I forgot to mention on this pages that last weekend a new contribution of mine about full-time sailing went live on Wand’rly, a magazine about how to live simply to live big.
Condensating two years of traveling on the ocean in one long article was a difficult task, despite knowing exactly what happened and having a lot of notes and pictures of those 24 months and 5000 miles of sailing.
The article became part of an issue of the magazine dedicated to live aboard full-time sailing, which included the fantastic series that Kate wrote for Wand’rly in 2013/2014, at the beginning of our adventure.
I decided to pick up the torch and tell what happened next.
Nathan, Editor-in-Chief of the magazine, was pleased with this dual literary voice and asked if we wanted to contribute with two blog post a month starting from July.
Kate and I picked up the challenge and now we are in trouble!
We started our brainstorming on interesting topics to cover in the blog posts.
Do you have any suggestions? Send us a note by commenting on this post!
People have always a lot of questions about sailing. The most frequently asked I believe is the one that tries to shine a light on why one spends a long while out of touch, traveling slowly through a deserted place aboard an uncomfortable vessel.
The question comes in many forms, and I think the following blunt example is a good one: Don’t you get bored out there in the ocean?
Sooner or later everyone who seems to enjoy longer offshore sailing becomes the recipient of this inquiry, as the use of this uneconomical and obsolete form of transportation puzzles the majority of non-sailors.
The question throws me a little off every time, but I have been asked it often enough that I developed a set of responses.
At first I try to describe the experience of crossing an expanse of water by exalting the fact that the ocean is never really the same and every wave that comes and go, every cloud in the sky, lightning, fish jumping or bird gliding is a gift of an ever changing earth.
If that does not do the job, there are some iconic examples I throw in to illustrate the attractive of ocean sailing, i.e. how spectacular and inspiring is to witness the darkest nights unveiling our vast universe, or the poetic and astounding reflection of the moon on the black sea, images that invoke the feeling of being in connection with nature, a nurturing experience that grants access to a sense of cosmic fulfillment.
Then I surrender and admit that yes, it’s pretty boring out there.
SAILING IS BORING
There is nothing to do, you are too far away from the coast to check Facebook or Twitter, shuffle around shows and movies, you can’t really call anybody as it’s way too expensive, you can’t buy anything nor read the latest news on your favorite topics, or any topic, and the beauty of the environment can and will get shadowed by its monotony.
I can sympathize with non-sailors’ bewilderment, as I recognize it’s a behavior so very hard to understand. Why would anybody undergo this deliberate exposure to boredom?
Well, one reason could be the sense of accomplishment. If the voyager wants to reach the intended destination which sits across a long stretch of water – conventionally sailing a boat from point A to point B – the boredom of standing watch hour after hour, day after day, week after week becomes a necessity.
The goal itself must be so rewarding that the atrocity of the experience surrenders to its intrinsic reward, otherwise soon enough something more entertaining will take over. Flying is also a more convenient way to achieve the same result.
This may explain the motivation of a certain type of goal-oriented sailor that value the discovering of a new place, but it does tell nothing about who truly enjoys being out there for an extended period of time in solitary confinement.
This second type of sailor may respond better to the argument that sailing is so good that every minute is totally worth it. During an ocean passage there is very little actual sailing happening, with the main tasks consisting in watching the boat doing its job. It is more or less like driving a car with cruise control on a straight highway with no traffic.
The experience and the work to sail a boat change with weather conditions. Storms and other natural fluctuations give a momentary burst of adrenaline and actions, sails gets changed or furled or reefed, to an otherwise monotonous overall experience. Even in the case of the crazy sailor who seek to sail in year long stormy places like the Southern Ocean, a situation of normalization takes place and the stormy weather turn into the only reality, dull and repetitive.
French ocean voyager Bernard Moitessier once wrote; “I hate storms, but calms undermine my spirits”. Not very many people can claim to be more at home on a boat in the ocean than the French sailor, who once, out of disgust for celebrity and maybe society itself, did an extra half a lap around the globe after pulling out of the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race he was winning. But even Moitessier, apparently, was challenged by boredom at sea.
Single-handed sailors might get the full deal, but other crew member don’t necessary become source of relief, as soon as the days pass, the arguments and stories become trite and superfluous to the point that silence becomes preferable.
