JaneO

Hawaii 2024

ron@svjaneo.com — Thu, 04 Apr 2024 00:55:03 GMT

Here’s an update on the Hawaii 2024 trip. We’re close to full outbound from Morro Bay to Hilo, HI. There is a cabin remaining, and there are two people eyeing it. Someone is sure to get in their deposit before then.

New stuff

Lots has changed. The fuel tank on the starboard engine had a huge leak. To get it out, we had to haulout, so I took some free paint and touched up the front and back. Here’s a before and after pic.

The fuel has been removed and a new tank made from polyethylene has been ordered. It still needs installation, but it should be finished before we depart for Hawaii. During the haulout I found that the port engine bearing was worn. That’s been replaced too.

A new mainsail has been ordered, should be here in a few weeks. They are in the production phase now. This should give us an improvement in performance since it’s designed a little better than the existing mainsail; the old one didn’t fit all that well and the battens were, well, missing and broken in a few places.

The outboard is in way better shape. There was some kind of blockage in the cooling system that has been cleared up. I’m going to need some more outboard testing but I think it’s fine.

The fresh water pump has given up. Actually, the pump is fine, but the pressure sensor that shuts it off has died. I have a replacement pump but it hasn’t been installed yet.

The alternator on the port engine has died. I have a new one, with additional capacity, that needs installing.

The generator lazarette flooded again. I didn’t know where these leaks could have been coming from, but some serious investigation recently and I figured it out. I think the old generator is functional, but it’s now a little rusty and never has worked all that great. A new one with higher power producing capabilities has been ordered.

Solar panels are being mounted on top of the dinghy davits in the back of the boat. I found that angling the solar panels produces a LOT more power, and even having two more panels means I can run the starlink continuously at anchor. And maybe even the AC. Or maybe not. AC is a big drain.

My AIS died and has been replaced. The old unit was sent back for service. I hope they can replace it because it had 5W of power instead of 2W which I have now.

Hatch handles were designed using 3D printing software and my son Erik has purchased a 3D printer. We’re still testing them and may need to make a few more tweaks, but there are a lot of broken handles on the boat that will be replaced!

There are a bunch of other little things to address before departure. I have a running light out. The ceiling is sagging. Lifejackets need inspection. The trickle charger needs mounting. There are some canvas repairs I’d like to complete.

Schedule

This is a ROUGH schedule. Message me for details.

Date	Start	End	Full?
18 May	Brisbane Marina	Morro Bay	Almost
25 May	Morro Bay	Hilo	No
15 Jun	Hilo	Kona	No
6 Jul	Kona	Maui	No
27 Jul	Maui	Lanai	No
3 Aug	Lanai	Oahu (via Molokai)	No
24 Aug	Oahu	San Francisco	No

Update and 2024 Planning

ron@svjaneo.com — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 18:49:08 GMT

2023 is passing so quickly! Here’s what’s new since my last update.

I finished the trip back to Brisbane Marina, in California.
I had a big trip with 11 people on board. We sailed out to Angel Island for an overnight.
I Sailed up the California Delta to one of my favorite marinas, Owl Harbor. I’ll be here until Thanksgiving.
I removed the old stove and installed a microwave/oven combo! This works great, even for toast!

Lots of small projects in the works, but nothing completed from the post last month. And there are, of course, new problems:

What I thought was just a bad water pump appears to just be the pressure sensor. It doesn’t shut off even when using hose water pressure, which should be above the set point. I need to get up there and clean it out; maybe it’s just corroded or something.
I purchased some digital valves for the watermaker. Some of the valves are getting really tired again. The manufacturer valve has failed before already once, and I’m thinking it’s going to fail again. More info below.
On the trip out to angel island, I left the watermaker in fresh water mode, so it drained my tanks. This meant we had no fresh water! The long solution is outlined in the watermaker section. The short term solution is to stop being absent minded.
The freezer door handle broke. I wanted to replace the insulation, which I did, but when I tried to close the handle, it snapped into little pieces. This has been replaced already, and the freezer works better than ever. No leaks and a new gasket means it gets much colder much faster! Overnight, it went from room temperature to 3F! As a side note, the temperature at the top of the freezer says “20F” which means that keeping foods that need to stay colder lower is important (now you know where the ice cream goes).

There are a few other older problems I forgot to mention in my last post:

There’s a big crack in the port side forward storage compartment. The glass is out and I have new glass, but it hasn’t been installed yet.
The battery on the starboard engine seems to have failed. I’m going to replace it with a lithium battery, on sale from Amazon, which can be used in a pinch for some extra power in case we sail longer.

And, there are a few other projects in the works:

The AC vents have always been problematic. I finally drilled a hole so the vent comes out higher up, which should help a LOT for the AC mode. This is probably not a big deal in Hawaii, especially since we will primarily be off the grid, but right now it’s chilly and the heat pump is quite efficient!
The induction cooktop draws power even when it’s off. I’m going to add a switch to enable it, separate from the port plugs.

Upcoming 2024 Trips

I’m going back to Brisbane to ride out the winter storms there. But after that, I’m strongly considering a Hawaii run! For the outbound trip, I have 6 people. For inbound, I only have 4. If you have some interest in sailing from Hawaii to SF, hit me up. Very tentative dates are May 24 from SF->HI, and Aug 30 from Hawaii back to SF.

Watermaker

The watermaker has so many different controls, it’s mystifying sometimes how well it works. This is really complicated, so I’ll attempt to document it here.

Here’s a quick diagram of the valves I want to replace:

--> from pickling hose ----+
                           1-----+
--> from fresh water pump -+.    |
                                 2--> boost pump --> watermaker input
--> from ocean ------------------+

There are two three-way valves, marked 1 and 2. The tricky bit here is that with this setup is that without a valve failure, it’s not possible to mix the fresh and the ocean water, which could be a disaster. The other nice thing is that you can close each of these three-way valves -- the one between the pickling hose and the fresh water pump generally stays in the closed position as an extra safeguard against contaminating the fresh water from the ocean water.

