I was busy catching up with friends before I left California. One of the fun things I did was go to Nightlife at the Academy of Science. I am embarressed to say that I hadn’t been to the Academy of Science before. It has some really interesting exhibits including an albino croccodile, penguins, lantern fish, upside down jelly fish. Now I know where all the 21+ year olds go on a thursday night in San Francisco – they place was packed.

Recently the OYRA (SF Bay) has basically instituted Cat 2 regs to their racing which are rules I believe strongly in. Some people don’t think that complying with the crotch straps is necessary and they are also not finding a place to purchase them. RYM is making them so email me at amperrin at racingyachtmanagement.com and I can make you a set for $7 each. See some examples below of why they are important.

In the early stages of a Fastnet Race on a OOD34 Haley’s Dream lost a man overboard. He was wearing a lifejacket, adjusted as he thought correctly. Recovery was not as quick as he had hoped and he was thankful that the lifejacket gave him plenty of buoyancy. But soon he found that he could not breathe. The powerful up thrust of the lifejacket under his chin began to suffocate him. “I had to summon up my energy to use one arm to force the lifejacket down every few seconds than I took a great gulp of air rested my arm then had to do it all over again. Efforts to wave or shot were severely hampered and it would have been very difficult for him to have operated a torch or any other device.

I learnt a new way of making an outhaul safety the other day which I really love. See the below picture….

The clever thing about this is that the splice can be opened up (not completely taken apart because of the whipping) and then the knot slid through and the splice tightened. This allows you to put the main on the boom and put the outhaul on the clew ring and then put the outhaul safety through the clew ring. This means that the outhaul or the shackle could fail and you would have the outhaul safety as a back up allowing you to continue to race (with the main in the downwind position) until you sort out an alternative outhaul.

Today I had to take apart an organiser and the ball bearings were not captive. Luckily I knew this so opened it up over a box. The ball bearings were numerous and they are about 1/8 inch diameter so they are small. So the dilemma becomes how do you get them back into the sheaves. The key is shaving cream! you put the shaving cream in the bearing race and then put the bearings into the shaving cream. It is sticky enough that it holds them all in place while you reassemble the hardware. Then when you are all done just wash the cream out with water. Voila!

I ran across this useful tool on the UK website. See http://www.ukhalsey.com/LearningCenter/irc.asp

ORC Regs tell you about the length of the spectra lashing shown above in the picture and about how slack you can have the lifelines. However, one more thing that I like to do is to not trust the welds of the rings on the pushpit/pulpits and instead I take the spectra around the main tubing as well using the welded loop merely as a way of holding the lifelines at the right height.

I don’t know if you can tell but this jackstay is twisted – on purpose. The worst thing to hear when trying to sleep is the rattling of the jackstay on the deck. Putting the twists in stops this from happening and also makes it easier to pick up when trying to clip on. See below for some more good information – pay attention to a(i) in my mind the steering pedastals and the pulpit don’t comply with this rule. Better to be safe than sorry so I install padeyes spefically for the jackstay.

A few of my boats have these adjusters and mostly they work great. The owners of Sailtec are really nice helpful people. I was told that onve they stop holding pressure it is better just to chuck them out by one of my vendors and it probably is if you are paying for a rebuild however, if you do the work yourself it will save quite a bit of money. Below are some tips I got for the J105 pumps.

The full 9.5″ of throw should require no more than 55 or 60 strokes. If it takes more than that, there is air in the system.

If there is air in the system, it can be fixed by opening the valve all the way and, with the valve open, vigorously pumping the handle 20 – 30 times. This agitation will cause any bubbles in the oil to rise to the top, where they need to be.

They typically fill the cylinder so that it loses pressure within 3/8″ or so from max throw, in order that the system isn’t damaged from over pumping. If there is a significant variation, they can adjust it with more oil.

If the seals are leaking or you need to add oil:

Materials needed:
TUBE: TWO length of 3/8″ clear PVC tube/hose (clear so you can see what is coming out). About 3-feet each is about right.

OIL: Must be correct kind of oil- NOT automobile steering or brake fluid. Look for something called “Jack oil”. It is the stuff used in hand powered hydraulic pumps and car-jacks. It should be GOLD/Amber in color, NOT red, green, or black. Need “32″ weight or less. Should have anti-foaming, and anti-corrosion.

