Bodhran anchored at Port FitzRoy:

My last post found me about ready to haul Bodhran in Gulf Harbour to determine whether or not I needed to replace my cutlass bearing. Upon hauling, my cutlass bearing was deflecting less than 1/16th of an inch, so it wasn’t the problem. I then investigated further and quickly found that two of the four bolts connecting my prop shaft to the transmission had come out and the other two were loose. Oops. Seems that when I put my engine back in in November and replaced those stainless bolts in the coupler with some mild steel ones I forgot to put on any lock washers and after a hard 4 hours motor sailing into 25 knot winds the nuts just vibrated themselves free. The fix took 15 mintues and $5 worth of hardware, this time including some $.15 lock washers. So I’ve got Bodhran hauled, Tiffany is gone for 10 days traveling with her mother, now what am I going to do? I’d been talking about building cockpit combings for Bodhran for 5 years or more and figured that now was a fine time to do it. Pat on Eeylos had lent me his transformer so that I could plug in all my power tools, Arek and Iwona lent me one of their cars to run errands in, the timing was perfect to start a building project.

Combings, for you non-nautical types out there, are a barrier built around the cockpit to keep water from the deck rolling back into the cockpit. They also normally serve as backrests for the cockpit seating. For one reason or another, the Downeast 32 was built with a wonderfully clear, clean deck that runs uninterrupted from stem to stern. In theory, any water reaching that deck is supposed to drain out through two drains on the side deck. In practice any water coming aboard in a seaway rushes right past those deck drains and back to cockpit soaking any butts in might find on the way. So after 9 years of getting a wet butt, I’d finally had enough. In the past I’d thought about just running a single board from the back of the cabin to the winch bases to serve as a backrest and keep water out, but my cockpit locker runs too far outboard and I would need to taper the board as it went aft so that it wouldn’t interfere with the winches. It would have been simple, but I didn’t like it. Instead I went with the much more complex 3 dimensional combing that would flare out from the cabin top to clear the cockpit locker, allowing the inside to lean outboard making a comfortable back rest, while also allowing the outside to angle inboard matching the cabin and providing storage inside for sheets, winch handles and such. This is a pretty common combing design on more modern boats, the problem is that the rounded flare from the cabin back forms a complex curve with the top radius smaller than the bottom. Originally I was going to laminate together ¼” plywood strips, but quickly found out that I’d have to notch the plywood to allow it to compress at the top and after breaking a few pieces I decided this was far beyond my wood working skills. Fortunately my buddy Arek off Ariel was helping me out. He suggested cutting little wedges out of the 1/2” ply we were building the rest of the coming out of. These trapezoidal pieces were then attached with the wider portion at the base and the narrower at the top to form a chunky curve that went through a 75 degree radius while leaning inboard the entire time. From there, all I needed to do was add a bunch of fairing compound and sand the crap out of it and a nice smooth curve eventually took shape. The other tricky part of the design was integrating into the old winch bases. I’d wanted to raise my winches for a while. I would get overruns whenever I had more then one wrap on them. So it made sense to raise the winches instead of tapering the combing down to the level of the winch bases. I wanted to keep the attachment for the winches as strong as possible, so I laminated together 6 pieces of ply with thickened epoxy precut into the shape of the winch base, determined how much of that I would need for the winches to attach through and then cut a recurve in the rest so that it would transition down into the rail.

Arek with the combing base and sides in place:

Another view of the combing with the top being fitted and the 1.25” half of pvc pipe for a drain:

With the wood all cut and fitted, I glassed together the base and sides from the inside and stripped all the bottom paint and gelcoat with a grinder. I gooped up the base with thickened epoxy and then screwed it to the deck. I painted the inside and screwed the top of the combing on and then glassed in the whole thing with 8oz cloth. That was all I got done before Tiffany and her mom got back. I had just got Bodhran back in the water and wanted to get them out for a sail. Fortunately the wind was light as I didn’t have any jib sheet winches, but I was able run the sheets up to the staysail winches on the cabin top. Two days later found the boat in the same shape when I got Iwona’s family from Poland out to Tiritirimatangi Island. Intermittent rain and getting people out sailing were definitely slowing down progress, but we got a couple of rounds of fairing done while in Gulf Harbour and mounted the new Lewmar 40s I’d picked up last Summer. So with a couple more rounds of fairing to do, we called it good enough and got the hell out of Gulf Harbour and sailed across the Haruki Gulf in a lively 25 knot southwesterly out to Great Barrier Island for a week.

