Hot Showers Without Electricity

Showers are nice, and what's even better is a hot shower! When you are plugged in at a marina, the water heater makes the shower on the boat as comfortable as a shower on shore, but what about when you are anchored out and not plugged in to shore power?

Some people will crank up their generator to power the water heater, others heat their water with the diesel motors coolant. On Wisdom, we don't have either option since we never had a generator and have replaced our water cooled diesel with an air cooled electric motor. Living with an electric motor should not condemn you to a life of cold showers!

We use the power of the sun to heat our shower water in a way that uses no electricity or fancy complicated systems. 

We call it the BatShower!

This contraption is simply an insecticide sprayer (new and never filled with pesticide) wrapped in black tape with a kitchen sprayer hose connected to the container. 

The black tape helps collect more radiation from the sun, heating up the water inside all the faster! Black paint could also work but we worried that the paint would chip off and make a mess on the boat. The black tape has developed some scrapes and nicks over the years, but there has yet to be any flaking or mess caused by this setup.

The kitchen sprayer nozzle has been a wonderful addition to the shower. We felt weird spaying ourselves with the pesticide nozzle, and the nozzle took up a lot of space. The kitchen sink nozzle is small, compact, and works just like a regular shower nozzle. The button on the handle lets you control the flow of water as well, depress the button to flow water, release the button and the flow stops completely! Thanks to this shower nozzle, we waste almost no water during our showers.

To operate the shower, simply pump the handle a few times to build up pressure, then wet yourself, lather up, and rinse yourself off. Maddie and I can both shower with the volume of water stored in this shower, and still have some left over! Having the very limited quantity of hot water also reduces the risk of a long shower depleting our water tanks. Long showers with the sprayer are interrupted by the need to re-pump the tank! This helps keep showers short and water use to a minimum while still getting you clean and making sure you smell nice.

To warm the tank, we simply leave it laying in the sun all day. You can actually see it in most of the pictures, it's left resting in one area or another while we sail or at anchor; passively collecting sun and heating up our shower water.

By the end of the day, when we are ready for our shower, we have plenty of hot water for us! If no one is around, we shower on the deck or in the cockpit; if we are in a crowded anchorage, we shower inside in the head by placing the shower on the composting toilet and standing in the shower stall area.

It takes up a lot less space than a regular shower, requires no plumbing, and only relies on sunlight to generate our heated shower water! If we have a cloudy or cold day and the shower is unable to warm up, we simply boil some of the water on the stove and pour it back into the container. That will give us plenty of hot water in a hurry!

Trysail Setup

The trysail is a very small sail set in place of the main for storm conditions. It is considered one of the two sails that are never used on a sailboat, the other being the spinnaker. This is probably because people like to turn into powerboats during a storm by dropping all the sails and cranking up the engine.

The problem with this is the extreme motion of the boat during a storm is sediment in the fuel tank can become suspended in the fuel and clog the fuel filter. This is why you always hear of sailors complaining that their engine died at the worst time possible during a storm. If you were relying on your engine, then now you are adrift! Laying a hull under bare poles has been proven a horrible storm tactic, leading the boat to lay beam to the seas and usually capsizing or rolling over completely. When your engine dies in the peak of the storm is not the ideal time to raise your trysail, but at that point, you might be willing to "try" anything, even that "sail".

Being how we don't have the luxury of motoring during a storm (our electric motor doesn't have enough charge to power us through a long storm), we rely on our sails and have actually used the trysail a few times! As soon as we see a severe storm on the horizon heading our way, we rig our trysail. This lets us get everything ready and rigged in calm weather so we are ready for the storm as soon as it hits. 

The trysail runs up its own mast track next to the mains track. This allows the trysail to be raised without removing the mainsail. 

The sheets of the trysail are run to a turning block aft, and then forward to a large sheet winch. A simple bowline tied to the clew will hold very well during the harshest of blows. 

It is important to make sure the lazy sheet is run over the boom and not under it. When it is led over the boom, the sail is able to switch to the other side without issue. If the sheet is led under the boom, the boom will interfere with the sails ability to be on the opposite tack.

The trysail has fallen out of favor by most sailors who state that they could more easily tuck in a third or fourth reef into their mainsail than to rig up a trysail. This is a true statement, trysails take some time to rig in fair weather (before the storm) and could be nearly impossible to rig during a strong blow! 

Trysails do have their place though, as they are made out of much heavier sail cloth and are purpose built to weather out a storm. This means that your mainsail is not subjected to all the wear and tear of a storm. If your deeply reefed main were to tear or rip during the storm, you would have no mainsail once the storm has passed. If you tear or rip your trysail during a storm, your main is still untouched and ready to hoist once conditions improve!

The other advantage of a trysail in a heavy blow is it takes the boom out of the equation. Jibing the main can be an eventful occurrence in heavy wind. The boat will heel over greatly and the boom will slam to the other side as it falls past the midship point! Accidental jibes due to wind shifts or purely accident are risky and dangerous during high wind situations. The trysail takes the boom out of the equation and lets you jibe it as easily as you jibe your jib! Simply turn the boat, loosen the windward sheet and tension the leeward sheet; it takes all the fear and noise out of storm sailing. 

