Fregata is on the hard and I am back up North for the Summer, Lots of new changes to my sailing resume. My Master captains license is due for renewal this year and the now have a Celestial Navigation sign-off and so I have been working on it. First, I now have a complete set of the six H. O. 229 Sight Reduction Tables for all Latitudes. I also bought an original vintage C. Plath Sextant from 1949 in excellent condition with all original box, paperwork, tool, etc. Added to this pile is a 2024 Nautical Almanac, a complete new set of brass navigation tools and mahogany parallel rules. I also created and printed a worksheet that I am using to “reduce” practice sights.

I am frankly amazed at the ridiculous level of difficulty that has been made of this process. One internet guru has a “simplified” version that takes several hours to complete. The actual process can be done in a few minutes.

Celestial Navigation is, in its simplest form, solving two triangles and comparing their common side.

That’s it.

Why it takes hours of explanation to teach is absurd.

If you know Longitude and Latitude, can use a sextant and correct it, and add and subtract. You can do it.

Things like “Celestial Sphere, Declination, Zenith Distance, etc etc etc just make it way more confusing than it needs to be.

You have a deduced position, use it to create an “Assumed Position”. You then take a sight with your sextant and record the time to the exact second. The celestial object has a specific position just under it for every second of every day (the Nautical Almanac), and you use the Sight reduction Tables to solve the triangles and compare them.

This gives you a direction to/from the celestial body and a distance from your “Assumed Position”. Tada! You now have a line of Position “LOP”. Do it again later or from another celestial body and you have a fix on your position. If you are careful with the sight and the time, you should be within a few miles of that fix. Once you are in sight of land, you start navigating from the charts of the area you are near using your compass and landmarks/buoys, etc. and enter the harbor/anchorage safely.

Sailors did it for hundreds of years once they had good timepieces (Thank You John Harrison).

Without too much verbiage; the two triangles are: Your Assumed Position, the position of the Sun etc, and the North pole. That makes one of them.

The other triangle is again your assumed position, The position of the Sun etc, and the center of the earth.

These triangles share a common side ie.: The line from your Assumed Position to the Sun’s position at the time of the sight.

The difference between the two triangles, once solved by adding and subtracting some numbers, gives your line of position. It really is that simple and I have no idea why they make it so complicated.

That’s one thing I am working on. The other major job is learning SAS Planet and Sat2Chart along with OpenCPN. It finally seems that OpenCPN has left all the other navigation programs behind. With all the open source plugins available, there seems an almost unlimited number of things to be learned and instituted.

I am however somewhat reticent to become a complete electronic sailor. The dichotomy of Celestial Navigation and OpenCPN plugins is not lost on me. I have to find a way to somehow find a way to merge the two.

We all still need to sail our boats though. We still have to trim sails, man the Helm, keep a proper lookout etc.

Can’t forget that.

One of my many jobs is to set up yachts for cruising. As mentioned before, there is no yacht built that is actually ready for cruising. Frankly, so few yachts ever go actually "cruising" that it doesn't make sense for a manufacturer to build one that way and they would never be able to sell it once complete as it would be prohibitively expensive. I'm currently fitting out a Shearwater/Union/East Orient 32 and a Cheoy Lee Pedrick 41.

My clients buy a good ocean yacht and then bring it to me to finish the cruising part.

With that in mind, I recently had a long conversation with one of the prospective Cruisers about which batteries to choose.

After almost 30 years of extended cruising, here is how I decide what to use, and how much, on this issue.

First, you need to know how much power you will need on a daily basis. I used to go through every electrical fitting on the boat and determine its usage when operating (lights, computer, instruments, radios, water pump, heater if installed, air conditioner if installed (ever rarer), refrigerator (usually the big one), anchor light, etc etc. and then decide how many hours each one would be run in a given day. This would give me a daily use of electricity on a typical day.

Nowadays I have a simpler solution. I hook one 12 volt battery up to the boat, and turn on everything. I then use a meter to check the amperage draw at that battery.

This has a problem and also a benefit. The problem is that all those items will rarely be running at the same time, making my number somewhat inaccurate, but the benefit is that is accurately shows line loss, corrosion loss, fitting loss, etc etc. I massage the number based on total time each one runs each day and I get a daily electrical use for the boat.

We live in a 12 volt world, so we need to work with watts or amps for our calculations. Amps is easier for me so that is what I use.