They do make 3-way valves with sensors that detect when they are fully open or closed, but I can’t find any that match the existing valves. I’d like some that have an “off” position, preventing any flow, as well as being made from stainless steel or fresh water safe brass. Without that, there is a risk of mixing things up. One valve I found here does have a sensor to detect that it’s fully open or closed, which just might be the trick. I love the fact that these have a manual override -- I can still get up there with a screwdriver if something goes wrong with the wiring, or even as a primary way of using it. I’m thinking to go with something like this:

--> from pickling hose ----4-+
                             1-----+
--> from fresh water pump -3-+.    |
                                 2--> boost pump --> watermaker input
--> from ocean ------------------+

Valve 4 would be a manual valve, almost always off. Valve 3 would be a simple solenoid on-off valve. Normally, valve 1 would connect from the pickling hose to valve 2, which would normally flow into the boost pump.

Confused yet? There would be 3 switches:

switch 1 (named fresh source) is a 3-way switch to divert valve 1 to either 3 (pump) or 4 (off/pickle)
switch 2 (named salt/fresh) is a 3-way switch to turn on the salt water intake
switch 3 (named fresh safety) is a 2-way switch to enable the fresh water flush

At the dock, I usually run the watermaker to make drinking water. To do this, switch 1 “fresh source” should be set to “pump” (it can stay there until ready to go to sea). Switch 2 “salt/fresh” should be set to fresh. Switch 3 then gets turned on while making water and turned off afterwards.

To switch to sea water, first ensure switch 3 “fresh safety” is off. Then, make sure switch 1 “fresh source” is set to “pickle/off”. Finally, set switch 2 to “salt”. To flush the system afterwards, set switch “2” to “fresh”, then set switch 1 to “pump”, Then turn on switch 3.

I could simplify things by setting up an arduino to control these or something. The arduino could have these switches:

A1. At dock - Yes or No
A2. Make water - Yes or No
A3. Flush (a momentary push button)

At the dock, A1 would be Yes, and the other two would be No. A2 would then be used to make water, flushing is not necessary. When you’re done making water, turn off switch A2. At sea, A1 would be No, so turning on A2 would make sure all the fresh water systems are off and then set valve 2 to ocean. Then, turn off A2 and hit A3, which will flush for a few minutes.

This seems like a fairly big project and I’m not quite sure I’m ready for it.

Morro, to Morro

ron@svjaneo.com — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 16:56:22 GMT

Blogging is so difficult for me. What’s changed in the last bit? Quite a bit:

Sailed on the Baja-Haha 2022 to Cabo
Had the boat repainted in January in Puerto Vallarta
Sailed south from PV to Ixtapa
Worked my way back north, now in Morro Bay

But right now I’m stuck in Morro Bay due to lousy winds and sea conditions. Looks like things might improve over the next few days, but we’ll see!

Jane’O has a few problems:

The starboard fuel tank has a leak somewhere near the bottom. I’m not super surprised by this since these stainless steel tanks are subject to crevice corrosion if they have any salt water around them. Some weld probably failed somewhere. Replacing this tank will be really hard, probably involving removing the engine! In the meantime, I ran some fuel lines over from the port tank. Not ideal, but it works for now.
There is some salt in the fresh water cooling system of the starboard engine. I suspect there is a small leak in the heat exchanger. I’m going to need to order a new heat exchanger element and hope that fixes the problem.
The port engine alternator has quit. I changed it to an external regulator and I guess that was just too much for it. I rebuilt it and am working on having it tested again.
The chartplotter’s support ball broke on passage. After replacing it, I ended out letting the chartplotter slam down and it cracked. Very sad. It still works, but I will need to repair it at a crazy high expense, almost the cost of a new chartplotter. I’m debating just buying a 7” for an inside chartplotter somewhere near the nav desk.

Otherwise, no major problems. As usual, a lot of things were fixed and enhanced recently:

Membranes replaced on watermaker. The PPM was slowly rising over time, and these membranes really only last a few years. Getting those guys out was REALLY HARD due to the corrosion of the aluminum end caps. I recently found out that other watermakers (i.e. Spectra) call their end caps “wear items”, so I guess it’s okay that these had some trouble. I purchased a few new ones, only to find out that the real issue was the membranes were shot. Having a few spare end caps doesn’t make me feel bad though.
I added digital valves for each water tank, so I can open and close them remotely. This ended out causing some issues with air getting into the low side, which I think are all now fixed. I think I fried my water pump though. My next project is a way to manually dial up or down the water pressure. I think this isn’t too hard, with an arduino, a remote pressure sensor, a dial (potentiometer) to adjust the pressure to what I want. I think running with 20psi most of the time while underway is a good compromise and will save a lot of water underway.

Anyway, hope to blog more as I continue north.

Back on the blog

ron@svjaneo.com — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 16:54:41 GMT

Blogging is so difficult for me. What’s changed in the last bit? Quite a bit:

Sailed on the Baja-Haha 2022 to Cabo
Had the boat repainted in January in Puerto Vallarta
Sailed south from PV to Ixtapa
Worked my way back north, now in Morro Bay

But right now I’m stuck in Morro Bay due to lousy winds and sea conditions. Looks like things might improve over the next few days, but we’ll see!

