Words, and images of our trips around New England in our sailing sloop Fujin.
Fujin is a Pearson 34 with an interesting history. It's a late 80's design that was manufactured by Cal-Pearson in 1997. Cal-Pearson failed before this hull(#61) was finished and she sat out in the yard until 2005 when Bristol Marine finished and sold her
We had a little time to take a quick harbor sail yesterday. The ICA is hosting a Cliff Diving tour and has a platform set up on the roof (about 80 feet up).
Well enough of that. It was very crowded with boats there and no one was anchored. Everyone has to maneuver around everyone else who is also always maneuvering. It was a little tiring. We motored over to Spectacle and put out the hook for a little swimming.
This was also the first time we took Phoebe (the dog) out for a quick sail. She seems happier when the boat is actually moving but she did fine.
Since the initial installation, we've completed a few more steps. I connected all the NMEA connections that were going to the old Garmin 441s to the Raymarine Display. Once I got my ins and outs organized, everything worked perfectly. One thing we can do now that we couldn't do before is transfer Routes from the netbook TO the chartplotter. The Garmin had a bug/feature/limitation that prevented this. I had no problem transferring a Route from OpenCPN to the Raymarine device over NMEA.
More Balls
I ordered two more ball mounts for the large instrument pod ($72/ea). Last night we drilled and installed them. It definitely stabilizes the pod more, but it's still annoying that these had to be stuck on the bottom after putting the initial two in the vertical center. It holds but it looks kind of stupid. I hate to complain about Edson because they were so helpful, but now that the invoice has come, I see that this mid-sized chartplotter pod kit really does only come with two ball mounts. It's crazy. I can't imagine a device large enough to require this size pod that would be light enough to only need two ball mounts. The Pedestal guard kit is really nice. No complaints there, but I would definitely stay away from Edson instrument pods and mounting systems if I were starting over. Since completing the job, I'm noticing that all our neighbors at the marina have NavPod enclosures. I like the way they mount to the guard so much better than the Edson system.
It all started during the eight day cruise a couple weeks ago. Our Garmin chartplotter started getting a bit wonky. I thought it may have been because of the big splashes it took a few times in Vineyard Sound one day.
I brought it home and plugged it into a power supply in the shop (dining room table actually) and it was still just as dead.
The Up-sell
I started pricing some replacement options for the Garmin, This was a 441s, the "4" meaning four inch display. Maybe we should upgrade to the 5 series or 6 or 7? Finally we decided to future-proof the thing and go with a Raymarine multi-function display. The thought being that we will eventually add a Radar system to this boat and this display will work for that. And besides, I don't want to go through the hassle of replacing a pedestal guard pipe ever again.
I ran the idea by Matt LeDuc from Fleet Yacht Sales, and Kyle Medina. Matt was the broker who sold us to Fujin. Kyle was the master who did the major structural rebuild and upgrade before our first season with her.
I'm still not sure how many shares of Raytheon Matt owns, but he was all over the idea of doing the Raymarine display.
The only downside - this thing is freeking expensive! Over two grand!
It grows
Like anything else with a boat, nothing is simple. Changing to this display will mean totally redoing the pedestal guard and instrument pods. This of course means un-wiring everything that is currently mounted anywhere on the guard. Also, the old guard was a 1" diameter tube. The world has since gone with 1.25" tubes so stupid things like the drink holder won't work anymore without some modification. It also means the top plate of the pedestal will have to be replace, which means removing the compass and.... Anyway I called Edson Marine and told them what I was doing and they successfully relieved my credit card of another $800 for new pedestal guard, pedestal feet, top plate, instrument pod, and mounting hardware. I should say they were incredibly helpful and friendly and it was really this conversation that made me sure I could do it myself.
We were able to do a certain amount of prep work at home. I got the faceplate cut out. This went flawlessly. The only difficulty being that the jigsaw blade heats up the plastic so much as it cuts, that it actually melts back together after the blade passes!