Early existentialist Søren Kierkegaard pointed out a while ago how company is not alone sufficient to contain boredom:
“Adam was bored because he was alone; therefore Eve was created. Since that moment, boredom entered the world and grew in quantity in exact proportion to the growth of population. Adam was bored alone; then Adam and Eve were bored together; then Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel were bored en famille. After that, the population of the world increased and the nations were bored en masse.” Either/Or, 1843
In a sense, offshore sailing becomes a perverse activity as the seafarer would deem a passage successful when there is as little intervention as possible. Uneventful becomes the highest grade allowed for judging an ocean passage. For exciting and action packed sailing one should look into afternoon sails in a busy bay or taking part in a club race.
Another objection to the fact that sailing is not so boring in the end, is that on a sailboat there is always a job to do, either because every activity is difficult and takes longer – every task has to be accomplished while simultaneously hold onto something – or because things tend to break quite regularly. Even when no immediate action is required there is a lot of preventative maintenance and routine checks to keep you entertained and busy.
But boredom still gets you in this scenario, you don’t feel like working all the time as it’s true in many different settings in life. Checking and tightening that bolt again, or making sure that valve does not leak soon becomes very tedious. Procrastination finds its prominent role even in the middle of the ocean, and having nothing better to do does not seem to act as motivation to keep you busy.
There is not need to cross an ocean to embrace such experience. A 48 hours passage can be dull and uneventful enough to provide some serious boredom and challenges.
During many miles at sea, the mind focuses obsessively on the destination even when there are still miles to cover, or indulges in considering past events, problems, ideas, injustices, hatred, remorse a collection of forgotten episodes of life that come back in wave trains. Self-examination becomes unavoidable and open the doors to some very uncomfortable thoughts and feelings.
American author Robert M. Pirsig who struggled with mental health throughout his life, had tried sailing crossing the Atlantic twice on his Westsail 32, and leaving behind a brief and exemplary short essay written for Esquire in 1977.
As one lives on the surface of the empty ocean day after day after day after day and sees it sometimes huge and dangerous, sometimes relaxed and dull, but always, in each day and week, endless in every direction, a certain understanding of one’s self begins slowly to break through, reflected from the sea, or perhaps derived from it. “Cruising Blues and Their Cure”
BOREDOM IS GOOD
I understand this is a blog about sailing, and that maybe a long dissertation about boredom may not be of general interest. Going a little deeper in exploring the relationship between time and boredom may help in the end to underline the totally boring character of offshore sailing, and why it makes it so good and sought after, at least by a small group of dedicated people.
I am also tired to give fake answers about starry skies, moonlights and ever changing waves, and I am myself looking for a better explanation.
My biggest surprise when I set to write this post, is that there is a ton of material online about boredom, some coming from the most brilliant minds that had ever stepped on this planet.
Contrary to common sense, boredom is also hip, boredom is cool. The wishy-washy entertainment and news publishers make boredom look not boring at all, worth to win a click by a bored audience. Apparently among the benefits of boredom I found that enhances creativity, promotes pro-social behavior, and changes of behavior in general.
But the greatest help in understanding boredom’s realist and mechanics comes from extremely boring people, philosophers and authors in general, people who spent a lot of their time escaping boredom and pondering about stuff.
Martin Heidegger is probably the author who dedicated most pages to the topic. Trying to summarize (and banalize) the German philosopher’s conception of boredom it would sound a bit like: I am bored, therefore I exist.
He makes the example of waiting for a train: In doing nothing on the platform, without distractions saving from the passing of time, boredom becomes so evident that acquires almost physical substance. What in reality is happening is that we are experiencing time itself, which for some reason we are not equipped to understand or dominate. It is also curious that in his native language the word for boredom, Langweile, literally means “ a long while”.
Without boring you too much, Heidegger strongly believed that boredom was the perfect way of access to “the essence of human time”, which access could lead to “waking up to ourselves”.
Luckily commuters who use trains often learn how to cope with this sensation and become better and better in absorbing its impact. However most of it is in reality just cheating. A book, newspaper, the smartphone, mp3 players and such, all avoid rather acclimate us to the feeling, contributing to strengthen the allergy to boredom. All this Heideggerian “waking up to yourself” is rejected completely by contemporary commuters.
