I BOUGHT AN UNDERWATER DRONE

I made a post a few weeks ago about an underwater drone geared toward fisherman that I thought might be useful on board BIANKA if the price was reasonable. Since it is over the one thousand dollar mark I scrubbed that idea. But, doing further research I can upon an alternative underwater drone that was in an acceptable price range for my budget. The only problem is it has not yet hit the market and will not be available until at least June. So placing an order for a non existent product is somewhat a leap of faith. But, I have been there before. Like in 2007 when I decided to convert BIANKA from having a diesel engine to installing electric propulsion. Not a lot of sailboats had done such a conversion at that time. So I had no real models to follow. Though since this drone is considerably cheaper than the EP conversion it is a much better risk. At around $500 the Fathom One drone is the right price for my budget and so I decided to take the leap and buy one sight unseen.
I'm looking at the drone as another tool to have on board not a toy. My primary reason for buying it is to use as a visual check on how BIANKA's anchor is set.  The five hundred dollar price seems worth it if it helps me know that my much more expensive boat is anchored well so I can sleep at night. It can also help me see what the anchor might be hung up on if I sould have trouble raising it. Another use might be to find an item accidently lost over board. Of course it might also be fun to see what lies below the boat too. But, checking the anchor will be it's primary use. I will post more details and show how the Fathom One works out once I have it on board and can test it's abilities. So stay tuned.

WHAT LIES BENEATH: PowerRay Underwater Drone

Those of us who spend time anchoring in murkier waters than most places in the Caribbean often have this question nagging us: How well is the anchor really set? Yeah,  you do a back down test but, it is still an unknown. If you are in places like the Exumas where the water clarity and temperature make it easy to check on the anchor it is not an issue. But, in places like the Northeast U.S. where visibility may be ten feet if you are lucky and the water temperature is in the low 60's it can be a problem. That's where this new underwater drone might come in handy. It's called the PowerRay and is primarily marketed toward fishermen who want a little more info on what is exactly underneath their boats. But, I see using it as a way to easily check on the anchor without guessing in less than clear or inviting waters. Since it's a tethered Drone there is less chance it will be lost to Neptune too. There is no price on it yet but, if it's reasonable it could be cheap insurance to have a restful nights sleep when the winds start to pipe up. It could also be very handy to see what ones anchor is fouled on if it does not come easily when trying to lift it. Another use would be to locate an item that went over the side that needs to be found.

ANCHORS AWAY

I'm  trying to catch up on things and put up some blog posts of things done and not done this past season on board. One of the things I had been planning to do was to attach a waterproof camera to the 33 pound Bruce anchor that serves as BIANKA's main anchor. It has been a doing a great job since I bought the boat. It has held in 30 to 40 knots of wind including a brush with Hurricane Earl. I trust it but, I was still curious how it was doing it's job. I never did setup my camera for some underwater video of the Bruce but, a fellow in the Pacific Northwest has. He shows it setting pretty nicely with a 2.5:1 scope Here is his video:

NEW YORK HARBOR SURVEY UPDATE

I mentioned a few posts back that NOAA and the Army Corp of Engineers where doing post superstorm Sandy surveys of New York Harbor.  Making sure the channels were clear of debris and shoals. I hoped that they would also do surveys of the areas around the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. I and other sailors often use these areas for anchorage as we wait for a favorable currents to help speed us up the Hudson (North) River.  I am glad to report that is the case NOAA has recently released a graphic of some recently completed surveys of those areas made in April:

As you can see the survey includes the whole area around the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island and also the basin where the the Liberty Landing Marina is located. These new surveys should lead to some new chart data and comfort that there are not any new surprises waiting below the surface in these areas for smaller cruising sailboats following Hurricane Sandy.

THAT WAS QUICK

I went down to the boatyard again on Friday to look for the Kings Loran manual that a sailor in Norway asked me about. While there I found out my new 500 pound mooring was already rigged up and ready to be dropped. But, that also meant the bill would soon be coming in the mail too.  At least I'll be able to relax a little in case another storm like Sandy heads this way knowing the mooring is 200 pounds heavier and has some new chain on it.

