Thu Jan 13 19:05:17 EST 2011
This is a view of the harbor in Nain, Labrador last August. The masts of Issuma are visible to the right of the ship.
Brian, in his comment to the previous post, points out that there is still no ice in Nain, which is incredible for January.
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Comments [0]
Mon Jan 10 18:38:30 EST 2011, Toronto, Canada
We tried to leave the harbor today for a short sail but, after an hour of breaking ice, decided to wait for a warmer day when the ice is easier to break. We could have broken our way out the rest of the channel, but I don't really know how much ice this hull is designed for, so thought it better to wait for a warm spell before going sailing next. The temperature has been between -5C and -10C for the last few days and the ice quickly closed in and got thick. The ice we were breaking was about 13cm/5" thick, composed of a clear, hard layer of ice and a softer, white layer of snow that became ice.
In the picture, Don is pushing one of the chunks of ice down with a pole so the thickness and layers can be seen.
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Wed Dec 22 19:01:11 EST 2010, Toronto, Canada
After a total of two hours (including the turn) to get thru 300m of 3-4" (8-10cm) ice, we were free to exit the harbor.
Once out of the harbor, we had a pleasant afternoon sail with mild temperatures, gentle winds and light snow.
My neighbors at the marina took pictures and video of Issuma pushing thru the ice. There are pictures at
Don Proctor's Infrequent Photo Blog,
and video on Joe Berta's www.cruisingdog.com
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You and the crew have a merry festive season.
Ian McCoglin who is on Woodenboat forum and Brion Toss forum is a good thinker w/ experience in these things.
That's an interesting idea of moving the bobstay up and keeping the main reefed and not using the outer headsail during the winter. It wouldn't be a lot of work. Hmmmm. In the very short term, I'm planning on disconnecting the bobstay, then reconnecting it before setting sail. Thanks for the suggestions.
(1) If you don't use the outer jib and keep the main reefed then a bobstay that is shifted up seems worth thinking about a bit more.
(2) If Issuma's stem is strong enough you could theoretically beef up the bowsprit, the bobstay and the bobstay raised attachment point/area and let it go at that. I wouldn't know who to ask about a gut feeling for what you can get away with except Yann. (3) You might want to some trigonometric calcs to see how the compression loads on bowsprit and tension loads on the bobstay increase as the bobstay attachment moves up and angle between bowsprit and bobstay decreases.
I read Georges, I understand what he means
the problem is that the diameter of the bobstay is the same than for the mainstay, and the load is at least the double when you compare the angles; this means you would have to increase its size if you want to lift it; and about beefing up the bowsprit, I wouldn't like the idea to increase the weight of the bow! friendly
The bobstay is 13mm, the outer jib stay is 10mm.
I tried disconnecting the bobstay at the top, it didn't work out so well, as it got banged up a fair bit at the bottom when breaking ice. Disconnecting at the bottom to break ice and reconnecting to sail is looking more difficult than I first thought, due to how far down in the near-freezing water one has to reach from a dinghy to re-attach it.
At the moment, I have the spinnaker halyard rigged as a temporary stay from the top of the foremast to the bow. When the wind dies down (its too cold to get much work done aloft now), I'll see about putting something stronger in place.
I'm working on the load calculations, but its been a long time since I've done this math :).
The best answer seems to be to remove much of the bowsprit. While that might be straightforward if I moved back both the outer jib and the inner jib, that means two sails to modify, two stays to shorten, and
Wed Dec 22 18:59:13 EST 2010, Toronto, Canada
After getting thru the 90 degree turn, it got much easier to break the ice. The problem with Issuma in breaking this type of ice is that the bobstay (the pipe structure in front of the boat is called the bowsprit, the wire that supports the bowsprit from the bottom is called the bobstay) is low enough that it sometimes cuts the ice, instead of the hull riding up on the ice and then using its weight to break the ice. The bobstay supports the masts via the jibstay, so, even though I wasn't using much power (to reduce strains), it is not that good for the bobstay to be cutting ice.
Issuma is loaded heavily, and floats lower than it would in seawater (because freshwater is less buoyant), so the bobstay hits the ice more than it might otherwise. I think the solution is to remove the bowsprit (not a simple thing to do, it involves moving the jibstay back and shortening the jibstay and the jib and probably needing to compensate the sail area change forward by removing the roach from mainsail).
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something could eventually break, but nobody knows if it is the bobstay, the main stay , the backstays or one of the masts! hope everything is OK :) happy christmas (should I say christmast?)
I think next time I go out I will disconnect the bobstay, then reconnect it if we use the jib (last time the jib furler line was frozen so we couldn't unfurl the jib anyway).
Merry Christmas
Wed Dec 22 18:56:13 EST 2010, Toronto, Canada
From where Issuma is (was) docked, getting out of the marina involves a 90 degree turn shortly after leaving the dock. This turn is quite difficult to do in ice, as it is hard to apply a lot of power in turning. Having two propellers helps a lot, but it still took an hour of back and forth and chopping at the ice with boathooks etc from the bow, to make this turn.
