Wiring

You can tell the age of a tree by counting the rings.

It’s the same with boats – except, with boats, you count cable ties.

I am well aware that Samsara is an old boat because any time I investigate the wiring, I discover that generations of previous owners have been most fastidious when adding new electrical gadgets – each one making sure to keep the wiring tidy by attaching the new cable to the existing network with cable ties – more cable ties.

This means that what started in 1973 as a single wire to the nav lights on the pulpit soon doubled up with the fo’c’sle reading lights … and then the blower to ventilate the wardrobe locker, a tape player, cool box, more lights for the fo’c’sle (why?) Then, we had all the stuff for the mast – lights, wind instrument and, in due course, a great fat information highway for the radar. And that was all before the owner before the owner before last added an electric windlass.

I was aware of all this, of course – and not unduly troubled. I just added a few more ties when I decided the perfect place for the fan was between the fridge and the heater (the theory was that it would draw cool air towards the one and then blow the warmed exhaust across the other – as I say, that was the theory).

And then, today, I set about installing the new “active” antenna for the Navtex. This meant routing it from the chart table back to the pushpit – although, of course, you do it the other way round because you’d never get the aerial through all the little holes.

Also, it meant taking out the old cable.

I believe I may be the first owner to think of this. Every time I look in a locker, I find redundant wiring – some of it already snipped off…some, indeed, still connected to 12volts at the other end…

Now I understand why. The old Navtex cable was secured at every opportunity – either to the cable for the stern light – which, like the port and starboard on the pulpit, had obviously claimed first mover’s rights. The stern light’s cable ties were screwed to the deckhead, the back of the navigator’s seat, the shelf above what might once have been a quarter berth. There was even a bit of conduit in there at one point.

And where the stern light cable went, so did the Navtex cable – and the autopilot cable – and a tiny and ancient bit of domestic two-core with a piece of plastic tape wrapped around it clearly stating “ply~??x”. I suspect that this must be some obscure translation of “compass light”. It was disconnected at both ends.

Meanwhile, how was I supposed to extricate it now that it had been joined by a GPS, a plotter, a wind charger and a water charger – each with its own collection of cable ties? I found five of them at one point – by which I mean five in the same place, literally on top of each other.

Like an enthusiastic gardener with a new set of secateurs, I set to work with the wire cutters.

This can be a problem. It’s not long since I snipped off the port forward cabin light. How was I to know someone had decided to route it through the front of the heads compartment and then back down the other side?

Gradually the pile of snipped-off cable ties grew – like dead-heads in July. A heap of ancient wire piled up alongside it. I could feel the boat getting lighter as I worked.

It would be interesting to know just how many redundant cable ties there were. It should be 50, of course – since the boat came out of her mould in 1973. But by the time I thought of counting them, I had already thrown them away.

Anyway, it would have been pretty pointless: I’ve been finding more all evening – under the table, under the tea towel, in my coffee cup (noticed that just in time) and – I knew there was something wrong – inside my shirt…

 

 

9 Responses to Wiring

  • With every respect, after reading this I must decline any invitation to go to sea with you in Samsara.

    But good luck to all who sail in her!

  • Always useful to remove all cut cable ties. They’re the perfect size to end up in the bilge jamming bilge pumps…

  • I can well relate to your pain. The original owner had asked for all skin fittings to be grounded, the extra wiring is good for attaching everything else to. To add to it they all run through conduit – whoever thought putting the cable ties on at regular intervals before pulling it through the conduit should be shot.

  • I really do enjoy reading your posts !! Living the dream !

  • And all the wires are the same colour. Tracing anything is a nightmare. I keep a “special “ length which can reach anywhere from bow to stern with a connector to join onto my multimeter. Oh the fun we’ve had. Btw my boat is 1974.

  • Wiring! oh what a joy……One question JP. When choosing the word ‘Secateurs’ did you have to look up the spelllling 😉

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Refit: The Rig

When you think about it, aeroplanes don’t go flying about with 50-year-old wings, do they?

The question came up while standing beside Tony Jones’s mobile rigging workshop with Samsara’s mast laid out horizontally. Tony was explaining how the sheave assembly at the bottom had dropped out in front of his eyes, the headsail furling gear had disintegrated in his hands and what really puzzled him was how I had managed to hoist the main – there being nothing left of the bearing at the top.

