Swim Noodle Uses

Swim Noodle Uses

Swim noodles have all sorts of uses besides just swimming fun and they are cheap. If you get the ones with a hole through the center, it can make a good line chafe guard. You can wrap string or fishing line around a short piece of one to keep the line tangle free. You can hook your fishing hooks and lures into the sides of one to keep track of them. I put a short piece of one that has the hole through the center over the tip of a fishing pole for storage. It keeps the end of the line next to the pole and if there is a hook on the pole you can put in in the noodle piece.

Noodles are cheap and can have many uses they were not intended for. Every boater needs to have one on board. 8-) 

PVC Pipe Recycled

PVC Pipe Recycled

I found an old piece of big diameter PVC pipe when I was cleaning up the other day and I thought I should just pitch it out. BUT, it still could be useful, I thought. I am a pack rat, and I have a lot of stuff around that falls in to the category: “I am sure I could use that for something and should save it.”

I then thought to myself: The idea of cleaning up was to get rid of junk. OK, I thought, make something from it.

The piece was about 4’ long. After thinking about what I could make from it, I decided I could make 3 fishing pole holders for the boat out of it. I cut it in to 3 pieces, drilled mounting holes through the pieces and was done. I had recycled the pipe.

I was going to use one of the 3 as a winch handle holder, the other two I would mount on the stern rail of the boat. I drilled a pair of holes in my holders, each about an inch down from the ends. They went through both sides. Then I made the hole on one side if the pipe larger than the one on the other side. That way I could put a wide head screw through one side to the inside of the hole one the other side of the pipe so it could be mounted. That worked great for the winch handle holder, since it was to be mounted on a bulkhead.

For the pole holders, I just used a cord through holes at the bottom and tied it to the rail and a cord through just one side at the top and up over the rail so it would not slide down the rail and a pole could be put in it. I did not want to drill in to the rail. A pair of hose clamps could be used also.

That was one piece of pipe out of the pile. *-) Now what to do with the rest of the stuff.

Einstein had a Sailboat

I saw a photo of Albert Einstein on his sailboat. He looked familiar in the photo but I did not recognize him because he was totally out of context of my stereotype of the man. He looked like a normal old sail-boater on a well cared for boat.

He looked like a guy I would talk to about his boat and not be to good to respond. I thought it was nice that he often sailed a 15' dinghy named Tinef  ( Yiddish for worthless ).

After seeing the photo I thought that I have two things in common with him. I like to sail and I have an untidy mop of white hair. 8-)

Re-bed Boat Fittings

Deck Fitting Re-Bedding

My old sailboat's construction is mostly solid fiberglass panels, not constructed like the newer boats with  a core of lightweight material between two fiberglass skins. Re-bedding a solid panel is straight forward and easy. The fiberglass skin panels need additional work.

After taking the fitting off the boat the fitting and the fiberglass needs to be cleaned with solvent like xylene to get all the old bedding material off them. New bedding will not seal if it is not well cleaned.

With a skin panel deck you next need to drill out the mounting holes and make them over sized. They need to be bout twice the size of the mounting bolt. Then with a bent tool like a allen wrench dig out some of the core between the skins. Vacuum out the partials and the masking tape the bottom hole.

Next fill the new cavity and hole with epoxy, this seals the soft core material so it will not wick water in to it if the bedding leaks. After the epoxy is hard drill the proper mounting bolt size hole in the new epoxy plug. Now when you bed it can get a good seal and the panel will not crush when you snug the fitting down.

A polyester sealant like 3M 4000 UV works well but it is incompatible with some plastics. Test any sealant first to make sure it is compatible and is OK.

Put the sealant on the clean fittings and a little in the hole and mount. Do not tighten the fitting all the way down right off. If you let the sealant cure one day and then snug it all the way down you get a gasket like seal that is more waterproof.

