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A tale of two windlasses

Dec 14th, 2011
by Sara.
1 comment

Looking back on all that needed to fall into place to get us where we are today — swinging in the hammock at anchor in our underwear in Banderas Bay 10 days before Christmas — we are continually amazed at all the serendipitous events that have occurred along the way. Even now as we approach our 6-month cruising anniversary we have been blown away at the good luck? divine intervention? that is keeping us going. When our windlass decided to throw in the towel 300 miles south of San Diego we started scanning the horizon for luck as we sure didn’t have any idea what else to do.

Wondertime came equipped with a manual Simpson Lawrence Seatiger 555 windlass. (For the non-boaties: this is basically a big winch that lives on the bow whose job is to hoist up hundreds of feet of our anchor chain and our 55 lb. anchor when it’s time to move on. “Manual” means it uses arm power, not electricity, to get the job done.) These units are legendary for being bulletproof and trustworthy and offer up a nice upper body workout to boot.

We had the same simple windlass on our previous boat, Pelican; we always were happy with the unit as it never let us down and were glad that Wondertime came equipped with the same model. Over the past months of putting our current windlass into full time use, however, it became clear that either we weren’t as strong as we were in our 20s (probably true) or our trusty winch was getting crankier and crankier. It continually has become more and more difficult to hoist up the anchor chain. Michael would fill the unit with fresh grease and it would improve for a bit but the windlass has continually been getting stiffer and even starting to jam if cranked too quickly.

In San Diego we put “replace or repair windlass” at the top of the list. It’s true we did search online and phone a variety of used marine gear stores for a replacement Seatiger but came up empty-handed. These units are now out of production, however we could buy a new one from a fellow in Scotland who used to work for Simpson-Lawrence and keeps a stock of spares and occasionally has an entire new 555 for sale — for about $3200 shipped. With this price in mind we started looking at installing a new electric (hurrah!) windlass but since our Seatiger fits perfectly on top of our bowsprit we’d have to do quite a bit of engineering to fit a different model of windlass.

With all this taken into consideration we made the — rather silly in hindsight — decision to do…nothing. At the time it made perfect sense: since we couldn’t fix it now we’d fix it later. Really though, we just hoped it would crank the chain up a few more times until we could get somewhere in Mexico where we could take the unit apart and have it rebuilt, the most economical solution.

It really is more fun to work on your boat in exotic places, even if a West Marine is nowhere nearby

In Turtle Bay, however, it was agonizingly slow as the windlass jammed again and again when we hoisted our chain the day we needed to move to the south side of the bay in anticipation of a southerly blow coming through the bay the next day. Clearly, it wouldn’t be prudent to put the project off any longer; if we needed to leave an anchorage quickly, say strong winds blowing through in the middle of the night as often happens off Baja, we would have to pull the chain in by hand or possibly be forced to drop our anchoring gear if conditions were bad enough.

It was largely for this reason that we sailed directly from Bahia Magdalena to Banderas Bay, which contains a plethora of services for cruisers and where we hoped to get our windlass rebuilt. We pulled into the marina in La Cruz near our friends on Del Viento and after the girls ran off to play we mentioned to Del Viento Michael that our first job here was to fix or replace our windlass (now feeling more than a little depressed that we’d not taken the job more seriously in San Diego). He told us: “Hey, I think there was a guy selling that same model at the swap meet last weekend. I almost bought it — he was only asking $150 — it seemed to work perfectly!”

Our spirits buoyed, Wondertime Michael borrowed their dinghy to zip out to the anchorage where the seller was moored to see if he still had the windlass, but he wasn’t home at the time. The next morning we got on the 8:30 am cruiser’s VHF net and asked about the windlass and if it was still available to which another cruiser replied “Sorry, but I bought it!”

Dammit.

Our new-to-us Seatiger 555 is installed and we are anchored out again. (Why do we have toothpick-encrusted swim noodles strapped to our bow? Because pelican poop is really hard to scrub off the bowsprit and pelicans hate toothpicks in their feet!)

So we were quickly on to Plan B. After a few days at the dock we figured that we may as well go out and anchor, drop the chain with the windlass and then take it off to start the process of rebuilding it. We found a nice spot on the outer edge of the anchorage, set the hook well and then Michael got busy taking off the old Seatiger. He’d just got it removed when suddenly there was another boat right next to us. Turns out we’d anchored next to someone on 300′ of rode who had a WIDE swinging circle and we’d need to re-anchor.

