The Blue View - Baby Needs a New Bailer

Our old dinghy bailer is just about shot. The sun's UV rays have made it brittle and it's starting to crack. No matter – Marcie just finished a jug of laundry detergent, and it is the perfect size and shape for a new bailer. Being the parsimonious sailors that we are, we make use of everything we can.

When there is a lot of water in the dinghy, most anything will work as a bailer. That's not to say that a good bailer wouldn't be preferable, but I've used hats, oars, and even cupped hands quite effectively when there wasn't a real bailer available (although there were times when I wished I had webbed fingers). To move a lot of water quickly, it is more the technique than the tools at hand.

When a good bailer is worth its keep is when the water gets down to the last few inches. Then I want a flat bottomed scoop. We've certainly purchased those classy bailers sold at the chandleries in the past, but I don't find that they do any better job of bailing than my homemade jobs. They do last about twice as long in the sun, but twice nothing, which is what mine cost, is a lot less than the cost to buy a bailer.

I find a 2L size laundry detergent jug is perfect … it is flat on the sides, has a handle, and is big enough to bail large quantities of water quickly, but small enough to dip out the last of the water from the small well near the transom of our dinghy. Usually, Marcie finishes up the laundry detergent in the current jug just about the time the old bailer has about had it. Any similarly shaped heavy plastic container with a screw-on lid will work, however -  bleach bottles, milk jugs, etc.  In a pinch, a gallon (4L) size jug will work, but is a bit too large and flimsy for my liking.

When I'm done bailing, I stuff the bailing sponge into it. This weighs it down enough to keep it from blowing away.

The first few times I made a bailer, I simply dug out my box cutter and hacked away. The bailers worked just fine, but were sometimes rather oddly shaped. Now I mark the jug where I intend to cut it. BTW, it took me approximately ten times longer to write the blog about making a bailer than it did to actually make it.

The Blue View - Securing the Fuel Cans

We have a lot of fuel cans aboard Nine of Cups – 11 to be exact. We have six 8.7-gallon (33 liter) cans for diesel, another four 5-gallon (20 liter) jugs for gasoline and one small 1-gallon (4 liter) can for mixed gasoline that we sometimes take with us in the dinghy if we are planning a long excursion.

Unless we are about to head off somewhere that fuel will be difficult to come by for a long while, like an ocean crossing or down into Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia, the jugs spend most off their time empty. We usually keep one or two of the gas cans full, but the primary purpose of the diesel cans are  for toting fuel from the local filling station to the boat. For a variety of reasons, over the past 15 years we've refueled using jerry cans far more times than we've used fuel docks. Many times, there is no fuel dock available in whatever port we are in, or when it is available, the fuel pump is often intended for ships and large fishing vessels who buy it by the ton. I prefer to filter the fuel before it goes into the tank, and this is more easily done if I pump it from jerry cans.  And, Cups has suffered far more damage from my banging her into jetties and wharfs than she has in all the storms and rocks we've encountered. I may spend a lot of time toting empty cans ashore, then wrestling them into the dinghy and back aboard Cups, but this is usually preferable to my angst when it is necessary to maneuver the girl up to and away from the typical fuel dock.

Six diesel fuel cans is a good number. They will usually just fit into the trunk of a taxi if the filling station is too far to walk. They fit snugly into our dinghy. It's also the number of fuel cans that will fit nicely on the aft deck.

Keeping them securely in place is something that requires some thought. When we are taking green water over the sides and Cups is pitching and rolling, the cans, especially if they are full, take a beating. I mentally pictured a 6'8”, 300 lb offensive lineman (for you non-Americans, think a 203cm, 136kg  not-so-gentle giant) trying to rip them loose, and tried to design the lashings to withstand his best efforts.

I started with two fairly large, 2”x12”x72” (50mm x 30cm x 180cm), planks. These were secured to the aft rail on each side using stainless u-bolts. Each can is then secured to the plank using two web straps - I used medium weight 1” (25mm) webbing. One strap goes around the girth of each can and one goes from top to bottom. The straps are secured on the back side of each plank with a small screw to keep them properly positioned. I like having two straps for each can. I think it is quite likely the can may slip out from under a single strap when we are on a significant heel and get hit by a wave.

