Coconut Cannon Ball Damage to Boat

I like the coconut palms down here in Florida. As a kid I thought that all palms had coconuts. We have one coconut palm and the rest of the palms are called cabbage palms (I think). These are pretty palms but they have quarter size palm nuts instead of coconuts. They fall by the hundreds when are mature and create a huge mess. They can stain the boat fiberglass if they are not cleaned off. I like the coconut palm better. 

When a sudden storm came up a cannon ball size coconut blew off the tree and hit the bow of my boat. It made a impact mark on the boat with spider cracks or stress cracks in the gelcoat, radiating out from the impact point. I did not like the coconut palm that well after that.

It looked like the boat had been hit by a cannon ball. When I called the insurance company about it, the agent only heard “boat damage by cannon ball”. He told me to find out what it might cost to repair the crazing damage. A day or so later an insurance man came out to see the “cannon ball damage”. I would like to have seen the underwriters face when he read that report and saw the damage photo. 

Repairing the crazing to the fiberglass is not a hard job, and I could do it myself. The insurance man said that it might be best to do the repair myself if I could, so the insurance price would not go up. The cost of supplies to repair the damage was much less than my deductible anyway. I would do it myself.

A year or so passed and the person taking care of my insurance changed. One day out of the blue, I got a call from the new agent about the boat coverage. He said he was going over my file and he found a note that the boat had received cannon ball damage, but there was no follow up information on the insedent. I told him my boat had been attacked by a vicious coconut tree, like the apple trees did in the Wizard of Oz, but it pitched coconuts at the boat and me. The boat and I had gotten away with only minor damage and that I repaired it myself, so I did not put in a damage claim. There was silence on the phone for about 15 to 20 seconds and then he said “you are kidding, right”. That was the last I hear about it from the insurance company.

Is E10 and E15 Ethanol-Enhanced Fuel Safe for Marine Engines

There has been a lot of talk about ethanol-enhanced gasoline or gasohol being bad for marine engines. The big marine engine manufactures OK’s the use of E10 fuel in their engines, but not E15. 

E10 Ethanol-Enhanced Gasoline is available at most gas stations and some stations have E15. The E10 fuel has up to 10% by volume of ethanol and E15 has up to 15%. The E15 is safe to use in some newer cars and trucks. E15 IS NOT SAFE TO USE IN MARINE MOTORS AND IT IS ILLEGAL TO USE IT IN THEM.

Fresh E10 is safe and can be used in marine motors. All gasoline loses octane as it ages. Tests by Mercury Outboard found that E10 loses octane at the same rate as regular gasoline. The drop of octane in E10 would only cause a minor loss in power to the engine and should cause no engine problem.

It is recommended that the E10 gasoline be kept as fresh as possible.  If the fuel is to be stored and if an engine is going to be idle for a long period of time, a fuel stabilizer ---an antioxidant should be added to the fuel. A stabilizer reduces octane loss and reduces phase-separation of the fuel

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It is NOT recommended to leave a tank almost empty. The excess air in the tank and condensation of water on the inside of the tank can increase the chance of phase-separation of the E10 fuel that is in the tank. Phase-separation is when the ethanol and water combine and then separate from the gasoline. The water-ethanol mixture is highly corrosive and will damage engines. Because the gas floats on it, it is the first thing that is pulled through the engine, and it can damage the engine.

If phase- separation is suspected it is best to drain the tank and fuel line and replace the fuel.

Fuel additives will not make fuel that has phase-separation safe to use. The fuel should be replaced.

E10 is safe to use in marine engines. E15 is not safe to use in marine engines and it is not legal to be sold for marine use, or for ATV’s. If you use fresh E10 fuel you need not worry. You do need to use stabilizers when and if the fuel is stored.  If phase-separation is suspected do not use the fuel.

                           E10 is OK for marine engines but E15  IN NOT SAFE to use.

My Wife's Tool Box

My wife loves tools almost as much as I do. She is fascinated with them and what they will do. Her tool box has a collection of hard to find specialty tools I have given her and that she has collected herself. I found early after I met her, that if I gave her a specialty tool, I could always find it in her tool box.

