This site’s primary focus isn’t shifting but I found this video and couldn’t help myself (especially now that our site software allows embeded video). Just last week, the Round Texel race took place yet again in Holland. It’s a 60 nautical mile race around an island that is attended by up to 600 catamarans - clearly the largest catamaran race in the world. We even had some local sailors, Nigel Pitt and Alex Shafer, competing this year on a Nacra 20 (they finished pretty well too!)

This video is a flashback to 1985 and shows some really old versions of modern catamarans and a lot that haven’t changed. The first to finish in 1985 was an Olympic Tornado that also broke the record previously set by American catamaran designer, Bill Roberts, on one of his own Supercat 20s. You will also see one or two Supercat 20s in the video. The Olympic Tornado boat design that wins first to finish in this video has undergone some major changes and in the current day comes equiped with double trapeze (it was a single trapeze platform back in that day), a larger square head mainsail, a spinnaker, and a carbon fiber mast. Something else of note is that modern beach catamarn popularity in the US is miniscule compared to that of Europe even though the modern beach cat is a west coast American creation. It strikes me a little odd that the commentator is from the US..and the commentary sounds like it came from the 70s. None the less, it’s entertaining!

I know things have been a bit slow around here this week and after stumbling upon this video, I thought I share it. Here’s a Hobie 33 (not a catamaran…but at least it shares a major catamaran manufacturer) sailing offshore in a light breeze. The boat’s name is “Shark Bait”. I thought for sure this was a gag but about half way through you can see enough to dismiss that notion!

I spent the early part of this week in St. Louis on business (Sorry Mike H.! I started to call but we were working 12 hour days).Before I left, I sanded a bit on the F18 bow and found a spot where the new gelcoat was a little thin - it left a dark spot from the repair beneath. I’ll have to shoot another couple of coats on it before I go any further. We’ll be doing that this weekend.

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

Rick Harper took the win today in another light air race that was made or lost on the starting line. David and I had positioned ourselves for some clear air but a Supercat 20, with more speed than we could escape from, dipped the line right in front of us leaving us in his vacuum. By the time we got free, we were in last place of the F18s. David and I managed to climb back a few places but David Lennard / Mike Krantz and Rick Harper / Kip Goodman were well beyond reach. Because there were so many boats at this regatta, it was goint to take an extensive time for the results to be tallied - so we decided to hit the road early and get home with time to unpack. On the upside, we were fast this weekend, but suffered from a couple of bad starts. We’ll be back soon.

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

Yesterday was a bit patchy - occasionally we would get an 8 to 10knot lane of breeze. With a large mixed fleet including J24s, J22s, Melges 24s, our two fleets of catamarans, and others, the RC was able to get one race off in the fluky breeze. Mike Krantz and David Lennard checked out early by catching a puff and riding it downwind while Rick Harper on his Hobie Tiger and us on our Nacra F18 just ‘missed the bus’. Rick and I duked it out fighting for 2nd and although we just gained the lead on the last C-mark rounding, I didn’t keep tight enough cover and we slipped into a hole in the breeze while Rick moved ahead. We fought hard tacking to try and break free of their cover but only put ourselves in yet another hole and finished a couple of minutes behind Rick. It was a frustrating kind of racing - but we did have some good moments. We experimented with our boat setup for the light breeze and were happy to find that we had good speed where we have been struggling in the past.There’s no breeze out there right now, so it’s questionable if we’re going to get any racing in today - a bit of a let down because we really want another shot at it. At the moment we’re all checking our boat tuning and comparing notes on the beach. Rick Harper has his boat on it’s side and David Mosley and he are looking at matching the mast curve to Rick’s new main sail. With any luck, some breeze will fill in….

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

We just updated the site software…I noticed that the comment links don’t appear to be working - I’ll get on that soon.

