Day 15 Ships Passing In The Night

September 29,2013

I wish nothing happened today!

I woke up to an overcast morning, heavy grey clouds and a light drizzle. Just like yesterday, the seas were calm, the waves flat, and the wind dead. We braced ourselves to another day of motoring. Slowly, very slowly, motoring our way to Ilha Grande. We should be there by Monday evening.



Today I started another trashy novel, this one 620 pages long. I don’t remember last time I got to read one of these novels, now I am on my second one. Very interesting.

I got the second watch, from 10-12pm, and as the captain woke me up, he warned about a ship coming our way. He showed me how to turn the auto-pilot off and to manually steer Fiona out of that ship’s way, if it got too close. Okay, I guess that could happen.

“The ship should pass us at around 10:30," the Captain said. "Call for help if you need it. Good night”.

Ok Captain, no worries...  I start my daily blogging about how boring this day was and this night is going to be.

A long time later, I looked up to the clock and it said 10:19. Shooooooot, the big ship!

I ran up to the cockpit and there it was, looking awfully close, almost towering over Fiona.

My mouth went dry, I started to sweat. I took my sweater off, lost my hair band, lost my glasses, couldn’t find my head lamp... I do not do good in stressful situations!!! I tried to look at the radar and the ships echo looked really, really close. I ran up on deck again... oh, the heck with it!

“Eric!!!!”

While I am waiting the longest seconds of my life for the poor Captain to climb out of his bunk, I run up and down the companionway steps, trying to figure out the best place to be if we get hit by that ship. OMG, John is sleeping! Should I wake him? Put life jackets on? I think I am going to be sick.

Eric -- in slow motion -- finally comes up and just stares at the other ship for a very long moment.

“Didn’t I show you how to look on the radar to see how far the ship is?" he said. "Look, it’s about a mile away. It will not even get close to us. See? Nothing to worry.” Big smile.

The Captain goes back to his bunk and I am left with the darkness and big ships that cross in the night. I don’t like this part of cruising. Not one little bit.

At least the excitement prevents me from falling asleep during my watch, which according to John, is a crime punished by hanging in the Royal Navy.

I am looking forward to my sunrise watch. At least then I can see the ships and the sun.

Next Episode: Paradise Found

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Birdsmouth Mast Day 5

This morning I unwrapped the mast from its overnight coat and was pleased to see that the epoxy was well set.  So I enthusiastically set about planing back the mast  - first removing the epoxy coat from the wood was quite a struggle - even my trusty farriers file was baulking at the challenge.  I alternated between it an an old Anant Jack plane which did a reasonably job, still by lunchtime I had just about removed all traces of epoxy.

I raised the mast vertical to see how manageable it is - quite a handful, but then there is lots of material to be removed as I had only placed 50% of the taper in the staves width.  This sounded like a good idea at the time, courtesy of John ONeill article, but the reality of planing back so much taper is quite a drudgery.

Out with the Foreplane and the additional heft was giving me some advantage, but only later in the day did I take time out to resharpen the blade, which made a considerable difference.Duh!!  However by that stage I was quite tired so resigned myself the the fact that my mast was going to take longer than 5 days!.

So far I have been planing back the taper while keeping the mast octagonal - which I think make for a more uniform approach.  I did take time out to research making a a spar gauge for 16 sides, and while it seemed to be a sturdy gauge, the pencils lead kept breaking and so in reality was not a success.  Maybe I can replace for two ballpoint pens and see how that

works out...maybe others have better ideas??  Please feel free to comment.

I transferred the dimensions at the various stations onto my workbench (ladder) and used a calipers to constantly check my taper.  This was quite depressing....several passes of the plane on eight sides just for 1 millimeter!  I need to take up to 5mm off the staves in some parts!  

Im beginning to doubt the wisdom of only taking 50% of the taper from the width of the staves as the result is that the planing of the outside of the mast is leaving the shape of the birdsmouth joint asymmetrical and could even results at the very top of the mast where the birdmouth joint just becomes an edge joint, although that may not be a problem as there is a solid plug at that point.  I also had some excellent feedback from Dave Johnson who recently completed his Somes Sound and blog.  Dave also built a birdsmouth mast but did not increase its diameter from the specified width of the solid mast.  Dave reports that the boat sails really well and the mast is light.  You can see his excellent blog here and admire a beautifully build Somes Sound.

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