For the severe moralist Bertrand Russell, the more we escape this fear the more difficult is to develop a character. The British philosopher, who also did some prison time, considers boredom something that toughen you up:
“A generation that cannot endure boredom will be a generation of little men, of men unduly divorced from the slow process of nature, of men in whom every vital impulse slowly withers as though they were cut flowers in a vase.” Bertrand Russell
In this inability to withstand the attack of boredom, he sees the danger of excitement, of consumption of objects and experiences that make people more and more desensitized and also exhausted, as the search to increasingly intense forms of excitement is never ending.
Raw time doesn’t bode well for people, and at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it, or better said by it’s avoidance. It is also the case of being busy no-matter-what, which is incredibly easily exploited. This was the opinion of home-schooled French mathematician Blaise Pascal who famously wrote in his Pensées:
“All of humanity’s problem stem from man’s inability to sit quiet in a room alone”
Despite all our efforts boredom will find a way in. It will make binge watching TV shows tiring and dull, reading another page difficult, going out for a beer with friends the same old story. We can escape boredom only to a point.
Russian-born Nobel Prize Josef Brodsky dedicated a whole commencement address at Darmouth College to the topic of boredom, in which he encourages to embrace it, go through it, to hit the bottom with it, instead of making the research for alternatives a full-time expensive activity.
“[boredom] is your window on time’s infinity. Once this window opens, don’t try to shut it; on the contrary, throw it wide open. For boredom speaks the language of time, and it is to teach you the most valuable lesson of your life- the lesson of your utter insignificance” Listening to boredom, 1995
Academics tell us it is important to deal with boredom, but its consequences are dire and unpleasant. Boredom deprives us of basic emotions like fear, joy, anger, delivering an internal landscape of vast platitude and deafening silence. We resort in looking outside for a stimulus, something to grip on to be carried away to a more pleasant, less empty reality, even watching season two of Westworld becomes entertaining, while in reality it’s a dreadfully useless show.
This is the power of boredom. It’s a reset, a cleanse, an update of meaning bestowed upon us by the meaningless time.The deprivation of stimuli forces the mind to stay awash in the passing of time, it gives us back control on our own mind, which can be consciously directed, instead of followed unintentionally to the next source of excitement.
SAILING IS GOOD
Sailing is seen as an escape from the monotony of the rat race, and while novelty and excitement will improve mood and lookout on life in the short term, soon an even graver monotony and inescapable boredom will creep in.
Paradoxically the biggest lessons I got from offshore sailing came from its boring parts.
When I am removed from the media pipeline, the joys and miseries of human contact, and I’m confronted with the indifference of nature I have little that shelters me from face-to-face encounters with boredom. The day and what to do with it is my responsibility, so it’s where to direct my mind. Control is still an option, it becomes the only option.
Matt Rutherford which I interviewed for Psychology of Sailing, described his attitude during his solo Round the Americas when he spent 309 days non stop at sea. He said that during the exploit he consciously tried to be in a sort of middle zone, a mental state that would not bring him too high in the joy realm, or too low in the upset pit:
I got bored out of my mind crossing the Atlantic at one point during both trips. You don’t want yourself go in a certain place mentally. You don’t want to be in extreme joy because if you do you can open up the doorway to extreme depression. If you go in one direction then the pendulum will swing both ways. I was trying to stop the pendulum staying in the middle. It’s a bit of a blasé attitude you accept that whatever happen happens. You have to be very accepting, accept when things break without being too upset, and be thankful when something good happens. Matt Rutherford
Offshore sailors go through the troubles of hard work, organizational hassles and costly preparation to experience days of unobstructed contact with time, almost impossible to replicate in other settings where a minimum of involvement with Society is required.
Many who love this activity feel at ease in that setting, and they look forward to it. The ocean is a space that cuts off from both what it had been and what it will be, where monotony becomes a resource, and where time is abundant, eternal, infinite. It’s a great opportunity to learn how to deal with time, rather than fill it in.
