Islander 36 Conversion: Tuning the Rigging

The synthetic shrouds were all connected to the mast and ready to be tuned. The goal is to achieve a straight mast that is in column and centered over the boat.

At this point, the spreader position is not a significant concern. The spreaders will move around as you tune the rigging but they will not be a factor until later on. If a spreader appears to bend up or down significantly, then it must be rectified. For now, the main focus is the mast and the spreaders will simply project laterally from the mast.

The tensioning system was setup on both sides, allowing symmetrical adjustments to the tension of the stays and position of the mast. It is important to start at the top of the mast and get that centered over the boat before moving on to the lower stays. Remember to work top down, as it will make difficult problems seem much simpler to solve. 

Once the top of the mast is centered over the boat, the intermediate stays are connected to the tensioning system and adjusted until they are true. The intermediate stays will cause an S curve in the mast if they are out of tension, so adjusting them will remove this odd bend that the mast can take on.

The next stays to be tensioned are the forward lowers. These stays will pull the mast forward and induce a bend into the mast (which is desireable). These stays are not under as much tension as the cap shrouds, but still more than the aft lowers. The purpose of the aft lowers is to correct any sideways bends in the bottom of the mast that might be induced by the forward lowers. These stays are the loosest of the shrouds and require very little tension.

All of the chainplates are rather inboard on the deck, so it was detrimental to run the lashings through the deadeye and over to the turning block, so instead, they were led from the stay to the turning block to the tensioning line. This produced the least amount of lateral pull into the equation and it was rather straight forward to gauge how much tension would be on the stay once the tensioning line was released and the stay was no longer being pulled in a lateral direction.

Islander 36 Conversion: Port Side

The owner was gaining confidence aloft and was working much faster than before. In one day, he managed to remove everything from the port side and install all the new stays! 

The jib halyard was attached to the forward lower deadeye and tensioned with the mast winch. Installation was proceeding quickly until we ran out of lashing line. We were only able to attach the cap shrouds when we ran out of line. The lowers were tied to a cleat on the mast to keep them out of the way and out of harm as this day was blowing nearly 30 knots.

The gantline was attached to the lifeline to keep it from swinging in the wind and bashing into the mast and rigging. It was rather difficult to work on the deck of the boat during the severe wind we were having, so the top priority of the day was simply to get everything tied up to avoid it from being windblown and damaged during the gale that was blowing over the area.

Islander 36 Conversion: Cap Shrouds

The starboard cap shrouds were connected quickly and run through the spreader tip grooves. They were then led to the deadeyes attached to the new chainplates that were installed and bedded into the deck.

With the lashings installed and tightened using the genoa winch, proper tension on the stays was achieved. This made the starboard side of the mast well supported and ready to hold him up as the owner worked on the port side of his yacht.

The stays were tightened with slight regard for mast trueness and tension. If I had tightened the stays all the way, the mast would bow to starboard as the port shrouds were slackened. Instead of loading these stays all the way, they were simply brought to enough tension to hold the mast with the weight of the owner on it vertical and in column. 

When you are re-rigging and have half the yacht done, don't tension the stays to perfection yet, instead, just make them tight enough to support the mast while you work on the other side. Once both sides are done, you can then tension everything to perfection in a symmetrical and balanced fashion.

Living Aboard: Windy Days

While most days on the water involve benign and clear weather, there are those days when the winds kick up the seas. Yes, this is far from the norm, and when it happens it doesn't last very long. Most of our days are spent on water so still you could forget you were floating! Then there are days like today.

Winter is approaching and a cold front has been barreling down on us for the past two days. The winds have been in the mid thirties and blowing 25 to 35 knots all the time! The windchill makes these conditions feel like 31F as it cuts through your coat.

Morty and I took a little walk to the outer piers of the marina and found that the white capped seas in the harbor were crashing into the pier and splashing up onto the boards. The floating pier looked like an amusement park ride where the walkway moves up and down under your feet. The seas made the pier look like an undulating path over the water. Despite the wondering footing, Morty had a great time running around the pier.

On board was another story, we actually were living in what people imagine life on a sailboat must be like. The boat was heeling over in the slip from the strong winds and we were rocking up and down as the waves rolled through. 

The dock lines were creaking as the boat bounced around in the slip. This noise will either drive you insane or put you right to sleep! The creaking mooring lines happened in a rather methodical fashion as they perfectly matched the period of the waves. Since the winds were constant, so were the waves, and so were the sounds. 

Maddie and I were rocked to sleep that night as the winds continued to blow on our boat without letting up. For us, these sounds and motions lull us off to our dreams. Others might find these conditions a recipe for nausea. If you are considering living aboard and fear sea sickness, just remember that you can always spend the night on shore in a hotel room. These nights are far from common and way beyond the norm. 

For us though, these are the nights when we get the best sleep!

What Gear Do I Need as a Liveaboard?

After finding your perfect liveaboard boat, you will probably want to add some creature comforts to make it less like camping and more like living. What gear do you really need? What gear is nice to have? What gear is a waste of space?

To be just camping in a boat, all you need is a place to sleep. This is easy to achieve, as a simple bunk or hammock will meet this requirement.

