SV Gallant Fox

Notes from Underway - Punta Pulpito to Caleta San Juanico

The Fox and our buddy-boat, Kia Ora, raised anchor at Punta Pulpito for a very short 10-mile southbound voyage to the popular anchorages of Caleta San Juanico. Both vessels were underway just after 0700 on Sunday, November 27, 2016. The morning air was calm with skies overcast.

Arriving in San Juanico we found only two other sailboats there, each of which we recognized as having left San Carlos about 24 hours ahead of us. With plenty of choices, we chose to anchor in 21' depths.

Keeping Busy During the Refit

Winters in Mazatlan are generally fairly comfortable. During our November 2015- February 2016 stern-pulpit refit, the daily Fahrenheit highs were in the high 70s-mid 80s and the nightly lows were in the comfortable 60s. Nevertheless, Mazatlan was its typical humid self with the biting insects that just love my delicate skin.

While we waited for the contractor-boys to complete their boat work, I came down with a head cold that developed into a sinus infection that took 3 weeks to resolve. Antibiotics were involved. It presented a perfect opportunity for me to do a series of small sewing projects. GB has always enjoyed having matchy-matchy Sunbrella covers for every exposed object he can find on The Fox, and he enjoys even more having me do the sewing. Because I have no skills. And because he loves watching me work through a challenge.

I successfully sewed a new drawstring-style, hurricane-resistant cozy for our radar dome, hurricane-resistant hatch covers for dry storage, a large hurricane-resistant cozy for the solar panels when in dry storage, and a new cozy for our emergency beacon in its new mount on our new stern pulpit. In my spare time I repaired or replaced the cozies for our entire collection of jerry cans.

By the end of all that, I was beginning to feel well enough for a short road trip....

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The Great Cockpit Refit of 2015-2016

The upgrade of our cockpit included a new and enhanced stainless steel stern pulpit; a stern arch on which to mount our radar dome and a couple of new solar panels; and a brand-spankin'-new dodger and bimini combo platter made out of Stamoid. This entire refit took four months exactly to complete, from late November 2015 to late February 2016. That was fine by us because it gave us plenty of time to work on a variety of repairs and boat projects, as well as plenty of time to hang out with friends and do as much tourism as we wanted. G and J of m/v Shamrock invited us to join them and other friends for their weekly lunch-and-a-movie get-together and other excursions; and we traded occasional dinners on each other's boats. I even substituted as net control for the local morning cruisers' net a few times. We were becoming Mazatlan residents for sure.

Rick of s/v Cape Starr designed and installed the stern arch and pulpit assembly, which needed only a few adjustments to get just right. Mounting the solar panels and radar dome required more tweaks and troubleshooting, as did the installation of new cockpit lights and stern-mounted dinghy davits. There were the typical boatyard-style delays in getting certain specific parts and hardware shipped to Mazatlan from who-knows-where, but Rick and his crew worked steadily to see that everything eventually fell into place. They were also happy to do some side-work at the same time, such as refurbishing our spare alternator and climbing the mast to replace our deck light and our mast-head wind indicator with a new, more bird-resistant spiked version. Thanks for everything, Rick!

Mazatlan: the March 2015 Punch List

After 13 years of owning The Fox and 12 years living aboard and cruising, it occurred to us that we could improve our tropical sailing experience by having a stainless steel arch installed on the stern, to support a couple of solar panels, a more stable cockpit shade cover, and whatever else we could dream up. And so we began a To-Do list, the following of which we completed within 2 weeks:

• Hire Rick aboard s/v Cape Starr in Marina Mazatlan to design and build the stern arch.
• Remove our KISS wind generator and support pole and struts from the stern to make way for the future stern arch.
• Sell the KISS wind generator.
• Remove and sell the stern's stainless steel radar pole and outboard engine mount.
• Clean the engine following Rick's instructions.
• Hire Rick to perform engine inspection and maintenance, including valve adjustments, injector service, water pump inspection, head torque, heat exchanger cleaning, check manifold intake and head gaskets.
• GB to inspect & tighten engine mounts.
• MS to sell paper charts and cruising guides no longer in use or needed.
• GB to caulk one leaky stanchion.
• MS to sew 6 tote bags and one portfolio with scrap material from former main sail.

Whew.