RESOURCES:
Martin Heidegger:
Heidegger, M., (1983)The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics,
I could find many reasons behind our decision to purchase a Columbia 29 for bluewater cruising. Her presence on many of the most popular internet lists of small-go-anywhere-sailboats was a supporting evidence of her qualities.
She appeared on James Baldwins’ list on the website Atom Voyages, that we found particularly sage on the subject of cruising on small sailboats.
Another guideline was the mantra received by Dave, one of my favorite sailing instructor and talented racer, who once told me that designer Sparkman&Stephens never failed a boat.
Third, and very important for our budget, was Tranquility’s bargain price.
Questionable decisions
Spending part of my career as skipper of busy charter sailboats gave me knowledge and experience on equipment update and ordinary maintenance of a sailing vessel.
While shopping for a boat I was aware how an inexpensive, turn-key boat is nothing but a mirage. Even few years old boats can give the new owners a lot of headache as the marine environment is pretty harsh on equipment.
In the face of this knowledge, I should have known better what a tremendous task was to bring such an old boat back to life.
Tranquility is a Columbia 29 MKI built in 1965 in Portsmouth VA. From the scant information we could collect about her history, she had been based in the New England area for most of her life and she was sailed to the Caribbean (via Bermuda) and Nova Scotia by one of her owners before she started to pass in many hands in the most recent times.
What was left of her was a boat in need of a serious rehab. We knew that if we wanted to achieve our goal of living aboard and sailing offshore, we had to pour a lot of sweat and finances into that good old boat.
At least with Tranquility we had the opportunity to start from scratch. Laying on a private yard under a plastic tent, she set off our wildest fantasies on how we would transform her in a live aboard long distance cruising sailboat.
The bare naked condition of the boat made our survey easier, and we were pleased with her general sound structure.
The hull was sound and the deck didn’t show any particular weakness. The main spars were also good, and we had already in our mind to replace the standing rigging anyway.
The line and the proportions of the design conquered our hearths and we felt the interior had a rational layout.
During a holiday trip in Italy to visit my family, Kate and I decided to make our offer.
Getting ready to work
The deal was closed during the snowy New England winter and we became the new owners of a boat with primed hull and deck, standing and running rigging laying on stands and an electric inboard motor with a dubious battery bank.
The rest of the parts had been disassembled by the seller during his refit and included in the deal, but it was only after tackling the first projects that we realized that some of them were outdated or in need of a replacement.
He had advised us not to buy the boat in the first place, but Tranquility’s call was irresistible, so he followed up trying to give us another good advice: pick your battles.
The interior was kept original, with a slightly offset teak companionway giving access to a long side galley and an ample dinette / settee on the port side.
The floor had some visible rot, probably from water coming from the mast wires entering the cabin sole. Electrical system and plumbing needed a complete overhaul.
We had to wait few more months for winter to dissipate and to save enough money before we could lay our hands on her.
I sailed to the Caribbean on a yacht delivery and kept working the winter season on big yachts on the islands. Kate was still working in NYC, preparing to leave her apartment and implement all the necessary steps to move from a life on land onto a future afloat.
The boat was moved to a boatyard and as spring came we began our feverish work on her.
We budgeted 6 months for our refit project and during this hard work time we had to learn a lot about our new boat.
We soon realized that if we wanted to leave New England before the icing winter, we would have to cut some corners and make compromises, working fast in certain departments, and definitely following the advice of picking our battles.
First refit: May 2013 – November 2013
The very first project was to remove the wheel steering system and replacing it with a tiller.
Fortunately the rudder stock was still coming through the cockpit floor as an emergency backup. All I had to do was to remove the pedestal, wheel, pulleys and quadrant, cables and fiberglass a pipe to the cockpit sole in place of the old and worn out shaft seal.
With this modification we gained more leg room in the cockpit as well as more space underneath the floor.
A tiller was also preferred as an easier installation for a wind vane self steering gear, that we were intending to add in the future.
Before starting to re-installing deck hardware, deadlights and portholes, we proceeded to paint the deck and the hull.
We chose one part enamel for the topsides, so we could work a little faster. We had to put together electrical system, plumbing, and invent most of the solutions without having the chance to sail the boat first.
Some of the fixes were considered “temporary”, and they were done considering time of execution and prioritizing safety over aestethic.
