Roller Furling Halyard Clutter

Roller furling is wonderful! At the end of the day, you can roll up your sails and be done with them! There are no sails to flake and bag, and the sheets are carried up to the clew where they can be kept clear of the deck. The deck of a sailboat with roller furling can be quickly transformed from a sailboat to a private escape in just a few short moments!

While roller furling does provide a clear deck, the clutter is typically transferred to the mast. The halyards of the roller furling sails are coiled up and hung from any available winch or cleat horn. The clean crisp mast soon becomes a rope storage area! These coils will soon collect dirt from the air and rain and begin to look less attractive as time passes. Worst yet is the fact that these halyards will not be touched for a long time, as the sails are raised once per season! Soon these coiled lines will become stiff and unwieldy. 

This system works beautifully to maintain the clean look of a roller furling yacht. The halyards are merely small lines that run the needed length and terminate with an eye splice. When the sail is removed, a messenger line can be attached to the halyard and the sail can be lowered as the halyard runs into the mast. When the sail is going to be re-installed, the messenger line will feed the halyard through the shiv, mast, and out the side of the mast where it can be tensioned. 

The cars on the mast allow easy tensioning of the halyards as well. Once the eye splice has exited the mast, the loop can be installed on the car and another line can be attached to the bottom of the car. The lower line can be set up on a winch to achieve the desired luff tension. Once the ideal setup is reached, the car can be locked off and the tensioning line removed. This leaves you with a very clean and crisp look at your mast to match the clean and clear look of the deck.

It can be argued that this setup will not allow you to adjust your luff tension as easily, but lets be honest about who would want this setup! I am certain that someone who wants this look is not concerned about moving the draft fore or aft in the sail to adjust the angle of attach of the luff of the sail while beating or reaching. They simply want a cleaner deck with less clutter and more open space, and this delivers exactly that while still providing the necessary equipment to properly tune the sails.

Sammy Found a New Hangout

Sammy has always been very selective in only letting me pet and hold her. If anyone else tried, she would bite them viciously! I knew something was special about Maddie when Sammy met her for the first time and didn't try to peck her skin off.

After two years of Sammy warming up to Maddie, Sammy performed the ultimate "I'm comfortable with you" move: Climbing into your shirt and poking her head out of your collar.

I'm probably the only dentist who wears a hoodie with a candy bar bashing cavities into teeth!

Yes, it was dark and yes, Maddie was wearing my hoodie (so it probably smelled like me). Sammy went right in the hoodie and poked her head out. We went for our walk and Sammy hung out there the entire time, happily watching the world go by.

Electronics Decrease the Value of Your Yacht

When you go to sell your yacht, a survey will be performed. A survey is pretty much the equivalent of a "Board Exam" for boats. This is a massive exam where everything your boat can do is tested to its fullest potential. The more gadgets and gizmos you have on your boat, the more test questions your boat test will have.

The way this exam is graded is very unfair:

If you get 1 out of 100 wrong, you don't get a 99%; you get 1.
If you get 1 out of 5 wrong, you don't get a 80%; you get 1.
If you get 10 out of 100 wrong, you don't get a 90%; you get 10.
If you get 10 out of 20 wrong, you don't get a 50%; you get a 10.

Having more accessories on your boat only increases the length of the list to be tested, and every accessory that doesn't work gets added to the list of problems with the boat. The longer the list, the harder it will be to sell the boat (or the further you will have to come down in price to sell the boat).

I saw a survey where the owner installed a third A/C unit in the salon, and it didn't work. The surveyor listed this as a problem that needs to be fixed. No one cares that the fourth A/C unit (that doesn't exist) doesn't work! If he didn't have the unit, the surveyor would have simply said: "Two A/C units in the salon that work well" and nothing would be added to the list.

My favorite accessory that didn't work was a set of LED underwater lights. These lights are not important in the realm of boating, they supposedly attract fish to the surface when fishing by night. 

This unnecessary non-functional accessory went down on the list as non-functional which goes down on the list of "Recommended Corrections". This list is used by the buyer to negotiate an even lower sale price, and the longer the list, the more the buyer can negotiate.

If you have less accessories in the boat, then you will have fewer items that don't operate and a shorter list overall. Next time you go to install some doodad from the boat show, think about how necessary it is to your boat and if it is worth the loss in value when the accessory fails.

Dodger Snaps

The snaps that hold your dodger to the deck can become a nightmare to work. Being exposed to a marine environment for a short amount of time can cause the metal components of the snaps to corrode. This corrosion can make any attempts at manipulation a true chore. If the corrosion gets severe enough, you do run the risk of ripping the snap out of the canvas!

To avoid these problems, oiling the snaps will help keep corrosion at bay. I would caution against spraying oil onto these snaps, as it will get on the canvas. If you have light colored canvas, these oil stains will show up clearly from a distance! 

Instead of ruining your canvas to maintain your snaps in operational condition, use a Q-Tip. Wetting the cotton end of the Q-Tip with oil will safely contain all the oil you could need for the snap without having excess run into the cloth around it.

Simply place the oil soaked cotton into the snap in the canvas to lubricate the mechanism. This will lubricate the metal and help retard any corrosion without putting too much oil into it and causing it to run into the canvas.

Now your snaps will remain easy to operate and provide you years of headache free operation.

Islander 36 Conversion: Starboard Lowers

The first stays that were put up were the starboard lowers. There were many reasons for this, as they are the lowest stays on the mast and served as a great demonstration stay to the owner of what he was expected to do. I was able to demonstrate how to use all the gear to climb the mast and how to remove and install the stays from the mast. After a brief climb and explanation, the owner was able to use the gear and do the rest of the work himself. Once the lowers were connected, I tied them to their deadeyes and tied the excess out of the way for the mean time.

With the mast fully supported on the port side and the jib halyard set to the starboard lower chainplate, along with the cap shrouds in place, the owner climbed the mast to remove the seizing from the tips and prepare to remove and install the new cap shrouds.

The plan was to do all the stays on the starboard side and then begin working on the port side. This minimized the number of times we would need to move the jib halyard during the installation process.