I get more than one project going and misplace tools. I end up looking for them at my different projects. By giving her a set of specialty tools, I know where I can get the tool I need quickly. If I leave her tool box out and open, I remember to put her tool back when I see the box out. If I do not clean and put HER TOOL back, I regret it. It actually is a very good system. I can always find the tool I need, and she always likes it when I get her a tool for me to use.
I do have to say she likes going to a hardware store better than going to the mall. You just gotta like that in a woman. 8-)

                                                 HERS                                       his

Sailboat for Sail and Sale

Sail Boat for Sail and Sale

I have been ask to sell a friends sailboat. The owner is in the Navy and she has been stationed in Guam, and her boat is at my dock. She does not want her boat to just sit and deteriorate. She did a lot of work on the boat and the boat is in much better condition than when she got it. It’s a nice little boat, and I will try to sell it… It is a great boat for a beginner…it has everything needed to just sail it away.

The boat still has a few things to be done to her, and I will do those as I try to sell it. I just do not want to get too attached to the boat. I have three sailboats now, and you can only sail one at a time. When I work on a boat, the more attached to it I get and I work on it as if it was my boat, doing a lot of little extra things.

For example, I cleaned out one of the cockpit lockers. It was grungy so I washed it down. I cleared out two drain holes of dirt, and then lightly sanded the two wood supports that the hatch lid rested upon and gave them a coat of varnish. The inside of the hatch cover was discolored, so I painted that. This made the hatch on the other side look bad, so I cleaned and painted that storage compartment also.

The second storage area had an access panel to the battery area. I pulled the battery out, it needed charging and the battery lead wires needed new terminals, so I soldered new ones on.

Because we have 6 cats, we have an abundance of square cat litter buckets. These buckets fit nicely in boat storage lockers. I put the loose items like extra lines, tools, sponges and brushes from the locker in the buckets and then the buckets go in the locker. 

An anchor and its rope had just been dropped in the storage locker. Another cat bucket for the line with the anchor stored in it took care that snarl. I started thinking how I could make a frame from scrap PVC pipes for the storage of her life jackets and boat bumpers. I get carried away with doing stuff like this.

My boating friends love to have me work on their boat to do some “little project”. It is “ I can drop my boat off at your dock for a few days and you can take a look at _______”. They know they will get it back with _____________ fixes and _______ taken care of also. I like doing this type of stuff.

If anyone in the Ft Myers, Fl. area would like a wonderful C & C 21 foot sailboat that is fully equipped and ready to sail, E-mail me at bigwtwolf@aol.com.  The price is right, sailing instructions can be given, and even dock space can be had for her. My wife does not want me to get too attached to this boat!

Lightning Rod Sailboat

Are Sailboats lightning rods on the water?

I have 3 sailboats and two of them have been hit by lightning.  An aluminum mast with an antenna on top just pulls the lighting out of the sky. If you are out on the water the mast is the highest thing around, thus it is best target around. I think that the boat can build up a static charge with the Dacron sails flapping in the wind and this may add to its likelihood of being hit.

Electricity will flow to ground by the easiest route. It will go to ground by any way it can if there is not a good convenient path. When lightning hit my boat the first time, the tri-color light and antenna on the top of the mast just disappeared. The antenna wire down the inside of the mast melted, and the radio was fried. When I opened the radio case the electric components looked like burnt popcorn. My speed sensor was blown off the bottom of my boat. Almost all my fuses in the panel were open. I cannot remember if I had to replace the battery or not.

My boat was the only sailboat in the marina that afternoon when a sudden “sun shower” popped up. I was razzed that it was nice to have a lightning rod in the marina to protect the other boats. There was very little other damage I could find from the strike other than the electronics.  I ask around what I could do to prevent damage like this again and got no real positive feedback
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One sailor that is an electrician by trade said that a boat is always grounded by the water. A clear easy path to the water is the best protection. A very simple way to create an easy path is to attach a piece of wire cable like what the shrouds are made of, to one of the shrouds and let it trail in the water. The electrician said that boat lighting rods were a waste of money, but could get one for me if I wanted one; this was accompanied with an evil smile. The quote: “a fool and his money are soon parted” was what came to mind seeing the smile.

Depending on the size of the boat and its construction, the boat may a grounding system in the boat that connects things like bronze through hull fittings, steering cables, and other metal parts all together to provide a ground to the boat and to the water. This gives a ground plane for some electronics as well as a ground for the boat.
 

My small sailboat has PVC through hulls and no internal motor and thus no ground plain in the hull. It does have a metal drop keel. The drop keel has a safety cable attached to it that moves up and down as the keel is raised and lowered. I figure it is there in case the strap winch fails. I attached a jumper wire between this cable and the mast mounting plate assembly. This gives a direct path to ground for my boat
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Since the water you are floating on is ground and if you establish a ground line from the mast to the water the mast is the same potential as the water. When this is done the boat mast and water are of equal potential and there is now just a random chance that any point on the water has the same chance of being struck by lightning.