Getting ready to cut out the faceplate in the new pod
Measure twice, cut once
Preparing the mounting holes for the pod didn't go all that smooth. Later we found that there was an even more fundamental problem with how we did it (which I have to partially blame Edson sales for). I did all sorts of careful clever measurements to mark the centers of the mounting holes. The guard tubes are 9.5" apart and so were the centers of my holes. Luckily, I only cut one hole out and placed the pod on the tube to see what it would look like. First mistake becomes apparent! Because the mounting holes go in an angled part of the pod, the spacing needs to be actually MORE than 9.5". Unfortunately this means that our pod will not be centered on the bars. We decided we would just not tell anyone. Since I only cut one hole before discovering the mistake, I drilled the other one where it needed to go and all is well.
Bob posing with the C90W mounted to the pedestal guard
To the Boat
Next step was to get to the boat and determine exactly where the placement of the instruments should be. Besides the new Raymarine C90W display, we have our Autopilot control head in a single Edson pod. The positions have to be determined ahead of time because we have to drill holes in the tube for the wiring to pass through. (it turns out that drilling holes in a stainless steel tube is fun)
Bob eyeballing the new guard up against the old guard
The Transplant
We got the holes drilled at home and brought everything down to the marina to install. Within about an hour we got had things pretty well mounted and we were ready to start re-wring things in.
The first step was to get power to the C90W display and smoke test it. It woke up and eventually found satellites and figured out where it was. This is good!
Next, I hooked up the X/5 autopilot control head and motor to the autopilot computer down in the lazerette
Removing the old pedestal guard and wiring
Working on the Autopilot connections in the Lazarette. I am reminded of the wise words told to us by our Surveyor: "never hire a fat surveyor"
Removing the compass so we can swap out the top plate with the new one
Linda removing more of the Pedestal parts to get to the top plate
The display is ON!! I'm sending this in to Raymarine hoping they will make me "Mr. August" in their 2012 "Marine Contractor Hunks" Calendar. The dorky reading glasses make the look.
Testing
After applying power to the display, it came to life without any complication. Well not much. Next was to see how badly I broke the Autopilot. Apparently "a lot" is the answer. It lit up but it wouldn't actually work. It was getting late so I figured I'd come back to that another day. When we were almost out to the cars, we realized we forgot something so I went back to the boat. I thought I'd check the a/p wiring one more time. Everything looked fine. So I stepped though the display functions of the controller, and eventually it made 5 beeps and started up! I guess since I unhooked everything something needed to reinitialize. So the a/p works!
Snapped this picture with the iPhone after getting the a/p to work
Post-mortem
There are a couple things I'm disappointed with:
The "Built-in" GPS receiver of the C90W is not very sensitive. I realize they added the built-in to this latest generation to make it a simpler installation but to say that you don't need an antenna because this has it built-in is like saying you don't need a real camera because your phone has one built in. Yeah it does, but it kinda sucks. I have a feeling there is a dedicated GPS receiver in our future.
Edson steered me wrong about one thing when they sold me the stuff. They told me I'd need TWO of the ball mounts for the large instrument pod. I drilled out the mounting holes considering there would be only two. Once you put this heavy unit in there, it's very clear that there is NO WAY that two are enough. In fact within an hour, the pod has deformed its shape already. It should have four in a nice square pattern. Unfortunately, I've already put two at the vertical center point of the pod so if I add another two, underneath them, it still won't be as stable of a mounting as it could be. Even when I picked the stuff up from the Edson factory, the guy didn't question why I was only getting two. Ironically they could have sold me more stuff (these ball mounts are $70/ea) and I'd have a better installation.
This is minor but what is up with the dust cover of this Raymarine display?! To unsnap it, with bare fingers is just about impossible. You feel like you're going to tear the bezel off! I think I'll be filing down the plastic tabs a little bit.
The destination for the overnight is Red Brook harbor on the south side of the canal in Pocasset, MA. We needed to wait til about noon to for the current to be right in the canal before making a passage. We left at 9pm to leave some margin for error.
