My office today: Pearson 422. One I would gladly live aboard.
I’ve read a few good magazine articles on using DC motors in place of an onboard diesel or gasoline engine, but I haven’t seen one in person. The technology looks promising:
A little bit of research turned up a few options, each with varying styles for accomplishing basically the same mission:
I’d take quiet and quickstart over noisy and sluggish. Plus, slap some solar panels on the boat and make a good trip without smelling fumes. I would most love not having to stop to refuel.
“Cute” is not typically the best word to describe a tug boat, but that’s certainly the word that I would use to describe this Ranger Tugs R-25. It’s a lot roomier than one would expect from a 25 foot boat. Plus, as one mechanic suggested, the 150 horsepower Yanmar diesel is “twice the horsepower you need” for a boat this size. The new model is going to move up to a 250 horse!
One thing that has stuck with me from my U.S. Army airborne training at Ft. Benning, GA back in June 1995 is the danger in developing a false sense of confidence over a healthy fear. My fear of heights caused me to check and double check every point of my parachute harness for chaff or failing stitches. I approached every jump with caution, knowing that it could be my last if I overlooked something awry that could cause a fatality. As a professional parachute rigger, I knew that the detail I missed could land me in court and leave a family without a father, mother, sister, brother, son or daughter. I took my job very seriously and never had a parachute fail as a result.
Repairing marine electronics puts me in a similar liability, as the failure of a system such as radio, GPS or radar at a crucial moment could put the captain in danger, or at least inconvenience, as few sailors leave the dock without backups along with the tried and true chart navigation methods. The greatest danger that I find myself in would likely be that of climbing a mast. As in skydiving, mast climbing follows my jump master’s saying that “it’s not the fall that kills you but the sudden stop!”
Each time that I go up and down a mast without incident, I get more and more confident that nothing could happen. Conventional wisdom says otherwise. This is why I prefer to ascend with not one but two lines, with one person on a winch and another tailing the safety line. I also tie off on the mast if I’m going to be camping out up there.
I recently had the honor of replacing a wind transducer for Cheryl and Bob Ray aboard their Valiant 42 “New Passage.” They are the proud parents of Richard Ray, the developer of the MacENC program, which I happen to use on my MacBook to test GPS serial connectivity. I had the opportunity to snap some photos while my mentor, Lester Forbes, ran some tests at the base of the mast.
Forty feet up is certainly no place to throw caution to the wind. What says you?
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And….go!
Bear with me while I restore WordPress. Upgrading to version 2.7 presented some conflicts that I just discovered late last night.
I was called to the Brunswick Landing Marina to investigate a failed Raymarine wind transducer. What I found was an immaculate 2 year old 56 foot Oyster yacht. This boat has to be seen in person to fully appreciate her, though Oyster’s website is a good start. (You should buy one if you have a spare $2.5 million laying around!)
Though the yacht is owned by a couple from Miami, they chose to have it put in a slip here due to our reputation of being a hurricane hole. It’s been here a few weeks, which was perfect timing to avoid Tropical Storm Fay.
With the wind fairly calm and the sun mostly covered by clouds, I picked a good time to get closer to the heavens. David, the boat captain, prepared my ascent up the 74.4 foot mast by conveniently jamming a sheet in the Lewmar 48 electric winch and bending the self tailing arm into both the upper and lower plates. With no quick access to blocks that might bring the sheet to port for the larger electric winch, David decided to pull my 180 pound butt up the mast with the manual winch.
I’ve made a regular habit of taking pictures from the top of the mast. My Treo 650 doesn’t take the best photos, but I doubt I would be able to justify the risk of fatal damage to my wife’s digital Canon Rebel. Though I failed to get a shot showing myself to be at the highest point in the marina, you can still get an idea of the height from the shots straight down and overlooking HWY 341:
What’s the highest point you’ve ascended to, not counting air travel?
I’m a recovering clean freak. I remember hearing at a very young age that “the last pig in the pen made the mess.” As I’m commonly the last “pig” on a vessel when the work is done, I do my best to leave my work area looking better than the condition I found it in. Sure, I do this on my own time, but the 5 to 10 minutes I spend tidying up the place pays dividends when it’s time for the owner to inspect the electronic installation or repairs.
One major level of detail that I’ve found is helpful for the owner is to guarantee that no by-product of my installation, such as wire ends and cut tie wraps, has any chance of ending up clogging the bilge. I wear the standard military issue shorts or pants and pack the right cargo pocket to overflowing with bits and pieces of trash. If my eyes land on trash left by someone else, it belongs to me now. I’ve heard horror stories of small pieces of plastic sinking a large boat.
A minor detail that goes a long way is my effort to never lay tools on the deck without something like a paper towel or rag underneath. If I’m working with a mechanic, I strongly urge them to follow this practice too. It’s especially common for a fiberglass deck to look like the oil filter exploded in the aftermath of engine work. When it comes to unstained teak, grease and oil have no home there.
Sure, I have to be careful to not look a little like Monk in my routines, but I love to exceed my customer’s expectations.
Do you have any experiences with technicians leaving a place in ruins when they’re done?