Jane’O has a few problems: 1. The starboard fuel tank has a leak somewhere near the bottom. I’m not super surprised by this since these stainless steel tanks are subject to crevice corrosion if they have any salt water around them. Some weld probably failed somewhere. Replacing this tank will be really hard, probably involving removing the engine! In the meantime, I ran some fuel lines over from the port tank. Not ideal, but it works for now. 2. There is some salt in the fresh water cooling system of the starboard engine. I suspect there is a small leak in the heat exchanger. I’m going to need to order a new heat exchanger element and hope that fixes the problem. 3. The port engine alternator has quit. I changed it to an external regulator and I guess that was just too much for it. I rebuilt it and am working on having it tested again. 4. The chartplotter’s support ball broke on passage. After replacing it, I ended out letting the chartplotter slam down and it cracked. Very sad. It still works, but I will need to repair it at a crazy high expense, almost the cost of a new chartplotter. I’m debating just buying a 7” for an inside chartplotter somewhere near the nav desk.

Otherwise, no major problems. As usual, a lot of things were fixed and enhanced recently: 1. Membranes replaced on watermaker. The PPM was slowly rising over time, and these membranes really only last a few years. Getting those guys out was REALLY HARD due to the corrosion of the aluminum end caps. I recently found out that other watermakers (i.e. Spectra) call their end caps “wear items”, so I guess it’s okay that these had some trouble. I purchased a few new ones, only to find out that the real issue was the membranes were shot. Having a few spare end caps doesn’t make me feel bad though. 2. I added digital valves for each water tank, so I can open and close them remotely. This ended out causing some issues with air getting into the low side, which I think are all now fixed. I think I fried my water pump though. My next project is a way to manually dial up or down the water pressure. I think this isn’t too hard, with an arduino, a remote pressure sensor, a dial (potentiometer) to adjust the pressure to what I want. I think running with 20psi most of the time while underway is a good compromise and will save a lot of water underway.

Anyway, hope to blog more as I continue north.

Todos to-dos

ron@svjaneo.com — Sun, 18 Sep 2022 21:36:27 GMT

Just to get a taste of what’s been fixed recently, here’s the list:

Freezer not freezing

I replaced the refrigerant before finally realizing what the actual problem was: the freezer is powered by the solar charger. If the boat runs out of power, it shuts down the freezer, but doesn’t start it back up. It’s working great now! The pic is a thermal image after only about 2 hours of operation -- already below freezing! it got down to 0 the next day.

Nacelle - cleanout

The forward compartment where the spare fuel is kept was pretty grungy. Ed repainted it and it looks great! it’s all packed up with currently-empty fuel containers. We probably won’t need to fill them until Morro Bay, or maybe even San Diego.

Trampoline maintenance

The whole trampoline setup isn’t great, but I think it’s better now. The lines were tightened and some missing rings were replaced. There is a little more work to do here now that we added an extra ring back in, but it should be safe enough for Mexico.

Locks outboard+bbq

This was probably the easiest, just adding some steel wire and some marine grade padlocks. Someone would need an angle grinder or some heavy bolt cutters to have a chance of stealing the outboard or the BBQ now.

Nacelle window installation

While servicing the outboard, the glass just popped out. Probably one cause of the water that seems to accumulate in that compartment. The glass was removed, a new piece was fabricated at Tap Plastics, and it was reinstalled. It looks a lot better. The old piece was broken anyway.

Anchor chain - mark, check shackles

This was a lot of work. We had to remove all the chain, inspect it, mark it every 30 feet, and replace all the fittings. That chain is pretty heavy. I think it’s in much better shape now. For reference, there is 245 feet of chain and another 100+ feet of rope. The rope is also marked. We also replaced the safety line that holds the anchor while underway. Here’s a full video of the chain marks.

Inspect/lubricate mast track

Charlene, who sailed with us to Hawaii, was kind enough to be my mast climbing inspector. She uncovered one bird wire that came loose, but succesfuly climbed the mast and took lots of photos. Very little was wrong with the mast, which is great. The rig is really strong on this boat.

Replace dinghy, install wheels

Never realized chopping a dinghy in half would be so satisfying. This dinghy was made in 1994, and has been in the sun for a long time. Sal’s inflatables said it’s beyond repair, with several places where the hypalon was separating from the mesh beneath. West Marine sold me a dinghy at a discount. Unfortunately, we damaged it when transporting it to the marina, but it’s now patched back up. Installing the old dinghy wheels was a task too -- we had to manufacture a bracket spacer. But it now looks great!

Replace water tank

The port side tank sprung a leak just after we left Hawaii, and so I had to replace it. The replacement tank is a little smaller, but made from a thick polyethylene which will probably outlive me. This involved replacing the floor and the mounting system in that compartment. Probably the biggest challenge was removing the old tank.

Galley floor is spongy

Other big job. This was from some rotten crossbeams in the floor. Not sure how they got that way, but I replaced them. Now the floor is a lot more solid!

Repair jib, Inspect jib halyard

After some poor decisions on the way back from Monterey, the jib had some tears. Doyle Sails in Alameda did some repairs on this, and inspected my main as well. The jib halyard was rerun after returning from Hawaii and it seems to be holding up well. I’d like to replace this halyard with some dyneema with a cover, but that’s a project for another day.

Clean/inspect anti-siphon valves

Another relatively easy job. The valves were leaking a little which doesn’t really cause too much trouble. It’s worse if they get plugged up, but that didn’t happen. These valves are needed to prevent siphoning water into the engine. I’d like to completely eliminate these, but that would require some fancy engineering of the exhaust system, which I’m not quite ready to tackle this year.

Find leak in port engine room

This was an amazing find. We first tested the water in the bilge and found it to be salt water, eliminating all the fresh water leak possibilities. After inspecting and draining the whole raw water system, we saw some water from some tape we had installed over the top of the drain plug for the lift muffler. The grommet was inserted backwards, probably after cleaning it out at some point. Once flipping it the other way, and removing the tape, the leak stopped! This sounds really easy but we had to remove the muffler to get clear access to it and understand the problem fully. We also checked all of the fittings, including cleaning out the raw water strainer.

Replace fuel filters

Just some routine maintenance here. The engine-mounted fuel filters are 10 micron filters that have never been replaced, although they should have been done by now. These filters are behind the wall mounted racor fuel/water separator with a separate filter. Arguably I should be using 3 micron filters as a pre-filter but I’m sticking with 10 micron for now.