Arek and Tiffany on Tiritirimatangi:

Sailing out to Great Barrier with the combings nearing completion:

It would have taken at least three weeks to really explore Great Barrier, but Tiffany only had 10 days left before her flight back to Spokane. So we spent our entire time exploring the bays around the amazing shelter of Port FitzRoy. It probably would have taken 3 weeks just to cover the hiking trails around the island. We ended up doing two. The first was through Sven’s property where he harvests Manuka and Kanuka, both types of tea tree, and extracts their oils for soaps and balms which he sells from his distilling shack. The second was a grueling 7 hour hike up the Cooper’s Castle route and then down the other side to one of the old Kauri dams before looping back to Port FitzRoy. Amazing views, but certainly a trail that would have been better done in shoes rather than sandals. The Kauri’s were pretty much all harvested back in the 20s and 30s. They would cut them down and leave them in the creek bed until they had enough and would then trip the dams to flush them down to the bay. The few Kauri that remain have been protected since the 40s.

Tiffany gathering cockles:

Tiffany at the top of Cooper’s Castle:

Myself and Tiffany at the lower Kauri dam:

The rest of our time on Barrier was spent fishing for snapper, gathering cockles, reading, and fairing the combings. Again rain interrupted our painting and I think that I’m going to need to strip and redo a few areas, but we got two coats of paint on while at Great Barrier. We left night before last at sunset with a forecast for 15 knots out of the southwest, turning south overnight. Southwest would have made our return sail to Whangarei a beam reach. With an almost full moon and a moderate breeze, it should have been great. In fact, it wasn’t bad, but Tiffany’s first night sail and my first one in well over a year found us sailing into 6 foot seas at about 60 degrees of the bow and 20+ knots of wind. Fortunately the wind subsided to 10-15 overnight, but shift more westerly barely allowing us to make Bream Head with out tacking. Sunrise found us heading up river and now Bodhran is back in the same slip she spent most of the last 15 months in. Tiffany’s flying out on Sunday and I want to try and get some more projects done before heading up to the Bay of Islands at the end of the month. The combings and new winches preformed admirably keeping our butts dry and handling the jib easier than they ever have before during our sail back. I still need to shape the winch pads a bit and get some more paint on, but the combings are a resounding success.

They’re not quite done but here’s the combings as they stand now:

Here are some Pics from Whangarei to Whangaruru and down to Auckland:

Bodhran anchored in Mimiwhangata:

We were sitting in Tutukaka with the forecast calling for 40 knots of wind out of the east to southeast. The anchorage was pretty rolly and we had moved in to a pile mooring in the marina. So the question was do we stick around Tutukaka on a nice secure mooring, or do we sail north to find an anchorage to wait out the weather? We had already done the hike out to the lighthouse in Tutukaka and there wasn’t much else to do but spend money at the little store or the pub. Christian had also picked up two backpackers who didn’t much want to just in a marina, so we decided to sail north to Mimiwhangata with it’s long sandy beach and good 270 degree protection. There was even the chance that we’d be able to hike over the hill to a good surf beach on the other side of the spit. We had a great mellow sail with 10-15 knot easterlies pushing us along on our northeasterly course and anchored in 8 feet of water and blissful protection from the 6 foot swell running just outside the anchorage.

Fortunately we got up the gumption to go snorkeling and go ashore the first evening in the anchorage, as the weather came in hard about midnight. Torrential rain, 40+ knot winds and leaks I didn’t know about was the theme of my night and morning while we spent the rest of the next day hunkered down with the tempest roaring outside. A break in the monotony came when Paul on Surreal came into the anchorage just before sunset. He’d just singlehanded his 46′ catamaran down from the Bay of Islands in all that snotty weather that we’d been hiding from. There were a total of six of us having drinks on Irie when he came in and he called over to invite us all over to Surreal. Paul then continuously filled drinks late into the night from his copious liquor cabinet which he apparently wanted to empty before returning to Auckland. We, of course, were happy to oblige him.