The interior was kept original, mostly because we had no time to deal with it and Kate made her best to infuse some cuteness into those fifty year old surfaces.
In the galley we modified the existing layout to install a two burner propane range with oven. I had found a great deal on a second hand Force 10 stove and I took the executive decision to buy it.
Kate and I had a bit of an argument about this project as she put a lot of value in the storage area we were about to sacrifice. I was sure about the importance of a good stove for living aboard and insisted. She and I never regretted the decision.
Used and new items started to arrive from the internet, chandlery stores, marine consignments, friends and acquaintances, without much time to think.
The feeling that we were randomly slapping things on the boat started to creep on us, however we made sure before setting sail that three departments would receive most of our attention and funds: rigging, sails and auxiliary propulsion.
Inboard electric motor
One major gamble was the electric inboard propulsion Tranquility was equipped with.
I never had experience with such set up before and I felt completely illiterate.
After hours spent researching about electric propulsion, mainly on the internet, we decided to go ahead and give it a try, knowing that it would be easy to place an outboard engine on the transom if we were not happy with it.
The motor installed is a brushed system assembled and sold by Electric Yacht, with the maximum output power rated at 5kW.
The conversion happened in 2008, and we found an interesting video on You Tube about it.
The very first step was to assess the battery bank. The eight 6v golf cart batteries that came in the deal were spent and one froze during the winter.
We searched the best solution we could afford considering all the available options on the US market.
I spent the nights after working on the boat to read as much as I could on the Internet and made several calls to the major battery manufacturers and distributors.
Kate made cardboard mock ups of each each different brand and model, trying to fit the necessary power and voltage in the available space down below.
The best solution appeared to be a 48v LiFePO4 battery bank, but unfortunately it was totally out of our budget.
For practical reasons we picked 6v lead acid batteries. In case of failure of one of the batteries, a typical 6v “golf cart” battery would be less hard to find in different place of the world than a more sophisticated and expensive alternative.
Finally we purchased, transported, lifted and installed a total of more than 500 lb. of Trojan T-125 6v batteries, connecting them in series to obtain 48volts and a total capacity of 240ah.
New battery compartment were created in the engine room and under one of the settee in the main salon.
Although not ideal, the new set up had a more balanced distribution of the weight onboard, as well as a better access to key parts of the interior like the propeller shaft, that was completely inaccessible with the previous installation.
In theory and considering ideal conditions, we were expecting a range of 15 miles and a cruising speed of 3,5knots from this set up.
Cutter rig
The Columbia 29 was originally designed as a sloop but the rig of the boat was later modified by designer Eric Sponberg to satisfy the desire of a previous owner who wanted a cutter rig.
According to the drawings that the designer kindly mailed us, the rig was beefed up with external chain plates thru-bolted to the hull and backed with thick stainless steel plates.
The diameter of the shrouds was increased to 1/4 inch, and an inner forestay and two lower aft shrouds were added for the staysail.
The headsail had a roller furling system, an old continuous line Hood model, but in good working order.
The mast itself had been replaced with one from a different sailboat and had fixed steps on it.
We thought that this rig configuration was sturdy and redundant, ideal for us, and I always thought that the practicality of mast steps overtake the disadvantages (rig noise and windage).
On our side we sought the experience and the eye of a professional rigger to measure and order new cables and fittings that we later installed by ourselves.
Sails
With the limited range of our motor it became important to give Tranquility a very good set of new sails. We chose to order from Lee Sails in Hong Kong after a recommendation from a friend. We ordered a 100% furling yankee, a staysail and a full battened mainsail.
It was kind of awkward to take measurements with the stick down but with the careful advice of the sailmakers we came up with a successful set of brand new sails, that were promptly manufactured and delivered.
Once we dressed our boat with the new sails we were so pleased that later we chose again Leesails for a cruising gennaker and a storm staysail to completed our sail inventory.
In search of better weather
With the boat put together as quickly as we could, but with the most important departments covered, we had to sail away fast as our 6 months project had stretched to mid November and the South Coast of Massachusetts started to turn very unwelcoming to boaters.
With an experienced third crew member, my friend Roberto, we left Fairhaven MA on November first sailed to Block Island and waited there for a good weather window that came luckily a couple of days later when we set sail to Norfolk, VA.