But a 50-year-old mast – built in the days when they were just starting on metal masts – would, he insisted, be good for another 50 years.

Particularly once we’d epoxied a steel plate in the place where there was currently a gaping hole.

Tony doesn’t believe in replacing stuff that doesn’t need replacing – as evidenced by his ”Mobile Rigging Service” – an ancient Mercedes van which hasn’t moved from its corner of Conwy Marina car park in living memory.

The rig was going to be another aspect of the Big Refit: A new Profurl system (Tony thought the new model Furlex looked a bit flimsy). Then there was new standing rigging, new halyards. He even talked me into a new VHF aerial combined with a Windex – “although we’ll have to move your little man”.

  • Well, as long as you put him back facing to starboard. He has to face to starboard, or he doesn’t work.

The Lego Man is now leaning at a crazy angle. I can’t see why it should make him any less effective. If you want to know how a Lego figure dressed as a pirate and with the ship’s name across his chest comes to be at the top of the mast, you’ll have to read https://oldmansailing.com/lightning.

But there’s not much point in new rigging if it’s attached to old fastenings. I’d been carrying around the deadweight of the new deck bolts for a year – a fellow-member of the Rival Owners Association had been given a quote for fabricating new ones, and the owner of the machine shop explained: “Of course, they’d be cheaper if you had half a dozen sets all at once – or a hundred would be cheaper still…”

He never did get a hundred takers, but there must have been about a dozen of us who chipped in. But was it really necessary to go up from 10mm to 12? They’re massive.

Actually, this didn’t seem to be such a bad idea when I removed the old ones, and one of the nuts turned out to be cracked right across.

Then we got at the chainplates. If you know your Rivals you will recognise that these come in two parts – one each side the main bulkhead and they’re designed to be bolted together to squeeze the wood between them and it’s the friction as much as the bolts themselves which is supposed to stop them moving.

On each side, one of the plates has a flat top like the figure 7. This is to take the deck bolt.

Except some extra strain by some daft skipper holding on to too much sail for too long (not me – never me, of course) had caused the 3mm steel to bend so that the flat tops of the 7s were now angled awkwardly upwards.

 

We took them to Richie.

Richie Williams runs a metal workshop out of a cowshed in Glenadda. It hasn’t had much attention since the cows moved out, but Richie can do marvels with metal. He once replaced the bushes on my self-steering without having the slightest idea of what it was or how it was supposed to work.

The new chainplates are 5mm, and the flat tops are reinforced with what somebody decided to call “gussets”. I don’t think they’re likely to bend – although I mustn’t delete the picture of the old ones. Maybe it will help me see reason when I get over-enthusiastic about beating into a Force Seven – even if I do now have an extra layer of chopped strand mat on each side of the bulkhead.

And yes, the mast is up again – and it has taken me from North Wales to Amsterdam where, yesterday I painted over the epoxy rather in the manner of a crone applying make-up with a trowel.

Nobody at Sixhaven marina (a third of the price of St Katherine’s) has said anything. Indeed, I have even had some compliments – there’s no point in going to all this trouble if you don’t get compliments…

4 Responses to Refit: The Rig

  • Good to have good look at the real engine of your boat, the standing rigging and the sails!! Our boat (and mast) will be 50 years old next year. Next winter I will give the riggen an extra inspection and intend to replace some seacocks. Also critical items.
    ( tip: some harbours around the Haringvliet in the south of Holland are even cheaper than the Six harbour in Amsterdam)

    • Great reading your blog as my sailing days draw to an end. That you sail a Rival makes me wonder if Two Brothers Sailing have ever checked their rigging to this extent. Thanks and keep blogging!!!

  • It makeś you wonder how long it would’ve been until the mast failed on you. The good thing is you got there first and you have someone sensible doing the work. I don’t think in the longer term you’ll regret 12mm bolts or reinforced chain plates with gussets!