Secure RPi

Well, not perfect yet, but moving the raspberry pi computer to the side panel is a huge improvement. It’s out of the way more, and I rarely need access to it while underway. Rerunning all the cables leaves me in a better place now for running the pi while sailing. It is theoretically possible for the RPi to adjust the course or even indicate that we’re properly docked. I think this would be a fantastic project to render the boat overlayed with a satellite image so you can dock better, assuming I have a very accurate GPS.

Add inside autopilot head

One thing we really needed on the way back from Hawaii was a way to steer from inside. There is now an autopilot head over the nav desk. This can be used to make minor course corrections, but also will serve as an alarm in case something goes wrong at night. I also cut up a panel to mount it cleaner.

Add a marine air conditioner

I’m not sure this is fully done, but I do have the AC installed enough to use it. The venting is still needed, and I’m not sure this will finish before departure.

So many more

I’m not going to give narratives for these but here is a sample of other stuff * Replace starboard hallway florescent bulb with LED * Hardwire battery charger * Batten Replacement / Fittings *Rewire/Secure 25A battery charger * Install 75A battery charger * Repair main cabin leak * Leak above galley, probably handrail * Wheel lube * Filter PGN 129039 “ownship” * Replace external lights * Install barometer * Replace zincs * Salt water pump for toilet not working * Install overboard overflow system * Trampoline is loose near anchor * Purchase spare water pump * Outhaul car replacement

Mexico Schedule

ron@svjaneo.com — Mon, 15 Aug 2022 13:06:41 GMT

Well, time to get ready for the Baja Bash for the second time. This time, I have better engines and a little more experience with some heavier downwind sailing. I’m looking forward to Fajita Banana again.

I’m happy to report I have a full crew for all the legs from San Francisco through to Cabo. There is also enough crew to get from Cabo to Puerto Vallarta; one spot left though!

The schedule

I plan on leaving San Francisco on October 15, sailing through the night and arriving in Morro Bay on the 16th. I’ll spend a week in Morro Bay, then leave on Friday October 21st for the final plug down to San Diego. I’ll be working in San Diego the week of the 24th, and planning on joining the HaHa on the 29th.

We should get into Cabo on November 10th, and are planning on leaving Cabo as soon as we can -- probably November 11th or 12th -- once we reprovision, heading for El Cid in Mazatlan. We’ll spend a week there, then sail south to Puerto Vallarta, probably on November 19-20.

I’m flying back on November 24th, spending Thanksgiving in San Francisco, and then planning a few trips down in December to get some boat work completed.

Repair not Despair

ron@svjaneo.com — Sat, 22 Jan 2022 17:19:40 GMT

Jane’O is such a mess right now. I’m in the process of taking care of some things to prep for another passage, but it’s slow going. Although I wish I had more help, I have to balance that with the whole COVID risk, so I haven’t sent out too many requests. I’m starting to get a little depressed.

Here’s a breakdown of what I think I need to do before Jane’O is ready for Half Moon Bay or Monterey, which I plan on doing in March

Leaks

Seems like Jane’O isn’t as watertight as she used to be. The garage’s portlights were leaking pretty badly, which was fixed a while ago (thanks Dave) but some of the other portlights are leaking still, along with some hatch leaks. Here are areas that I want to fix or investigate.

Nav desk. The forward-facing starboard window, above the nav desk, really started to leak badly, but Dave, Ed and Connor (who is only 9!) replaced that window when we were in Owl Harbor. Last week I was affixing the headliner and found that it was wet! I first suspected my window replacement crew’s malicious intent, but then I realized it turned out that the leak was coming from a spot further forward. A little investigation found that there was a small crack in the fiberglass just forward of the window area. A proper repair from the outside is warranted, but in the meantime some epoxy and some paint seems to have cured that. So that’s marked as “mitigated” for now, but see the next item.
Headliners. It seems like since there was one crack, there’s a chance for more. Never did like cracks, or crackheads, or anything like that. I’d like to get all the headliners off in the settee area. Someone decided that the best way to secure these headliners was to screw them into the fiberglass. This is great to prevent the headliner from sagging, but over time, these holes in the fiberglass crack and cause leaks. I’m going to remove all the screws and switch to stainless steel snaps, using epoxy to hold one side to the fiberglass and attaching the other side to the headliner itself. I’m not sure if this is a reasonable approach. Most of the references on the web to solving this problem suggest using glue, but I really really don’t want to glue the headliner to the cabin top, and there are also lots of complaints about the glue failing over time. A good epoxy paint is also a last line of protection against leaks, so I’m also going to paint the inside completely.
Galley Ceiling. When sailing from Hawaii, there was a slow drip in the galley area, looks like it was from behind the headliner as well. Once the headliners are off, this area needs a thorough look-see. I suspect the problem is the handrail connection, which means I may want to remove the handrail and reseal it. But it could be another crack somewhere too. It’s another one of those mysteries.
Masthead Compartment. Seems almost like a design problem, but I need a solution. When it rains, there is a small compartment between the two forward cabins that seems to collect water. I believe it comes from the wiring entrance from the mast. Once the water gets in that small compartment, then it fills up to some height, and finally flows through a wiring hole between that area and one of the settee compartments, under the seat. It’s a lot of water though!
Generator Compartment. Ed and I looked at this compartment very carefully to find the leak, which seems to keep this compartment wet. We have no idea where it comes from. Our only clue is that it happens from rainwater from the top because it filled very quickly when we were dealing with monsoon-like weather in Hilo.
Starboard forward cabin. This I patched up. It was caused by someone who incorrectly filling some old holes, but the work isn’t finished -- it needs sanding, fairing, and some paint for it to look good again, as well as to protect the epoxy from UV damage. Since I am planning on repainting the whole boat anyway, this is a great opportunity for me to learn how to do that.
Replacement Hatch. I purchased a new hatch for my cabin. these new hatches have a position you can use to ventilate without letting much water in. I think this will be great for when it rains! My old hatch isn’t staying open, is hard to latch, and the tension adjustment has broken, so it’s time for a replacement.
Port Engine Room. Seems like there’s water in there all the time. I’m not sure where this is coming from, but I want that engine room completely dry. Every time I head out there, I pump it dry, but it’s coming from somewhere.
Port forward compartment. This compartment flooded during the Hawaii passage. I need to remove the old muffler and properly cap the exhaust outlet (or inlet).