Paul and Surreal leaving in the moring:

Tiffany helming through the big swell on the way up to Whangaruru:

We were all pretty tired of the swell and needed a change of scenery the next morning, so we decided to sail 6 miles north to Whangaruru. With big rolly seas coming across the shallow bay connecting Mimiwhangata and Whangarur, we played it safe and just flew the staysail but were able to quickly cover the distance and sail into one of my favorite anchorages in a long time. We turned the corner into the bay and the swell instantly turned off. We had our choice of 4 different little bays we could pull into, so we decided to drop the hook in an empty Puriri bay again in less than 10 feet of water. I love being able to put out 75′ of chain and be at nearly 10:1 scope. There’s a little Department of Conservation campground at the head of the bay with trails heading in two directions. We spent the next two days exploring the great trail system which took you across pasture land, up mountains, across the almost desert like windward side to a secluded little black sand beach and back again. On the second morning, we got up at low tide and skiffed across to a spit on a little island teeming with Pipis (small smooth shell clams). I’d never seen such a bountiful shellfish spot. We didn’t even need shovels, we just used our hands to dig through the loose sand at the water line and strain out the little bi-valves. Within 15 minutes, Christian, Tiffany and I easily had enough for 3 or 4 meals and set off on the long windward slog back to the boats.

Hiking through the pasture above Puriri Bay:

Myself, Christian, Julian and Carolina at the campground in Puriri Bay:

Christian with our bounty of Pipis:

After a couple of days of hiking and swimming, the weather forecast was calling for 3 days of 15 knot easterlies. It’d be a hard close hauled sail south, but we figured that we might be able to beat the 100 miles down the coast to Auckland in time to meet up with Tiffany’s mom. So we set off south while Irie headed east dead into the wind to try and make it out to Poor Knights Island. The wind was lighter than forecast the first day and we averaged 3.5 knots on the 40 mile passage down to Urquhart Bay just inside of Bream Head downriver from Whangarei. Urquhart was an pretty ideal anchorage, but we just spent the night and took off at 8am to make the 55 mile passage down to Gulf Harbour marina. With stronger winds out of the east southeast, we ended up motor sailing half the way to make sure we made it in before dark. This was the first real test of my new motor mounts and unfortunately either one of the mounts is faulty or I just did a poor job aligning the engine. I went into the engine compartment to check on the autopilot and saw that the whole motor was shaking from the prop spinning as we were sailing through the water. The stuffing box was probably deflecting ½ inch to either side with each revolution. I’m pretty sure that I cutlass bearing is shot. It was fine back in December when I hauled last, but it looks like it’s trashed now. Fortunately we were able to sail all the way to the mouth of Gulf Harbour and only motored the last little bit into a slip. There’s a haulout yard not 100 yard from Bodhran right now, so I’ll check with them on Monday and see if I can’t get a haulout. It looks like it’s time to pull the engine yet again. At least Tiffany is taking off to tour around NZ with her mom for a few weeks. Hopefully I’ll be able to get everything done while she’s gone.

Sailing around Bream Head:

Sailing around Parua Bay:

Ahhhhhhhhhhh……can you feel that? Bodhran is actually a sailboat again. It’d been 14 months since Bodhran had last spread her wings. I wasn’t sure that she still remembered how. Well obviously I didn’t remember how to stow things properly. We didn’t break anything important on our inaugural sail, but the cabin sole looked like a yard sale and I did have a can of Boeshield T-9 explode leaving a nice sheen of oil over everything else that fell.

Bodhran back in her natural environs at Parua Bay:

Christian’s friend Michelle drove us out to a great secluded beach near Kauri Mountain:

So the original plan was to work on the boat in Whangarei until January 28th and then spend a week out at Great Barrier Island before heading into Auckland on February 5th to meet up with Tiffany’s mom. Well the sun was out and all the current projects were done, so I woke up Monday moring, told the marina office that we were checking out and 4 hours later we were on our way down river to Parua Bay. The wind was out of the Southeast, so sailing was out of the question, and Parua Bay was a bit bumpy, but it was so nice being out of the marina. The new to me Autohelm 6000 did a fine job steering most of the way. It’s ridiculously powerful for my boat, but better that than the alternative. The main reason for heading to Parua Bay was to meet up with Christian on Irie. Christian is another local boy from back in Bellingham, who is now a singlehander. We’re hoping to do some buddy boating together before he has to fly back and replenish his cruising kitty in late March.