Now, lets say that a boat uses 30 amps per typical 24 hour day. It is important to remember that storms typically last a few days. I use four days of clouds as a basis for my calculations (Solar Panels). That tells me that I will need 30 x 4 = 120 amps of 100 amp battery to meet the needs. I factor in 50% for line loss, battery age etc etc and now I need about 240 amps of battery. Batteries average about 100 amps per battery and I expect to be able to use ½ of that or 50 amps per battery per day or 480 amps of battery power, so I need 5-100 amp batteries to meet the boats needs of 400 amps. 6 batteries is the standard that I have on my boat and what I install when doing a re-fit on a client's boat. I'll explain more on that later.

Now I need to replace that amperage with solar panels. I need to put 120 amps of solar and I again use a factor of 50% so I need 240 amps of solar to meet the needs. The truth is that on a typical day, you will get about 5.5 hours of solar output. Low sun morning and end of day, coupled with clouds or dirt or shadows on the panels are the cause of this. Volts times amps equals watts. Solar panels are usually designated as "watts" so I need to multiply the amps times 12 to get the watts. 240 amps times 12 volts equals 2880 watts per hour. I expect 5.5 hours of sunlight usually, so I divide that by 5.5 and I get 523 watts of solar panels needed. I put 2-300 watt solar panels aboard and I'm set. Almost.

Some notes on batteries. First, until the insane cost and danger of lithium batteries goes away. I don't recommend them to my clients. I also don't like AGM or Gel batteries as they take too long to recharge (or to put it another way, the accept charge at a much slower rate) and can't be serviced. That leaves us with wet cell batteries. Based on the use we put battery to, I highly suggest the 6 volt golf cart battery. Trojan 105s are my favorite (I've used several different brands through the years). They are designed to be abused every day by golfers, take huge loads well, and last a long time. Everything we as cruisers are looking for.

Here is a very important secret that we as battery consumers are never told. When buying a deep cycle battery we are told that they are good for 300-500 cycles. Well as a full time cruiser, that is less than 2 years! Not so good. Here is the truth. When you run a battery down to 12 volts and bring it back up every day, you are damaging it. That damage accumulates quickly and soon you have to get new batteries. However, if you don't run it down to 12 volts. But instead only drop it down to 12.4 volts, now it will last for over 2,000 cycles. That is almost 6 years.

Based on this fact, I have been doubling the battery bank, so that there is a lot of safety cushion and the batteries never get too low and damage themselves. 6-100 amp 6 volt deep cycle batteries is the standard. Throw in a group 24 starting battery for the engine a couple MPPT controllers, and you are swell on you way to getting to those beckoning sandy beaches.

Tada!

This is a very simplistic explanation for the sake of this article, but it gives the reader a general idea of how to do things correctly and why we do it the way we do.

On a final note, I always install a 400 watt wind generator to help on those windy cloudy days and you have a well thought out system that will last years before needing replacement.

Hope this helps.


Go Sailing!

Settled on a Beta Marine 50 for my Valiant 40. More power than the 4-108 and smaller overall footprint while fitting the width of the existing stringers, so no fiberglass work. Currently sitting in place. Now I am also removing all the wiring that goes nowhere and all new hoses, fittings, stuffing, prop, prop shaft, etc etc

Rigging

I like a cutter rig. The different easy sail change options makes this my favorite rig. I like roller furling on all sails. I also like dedicated instead of running backstays for the staysail. For most conditions I use a working jib and staysail. I feel that the 150 per cent genoas are a recipe for problems as soon as the wind picks up even a little. I have a 130 percent genoa for really light days. All my sails have high clues so that I can see under them and a wave cannot get to them if it comes aboard. Never have deck sweepers on an ocean boat. The sheets for headsails should always be tied on separately with a bowline with a small eye and longish tail. No cow hitches or hardware should be used as that makes the sheets hard to use and or/replace and dangerous when flogging.

I like a very sturdy mast with folding mast steps to the top and a single spreader rig with double lower shrouds. I also like hayn or hi-mod (or whichever) compression fittings for the standing rigging with 1 x 19 wire. I like masthead navigation lights as the deck level lights are often hard to sea in larger waves. I also like a radar system. They offer several advantages for the shorthanded crew. And the new systems are getting better everyday. This should be mounted just above the staysail stay for clear view ahead and out of the way of sails and roller furling gear.

I also dislike halyards that are run inside the mast. I like the look of exposed halyard and the quiet and accessibility of exposed halyards is certainly desirable.

