The Blue View - Clam Shell Patch for Inflatables

We were on our way to the local Lowes to pick up parts for a house project a few days ago, when the subject of repairing things in remote parts of the world came up. What a difference it makes having a car and just about any conceivable part available only minutes away. Marcie reminded me of a few years ago, when we were exploring the hundreds of tiny anchorages in Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia. We were anchored in a snug little cove for the evening with the anchor in deep water and two lines ashore, and after we were all settled in, we put the dinghy up on the davits. It wasn't unusual to experience large katabatic winds there, usually late at night. Right on schedule, at about 3am, a “racha”, or katabatic wind (also known as a “williwaw”), came blasting down the mountain behind us, and the 135 lb. (60kg) dinghy became more of a kite than a boat. The wind lifted the dinghy up against the solar panels with such force that a corner of one of the panels tore a 3-inch hole in the starboard pontoon of the inflatable.

Most of the anchorages in this area require lines ashore, so having a dinghy is quite important. Knowing we would be hundreds of miles between chandleries and being aware of how important the dinghy was, we came prepared. I had a couple of square feet of hypalon patch material, and a fairly fresh kit of two part adhesive. The next morning I pulled out our patching materials and adhesive, only to discover that the accelerator, one part of the two part adhesive, in our unopened, six month old kit had totally evaporated.

Not to worry – it was only the 'accelerator', which would imply that given enough time, the adhesive itself should still cure. I tried a small amount on a scrap piece of material, but even after 24 hours, the adhesive still remained tacky and wouldn't hold. I tried heating the adhesive – no luck. When I was a boy, patching a bicycle inner tube involved lighting the adhesive with a match and letting it burn a few seconds. This didn't work on the hypalon adhesive, however.

Maybe we could get by with one pontoon deflated... it had three chambers after all, and two were still inflated. I put the dinghy in the water, and the bow and port side pontoons kept the dinghy afloat, even with my weight. Rowing it was rather comical, however. It quickly swamped, so I couldn't sit down and row. I stood up and paddled it, but it was slow going and only wanted to go in circles. Trying to tow 300 foot (90m) lines ashore in a half submerged dinghy that only went in circles would have made a great Mr. Bean video.

I pondered our dilemma for awhile, then remembered I had once seen a product called a 'clam shell patch', a mechanical patch that could be used for patching an inflatable. I rounded up a few scrap pieces of aluminum, plastic panels and rubber gasket material and set to work.

The illustrations above show my first version of the concept. It still leaked air rather copiously, so I added a rubber gasket on both sides of the tear.

The second attempt worked quite well. The patch held well enough to keep the pontoon inflated for about 24 hours. As long as I pumped it up each day before it was needed, it would stay inflated long enough to get our lines ashore in the evening and retrieved in the mornings. The patch served us quite well until we reached Ushuaia and could get a new kit of adhesive shipped in. It now resides with our patch supplies as an emergency repair kit.

The Blue View - Godzilla El Niño?

This year looks like it is not only going to be an El Niño event, it's being referred to as a Godzilla El Niño – perhaps the strongest El Niño in recorded history. According to Scripps Oceanographic Institute, “an El Niño is a temporary change in the climate of the Pacific Ocean, in the region around the equator. You can see its effects in both the ocean and atmosphere, generally in the Northern Hemisphere winter. Typically, the ocean surface warms up by a few degrees Celsius. At the same time, the place where hefty thunderstorms occur on the equator move eastward. Although those might seem like small differences, it nevertheless can have big effects on the world's climate.”

According to PBS Online, “The name El Niño (referring to the Christ child) was originally given by Peruvian fishermen to a warm current that appeared every year around Christmas. What we now call El Niño seemed to them like a stronger version of the same event, and the usage of the term evolved over time until it only referred to the irregular strong events. It wasn't until the 1960s that people started realizing this was not just a local Peruvian occurrence, but was associated with changes over the entire tropical Pacific and beyond. In effect, El Niño was too big to be seen as the mega-event it is; it just seemed like a lot of unconnected unusual weather events around the world. “ And Godzilla? We all know where that came from, although I didn't know until today that it is an Anglicized version of the fusion of the Japanese words for gorilla and whale.

As most of us recognize, the weather around the world has been even weirder than usual. In the U.S., December was the warmest and wettest in the country's history, and according to NOAA, an amazing 6372 (!) record high temperatures were registered during the month; there were a multitude of absolutely devastating winter tornadoes in the midwest and south - even San Diego was hit; and record rainfall and flooding have occurred in a number of states. Mother Nature seems especially ticked off.