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Minor Canvas Projects in Florida

I spent some time in Stuart working on smaller sewing projects while there were no cushions in the saloon and I was farming out the bigger jobs to Canvas Works. It still left me with plenty to do:

I visited a local upholstery shop and sewed new curtains and tie-backs out of some fancy-patterned, silky-textured Sunbrella I ordered from there, that was the most expensive fabric I've ever bought ($75/yd.) - even for The Fox, which has earned the finest of everything we can lay our hands on. Worth every penny, that fabric with its little rectangular dots of browns and creams - but I'm glad I used only about a yard of the stuff for all the boat's curtains.

Thank You, Carol Hasse

April 1, 2010. April Fool's day. We had a spot of bother while traveling SE along the El Salvador coast toward the Gulf of Fonseca, attempting to raise the mail sail. User error. Details are unimportant. However, if any of you dear readers are ever performing some task on a boat and you encounter an unusual level of resistance in the equipment; or if, say, the gear you are using makes a funny noise; do everyone else aboard your boat a huge favor and stop what you're doing to look around for anything that's fouled or inadvertently made-off, OK?

Anyway.

Got a rip in the main sail. Dead-center. Just above the first reefing point. Size: 16" long x 8" high. Including the reefing patch.

Motored to El Salvador's Isla Meanguera in Gulf of Fonseca, to anchor in the calm waters of Meanguera del Golfo on Isla Meanguera's SW side. Nice spot for on-board sail repairs. Bonus: the breeze blew regularly there on what were otherwise very hot, hazy days of a typical Central American April.

We successfully repaired the main sail but I will declare right now to all of cyberspace that we could never have known even where to start with such a repair, had we both not taken a weekend sail repair seminar with Carol Hasse and the team at Port Townsend Sails about a frillion years ago. And kept the course materials.

Hasse had described how to repair torn sails using what she calls a "TV screen" method. I'm summarizing horribly here, but basically you measure the rip and cut a rectangle of sail repair fabric that extends about 2" beyond the rip on all sides. You then set the rectangle of repair fabric over the rip and draw the perimeter of the rectangle onto the sail. Also draw strike marks on the patch and the sail so that you can realign the the two when it comes time to sew the patch onto the sail. We went further than that, and marked the spot for each stitch on both patch and sail so that the zig-zag hand sewing we planned would come out uniformly spaced.

Once you've drawn the patch's perimeter and made your strike marks, remove the patch and draw a second, smaller rectangle inside of the patch's perimeter you've just drawn. Make each side of the inner rectangle about 1-1/2" inside the perimeter of the patch's rectangle. These two rectangles is what gives the appearance of a TV screen. While we were at it, we added the spots where each stitch would be made, just as we'd done on the outer rectangle of the patch.

Now comes the part that was hardest for me: cutting the rip out of the sail itself. Cutting a rectangle into what was once a perfectly fine main sail, gives one pause. But for best results it must be done and so it was.

GB did most of the stitching. Having made the stitching points with pencil gave him an easier time of ensuring that all zig-zag hand stitching was a consistent half-inch long. He first sewed the outer perimeter of the patch, then sewed the inner rectangle to the sail. However, by far the greatest amount of time that was spent on this project was spent on study, planning and prep.

Results were optimal. I'd been concerned that the only sail-repair fabric we'd had aboard was Dacron - good replacement material for the outer Dacron edges of our main sail, but possibly incompatible with the HydraNet fabric (Dacron cross-stitched with Spectra) that comprises the body of our main sail. Nevertheless, the main sail is fully functional again - at least for the 15 knots we were able to test it in, close hauled...

Anyway, Carol, thanks to you our main sail is fixed. You're a real pal. I've always recommended your seminars to anyone who can get to Port Townsend, and I still do - but I also feel it's important for both halves of a cruising couple to attend - in our experience it has helped immensely if both people on the boat have the same level of information and understanding when they undertake a sail repair project. Especially a surprise one.

P.S. Here's one sample of how sails can be made - and repaired - in Central America. Folks, don't try this at home. Unless you're sure to remain close to shore, in a very small vessel. Preferably dugout.

