Hunter 40.5

[dennisail]

Originally Posted by Surfer Girl

Dennis,

She's a very nice looking vessel! Sounds like you are really sorting things out for the cruise home. Leaving February gives you plenty of time...

Totally agree with Ex-Calif re joining lines for replacement - removes the risk and gets the job done.

Dennis, make sure you get sticky back sail repair tape. It is great for a quick emergency tear sail repair but also to place over the chafe points - rolling down the trades creates lots of potential chafe for your nice new mainsail.

Thanks we will be sure to get extra sticky back tape, and probably some extra spreader patches for when the sail is on its first reef.

All the ropes have been replaced already by our rigger. I was going to do it myself but the price he quoted (in combination with all the other standing rigging) to renew the running rigging was actually cheaper than I could have done it for.

[savoir]

Originally Posted by dennisail

Thanks for the kind words Savoir. I guess you must have missed where I said I would sell the tender in this thread, the actual for sale thread for the tender and the thread about onions on what new tender to buy.

Well I dunno. Better men than us have fallen prey to the seduction of the big vroom vroom.

[dennisail]

I got $7500 for it. Which paid for new standing rigging and hopefully a smaller tender. lol at the onion typo I want a light tender and outboard.

[Surfer Girl]

Dennis,

We left from Ventura (just up the road from you at Long Beach) to the Marquesas. Sailed SW and passed between Santa Cruz & Anacapa Islands, continued making some Westing for a bit and turned South. 22 days later made landfall at Nuku Hiva! Yippee!!

Conditions encountered were mostly pleasant, a few squalls but nothing bad. Worst part was a few days of little wind in the ITCZ as far as progress but actually it was very pleasant as far as being small humans on a big ocean - the water was so blue & calm and we jumped in for a swim.

Watching the Southern Cross which was very low on the horizon just North of the equator, rise higher & higher in the night sky the further South we sailed, was awesome. And trolling squid lures to catch tuna & Mahi Mahi for din dins, also special.

I am envious, very envious...

[dennisail]

Sounds great. With a La Nina year (although it is dying ATM) maybe we can hope for less ITCZ and more trade winds. So you recommend sailing West first? How far and for what reason? Just for a few hundred miles to get into the clearer ocean trades? According to the March pilot charts its seems OK to head straight there?

[Surfer Girl]

Yeah, just to get away from the continental shelf and west coast land mass.

Deeper water, less confused seas not bouncing & refracting off the coast and wind that is true weather pattern wind that isn't effected by landmass interference (those mountains have quite an effect on wind & weather). Also, getting away from coastal shipping is good.

Obviously the prevailing wind you encounter off Long Beach will determine how West you can sail, but a SW course would be good. I think from memory we made as much Westing as we could for about 24 hours before setting a more Southerly course... and after that initial 24 hours I think we saw 1 ship the whole 22 days!

[dennisail]

Ahh OK that makes a lot of sense. A quick look on opencpn says your average speed must have been around 5K, which is incidentally what we have plugged into it too. I hope we can average that speed too.

[Surfer Girl]

Yes, we averaged 5 knots. Occasional days with 7 knots and of course also 1 or 2 days in the ITCZ of 1-2 knots.

But mostly we kept along nicely...

[dennisail]

We have been on the boat for nearly a week now and hope to head off in 3 more. The boat came packed full of gear and spares. We came with 6 large duffel bags of personal and sailing gear and we are still deep cleaning and sorting out what stays and what has to go.

The boat comes with many great systems but I am yet to figure out how they work. I cant wait to finish cleaning to get a look at them all.

Looks like I need new chain though. The top 40 feet was OK and the other 150 was a solid lump of rust which required breaking up so I could get it out. I guess its true what they say about high test chain rusting. I now have 3 lenghts of chain. 15m of G4, 27m of G4, 16m of WM4.

I wonder what to do with these shorter lengths? What is G4 compared to WM4? Are there any chain joiners that are as strong as the chain itself?

[dennisail]

I converted all the lights to LEDs which I got cheap off ebay. Most of my LEDs cost around $1. They seem to work great and with almost all 20 or so of them running at once it uses about 6 amps, where previously 3 used 6amps. The major power drawers will be the fridge and freezer which use about 10A. I am not sure what the chain driver Autohelm. I will have to get back on the exact model. I think its a 5000.

As for the gen set. Its an Apollo Diesel but with a 12v alternator on it rather than 110V. Which personally I think is better than 110 specially for me as we use 240V in Australia. It uses much less fuel and charges at a higher rate than the yanmar. I did not install it. It came with the boat and was an attractive feature. It is mounted it the forward head compartment which is now the ships garage. The 18G tank is mounted aft of the forward head bulkhead under the lounge.

We have fitted our new main, genoa and done one test run on the furling screecher (at the dock) with the soft luff rope and facnor furler. We have not fitted the reefing lines to the main yet but I like the idea of blocks on the mast. I actually have turning 2 blocks which came with the spares on the boat which may be suitable.

Hopefully soon we will have the boat in a state of order which will allow us to leave the dock and do some sailing. We have just joined the puddle jump! Our chainplates appear solid and of a construction technique will looks almost bomb proof. I will have to take a look at the windlass for corrosion. But it has an isolation switch so I hope it has not been subjected to any stray currents.

One area of concern is my battery bank. I have 4 trojan T145 6V which were new 2 years ago. Our boat was moved from Alimitos to Wilmington for a cheaper rate while we waited back in Australia by our broker. I mentioned that the charging systems should be checked for correct operation before leaving the boat, but I came back to it with the radios and other gear running and the AC main breaker off so there was no charging. The batteries were flat. I charged them for 4 days with the oversized heart charger/inverter and done a load test on them with fridge and freezer plus a few lights. I was down to 11.8V in 14 hours and the E meter registered only 180ah, which is not close to the 480 they are rated to.

[dennisail]

Well guys. We are now at Hiva Oa. We made it from Sandeigo in only 23 days (would have been 22 if we had the nerve to arrive after dark). Life is good.

Blog here for pics.

http://knottyladypacific.blogspot.com/

Dennis.

[Bash]

Congrats!

I'm interested to know how that Code 0 worked for you during the passage.

[dennisail]

Our passage time suggests it worked very well. We used it around 85% of the time. We were able to sail at 6k in 10K of wind. We sailed up to a few hundred miles off the rhumb line just so we could bring the apparent wind forward. We ended up doing 3050 miles for a 2800 mile trip. But the extra distance sailed meant we sailed at 6K not 3k directly downwind. I'm not sure on what the conditions were for the fleet leaving mexico but they are taking 25-30days during the same time we sailed. Also we could have gained a day or 2 by knowing how to sail and/or trimming more and sleeping less haha.

[Bash]

85% !! Amazing!

[dennisail]

Winds were light so it was perfect. We have used it less than 50% of the time cruising around the Marquesas due to strong wind and sailing hard on the wind. You can keep it up in 20K winds down wind no probs, 15k reaching and 10-12 high of a reach (after about 40-50deg it starts creating more drag than power compared to a 110% genny).