From there Roberto left and Kate and I continued to play “cat and mouse” with the polar vortex fronts that were making incursions south during that winter, alternating between offshore passages and ICW runs.
With our limited range under power we had to cover most of the distance sailing offshore. After a cold but beautiful offseason cruising along most of the East Coast, we eventually found safe harbor in Brunswick, GA.
There we resumed the customization of our little boat, while also replenishing our pockets with temporary jobs.
Second refit: January 2014-May 2016
After living and sailing on Tranquility for six months we gain a better knowledge of the boat and we started to tackle all the problems we didn’t have time or money to address before.
In particular, we knew where the leaks were and what we didin’t find safe or comfortable.
The South Coast of Georgia offered year round fair weather for boat work and the local presence of James Baldwin was a good benchmark for our ideas and their realization.
Before we knew, we were landlocked in our new location, but we were motivated to keep working hard on our little vessel. The company of fellow boaters and new friends made the task less arduous.
It took us more than 2 years of part time boat work (with the last four months working full time on the refit) to reach a satisfactory point.
Since the day we bought the boat, almost everything onboard has been replaced, patched or restored.
Interior
As we stepped back to live on land it was easier for me to deal with the more dusty and destructive jobs.
We started working inside the boat, fixing an issue with the compression post and rotted floors.
Kate had noticed a little flex in the cabin sole right under the mast during our progress south. After tearing apart the old plywood floor, it turned out that the rot was attacking a hardwood beam propped across the bilge, that was the sole support of the compression post.
Digging a little more into the floor I discovered a gap between the structural beam and the bilge floor. I decided to fill the void with a solid teak wedge, that I glued with epoxy and fiberglassed on top of the bilge to prevent any further compression from the deck.
The rotted floor and other parts of the cabinetry were then rebuilt using new plywood saturated with epoxy.
This open heart surgery around the bilge was also a good opportunity to clear up some fiberglass peelings, reinforce tabbing around the bulkheads and give the bilge a final fresh painting, using two part primer and two coats of Bilgekoat.
On port side right after the companionway, the chart table area, engine room and battery storage needed a new more rational design that maximized space and weight distribution.
The goal was accomplished modifying the companionway ladder, building a new wider floor, new battery boxes to house the eight batteries for the electric propulsion and new cabinets.
Most of the job was done utilizing plywood for the panels and teak hardwood for the trims. The new chart table is bigger, with two level of storage below it and in the surrounding paneling that accomodate instruments and hide the electrical wiring.
The Jabsco Marine head with holding tank and all hose was removed and we installed a composting toilet wedged in the V-berth cutout.
We planned to build our own composting toilet, but time constraints and the need to finish other projects made us choose a commercial one.
C-head offered different sizes, and we picked a model that would fit in our V berth since we are not using it as a sleeping area.
The space freed was transformed into storage. Later during the yard period, the two thru-hulls of the old head were permanently glassed.
We have been very happy with the modification and the choice of a composting head.
Deck
On deck I proceeded designing a new layout and removing the hardware.
I wanted to restore the beautiful teak that was on the fore hatch, companionway, sea-hood, and the lazarette hatch.
Even if they served us during our maiden trip it was clear they would not last much longer.
The fore hatch and the lazarette hatch were rebuilt from scratch with new teak and plywood, while later I salvaged some of the still solid teak of the companionway and the sliding hatch and using new wood for some too worn out parts.
Luckily most of the solid teak had weathered but maintained its strength and beauty.
The old toe-rail also was made with teak that needed a lot of work. The protruding fiberglass bulwark was covered with three strips of teak forming a horseshoe cap. Age and stress had splintered and ruined the wood that needed to be replaced.
After purchasing cheap teak (beware, there is no such a thing!) I decided it wasn’t good enough to keep it bare, so I opted for a mixed approach: I glued a sandwich of teak strips to the fiberglass bulwarks with thickened epoxy; the wood was kept in place by more than a 100 fasteners while curing and later was covered by two layers of fiberglass tape. Fairing a painting with two part marine paint completed the job.
The bulwarks are a nice feature on the Columbia 29, as they give a secure footstep when the boat heels. There were few places where the bulwarks became an obstacle though, and that was mainly the bow, where anchor roller, bow stem and bowsprit where, and the corners on the top of the transom.