And, although this is also a leak, it’s not exactly water coming in that’s a problem:

Port water tank. After we left Hawaii, we found that tank was empty. I attempted to fill it at port here and it’s leaking, pretty badly, into the bilge. This means take the inspection cover off and see what’s wrong. I’m going to guess it’s corroded somewhere, which means I might need to fabricate a new tank. The inlet and outlet valves are messed up anyway. I think this is a big project, but would encourage me to get set up to weld some stainless steel again, or at least talk to my favorite welder in Alameda. Removing the tank and reinstalling it aren’t easy either.

Engine

New engines, new problems. Plenty to do here:

Exhaust Leak. I installed a CO detector in my cabin some time ago. During the last trip to Ashby Shoal it went off. While it’s possible the cause is that there was some wind that blew the exhaust into the cabin, I think it may be something worse than that. This warrants a full inspection of the entire exhaust system for any possible leaks. Might as well do both engines. My plan is to drain the mufflers and force air into the exhaust output, then head inside the engine room and look for any air moving around. Top suspect is the starboard muffler, followed closely by the exhaust hose. Both of these were not replaced (I did replace the port muffler since it was damaged).
Alignment. I think I have a bad motor mount. There is a squeal at lower RPMs around the shaft. I think this is because the mount isn’t holding the engine in the same spot. Both engines are again in need of an alignment, which was last done in Hawaii (thanks Ed for the help).
Port Engine Coolant. The coolant container keeps running low. I don’t know where it’s going -- the port bilge doesn’t have coolant in it. I suspect that some of the hoses I am now using are making some of it evaporate -- they are slightly permeable. I’m not sure this is a real problem, but I need to add some coolant and keep a closer eye on it.
Starboard Fuel Separator. A leak in the port engine fuel strainer made it so we couldn’t use most of the fuel in the port tank. That’s been fixed by replacing the separator -- this is the device that holds the fuel filter and gets the water out of the diesel. The port side is now down to about ¹⁄₃ full and the engine is still running fine. I also purchased a rebuild kit and rebuilt the old separator, which I’d like to install on the starboard engine.
Oil in Starboard bilge. This might be fuel (see the previous item) but I think there is an oil leak. I’m hoping it’s something as simple as the oil filter a little loose, but I need to find this. The oil level is a little low and the oil rag in the engine is black after a few replacements. This isn’t supposed to happen with a newer engine!
Routine Stuff. Time for another oil change, but I’d like to fix these other problems first, especially figuring out why the starboard engine is a bit lower.

Appliances

Perhaps the best addition to the boat last year was an electric kettle. It’s so nice and easy to make hot water when in port or with the inverter on, especially for making hot french pressed coffee. Hot water is also great for cleaning and sanitizing. But there are other small projects:

Watermaker. This thing needs a full service run. It’s a day of work, maybe more. The motor itself could use cleaning and repainting. The overpressure port still leaks; the vendor said to just cap it off.
Freezer. It seems to have lost coolant again. I’m sure there’s a leak now. I’m going to have to spend a day on this project as well. Probably the right answer is to rent one of those freon sniffers, fire it up, and see if I can find any refrigerant.
Refrigerator. Hey this is fixed! The freezer door was broken and the light assembly broke. I ordered new parts and now it works great. I would love to add an alarm that starts beeping after a short interval, but I’m not up to designing a circuit for that yet. It would also be awesome to have a temperature monitor that fed into the NMEA 2000 bus so I can see how cold the fridge is. But now I’m just dreaming.

Power

Power projects will be in another post, but a wind generator is in the works!

The Garage

The port aft cabin needs some work to make it more habitable:

Cabinets. I found some great IP67 containers. I’d like to buy a few more of these and then build cabinets or at least supports to keep them in place so they don’t fall on the occupant.
Fan. The fan needs to pull air in from the outside.
Charger. I need a USB port installed somewhere, probably in the cabinet somewhere. That plus a place to put your phone while you sleep, ideally visible to the sleeper.
Light. Right now, there’s only this high power LED light. To make this usable as a single person cabin, a reading light or something else seems like a good idea.

Anyway this is a lot to do, so expect to see some requests out there for help.

Ashby Shoal

ron@svjaneo.com — Sat, 22 Jan 2022 03:08:23 GMT

Most surreal experience ever in a sailboat! There are more photos here.

We left Brisbane early enough and had a great following current as the bay started to empty, so we ended out stopping at the ferry building for some caviar lunch, then we headed over to the shoal area and drove around until we ran aground. It’s pretty rare to be celebrating hitting bottom. We slowly watched the shoal appear. We ended up a short walk from the highest part of the shoal, and at first we were concerned that the right side of the boat was in much deeper water than the left, but as it turned out there was just a small spot where it was a bit deeper, perhaps we dug that out while maneuvering. She pitched up nicely, and the props were barely in the soft mud/sand.

The associated bonfire and camaraderie was really great. The guy walking around with a huge bottle of wine was a welcome reward for a tricky day.

Owl be home for Christmas

ron@svjaneo.com — Mon, 29 Nov 2021 02:59:51 GMT

It’s been so long and I haven’t even posted the return from Hawaii entry. it’s been a rough year.