We had really great wind all night long. A little more than we would have liked for a "relaxing" night sail. Neither of us slept more than an hour. It was so cool sailing through the night and watching the sun rise. We ended up arriving at Sandwich at about 6:30Am so we had about 5 hours to kill. We anchored off Sagamore beach and snoozed a bit. This is a great place to anchor. Nice clean sandy bottom and beautiful scenery.
After a nice rest, we headed through the canal when the current switched our way about 11:30.
After getting through the canal, we headed through Buzzard's Bay toward Red Brook Harbor. Buzzards bay lived up to its reputation that day. It was very choppy and we were exhausted but fortunately Red Brook is just around the corner.
Red brook has very narrow windy shallow channel. The soundings on the chart are a little scary but bigger boats than ours are in there so... The spot our mooring ball was on was over 4 feet of water according to the chartplotter. The actual depth gauge disagreed with this (good thing)
Red Brook is tucked in behind Bassetts island. It is worth the dinghy ride over to the island for swimming and hanging out on the beach. The sand bar extends right out to the green cans that mark the channel. It's a little weird to be coming in the channel and see people standing knee deep just a few feet behind a channel marker.
At Red Brook, You can eat anywhere you want as long as it's the Chart Room. There is literally no other choice within any decent walking distance. It has a line around the corner to get in to eat or drink. One gets the idea that there's a little bit of local politics at work here. Just maybe. In case you don't spend enough money at the Chart room, you can go to the gift shop in the next building which has (surprise!) Chart Room tee shirts! That said, the food is great (even though it doesn't have to be), but definitely make reservations. We made ours for 8:30 and got seated about 9:30.
Sunday July 17 to Martha's Vineyard via Woods Hole
We got to Woods Hole about an hour too early. It should only be passed at slack current when you're in a sailboat with a little diesel like us. We watched one sailboat go through. Another one sail through. So we thought we would try it even though the current charts showed it was too early. We chickened out. twice. You get in there and the engine is barely running and you're doing 8 kts. We turned around and had to floor it just to move against this current.
So we anchored near Hadly Harbor and waited until the current chart showed only 2 kts of current. You get through it very fast. What they say about the chart being deceiving is true.
We had the fastest sail ever in from Woods Hole south toward the Vineyard. We were in big wind over the beam and surfing some big swells. We were seeing 10.7kts on the gps a few times.. This was with a reefed main and half furled jib (and later no jib at all).
Edgartown harbor
They put us waaaaay out on the yellow town moorings. We ended up using the launch quite a bit and were unpleasantly surprised to learn there is a charge of $3/person/trip to use it. We usually tip the launch driver but this is the first place there was a charge. Poor form in my opinion and several other passengers on the launch would grumble about it too.
Edgartown is a nice town for walking, shopping and sightseeing. We had a nice dinner and a really quiet night out on the mooring. Other than the $12 round trips in the Launch, we really liked it here.
The next day, we rented some bikes and rode to south beach to see the surf and then up to Vineyard Haven. The island is very bike-friendly. Lots of bike paths and the geography is pretty flat.
We also tried fishing off the sailboat for the first time using some fake squid. This stuff is like fruit rollups only squid flavored. I didn't taste it. We got lots of bites but Linda landed a couple porgies.
Every sail up til now was fast and intense. This one was the opposite. It was very hot, and absolutely dead wind. We had my friend Dan as a passenger and unfortunately he got to experience how well our motor worked (Sorry Dan). We also got terrorized the whole way with these nasty little flies. We were getting better at killing them as time went on but they just kept coming.
Hyannis Marina really puts out the welcome mat. They even give you a tote bag when you check in! They have courtesy cars you can take for free. Depending on who you ask, you can use them up til 8pm or 6pm. We got both answers. Trader Ed's has a major noisy party going on the first night. We slept right through it, but I would strongly suggest that if you're the type of person who likes to sleep before 2AM, you try to get a slip as far away from Eds as possible.