The next level of comfort would entail adding plumbing for a head with a shower and a galley. Now you can cook, clean, go to the bathroom, and a place to shower; all within the comfort and privacy of your cabin. At this point, you are camping in luxury!

For added comfort, you can add climate control and refrigeration to the boat. Refrigeration will allow you much more flexibility in the foods you keep on board and how long you can keep them for. Your world will expand from "foods that keep" to "foods you want" on board your boat.

Climate control will also make your life much more comfortable. Instead of living in whatever climate you are in, you have the option of controlling the climate in your cabin. No longer is coolness dictated by how many hatches you can open in hopes to capture a cool breeze, or warmth dictated by how many layers you can wear! Air conditioning will keep you cool during the warm seasons and heat will take the bite out of winter. Now living aboard will be a comfortable way of life rather than just a place to live. 

I lived for two years without air conditioning in Maryland, where the heat warnings are issued regularly during the summer. I found ways to keep cool, such as staying in the shade and taking cold showers to cool off until the sun goes down and the heat subsides. The dire heat only lasted a few weeks, and the rest of the year was much more comfortable, but it was still a hot few weeks! When Maddie moved in, I installed air conditioning in the boat, and what a difference it made! Those hot weeks are now comfortable, just like any other time of year. I don't like most electronic systems in a boat because of the maintenance required to keep them running, but this creature comfort is makes life aboard amazing!

At this level, you now have a floating home with a place to cook, wash, go to the bathroom, and keep your food; all in the comfort of a climate controlled boat. This will give you a comfortable place to live with the basic necessities. Having lived in a boat with varying levels of systems, I can tell you with certainty that these few systems will give you a comfortable living situation with as little complexity as possible. Meeting these basic needs will grant you comfort aboard and allow you to spend more time on projects you want to do or activities you look forward to, rather than fixing complicated systems that bog down your life aboard.

If you feel the need to have more systems in your boat that you are living in, you must be willing to deal with repairing these added systems. Now we are looking at "wants". The most common want on a boat is a TV. TVs provide entertainment without requiring much space, a very small boat can become a comfortable man cave by adding a large flat screen TV! The problem with a TV though is they need to be connected to something, and all of these components begin to add up in complexity on a boat. Imagine a home entertainment system with all the wires hidden away behind the cabinet in a house; where are you going to fit all those components and hide all those wires in a boat?

Another common "want" category is kitchen appliances. Things like dish washers, toasters, microwaves, ovens, blenders, ect. are all items that are nice to have but not crucial to have in a boat to survive. These appliances take up a lot of space and will eventually break down over time. The more appliances you have in the boat, the more you will need to fix in the future. 

If you find that you absolutely need an appliance on board, feel free to add it, but be aware that you will need to maintain it if it breaks down in the future. I added a toaster in our galley and wedged it a cabinet to keep it from falling over because it is very convenient in the morning to make toast in a toaster instead of on a stove top. 

One important point to keep in mind when choosing an appliance is to keep glass to a minimum. A large glass blender will become a large amount of shattered glass in a boat if a large wake knocks it over! Keeping glass components to a minimum will minimize the risk of having broken glass inside the cabin.

The last category of "waste of space" tends to be appliances or amenities that consume outlandish amounts of water and electricity. On a boat, your resources are very limited. If you leave the faucet running in a house, the water keeps flowing and you end up with a higher water bill. In a boat, if you leave the faucet running, you end up with an empty water tank. Appliances such as dish washers and clothes washers take up a lot of space and consume extraordinary amounts of water! This means that you will have to fill your water tanks more often because these machines are sucking your tanks dry. 

While a dish washer sounds like a nice idea in theory, think of what it will actually offer. How hard is it to wash the dishes in the sink? Especially when it's only one or two people who are living in the boat. The dishes take a few minutes and very little water to wash by hand in the sink. Then they are set on a drying rack to let drip and air dry, consuming no electricity and not much space in the boat. The alternative is to have a dish washer in the boat which will consume a lot of space, and even more water and electricity. When all the dishes are dry and put away, the counter space can be re-purposed. A dish washer, on the other hand, is always there. It will occupy a lot of space in the boat and that space can not be used for other purposes. 

A clothes washer is another item that sounds convenient to have in a boat, but once again, they take up a ton of space! These machines will draw a lot of water out of your tanks and produce a lot of heat inside the boat as they run. The worst part is these machines are not used frequently. If you do laundry once a week, that means that this large machine is occupying a lot of space for the other 6.8 days of the week! It is much simpler to take your dirty laundry to a shore side laundromat and have your laundry done there. If you absolutely need to do your laundry in the boat, there are very small and efficient manual clothes washers available which wash your clothes very well. 

Not only do these large appliances take up a lot of space and consume a lot of resources on board, they also cause additional headaches. I have been in a lot of boats where the owner tells me that the clothes washer kept breaking and they stopped fixing it a few years ago. This means that for the past few years, there has been a large box in their boat that is wasting a lot of space.

When you are looking around for the proper liveaboard boat, consider space to be a very valuable resource and everything in the boat is occupying this space. Is the item you wish to bring into the boat worth the space it will take up? If it is not worth it, you will be much happier not having to deal with these systems when they eventually break down.