Speaking Cloud

The best weather forecast comes from the sky itself. Instead of going online and downloading a grib file, or listening to the WX station on the VHF, simply look up at the sky!

As weather approaches, different cloud formations will appear, telling you exactly what is coming and when. Should the weather patterns change, the clouds will inform you of this and you can relax again.

One of the most vocal clouds is the Cirrus Cloud. Cirrus clouds are wispy, high altitude clouds, usually composed of tiny ice crystals. If you see one or two of these clouds in the sky, they don't really have much to say. If you see the sky filling with these clouds, then you should listen to what they have to say!

Cirrus clouds tend to indicate the approach of deteriorating weather. Cirrus clouds will be blown off the tops of an approaching cold front, or blown off the top of an anvil cloud. Cirrus clouds that are accompanied by alto stratus indicate the approach of a warm front.

When all the cirrus clouds point in the same direction, they are telling you that they are all being blown from an approaching weather pattern. When you see them creep into the sky, they are telling you that in 1 to 2 days, bad weather will approach. If they are alone, it is either a single thunder cloud or a cold front. Either of these cases will cause the wind to shift and begin to blow from the direction the clouds originated. 

In other words, when you see these clouds appear, it is time to make sure your ready to reef or set up your storm sails. As the main weather system approaches, you can quickly set the appropriate sails and wait out the storm. If these clouds are approaching late in the day, it would behoove you to set the storm sails before nightfall. It is always easier to rig the storm sails by day in calm weather, as opposed to waiting for sloppy seas and darkness.

These approaching cirrus clouds are being followed by slightly denser clouds. This usually indicates the approach of a warm front that will probably bring rain and some winds. If we were out at sea, we would ready the rain catching equipment!

By learning to read the clouds, you can prepare your yacht for the weather that you will be experiencing without the need for complicated communication systems or fancy weather forecast subscriptions. This will let you sail farther than your standard communication channels will reach without the fear of coming across foul weather without a proper warning.

Windpuff is High and Dry

Windpuff was towed down to the Annapolis area where he was hauled out and set on the hard. On a calm day, I went to visit him and take all the sails off, stripping him down for long term storage.

I felt like a looter, going through all the lockers and cabinets inside, looking for anything that could be useful to us while we cruise. Extra life jackets, ground tackle, and spare lines were all taken off Windpuff to be used on Wisdom and Tooth II while we cruise.

Now that Windpuff is all cleaned out, he is ready to be shrink wrapped and await our return when he will get a new paint job and finally get splashed again.

Saltwater in the Galley

Sailboats carry a very limited amount of water on board, yet they float in a near limitless amount of water. When doing tasks such as washing dishes or bathing, why use the limited water supply that you need to use for living activities such as drinking?

This led me to the idea of tapping into the limitless water that we float in for menial tasks that need to be carried out as part of our daily lives. Activities such as washing dishes are very water consuming and could be easily performed with saltwater followed by a freshwater rinse.

Getting saltwater into the galley to clean dishes is easily accomplished via different methods. The first and simplest is to haul up a bucket of seawater and bring it into the galley. This is easy and takes almost no installation. All you need to do is carry a bucket that you can use to scoop up some seawater. After the dishes are washed, they can then be rinsed with freshwater and put to dry.

This system is simple, but grabbing a pail of seawater every time you want to wash something is a bit of effort. When washing a bunch of dishes, this would be just another step in the process. What about when you are washing one cup after some tea? Are you really going to grab a pail of water to clean just one cup? Truth is you will probably justify in your mind that you wouldn't really use too much water from the tanks, making it ok to wash this one cup with freshwater instead of saltwater. After a long journey, the total number of "just one" will add up and will have a direct impact on your freshwater consumption.

With a bit more installation and work, you can plumb a saltwater line into your galley. This will remove the need to grab a pail of seawater every time you want to wash up. Instead, you only need to open the faucet and let seawater run into the sink just like your tank water would. How you pump the seawater will depend on how you pump your freshwater. 

You want to make the pumps equivalent, otherwise you will find yourself favoring the pump that is easier to use. If you have an electric fresh water pump and a manual salt water pump, you will find reasons to justify using freshwater as you scrub the burnt on food off the bottom of the pots. All this time, freshwater is being wasted by a task that is better suited for saltwater simply because it is easier to have an electric water pump run instead of a manual water pump.