This time, Michael did pull up the chain by hand and we promptly motored back to the dock as he swore he’d never do that again.

We pulled into a slip on dock 4 (the lower rent district, the marina office had informed us as we’d left dock 9 earlier in the day). Some nearby cruisers came over to help us with our lines.

“Oh boy!” one of the chaps said when he saw the mess on our bow. “You really do need that windlass more than I do!”

Turns out he was the one who’d bought the used Seatiger at the previous week’s swapmeet with plans to rebuild it one day. And he kindly sold it to us for the same price he paid. We were floored to say the least.

Our new-old Seatiger 555 is now securely mounted atop our bow and is as smooth as can be and hoists our chain and anchor up in no time. Another stroke of serendipity — not to mention the outrageous kindness of fellow sailors — and we’re ready to go again.

September 2011 Cruising Expenses

Oct 16th, 2011
by Sara.
3 comments

September was definitely not a typical month budget-wise but it still hurts more than a little to look at the numbers. We’d been putting off several major items for our arrival in the Bay area, namely purchasing a new dinghy and adding two additional solar panels. But even not including those two items we’re still well above $2k. I guess we may have had a little too much fun in San Francisco! We did have access to a car for a day so we did major stock-up trips to Costco and Trader Joes; I’m sure a lot of what we purchased will be consumed months from now. Or maybe not…we are amazed at how much two little girls eat!

S/V Wondertime’s September 2011 Cruising Expenses

allowance (Leah) – $10
boat insurance – $54
boat stuff – $3,866
books – $15
car rental – $55
cat supplies – $44
cell phone – $23
computer – $76
diesel – $477
eating out – $337
fishing gear – $7
gas for dinghy – $41
groceries – $1,344
kindle – $150
laundry – $34
moorage – $122
postage – $14
propane – $20
souvenirs – $134
supplies – $55
toys – $26
transportation – $29
welding – $75

total: $7,008

Books as ballast

Jun 6th, 2011
by Sara.
6 comments

Wondertime's bookshelf. Already a bit crowded....

With nearly all systems ready and the standing rigging replacement just about complete, Michael and I have been left to concentrate on tucking away the hundreds of pounds of spare parts, tools, clothes, sails, toys, art supplies and books we want to take along into Wondertime’s cubbies. As it currently stands, by the time we get around to packing the food on board it appears that we’ll all be stuffing our pillows with dried rice and pasta. But as always, I’m sure everything will find it’s place eventually.

My job this week is to sort through the eight crates of books that have been in our storage locker and make the painful choice as to which ones go with us, which ones stay in their crates and which ones go on to new homes. This is no easy task: I’ve already weeded out our book collections many times previously, moving from house to house and then onboard Wondertime last year. The remaining ones are our very favorites and now it’s time to weed through them and pick out our very very favorites.

Today, I sorted through our three crates of sailing books. This actually wasn’t too difficult as many of them are collectibles we’ve already read so I easily filled a crate with those books. Others were outdated (but beloved) guidebooks from past cruises, favorite old “how to go cruising” books (before we found out the only way to really find out how to go cruising is to GO cruising), and a variety of reference books that we haven’t cracked since Google was invented. Another crate holds our favorite sailing stories. I will no doubt miss these and yearn to reread many as we travel (I am sure a fourth reading of Maiden Voyage is in my future). I am also fairly certain we will procure ourselves a Kindle or Nook at some point so I am just going to have faith that I’ll be able to access these stories easily one day even as they are tucked safely away in our storage closet in Olympia.

Finally, the chosen few were selected and packed into a relatively small cardboard box for transport afloat: Charlie’s Charts of Mexico, our Mexico Lonely Planet guides, Nigel Calder’s Boatowner’s Mechanical and Electrical Manual, our British Columbia cruising guides, a book on celestial navigation, our Storm Tactics Handbook, Spanish for Cruisers. Wondertime’s bookshelf space is at a premium and while I am the type of person that just loves to have books around because they look nice, only the ones that will actually be read and used make the cut.

That done, I am now moving on to my cookbooks, fiction books, general reference books, children’s picture books and children’s chapter books. I have a sneaking suspicion that there is going to be yet another round of book sorting.

