Salt Water vs. Fresh Water

When cruising, you need to pay special attention to your waterline to make sure that you are not overloaded as this will have negative effects on your sailing performance. 

Not only is the weight of the cargo you are carrying important, it is also important to consider what kind of water you will be sailing in, as this will affect your waterline. 

Salt water is much more dense than fresh water, meaning that it can displace more mass with the same amount of water. Basically, when you cruise in salt water, your yacht will float a bit higher out of the water than if it were in fresh water. 

In our current and sad state where  Wisdom is so grossly overloaded, we are sitting a bit deep in the water. Before we left, we painted over the boot stripe with bottom paint, effectively raising our waterline by six inches. While the paint may make it all look normal, the hull has cut in waterlines that will not move with a bit of paint play. The cut in load water line is currently 4 inches underwater, meaning that we are 4 inches overloaded. Being how our hull is designed to take 1000 pounds per inch, this means that we are 4000 pounds overloaded with junk that we feel is important to bring with us on this voyage.

Now, since we painted over the boot stripe with bottom paint, from a distance, it merely appears as if our yacht has no boot stripe, as the bottom paint protrudes about 2 inches above the waterline, making everything look normal and fine. 

That was in salt water atleast. When we entered the Waccamaw River, however, we transitioned from salt water to pure fresh water, and the effects on our waterline were dramatic. When rowing around our boat in the dinghy, I thought something was terribly wrong because the bottom paint was now a full inch under water! 

That's right, the boat sunk a full 3 inches when we entered the river. At first I thought this meant that our bilge was filling with water and we were slowly sinking, but upon inspection the bilges were all dry. Then it dawned on me, we were merely floating in a less dense fluid and therefore were less buoyant. Panic postponed, we simply had to adjust our course to make sure that we don't bump into the bottom, as we are now drawing an extra 3 inches.  

When we float at our designed water line (DWL) we draw 6'2". When we are cruise ready (and severely overloaded) we draw 6'6". When we then enter fresh water, we draw 6'9". This is something to keep in mind as you plan your voyage on your own yacht, your draft will change based on how you overload your vessel and what salinity you plan to cruise in. 

Cape Fear and Heading South in the ICW

The ICW, also known as "the ditch" is a narrow cut of water that runs along the East Coast of the United States. It is famous for being long, straight, and boring. This all holds true, but it does offer one huge advantage, you get to stop for a good meal and a good nights rest every night!

The waterway is rather narrow, and when heading south after Cape Fear, the tide becomes rather dramatic. 6 foot tides are common, and that means that a lot of water will flow through the inlets creating a very strong current.  

We decided to continue heading south through the ICW instead of going offshore for two reasons:
1. It's really cold outside in January.
2. Weather in the ICW is not important. 

Rather than going offshore from Cape Fear to re-enter at Georgetown, we decided to continue mucking along in the ICW because of winter weather.  

Today, we had sustained winds of 20 knots with gusts over 35 knots in the ICW while the waves were only around 3 inches tall. Yes, flat water and 20+ knot winds! Oh, and it was in the low 40Fs today too. 

When we passed the inlets, we could look out at the ocean, where the winds are stronger since there are no trees or houses blocking the wind, and the waves out there were massive, from the mouth of the inlet to as far as the eye could see. The ocean looked like a sea of white caps, while we continued on peacefully in the calm and tranquil waters of the ICW. 

The best part of it all, when we get tired, we simply pull over to the side of the channel and drop the anchor. This lets us relax, eat, and sleep well knowing that we are safe and sound. If we were offshore tonight, we would be freezing as we struggle through the night watch, hoping to reach the next inlet. 

While the ICW might seem like a cake walk, it does have one strong feature that will dictate any motion you try to make: the currents. It is common to see a small wake form behind your anchor chain as it exits the water, as the current will be ripping through the waterway. If you have the current in your favor, you will cover many bonus miles that day, while if you are fighting the current, you will face an uphill battle. 

Be sure to check the tides to decide when you will move and when you will anchor, as the currents will be your biggest concern in the waterway.  