A NEW MOORING

I was working on board the boat yesterday when there was a tap on the hull. It was the boat yard manager asking me what I wanted to do about my mooring since they were starting to set things up for the up coming season. We had talked about increasing the size of the mooring ever since I found BIANKA a thousand feet from it's usual location after Hurricane Sandy. The original mooring that held BIANKA since 1996 was 300 lbs. It did an admiral job until superstorm Sandy came ashore last year. I could have jumped up to 400 lbs but, he mentioned BIANKA's bow mounted mast that maybe 500 pounds might be better. I had to agree. Might as well go BIG and not push my luck this Hurricane Season. I drove out of the boatyard singing the Bob Dylan song  New Morning but, changed the lyrics slightly singing the chorus as "new mooring" instead.

SHACKLE UPGRADES

In addition to the 200 feet of new galvanized anchor chain I also ordered two special shackles from 1st Chain supply. Normally, the weak link (no pun intended) in the anchor system is the shackles used to connect the chain to various thimbles and swivels. The problem is the shackles that one finds in the Marine store that fit inside the chain links have working loads less than the chain they connect to. The ones that are as strong as the chain have pins that are two big to fit inside the chain links.
There are two solutions to this problem. You can order the chain with oversize links at each end. but, order lead times are much longer (four to six weeks). The other solution is to use special alloy shackles that are as strong or stronger as the chain links they connect to. That is what I did. 1st Chain Supply has these alloy shackles available on their website they are in stock and I was able to order them when I ordered the chain. As I usually do before I connected them to the chain I coated the threads with Tef Gel to makes sure I will be able to take them off when I want to in the future.

ANCHORS AWEIGH

"RUST NEVER SLEEPS"

- Neil Young

When I bought BIANKA in 1995 it had one hundred feet of chain of 3/8" connected to 140 feet of pliant braid on board and a 33 lb Bruce anchor. It has worked well over the years for me in all kinds of conditions. Including a brush with a catagory one hurricane Earl in eastern Long Island. I notice it starting to rust over the years but, the rust got knocked off with the first time I anchored each season. At least that part that entered the water. I rarely had to put out more than 75 feet of chain when anchoring. Which meant the remainder of the chain sat in the damp chain locker rusting away. I had a "yikes"moment last year when I saw some of this severely rusted chain go over the anchor roller. I thought it is about time I got some new anchor chain as after twenty six years BIANKA's original anchor chain really did not owe me anything.

I had a hard time trying to figure out what size chain to order. I was pretty sure it was 3/8" chain but, the chain was so rusted I had a hard time figuring out what size it really was by measuring it as this photo comparing the new chain to the old shows:

These two chains were originally the same size but, rust has severely reduced the size of the original chain on the bottom. Just to be sure I would buy the correct chain I ordered a one foot sample of 3/8" anchor chain for ten dollars. I don't want to make a mistake in ordering almost a thousand dollars worth of chain weighing several hundred pounds as the shipping is expensive. I originally thought I had 125 feet of chain on board but, it really was only 100 feet. But, I ordered 200 feet of new chain so I would be able to put out  more scope when anchoring in the future with the chain. I ended up with a half barrel (200 feet) of chain being delivered. I bought it from 1st Chain Supply which had a pretty good price including delivery for 3/8" ACCO BBB galvanized chain.
Now it was time to remove the old chain. Since the boat was still in the boatyard I removed the Bruce anchor and used the windlass to drop the chain to the ground:

and onto a piece of scrap shrink wrap to make sure I would not be picking up a lot of dirt when I picked the chain up:

 Once the chain was off the boat I then removed the pliant braided anchor line from the chain locker. What remained inside the chain locker was about 5 pounds of rusted anchor chain:

I vacuumed the rust up and cleaned out the anchor locker.  I then took the rust covered pliant line that had been sitting under the chain for the past sixteen years to a laundromat put it into a machine with some Woolite :

After it was washed I bought it back to the boat and using my Forespar Nova Lift and hoisted the line up in a large duffle bag:

I then laid the line out over the deck for two or three days to dry out before putting it back into the chain locker  and attaching the new chain to it. After I attached the chain to the line I marked the chain with a bunch of red cable ties to let me know when deploying the chain that I am reaching the end of the chain. I marked it about 15 feet from the end:

I will eventually mark the chain with both paint and cable ties at various points along the chain 25, 50, 75, 100 etc... so I will  know how much has been let out. But, for now cable ties will do. I was a little concerned that perhaps 200 feet of chain might make the boat a little bow heavy but, happily that is not the case. The best thing is I can now sleep better at anchor knowing that BIANKA rides on some brand new anchor chain.

LESSONS FROM A HURRICANE: AN ANTI SAIL DROGUE

While I was preparing for Hurricane Earl checking the lockers for "needful things" I might use in preparation for the storm. I came across something than was on board when I bought BIANKA. It was a surplus military "sea anchor" made in 1957 according to the markings stenciled on it. It was only about 3 feet around and I wondered what one of the previous owners had used it for.  It did not look like it would hold up as a sea anchor or drogue in a rough sea.  But, it looked like it would be useful as I prepared  the boat for the arrival of Hurricane Earl. It was. In my research I came upon the concept of an anti sail drogue.  BIANKA with it's cat boat design can fishtail or "sail" at anchor pretty far while at a windy anchorage. Anything I could do to minimize this would be helpful especially in storm conditions. So I turned this surplus military sea anchor into anti sail drogue. Here is what it looked like completed on deck:

 This is how I rigged it. First I took some 1 inch webbing ran it through a five pound dive weight and stitched a loop on each end so I could attach a line to it. I then ran the line up though the drogue and attached it to the drogues parachute cord attachment point.

I then ran this line through the bow roller and cleated to the deck. The anti sail drogue should be about three or four feet below the surface. So I marked that on the line with red electrical tape and a red tie wrap as shown below:

And here's a view of it deployed off the bow::

The markings are good to have in case you have to lift it and redeploy it without trying to guess in storm conditions if it is at the right depth. Finally here is the antisail drogue in action off the bow:

I must say it worked pretty good. It did not stop all the fishtailing but, it certainly minimized it. I think an added benefit could be if the anchor started dragging the drogue would fill and slow down the drag perhaps enough to allow the anchor to reset. But, I hope to never have to find out if that hunch works. Now that I've made the anti sail drogue I have it ready to deploy if BIANKA needs to ride out another storm or even just in a windy anchorage to stop or minimize any fishtailing that happens.

Anchors away! And so was the owner!

Meanwhile up in Maine, PANBO has the the tale of a good looking trawler almost ending up on the rocks but, luckily the story has a happy ending thanks to some good local mariners. Here is the money quote:

I'm generally quite reluctant to fault fellow boaters when things go wrong, because I've made about every mistake possible myself at some point, and probably will again. But what I hear about this scene, captured in part on YouTube, is a bit disturbing. That big beautiful trawler didn't actually drag onto the rocks around Northeast Point, but that's probably only because crews from from Wayfarer Marine, Yachting Solutions, and the Harbor Master's office worked hard to hold her off, in pouring rain and lots of wind. A local hero even managed to squeeze his way through a pilothouse window, figure out the complex starting procedure, hoist the anchor, and put the boat safely on a dock. But the owner, who showed up after the storm had passed, was apparently somewhat casual about what happened, though most boaters would know that a salvage claim was a possible road not taken by the rescuers, and...

Here's some citizen sailor journalism of the incident from the deck of the LET'S DANCE:






Hats of the the folks who saved the boat. I just hope the owner learned a lesson from the incident too.