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Marine Services Part I - Awesome Boat Canvas

Sometimes it's economical to hire a professional for boat canvas work. For example, certain projects are too large and complicated to be done well by one person using a small sewing machine on a boat's deck or down below at the salon table. A cockpit's spray shield, aka dodger, is one such project.

As Karen S. Lipe wrote in her "Big Book of Boat Canvas" (International Marine pub., 1988, at p. 64): "A word of caution: Designing and constructing your own dodger, Bimini, or Bimini-dodger combination will most likely require professional assistance at certain points in the process....Working with 30-gauge and 40-gauage vinyl glass on a domestic sewing machine is not easy. You can do it, but it will take a lot of patience and many more hours than it would take a professional with an industrial machine...."

I would add that when working with vinyl glass, Sunbrella and piping trim, you pretty much get one shot at doing it right - the holes made by your needle are permanent, so if you have to rip out a line of stitching and do it over you may find yourself with one heckuva porous dodger. The amount you spend on materials alone, and the risk of not getting it perfect on the first go, in my opinion justifies hiring a pro to put it all together. Also, aesthetics is a large consideration - the dodger is probably the most visible canvas item on a boat, and your boat deserves to look its best.

Our dodger, a combination of Sunbrella, vinyl glass panels, zippers and Velcro, was original to the boat and very well made, but it was almost eight years old. It had weathered snow, persistent dampness and mildew in the Pacific Northwest, and a couple years of intense heat and UV exposure as we moved south. Not to mention the occasional fecal assaults by incontinent boobies. I had regularly replaced the Velcro as it wore out, but the Sunbrella fabric underneath the Velcro was losing its integrity from all the new needle holes I had to make. The vinyl glass was intact but becoming progressively more opaque from UV exposure. I had begun to patch areas of Sunbrella along the bottom port side of the dodger where stress and late afternoon sun seemed to be causing some damage. Finally, when we were in Mazatlan this past summer, the Sunbrella fabric along the top of the dodger, where it was stretched taut and got the most UV exposure, began to pull apart. I was able to patch that area too, but the whole dodger was becoming fragile and the need for repairs was accelerating.

Clearly, it was time to replace the dodger but its size and complexity were beyond my abilities as well as my inventory of canvas tools and fabric. GB and I were interested in adding a couple of new features to the design that complicated things even more. Plus, about 11 years ago GB had unwisely insisted that I repair and redesign the dodger on our first sailboat, and the result was such a fiasco, so utterly full of fail, that I damn near killed the man and I am not lying.

So: good thing we were in Mazatlan when the dodger died. Because:

The canvas shop that had made our fine dinghy chaps back in late 2007 cheerfully accepted our request to rebuild our poor dodger in the same general design, but with a zippered opening in the center vinyl glass panel (for improved air flow into the cockpit on hot days) and with snap-on Sunbrella covers (to extend the life of the shiny new vinyl glass). Pedro Moreno and his partner Ruben of Upholstery Mazatlan (telephone 52-669-982-2760, email: [email protected]) came out to our boat, examined the dodger, and discussed what we wanted (why yes, they speak better English than we speak Spanish). They gave us a brief-but-complete handwritten estimate, took the old dodger away with them, and started work with I don't know how many people back at their shop. Pedro and Ruben came back twice to the boat to fit and fine-tune the dodger at various stages of fabrication. Upon final installation they attached the snap-on Sunbrella covers by inserting the snaps with the greatest snap-setting tool I have ever seen: this bad boy inserted snaps into multiple layers of Sunbrella like a hole punch going through a single sheet of paper, and was about as fast. I coveted this tool - that is, until I saw how much something like that costs. You definitely need to be in the canvas business to justify the expense of this beast.

Anyway we were happy to do business with Pedro and Ruben again, the new dodger looks great and we're very happy with the new features. We expect to be under the hot sun for quite some time, so if we get 6 years of use out of this new dodger before it needs replacing, we'll call it an excellent product.  Oh - and the price for this fancy new dodger of ours?  It was Pedro's original estimate of 9500 pesos - in October 2009, about $730 US. Individual results may vary of course, but if you have a challenging canvas project and happen to be in the neighborhood, consider letting the professionals at Upholstery Mazatlan handle it. It just might save your marriage.