Once you leave Southport at Cape Fear, you will only have four inlets to contend with, and only 3 of them are serious inlets. This means that once you pass the last inlet (Little River Inlet), you will have over 60 miles of gorgeous waterway with no more inlets creating confusing tides. Everything will be easy to calculate as you make your trek with the tides all the way to Georgetown! 

Clean Working Area

Working on metal is synonymous with creating a mess. Little metal filings will bounce away and get lost forever, only to be found later by someone's bare foot!  This can be avoided though.

In surgery, surgical dressings are used to isolate the area and keep things clean. The same principles can be used when working with metal! The goal is to place dressings around the work site that will catch and collect anything that might be trying to escape. The material of choice for this: wet paper towel. 

Wet paper towel will catch and hold any metal filings that might try to bounce away. If you are working on a vice, simply drape the paper towel through the vice and under the object, and then up on the sides to terminate next to the object. You have basically created a moist diaper around the metal fitting so that anything that falls will be trapped and held.

Clean up is easy too as all you need to do is ball up the paper towel and throw it all away! An important thing to remember though, the paper towel should be moist, not soaked. If the paper towel is too wet, it will not adhere to the metal filings and they will still bounce away. I like to wet it, then squeeze it dry, then open it back up. This seems to provide the right amount of moisture to catch and hold anything that lands on it without dripping all over the place. 

Drilling Steel

While steel is softer than stainless steel, the principles hold the same; but the job will be easier! Steel is a very strong and hard metal, so drilling it needs to be done slowly as to not cause excess heat to build up.  

If you are using a drill press, which is preferred as control over speed and pressure are greatly enhanced, then you will want to look at where the belt is positioned.  

The belt should be placed on the pulleys to give you the lowest drill speed (and resultingly the highest torque). Then you want to use light pressure as you cut your way through the steel. If you are drilling a small and shallow hole, you may be able to drill dry without generating too much heat.  If you are drilling something longer or deeper, consider using a cutting lubricant as it will help reduce friction and heat buildup.

Machining a Grease Nipple

Zerk fittings are wonderful, all you do is pop a grease gun onto them and pump the lubricant right into where it's needed most! But what if you have a component that has no provision for a grease nipple? What if you wanted to make your own?! 

Our windlass was in need of grease, but to add grease, I was supposed to remove it from the deck, turn it upside down, and pour grease into the casing. This is straight forward enough until you realize that the bolts that hold it down are 20 years old and hidden behind gorgeous joinery! I would spend a lot longer putting things back together once the job was completed. 

Instead, I decided to simply pump some grease into it using a Zerk fitting. The only issue is, it has none! While it lacks the provisions for this attachment, it does have various bolts that thread into the housing and offer access to the inside when the bolt is removed. This gave me the idea to create my own "bolt-on Zerk fitting" by simply boring a bolt and threading in a Zerk fitting.

Using a drill press, I bored a hole down the center of the bolt (or mostly centered). The drill I used was a #7, as specified by the tap that I was using.  

Once bored, I then began tapping the threads into the reamed out bolt. Taps are wonderful cutting tools that are very sharp and need care when working with them. While you might feel inclined to simply screw the tap in, it is important to avoid doing this. You are not "screwing in the tap" but instead you are cutting the threads. The proper motion is to rock back and forth in your turns. Cut an 1/8 of a turn, reverse an 1/8 of a turn, then cut a 1/4 turn, reverse an 1/8 of a turn, cut an 1/8 of a turn, reverse an 1/8 of a turn, cut a 1/4 of a turn, etc.  

This slow back and forth motion will cut the threads while also reducing stress on the tap. Little by little, you will cut your way down the hole and create wonderful threads that you can then use. 

Once the threads are cut, you can then thread in the Zerk fitting. With the fitting connected and secured, all I need to do to grease the windlass will be to thread this into the casing and attach a grease gun! 

This was a redo of a previous attempt where I made a similar product while at a stop in a marina. All I had for tools was a hand drill, a clamp on vice, and a tiny tapper. The end product was functional, but didn't hold up too long. I decided to redo this project with proper tools to create a much better grease administering device.