If you ain’t got that cling….Sorry - for some reason I made the association between gel coat, jello, and that old cling wrap commercial. I got the gel coat sprayed on the repair but it didn’t quite qualify for the level of “schmoof”. During the last gel coat project, I received some advice from David Lennard (that I didn’t follow at the time) to brush on a thin coat of gel coat before spraying subsequent layers with the hope that it would prevent pin holes. I did it this time and it worked marvelously! However, when I started spraying the first coat of gel coat, I forgot to tune the flow rate on the paint gun and the first pull of the trigger unleashed a fire hose like amount of gel. Instead of doing the right thing and wiping it off, I continued to spray. The intial large volume left the coat a little lumpy - it ~almost~ wanted to drip. Subsequent coats made it better but it will still require just a little extra wet sanding to get it right. That aside, the finish on the fresh gel coat is a lot better than what we achieved before because I really started spraying each coat on pretty darn thick. I thinned the gel coat with an equal part of styrene and added about 1.5% hardener. For the last couple of coats, I added about 2% of surfacing agent (parafin wax disolved in styrene). The surfacing agent floats to the surface of the gel coat and seals it from the air. This is important because the outer layer of gelcoat won’t cure if it is contact with air. All in all, I think I applied 12 coats because I knew I was going to have to sand a bit. Anyway…I don’t think I’ll have the chance to sand it tomorrow since I need to get everything packed up and spend some quality time with Bonnie. It will have to wait until after the regatta. Just in case we have no wind, I might take some sandpaper with me this weekend.

EDIT: I later determined that the surfacing agent for gel coat is just too finicky to work with. Different temperatures and humidities require different percentages. I now spray a thin layer of PVA (Poly Vinyl Alcohol) on top of the fresh gel coat to seal it from the air and get a good cure…the PVA method is simple and bulletproof and just rinses away with water.

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

That’s what I say when explaining to Bonnie how the repair is looking….it’s shmoof.

The fiberglass and polyester resin (poly because I’m finishing with gel coat) cured nicely. I shaped the repair carefully with a palm sander and some 100 grit paper finishing up with 150. I used a wood-worker’s curve guide to compare the radius with the repair and the new bow and they look very very close in shape. Then I cleaned the repair with acetone and used an air nozzle to blow out and clean out the few pin holes. I applied a skim coat of bondo filler and let it set for about 45 minutes before sanding it with my long board and some 150 grit paper. Once I had it nicely shapped, I hand sanded with a foam block and some 300 grit (just lightly to clean it up). It was getting a little late and it’s really humid thanks to Tropical Storm Alberto. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining - we really need the rain. It’s supposed to stop raining early tomorrow so maybe it will dry up enough to spray some gel coat on the repair. If it doesn’t, that’s OK because the hull is sound again - even more so than it was originally. We’ll make this weekends regatta in Atlanta no problem.

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

I got the crack cut away and the fiberglass laid on the F18 this evening. The underlying problem was a poor joint with voids. I imagine it cracked either while being deeply submerged during one of the two pitchpoles (where the bows were submerged to substantial depths!) from the regatta several months ago or from standing on the side of it while trying to get it to spin into the wind properly to be righted. At any rate, the joint was pretty bad to begin with - should be stronger than new when the polyester resin sets up tonight. Tommorow, I’ll clean up and fair the repair area and if the weather permits, spray some gelcoat back on it Wednesday evening.

I’m finally able to get up and about again (whew!) - I’ll be seeing someone about that siatic nerve thing next week but for now, that’s behind me. There’s good news with the generator as well. I installed the new Flight System’s voltage regulator (they claim to have a heavier duty version of the factory Onan part) and everything runs great again. It turns out that the voltage regulator is a pretty high-tech and sensitive piece inside these generators. During start-up, it steps up and applies 18V to the field to get the current flowing the correct direction, then it constantly monitors the output AC of the generator and modifies the field voltage to keep it stabilized. Apparently the original Onan regulator suffered from some sort of “startup failure” that this Flight Systems regulator protects against…that’s probably what got me when I was relentlessly trying to get it to start during the ice storm we had last winter. This new regulator is also filled with a gel instead of epoxy and they claim that it is repairable - another plus. At any rate, I need to tweak the govenor slightly so that the frequency the generator is outputing drops about 3Hz to keep the governor stable (keeps it from looping or “hunting”). I also need to understand a little more about fine tuning the carburetor so I’m sure to get the best efficiency out of it - I’ll be buying one of the factory service manuals to make sure I’m turning the right screws this time. As for the other carburetor, It’s a pretty simple device, I’ll be cleaning it up to keep as a backup in the future since this thing tends to sit from time to time. The Team Seacats “Sailing Shack” is now ready for some summer nights with the A/C running.