To improve those areas I cut off 1 1/2 inch of bulwark with an angle grinder and created a surface glassing solid teak scrap pieces on the deck.
At the bow it created an easier surface to install the anchor roller and the new retractable bowsprit to fly light air sails; on the stern I had a better place to attach the two bow cleats.
All the parts are dry-fit before being fiberglassed in place
The Lousy cockpit locker drainage system
The fiberglassing
Cockpit
I built an integral fiberglass tank under the cockpit floor, accessible through a sealed aluminum hatch and made with plywood bulkheads, fiberglass and epoxy.
The new tank has a capacity of 32 gallons bringing the total fresh water supply to 57.
The outside lockers (lazarette and cockpit locker) were also improved: made watertight and isolated from the rest of the boat.
New cockpit locker drainage channels, fabricated using fiberglass on an improvised mold, were added with a built in inclination to allow water to drain even when the boat is heeled.
Painting
After the projects on deck were completed it was time to paint the deck with two-part marine paint. We chose Perfection by Interlux, Oyster White color.
The choice of the two-part paint is due to its superior adhesion and strength compared to the one part paints we used before that was already peeling off.
The heavy traffic and stress that the deck supports require a more tough coating. A left over from a friend’s boat project provided the fire red paint that we used for the toe rail.
After the paint job was completed we proceeded reinstalling all the deck hardware, including the new staysail blocks moved inboard, the new retractable bowsprit designed by me, a new 60W solar panel mounted on a tracker (to be oriented perpendicular to the sun at any given moment).
Boatyard time
The final part of the refit happened in a boat yard in St.Mary’s GA, not far from Brunswick.
The liveaboard-friendly yard allowed customers to use the shop and many of their tools, expanding the amount of work we could do on site.
We took care of the projects we could not do while in the water, plus all the unexpected collateral work that arise every time you touch something on the boat.
In particular, we fixed few stress cracks in the rudder area with a fiberglass layup, better sealed the stern tube that passes through the deadwood, replaced the tiller head for a new one with a square key in it, installed the Norvane Self Steering wind pilot, permanently glassed the thru-hulls for the marine head, replaced the propeller for a new one, and much, much more.
After two maintenance coats of one part paint on the topsides and new ablative bottom paint we re-launched Tranquility and started again our life afloat.
The list of projects we realized is extensive, I hope this recap and the pictures give a brief summary of what happened.
Of course there are few more projects that we set aside for future completion or that will linger into the “Never list”.
It is now time to sail rather than do boat work and we hope we set the clock back enough to enjoy some quality cruising time aboard for a while.
Our little boat has now all the qualities to keep us safe and happy at sea and we feel incredibly fortunate to have realized our dream of transforming her in our unique small bluewater sailboat.
For a detailed list of the projects mentioned in the article visit the Columbia 29 refit page
“The Canoes of Guna Yala” is online on Small Boats Monthly
I recently published an article for the web-based magazine Small Boats Monthly.
The magazine is about small boats and publishes some adventure narrative. I pitched the article I wrote about a traditional ulu race Kate and I sponsored and witnessed to editor Chris Cunningham and he was very interested not only in my writing, but also in the Guna Yala region its people, and of course in the ulus, the sailing dugout canoes they accompany Gunas in their everyday life.
He wanted me to expand the article including more info about Gunas, their traditions, and helping with very good editorial inputs that really improved the article.
I wrote about ulus before on this blog, but I am glad Small Boats Only would give to these wonderful boats a wider audience.
You can read the full article and the photos at this link. Enjoy.
It is refit time aboard Tranquility and things can get messy.
The already meager living space is occupied by lumber, sheets of bendy foam, painting products, stowed mainsail, furling jib and staysail, parts waiting for repair, extra supplies for the long term stay in the boatyard and many assorted items that has not yet received an approval for discarding nor a destination of use. Normality, if such a condition existed, is gone.
