How to control my headsail’s furling line? This was one of my first challenges with our new C380. It was obvious that some sort of block and cleat arrangement was needed in that port cockpit area; but then a secondary question arose: how to accomplish this without drilling any holes in that beautiful fiberglass, and still keeping the furling line out from underfoot?
Without the ability to simply ask our great Sailnet email group [Sailnet didn’t exist and I didn’t even have a PC “back then”], I set about scrounging through my voluminous “junk box”. [Much to the Admiral’s chagrin, I save all sorts of “stuff”]. I decided to concentrate on attaching “something” to the genny foot block, as it seemed to be in a good location. After quite a few visualizing exercises, a plan developed: use a
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Dutchman Boom Brake Installation and Use Kevin Murray Mainsheet Date: 5/1/2005 Hull #: 88
The Dutchman Boom Brake is designed to control the speed of the boom as it crosses the boat during jibing. This can be a dangerous situation in moderate or higher winds. It also makes a great preventer for use when running downwind. As shown in Figure 1, this brake consists of three sheaves mounted between two plates in a triangular configuration; a line wraps around these in a serpentine fashion. The two upper sheaves are fixed and do not rotate; the lower sheave either rotates or is fixed depending on the setting of the control knob on the front of the device.
When the line running through the brake is tensioned, it grips the line with greater tension yielding more grip. By adjusting the knob and/or tension, more or less braking friction is in winds below
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Title:Boat Speed Under Power Author:Jim Jaeschke Date: 5/1/2005 Hull #: 73
Boat Speed Under Power – Engine/Transmission/Propeller Performance There has been a few lively discussions on the Sailnet C380+ list about how fast and at what RPM our boats will move under engine power. The bottom line is that your boat should cruise at 7+ knots at engine rev’s that promote long life. I’ll try to help you get there by discussing prop characteristics, tying in engine performance and, for the practical side: tachometer and boat speed instrumentation.
Instrumentation In order to know our boat’s motoring performance, we need reasonably accurate instrumentation. It has been reported that the tachometer on some boats has not been calibrated, resulting in erroneous RPM readings. It is important, not only for this discussion but also for engine life, that the tach indicate engine RPM correctly. If you suspect a problem, have your boat yard
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Maxwell Windlass There’s been quite a lot of discussion on our email list concerning operating problems with our windlasses. These are principally the clutch not releasing, jamming when rope/chain splices transit the chainwheel with the “Freedom” version and failure/stalling of the unit.
To release “stuck” clutches, some captains have had to undertake some severe hammer work, as advised by Maxwell. The answer here seems to be proper maintenance, with at least annual cleaning and greasing required. The rope/chain splice problem is best minimized by having a good, professional “thin” splice made up. Some captains report that pulling the anchor line during the critical splice transit helps. A great way around both of these issues is to go to an all chain rode and add a down switch. This way, there is no splice to jam, and the clutch never needs adjusting, just
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Companionway Door Options Author:Warren Elliott 8/1/2005 Hull #: 44
Mainsheet August 2005
Hi C380+ Captains, Admirals and Crews–
Here in the N.E,. thankfully, the new season is in full swing, with nice warm temps and some fair winds. Trust you’re all enjoying sailing. But, if anything is preventing your getting-out-there boat-wise, please contact me or sign into our Sailnet.com email discussion list where there’s a lot of captains ready to help.
This Mainsheet issue is devoted to four companionway treatments, most of which are “doors”. I must confess that I received much of the info a couple of years ago, so some of it is a bit dated, but still applicable. My apologies to the four captains, who may have expected to see their handiwork “somewhat” earlier. The first article is a fairly detailed one from Tom and Barbara Lincoln, who were sailing in the Bahamas. Lately, they are “sailing”
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A few notes for those of us with the Westerbeke 42B.
Raw Water Pump.
First, there is a new raw water pump, P/N 48080, which is a bit larger but directly replaces the old one, P/N 033636. From our Sailnet discussion group, here’s an email from one captain who went through the exchange: “The seals started to leak on my seawater pump so ordered a new one. Found out Westerbeke had replaced it with larger model. The frame and bolt holes match but the pump is larger, has a higher volume, and the impellers are not interchangeable. Just finished mounting the new one. Keep the 45-degree elbow on the inlet. The new pump comes with the 90 degree fitting on the outlet but not the 45. Everything fit and it works fine. Having the old one rebuilt for a spare. Don’t forget
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As a follow-up to Steve’s article, I did some further enquiries on spinnaker/jib poles and cars. For the older C380’s with Z-Spar masts, Julian Crisp at US Spars [was Z-Spar, tel: 386 462-3760] indicates that, for the standard [non-furling] mast, the cost is about $250 for a car and short section of track. They also sell the same track in a long version [4 meters], for those who want to store their boat’s pole on the mast. US Spars’ furling mast uses a simpler approach in which the car can be added directly to the mast groove, and is about $170; installing this car does not require stepping the mast. They also sell complete poles with fittings, at better prices than the big catalog stores, per Julian. [But remember that shipping long items means that a trucking
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Lee Berths for the Aft Cabin Jos Sonneville 2/1/2004 Hull #: 33
This article is from Jos Sonneville, a C380 captain residing in Holland. He gets out into “blue water” environments and finds a better rough-water sleeping set-up is helpful.–Warren
The aft cabin with the wide, comfortable bed is not an easy place to sleep when sailing through the night especially with moderate or serious seas. While it is possible to use, for example, sail bags to create a space where you do not roll around, it is not ideal. So I had been thinking about creating two lee berths in the aft cabin, without structurally changing the cabin.
Photo 3 shows an artist’s impression of the concept I came up with: on top of the mattress custom-made canvas lee-cloth ‘cocoons’ are installed. They are fixed on the bed itself by 1-inch webbing that is passed through stainless steel loops
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Filters for Drains George LaForge 2/1/2004 Hull #: 147
Regular cleaning of the inline shower bilge strainer is a task that is easily moved down a to-do list. The strainer’s out-of-sight location under the head sink and the difficulty in twisting the filter can contribute to a lack of cleaning. A simple, next-to-nothing cost project to prolong the cleaning interval is to silicone caulk a piece of nylon window screen over the drain in the shower stall. A quick wipe of the screen with a piece of tissue removes materials and hair that would otherwise be trapped in the under sink strainer.
Measure and cut a piece of nylon window screen the same dimensions as the shower’s stainless steel drain cover. Run a thin bead of silicone caulk around the edge of the drain plate and a few of the bars in the grid. Press the screen onto the drain
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Automating Refrigerator Startup and Shutdown with a Battery Combiner George LaForge 2/1/2004 Hull #: 147
We only run the refrigerator on Freebird when power is available from a charging source. That source is either dockside power or the engine alternator. I try never to run the refrigerator only from battery power. [George- maybe your fridge needs an insulation upgrade; Catalina has a procedure for installing expandable foam–Warren].
Not wanting to run down a battery, yet at the same time wanting to keep beverages cold, we developed a routine: as soon as the engine was started someone would need to go below and switch on the circuit breaker for the refrigerator. And after the engine was shut down someone would need to go below and switch off the breaker. Most of the time the problem was remembering to switch the breaker on when the engine was started.
One day while researching
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