Dyneema in the Cold

Dyneema experiences a negative linear thermal expansion coefficient in the direction of the fiber. What this means is that it stretches as it cools. Minor differences in temperature will not create an appreciable difference in length, leading to loss of tension, but more drastic differences will.

What this means is that your rigging will go slack during the winter which is of little consequence since the sailing season ends before it gets cold enough to notice the difference. I tensioned my rigging when it was between 60F and 80F. Now that the temperature has dropped down to below 20F, we are seeing an appreciable slackness in the standing rigging. 

The headstay which is usually bar tight in the spring, summer, and fall, is now loose. I can easily pull down on the headstay's deadeye and create this much gap (nearly 6mm or 1/4") with one of my arms and little effort. I needed an incredible pulley system to achieve the necessary tightness when the rigging was installed in warmer weather. 

If I were inclined to sail on these freezing days, I would need to tension the rigging again. By waiting for the warmth to return before I set sail again, I don't need to do such adjustments. When the air warms again, rigging will once again regain its pre-established tension without being touched.

The other option I have available on these frigid days is to tighten the rigging by hand, when the warmth returns, the rigging will be tighter than I could have ever dreamed of achieving. This is nice from the standpoint of "achieving sufficient tension" but this unnecessary tension can lead to greatly increased forces exerted on the rigging which can lead to premature failures of the fittings.

Rigging tensions, as everything else on the yacht, is a double edged sword. More tension equates to more forces which leads to greater loads and stresses, which leads to premature gear failures. Always be mindful of how tight your stays are and remember that the mast fittings and chainplates have to distribute these great loads.

Rope Fenders: Completed Core

The rope fenders are finally bulked up and ready for test fitting. Rope fenders of this size are very time consuming to make but they offer many serious advantages over inflatable fenders. 

They will not pop
They serve the purpose of fender and fender board
They will not fly away in the breeze
They will close the hole in the gate to keep Morty (our boat dog) from sliding out

The core is completed, but the outside covering needs to be tied. The process of tying the cover over the core will continue to bulk up the fender even further. It is easiest to hang the fender from a halyard and work on it standing, but it has been rather cold these past few days; delaying the completion.

Composting Toilet

Most boats have a holding tank system which keeps your poo in a smelly soup. We keep our poo in dirt!

When I bought Wisdom, it had the standard marine head with septic hoses running everywhere. The hoses were old and reeked of toilet wastes. It seemed that no matter how much I cleaned them, they always smelled. The head was rather old and after rebuilding it a few times, I decided to ditch the traditional method and convert over to a composting toilet.

The way it works is the solids and the liquids are kept in separate areas. The liquid tank fills up rather quickly and needs to be dumped weekly. The solids tank actually lasts a very long time. With two people using it, we choose to dump it every 6 months. It is not full, nor in need of being dumped at 6 months; we simply feel that it has been long enough. When we dump the solids tank, it doesn't look like a pile of poo. Instead, it looks like dark dirt (though I wouldn't put this on the vegetable garden)!

The composting toilet we chose is very comfortable to sit on and use, and it fits well in the boat. I did drill a weep hole in the section that holds the pee bucket so that shower water would drain out. 

Installation was also very straight forward. Remove the old head and all associated plumbing, then attach the compost toilet to the sole. The kit includes fans and hoses and all sorts of attachments to the toilet, but we decided to try it out as it is first, then install the rest of it if we felt the need.

Two years later, we still haven't felt the need to install the other parts. The head sits in our head/shower and quietly serves its purpose without much intervention. 

But what about bugs and flies? Well, that is where the dirt comes into play. We found that using pure peat moss and poo was a wonderful breeding ground for gnats and flies. By mixing in a fair amount of diatomaceous earth with the peat moss, nothing would spawn. We mix the diatomaceous earth in until the lot of it takes on a grey color, that seems to do the trick!

If the pee bin ever begins to smell, we simply pour in a cap full of white vinegar. That will neutralize any smells instantly, once again restoring peace to our floating home. 

The boat began to smell much better once the heads were switched. Removing the old smelly poo hoses and replacing them with the compost made a huge impact on the quality of life below deck!

Since these composting toilets work as standalone devices, they would also work great in cabins, RVs, and other boats. 

First Ice of the Season!

Winter is certainly upon us! We have been enjoying this warm winter with days in the 60s and nights in the 40s, but now the temperatures have finally dropped and the water is cooling off as well. This morning we had our first hint of ice! 

While it is only skim ice, it is the first sign of the chilling water temperature we are floating in.

This is by no means an impressive amount of ice, last winter is still fresh in our minds when the ice formed and stayed for weeks! Last year, the ice was so thick that some rather crazy people decided to try walking on it. Tempting death, they managed to walk from one marina to another on the thick and sturdy ice that had formed. I was content with just looking at the foot prints in the snow covered ice from the safety of the pier!

Our Floating Home

Maddie and I live in our 45 foot sailboat year round. We live here with our two pets, Morty (our corgi) and Sammy (our parrot), through the heat of summer and chills of the winter. We spend most of our indoor time right here on this bench. 

It is amazing how versatile such a small space can be! The cabinets behind us are storage for booze, diesel for the stove in the lower right corner of the picture, plates, pots and pans, and electrical connectors. Behind our backs is more storage, where we keep towels, electric heaters, ropes, paints, plumbing connectors, and paper towels. Under our seats are two of the eight water tanks in the boat, along with the water pump. The table itself also has space for storing the bedding supplies, as well as games. 

We eat, work, and relax at this small table. Maddie opens the leaves to do her paintings and I use the table for all the other projects I have done in the boat. I even built the rigging for the whole sailboat sitting right there! Add some more pillows to the bench and we can stretch out to watch a movie on our laptop computer. 

The boat is only 45 feet long, and yet we spend most of our indoor time on that bench in a room that is 7 feet long by 8 feet wide. When you have a well laid out common area, it can take the place of multiple specilaized rooms that would require much more space. I originally wanted to live in a tiny house, and then discovered sailboat living (which offers unlimited mobility to the tiny house). I think tiny houses and boat designers should work together to maximize the amount of living with minimal space! 

I have learned to organize my things more efficiently thanks to information about tiny house living. I feel that tiny house design could benefit by taking cues from sailboat interior layouts.