I like sailing conventions. Things that are the same on every boat and can be relied upon. One thing I also install whenever possible is color coding for all running rigging lines. All lines relating to the Mainsail should be red or red flecked. All lines relating to the sails forward of the mast (Jib, Staysail) should be blue colors, and all sail forward of the forestay (spinnakers, ect) should be green colored. I make the halyards solid colored and the sheets are flecked with the color. All mainsail control lines should run through clutches down the starboard side of the cabintop and all lines forward of the mast should run through clutches down the Port side of the cabintop.
If the boat is set up this way it is much easier to train new crew and there is much less confusion aboard in an emergency. I set up all the boats I work on this way and the owners love it.
Inside the cabin should be lots of handholds. In the Head/Bathroom, around the Galley, near the Navigation station, as you enter or exit the cabin, and overhead the entire length of the cabin. Basically there should be a place to grab anytime the boat rocks and a crew-member needs it. So many boats built nowadays have too few hand holds and I've seen several times when a crew member is thrown around and injured because of the lack of them.

The cabin

The layout of a proper yacht cabin is actually straightforward. There is an anchor locker forward with a bulkhead running deck to hull for strength. Then under this is the v-berth is the holding tank, drawers, and the thru hull instruments (as far forward as possible). Above it, is a escape/airflow hatch. And above and to the sides is usually storage areas for clothes etc.

There is usually a bulkhead with a door separating the forward stateroom from the rest of the cabin. The head with toilet and shower and sink are usually next and across the hall is usually a locker or two. The head has a door and then you are in the main cabin. There is always a settee port and starboard with storage or water tanks under and lots of storage behind. Some boats have a pilot berth outboard and others have lockers, bookshelves, etc etc. The main dining table is usually centered and either folds up, or has leafs to open it up for dining for several people.

Aft of this area is a navigation table that has a dedicated seat and full size-table that can be worked on/ This is usually where the switch panel is as well as radios, computers, multi-function displays, etc etc The chart table should have a lid that lifts or drawers that open for storage.

Across from the Navigation Station is usually the galley. The most excepted standard is the horseshoe style. There should be a double sink, a fresh water foot pump, a salt water foot pump and a pressure water faucet The three burner stove w oven is placed against the hull where it can gimbal with the ships roll. Then the refrigerator/freezer is behind the person standing at the sink. For ocean passages is should be large. And it should be very thickly insulated. The insulation is critical and so very few builders do it well. You don't want your refrigerator compressor working all the time to wear out sooner and kill your batteries quickly every day. The refrigerator is easily the biggest use of electricity on any boat that doesn't have a teenage girl aboard.

If the boat is large enough, there can be a stateroom or berth aft, but that should not interfere with the all important cockpit storage locker. Also there can be lockers aft to place wet things in so that you aren't dragging them through the boat. Then there is the stairway up into the cockpit. It should also be sturdily mounted.

I should point out at this time that it was once said that an ocean going yacht "Should be fully stocked for a passage, be able to be turned upside down and shaken, and then brought upright and nothing should have come adrift." A tall order, but it can be done. It is certainly the safest way to do things.

The cabin sole should have proper openings the access everything necessary. These hatches should be latched down so that they cannot come adrift.
This is a collection of the Valiant 40 layout considered one of the finest ocean boats ever invented with multiple successful circumnavigations to its credit. It is very similar to my Pearson 33 layout.

I also like dual bilge pumps. One stacked well above the other. That way, if the upper bilge pump starts pumping, you know that there is a leak that the lower pump can't keep up with. A serious problem demanding immediate attention. The bilge pumps should be wired directly to the batteries and turning off the battery switch should have no effect on them. They should have their own dedicated switch for auto-off-manual positions.

I like vented cabin doors with an insert to make them watertight that have the pintle and gudgeon system for hinges to easily remove the doors. They are functional, look nautical, and are easily removed. Hatch boards are fine, but are clunky, always laying around and take a while to install every time you need them. They are also hard to create a decent locking system for.

On My boat I have an asymmetrical spinnaker a medium Genoa and a working jib. I also have a stay-sail and a storm stay-sail, I also have a full main and a storm try-sail that runs on its own track. All my sails with the exception of the try-sail are roller furling. The main is aft-mast roller furling, so it is easy to work with, doesn't weaken the mast, isn't hidden in the mast so its easy to service/trouble-shoot, is a simple, tested, robust system. I detest in-mast and boom furling. Never works properly or easily, is overly complicated, and a disaster waiting to happen. No thanks. Tried it...hated it. This drive to make everything "cleaner looking" has led to some really bad ideas (like running all the halyards inside the mast where they clang unmercifully all day and at night when trying to sleep. It's worse than Chinese water torture.