A wire cable to shroud and into the water is an easy and cheap way to add protection to your sailboat. It works as well as other thing you can do and it is cost effective. I have some old shroud cable and cable clamps that I can sell you for a lightning protection system if you need some (evil smile). Have a good sunny day. *-)

A Sweet Way to Kill Ants !

My wife took me to the Christmas dinner her Herb Club had this season. One of the members ask if anyone had a problem with ants. If you live in South Florida you will have an ant problem once or twice a year. Yards here can get fire ant mounds that pop up overnight. The member had all our attention at once.

She told us that if you put a sweetener with Aspartane in it on the ant trails, the ants will take it back to their colony and the colony will die. She said if you had an ant problem, try it and you could get a packet of sweetener at almost any restaurant when you go out. 

I did an internet search to see what I could learn about it. What I gleamed was that the research on the sweetener was that is safe for us to consume, and that if not safe for ants to consume. The web sight Green Families .com had a nice article. A different article hinted that body size has much to do with the effect on what consumed the sweetener. 

 

I did try it, and I have noticed a reduction of ant traffic along the ant trail I tried it on, and it has only been 6 hours. The article said it could take a few days. I want to try it on one of the fire ant hills. It would be a sweet way to get eliminate them.

Cheap As... Toilet Paper

The toilet paper that you need to use with a boat toilet must be able to breakdown easily so it will go through the boat plumbing to the holding tank and so it can be pumped out of the holding tank. The TP often is a one ply paper and is not soft and plushy like many brands of TP.

After living on board a boat for a number of years, the TP was not a big deal.  When we moved on shore to a house with a septic tank system, we did not change the TP because we figured it would be better for the septic system to breakdown the one ply TP. It was not a big deal.

When my sister came to visit us at our on shore home (She never visited us when we were on the boat) it was an experience my wife and I had not expected. We had moved into the house a few months before. The previous owner had a child, and the one bedroom had little kid curtains on the window. We had left them up, and it was our guest bedroom and we did not use it for much anyway. She took down the kid curtains, made a list of window treatments we needed to get, re arranged the bathroom at that end of the house and told us how the minimal furniture we had should be arranged. We both could hardly wait till she had to go home.

When she told me in an undiplomatic way that I did not need to bring CHEAP AS… TP home form my job for the bath room and I should buy my own TP. My wife and I were dumbfounded. When my wife told her that she had bought the TP, that it was the type we used on the boat and that it was the type recommended for septic tanks, my sister just looked at us as if we were crazy. She said that she had bought “real TP” for us and we could put what we had back on the boat.

When she comes to visit now we put “real TP” in the back bathroom for her. 8-) The guest bedroom still has no curtains, it is the “cat” room now and the cats destroy any window curtains in the room. That’s our story and we stick to it. (Thank you Cats!)

Every time we have to change a roll of TP we think of “Cheap As…TP” and smile. 8-)

I found the perfect Gift for my sister...A FISHING REEL  TP holder for REAL TP. 

Cockpit floor mats

I have a wonderful 21 foot sloop made of fiberglass. The cockpit of the craft is above the water level and water that does slosh in self-bails through the scuppers. Still, anything on the floor of the cockpit will still get wet and may sit in a puddle.  The wood schooner I built has wood slats that make its floor flat and keeps everything off the bottom of the boat and more or less dry. I thought it would be nice to have the same in my sloop. What I came up with was a wood slat mat that rolls up, is easy to clean and easy to store. 

I started with 1”x 2 x 8’ stock pine boards. Stock dimensional lumber is actually smaller than what it is sold as. It is more like ¾ “x1 ½” x 8’. My cock pit is 25” wide, so I was able to get 4 slats out of every 8’ board.

After cutting my slats to length, I drilled a hole 4 inches from the ends of each slat through the ¾” side of the slat. The size of the hole was just larger than the size of nylon cord that was to go through them. I made a wood mat by first threading the cord through the hole in the first board and tying a knot so it would not pull back through. Then I tied a second knot on the other side of the hole.  Next, you thread the long string end through the next hole and tie a knot. By stringing the slats together with a knot between each slat you can make a flexible wood mat as long as you need it to be. When you get the length you need, run the cord to the other side of the mat and tie them together in the same knot slat knot way but going in the reverse direction. You end up with a wood mat that can be rolled up.