  • As I have said before not sailed but have a great interest in boats from land find all this information fascinating thanks

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Refit: New sails

When Nelson took over the Victory, she was already well over 30 years old. He asked the Admiralty for a refit.
The bill came to more than the ship cost to build.
Well, Samsara is going to be 50 years old this summer, and I got her five years ago as cheaply as you can buy any old fibreglass boat these days.
Also, last year’s circuit of the Canaries, the Gambia, Cape Verdes, Grenada, up to the BVIs and back to Falmouth was essentially a trial run to see what I really needed before I headed off for the long term.
That’s right. I shall be departing in September, and the boat, at least, will not be coming back for ten years or more. So, I needed to get her right. I needed a Big Refit.
I returned to Conwy in North Wales. That was where I got her, and Barry Lovell and his crew at TLC Boat Repair had done a grand job then. I gave Barry the new list. He blinked a bit.
I’m not going to catalogue it all in this post. That would make it much too long. So let’s take it a bit at a time – and start with the best bit: The sails.
As regular followers of this blog will know, I have not had a good relationship with Samsara’s sails over the past few years. She came with three headsails and two mainsails (not to mention working and storm jibs). Suffolk sails made me a trysail – and thank heavens they did: it was all that got me back after the mainsail disintegrated 150 miles off the Azores.
Then there was the headsail, which sailmakers kept telling me had “plenty of life left in it” – but still kept gathering patches. In the end, it gave up off the north coast of Anglesey. There didn’t seem to be much point in trying to rescue it – the working jib took me the rest of the way.
I didn’t care. I’d been to the Boat Show. I’d spent an hour on the Crusader stand with Paul Lees. I had become somewhat over-enthusiastic.
By the time I hauled out the credit card and paid an enormous deposit, I had ordered a new headsail and main in Vectran and something called a “Super Zero”, which is a massive sail made out of some sort of space-age laminate to be set on its own furler from a miniature removable bowsprit.


Interestingly, this would not be poking out a metre in front of the rest of the boat – that’s for gennakers and the like. This just needed a point to take the tack which kept it away from the regular headsail furler.
I have to say it’s amazing – and I can sail closer to the wind than I can with the new Vectran headsail.


That’s pretty good in itself – much smaller than you would expect (it stops a metre short of the masthead , high-cut so I can see under it and the clew is only just aft of the mast. This means it still sets well when rolled in a blow – but it did leave me under-canvassed in light airs (hence the Super Zero).
Apparently Vectran sails will go on setting well because they don’t stretch. All that can happen is that the stitching wears out – apparently, you have to line up the holes to sew it back together because it’s so tough you can’t push a needle through it.
I hadn’t realised quite how tough until I tried to furl it – it’s like handling sheet metal. Nor had I opted for full-length battens because I’d always been quite happy with Samsara’s short ones. Also,  I have bitter memories of the tiny nuts falling out of Largo’s long ones in the middle of a Biscay gale.

The new sail, however, brings difficulties of its own. To begin with, it took me a full ten minutes to furl the thing  (I believe I’m getting better at this). Also, I notice that Kirsten Neuschafer on Minnehaha chose short battens. Apparently, the long ones can jam if you try and reef with any wind in the sail. Anyway, if short battens are good enough for the Golden Globe winner…
Meanwhile, you can’t have a new mainsail without a new sail cover – and it would never do to have a tatty old sprayhood…
Next, the rig…

12 Responses to Refit: New sails

  • Hi, I am interested what Vectran sailcloth was used by Crusader for your sails – they seem to have a few on their website. Was it their own Vektron cloth? Very interested in how the sails perform and last!

  • John – any chance you can make the images a bit bigger? with an R34 I am intrigued by the detail

  • When the ship that is tired returneth, With the signs of the sea showing plain,
    Men place her in dock for a season, And her speed she reneweth again.
    From The Laws of the Navy by Rear Admiral Hopwood.

    You’re doing a great job, John! Best wishes, Alick

  • Love your blog and at 57 hoping to get into sailing proper. More of a google sailer at the mo . Must retire !! Taking the plant based derived and now fighting off all those children bug at school! Thanks big guy!!

  • Hi John, Steve from Stroud here. This is not related to your latest post but I was walking through Weston-super-Mare today having taken my Grandson on a train trip from Stroud. As we headed for the seafront, (there’s no harbour at Weston incidentally), I noticed a tattoo parlour; Samsara Inks. Any connection? Do you have a tattoo? As all sailors used to have.
    I’m still enjoying your blog, keep up the good work.

  • My Vectran 150% Genoa for Sancerre was like that at first, a major job just to hoist singlehanded, 12k nm later it’s still going strong and looks like it will continue to do so for a long time yet and is as easy to hoist and furl as the cheap Dacron sail it replaced

  • Where is the 10 year trip taking in John. I’m refitting and then sailing to Tasmania, slowly. Mohht run across you. Stu

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