Marcie sewed buckles on the ends of the web straps, so the cans can be snapped into place and cinched tightly. Webbing expands and contracts with temperature, so I periodically check each strap for tightness.

Knock on wood and thanks to Neptune, we have never lost a fuel jug overboard, despite having weathered a few storms and a number of gales. It could be because of the well-designed straps – or more likely it's because we never start a passage on a Friday, always give Neptune a hearty tot of rum at the beginning and end of each passage, and never, never kill an albatross.

The Blue View - Alternative Energy Monitor

When we bought our solar panels and wind generators about 15 years ago, we also bought a control panel and monitor to go with it. Although it was quite expensive, it seemed like a good idea at the time. It isolated and combined the inputs from up to three sources, provided a brake and “bump start” for the wind generators, and included a couple of meters to measure the voltages and amps being generated.

The marketing hype made it sound like it was something we wouldn't want to do without, but it didn't take long to realize we had wasted our money. The brake was ineffective in strong winds, the “bump-start” was never used, and the isolation diodes had a habit of overheating and frying (they actually melted the case on a couple of occasions). The volt and amp meters were only useful in determining whether the various inputs were still working, but when the voltmeter died a few years ago, the monitor lost even this functionality.

We now have three sources of alternative energy – solar panels, a wind generator/turbine and a generator that is attached to the prop shaft which produces power as we sail. It would be nice to have a simple monitor that would combine these three sources, and display the voltage and number of amps being generated by each source. In addition, it would be nice to keep a running total of the number of amp-hours produced by each input over the previous 24 hours.

I spent most of my working life designing microprocessor-based instrumentation, a career I enjoyed immensely, and it still remains my favorite hobby. We have our own home-brewed refrigerator/freezer controller, a windlass controller and chain counter, pump monitors, and a host of other gizmos ... some of which actually work. When I cut my teeth on microprocessor design several decades ago, it helped to have an advanced degree in electrical engineering and computer science, and required thousands of dollars in developmental tools to develop a microprocessor-based instrument. Now, the development software is often free, and I suspect the basics are taught in elementary schools. On my long list of things I planned to make when I got the chance, a replacement monitor was near the top. When I installed the new prop shaft generator, I decided to build a new alternative energy monitor.

When I was younger, processors were slower and memory was expensive, so it made sense to write software in assembly or C language, so the code would be fast and efficient. The newer processors are loaded with all kinds of hardware features, are orders of magnitude faster and memory is cheap. I have long been fond of Microchip Pic processors, and I especially like the Picaxe versions provided by Revolution Education. They are pre-programmed with download software and a Basic interpreter, making them very easy to use. All the development software is free. What might have taken me weeks or even months two decades ago, can now be done – even by an old guy like me – in days. I used a Picaxe 18m2+ processor as the core of the design.

The block diagram shows the other components. The three inputs are isolated by diodes. (Without the diodes, current can flow in both directions ... when the sun goes down, the solar panels will draw current; when the wind isn't blowing, the wind generator will become a battery-powered motor.) The voltage generated by each input is scaled down using a voltage divider and measured with an A to D converter (ADC). The current is measured with Hall effect transducers – these devices provide a voltage output proportional to the current passed through them. The display is a 4 line, 20 character, backlit LCD. Since the backlight draws a measurable amount of current, it is only turned on when the button is pressed.

As instrumentation goes, this was a pretty simple design, and I am quite happy with the end result. I tackled it in four phases – the electrical design, the software design, the mechanical fabrication and the aesthetics. For those of you who are interested in building your own monitor, I am happy to provide the design details of the project – just send us an email requesting them.

Note from the editor: This is a pretty slick device, but please note that the Captain already had all of these components (backlit display, Hall effect transducers, diodes, Picaxe processors, etc.) aboard. In fact, there's an entire drawer (plus more) dedicated to electronic components alone. So, when I bring a few extra pieces of cloth or a couple shells aboard?  Just sayin' …

Note from the Captain: Well yeah – but the electronic components are essential ship stuff and very important. Sea shells???