WATER WATER EVERYWHERE!

One of the nice things about having the world's first electrically propelled Nonsuch 30 is I no longer need to find or tie up at a fuel dock. This is a real good thing. Unfortunately, I still occasionally need to stop at a dock to top off the water tanks. Bob at BOAT BITS has come across a promising technology that may soon eliminate the need for sailors to even make diversions and stops to find a dock with water.

How does it work?

Each individual device would only process minute amounts of water, but a large number of them — the researchers envision an array with 1,600 units fabricated on an 8-inch-diameter wafer — could produce about 15 liters of water per hour, enough to provide drinking water for several people. The whole unit could be self-contained and driven by gravity — salt water would be poured in at the top, and fresh water and concentrated brine collected from two outlets at the bottom.

They've already tested it in nearby local waters:

So far, the researchers have successfully tested a single unit, using seawater they collected from a Massachusetts beach. The water was then deliberately contaminated with small plastic particles, protein and human blood. The unit removed more than 99 percent of the salt and other contaminants. “We clearly demonstrated that we can do it at the unit chip level,”

This technology certainly sounds promising not only for us sailors who want spend as little time looking for a place to find water but, for many other people in the world who need clean drinking water.

LAND FEVER

I've been working five days a week since early March. It's a financial pleasure as it allows me to pay bills and buy some things for the boat and replenish BIANKA's sailing fund. But, the work requires a Monday to Friday schedule. It does not allow much time for updating this blog and even less time to work on the boat. It's been ten years since I've had such a schedule. It takes some getting use to once you've led a relatively unscheduled life. But, I can tolerate it a few more weeks. Because of this I've only been able to work on the boat on the weekends. So I was at Union Station Friday night waiting for an Amtrak train to take me back to the boat with plans to take care of some projects in preparation for launch in May. Unfortunately, a tree somewhere north of Baltimore decided it was time to cross the Amtrak tracks that night stopping all train service for hours. The result was my window to get out of Washington rapidly closed and another weekend working on the boat was lost. You might say that I've come down with a serious case of land fever. The cure for which is to get on a boat with no planned schedules and no fixed address and no place to be as soon as possible.


or to put it another way:

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

- Herman Melville

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.

A LITTLE SAILING MUSIC PLEASE!

As the temperature dipped again to the point where lighting the fireplace was in order. I needed a little sailing music to get me back in a watery mood. I went on You Tube to listen to one of my favorite musical artists who many have never heard of. Jesse Ferguson (aka The Bard of Cornwall) lives up in Canada and performs both contemporary and traditional songs on various instruments. For example here he plays a mean Bodhran when performing Stan Roger's Barrett's Privateers:



Jesse also has a self produced CD that you purchase by the song or as a complete CD or MP3 here. This fellow has some real musical talent and that's why I enjoy his performances. I hope you do too.

SPRING CLEANING

After Saturday's chilly sea breeze forced me down below I decided to do some spring cleaning. I started with the pile of papers that had been accumulating over the past few years. Included in this pile are manuals for newly purchased equipment and articles clipped from various boating publications that I wanted to keep. The pile grew and grew tucked away in some out of the way space on board. It was time to take the pile put it on the table:

The next step is to sort, file and pitch out what is no longer needed. One thing to keep is the manuals for various pieces of equipment and tools on board. But, what is not needed is those parts of the manual that are not in English. So that's when I take out my Gerber multi tool scissors and start cut out those sections of manuals that are not in English and pitch them out.

On a boat space is always at a premium. You would be surprised at how simple things like getting rid of the parts of manuals that you will never read can free up space for more important documents in a small file box.

SPRING LIES

Yesterday ushered in the first day of spring here on the Isle of Long. A temperature of 71 degrees Fahrenheit made for a perfect day to head to the boatyard to start getting the boat ready for the new season. The winter thanks to El Nino had been snowy, wet and cold in these parts. So much so that I only made a few trips to the boat over the winter to just check on things and not work on any projects. The warm temperature yesterday made me want to put on my sailing shoes and wish the BIANKA was already in the water so I could go for a nice sail on Long Island Sound. That is until the sea breeze showed up:

What started out as seductive warm spring afternoon turned into a chilly reminder around 1 PM. This is what happens when the southernly sea breeze winds start blowing over water with a temperatures in the forties reach the north shore. But, I was still glad to see that the sea breeze was still doing it's thing. Which often makes for a delightful afternoon of sailing in these parts during the summer. Still nice to have spring here again and ole sol starting to warm up the waters.

A SENSE OF WHERE YOU ARE

For about thirty five years now I've made a career in building and repairing things electronic. In fact I have not been posting as much recently because I am currently working full time helping to build an new HD TV control room facility for one of the TV networks. The money I make will allow me spend more time on the boat this season while others will spend more time in their living rooms watching the images that pass through the facility. I think I get the better part of that deal. I also know that at some point many of the state of the art electronic boxes I am installing will fail and/or become obsolete. This is something I also keep in mind when on my boat. It's been a little over a month since the Coast Guard has shutdown most of the LORAN transmitters in the U.S. forcing mariners to rely on the remaining electronic systems more and more. Capt. Brucato has some interesting comments at his NYTUGMASTER site about relying too much on the electronic systems on board your boat for navigating. Here are some of the money quotes:

The idea of plodding ahead without keeping track of where I’ve been and where I expect to be has not entered the equation since detailed voyage planning has been made part of our operational procedures. Whether I put a mark on the chart or make a note, there is a record of where I’ve been within the last 30 minutes to refer to. Be it a landmark, bearing and distance, L.O.P., or radar range and bearing.

