnight offshore trips. One was between Cape Fear, NC and Charleston (a rough one) and the second was between Port Royal, SC and Jacksonville, FL. During the first hop we even got the wind to cooperate and we sailed for 6 hours.

The Admiral at the helm…..

Next time I’ll detail our stops at Beaufort, SC and St.Augustine, FL and share our ghost video from Facebook if you haven’t seen it yet…..

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An important note about Pre-purchase Surveys of Boats

Since the purchase of our boat we have upgraded, replaced, rebuilt or refurbished most of the onboard systems in one way or another. During these upgrades we have noticed a few things that our marine survey did not uncover. As a result of this, I’d like to take the time to recommend that any potential Liveaboard boat buyer bite the bullet and have some separate inspections performed by a qualified expert in the individual field to save you a lot of headaches down the road.

Now, I realize that there are a great many highly qualified marine surveyors out there and that all of them intend to be the best at what they do. The cold truth is very few of them can be experts in every single aspect of every system that make up a cruising, Liveaboard sailboat, unless they are Master Certified Tech’s in each field. Even then, you might find that they are more versed in some than others. If you are going to spend what might be the bulk, or a very large portion of your life savings on your dream boat, it pays in the long run to find every bruise, wart or under rated system that lurks on board, especially when you are negotiating the final purchase price. It can also save you a lot of hassle when you insure your boat.

Our surveyor, for instance, missed a localized termite infestation, some very bad DC wiring in the binnacle, missed a couple overburdened DC grounding system points, severely underestimated the age of our rigging Sta-Loks and missed some very under rated AC four position switches (one of which later partially melted and could have caused a fire). The resistance in that circuit, which is the primary source for our battery charging, may have lead to the premature demise of our last set of ten Trojan T-105 house batteries….about $1500 to replace…..ouch….since it took some time and looking to find that switch it may have had some negative impact on our new batteries but only time will tell. It also caused issues with our refrigeration and freezer compressors. Those units don’t like low or unsteady voltage and ours are equipped with diagnostic LED lights that flash a code every four seconds when there is an issue detected by the control module. Low voltage can display as the same code for a locked up compressor rotor (which is about a $1000 just for parts) so beware when someone tells you your compressor is shot….it probably isn’t. There is a simple test for the compressor, cut the power and by placing an Ohm meter on the three connections for the control module (which must be removed first to access these but it’s only one screw) if you don’t get an “infinity” reading between any two of the three pin connections, meaning the coils are intact, your compressor is fine. The readings should all be between 1.5 and 3.0….. (Thank you John Nihiser for the tutorial on compressor coils !!!!)

Here are a few shots of that melted switch……

Note the exposed wire at the terminal connection….also bad

This same switch was partially melted from the heat build up….

My recommendation is this….once you have a general survey (about $400) of the boat you are interested in, which will hopefully point you in the direction of the most serious issues, find some experts in these specific fields, preferably ABYC Master Certified Technicians.

Electrical Inspection….(AC and DC)….this can take as long as two hours and will run about $160

Rigging Inspection…..this will take about an hour or an hour and a half and cost about $100-$150while I’ve never seen an ABYC certification for this listed on their website….a few inquiries will find a locally recognized quality rigger.

Engine Inspection……you can find a manufacturer certified technician for almost every brand of diesel in most regions… Most charge travel time unless you are close to their offices so this will run about $400-$500

Heat/AC/Refrigeration……If you have one or all of these systems it would pay to have these inspected separately as they can run into the thousands to replace…..an inspection will run about $300 for all three….

At every stage of these inspections you will obviously have the opportunity to walk away from the purchase negotiations or negotiate further based on what is found. You might save yourself a ton of headaches and expense in the long run or get a better deal on your boat and free up the money for the upgrades or repairs.

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Pre-trip maintenance….

Prior to any departure, we have an informal checklist, (that I would like to convert into an official checklist) of systems that we inspect before departing the dock. We check the bilge pumps, batteries, engine room, shower sump box, refrigeration/compressors, the dinghy, the outboard, the oil and T-fluid levels, engine belts, the air filter, the raw water intake, all the seacocks, the prop shaft, bearing and the prop among other things.

When we left North Carolina in December of 2014, I dove our prop and hull to clean and inspect everything. Aside from a minor wipe down and some minor cleaning of the intakes, everything looked great, the zinc, bottom and prop were clean and ready to go. I have become a big fan of the Petit Ultimate SR-60 bottom paint I applied in December of 2013.

After spending six months in the Indian and Banana Rivers in Florida we were preparing to depart Florida when I began our pre-departure checklist of items. Our hull and bottom paint still looked good. Our prop, however, looked like a marine archaeological artifact. I had planned to “bag” the prop with a heavy duty plastic lawn bag but life got in the way and I forgot to do it before we left to return home to help with our ill relative. This was not a condition that we could travel under. We don’t currently own a prop puller (high on the list of items to acquire) but I was fortunate enough to get a referral to Randall, the owner of Bottoms Up Hull Cleaning in Cocoa Beach (321-458-7323). Randall is a great guy and showed up the next day to pull the prop. I spent that evening cleaning, sanding and painting the prop. Randall reinstalled the prop, a new cotter pin and a new zinc the following day. He also wiped down the hull and cleaned all the intakes.

