TOUCHING UP THE HANDRAILS PLAN A & PLAN B

Having spent some time removing, re-bedding and refinishing BIANKA's handrails back in 2011. It was time to do a little touch up. Like most painting and varnishing projects prepping the area takes longer than the actual brush work. So in keeping with my desire to use what you have and recycling things wherever possible I cam up with what I thought would be a cunning plan to prep the area around the handrails. I'd use a patterned piece to used shrink wrap to fit under the handrails to catch any drips. I could also reuse the patterned shrink wrap in the future too. So I cut a long strip of recycled shrink wrap and laid it over the handrail:

FROM THE USE WHAT YOU GOT FILE: Helm Cover

It feels good to have the boat back on the water. I still have not gone out for a sail I'm still getting things organized and cleaned up and doing some small projects. One of which is a new helm cover  I stripped and varnished the cockpit table recently and wanted to protect it as much as possible. A large helm cover fits the bill.  I've seen helm covers made out of Sunbrella material and I may make one once I get a Sailrite Sewing machine which is on my wish list. Instead I made one out of some recycled shrink wrap material:

It completely covers the helm and the table is pretty durable and the only cost to me was a few brass grommets and some spare line I had lying about to keep the sides secure :

While maybe not as colorful as a custom Sunbrella cover it does the job and helps keep some shrink wrap out of a landfill somewhere.  Plus the price is right.  It can also function as an additional shade cover if one should need it when it's not covering the helm.

WHAT WORKS: Plastic bag on the prop.

That's The Bag I'm In -Fred Neil

Once again I was away from the BIANKA for an extended period of time. One month or so. I wanted to avoid the marine growth on the prop the boat experienced earlier this summer as you can see below:

So this time I decided to do an experiment of something I had heard about from other sailors. Before I left the boat I covered the prop with a plastic bag. One of those that you get when you buy something in supermarkets etc... I tied it around the prop and came back a month later and it looked like this:

I dove under the boat just using my snorkel and quickly removed the bag from the prop:



I must say it worked pretty good  in keeping the prop clean of the major marine growth and only had a barnacle or two on the blades:

So if you are going to away for an extended time covering the prop with a plastic bag does work pretty good in keeping marine growth off the prop.

BATTERY TO DO LIST OF AN ELECTRIC SAILOR

Because of the charging issue with one of my propulsion batteries it is the first time in four years that I have had to actually squeeze my six foot two inch frame down below the cockpit to work there. I've had an  item on my to do list concerning the batteries for those four years. That was to replace the electric tape covered terminals with something more robust and protective. When I first I looked around I could not find exactly what I was looking for to protect these terminals. But, eventually I found something I could modify to work. It is the  Rotating Cable Cap from Blue Sea Systems:

They can help insulate the battery terminals better than just wrapping them up with electrical tape.

 
In order to use the Blue Sea Caps I had to modify the base part using a box cutter or razor blade to notch out an opening to accommodate the battery terminals as shown below:

Below  is the end result. It does not have to be perfect but, just big enough to allow the battery tab fit.

The photo below shows the base part of the Blue Seas cap installed over the battery terminal. The upper cap attaches to the base part to help protect the terminal and rotates in the direction of how the wire is run to the terminal. But, both can be removed easily too for cleaning and servicing.

Since I'm down below connecting and disconnecting the battery cables it seems like a good time to finish up the last item concerning the battery bank.

WHAT WORKS: PROTECTANT 303

One of the things I do every year  before I launch is wash the hull and apply a product called PROTECTANT 303 to the hull. Some people like to use a wax on the hull and it looks good for awhile and takes a lot of work at least more work than I want to do. Protectant 303 is not a wax and it does not give the same shine. It is as it's name implies it is a protectant. It is designed to protect the hull from the UV rays of the sun. It bonds with the gel goat and really renews the faded blue stripe along the hull. One caveat is that it creates a very slick surface so I never use it on the deck or on horizontal surfaces of the cockpit. You and any passengers will be sliding and slipping all over if you do. This slick coating also allows it to keep dust and dirt from sticking to the hull and so looks cleaner than wax as the season  moves forward.  One thing about it though is it must be applied to a bare hull. Which means if you have previously waxed your hull you need to remove all traces of the wax before you apply the Protectant 303. But, once you do you will save a lot of time. I can apply the stuff to my 30 foot hull in about 45 minutes or less. That works for me I order it by the gallon and that's enough to do my hull for several seasons. I also use it on the hatches and ports and any plastic and vinyl  on board that may be exposed to sunlight for extended periods. 

GLOVING IT!

You never know when a good idea for the boat is going to strike you. A few weeks ago I'm on a twelve foot ladder in TV studio thinking about Mike Rowe and his Dirty Jobs television show. I'm pulling out audio and video cables some of which have been lying in a cable tray for over fifty years. I think Mike Rowe would agree it's a dirty job or at the very least a dusty one. It's part of a project to convert the facility to High Definition TV production. Before starting this task I went to the Engineering stockroom and got me a pair of gloves for this grimy endeavor. As I was pulling cables I looked at the gloves and realize these gloves would be very useful on board the boat.

They are just basic cotton gloves but, have palms coated with a flexible red latex rubber compound. The coating grips the slippery cables and is waterproof making it perfect on board a boat for gripping wet anchor line or chain even a halyard. Some of the pluses of these gloves:

1) Good grip in both wet and dry conditions

2) The cotton back breathes and drys quickly making them good in warm conditions

I do have a pair of leather palmed GILL gloves that I sometimes use on board. But, these gloves would be better and much cheaper to use for those slimy, dirty tasks on board. In fact Gill sells a similar pair of gloves with their name on them for $5.95 a pair.

But, you can pick up 10 pairs of similar gloves for $8.99 here  without the Gill name stamped on them. You do the math. I think it would be good to carry several pairs of these latex palmed gloves on board to hand out to crew to protect their hands or to have as spares. I wish I had these gloves on board when I took BIANKA up the Erie and Oswego canals on a trip to Canada in 2002. At that time I used plain cotton gloves for grabbing on to the slimy lines hanging down inside the locks. These latex palm coated gloves would have been much better suited for the slimy task of holding the boat securely in position. They would also come in handy for painting and varnishing jobs, As an added plus the red/orange color of the latex palms could be helpful in signaling in emergency or man overboard situations because of their high visibility.

BLOG UPDATE:

So I was checking into Reid Stowe's 1000 DAYS AT SEA website and lo and behold there's Stowe using the exact same gloves I've been mentioning above as he goes over the side to clean the bottom of the Schooner Anne on Day 75 of his adventure.