Kaimusailing

It seems like the rainy season has begun. The work on the crossbeam is under cover in the breezeway in a storage building so the rain has no effect. The mast is out in the open but most of the work on fittings is being done indoors.
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I didn’t have a snake or fish tape to probe the conduit inside the mast so I used some thin PVC flexible tubing. Right next to my mast is a similar Isomat mast and the fellow working on that was very knowledgeable and said that there are two conduits, one up to the spreaders and one up to the masthead. I was able to send the tubing through the masthead conduit and after much trial and error found the path through the spreader conduit. I found the conduit could probably pass a PL-259 connector, for the VHF antenna, so I ordered low loss 50 ohm coax, probably even the same seller as last time. There was a higher spec cable available at 6 times the cost but its only benefit was higher temperature range, the attenuation was the same. I will use 2 conductor landscaping wire for the DC power to the lights.
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Webb Chiles has begun his journey across the Isthmus of Panama, his boat on a truck, and his tracking device is on. Interesting to see it follow the road to the Pacific.
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Although I have scared away a few with my Richard Feynman YouTube lectures on Quantum Mechanics, I found a much more viewable clip called “Tuva or Bust”, it is very amusing and not too thick with math. His quote from the video is, “You can’t have High Adventure riding the Freeway and staying at the Holiday Inn.” He might be wrong on that one.
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The batteries were at 12.9 this morning, then went up to 13.2 with almost no sunlight, in the rain. There was not enough juice to run the inverter to the port side batteries, the starboard panels were eking out 1.8 amps. The next day I was able to charge the port side batteries from the inverter drawing from the starboard batteries. Both battery banks are in the high 12‘s.
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We took a trip up to Brunswick and Harbor Freight and I bought a replacement for the 1/2“ drill whose chuck was corroded and a pop rivet tool to replace one that is not gripping the rivets anymore. I used both tools the next day to make two large solar panels out of the six narrow panels I had already purchased. The narrow panels will be wired in parallel and the resulting large panel will be wired in series with the existing panel.
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A spool of green wire came in and I ran it inside the mast inside conduit up to the spreaders along with some 2 conductor landscape wire. These wires will be 2 hots for the spreader lights and the steaming light and a ground wire. I cut off a portion of the base of the mast to make the boom 6' 5“ off the aft deck.
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The crossbeam carpentry is done and now comes glassing and fairing and painting. First I glassed the ends of the beam with triaxial rovings. During the effort to sand off the lumps and bumps the sander died. I then borrowed “Doc"'s palm sander, but he wasn’t around and I felt guilty, so I tried to fix my own, cheap, Harbor Freight, $7 palm sander. Then Geoff showed up, the PhD chemist who often gives me an idea how to do something that I hadn’t thought up myself. We dissected the sander and commented about how much the fuel would cost to get a new one. It wasn’t worth driving to Harbor Freight just for the sander. Geoff left. I toiled with a motor brush that seemed to be jammed up and I sprayed it with Blaster, and then I could slowly pry it out without damaging it. I cleaned it and after that it moved properly in its electric brush socket. I reassembled the sander and plugged it in and it ran like it was brand new. Saving fuel here.
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I was going up to Geoff’s boat to boast about the achievement with the cheap sander when I saw an Ontario license plate in the vicinity of Integrity II, Jane Morgan’s boat. She must be here, I thought, and I rapped on her hull. Jane appeared and we talked a bit, she had come all the way down from Ontario, Hell of a winter. At one point she commented that I was not on my bicycle, and I replied it was frozen in corrosion, and she said she saw a Specialized road bike at the Salvation Army for $29. I had been thinking of getting another bike for some time and this seemed too good to be true. I broke off from the conversation saying I would get it NOW and ran over to Radio Bill’s boat.
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Bill has roof racks on his Jetta hatchback and some rope he keeps to tie down things on top, and he graciously drove me to the Salvation Army, about 2 miles away where the bike was still sitting. I was still in my beam sanding clothes, covered with various kinds of dust, and even in the Salvation Army I drew some stares. We tied down the bike on top of his car and returned to the boatyard. The bike was in good shape, but the rear tire was shredded and its tube was flat. I ordered a pair of tires and tubes with the fastest delivery and lowest price from a place in Philadelphia. $37, more than the bike cost. I looked online and read some reviews of the bike and downloaded a picture which is reproduced here. It is not the same bike, but very similar.