We had the slip in Hyannis for two nights. The second afternoon, we started hearing scary weather forecasts for the next day. So our plan was to get up and get moving at 4AM and try to get to either Falmouth or all the way out to Cuttyhunk Island before things got too out of control.
Yeah well, after not sleeping very much (see warning above about Trader Ed's), we woke to a foggy nasty windy morning. Small craft advisory already in effect. We tried anyway and got about 2 miles out before we realized that a full day of getting tossed around like that wasn't going to go so well. So we turned back.
We went back to our slip on A dock (near Ed's), but as soon as the office opened, we reserved the additional day and asked if we could pretty please move to a different row (away from Ed's). They said we were the first people who ever complained. I should point out that this marina is about 95% motor boats. I'll leave it at that. Anyway they let us move over to F dock. Closest to the Heads. And far from Ed's! I definitely recommend you ask for F (or higher) dock if possible if you go here.
Friday July 22 Back to Red Brook via Woods Hole
The weather for Friday is still a bit heavy but much less scary than Thursday. The plan is to get back to Red Brook for the night and then sail all the way to Boston on Saturday. Slack current in Woods Hole is at 4:38. We left Hyannis about 8am and motored pretty much straight into the wind and waves for the whole 26 miles.
Going through Woods hole at slack current is simple. This time we were relaxed enough to actually take some pictures. It's still a very confusing channel but if you can take your time, and watch the chart, it's no problem.
Once we got through Woods Hole, we had a beautiful fast sail up Buzzard's to Red Brook. Flat and fast! Linda said this was our reward for the awful motoring all morning. We got to Red Brook about an hour before sunset and it was hot and still in there. First job was to jump in and swim to cool off. This is a great harbor for swimming.
This time we decided not to play the Chart Room game and we found a great pizza place that delivers to the marina (I can imagine the Chart Room trying to arrange for an unfortunate fire at this pizzeria). If you go, here is the site: http://www.graziellaspizza.com/
So we had a lovely dinner on the boat by the light of a bug candle. Pizza: half Anchovy, half pepperoni, mushrooms and hot banana peppers. We both fell asleep in the cockpit that night. Red Brook is definitely a favorite place for us now.
Saturday July 23 Back home via Cape Cod Canal
Today seemed like a pretty straight forward plan: Hit the Canal anytime after 10am and sail north to Boston. The weather had a little surprise for us later.
We had a nice smooth sail up Buzzards bay toward the Canal. As we approached we noticed a bit of a dark sky to the north. Along the way through the canal we also noticed a few lightening bolts to the north. We brought up weather.com on the iPad and saw a nasty storm about half way up the coast. No problem - we'll just anchor off the beach after we get though the canal and wait for it to pass. Once we got through the canal, we refreshed the page and saw that this storm had spawned a tail that went way to the south west and was heading right toward us. The warning said there could be 50mph winds and big hail too. By now there was no way to outrun it to the south (Bob's idea) so we went to a better anchoring spot to wait it out (Linda's Idea). By the time we dropped anchor again, the lightening bolts were getting close and it started raining and blowing pretty good
We didn't feel that taking pictures at this time was a priority so this is really the only one I got. And this one is facing south while the worst of it was coming from the north and west. The wind never got any where near 50 and it blew over us in just a few minutes, but it was a little nerve wracking.
Homeward Bound
Once we changed our underwear, we re-started the trip home. After the storm passed, the wind was just dead. We tried sailing but it was just too slow and we had 49 miles ahead of us. The forecast was for it to pick up a little later on so we got some miles under our belt with the motor.
About 3 or 4 pm, we noticed a couple other guys out there starting to put sails up. We tried it and caught a perfect beam reach that had us going toward Boston at between 5 and 8 kts.
We got to Boston outer harbor just as the sun was setting. Other than some &^*$%^# party boat running us out of the channel out by Georges, we had no problem navigating in the dark through the islands to the inner harbor. We sailed almost all the way to the North end.