The auxiliary rudder was removed (you can see it on the dock), as I wanted to try breaking the ice in reverse as well as forward, and felt that might put too much of a strain on it. Issuma can only break very thin ice in reverse, as otherwise the ice is too close to the propellers (which would be very expensive to have to fix or replace). I think the main rudder (steel, controlled by hydraulics) is strong enough to back down into ice (slowly) without straining it.
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Wed Dec 22 18:53:03 EST 2010, Toronto, Canada
It is getting more difficult to go out sailing. The ice in the marina is now 3-4" (8-10cm) thick. Issuma has gone backwards and forwards to break a path thru the ice.
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Sun Dec 12 19:32:53 EST 2010, Toronto, Canada
Customs cleared me into Canada the morning after I arrived, and then Martin and Magdalene came aboard for the sail to the marina I'd arranged a berth in (Bluffers Park Marina).
It was a nice, pleasant, relatively warm (ie, above freezing) day with a light tailwind. We motored out of the harbor, then had a nice sail to near the marina, doused the sails, raised the keel most of the way and motored into the marina.
My assigned dock in the marina was a long way from the entrance, so after entering the marina, we had about 300m off thin ice to plow through. This was no problem, the ice only being about 1/2" (1.3cm) thick. In the picture, the boat is reversing towards the dock, and you can just see the ice that it has broken.
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Someone once told me it is never too cold to sail :).
Sat Dec 11 17:52:23 EST 2010, Lake Ontario
After dawn, things got easier, as they often seem to with daylight. Several of the ropes thawed out and became easier to work with. The wind steadily increased to a Force 5 as we approached Toronto. The waves washed the salt (that I'd earlier spread on the deck to melt the snow) off the deck (but were not high enough to wash the salt off the pilothouse roof).
Dropping the sails and motoring into Toronto harbor was straightforward. A cheerful harbor police officer asked me if I'd really come from Whitehorse (now that I'm in Canada, everyone knows where Whitehorse is (far north and inland, on a big river in the Yukon Territory), where I once lived and where the boat is registered. While preparing docklines, a boat which saw me singlehanding came out and offered to help with the docking. It is always nice to have help when docking.
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Fri Dec 10 10:00:00 EST 2010, Lake Ontario, New York
Dawn along the southern shore of Lake Ontario.
After several days of shovelling snow while waiting for a favorable wind, the forecast indicated the break in the weather I needed was coming. The wind would not be favorable for long, so I left at night, just after the strong headwind died down, before it was to pick up from the south.
I motored out of Rochester harbor, then anchored immediately outside the harbor to fix some engine problems. After a couple of hours, I was underway again, motoring with some sails up.
The temperature was staying below freezing all night, but forecast to steadily rise as I went west along the shore as the southerly wind picked up. I had put salt over the deck to help melt the snow and ice that was on it. The salt helped, but the deck was still slippery in many places. I normally am attached to the boat at all times at sea via a safety harness that connects to a rope (jackline) that runs along the deck on each side of the boat. The trouble with this system in cold weather is that the rope running along the deck froze into the deck, and couldn't be used.
While I've done a fair amount of daysailing in winter with other boats, this was the first time I had gone sailing in below freezing conditions with Issuma. It was a learning experience. The rope clutches (which hold the ropes after you tighten them with a winch, so one winch can be used for multiple ropes) don't really work with frozen ropes, as the rope diameter gets bigger, so it jams when trying to get it through the rope clutch. This could somewhat be worked around by using smaller ropes than what the rope clutch is designed for, but that means that in non-freezing conditions, the rope clutch will not hold as well (because the rope is too small for it). I hadn't realilzed that when I installed the rope clutches.
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friendly
Yann
Richard
friendly
Yann
Tue Dec 7 18:32:55 EST 2010, Rochester, NY
In Rochester, Shumway Marine had a big enough (40 ton) travelift so they helpfully hauled Issuma out and fixed the problematic thruhull, and welded over (closed permanently) three other thruhulls, so they could not cause problems over the winter (when the boat may be frozen in) and replaced some zinc anodes and we painted the bottom of the boat.
After launching, in a mad rush to finish up enough of the rigging work to be able to leave on the fair wind that I had for only a short period of time, I left in mid-afternoon. I was still rigging lines at sea, before I could set all sails. Days are short in December, and the Coast Guard stopped me for a safety inspection, which took up more of the daylight time that I had to finish things underway. In the evening, with much still to be done, I turned back and returned to Rochester to await better weather.
Better weather was forecast only after a week of strong headwinds and snow. I've been shoveling the snow twice daily for several days now--more keeps coming. Forecast is for the headwinds to die down, then become favorable late Thursday, so I have a little longer to continue getting ready to sail.
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Take care.