The cock pit matt rolls in to place when you are ready to go out. The wood mats look nice, keep things off the floor, let’s water run through to the scuppers, and is easy on the feet. Cleanup is easy with them. You just roll it up, hose it off and hang to dry. They store in the rolled up position. They look very nautical and they are cheap to make. The also make great door mats. It is unreal how much dirt they will trap and keep out of your house.

 Mats can be hosed off and hung to dry. Different sizes are easy to make. Odd shape mats can be made. This one goes in a small storage locker. 

They make good doormats also.

The mats role up for storage and they are easy on the bare feet.

Three Gift Ideas for Fisherman

Fishermen are easy to get gifts for. There is so much “stuff” to pick from and they are in all price ranges. Three gift ideas that a fisherman can use and that provide safety are a boat compass, a VHF radio and a Fish Finder. Each of these are standalone instruments, or can be used together, all have wide price ranges, and all provide safety to the boater.

A boat compass is almost a necessity. On open water there are no landmarks to tell you where north is. You can get lost when you get caught up in fishing in unfamiliar areas and are not sure which way you came in. A compass can help tell you and you do not have to admit to anyone you were lost.

A VHF radio is also an almost necessity to have. A cell phone is good, but on the water there may not be a cell tower close for a good signal. The VHF radio signals are monitored by the Coast Guard for maydays and cell phones are not. If you have a VHF radio and a GPS and they are interfaced you can have DSC (distress call) functionality. When you give a mayday call the Coast Guard gets your location from the GPS automatically. The radio lets you talk  with draw bridge attendants , other boaters, Coast Guard, and get weather updates just to mention a few.

A Fish Finder is fun and functional instrument. Most fish finders are now multifunctional instruments, not just fish finders. A basic fish finder can help locate fish, show obstacles in the water so you do not run over them, and the bottom depth. Combo GPS / Fish finders will help you find the fish as well as help with navigation. The GPS lets you store good fishing locations in the memory as well as how to get there and back home. 

I like two for items. When something is useful and provides safety, it should get a 3 star rating. The compass, the VHF radio, and a Fish Finder are all three star items.      

Cannon Want

I saw on the news last night about someone shooting a cannon ball through a neighbor’s house. It went clear through the house, but they did not say where it landed after that. There was some good photos of the holes it made.

As a kid I always liked pirates and buccaneers. The movies I liked were ones with the swashbuckling hero’s and ones that had cannons in them. When I was in high school, my family moved out of town to a farm house in the country. Jeff, a school classmate lived just down the road and we became school bus riding friends and buddies. One afternoon he invited me over to fire a black powder, cap and ball pistol, his dad had given him. I was hooked on the smoke and noise and smell with just one shot.  Jeff’s dad ran a hardware store that had all the stuff that was needed, and I wanted one. My dad said NO WAY; I did not need or have a use for one. He was right, but I still wanted one. To work around it, I bought the supplies and Jeff and I used his pistol.

After I got a boat, I wanted to have a cannon on it, just in case I ran in to pirates. 8-) It was just a thought that jumped in and out of my head off and on for years. Every time there was a pirate festival or event I would get the Cannon Want. When I lived in Key West I saw a small cannon that was about 20 inches long at a cafe and fell in love with it. Now it was my wife that said NO WAY! Her point was it was too heavy for the boat.  She was right about that.

I took pictures of the cannon and tried to make a replica of it. It was OK but it did not look right up close and it did not fire. I still wanted a cannon.

After I built our schooner I got the Cannon Want again after a pirate festival in Ft Myers Fl. A cannon would really look good on the boat at the next pirate festival. That little evil idea floated in my head for weeks. I went to the net and found cannons are not cheap but could be had. I found a fully functional 1/10^th scale, brass 24 pounder naval canon kit that was affordable. 

I bought it and put it together. It is one attractive cannon. The cannon looks nice on the boat. There is no way I would fire it. The cannon is not much bigger than the cap and ball pistol I shot as a kid and that had a wonderful kick to it. To tie the cannon down and the fire hazard to the wood and the sails is something I would not even want to contend with. It does look impressive.

I have thought about a larger yard cannon that would fire golf balls, but my wife said NO WAY to that also.  It would drive the head of our neighborhood watch guy and our next door neighbor crazy, so there still may be a chance for that. 8-) 

Here is the address about the cannon ball shot.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2070977/Mythbusters-crew-shoots-cannonball-HOUSE-van-stunt-goes-terribly-wrong.html

The Cannon looks great on the boat, and it could shoot 1/2 inch musket balls.

