SV Panta Rhei Retirement Trip

Vessel Name: Panta Rhei
Vessel Make/Model: Able Apogee 50
Hailing Port: Seattle
Crew: Larry and Karen
Social:
18 September 2017 | Seattle
23 August 2017 | Prince Rupert
15 August 2017 | Anan Bear Observatory
19 July 2017 | Petersburg, AK
17 June 2017 | Hoonah, AK
03 June 2017 | Seward AK
03 June 2017 | Denali
25 April 2017 | Seward AK
23 March 2017 | Seward, AK
11 March 2017 | Seward, AK
23 January 2017 | Seward AK
06 December 2016 | Seward AK
12 November 2016 | Seward Alaska
14 October 2016 | Valdez, AK
21 September 2016
05 August 2016 | Seward, AK
26 July 2016 | Whittier, AK
19 July 2016 | Valdez, Alaska
05 July 2016 | Seward, Alaska
Recent Blog Posts
18 September 2017 | Seattle

We are back in Seattle

It feels like home. Of course we are not in Silshole. Maybe we will be, someday, but there is a list and we are on it. In the meantime we are at Bainbridge Island Marina.

23 August 2017 | Prince Rupert

The dinghy holds air again

It wasn't very nice of the bear to tear the fabric across a seam. We were worried that we couldn't patch it but tried anyway. The glue had a job to do and it did it!

15 August 2017 | Anan Bear Observatory

A Grizzly Bear damaged our dinghy

We were visiting the Anan Bear Observatory south of Wrangell. It is one of the best places to visit in all of SE Alaska BECAUSE it has bears. But (as we learned) there is a dark side to this bear concentration. And of course, there is a story to tell.

19 July 2017 | Petersburg, AK

Moving On

"No matter where you go, there you are" (unknown reference). By now we have been there and done that. Most recently that included Cannery Cove on Admiralty Island. The photo shows the quiet grandeur of the setting with Ron and Suzie's boat SV Tango in the foreground. It has been like that for the last [...]

17 June 2017 | Hoonah, AK

We are in Hoonah, SE Alaska now

We got something resembling a high pressure ridge so we moved expeditously across the Gulf of Alaska. The crossing took three days and weather stayed as forecast. That was a very good thing. The weather changes in the far north far more rapidly and dramatically than we ever experienced in the more southern [...]

03 June 2017 | Seward AK

Crossing the Gulf of Alaska

We are still in Seward, AK. Now that spring has come, why not start south?

The refrigerator door challenge

09 June 2012 | Anchored at Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia
Larry Nelson
Everyone talks about things that break during their voyage. Most involve remove and replace type of repair activities. Unfortunately not all things can be repaired this way. This is a custom boat. Replacing sometimes involves making things all over again, only this time changing them enough that they last a little longer (we hope).

Today the refrigerator door latch failed. It failed when the door was shut. The beer was on the other side of the door and access is ONLY available through this door. The grill partitioning of the refrigerator (i.e. shelves) prevent access from the top. It is possible to remove these grills, but that would make access difficult. We like our door! And besides we have to open the door to remove these grills. And if we disable the latch, so to open the door again, we need something to keep the door shut after we access our beer. The broken latch is the only means of keeping the door shut. Having an open refrigerator is almost as time critical as having a toilet break. What to do? I should mention that the latch that broke is glued into the door because there is a vacuum panel behind it for insulation. We cannot just remove and replace the latch because finding a latch that will work was a major issue in Seattle when the boat was built and isn't any easier to find 12 years later in French Polynesia.

We removed the door by unscrewing the hinges. This left us with no door on the refrigerator so whatever we were going to do needed to be done quickly. We tried drilling the latch to provide a new means of operating it with something like a rope loop. The latch was very hard and drilling did not work. Besides, the space was just not sufficient to get the rope behind the latch and thus encircle it. We tried hard even with thread and fish line. That idea just didn't pan out. Meanwhile the refrigerator energy was leaking all over the floor...

Karen gets the credit here. She suggested an external latch, something like Karl Jacobsen fashioned for us to hold the refrigerator top door open. Of course we didn't have time to fashion one, so we simply moved Karl's latch to the front of the door. It works great! I've posted a picture so you can see how it is rigged. We'll fashion a more proper latch when we get to New Zealand. Meanwhile, we can hold the top door open easily when we access our cold water which is stored there. It's a minor inconvenience that will be corrected in New Zealand.

Karl Jacobsen has saved us more pain than I can record in this short blog. he deserves a medal from us, but how to deliver it? Karl, you may be insufficiently medaled, but you are our hero.

Additional details of the SV Carisma trip were revealed at movie night (a viewing of Captain Ron) last night. It turns out that about the third day without wind Chris decided the boat would motor in reverse (but only very slowly in forward gear) so they motored all night backwards until wind came in the morning. They motored again in reverse to enter the harbor and transit a long passage by the airport. This greatly confused the harbormaster who controls traffic by the airport since the boat was facing the wrong direction. Of course they arrived during a wind storm so anchoring (which required motoring in forward gear against the wind) was barely possible. The incentives are high though and anchoring was successful. Then Chris spent about 3 days working nearly non-stop to resolve the problem. Eventually he found a piece of the starter that was gumming up the works and a failed seal on the side of the transmission. He has also found a replacement transmission but maybe the problem can be solved without a complete replacement. The repair continues. He got it fixed enough to get into the marina where Seth and Kirk (their kids) have managed an invitation to tour one of the superyachts. Their lives are interesting but Chris has to be a superman to keep it all going.

I've posted some pictures under Papeete in the gallery.
Comments

About & Links