If you have a manual fresh water pump, you can either make the salt water pump manual or electric, as you will have to work for the fresh water, making you very strict about its use. If you have an electric freshwater pump, you will need to install an electric saltwater pump to ensure that you will use it.

This then begs the question about how to deliver the saltwater to the galley? Should you install a new faucet, or use an existing faucet that you have already present? Once again, the ease of the saltwater side should be equivalent to the ease of the freshwater side or you will find yourself wasting freshwater because it is easier than using saltwater.

Imagine you have a small tap that dispenses saltwater over a large double sink and a large goose neck faucet that can be moved from sink to sink that dispenses freshwater. Guess which one you will use more often? To make life easy, lets simply tap the saltwater plumbing into the existing galley faucet!

While sailing, you will not be plugged into shore power so your water heater will not be working. On a long journey, the water heater will cool down and your hot water and cold water sides of the faucet will all dispense cold water. This opens up an opportunity to simplify our lives. By teeing in a saltwater line into the hot water side of the faucet, you can easily have saltwater flow out of the faucet by opening the hot water tap.

This makes life very easy, to wash dishes with saltwater, all you need to do is open the "hot" water tap. This will grant you endless amounts of water as you are floating in an ocean of seawater! Once the dishes are clean, you can close the "hot" saltwater tap and open the "cold" freshwater tap to rinse the dishes clean.

Now you have saltwater and freshwater readily available to you in the galley with the simple turn of a tap. Using saltwater instead of freshwater will greatly extend the length of time you can get out of your water tanks! 

Keeping Fasteners on a Boat

They say cruising is fixing your yacht in remote locations!

In order to fix your yacht, you need to carry parts for the repairs. Parts need to be fastened, so you need to carry an assortment of fasteners on board. Cruising boats will heel and pitch as they move through a seaway, and your fasteners will do the same inside their containers. If you don't keep them individually organized, you may end up with a jumbled mess of fasteners that are so scrambled that you will never be able to find the right fastener for the job!

If you buy fasteners in bulk, they come in nifty plastic containers that are well labeled and stack neatly. This keeps them all organized and separated in their own container, ready to be used when needed. The only problem is these containers do not offer any way of resealing them after they have been opened. As always, there is a trick to it!

Keeping the plastic label intact, the package will stay sealed, but you can still lift the lid a bit and bow the bottom out just a smidge to pour out a number of screws. Any screws you don't use in your project can be easily returned to the package in the same manner.

Now you can keep your fasteners organized and stored on your boat for when you need to do some random project with no access to a hardware store!

Bottom Paint

Bottom paint is one of those things that people only seem to think about when they are on the hard. When the boat is wet, the bottom paint is hidden beneath the waves and forgotten from all thoughts.

This is probably a safer way to think about bottom paint, as the alternative is to research and compare all different types and formulations to see which works best. Research is largely a waste of time since the amount and type of growth you will develop is particular to where you are. Where you are is not as diverse as a general area, and if a study was performed in your same general vicinity, the water qualities might be slightly different and the growth you will develop will also be different from where the study was performed.

Your next option is to try out every single bottom paint that exists. This would be a very long study, as bottom paint tends to last for at least one year. Basically, you would paint the bottom and give it a shot. Next year, you will choose a different paint and try it again for a year. The following year, you will try another paint. At the end of a lifetime, you will find that the paints you tested in the beginning are no longer available and your data is irrelevant now.

The other option is to ask around and buy the cheapest option. If you move your boat often, CPP from West Marine is a good option. It is labeled as "house brand" but is actually manufactured by Pettit, a maker of high quality bottom paints. This cheap paint has enough copper in it to keep growth from taking over your bottom. A lot of cruisers use it on their bottoms, and they all say it works great as long as you keep moving. If you sit still for a few weeks, a layer of slime will develop that will rob some speed. This thin layer can be easily removed with a brush or a scrub pad, renewing your bottom to a smooth slick machine!

Windpuff was painted in April 2015 with one coat of West Marine brand CPP. 

Twenty months later, Windpuff was pulled out of the water to be put on the hard while we go cruising. The bottom wasn't that horrible, considering that we haven't moved Windpuff in a while. There were a few barnacles here and there, and the bottom was covered in a thin layer of slime that wiped away easily.

I'm not saying that CPP from West Marine is the best bottom paint ever, but I am saying that it does the job and it's cheap!