2 ~quart-side plastic cups: 1 to pump old oil into, and 1 to “suck” new oil from.

1. Open the valve and extend the piston all the way (fully extended)
2. Turn upside down (piston pointing down)
3. Close release valve.
4. Put the unit in a bench vice (or equivalent) to hold it firmly upside down.
5. Pump a few times to “starve the pump”
6. Back off the nuts on the compression fittings, BOTH top and bottom, and remove the stainless steel return pipe/tube. It will be a tight fit, so you may need to “spring it” in to compress it slightly (be careful not to bend or buckle the tube!!).
7. Take one clear plastic tube to the stainless steel elbow by the pump (since the whole thing is upside-down, should be the top fitting). The tube may be tight, so puch or otherwise screw it on. Lead this to an empty cup/bucket. old oil will come out here.
8. Take the other tube and put it on the stainless steel elbow fitting that is now on the bottom, the one by the piston rod. Lead it to the bottom of a cup filled with fresh oil. Fill the tube with oil before you get it fully screwed on. Do everything you can to eliminate air bubble in the “fill” hose before the next step.
In my case, the oil came in a bottle with a conical shaped nipple, and it was easiest to just put the hose on the top of the bottle, and turn it upside down. Whatever your method, the goal is to fill with oil and no air bubbles.

*Important step*
9. AS SLOWLY AS YOU CAN…push the piston rod back into the unit. Don’t pump, just push the rod back into the body. Old oil will come out the top, “discharge” tube, and good oil will get sucked into the unit via the “fill” hose. Do this slowly so you don’t get air bubbles sucked in with the good oil.
If black oil comes out, this is very bad news. I guess it means that the internal seals are shot.

10. After the piston rod is fully inside the unit, put the stainless steel return pipe/tube back into position and tighten the compression nuts. There is no need to try to fill the pipe with oil prior to re-installing.
11. Take the unit out of the vice and turn it right-side up (normal position).
12. Open the release valve.
13. With your hands, manually extend the piston rod to full extension.
14. Close the release valve
15. Pump the unit all the way closed.
16. When the unit stops pumping, and the handle feels like it “snaps back”, hang the unit vertically upright (normal position) over a pan to catch excess oil.
17. Crack open the bottom return pipe/line compression nut and leak off a little oil. You may need to spring the return line slightly to open the seal at the bottom.
18. Then pump the piston back down and let the overflow leak off.
19. Close the bottom return pipe/line compression nut.

As an aside, if oil is leaking out of the pump at the bottom, they can sell you a $10 new pump seal. Easy to install, but do need a hammer at some point to drive out a roll-pin.

This last weekend the winner of the J105 fleet at Big Boat Series was unfortunately DSQ by the race committee on an alleged infringement of Rule 9 of the COLREGS. This made me realize how little the recreational sailors actually understand about the COLREGS. Most know not to get in the way of a frieghter but I think racers in particular need to learn them as well as we doing the RRS. I didn’t use to think this believe me – I justed stayed out of the way of big boats It is important though as between sunset and sunrise the RRS are turned off in most SI’s and what you have to comply with is the COLREGS – so take the time to learn them as well as you learn the RRS.

BTW It is the law that any boat over 39 feet has to carry a copy onboard the vessel. You can download them from www.racingyachtmanagement.com/blog/documents/navrules.pdf

A customer unfortunately ended up with a bent rig after a collision and the tangs on the new rig were not in the same position. As there are Brogla turnbuckles (total $1000 for the set) which are permanently swaged on we had to shorten the rigging by the minimum amount possible by cutting off the top marine eyes and reswaging on new ones. Then we had to make up some tangs to lengthen the uppers by an inch. Instead of using ugly and heavy store bought parts some plates as in the attached picture were made up and installed.

I have been doing some protest commitee work and one of the first things we must do is establish if the following rule was complied with.

61.1 Informing the Protestee
(a) A boat intending to protest shall inform the other boat at the first reasonable opportunity. When her protest concerns an incident in the racing area that she is involved in or sees, she shall hail ‘Protest’ and conspicuously display a red flag at the first reasonable opportunity for each. She shall display the flag until she is no longer racing.

I have found that the most effective way to store the protest and penalty flag on the boat is to attach them to the transom lifeline, roll them and cover them with turnbuckle covers. When the flag needs to be flown you simply move the cover to one side and the flag flies – no need for tape etc.