Ep 43 Rock Lobster
30 November 2024 | Lucaya
Bill Bernaerts | Still Awesome.

https://youtu.be/szhJzX0UgDM?si=4toL_0VCQqQQEAEw
Not much new to report here, same old days in paradise. We went to another snorkel site the other day which is used by local hotel for snorkelling trips. The hotel boat was just finishing up with their boatful of tourists and the dive master told us there were a lot of lobsters and crabs on the reef. We jumped in and saw a huge variety of fish with the coral being in a lot better shape than the first reef we dove on.
Many of the fish actually came very close to us so it's likely the hotel boats feed them as there were tons of them! But, after an hour in the water we didn't see any lobsters or crabs, so not sure what the deal is with that. Lynn has a fish book and she is quite good at identifying a lot of the fish we see. As an added challenge, a lot of the fish have different appearance characteristics depending upon their age, so that adds to the variety of what we see.
After an hour or so in the water we started getting cold , even with wetsuits on, so we hopped back in the boat and headed back to shore, and the hot tub to warm up. Afternoons are spent at the pool, reading or playing eucher or mexican train (a dominos game).
Also had to do a few jobs around the boat. On our washing machine like trip here on the final day we ended up throwing a mast wedge due to the repeated wave crashing with no sails up. (at least that's my theory anyway) Our mast is keel stepped , meaning it passes through the deck and sits down on the keel of the boat vs. a deck stepped mast which sits on fitting on the deck which has a compression post that transfers the weight to the keel. With keel stepped masts wedges need to be driven between the mast and the collar imbedded in the deck (official name is mast partners) to keep it from moving and bending.
The mast is supported by wire cable stays or shrouds, 3 on each side plus the forestay at the now and the back stay at the stern. These stays hold the mast up vertically and support it and keep it straight along its length when the sails are loaded. The forces on a mast are huge in a strong wind and without properly tensioned stays, bad things can happen! Masts have been known to break when the forces on them gets too great or the supports are not set up correctly, usually ending up bending the mast until it fails.
The first step here was to slacken off all the stays to ensure the mast was straight when I wedged it. This is easy to do when your keel stepped as the collar holds the mast up. I had made several wedges which were used when we stepped the mast back in April but apparently they weren't enough to keep things in place. So I had to make some additional ones from some wood I scrounged at the marina. It took a few hours but there is no way this thing is gonna move now as there are no gaps anywhere around the mast partners.
We also noticed a couple of drops of water under the starboard chain plate, which is a 4' long x 5" wide stainless steel bar that the mast shrouds are attached to. This has a flange that attaches to the deck and also passes through it and down to a structural beam on the hull which securely anchors the shrouds. Water leaking through the deck fitting could lead to corrosion and ultimate failure if left unchecked, especially on alta water boats. Luckily our boat has easy access to both inspect and remove the chain plates when required. I rebedded the port chain plate when we bought the boat as the surveyor found that it had been leaking.
Tuning the rig once this was done is part art and part science. Mast angle both fore/aft as well as side/side needs to be set correctly. The stays are different diameters depending upon the designed loads that they will carry so there is a device called a Loos tension gauge which allows you to set the tension correctly, When we got the boat last year I sent an email to the Tartan to ask about mast tuning. I got an email back with instructions on how to tension it properly so I followed the steps to tighten everything up properly. Our next sail will be the test to see if everything is set correctly.
Today's shot is of Sam post snorkel dive! Note the weird cloud formation in the background which was a cold front blowing in. But the water conditions were perfect with virtually no waves at all and this was about a mile off shore in 12-15' of water.