Sooner or later, something will stop working as it should, and even if every layer of “e-redundancy” fails, one can still have enough recent data to discern a decent estimated position when all of the e-toys fail.

I concur and always make sure I have a paper chart out nearby in the cockpit with me and also on the table down below. Since things can fall overboard quite easily too. I also keep an ELDRIDGE TIDE and PILOT BOOK in the cockpit when undeway in my home waters. I also carry a few books on repairing some of the electric components and systems on board. One of my favorites is Nigal Calder's BOAT OWNER'S MECHANICAL and ELECTRICAL MANUAL. Which I often refer to for some type of information here and there during every season. While electronics are helpful to have on board. They are useless when they fail. In terms of reliability paper always seems to work. Whether it is a nautical chart or a book. Something to keep in mind while on board. In short it's important to have a backup plan and a sense of where you are.

TOOLS OF AN ELECTRIC SAILOR: GERBER 400 MULTI-TOOL

I've been thinking about a tool I use a lot both on board and off my boat. Especially since I just lost it yesterday. It is the Gerber MP400 Multi-Tool. I like it better than most of the other multi-tools I have seen. For example I like how the blades and tools lock and unlock with ease. It's made of stainless steel and I've never had to clean rust off of it. I like that it comes with a Fisker scissors which comes in handy for cutting everything from paper to fishing line. The pliers are of a needle nose type that are helpful getting into tight spaces or useful when soldering electrical connections. But, what really sold me on the tool is that the knife blade has a serrated edge which is helpful for cutting all kinds of line on board faster and easier than the straight edge found on many other multi tools. I'm ordering my replacement Gerber MP400 today because it works.

ELECTRIC BOATS: IS THERE GOLD $ IN THEM THAR HULLS

Well maybe not gold but, possibly some silver.  I spend every minute I can on board BIANKA during the season. I am amazed as I look around the marina and harbor how little time others seem to spend on their boats. There are those boats only used on the weekends others are seen heading out only during race nights. Some boats never seem to move. A lot of boats just stay tied to the docks for days even weeks without moving.. So a few days ago I'm on an Amtrak train heading to Washington D.C. speeding along at 90 miles per hour (propelled by an electric motor BTW) reading an article in the Financial Times about V2G (Vehicle to grid) technology. Here is a quote from the article:

Electricity grids could operate much more efficiently if they tapped into the vast amounts of power stored in the batteries of electric and hybrid vehicles, to balance out fluctuations in supply and demand, writes Clive Cookson.

Vehicle-to-grid or V2G technology, which would enable electric car owners to make money while storing power for the grid,

Hmmm, sounds kind of interesting if it works for cars why not boats that are sitting tied to the dock with no one on them during the week. Here is how V2G technology works:

an investment in V2G could pay off quickly. Once the technology is commercialised, the extra costs of fitting a V2G-enabled battery and charging system would be about $1,500. The owner could make $3,000 a year through a load-balancing contract. V2G is economically viable because electric car owners are buying batteries anyway, so it makes sense to use them for communal energy storage. It would be more costly to install other storage systems.

Interesting that V2G technology or should I say B2G (Boat to Grid) technology could change things for those who own electric boats that spend more time at the dock than away from it.  The concept of  an electric boat with B2G technology that pays for it's own dockage does sound intriguing. A boat that helps pay the bills while at the dock what a concept!   As for B2G and batteries I say bring em on!

WHAT WORKS! WHAT'S COOL!

Bianka had a Frigoboat 500 engine driven compressor refrigeration system when I bought her. It worked well for a few years. Then one day it died. I found out it used R12 refrigerant gas. This was bad news because the the stuff was no longer made. The reason for that is it was bad for the environment. Remember the Ozone hole?  The idea of repairing it became moot when I converted the boat to electric propulsion.   So back in the diesel days while I was debating about what to do about the Frigoboat system I came across an Engel MT25 E refrigerator/freezer.

It's a 22 liter refridgerator/freezer  that runs on 12 volts DC or 120 volts. It has actually been able to provide my needs for over 8 years now without a problem. With one 75 watt solar panel on board this little baby operated 24/7 during the whole season and never once drained the battery bank. If I'm going on an extended cruise I'll fill the on board ice box with ice and keep access to it to a minimum. Meanwhile I keep the things I'll be using most frequently in the Engel. Things like milk, cheeses, juices etc... Rather waste a lot of energy keeping a case of beer cold. I just pop a few bottles in the Engel as needed. It looks like the MT25 E has been superseded by the Engel MT-27 model. Very similar to my unit but, a little more efficient and has handles. Engel also makes other sizes both bigger and smaller depending on your space and needs. I found the MT-25 now ENGEL MT-27 a perfect secure fit next to the cockpit hatch where I do most of my dining and drinking (weather permitting). As you can see here:

This keeps the beers, beverages, bottles of wine etc... close to the cockpit and keeps the built-in on board icebox closed for most of the day. Throw a boat cushion on the top of the unit:

and you have an additional  very convenient seat that you can move around in the cabin. This Engel unit has worked flawlessly on board BIANKA for over eight years and that's why I give it my WHAT WORKS award.

BLOG UPDATE: I recently purchased a second ENGEL unit. An Engel MR04UF which has more room and functions better as an on board  refrigeration system.