Reefing issues, radio woes and a battery question
NOT QUITE READY TO REEF
Q: I race on a small lake in the Midwest, and most afternoons the wind picks up and is fairly steady, but because of the hills around the lake we often get squalls that come through. They don’t last long enough to justify taking a reef, so I was wondering what is the best way to keep from being overpowered. — Joe Tapper, Horicon, WI
BRIAN HANCOCK REPLIES
It depends on your deck layout. In fact, there are two things that you can do to keep from being overpowered. First, you need to twist off the leech on the headsail, which lets some wind spill out the top of the sail. With the improvement of deck hardware, many sailors have installed a tackle that enables them to easily move the lead position, which they use to ease the car aft a few inches to induce twist. Then, after the squall has passed, it’s easy to move the car back to its original position. If you don’t have a tackle system and have to pull a pin to move the car, it’s a bit more of a challenge. However, you can always move the car on the windward side, so that when you tack the lead will be where you want it to be.
The other thing you can do is depower the main, your most important sail. The best way to do this is to ease the traveler to leeward. Don’t ease the sheet. In contrast to when you depowered your headsail, you want the leech of the main to stand straight. Remember, it’s the back of the mainsail that works with your keel to provide lift. If you simply ease the sheet, the sail will twist open and depower, but you will also lose lift and won’t be sailing as close to the wind as before. If you don’t have a traveler, you can control the tension on the leech with your vang, which will hold the boom down and keep tension on the leech even after the sheet has been eased.
WHAT KIND OF FOAM?
Q: In your book This Old Boat, you mentioned putting a pad of foam between bulkheads and the hull to prevent a hard spot from forming and ease the angle of the fiberglass tabbing. What kind of foam would you recommend and what density? Also, where can I buy it? — Peter Ellis, via email
DON CASEY REPLIES
Any closed-cell foam will do. You are just trying to avoid the hard spot that solid contact would create. The foam serves as a compressible uniform spacer and as a shaped backer for the fabric tabbing to avoid drain-through of the resin. The cheapest and most readily available option is the un-faced foam insulation sold in 4ft x 8ft sheets and in 2ft x 2ft panels at most home supply stores, including Home Depot.
THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED Q: I remember seeing you at a boat show flexing a short fiberglass
AM/FM antenna and telling us that it would really help in pulling in weak FM music stations out at sea. Mine worked great for about four years, but no longer pulls in anything. Are the insides of a fiberglass antenna sealed against water intrusion? I spotted a small crack at the center of my antenna, where someone used it as a grab hold. — Tom Anderson, Coral Gables, FL
GORDON WEST REPLIES Unfortunately, you’ve probably already found the problem. Yes, check your fiberglass antennas for cracks: check all your antennas! If there ever is a crack in an antenna’s fiberglass, water will not only siphon in but pool in the non-sealed copper innards, and once that happens, the antenna is toast. So get a new one, and enjoy the sound of music again.
POSSIBLE BATTERY ABUSE?
Q: My wife and I often anchor our 42ft sailboat for long periods while living aboard and rely almost exclusively on solar and wind to provide for our electrical needs. Our house battery bank consists of four golf-cart equivalents rated at 460 Ah in total. We are really happy with our system and rarely need to augment our renewables by running the engine-driven alternator. We even sometimes make enough energy to have an excess, and have taken to making hot water through our a powerful house inverter that easily handles the heating element in our hot water heater. My question is, are we harming our batteries with the high amperage required to run the inverter and power the water heating element for 30 to 45 minutes at a time? We never discharge the battery beyond 50 percent, but the rapid discharge rate of around 80 amps concerns me, as does watching the battery bank voltage drop, sometimes to 11.9 or 11.8 volts. The voltage comes back up to normal after the hot water heating element is turned off, and we begin to see power going back into the batteries from our renewable charging sources. Logic tells me that we aren’t abusing the batteries with this practice, but I’m not sure. Can you advise? — David Tye, Pearson 424 Blue Moon
NIGEL CALDER REPLIES
Not only are you not harming your batteries, but we do the same! The discharge rate is only around 20 percent of the rated capacity of the batteries, which will not bother them at all. The voltage drop is quite normal. Any time you apply a relatively high load to a lead- acid battery, it will pull the voltage down. Because you have deep- cycle wet cell batteries, you will have more of a voltage drop than if you were using, for example, AGM cells. ( It’s a func- tion of the way the batteries are built.) The key thing is to ensure the batteries do not get left in a discharged state for extended periods of time and that they regularly get a full recharge cycle, which is obviously happening in your case. You will also find they will use some water, and so you will need to top them up monthly. Be sure to use only distilled water. s