Search results

Our surveyor noted some small corrosion spots on the shaft, and wanted to pull it for a dye penetrant test. Since the boat is a single, and I plan to be outside of tow range (insurance wise anyway) I thought I'd err on the side of caution and replace it during my haul out. Good thing. Here's...

Good suggestions. We love Diablo, and I'll check into Muir Woods. Our normal "base of operations" for our visits is usually in Danville, so we will most likely stash the car there. I wasn't really planning on dragging it around, it's just that my wife will be driving up to meet the boat...

Thanks. I grew up in the Central Valley, so I had sort of dismissed the delta. A night of reading has revisited that decision, and now it's rapidly becoming a focus for the trip. We have another dream to do the loop, so it'll be great to do something similar.

Hello all, For our first big cruise in our trawler we are planning to head up to San Francisco from Santa Barbara. We plan to spend some time in the bay, a week or maybe 10 days depending on weather, and then spend 10-14 days enjoying the trip back down. I'll probably do the trip up...

So I have to preface this by saying that my experience is with terrestrial CO detectors. YMMV with anything stamped "marine." Generally, CO detectors aren't set for a particular threshold level, they work on the idea of Time Weighted Average. The higher the concentration, the shorter exposure...

Thanks everyone for the replies, sorry for the delay in mine. Life just sort of exploded when I got back. It seems to do that, but I'm grateful for the time out I got. I did poke a nose over by Twin Harbor, but the conditions were marginal (and that's being generous) with an offshore from the...

Finally got a break in the weather that coincided with a break in the schedule, so I'm headed out for a quick overnight at Santa Cruz Island. This is my first night on the hook in the trawler. It's pretty much lake Pacific out here right now. I'm going to go poke my bow into a little...

Welcome. We have a 1979 C&L Sea Ranger, a 36 footer (but they called it a 37.) We've been enjoying it so far. I'm actually down aboard right now taking a little break from some wiring work.

Had a nice break in the weather, so brought the boat up to SB. Saw a couple of different pods of whales. Had a humpback pretty much breach about 500' off, then had these guys pop up right off the bow (luckily I was up there with the phone.) Got measured in for our slip, which I never in a...

It's been going slower than I'd like. It just seems that I don't have the time to dedicate to really get a couple nice long days. Life can do that... The plotter is in and linked up to the N2K network. I've been unable to find the original style breakers anywhere on earth, so in order to put...

I should mention that I haven't dressed any cabling or installed any wire management yet. And the covers for the raceways are off in those pictures. I don't plan on just leaving hanging wires and terminal strips...

Success. Today was a good day. I've been diligently (more or less) working on the electronics install. Both VHF radios are mounted and powered, the GX2000 is hooked up with an antenna and GPS / AIS feed from a Vesper Marine XB-8000. The Vesper unit is almost fully installed, the only...

That's it. Also, if you use the transfer number the airtime is billed against the satphone minutes. If you direct dial it's billed to the caller, and doesn't burn up your minutes. My wife has the transfer number, but I gave the direct dial number to work. If it's important enough for them to...

I've recently aquired a C&L 37, which is our first large power boat. So far, so good. We're making the jump from sail to power, to the abhorrent shock of most of my sailing friends, and the delight of my non-sailing ones. Congratulations on your purchase.

Check out saildocs.com. An easy way to snag weather forecast pages via email. I'm not sure about your plan, but the prepaid minutes blocks I've bought all come with free inbound SMS texts. Iridium has a website to text gateway, so my wife and kid (and occasionally a friend) can drop me...

I used several sources. The one I really like is Sailmail via HF Pactor. You send an email formatted with document requests, like gribs and forecast discussion, and check back to download them. I also have a sat phone that interfaces with the Sailmail software for when the bands aren't...

Do trawler people not fit jack lines? I noticed a total lack of padeyes for harness clipping points when I bought ours. I have a bunch in the parts bin, they're just way down the to-do list.

I kinda figured the wiring was suspect, based on the age of the boat and what I could see without much effort. The surveyor mentioned things like wire nuts (lots) and uncovered terminal strips. All systems work with the exception of the horn and windshield wipers. I'm replacing the horn with...

The wet agent (Class K) mostly exist for health department rules. They're made to react with cooking fats. The fancy term is "saponification," which I never can remember without Google. I wouldn't put one on a boat. The big issue with firing off a dry chemical extinguisher in a restaurant...

Ok, so even though I thought the upload crashed three times, when I see the post there are three sideways pictures on it. You'd never guess I spent 15 years as a technology professional before changing careers...

Holy Taiwanese wiring Batman! So, I finally got an hour or two before the family showed to wire in the new radio's and AIS. Being an idiot, I decided to home run a new duplex wire back to the breaker rather than scab in. MISTAKE! I see a whole mess of positives, and not a single freaking...

You can translate GE images into openCPN as charts. Google GE2KAP. In many out of the way places, and some not so out of the way, the GE imagery is more accurately geo referenced than charts surveyed in the 1800's.

Get a 2 1/2 Gallon Pressure Water Extinguisher, sometimes called a water can. You can pick one up for around $100 or so. The one with the fancy foam nozzle is around $175. Charge it with a compressor. We carry one at work that is loaded with AFFF. Ironically enough we had a boat fire call...

They are. Interstate is a marketing brand that doesn't manufacture themselves but resells JCI. They (JCI) are the largest battery manufacturer in America, and their stuff is sold under lots of different marks. It's been a couple of years since I bought mine, and given that Costco is basically...

In my experience, the Costco GC2 batteries are nowhere near as robust as the Trojans. The Trojans will take abuse that has the Costco (which I believe are Johnson Control) batteries crying uncle. Just look at the weight difference. Lead is everything. That being said, I replaced the Trojans...