Still completely unrelated to boats, but I needed somewhere to put this. Here is a
blow-by-blow guide to installing a minimal Ubuntu 16.10 to a ZFS
root, booted from EFI, which as used as a LXC host to act as an Apple "Time Machine"
destination.
On Wednesday 24th we finally got her in the water, two years and four months after
she arrived. Here, in
high-def, fetishistic, shaky, niche appeal video glory is the launch. Sped up because
even I couldn't bear how slow it was.
Anyone reading this blog (yes sir, you at the back) would have expected this to go
pear-shaped at some point, and you
would be right. I will sum up.
Engine remained untested until the morning of launch - I had turned it over, but not
with fuel. After connecting up and
pumping the fuel bulb for ten minutes, nothing. Turns out the ball valve in our fuel
line was stuck - ok, that's an easy one,
but it's still 30 minutes of fiddling.
Once we had fuel, she was turning over but still not starting. We decided it was probably
the kill switch, which my
custom electronics were in control of. Strangely I couldn't talk to the control
box over USB, so I decided to open it up. The large volume of water exiting the box
hinted at what might be
wrong, and the hissing and steam rising off the board removed any doubt. This is what
a circuit board looks like after
exposure to water (rain water) and electrical current for about 6 weeks.
The buttons were still functioning, and disconnecting the white wire (kill switch)
from the engine got the engine started.
However it was running on the back of the boat, not in the water, and we couldn't
turn it off. I had to short out the same
wire to ground to shut down the engine.
The guys on the lift were unsure how it would go, as their slings were of a fixed
width and we were worried the floats would
open on lift. As it turned out this was fine, but we'd run a line around them to arrest
this just in case. This was their
first Farrier or Corsair: there are a few Dragonflys about, but their folding geometry
is different
Once we were on the water, everything went smoothly. Just kidding. Of course it didn't!
Our first
manoeuvre from the crane lift to our mooring, so we cast off our lines and found the
shift unit (a Teleflex TX172013 I'd
mentioned my dislike for before) wouldn't shift into gear. I had tested
it just before we set off. Just at this point the wind came up and blew us across
the dock into the
opposite pier, while I am using the kind of language that makes plants die. Problem
resolved by lunging for the gear
shifter on the engine itself, not quite in time to stop us hitting the pier. No damage
done, but not elegant.
We are now mildly rattled. The wind died after about an hour, by which time I'd spotted
the double berth across the
way. We motored in with our now perfectly functioning gear shifter (repaired by fiddling
and jiggling it), unfolded (easy for float one, a bit more effort
for the second but still doable with two) and put the mast up.
I'd previously
raised the mast on the trailer using the trailer winch, this was the first time we
tried on the water. I have no doubt
Ian's assessment of the load is correct, but frankly it looked a lot higher. We used
two halyards on the cabin top winches,
each run to a different block connected to a different points on the boat (Selden
75mm block lashed around the bowpole
with a Dyneema strop, and a Wichard MX halyard shackle connected to to the jib-tack
U-bolt on deck). Not only for safety,
this allowed us to disconnect one halyard to get a shackle past a block. My long-suffering
wife on the shore was steering
the mast with a third halyard to stop it swinging off centre, which it did - a bit,
but probably not dangerously so with
the boat unfolded. My raising wire geometry is a bit out, it's on my list.
It would be fair to say neither of us enjoyed this bit, as it felt like a very expensive
disaster was just about to
happen. However it went off without a hitch, and mast was up on a very stable platform
once done. This probably took
about an hour, all up, much of which was spent thinking it through beforehand, then
double and triple checking the process.
It would probably be quicker with more familiarity. We had two people, more would
not have helped. Sharing the load across
both cabin top winches felt like a good decision.
The last step was getting to our mooring. Although I'd never seen it done, I knew
the mast could be up on an F-boat while
folded, so we took a breath and folded one side. The sidestay slackened as the float
moved in, but only for a second or two
and tightened up once the float was folded tight. It might be worth underlining that
the duration of the sidestay being slack
is very short because the float is in transit - buoyancy is pushing the float in or
out. So, from what I've seen in flat water,
this is a fairly safe manoeuvre - I was watching the masthead, there was about a meter
of lateral movement, no more.
Hats off to Ian for this one, who I believe has been perfecting this mechanism for
about 40 years.
Folding was not difficult with two and a bit of a heave.
Now we're 4m wide and still stable as a rock, and with slack winds and a docile engine
we chugged off to our mooring.
This was the first
time I'd been at the helm of a multihull and didn't quite know what to expect, particularly
as we had been unable to lower
the centreboard - jammed somehow, we'll sort that out next week. For the benefit of
other F-boat virgins, she handled
extremely nicely in flat water under minimum power, turning around a point perhaps
a meter back from the mast even with
no board down. Maybe my tiller-linked outboard helped a bit, but she has such a large
rudder and a surprisingly small
wetted area that she turns very nicely. I was expecting more drag from the extended
float when turning, but couldn't detect any.
Observations
I'll add some notes here for to serve as a warning to others. If you're an old hand,
I will not feel bad if you shake your head in
despair and mutter "muppet". It's a fair call.
You would be advised to start your engine before launch day.
Just because something comes with a waterproof seal and is labeled "waterproof", doesn't
mean it is. On reflection I think the
waterproof seals actually contributed to the problem. Silicone or Sikaflex everything.
Or just Sikaflex: the boatyard threatened to charge
extra as I had used silicone to seal, because it's such a pain to remove.
Spraying a circuit board with conformal coating is a good idea, although unless you
spray all the connectors (after they're
connected) it's not going to be enough to waterproof it. Don't build anything critical
you can't repair in the field.
Raising the mast is nerve-wracking. Always have redundancy. The load on the blocks
at the bow is doubled when you're using the cabin top
winches due to the lead angle, so go up a size. But it can be done on the water, and
a 7m wide floating platform is the place to do it.
Raising a mast with a trailer winch is not an identical process to raising with a
cabin top winch. In particular, my preferred halyard
was not long enough, and I would have had to pass a shackle through a block. Fortunately
sailing is all about improvisation.
The absolute best time to raise your mast in a marina is when there is no-one else around to tell you not to. In particular
this
applies to anyone that has a financial interest in the boats behind you.
When raising the mast, do try not to get the halyards caught under it, otherwise you'll
just have to lower it again.
In flat, calm water at least, an F-boat handles no differently under power than any
other boat. I think the last boat I helmed
was an 11 tonne mono, and it's a lot easier than that. But, the flip side of bobbing
about on the surface is you can't rely on mass to keep
you in one spot if the wind comes up - windage is a bigger factor than I'm used to,
and we hashed our first entry into the slip as a result.
But you can certainly get through a marina without problems even if you've only helmed
a monohull. We motored with one float out for stabilty.
You can antifoul and then put the boat in the water before it dries! Did you know
this? I did not. Multihulls Direct had missed
a couple of spots, presumably due to the boat being supported there. Generally antifoul
has to be applied within six months of going in
the water, but turns out the product they'd used
(which we believe was Transocean Regatta)
was more toxic resilient. The guys at Goodacre
Boats spoke to Transocean and the advice was generally "if it looks like it's not peeling,
then it's probably OK". And if not, the worst that
can happen is I come out with a beard in six months, so we'll find out.
More work to do
I am now running around fixing all the bits that need fixing. This is quite a long
list, but for now I'll leave you with that image.
Look how high she floats! I feel like a twelve year old who has been unexpectedly
given a Ferrari, and I am very much looking forward
to my first beam reach.