Jane’O is happy back in fresh water for a bit. She’ll be up at Owl Harbor through Christmas. I was able to get some great crew from CSC (second pic, all except Bill) to help sail her up from Martinez.

We ended out running around twice, once when heading into the Martinez Marina (apparently it’s now only 2.5 feet right at the entrance) and another time while sailing near Antioch. The second time we just stopped paying careful attention. We were able to wiggle ourselves off the sandbar without any trouble.

Transportation from Owl was a little dodgy but we were able to get a Lyft from Rio Vista after the harbormaster and her husband gave us a ride.

Other upcoming Stuff

I had planned a bunch of stuff for the next few weeks, but I’m starting to get nervous about Covid again with the new variant. Nov 4th is a work party up at Owl Harbor. The window is still not installed, and it needs it. Hopefully we can get out and fish a little after installing the window, weather permitting.

On January 2, we’re going to have a king tide like we’ve never seen in a long time. So, I’m planning on beaching Jane’O on the Ashby shoal. I have a nearly full boat at this point, but it should be great -- there is a clam bake on the shoal as well as a bonfire.

More to come, hopefully!

Another May Day

ron@svjaneo.com — Wed, 05 May 2021 17:27:29 GMT

I can’t believe it’s May already. I finally got my second COVID shot yesterday!

We had planned a trip to Captain Cook last weekend but the swell had really picked up. Small craft advisories all weekend. Not great for a leisurely ride. So, instead, Ed volunteered to help get some things done on Jane’O to get her ready for the return trip. We had a very successful day last Saturday, with a few minor snags:

Mounted new barometer. The old one had a broken front glass and stopped working.
Replaced impeller for starboard engine. The original impeller was actually in good shape, but we replaced it anyway. The port engine was done last month.
Replaced fuel filters, starboard engine. New 10 micron Racor pre filter and 2 micron engine filters. Port engine needs this next.
Zinc was worn on the starboard engine but it seems I had ordered the wrong zincs! New ones are ordered and are enroute. I suspect the port engine needs a new zinc too.
Added the last 5 gallon can of diesel to the starboard side. Also used up the remaining octane boost. Still should add some biocide.

We also cleaned out 5 compartments while searching for the high water alarms (found!) and a mysterious rainwater leak. No luck on the leak, but a lot of organization will make finding things easier during the return. Plus we have more room for food.

I also had this brilliant idea to disassemble the stove lighter since it needed more butane. As it turned out, I could have added the butane without taking it apart, and I couldn’t get it back together. Anyway I purchased a few new ones, some refillable, some not.

Other stuff that was done in the not-too-distant past:

Rebuilt salt water pump for toilet. This was already a replacement unit I picked up on E-Bay. It made it all the way across the pacific until the rust inside the unit caused it to seize, really badly. It was a bear to remove since the set screw that holds it together wasn’t accessible -- it required rotating the unit to get to it. We ended out just forcing it apart, and now it works! This took several hours but now we have salt water for the toilet on the return trip.
Rerouted the starboard engine water to add a pee-hole. Some of the water now goes directly overboard after passing through the heat exchanger rather than cooling the exhaust, thereby reducing the back pressure, which improves fuel economy. The amount of water needed to cool the exhaust is really quite small. It’s set up so that there will always be SOME water going to the exhaust but about half of it now just goes out a separate exit port. This has an added advantage that it would be harder now to hydrolock the engine. This would be harder to do on the port side as it would need a new through hull hole.
Outboard had trouble staying in forward. Turns out this was an easy adjustment; there is a set screw for the lower unit that was a little loose.
Engine room fan now wired on starboard side. Still need to do the port side.

Remaining Hawaii Schedule

ron@svjaneo.com — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 17:49:54 GMT

We are STILL waiting for a slip in the harbor. I have no idea when that will happen. Regardless, here is the schedule for things that still need to happen.

I do have a spare cabin (possibly two) for the Maui trip if anyone wants to fly into Kona and join us (Dave/Sara: hint hint)

Date	What’s happening
Sat Apr 24	This weekend! Nothing special. Ventilation improvements.
Sat May 1	Possible overnight sail to Capt. Cook. Depart Saturday, return Sunday. It’s 17 miles (15nm) from the harbor, so about 2.5 hours. Good snorkeling.
Sat May 8	Last weekend for modifications/enhancements to Jane’O.
Sat May 15	100 point offshore inspection begins.
Sat May 22	Sail back to A-Bay as a staging area for the Maui trip. 100 point offshore inspection ends.
Fri May 28	Leave 9:30pm for Molokini Crator. It’s about 62 miles (52nm) - 8-9 hours, moderate difficulty due to the winds through the passage.
Sat May 29	Molokini Crater to Maalea Harbor. It’s about 11 miles (9.5nm); about 2 hours. Car rental plus hotel for those of us who have to work in Maui. We could delay this to Sunday if we want.
Sat June 5	Return Maui->A-Bay (or back to the harbor, depending on availability). Test watermaker enroute.
Sat June 12	Refuel Weekend, staple goods check, start shopping lists.
Tue June 15	Return crew starts arriving - Erik/Alan
Thu June 17	Provisioning Run
Fri June 18	PM departure for Maui. We might stop there on the way out as it’s further north and gives us an overnight warmup run. Maybe we can refuel.
Sat June 19	Arrival in Maui for fuel and/or last minute shopping, then depart for California

Hawaii to SF Crewed Up

ron@svjaneo.com — Fri, 09 Apr 2021 18:10:05 GMT

It’s been a rough few days due to my Covid-19 shot. But, after a lot of shuffling around, looks like the crew for the Hawaii to SF trip has been selected!

Who

Ed - He was a paramedic and is now an epidemiologist. He the only brave soul who sailed from San Francisco to Hawaii and is willing to take the return trip. He has been staying on Jane’O in Hawaii. He’s been a life saver! He’ll function as the chief medical officer. We might nickname him Dr. McCoy.