We had a trouble free passage north and it seemed like our fuel consumption was even lower than normal…..although I haven’t had time to do an official calculation of that yet…..

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Always check your ground……

When we encounter something on our boat, I realize that we generally aren’t reinventing the wheel here. I mean, there here are certain axioms in any field that have stood the test of time and been proven over and over again. One of these, in the field electronics is “Always check your ground first” ….ok, that might not be the literal way it is stated but you get my point. Most electrical (and I think especially 12 volt systems can be pretty straight forward.

Let’s say you have a 12V source and a device that needs 12V power. For this example, let’s say your device is a Chartplotter….now, this Chartplotter has worked flawlessly for about 12 months….but suddenly on the day you are scheduled to leave for a ten or twelve day trip, and it won’t turn on…..ugh

Here’s the thing about boat electronics, there is generally a fair amount of moisture in the air and that moisture can lead to corrosion on even the best protected (heat shrink wrapped, electrical taped and wire nutted) connections you can make. When it does you will experience a failure that may leave you baffled.

In this instance, you begin troubleshooting and find that the device is indeed receiving well above the prescribed 12V (which is common in a 12V system as 12v is a nominal voltage for functionality). I commonly see 12.7 to 13.0 in some of our circuits. After a short period of testing a retesting the power, you try the device….it turns on and you feel like a genius….seconds later it flickers and dies….now is the time for that saying….check your ground. The easiest way is to provide a direct link to the device from a known solid power source….and a very solid ground….a close battery or even a substitute 12V source. I keep a cigarette style power plug in my 12V electrical kit that has the wire end cut off that I can direct wire to any device to test functionality. That easily eliminates or confirms that the device is functioning as it should. You may even see a steady current using an electrical or “fluke” meter. Don’t be fooled by that into thinking your ground is solid. Meters can be much more forgiving than a device that uses power. you may even get a good “continuity” signal from the meter. Many boats have had many owners and some of these owners may not have been the best or most strict when it came to their wiring techniques. A lot of people assume if it works once it will always work which is generally not the case. Since our Chartplotter is such an important piece of gear (we get tide info, currents, calculate arrival times, read charts, obtain general information about any spot you can click on the touch screen and you can add information as you go along) it really becomes very, very useful.

The fastest and most reliable way to remedy this is to establish a new power and grounding bus bar ( In electrical power distribution, a busbar (also spelled bus bar, or sometimes as buss bar or bussbar, with the term bus being a contraction of the Latin omnibus, “for all”) is a metallic strip or bar (typically copper, brass or aluminium) that conducts electricity within a switchboard, distribution board, substation, battery bank, or other electrical apparatus. Its main purpose is to conduct a substantial current of electricity, and not to function as a structural member.) for the device. Our grounding system needs a good cleaning and some minor rewiring but since we were on a tight timetable I opted for the new bus. We wired the bus directly to one of our house battery banks and put a fuse on the positive line between the batteries and the bus bar in the event of a battery failure. There was also a fuse between the bus and the Chartplotter. If your bus bar is in an area where things are crowded (and where on a boat aren’t things close) it’s probably a good idea to put a plastic or other non conductive cover across the connection points to avoid a short. This condition could cause a fire if it happens. Even a 12v circuit can generate a tremendous amount of heat if the wires become damaged or another item capable of conducting the power comes in contact with both side simultaneously for long enough. The best example of this is a screw that accidentally pierces both sides of a wire after being driven through a bulkhead and through a concealed wire.

It helps sometimes to envision the device as a pass through for the current. The power not only needs to get in but it also needs to get out and back to the battery for the device to work as it should. If all the power that goes in can’t get back out through a solid, consistent ground you will have an issue like we did.

Once we had a solid ground, the Chartplotter worked as it always has and we were ready to depart……I hope you will also be ready if you encounter this circumstance…..check the ground !!

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Do you have a problem with birds? Or…. “Am I in a Hitchcock Movie?”

I recently came a cross a product that holds a lot of promise for boats plagued by birds (and their little gifts they leave behind). Bird-X, a sticky, non drying caulk that can be applied with a standard caulking gun in thin strips to your windex, mast top plate or any other surface where you have the unwelcome visitors..It stays tacky and apparently birds hate that sensation on their feet…This product is available at Home Depot or www.bird-x.com it retails for around $36. I suppose the ultimate test will be time, since as it gets coated with dust or other airborne material, will it lose its “tackiness” and become less effective or will the birds making contact with it ablate the surface exposing new sticky material?

I recently applied some to our Windex and I will continue to monitor it but so far, so good.