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Projects Accomplished

We didn't waste our 3+ months of time in Maz this past late summer/early autumn. In sewing projects alone, here's what I did with my trusty Pfaff sewing machine:

Mending/revisions:

2 pairs of shorts; 3 shirts; a skirt; a jacket; a pair of sandals; one pair of Capri pants; a laundry bag, tote bag, geniker bag; one spray shield (3 times); a LifeSling bag; the cockpit shade covers; one mesh pocket in the cockpit; the main sail cover; and the main sail's leech line at the grommets.

Here's a list of the new products I designed and sewed:

New sheets for the V-berth.

A roller furler cozy (the better to protect the drum and furling line from UV damage, and to foil critters searching for a place to nest). Drawstrings top and bottom, vertical Velcro closure along the side.

A halyard bag located at the mast (basically, a long Sunbrella purse with a webbing handle that hangs over the mast-side winch and closes at the top with Velcro). Could double as a shopping bag - heh.

A staysail ready-bag (for those times when a staysail burrito just isn't satisfying).

I hybridized the designs of two very reputable boat canvas sewing guides. Mine has two zippers - a regular zipper on top and a jacket zipper forward around the inner forestay with the zipper facing downward when it's closed (theoretically, to help prevent the zipper from opening with the force of boarding waves thus spilling the sail) - some suede anti-chafe material at the two points where the bag wraps around the staysail's inner forestay, and some Sunbrella flaps over the zipper to prevent water penetration and UV damage.

A heavy-rain cover for the companionway hatch I designed and almost finished, remains a work in progress. After our experience with tropical storm Rick, I had to create something that would turn water away from the gap where our overhead companionway hatch cover slides in and out. Seems that when one strips all the canvas off a cockpit in anticipation of a storm, the heavy rain from said storm will flood the gap between companionway hatch and coach roof, overflow the fiddle that acts as a water barrier, send about 1-1/2 quarts of rain water between the coach roof and the cabin's inner ceiling, and flood the bookcase next to the mast. Which overflows on to the settee cushions, and pours down along the mast into the dry bilge. Fortunately, I keep practically everything I stow in Zip-Loc bags, so the only casualties were 4 books whose Zip-Loc bags had developed holes in them. Still took a couple of days to dry out the cushions, mop up the bilge, and dry out the other books that only had small amounts of water damage. (Ever had to iron a book?) Afterwards I was well motivated to create a solution.

I created a Sunbrella cover with an upper edge that attaches with Velcro to the inside fiberglass edge of our windscreen, and attaches with snaps to cover the vertical plane of our instrument panel, as well as snaps on the horizontal plane of the cockpit on either side of the companionway hatch. The only task I must now complete, is installing the snaps and the Velcro around the companionway perimeter. Easy enough to finish, but hey, we didn't have the right adhesive for the Velcro (well, we did, actually, but we found that the unopened tube had solidified over the past 2 years).

Hopefully once this cover is finished it will prevent flooding in those cases when our cockpit is uncovered, by turning away most of a tropical storm's heavy rain while still allowing water to drain normally down the grooves on either side of the companionway hatch; and also be firmly attached with the Velcro and snaps to stay in place during a storm's high winds when all our other boat canvas must be stripped. I also designed the heavy-rain cover with a view toward having it do the job both in times when we're living down below, and times when we may be off the boat. Unfortunately, we'll have to weather another tropical storm to find out if this design actually works. Do Not Want.

For me, that was a lot of sewing for 14 weeks. I'm spent. Individual results may vary.

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Sunbrella Shade Covers for the Cockpit - Rear and Side Panels

So for the rear and side panels I was designing for the low-latitude hot-sun cruising we're now doing, I discovered the quietly thrilling beauty of ZOMG, SUNBRELLA MESH. This fabric is great. I got mine from here. Sunbrella mesh sews well, shades well, and ventilates as well as any mesh fabric can. In the photos in this post it looks opaque, but there is some visibility though it. Except, not really enough, so if you are underway when you have your panels deployed (and you will be if you're down here), you have to just periodically take a peek out from under the covers to see what might be bearing down on you.