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

PS - we’ve just discussed making a major refit to the interior - on the overcab (over the driver/passenger front seats) we currently have large cabinets and a 19″ TV…we’ve decided to strip this out and convert the overcab for a bed - maybe putting in a flat panel tv later. This will allow us more sleeping space - as usual, we’ll keep it real here.

Getting healed up and should be back at it this weekend.  The voltage regulator is in and I’ve been studying up on generator tuning.  I’ve also got to get the F18 ready to race at the Reggae Regatta and I’ll post the work here.

No boat work happened yesterday because I’ve had a pretty bad pinched nerve in my back that left me able to only crawl from the couch to the bathroom and back. Fortunately Bonnie took care of the rest for me. As luck would have it, 30 minutes ago, with a ‘pop’, something settled in my lower back so I can actually stand now. However, I’m headed to the doc today to look into it anyway because this thing has been slowly progressing in the past year or so. The generator part is on order and hopefully I’ll be able to get some work in on the boat this week.

OK, so the new carburetor is working just fine and now the generator control board is working properly again. When I decided to jump voltage to the ignition coil last night, I made some incorrect assumptions when reading the schematics (they left a little to be desired). The net result was that I had burned out one diode on this control board (this control board retails for well over $200!!!!). This circuit is not “intrinsically safe” either - after that diode failed it left the logic for the generator start sequence in eternal “on”….i.e. when I pressed the starter button to crank the generator, it started but even though I released the starter button, the starter remained engaged and spinning and the stop button no longer worked! The only way I could stop the generator was to disconnect the battery. The price on this board from Onan is really silly - there’s nothing to this thing. Any rate, after testing things with a voltmeter, I found the fried diode, made a trip to Radio Shack, and soldered in the replacement.  It cost me more in gas for the round trip to Radio Shack than the $0.69 pack of diodes.  I’m happy to report that things are back to normal … well, except for the running problem.

After much more research and testing, I’ve reached the conclusion that the voltage regulator has died. “Ockham’s razor” tells me that I have probably not found the end of this story because it’s strange how the voltage regulator died during the time that the carburetor was preventing things from starting (unless something was damaged during my multiple starting attempts during the ice storm this past winter). There’s not yet a simple explanation for these two coincidences. At any rate, with no other ideas, I’ve ordered a $200 replacement voltage regulator. I’ll keep ya posted.

What’s next? I have a crack in the deck/bow of the F18 that needs some attention - the boat is about 4 months out of warrantee so I’ll have to get the grinder out and “dig in”. This might happen tomorrow if I feel up to it.

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

Coming soon…Team Seacats attends the Reggae Regatta just outside Atlanta, GA. This one is shaping up to be attended by some real hot-shot F18 sailors and we’re expecting a 20 boat class. We’ll try to keep some updates rolling from the regatta as David and I try to keep things fast.

In the meantime, I plan to blog some trials and tribulations about repairing the generator on my RV. I’ve really done it to myself this time. The carburetor was about shot so I put a new one in (new replacement from ebay for $130 = almost 1/2 retail). After installing the new carburetor, the generator would start easily and run great but only as long as I held the start button. I’ve tried all sorts of things and finally in an effort to proove out a faulty voltage regulator, I think I shorted out the control board too. I haven’t found a voltage regulator for under $250 and the control board (that I think I just fried) runs about the same. Seeing as it only has a simple voltage rectifier (4 diodes), a few capacitors, resistors, and three relays - the price for that control board is ludicrous. I’ll test and replace any individual components I fried on the circuit board but the voltage regulator will probably have to be replaced. More on that later.

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.