We congratulated ourselves when we originally moved aboard after downsizing of most of our belongings, but we feel like the process is never ending. Over time we acquired more stuff, hardly disposing of any decrepit or unimportant object, we collected trinkets and memorabilia, hoarded parts and materials that floated our way, in few cases not figuratively. All this lays above the regular household items, clothing to survive the four seasons and the always useful boat gear, composed of an arcane list of safety gear, aids to navigation and fun toys.
This collection moves around on the surfaces of the boat when we are pursuing a specific object, like sandbars in an estuary. There, where the tide meets the stream, stuff gets shuffled continuously to the point of requiring periodical management, raking and repacking. There has been several attempts in compiling maps and indexes of this less than a 150sq ft of interior space, all kept at bay by the revolutionary forces of Change, that always challenge the established order.
Beta participates in the boat search.
Tentative sketch of a future comprehensive map. Mañana, as we learned, means “not today” in these lands.
To date, despite the best intentions, no ultimate map exists, although we never lost faith that one day we would have a more or less accurate blueprint of the storage onboard.
I have always desired to possess some of the useful skills that obsessive compulsive people are champions at, but instead I grew up with NGDD, also called Not Giving a Damn Disorder which makes my cleaning efforts look rather pathetical and confused. This is also probably why it’s going to take a weekend to deeply clean and reorganize a 29 ft boat, another punch in the stomach to my productivity and self worth.
Kate’s traveling to Panama City and I am taking advantage of one less body on the boat to explode the interior and hopefully repack it in a way that makes sense. It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last. It is indeed due, so my bruised ego has to shut up and roll with it.
Many parts and specific tools which use has been postponed for long become now essential to complete the task at hand. Excavation begins, tote bags aggregating protective ziplock bags filled with objects sorted by some thematic criteria spread around like a slow and unstoppable honey spill.
Putting them back in the same way they came out seems totally out of my grasp. The more difficult to reach the object the more anxiety and adrenaline fog my reasoning, bringing confusion and shock to my procedural memory already impaired by NGDD and making less likely for the pieces to go back in the same rational order.
I do it one step at the time, inefficiently, but without stopping.
How many knives do we really need? Out of the 6, 1 knife got discarded, 2 donated.
I guess this is the curse of modern life: acquiring things that we may or may not use that then become a permanent claustrophobic presence, because, you know, you’ll never know…
There is great hype about topics such decluttering, simple living, minimalism, downsizing. It may be an alert, that speaks to the worst side of the consumerist mentality, or viral talk targeted to who has the time and money to deal with the problem.
The need to acquire stuff is a familiar yet still deceiving part of us, which has been engraved in our brains through indiscriminate, pervasive and undisclosed psychological manipulation techniques for more than a 100 years, since Edward L. Bernays adopted his uncle’s (Sigmud Freud) discoveries to serve the wealthy and powerful.
Appealing in a veiled way to human irrational drives like sexuality, fear, vanity, insecurities, selfishness, Bernays invented Propaganda and its good face in society, the industry of Public Relations.
We’ve been studied and manipulated for so many years that it’s not surprising how resisting the call of consumerism seem an hopeless battle. This conditioning survives even when you remove many of the advertisement sources sailing away on a small boat.
Grown up measuring our worth by the objects we purchase, we still fall for the idea that if we do not buy things we are worthless. Not only that, if we don’t buy things then the economy suffers and consequently jobs, and the large scale system we are embedded in.
So apparently we are between a rock and a hard place.
Tranquility is helpful in the quest to escape the one-dimensional man trap. With the finite and scarce space available we have to make choices, pick the important. Every subtraction is difficult, every addition must be purposeful. It’s a lot to ask to a brain used to pick from brimming shelves, using irrational hunches that expose us to the work of the engineers of attention.
Mankind have long believed that material objects contain spirits, possess some kind of supernatural quality that speaks to us, to the point that we can have a relationship with them, a conversation, intense staring and appreciation. Some objects truly give us joy.
In Japan there is a ceremony known as the Festival of Broken Needles (Hari-Kuyō) where women commemorate their worn-out needles and pins and bury them. Irrational but powerful forces bond us to objects and despite people profiting from this intimate relationship we can still choose the meaningful and useful over the superfluous. Which is easier said than done.
But let’s focus for one second here. I know this in front of me is a collection of bad decisions. My bad.
I can still donate it, recycle it, or toss it. Will you?