For sailors, a strong El Niño year is a mixed blessing. Depending on where they'll be sailing, the weather patterns may be better or worse, but will very likely be different than in a non-El Niño year. In the Atlantic, if the El Niño is still strong next summer, the number and strength of hurricanes will be less. On the other hand, there are likely to be more storms in the Gulf of Mexico and southeast U.S. coastal areas this winter.

In the North Pacific, there may be stronger storms and heavier seas in the central and eastern areas. California and northern Mexico will probably see more stormy weather and heavy rains this winter. The South Pacific will likely experience more cyclones. Often during an El Niño event, the cyclones persist later than usual and tend to make their way further east. The usually strong and dependable easterly trade winds may be lighter than usual as well. They may become light and variable, and even reverse direction on occasions. That'll make those long Pacific passages even longer.

We pay attention to big global weather patterns like El Niño events, but in actuality, we don't make or change our plans based on them. We avoid cyclone, hurricane and typhoon regions in the appropriate seasons. Even so, we've had a few close calls, like Cyclone Bune that made our passage from the Chatham Islands to the north island of New Zealand less than fun – and that was in 2011, a La Niña year.

Whether we're on a passage or anchored, we watch for storms or nasty weather approaching and try to be prepared. And we pay attention to the day-to-day weather heading our way. But we didn't postpone our 2009 Pacific crossing because it was an El Niño year, and while we did have our share of bad weather, it wasn't so bad that we regretted not waiting another year. On the other hand, our El Nino event in 2009-10 was considered moderate. There hasn't been a strong El Nino event since 1997-98, but if this really does turn out to be the “Godzilla El Niño” meteorologists are predicting, watch out this year.

The world's weather seems to be getting more abnormal every year. Our trek north from Trinidad in a couple of months shouldn't be greatly affected, but all the Puddle-Jumpers planning to head from Panama to New Zealand this spring will need to be extra careful.

The Blue View - Keeping Busy

Marcie and her sister Lin have a very enviable relationship. Although they are 11 years apart, they are as close as twins. They don't look alike, but do share many of the same mannerisms and have very similar personalities. They're inseparable when we visit Boston, and their farewells are always tearful when it's time to return to Nine of Cups. They also sound alike on the phone. In our early days together, if I was out and about and called the home phone, I sometimes thought I was talking to Marcie when, in fact, it was Lin I was talking to. Lin was all too happy to play along, and it sometimes led to some embarrassing conversations. Now I've caught on, and if I'm not sure which sister I'm talking to, I use my own set of 'security questions' – “Where do we keep the UHT milk on Cups?” or “What unusual anatomical feature do I have on my backside?”.

We aren't in Boston all that frequently, so when we are, the sisters spend a lot of time with each other catching up, and I've found that it's best if I find a project to immerse myself in. Sometimes it's a household project that Lin has been saving for me from her to-do list – install some motion-activated lights on the back steps or clean out and reorganize the garden shed. This time, however, there were no pressing household projects, and I have time to complete the design of our new wireless windlass controller.

The design will consist of two modules – the handheld, battery- powered module and the controller module located in the forepeak locker, close to the windlass. The controller starts and stops the windlass and keeps track of windlass revolutions. The handheld module monitors the Up and Down buttons and displays the amount of rode deployed. The two modules communicate using matching RF transmit/receive radio modules.

I've been working on the handheld module, and it's coming along nicely. It is quite small and incorporates a sunlight readable, graphics display (one of the shortcomings of the previous design was that it was hard to read in the bright tropical sun). The wireless range (500 meters) should be more than adequate for our use – we rarely try to lower or raise the anchor from shore.

I've finished most of the breadboarding phase. I am using a prototyping breadboard to connect all the components, get everything functional and working, and to work out any hardware issues. As of today, the display is functioning and I'm able to communicate wirelessly between it and a wireless transceiver connected to my laptop. I'll start the fabrication phase next. Lin provides me a place to work, a few handy tools like a drill press, and all the power I can use, so I want to take advantage of it while I'm here. It's much more convenient than using the Nav desk aboard Cups as a workbench and having to rely on solar and wind to power my soldering iron.

After the handheld module is built and functional, I will build the control module. This part of the design, other than the wireless communication, will be similar, to the previous design. The old design had a tendency to occasionally reset with the large electrical spikes that are generated by the windlass motor, so I will enhance its noise immunity in this version. The last phase will be to perfect the communications protocol between the two modules and complete the user interface software.

When it is finally complete and tested, I'll provide the design details to anyone who's interested.