Make sure you test fit the fitting and bolts in the new holes before you put the sealant on and try tightening it down. Also use large washers on the underside to dissipate stress over a larger area on the fiberglass under skin. You are in for a major big redo and cleanup if the fit is not good and up put the sealant on and try to mount a bad fit.

Planning to go Cruising

The following Quote I think is right on.

The lovely thing about cruising is that planning usually turns out to be of little use.
-  Dom Degnon

You can over plan. I have found that I never use most of the stuff I pack and have when we go out. It is nice to have but it just takes up space. What you need to take and pack are things that can have many uses. Less is better on the boat and it is quite surprising what you can do without.

Clothes you take are important. They need to be comfortable, easily cleaned and quick drying. Warm and waterproof should be in the mix also. I am easy when it comes to clothes...the crumpled look is what I am almost always in anyway. 8-)

Another quote:

At sea, I learned how little a person needs, not how much.
-  Robin Lee Graham

The first thing on planning to go cruising is to set the departure date.

The second big thing is to leave on that date whether you are ready or not.

The third is to think out of your comfort box. *-)  Be like your Dog...just go and enjoy what comes.

Birds on the boom=Bird Turds!

Birds on the boom=Bird Turds! 

Birds just love to land on my sailboat boom and many leave droppings on the boat. That puts an incentive on keeping the sail cover on the sail, the cover is easier to rinse off than the sail, but it is still messy. Putting Lazy Jacks on the boat has helped a little, but it has not solved the problem.

I thought of putting a scare crow on the boat, but I figure the birds would just sit on that too. They sell fake Owls that you can set on the boat…most other birds do not like Owls and Hawks. There is a neat articulated Hawk you can get that you hang and the wings flap in a breeze. These are nice but they are not cheap.

One suggestion was to string a line just above the boom and put old CD’s or foil on the line so the birds can see the line and the line will not let them land. With my luck a crow would take the CD’s and foil.

My sister was a big time cat lover…she had hundreds of cat figurines and cat silhouettes. Of course I got rid of most of them, but in hind sight I should have kept a few for the boat. 8-) I put a wood cut out of a cat on the boom that I had made (I used our cat Betty White as a model). Time will tell if it helps.

I have seen Big Eyes put on things and that is also supposed to be a scairer of birds but I think they look creepy. That said…I think it works. *-)

I sure am glad we have running water at the dock that I can rinse things down with. Things could be much much worse!  8-)

Boat Overcrowding

Boat Overcrowding

We are on a section of river that the speed of boats is not limited. There is a public boat ramp near by and because of it, this section of the river has a fair number of pleasure boaters. The boats speed up and down the river, pulling skiers and inflatables and the other things speed boaters do. I think it is nice when they do it safe. What I see too often is a boat that has too many people on it to be safe.

The capsize of a boat can happen in a flash, and when there are too many on board the people cannot do much when the boat starts to go. The number of passengers that a boat can carry safely is specified by the boat maker. One would think it would also be simple logic.

When I see a boat that is way overloaded, I always wonder if there is a life jacket for all of them. I saw a boat coming off the boat ramp dock the other day overloaded and full of kids. The kids at least had life jackets on. It looked like a refugee boat from Cuba. If the boat capsized, I could see in my mind that the boat motor would pull the stern down and the bow would point skyward. The kids would bob around the boat in their jackets and the adults without jackets would be trying to hold on to the upward pointing bow.

If that happened I would try to get as many kids on my sail boat as possible, but it would be slow with the sail boat. Kids and Women first!

We were out sailing the other day and passed a power boat that was having motor trouble. As we approached I ask my wife if we should offer them a tow. To be towed back to the dock by a sailboat under sail and with a trolling motor would have to be embarrassing. I asked if we could be of any help when we got near enough to talk to them. They declined our offer, and a Man on a cell phone told us that he had a friend on his way. We offered to stick around, but he said there was no need. I figured we would be not too far away anyway if he changed his mind. It would have been fun to tow him back to the dock. 8-)