On a final note, the storm trysail has less going on than a reefed main, which translated into less to break during the storm. The sheet is tied to the clew, run to a turning block and set on a strong winch. Any snags or problems are easy to identify and straightforward to correct. 

Flag Etiquette

Flags are an excellent way to signal information to other vessels; but to properly communicate, you need to know flag grammar.

Stern Flag

First off, the flag on your stern pertains to the country you pertain to. If your boat is a US vessel, you would fly a US flag (50 star flag); if your boat is German, you would fly the German flag. When you are sailing in your national waters, you can fly that countries ensign flag in lieu of the national flag. When overseas, this practice is not allowed and you must fly your national flag. 

The size of this flag is dependent on the length of your yacht, the typical guideline is 1 inch on the fly (horizontal length of flag) for every foot of boat length. Flags come in several standard sizes and you should always round up to the next commercially available size.

Port Spreader

The port spreader halyard is the correct location to fly club burgees and other personal flags. This side is considered the personal flag side of the boat. It is recommended that you only fly one burgee on the halyard as opposed to flying every burgee you have on board.

The size of these flags is typically 1/2 inch on the fly for each foot above water that they flag is flown; ie. a 15 inch flag when the spreader is 30 feet above the water.

Starboard Spreader

While the port spreader flies personal flags, the starboard spreader flies regulatory flags. This halyard is where the yellow quarantine flag is flown until customs are cleared, at which time it is switched over to the countries courtesy flag. These flags are also sized as 1/2 inch on the fly for every foot above water that they are flown.

Distress

Distress can also be expressed by way of altering the national flag or ensign. Commonly accepted distress signals are flying the stern flag upside down or tying a knot in the fly of the flag. Both of these signals are accepted as daytime visual distress signals and should only be done during an actual situation of distress.

One of my neighbors was displeased with the US election results in 2012 and hoisted the US flag upside down to the top of his mast while tied up in the marina and the marine police actually came into the marina to investigate the situation and help this boater in his time of distress. When they learned of his reasoning, he was ordered to lower the flag since he was not in distress.

Now you know which flags are to raised and where. Country flag on the stern, personal and club flags on the port spreader, courtesy and signal flags on the starboard spreader.

Barber Hauler Setup

The process of setting up a barber haul is very simple, all you need is a snatch block!

On a beam to broad reach, the headsail is eased, causing it to twist and loose efficiency. 

The first step is to ease the headsail until there is slack in the line but not so much that the sail begins to flog. This will reduce the tension on the sheet, allowing you to place it into the snapshackle by hand. Then sheet the sail back in and trim to the apparent wind.

Now the headsail is able to hold a better sail shape, resulting in higher efficiency and more speed through the water. 

With the better sail shape, you can reach your downwind mark in less time and more comfort!

Bikes On Board

Each bike is designed to excel in a specific field of biking, usually sacrificing the other fields of biking. 

• Road bikes are great for long distance and efficient riding
• Mountain bikes are great for off road use, but not as efficient as a road bike
• Folding bikes are great at folding

Folding bikes are very handy! They provide wheels when you make landfall, and tuck away into tiny spaces while underway. While folding bikes may be very good at fitting into small spaces, they are not the best type of bike for covering long distances or varied terrains. Folding is about all they excel at.

Road and mountain bikes on the other hand are better at covering longer distances. Mountain bikes tend to be heavier and have wider tires which allow them to withstand the abuse of off road riding; whereas road bikes are much lighter and have narrower tires, allowing them to move along with significantly less rolling resistance.

Road and mountain bikes are great at covering distances in new places, but they can never fold up as tightly as a folding bike. This is where the space available in the boat comes into play!

Modern road and mountain bikes have quick release wheels, allowing you to easily transform a large bike into a frame and two wheels with no tools and only a few minutes. The separate pieces can be neatly tucked away into a locker, if the space allows.

If you manage your space well, you can fit many large items in the lazarettes on a sailboat. In the aft lazarette, we keep a 5 gallon pail full of rope for the stern hook, a shop vac, water hoses, shore power cables, and a large size frame (60cm frame) road bike! The wheels are removed and the frame is tucked into this storage locker. 

I chose to take a road bike with us on our trips because most of the places we arrive are near roads. While I have to carry the road bike across the beach and in to shore to reach pavement, it pays off when I then need to ride a few miles to get to my destination. A mountain bike would let me bike up the beach and into shore, but would not ride as efficiently on the pavement as a road bike would. These are all compromises that we must choose to live with when deciding which bike to take along on a journey.

While a folding bike will tuck away into a much smaller locker and take up much less space on board, it would not be able to bike along the soft sand of a beach, nor cover the miles of pavement as efficiently as a road bike would. If you have the space for a real bike on board, I would highly suggest it over a folding bike. If you do not have the space on board to fit a real bike, a folding bike will still provide you a set of wheels when you make landfall.