Extra Spring left over after it is put back together!

 When I finish working on something and I have an extra screw left over, I always try to figure out where it should have gone and if it could be important. Then there is the decision to disassemble to find where it goes or try it to see if it works OK without it. ­­

At times like these I remember a story that a co-worker told me about a ball point pen spring. The hospital where he was working at the time had a new CAT scan machine that was having a major service done to it. Two factory service men spent all day disassembling and working on the machine. They had laid out all the parts on a table like an exploded diagram in a service manual. They went home and were to reassemble the unit the next day. The co-worker said he was just looking over all the parts when he saw 3 springs that looked like springs from a ball point pen. He took apart his ball point pen and set the spring from the pen next to the other 3. All were the same. As a joke he left the spring there.

The service men returned the next day and started to re assemble the machine. Then they disassembled it again looking for where they had left the spring out. They spent over 8 hours trying to find where it came from. The co-worker figured if the hospital ever found out he would be fired and probably have to pay for the extra labor time.

The story was funny after the fact, but I have sympathy for the service guys, and it is too bad he had not been caught.

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My wife is an excellent mechanic, and when she takes something apart, she lays it out like an exploded diagram. She is up-tight till it is back together. When I see her parts all laid out I think of the spring story and get a passing thought of adding a spring or screw to the parts. If I did she would find an evil, non-fatal way of getting me back. Just thinking about it is more than enough fun.

Inexpensive boat protection...a fender board.

Keeping your boat from bouncing off a dock piling while moored can be a problem. I have seen some very creative ways of tying boat bumpers to boats and pilings to solve the problem. An easy fix is to use a simple fender board. Two boat bumpers and a board is all that is needed.

Women are more creative when it comes to tying boat bumpers to boats and docks and coming up with things to use as bumpers. Some that I have seen were elaborate and they worked to prevent boat damage.  One of the most impressive bumpers was one made from a large mesh bag filled with capped plastic bottles. There were soda bottles, water bottles, juice bottles, and any plastic bottle she could find. She called it her recycled green boat bumper.  It did work well, but the crackling crunching sound was unreal. It worked so well that the rest of us near her boat gave her bumpers so she would retire her crackling one. She was not so dumb.

To make a bumper set-up that protects the boat from a piling, all you need is two standard boat bumpers and a board.  The bumpers are attached to the boat so they would be on either side of the piling. A board that is longer than the distance between the two bumpers is hung over them so the ends of the board rest against the bumpers and the middle rests the piling. The boat can move a little forward or backward and up and down and the board rubs the piling and the board is kept off the boat by the spaced bumpers.  It is cheap and it works and it is quick to set up.

First find a board to use as a fender.  Drill two holes in the board, one at each end of the board. Tie a line through each of the holes. These lines will be used to tie the fender board to the boat. Next tie two regular boat bumpers to the boat, so they would be on either side of where the piling would rest on the boat. Now tie the fender board to the boat so it is between the piling and the boat bumpers. The boat bumpers keep the fender board away from the boat, and the piling rubs the fender board. This is a cheap and easy way to protect the boat.

Boating Safety = EPIRB…&...DSC...&...GPS

EPIRB stands for Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon. When activated manually or automatically activated upon immersion, the EPIRB sends out a distress radio signal that is picked up by the international satellite system for search and rescue (SAR). Signals are monitored worldwide and the location of the distress signal is triangulated

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EPIRBs are not cheap. They start about $250.00 and go up. A boat or boater in distress on a body of water is almost impossible to see and hard to find. The distress signal helps in locating a boat and or a boater quickly.

The GPS track and chart plotters can also help locate you in a mayday situation. When the GPS is interfaced with your VHF radio you can get DSC functionality. (a function that provides the Coast Guard  with your location and identification automatically when a mayday call is made). Any boat that goes out in open water should have a GPS/VHF radio pair with DSC functionality and a  EPIRB, if possible.

Many track and chart plotters can automatically remember the course you follow without having to input each turn manually. They can also tell you what speed you are going, the time it will take to get to the next point, estimate the time it will take to get to your end point and all sorts of other neat things. They can let you navigate at night or in fog when the visibility is low. Your VHF radio and GPS with DSC (distress call) functionality and a EPIRB are all things an off shore boater should consider having.