The boat had a dutchman boom brake rigged to the vang weldment and the shroud turnbuckles. What the boom brake advocates don't tell you is how many booms have been broken. For a long (18') boom like on the J/40 it is not hard to figure out. If you use an end boom preventer, the recommended hardware should have roughly a 3000 lbs. working load. (Lesser hardware has been known to explode: http://members.dslextreme.com/users/sded/sftrip3.htm) Bring that load into the vang attachment and your talking about over 10,000 lbs. loaded sidewise on the boom AND on the gooseneck (opposing).
Fortunately, I noticed a small crack developing and stopped drilled it, eased the vang, and took off the boom brake to get us through the last week. Florida Rigging did the beautiful doubler work, though at great expense, as you see here.
I sold the boom brake and reverted to a more traditional preventer. A nylon pendant (for some give) lies along each side of the boom and is thru-bolt attached to the end of the boom. Each side of the boat has a 2:1 tackle from the bow that can be attached to the pendants. These tackles lead aft to stoppers next to the main sheet winches. This arrangement does require going up the shrouds to attach the tackle to the pendant, but the dual arrangement, and careful attention to where the blocks go, allows one to gybe back and forth with both sides attached and without getting the tackle hung up on the shrouds, etc. As a side benefit, you don't have to rehook around the boom brake when going forward on the jackstays. Again, a copied design, but seems a good arrangement for cruising.
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The boat has a DOA 135 and a nice 155. Given that we will be in the trades for the winter/spring, the 155 is much too big. This #3 is a heavy duty, all day long in the trades sail. It has a foam luff so that we can reasonably use it down to about 85% or so. Its definitely a cruising sail, not a racing sail, but looks very well built for the purpose. We're taking the 155 w/ us, but I suspect we'll never use until perhaps we're up around the Bahamas in June.
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OK, this sucks. The power train on this boat has been a pain from day one. The newly rebuilt transmission was a total botch job: I actually found full sized parts floating around when I opened it for its first oil change. After much pain and anguish, I did a simple tear down and put back together with the right parts. Still, I could never fully trust it again.
The engine showed a little weird in the prebuy oil analysis, but nobody was able to figure out what was going on or seemed particularly concerned. The best advice was just to keep running it - hard when possible. Once running, it always ran well, but sometimes getting it to start was a bear and compression was starting to run low. We're still trying to figure out exactly what happened (probably a little water thrown up from a sag in the exhaust run), but she's locked solid now. Of course this is after spending Volvo bucks (its a different kind of currency I swear) replacing anything suspicous like water pumps, heat exchanger, etc. and spending a small fortune on Volvo spares to have on hand.
We did replace the stuffing box with a dripless that is truly dripless, a new cutlass bearing, and had the MaxProp overhauled. The prop was a great deal: super folks. For about $200 they remachined the prop and it has much less vibration than before. Plus it was sooo shiny :) (Not anymore:(
Well enough of Volvo. I have a new Yanmar to install, more on that later...
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I fear watermakers, but love them too. I chose the simpliest, most rebust unit on the market, VillageMarine, at a killer price during a boat show. The installation was, shall we say, involved. It is plumbed to the port and aft tanks, but not the starboard tank. Because we can't add thru-hulls and the WM warranty requires a dedicated thru-hull, we added a valve to the aft head intake to isolate the WM during operation. Even so, we had problems underway sucking in air, which the pump really doesn't like at all. After consulting with VillageMarine, the installation became even more complicated with an additionally pump and a air/water separator. Added 1A to the operating cost. We haven't had a chance to give this new arrangement a workout, so we'll see...
Turns out dropping the water into the tanks through the vent lines isn't such a good idea. Underway, the vent line can effectively form a trap and prevent the water from draining into the tank. Had some very nice water in the bilge one day... For now, we just have to remember to crack the filler caps every hour or so while filling the tanks. Later we'll come up with a better arrangement, perhaps teeing into the filler hose.
So far its been bulletproof giving us 8GPH on about 15A: knock on wood.
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Latex and very comfy. Made a huge difference in my sleeping, though my wife might offer a differing opinion. Good thing we have a drag alarm, I just might sleep through the whole thing otherwise...
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More energy savings. The original fans were worn out oscillating (well at least they oscillated at one time) Guest model. They move a lot of air but draw a lot of power (more than the fridge) and you can't tone them down to a more modest, quiet volume: on or off. Replaced with Hella fans for significant energy savings, much quieter operation, and sufficient, though somewhat less, air volume. I did keep a Guest in the Galley for increased airflow when cooking, but we leave it off otherwise.
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The original Force 10 was smokey and corroded. A really, really tight fit down the companionway. Otherwise an easy drop in replacement. The new one seems a little better built: stainless instead of iron burner caps, for example. Still, keeping surface rust off the brushed stainless surfaces is a continous effort. Sure is nice that Force 10 finally capitulated to the need for a thermostat on the oven. They used to say it was too dangerous and you kinda had to twiddle with the burner to hold temp.
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Ever come off a wave and slide the seat right off the head... Not my idea, but a good one.
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