Alan - He owns and teaches as Delta Sailing School. He hasn’t done a pacific crossing but has a lot of coastal experience. He also has a captains license. We might nickname name him Mr. Klee(n).

Erik - He is a war vet who also happens to be my son. He hasn’t done much sailing except for a few short day trips. But he’s very excited to join us! We haven’t spent a lot of time together in a while so this will be a great opportunity for us to catch up and come up with a nickname.

The return trip with be with 4 people instead of 5. I’m debating 2 ¹⁄₂ hour shifts, because if we do that, then there are 7 ¹⁄₂ hours between shifts instead of 6, which is enough to get nearly a full night sleep. We’ll talk with the crew and see what they think.

When

Our expected departure date is June 18th. We might leave on the 17th or the 19th, depending on weather. The plan is to head north out of the trades (as close hauled as we care to handle) for the first day, then turn east to cross through the Pacific High. We’ll be doing a lot of motoring and motorsailing, making this a much easier passage than the other direction, except for the last few days.

Weather

I haven’t yet spent enough time studying the typical weather patterns on this departure day, and could certainly use some extra eyes from you weather-savvy sailing people out there. The archive for the past several years is available here. Use the surface ones unless you know what you’re doing.

Here are some departure day images.

Click on these to zoom in. These show the conditions in 2020, 2019, and 2018 on June 18th as late as possible. In table form:

Year	Center	Pressure
2020	136W,40N 600mi W of Eureka, CA	1028
2019	140W,43N 700mi W of OR/CA border	1034
2018	134W,35N 600mi W of Ft Bragg, CA	1023

2018 weather looks best for this trip, but remember the high moves daily. While 2020 looks worse on this specific day, the very next day the high moves very far west and south, leading to perhaps the best departure day of the set.

The other thing to consider is that the great circle route will head us a bit north anyway. But based on these three charts, we’ll be doing considerable motoring through relatively light winds near the high. The hard part of this trip, as shown from previous experience, is the last two days, where the California coast will kick those winds up pretty strong along the coast. If we were leaving today, fastseas currently recommends waiting based on expected high winds near the coast on arrival, but it’s ability to forecast that far out isn’t very good. We will still need to plan to head southeast during this portion of the trip.

Fishing

With our chief fisherman Dave off the trip, we’re going to have to show him how it’s done. We need to start trolling on departure day to catch some of the local Hawaiian fish, and we really need that “big one” out in the Pacific High. Just think, we’ll be saving them from the great Pacific Garbage Patch AKA the Pacific High. Plus sushi.

Third anchorage in Hawaii

ron@svjaneo.com — Tue, 06 Apr 2021 01:04:41 GMT

Jane’O is now happily in her third anchorage since arriving on the leeward side of the island, so I figured it’s time for an update on the places we visited.

Kawaihae Harbor

Our first anchor spot was surprisingly close to shore. We anchored tucked in a little bit based on a post from the Coast Pilot in about 30 feet of water. It seemed kinda close to me, but we calculated that we would have had to have had a lot of wind blowing us to shore. It was hard to find a sandy patch since it was dark, but my amazing light saved the day, cutting through the 30 feet of water and confirming what the chart already said: this is a sandy bottom area.

We had to do some quick calculations to ensure that we wouldn’t float into the channel either. It was kind of a tight fit, but after a long sail through a tough channel, we set the anchor pretty hard and crossed our fingers. Seems like we were set really well, as we never moved much.

This anchoring location was great. The trade winds were blowing hard from the east or southeast, keeping us far from shore, but even when there was a fresh ocean breeze, we were still far enough away from the land to let me sleep well. Where the boat was there were hardly ever any whitecaps, even when it was blowing upwards of 35 knots in the harbor. The harbor had a few boats in there that were getting kicked around pretty hard, but we were quite happy just outside the harbor.

The harbor is designed mostly as a commercial harbor, so it didn’t offer any slips or even allow for temporary docking. There were some amazing tug boats dragging tons of fuel into the dock. They came from Honolulu most often, dropping off fuel to keep the big island powered up. We kept our AIS on at night to ensure that the ships coming in saw Jane’O clearly out of the channel.

We were able to tie our dinghy up to the launch ramp and get some food and even some fresh vegetables at a local farm stand. It was nice, but we wanted to move further south.

A-Bay

Anaehoomalu Bay, as mentioned in my last post, is called A-Bay. I rounded up a few locals -- Joshua, his wife (I am sorry I can’t remember her name), and Jerry. After a fantastically easy sail south, these three helped us find a good spot in A-Bay, using an unused mooring ball owned by the hotel. It was a Mariott, and they were very friendly; I would highly recommend it! There were several good places to eat nearby, but you had to hike across some pretty serious lava rock or take the long way via the road to get from the beach to anyplace reasonable. And they were only reasonable. The wine bar was a nice addition.

Swimmers would routinely come out to visit us, even though it was about 300 yards from the beach.

There were also some petroglyphs close to the hotel that Ed and I hiked out to one day, along the Kings Trail. Pretty spectacular.

(you might need to scroll down for more)

Kailua Bay

And that’s where Jane’O is now. We found some tourists at the hotel who assisted us on the transit south. Ed had hurt his back so for a complete change in pace he didn’t do much on this trip (despite my repeated attempts at sarcastically complaining about him doing nothing). He still wanted to do things even though he was in a bunch of pain. They say doctors make terrible patients; now I have experienced that first hand!

This bay is quite different from A-Bay. There are tons of restaurants and shopping there, along with some homeless people hanging around near the dinghy dock. We ended up anchoring in a swell-laden zone and moved the boat a little further northwest for a better ride at night.

And the story continues! I’m just now starting to think about the return trip and the work to get ready for that, as well as a trip out to Maui.

I will post more often!