Tiffany rounding Bream Head, Tate and I nearly got knocked down here 14 months ago:

The mighty Irie sailing along side:

So we spent two days in Parua Bay being as lazy as humanly possible. There was much cooking, swimming and card playing and we even got a little sail in, but there were just too many shoals around and so we only sailed for about half an hour. Then this morning, Irie and Bodhran pulled up their hooks and motored the last hour and a half down river and got back out to the Pacific Ocean. The wind was still out of the East Southeast, so we turned north and got a proper 20 mile sail in up to Tutukaka. With light wind and sloppy seas, the autopilot still did a fine job steering and Bodhran performed admirably after her year long hiatus. Unfortunately the wind is supposed to blow strong out of the Southeast for the next 3 days, so we’ll probably be here in Tutukaka at least through Sunday. Hopefully we’ll still have time to make it down to Great Barrier by the time the predominant Southwesterlies fill in.

As I’ve been spending the last 2 months repairing things that broke and improving things that bugged me while crossing the Pacific, I thought that I might reflect a bit on some modifications I made that really worked well. Here’s an incomplete list in no particular order:

• Pin rails – The pin rails give Bodhran a salty appearance, but have also turned out to be incredibly handy. I originally built them to store the halyards while at the dock so that I wouldn’t have to bungee them away from the mast at night. The pinrails perform this task admirably, but also keep the mast free of clutter while sailing as well. When I installed my removable lazy jacks, I didn’t install cleats on the mast, instead they just get the second forward on each side. My running backstays when not in use attach to the aftermost pin. My foreguy for whisker pole attaches to the foreward most pin both when in use and while stowed. You get the idea.

  

  The pinrails were fairly easy to build. First I got the bronze belaying pins from the Wooden Boat Foundation Chandlery. Then I took two mahogany 1×3s (teak would have been better) about 6 inches longer than the width of the lower shrouds where I wanted to attach them. I bolted them together and then drilled them out to accept the belaying pins. The I used a table saw to cut a 7/32” grove at an angle to match the shroud in one of the planks. Then just route the edges, slap some varnish on them and bolt them to the lower shrouds. The half without the groove compresses the wire into the grooved side to hold time in place.

• Chest high lifelines - Here’s an easy one I got from Brion Toss at a rigging workshop I took in Port Townsend. We all know that the knee high lifelines on a boat aren’t worth much unless you’re in really bad weather and are crawling forward, which I’ve certainly done my fair share of. Wouldn’t it be nice to have something there at a height that would actually stop you from falling overboard if you lost your balance instead of just tripping you further and sending you head over heels into the water? Well chest high lifelines are just the thing. Just last a d-ring to your cap shrouds at about shoulder height and then run a line from the bow pulpit, through the d ring and back to the pushpit, or even better the radar arch if you have one. They work even better on ketches, where you can attach a d-ring to the mizzen shrouds and keep the lifeline chest high for most of the boat. My lifelines cut in a bit right at the edge of the cabin top, but I never mind chafing against them at sea when I go forward, to the contrary it’s a nice feeling to be reminded that there’s something out there holding you in.

  

• Boom Gallows – Yeah, they’re pretty but they’re functional too. When I bought Bodhran the previous owner threw in a hunk of teak that he’d been meaning for years to turn into a gallows. Well it took me 4 years to get around to building one, but I’m sure glad I did. I picked up the bronze frames and bases from ABI and then used schedule 40 stainless for the uprights. My buddly Lou was kind enough to use his band saw to cut a nice curve into the wood and cut out the notches for the boom. Then I used PVC to mock the whole thing up and find the proper height so that boom would clear the gallows when raised. Then I clamped the rough cut teak in place and scribed the outline of the jaws, cut and fitted the wood, and slapped on some varnish.

  

  The Gallows is great while motoring in any kind of a seaway. It allows you to get the boom locked down solid and eliminates the creak as the boom sways back and forth. It does the same for those long downwind legs when you’ve just got the jib up or in those really hairy situations when you’ve got the main down and have the trysail up. With the boom sheeted tight against the gallows, the entire boom becomes a great handhold. The uprights also make great handhold when going forward from the cockpit.

