Second thoughts

So here we sit, as snug as the proverbial bug, nestled into the proverbial rug. Off our bow is 65 pounds worth of Mantus set hard in the bottom mud. Between it and the boat lay 80 feet of chain, snubbed by two 15 foot lengths of 5/8s 3 strand, properly protected from chafe. With a cold front in the offering we would have laid out 100 feet of chain, but No Name is a tight and crowded anchorage where thought must be given to swing room, with several other members of the cruising tribe sitting nearby.

This afternoon, while the crew of Kintala enjoyed some time on shore with friends from Skimmer, and visited new friends who showed us around their trawler, a really new looking Island Packet dropped anchor just off our port side and slightly behind us. We didn't see them come in, didn't talk to them, and never really thought much about them. They were big boys on their big boat and not upwind of us. The only concern was that they had given us enough room to swing past their bow. The front would pass with the winds clocking from south to north-north-west, twisting every boat in the harbor clockwise. Watching the radar this afternoon I expected a rather easy passage, but a pretty quick swinging of the winds. It would bear watching.

And so it was. Late evening the rains started and we closed up the boat. The rains got harder, the wind moaned in the stays, and the boat started to swing and sway as the confused gusts that come with a front swirled around. Looking out the port side ports it wasn't at all clear that we had the room we needed to have our stern clear the Packet's bow. Grabbing foulies I headed outside in the driving rain in case we needed to motor ahead a bit. Kintala swayed some more and started to swing quickly in a text-book frontal passage wind shift; fully 180 degrees in about a minute. I couldn't have turned her that fast using the engine.

As we swung it was clear that we were going to have plenty of room forward of the Island Packet. In fact there was way more room than expected. Indeed, there was way more room than there should have been. It was a bit confusing. (For those of you who haven't ridden out a cold front passage in a crowded anchorage, confusing is often the name of the game. Visibility is poor in heavy rain, it is normally dark, boat lights and background shore lights easily lead to illusions of motion that are not really there, and distances can be near impossible to judge. All it all it can add up to a few moments of shear excitement.)

As every other boat in the anchorage started the swing to the west and then north, the Island Packet stayed facing south. And that is when I realized they had drug away from us and fetched up against the mangroves and shallow water at the edge of No Name Harbor. No wonder there was so much room.

The rain faded away quickly. The maximum winds were probably less than 40 knots. Just about a non-event compared to what we have come to expect. Yet, somehow, that big old boat had dragged merrily away. A couple of us shone spotlights at the ports trying to get the crew's attention. Two from a nearby boat launched their dink and rowed over to tap on the hull. After a minute or two the Island Packet crew came up from below, having been totally unaware of their short drift into the trees. A couple of minutes later enthusiastic use of the bow thruster pivoted them off the shallow spot, they motored close past our starboard side.

“Any damage?” Deb asked as they went by.

“No,” came the reply, which was good to hear.

“How much scope did you have out?”

(Here I must digress for a moment. Deb is the scope scoping-out master. 5:1 makes her very unhappy. Less than 4:1 will simply never do. 8:1 is fine, 10:1 is better.)

“I don't understand what happened. We had 30 feet out”.

Thirty feet! That is less than a boat length. We use more than 30 feet of line to tie Kintala to a dock. How in the name of all that is wet and salty does the crew of a Island Packet 40+ footer think that 30 feet of scope will hold in anything more than a gentle breeze? It can't be possible that they knew nothing of the impending weather. It is even less possible that they knew of the impending weather and thought 30 feet of scope would do. That they were alongside and slightly behind us, and not upwind, is our good luck break of the month; maybe the year so far.

They stopped about a boat length off our bow, where I gently informed them that was no place to drop a hook. I suggested they move out by the inlet, set the anchor, and let out about 100 feet of chain. (Several boats left this morning to head to the Islands. We had moved Kintala well into the harbor in deference to the coming weather, leaving plenty of room at the far end for wayward Island Packets.)

The Island Packet is gone and hopefully set secure, far away from us. But we have learned via the grape vine that the sailboat now upwind of us, a monstrous looking thing with a massive amount of freeboard and a giant pilot house, has a broken windlass...and is riding to 60 feet of rode.

I sure hope the wind doesn't blow very hard tonight. And I am having second thoughts about some of the members of the tribe.

Chock full of tales

The port side salon rebuild is in the bag moving the bow repair to the head of the line. There are actually several individual items needing a look: bow cleats, anchor roller, anchor chain lock, and the starboard side line chock. The chock garnered the most concern since it appeared to have been damaged in the storm we rode out off Fox Town. Such a thing doesn't come loose unless something is squished, crushed, stripped, or otherwise rendered not up to factory spec. Kintala's bow chocks are very far forward, just inches behind the bow peak. Access to the underside is anything but pleasant.
Any serious repair to that area would rank as a first class pain in the patute.

The chocks are held down by two 5/16 inch screws that go through a plate and into the deck right at the hull / deck joint. The aft one was loose and came out with just a bit of twisting and pulling. It was too easy for what should have been a damaged fastener. It came free with some kind of dried sealant (4200 maybe) all the way down the threads.  That generally indicates that the threads were never in any kind of a nut or insert; not what I expected to see.