Two new A words

ron@svjaneo.com — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 05:00:24 GMT

Seems like there are so many of them. I learned some new ones!

Alenuihaha. While Google Maps shows the channel between The Big Island and Maui the Maui Channel, the proper name for it is the Alenuihaha channel. The emphasis is on the “haha” part. Crossing this channel was perhaps one of the toughest passages I’ve made to date.

When we left Hilo, we saw that the forecast was for some gusts to around 35 knots in the channel, but the steady wind was steady only around 20. The actuals were a lot worse. I have some video of the worst of it, but I hesitate to post it because when I watch it, it seemed like no big deal. I just remember walls of water behind the boat pushing us along.

We had some trouble after passing the channel because there were winds clearly in the 40s. Even though we shortened sail to a tiny jib and a triple reefed main, it still felt like there was too much sail up. I considered the drogue at some point, but we were able to turn south just enough to make it behind the lee of the island.

It still was rough and windy behind the north end of the island. We originally planned on anchoring in a little known Nishimura Bay. It’s not even on the charts, but the book I have about sailing the Hawaiian Islands says it’s peaceful and calm in the bay despite heavy winds outside the bay. What they didn’t say was that it’s really hard to get there when the winds are blowing hard outside the bay. We gave up and went on to Kawaihai. Rather than going into the harbor and anchoring, we found a spot just outside the harbor that was really calm. The were whitecaps in the anchorage area of the harbor but we were pretty well protected. I let out a lot of rode, using all the chain I had (150 feet) and probably another 30 feet of rope, in about 30 feet of water. Our swing looks great. We were able to stay clear of the channel and stay far enough offshore that even if we slipped a little, we’d be fine.

This spot is pretty good. Great place to land the dinghy near a launch ramp, a nice restaurant and a lower end hamburger/taco place. There’s even a place that does shave ice.

Anaehoomalu Bay. The locals call this A Bay since the name is so long and hard to say. This is perhaps our next stop. It’s about 2 hours south of where we are now, and recommended by the marina office. Supposed to have an amazing beach and some good places to hang out and eat. We’ll see.

Ed took this pic of a military vessel departing at sunset today. So beautiful.

Was thinking of leaving tomorrow but probably leave for there on Saturday or Sunday now depending on the weather.

#Repairs

One of the solar panels blew off in the wind, and we have some canvas damage. A few of the canvas coverings also blew off and some are torn.

While that’s mostly cosmetic, some of the bilge pumps are out again. This is a really huge problem, so I ordered and received some really expensive bilge pump switches (almost $200 each) that are supposed to be the best.

These switches have a lot of wires. This is so it can have a small LED to indicate that the switch is open, and keeps you from putting any two wires into the same connector. Originally I couldn’t understand why you needed so many wires but it makes complete sense now. All of the junctions are sealed within the top part of the pump.

Hello Hilo!

ron@svjaneo.com — Thu, 18 Mar 2021 19:35:23 GMT

Jane’O is in Hilo! This was a fairly rough trip. The worst seas were about 12-14 feet at 7 seconds with 45 knots of wind. Everyone was sick for the first few days. Ed had some behind-the-ear transderm-scop that we all used for the first few days. We gradually adjusted to the rough seas, but they never let up that much. We did get a day or two of 6-foot 12-second which isn’t great but good enough to make water. I lost about 8 pounds. Total elapsed time was 13 days.

We had a few problems enroute and the boat is still having a few issues, but many things are already fixed; we have a few more to fix before heading over to Kona. My good friend Sean says he sails from place to place in order to fix things on the boat. I’m starting to feel that way. But not much broke, and other than a minor scratch, there were no injuries! Enroute, here’s what we ran into:

Autopilot failure. After leaving SF and turning south, the autopilot would randomly reset after making a hard turn. Root cause: Some idiot captain forgot to attach the ground wire for the autopilot. Mitigated by leaving an engine running (worked because the increase in voltage lowered current). Fixed after docking in Santa Cruz.
Watermaker failure. Attempted to make water to fill the tanks before departure, but the system would not fully pressurize. Replaced water pump with spare pump. This caused a delay for us, but we were able to make 100G+ of water at the dock.
Heavy seas flooded forward port compartment due to siphoning old exhaust system. Tied the unused hoses up against the side to prevent this from happening again.
Starboard engine whine. Running the starboard engine above a fast idle while in gear caused a high pitched whine. This gradually got worse until we couldn’t really stand the noise from that engine. Root cause: engine alignment was off by a tiny bit. Realigned engine in Hilo harbor and retested.
Sump pump failure. Our shower sump stopped working so we had to shower on deck. Root cause: it just got stuck; maybe there was some hair or something. Removed the cover and turned by hand to free it.
Spinnaker sock failure. Although I had the sock serviced before departure, they did a terrible job. We weren’t able to get the spinnaker down outside of Hilo and we hit a heavy rain shower. I am not too disappointed since the spinnaker is probably past it's prime anyway. Dave was kind enough to take it back to San Francisco for repairs. $1000+ damage, repairing in SF and shipping back out here, along with buying a spare.
The jib halyard came loose at the mast, which caused the jib furler car to get stuck near the top of the mast. The leader dyneema line that connects the top of the car to the masthead got jammed badly between the top of the drum and what I think is a cap up on top. Repairs enroute were not very effective -- it was rolling too much.
We still have bilge pump problems. Some of the float switches are malfunctioning in various ways. I am strongly considering an idea I've been kicking around to provide some redundancy to the switch.
At the dock, the water pump finally gave up. I suspected this might happen, which is why I was carrying a spare pump. But we used that pump for the watermaker. I purchased a new pump, which turned out to be a higher pressure "washdown pump", which I used instead of the lower pressure one that was there. This makes the anchor locker hose work much much better!

Happy to be here though. Ed is staying on the boat in Hilo and we’re sailing to Kona this weekend.