Bird-X also makes a sonic and a laser repeller but we don’t have either one of those to test…..yet

Happy Sailing…..

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A house and starting battery mystery

On our boat, we have ten house batteries and one starting battery. The house batteries are Trojan brand T-105 6V batteries paired to make what is essentially five 12V batteries. They are divided into two battery banks one of 6 and one of 4. Our starting battery is a Deka Group 31 deep cycle starting battery. We recently replaced all the batteries which cost about $149 each if you can get them for a good price. Our starting battery also runs our bilge pumps.

The evolving mystery is this….twice in the last year, our starting battery has been too low to start our diesel after being away from our boat for about 6 weeks. We have 7 solar panels, a wind generator (this was turned off) and were plugged into shore power when this has happened. We have three barrel switches that select the charging method for the batteries, the bank that the house operates on and one isolates or connects the house and starting batteries. Normally the start battery is isolated. According to Nigel Calder this setup is optimal for a larger boat with two battery banks. The catch is that you need to use “Shottky” diodes to protect your batteries from discharge. These diodes essentially act as a “one way” valve for current to flow into the batteries with a slight drop in voltage (between .15 and .65 by most accounts). The simple fix has been to switch the batteries to “all” and let the house bank top off the starting battery. After about five minutes all is back to normal. I just don’t want to count on this when we are away from shore power.

I can’t imagine a circumstance where our bilge pump would run enough to discharge our starting battery and normal self discharge for this battery should be a much longer time than this. Even at 80 degrees ambient air temperature the discharge time according to many sources is well beyond 8 weeks. Normally the self discharge rate is 4% to 6% per month. I’ve checked most of the connections for excessive heat and found nothing yet.

I plan to do some more checking and troubleshooting or replacement of our diodes and I will post more as it develops…comment for suggestions are always welcome…..

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Fireboy/Xintex Carbon Monoxide Detectors…

I recently learned something interesting about CO detectors which has prompted me to post this…..

I didn’t realize that newer CO detectors (made in the last decade) have a built in timer, powered by a small lithium battery that counts down the service life of the detector. This service life was recently shortened to five years due to UL standards. This timer starts at the factory when the unit is assembled. A detector I purchased about 18 months ago, that I installed, began malfunctioning and I sent it to the manufacturer for testing. As it turns out it was manufactured over seven years ago and had reached its “timeout time”. I wish I could recall where I purchased it so I could avoid buying from that place again since they are obviously selling units way past their shelf life with very little service life left. I didn’t realize how pricey those things have become ….MSRP of $166 ….ouch…if you buy one be sure to check the circuit board for the manufacture date before you leave the store or install it. Fireboy/Xintex did offer me a unit for $120 but fortunately I can buy one at West Marine for $119 minus the holiday discounts so that’s not much of a deal. Hope this helps someone else avoid this issue….

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Example of our first six months of operating expenses

Occasionally, I sit down and calculate what the total is for the last six months of owning, operating and maintaining our boat. At times it is painful…. Keep in mind ours is an older, though upgraded, 44′ sailboat. There have been a few things we added or upgraded which we probably could have lived without but we decided were essential.

Here’s what last winter cost us, (2014 into 2015) just for the boat and travel, not food or entertainment….

Transient or Seasonal Dockage: $1,700

Insurance: $100/month so $600

Fuel: $500

Equipment replacement or repairs: $5,000 (We had to replace a lot of items that the prior owner wanted to keep and we also added a Garmin 741XS chartplotter which has been fantastic)

Home slip: $150/month…$900

Travel to and from boat: $3,000 ( we have spent a lot of time helping a terminally ill family member over the last year so this will drop significantly)

Radio Licenses: $200

Haulout/Bottom Paint : $1600

Epirb recert: $300

So, we are at $13,700 for a six month period. ($2,283.00 per month) Some of these items won’t come around again for three years (bottom job, radio licenses, EPIRB) so the cost can be amortized over a longer period reducing the monthly cost. Downside is when they need to be done you’d better have had the discipline to save your cash. The good news is I cleaned our hull in December before we left Oriental, NC and it looked great after a year in the water. The use of the Petit Ultima SR60 was a good choice. The bottom looked like it had just been painted except for some growth on the intakes. I have read a lot of varying opinions on how often to clean the bottom and many claim that the more often you clean it the faster your paint “ablates” and the sooner you have to reapply…this seems to be the case in this instance as ours is holding up very, very well with only two light cleanings a year.

The first six months, granted, will probably be the most expensive of the time periods during which you will own your boat. Gear, cosmetic changes, upgrades and the inevitable mistakes that break or lose something will be factors that increase this number, so be ready.

This last December (2014), our house batteries decided that they needed to be replaced…(right after our engine starting battery needed replacement $150)…..we have ten….they are Trojan T-105’s that run about $150 a piece (after taxes)…..they typically last five years ….that works out to a manageable $25 per month over the life of the batteries but that sticker shock will keep you awake a few nights when they need replacement….