Kaimusailing
s/v Kaimu Wharram Catamaran
| Vessel Name: | Kaimu |
| Vessel Make/Model: | Wharram Custom |
| Hailing Port: | Norwalk, CT |
| Crew: | Andy and the Kaimu Crew |
| About: | Sailors in the Baltimore, Annapolis, DC area. |
17 April 2024 | St Marys, GA
Dinghy Skeg
I was suffering with what seemed like a cold and also had allergy symptoms. I awoke and felt fine. The green pollen that was coating everything was gone. Maybe it will return.
07 April 2024 | St. Marys, GA
Clammy Hands
Items came in from TEMU, the Chinese cut rate retailer. One was a nice little drone that cost about twelve and a half dollars. It looked like an easy thing to play with while I coughed and sneezed. I was fighting a summer cold, even though it is not summer elsewhere, it seems like it here. A nice [...]
02 April 2024 | St. Marys, GA
Sun Doggie
After laminating the cedar strips onto the gunwales of the dinghy I found the screws I used wouldn’t come out. The epoxy had seized them. The screw heads were stripped so I cut a straight slot in the heads with the cut off wheel. The cedar smoked when the screw heads got red hot. I could remove [...]
21 March 2024 | St. Marys, GA
Just Add Water
The rainy weekend started off with overcast and fog but no rain. It looked like I might be able to get something done on the D4 dinghy. I wanted to change the bow seat which is really the bow deck. The sailing option uses the deck to hold the freestanding mast. I didn’t like how the deck looked, [...]
01 March 2024 | St. Marys, GA
D4 Dinghy Alternative Seats
The rain event was more wind than rain, strong winds with gusts up to 44 mph. We drove into town to see what the harbor was like. There was a small sailboat that had dragged anchor and was sitting close to shore. The tide was out. We left and played with Bleu at Notter’s Pond.
23 February 2024 | St. Marys, GA
D4 Inside Seams
Day two of the dinghy build started out with me finishing wiring the hull bottoms together on the centerline of the bottom panels. This was much easier than the wiring of the chine edges of the bottom panels and the side panels.
Tough Book Nav Computer
I took a break from this nasty work when I got a Panasonic Toughbook on Ebay for $37. I had always wanted a toughbook as navigation computer for the boat. It has a bright screen for use in daylight, shock mounted hard drive, and water resistant keyboard. The unit I purchased was cheap because it didn't have a hard drive, nor AC adapter, and its BIOS was password protected. Of course the password wasn't provided. Naively I reasoned I didn't need to access the BIOS as long as it would recognize the new hard drive and allow an operating system to be installed. I bought a Fugitsu automotive grade hard drive similar to the toughbook original and when it wouldn't boot during XP install, I realized it would be necessary to get into BIOS. Needless to say it was difficult to decrypt the password. Then the XP drivers provided by Panasonic from their website wouldn't install. Another long effort, punctuated by email from Panasonic saying that this was an ex-military unit. Now however, all is working and this blog is composed on the toughbook. I had Sea Clear and Nobeltec navigation software, a collection of all NOAA charts, additional charts of Caribbean and Central America, and Bermuda. The toughbook has an old fashioned serial port that matches up with the gps antennas on the boat. There is a permanent mounted antenna on the pilothouse, a spare, and a Magellan handheld gps with serial interface cable. The software was tested with the spare antenna and it worked well. Skype wifi phone was tested also. So now we have an inexpensive navigation computer to add to the pilothouse, although it took a lot of time to sort it out.