• LED masthead light – Well this one is pretty easy. When I first took off in 2006 it was always really easy to find Bodhran in a crowded anchorage with her distinctive LED anchor light. Now it’s getting hard to find a boat that doesn’t have one. Those old incandescent lights draw almost as much current as my refrigeration and they aren’t as bright as the new LEDs. It amazes me that many people don’t use their nav lights while underway offshore because they draw too much current. I picked up my masthead light from SailorSolutions. They’re kinda pricey, but they only draw .2 amps and are very bright. I couldn’t be happier with this product.

• Monitor Install – Just like pretty much everyone else who owns a monitor, I’m in love with this thing. It steers a better course than I can in anything above 3 knots of apparent wind. Of course keeping the sails balanced has a lot to do with this, but I also believe that my install works particularly well as it eliminates a couple of extra blocks and keeps the friction in the system to a minimum. What I did was to install the monitor so that the base of the unit was even with the cockpit sole. I then glassed in two 1.5” PVC tubes between the transom and the cockpit. Instead of running the Monitor control lines through the frame of the windvane, I lashed to good roller bearing blocks to the frame. The control lines run from the steering oar, through my blocks, through the transom tubes and then through blocks on the cockpit sole directly below the wheel adapter. So each line only goes through 2 blocks and the control lines are out of the way and don’t pose a tripping hazard. I also got two more cockpit drains out of the measure. Surprisingly I haven’t ever noticed any water come in through these tubes even though I’ve done 1000s of miles downwind with sizable following seas.

  

• Mainsheet Traveler – When I bought Bodhran she had the end of boom “A frame” style mainsheet system with no traveler. The system worked. There was lots of mechanical advantage, I didn’t need a winch to sheet the main and having the sheet at the end of the boom is the best possible place for it to keep the boom from breaking if it ever dips in the water. On the other hand, I had miles of line for the main sheet and it would take the head off the helmsman whenever I gybed. It also prevented me from having a bimini over the cockpit, which really is essential in the tropics.

  

  So I decided on changing to a mid boom setup with a traveler. The Schaefer traveler with risers did a nice job of securing the traveler to the cabin top while clearing the companionway. Having the traveler forward means that you get much more control over the boom than you would if if you had a traveler at the end of the boom. As it turns out, whenever the seas are really running and I’m worried about the prevented boom hitting the water, I’ve got a double reef in and the boom is raised high enough that it hasn’t been an issue…..so far.

• Reefing Winch/Lazy Jacks – Being able to reef in a hurry is a the top of my priority list for offshore sailing. It’s right up there with self steering in order of importance. I’ve elected to keep my cockpit and decks as clean as possible and don’t run any of my lines aft. I use slab reefing with the aft lines for both the 1st and 2nd reef points run through individual turning blocks on the boom and lead forward to a double rope clutch and cheap nylon winch at the forward end of the boom. For the luff reef cringles, I use a 1/4” boom vang assembly attached to the base of the mast with a hook on the reefing hook on the end to place in the appropriate reef cringle. When it’s time to reef, everything is in one place. I ease the mainsheet, lower the mainhalyard to the appropriate point, winch in the after reefing line, put the hook in the luff reef point, pull tight on the 4-1 vang style setup, go aft and reset the mainsheet and I’m done. The whole thing normally takes less than a minute. My ease of reefing is greatly enhanced by my battenless mainsail and my retractable lazy jacks that keep the furled sail neatly on the boom. The battenless main allows me to reef on any point of sail without having to round up into the wind.

  

  

• Bow Roller – The stock bow roller on the Down East 32 is woefully inadequate. It just won’t accept large enough tackle for the boat. I picked up a 20KG Bruce, which has been a great anchor for Bodhran and used it as the start point for a new roller system. I decided to leave the original roller in place and still use it very effectively for my snubber line. I decided to instead cutout the aft section of the bow pulpit and install a double roller in it’s place comprised of a u shaped stainless plate over the bowsprit and two l shaped plates on the pulpit on either side. A hole was drilled through all 3 with a 20-something inch long bolt stretching from one side of the pulpit to the other for the new rollers to mount on. The system brings the weight of the anchor aft a bit, which I’m sure is good for the bowsprit, though the main pull is still on the snubber line and the original roller. It gets a little cramped getting my 35lb CQR secondary and my 44lb Bruce on there at the same time, but they do fit. The only real problem with this arrangement is that I periodically ding the gelcoat under the bowsprit when retrieving an anchor. A well placed metal plate on the bow would take care of this if I ever got around to it.