Rear panel: sparing Cyberspace the details, I cut the rear panel as a large square. Attaches to the rear edge of the overhead cover with Velcro on its upper edge. Bottom attaches to stern pulpit rails with grommets & shoelace-type cord. To raise it, I gathered the panel up and using the bottom ties, ran the string between the two layers of Velcro at the upper edge where the rear panel meets the overhead cover, and then tied all the gathers in a loose bunch reminiscent of a window valance.  That was Version 1.0. In Version 2.0 I set a couple more grommets along the side edges of the rear panel, to give me more flexibility in tying down the rear panel in winds over 25 knots, or to roll it up halfway for times when shade is as important as accessing, say, the swim ladder. It's all Velcro and string. Setup takes about 2 minutes, takedown takes about 30 seconds.

Side panel: The side panel was similar. I say "panel," because for sun protection I didn't need two - just one that I could switch from one side of the boat to the other, depending on where Mr. Sun was. I cut this side panel as a rectangle. Velcro wool along top to attach to overhead cover, grommets and shoelace-type cord along bottom for tying to lifelines; forward-most cord made longer to tie to stanchion for greater stability in headwinds. Advantage: a side panel tied to the lifeline instead of further inboard, creates better access to leave the cockpit and go forward; and allows more air to flow back into cockpit. Unlimited access to winches and sheets. We've found the side panels stay in place just fine with this Velcro-and-shoelace arrangement up to about 20 kt. from any direction; maybe more but we start taking things down as a matter of principle when the wind picks up. I got away with not having to improve on Version 1.0 for the side panels. Yet.

Here's what the side panel looks like, from the outside. The rear panel is also up but in this pic you can barely see it or how it's attached to the backstays and posts. Anyway, the Sunbrella mesh is fairly opaque, which is good for me because when I took this photo GB was working on something and the entire contents of our starboard lazarette had been barfed into our cockpit. So the mesh shade cover is also handy for privacy - our neighbors are less likely to think we're complete slobs.

Here's what conditions look like inside the cockpit with the overhead cover, rear panel and side panel up. Side panel is on the port side of the boat; we are underway, heading SE in the Sea of Cortez. It's about 1100 on July 26, 2009. Sun = high and hot. I estimate the air temperature then was 105 deg.F - fairly typical for that area at that time.

As long as all three shade covers were up, I thought the time was right to take temperature readings to test their efficacy. Under shade cover, on port near helm: 98.1 deg.F.
Under forward spray shield, where there's a combo of Sunbrella shade and clear plastic window material: 106.5 deg.F.
Starboard cockpit coaming, just outside shade cover: 123.3 deg.F.
I didn't follow the scientific method very carefully when taking these readings but I still feel that they  illustrate the need for, and effectiveness of, good and abundant shade protection if you're sailing in low-latitude places. You just can't have enough.

A final word about Velcro which I repeat every so often: I like Velcro and use it a lot, but it has one large disadvantage: while its hooks and wool are quite durable, its backing fabric deteriorates quickly in sun. Like, in one year or less. Believe you me, I've replaced a lot of Velcro on otherwise completely intact boat canvas. My advice? If you're going sailing long-term and have any Velcro anywhere on your boat - buy a 25-meter roll of both sides of that Velcro. No, really - if you find you don't use it, it'll be an excellent trade item with other cruisers. Please bring 1" wide white Velcro for me. I eat it up, you betcha.

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Sunbrella Shade Covers for the Cockpit

One of the ways I prepared for a summer in the Sea of Cortez was to enhance the sun protection and air circulation in our cockpit. We'd been traveling exclusively with the cockpit canvas that came with our Malo 39 some 8 years ago. It is some of the best and sturdiest boat canvas I've ever seen: a spray shield; an overhead cover; and side and rear panels with lots of large, heavy, clear plastic windows that all zip together and tightly fasten to the cockpit coaming all around. It is the type of heavy protective suit of canvas you would expect to come with a Swedish-built boat designed to sail well in cold, wet, windy weather. Its design allows us to use either the spray shield or overhead section separately; or to zip the side and/or rear panels to the overhead section to partially - or completely - enclose the cockpit. Versatile. In the winters of the Pacific Northwest, the fully deployed cockpit enclosure warmed the cockpit 10-15 degrees above outside temps. It was like being able to create your own floating sun room, and it helped keep us cruising comfortably months longer than we otherwise would have. The photo on the right illustrates the fully-deployed cockpit enclosures on two different Malo yachts, one n front of the other, on a cool, rainy Washington day.