An addition to the fleet

May 16th, 2011
by Sara.
1 comment

Almost the entire summer last year we scoured Craigslist in search of a sailing dinghy. At the time, we didn’t have any intention of taking one cruising with us (where on earth would we put it?)  but we yearned for a little sailing boat to take out after work or on the weekend, one we could rig up quickly and be off sailing in minutes, unlike the hours it takes to get the big boat ready. Besides, sailing little boats is such a sweet lovely pastime: the big boat takes us places but a little 8′ or 10′ boat would just take us around in quiet joyful circles. Our search for a small, affordable boat was fruitless and before we knew it fall had arrived and it was soon much too chilly to mess around on the water much.

With so many projects underway and tasks to check off we haven’t even had time to think about starting up the search for a small sailing boat this spring. But what has happened so many times to us happened again: what we stopped searching for found us. This past weekend our dock neighbors and friends, also a liveaboard family of four, found a great deal on a larger fiberglass sailing dinghy. They’d toted a Walker Bay 10 with them all around the Puget Sound, sailing around countless anchorages with all four family members plus their dog aboard. We were honored when they asked if we’d like to have their beloved dinghy.

Of course we gratefully accepted, rigged the little boat up, bundled up the girls and Michael was off with them on their first dinghy sail. She scooted along our bay in about 5 knots of wind. “We’re gliding!” Leah beamed as they silently circled the bay. It was not the type of dinghy we had been searching for, but with the incredibly easy sailing rig, stable and indestructible hull our new little Walker Bay seems to be just right for now. Besides, with four people on board we are bound to need more tenders.

Michael is on the aft deck as I type this, taking measurements to see if we can fit some davits to accommodate our growing fleet. Looks like we may be cruising with a sailing dinghy after all.

A light, a friendship, and a job done

May 2nd, 2011
by Sara.
2 comments

Eric and Angela, s/v Rouser (Tenacatita)

When we were getting ready to set off cruising in 2002, we received an innocent email from a couple also gearing up to head south that year. The crew of s/v Rouser, Eric and Angela, lived south of us in Olympia (we were still in Seattle at the time), had just found our blog, and were excited to find another couple getting ready to set sail that was also well south of retirement age (27). Since we had never sailed to the south Puget Sound before, we took a week in late July that year to meander down that way and get a personal tour of the town of Olympia from our new friends. We hit it off right from the start and made plans to meet up again in San Francisco in a few weeks. Which we did: right after Michael and I passed under the Golden Gate, Eric and Angela zoomed out in their dinghy off Sausalito to greet us, having arrived the week before.

We sailed together for the most part of the next six months, exploring southern California and the Channel Islands, sailing across the US/Mexican border together, Baja California, crossing over to mainland Mexico to Puerto Vallarta, then down to our most southern anchorage of Tenacatita, where we stayed for a month in January-February 2003. I remember countless evenings spent with what soon felt like old friends: laughter and food and drinks, hikes, exploring small dusty Mexican towns, our New Years road trip inland to Guanajuato, bonfires and music on the beach, sailing side by side to a new destination.

And then, as it always does with while cruising, it came time to say farewell. Rouser was preparing to puddle jump to the Marquesas that spring and had decided to sail farther south to Zihuatanejo to depart from. We were heading north to spend spring in the Sea of Cortez. The day had come when we had to part ways.

It was a teary afternoon; we said our goodbyes quickly. We said we would keep in touch via email (which we did) and visit together in the future (which we have). Angela is from Minnesota so we gave them a copy of Lake Wobegon Days to read on their way across the much bigger lake. They gifted us with a nice tri-color/anchor light that they had as a spare, inscribed. I think Michael had always lamented that Pelican did not have a tri-color at the top of her mast, which would be much more visible at night than our deck-level navigation lights when sailing. We were touched that our friends wanted us to be visible too.

Eric and Angela made it all the way to New Zealand, and we made it all the way back to Seattle. Our gift never made it to the top of Pelican’s mast for reasons I can’t recall now. But we’ve toted that bubble-wrapped light around with us for eight years, through another boat and two houses. Now on Wondertime we were hardly surprised to find out that she didn’t feature a nice tri-color light, but a burned-out rusty single anchor light at the top of her mast.

Now she does. Our beloved gifted tri-color light is sporting new high-efficiency LED bulbs up at the top of Wondertime’s mast. We now shine brightly in the night sky. Friendship made visible.

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