The front screw offered a bit more resistance, expected since it appeared to be the only one actually threaded into something. However, when it came free it too had dried sealant all the way from head to tail. With my mechanic's sense in full puzzle mode further investigation ensued. There was some serious wonk going on with Kintala's starboard bow. It seemed likely that marine industry human wanker wonk was lurking just out of sight.

And so it turned out to be.

Close examination showed that the starboard side chock was 3/8s of an inch narrower than the port side. Though close, the two parts were obviously not a match. Worse, the mounting holes on the port side chock, port side hull, and starboard side hull, are on 6 and  ½ inch centers. The odd ball starboard side chock has 6 and 5/8 inch centers. In other words it doesn't fit.

It is close though, only 1/8 inch off. It was far enough off to keep the screws from lining up with the inserts bedded in the hull. But it was close enough to allow the “installer” to slightly oversize the holes in the deck plate and fiberglass, then drive short screws into place coated with sealant. With the bonding of the additional sealant under the block itself, there was no way to tell that the chock was not actually attached to the bow in any way. It was, quite literally, just stuck on there and held in alignment with a couple of pins masquerading as 5/16s mounting screws.

The sealant, as it turned out, was pretty good stuff. Under normal docking and anchoring loads it held fine. It even handled the storms in Oriental and Charleston, though in both places it shared the load with other chocks and lines. Since those storms we have taken to running the anchor snubbing lines off just one side of the bow. Kintala seems to ride to her anchor better that way, particularly when the wind and waves pick up.

So in Fox Town the starboard chock was on its own. With a Mantus 65 hung off one end, a 23,000 pound Tartan hung off the other, and 50 knot winds driving green water over the fore deck, the sealant holding the aft screw had met its match. Fortunately for us the pitching loads were trying to drive the front screw through the deck rather than pulling it out. The next morning we sailed serenely away unaware of just how lucky we had been.

The best repair for the wonk will be finding the correct part to put on the bow. Since these chocks seem to come in sets of two we will probably end up changing both. This also leads me to believe that the wanker who installed the wonk did so because he just happened to have a chock lying around that was close enough. Why buy a new part when you can put an old part on the boat, and then charge the owner for new? Win – win, right? The boat gets a part.  The installer makes a few extra pennies.

And what does it matter if the thing isn't actually attached.

No one will ever know.

Right?

Rocking and Rolling

Kintala has always been a skittish boat at anchor. A tall mast and soft turn at the bilge makes for a top heavy, funny shaped bowl sloshing around in the water. With our staysail now set on a furler there is even more stuff up high for the wind to get hold of. We have been rocking and rolling since yesterday afternoon.

Since this is the only place our Mantus anchor has ever failed to hold, last night was a kind of unofficial anchor watch. We have been set for more than 3 weeks and haven't moved, but with the wind gauge occasionally registering gusts near 30 knots, neither one of us slept much. Add the unaccustomed motion to the lack of sleep, and by this morning I was feeling decidedly sketchy.

One of the great things about this life is, when one is feeling decidedly sketchy in the morning, one need not get up and go to work. There is no need to stuff one's self full of medications and shuffle off to the office. There is no need to sit miserable through a day hacking away at some task barely in focus, willing the clock numbers toward quitting time. I took my bare-footed and sketchy self out to the cockpit, settled in with a warm mug, and watched thick clouds hurry across the sky. I was a happy man, not having to report to an office on this particular morning.

All of the boats in Middle River were scalloping around, dancing in the wind and the current. More than one crew could be seen going forward to check that they were still firmly holding onto the river bottom. But outside, with a cool breeze blowing and a solid horizon just a couple of hundred feet away, all that motion wasn't bothering me much. I was pretty content though feeling a bit detached and not completely "with it".

A loud "clank" reverberated from the bow. The boat lurched backwards, banged against the anchor chain, and lurched again. Surely we were loose once again on Middle River. Brain still not fully engaged I jumped up and headed forward, slamming a naked toe into the starboard side winch. Pain jolted up my leg and into my brain, but we were loose and the shore was close by. After a moments hesitation to limp and curse, I headed forward once again.

We have this giant "C shaped thing Mantus sold us to hook the anchor snubber onto the chain. It is a solid chunk of kit that, once engaged, there appears no way for it to get forced off the chain. I'm still not sure how that could possibly happen given the load it was under, but it did. And it came free with a bang. Kintala had fallen back against the extra chain played out to keep the snubber taut, fetched up against the anchor windlass, rebounded, and fallen back again. She had moved as far as she was going to.  (I always keep the anchor chain on the windless with the locking paw engaged and the clutch set tight.  It is a suspenders and belt kind of thing that worked in our favor this morning.)

The snubber went back on just like it should and I laid out a few more feet of chain for good measure. Then I limped back down the deck careful to not put any pressure on, or touch in any way, a badly bruised and stoved in toe. A toe that was promising to make for a pretty miserable day. I went below, stuffed myself with medications, and shuffled out to the cockpit.