As we've traveled south into much warmer climates we still use the original spray shield (I've only had to re-sew worn-out threads and Velcro so far to keep it going), and we've certainly continued to use the overhead section. However it became impossible to use the rear and side panels due to their lack of ventilation and superior ability to retain heat. As daytime temperatures rose into the 90s we even had trouble with the overhead cover, as the headroom and its attachment points made it feel too enclosed to allow for optimum ventilation while still protecting us from the hot sun. (Another difficulty we'd always experienced with the particular design of the overhead cover, was that it deploys with an aluminum support frame, which restricts our ability to use full rotation on our winch handles when sheeting in a foresail.) We also grew to need sun protection from the rear and side for those times when the sun was lower in the sky but still quite hot. And we expected very hot conditions in the Sea of Cortez.

My criteria for the new hot-sun cockpit shade covers I designed, were:

- Maximize shade.
- Maximize air flow.
- Increase head room at helm.
- Not restrict use of any of our four cockpit winches.
- Not impact use of or access to any of the crap essential items we have around the stern pulpit, including LifeSling, KISS wind generator, stern anchor, swim ladder, outboard, emergency beacon, outboard hoist, BBQ's propane tank, radar dome, BBQ, fishing rod holder, and boarding gates.
- Not restrict our view.
- Have side and rear panels that could be deployed and removed quickly and safely while at anchor or underway, in any conditions.

My challenges were:
- Unrestricted visibility reduces potential shade protection.
- Unrestricted visibility, and unrestricted use of winches, and unrestricted access to all the stuff we carry 'round our stern, significantly limits the potential attachment points for any shade cover.

After a lot of fretting, I decided on a very simple design that took advantage of the one attachment point I had that met all the criteria: our boat's Targa arch, on which the forward edge of the original overhead cover attached with a long zipper and Velcro. I couldn't take advantage of the zipper on the arch, as the dimensions of my overhead cover didn't match the original's; but I could certainly attach the forward edge of my creation to the arch using the Velcro. And so I did.

I doubt anyone on the Interwebs is interested in the minutiae of how I put this all together, so I'll just say for this post that for the overhead cover, I sewed a trapezoid of Sunbrella with two slashes in the aft portion to accommodate our dual backstays. Note: I spent three days of measuring and re-measuring the depth and location of those two slashes, and I still got them wrong. Sailing is like that sometimes. Anyway, after I fixed the slashie-fiasco, the construction went smoothly. Basically, Overhead Cover Version 1.0 was attached to the boat at its front by Velcro, at the rear corners by grommets & bungees, and in the rear center by webbing loops and shoelace-type cord. I sewed the inner edges of the sides and rear of the overhead cover with Velcro, to accommodate the side and rear shade panels I would soon make. The beauty part of using Velcro, bungees & string is that it makes the cover adjustable up and down according to my - or the weather's - whim; and it goes up and comes back down very quickly. To illustrate, here's a photo of the cover in place, with the rear bungees and backstay strings tied high on their attachment points. This is the angled-up position we use for light air conditions:

And here's a photo on the left, of the same cover with the rear bungees and backstay strings moved much lower on their attachment points, causing the overhead cover's edges to curve downward like a baseball cap. This is the position we use for windier conditions.  With no more than Velcro-and-shoelaces, Overhead Cover Version 1.0 stayed put in forward breezes up to the mid-20 knot range, but could only handle about 17 knots' crosswind before the Velcro along the forward edge parted, starting at whatever corner was windward. I fixed that problem in Version 2.0 by setting a grommet in each corner of the forward edge through which I ran bungees downward to the grab bars on each side of our windscreen. Version 2.0 stayed in place in winds up to 32 knots from any direction. To put up the overhead cover with all its ties and whatnot takes about 4 minutes. To take it down takes less than one minute.

Why, yes, there was a Version 3.0.

Hot sun is all well and good, but hurricane season in the tropics brings lots of rain too. Our first thunderstorm after we returned to Mazatlan showed me that I needed to elevate the center of the overhead cover to allow rain to run off instead of accumulate in the cover's center, creating Lake Sunbrella. To solve the puddling problem I added a webbing loop in the cover's outside center, which I tied to the aft end of our boom to create a slight peak in the cover's center. E-Z.

More soon coming on the side panels.

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