Disqus - Latest Comments for eheffa

Re: Day 12 | Alaska Flotilla Leg 4 | Lambard Inlet to Shearwater

eheffa — Mon, 05 Aug 2019 11:28:35 -0000

Our experience last summer of arriving at Shearwater with low water tanks and being told they had no potable water prompted us to install a watermaker. Yes, that creates another level of complexity but it's quite liberating to not being obliged to seek out a marina just to fill up on water. (We were able to get water fairly close by at New Bella Bella BTW.)

-evan

Re: Day 8 | Alaska Flotilla Leg 4 | Captain Cove to Patterson Inlet

eheffa — Mon, 05 Aug 2019 10:21:00 -0000

Great Images.

I especially like the drone shots in close proximity to the steep mountain sides. That's very effective provides a unique perspective & appreciation for the height.

-evan

Re: Day 4 | Alaska Flotilla Leg 4 | Walker Cove to Punchbowl Cove

eheffa — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 15:30:56 -0000

Beautiful Images!

We were there in brilliant sunshine and heat last summer. It was quite lovely and spectacular; but, I think it's more beautiful there in the mist and rain.

Re: Day 10 | Alaska Flotilla Leg 3 | Explorer Basin to Egg Harbor

eheffa — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 14:28:35 -0000

How Wonderful!

We had dabbled with the idea of going to Coronation Island last summer but conditions were too vigorous at the time.

Thank you for the great pictorial tour.

One more for the bucket list.

-evan

Re: From the Workbench: Early Warning System - by CAPT. BILL PIKE

eheffa — Wed, 10 Jul 2019 11:28:54 -0000

Another method is to install flow sensors in the raw water supply.

We have these with a loud audible alarm if raw water flow is interrupted. Much earlier & better than waiting for the impellers to blow up & the engine to overheat.

-evan

Re: Day 9 | Flotilla to Alaska | Blunden Harbour to Fury Cove

eheffa — Thu, 16 May 2019 16:39:35 -0000

When we were there last summer, that cabin at Fury Cove was being used by the local First Nations "Park Rangers" as their base station.

Re: Day 7 | Flotilla to Alaska | Boughey Bay to Echo Bay

eheffa — Mon, 13 May 2019 00:52:50 -0000

Glad to read that you got the alternator fixed...

These 'make or break' critical repairs can be hugely stressful and I find it to be very easy to get total tunnel vision trying to solve the problem. Congratulations on thinking clearly enough to re-mount the old alternator before getting to a point of no return. It would be way too easy to keep trying what isn't working and ending up more broken.

-evan

Re: Airship | Winter Cruising in the San Juan Islands

eheffa — Thu, 07 Mar 2019 17:51:31 -0000

The solitude of Winter Cruising is quite wonderful. Thanks for the enjoyable report and some good alternative anchorage suggestions...
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Beautiful Table!
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Re: Anchor choice.

I'm curious as to why you didn't go with a Rocna again...?

The Ultra is reportedly an excellent anchor and makes sense.

We too had a Rocna (25 Kg) for our Nordic Tug 37 but changed to a Spade 25 Kg after experiencing a memorably sleepless night in a blustery anchorage in Desolation Sound when we had the Rocna break loose from a good deep set. (We had been in that spot for a couple of days.) In the middle of a windy night, the anchor alarm alerted us to a sudden movement. (In retrospect, this was after a vigorous 180 degree wind shift and tide change. ) To the Rocna's credit, it did reset some 20-30 meters or so after it broke loose but it was a close call with the anchor stopping us only a few meters from some very unfriendly rocks. This planted the seeds of doubt in our mind as to the reliability of the anchor.

We later came across the SV Panope underwater video testing of various anchors including the Rocna: https://www.youtube.com/wat... These videos show repeated sled-like behaviour from the Rocna when it was stressed with 180 shifts in the direction of pull. These rather alarming videos made us think that we had probably had the same thing happen to us; so, in the interests of a better sleep, we made the switch to a type of anchor not inclined to skip over the bottom.

The Spade has been excellent so far (> 100 nights on the hook) and much quicker to set than we found with the Rocna. On the downside, the Spade seemingly needs annual re-painting as the galvanizing seems a little fragile.

I will be very interested in hearing of your experience with the Ultra which seems to be a very similar design to the Spade but much prettier in all its stainless steel glory and not needing an annual coat of paint. Very nice ;-)

-evan
Tugaway
NT37-148

Re: Getting the Most from Windy.com

eheffa — Sat, 16 Feb 2019 22:19:55 -0000

Ha!

We've done the same thing with our Son-in-law who is in the Navy. He's very good at texting us decent forecasts via the InReach but when its 0345 & we are wondering whether to lift the hook and venture out across Dixon Entrance, we don't feel quite so free to bug him for details...

I understand there are some subscription services you can use with InReach that can possibly work but we haven't tried those out yet.

-evan

Re: Getting the Most from Windy.com

eheffa — Sat, 16 Feb 2019 20:51:42 -0000

Thanks for the good info Sam.

Now if I could just figure out how to get this information when up the coast and outside of cell and VHF reception... Our InReach device has proved woefully inadequate in accessing weather forecasts.

-evan

Re: New Airship – Before and After

eheffa — Thu, 24 Jan 2019 09:02:06 -0000

Very nice work. Congrats!

I have wondered how difficult it would be to switch from carpet to smooth flooring with the cabinets / installed woodwork already mounted over the carpet. I see you used quite discrete mouldings to finish the edges. Those look very good. How are those secured? Glued, nailed, stapled?

I totally agree that, for our coast, a stern davit for the dinghy is way more convenient and a lot safer than a roof mount crane system. That looks very skookum.

Will you miss having a stern thruster? I'm guessing you might... Any plans to add one? ;-)

-evan

Re: Dealing with Steamy Windows

eheffa — Fri, 03 Mar 2017 22:07:23 -0000

Thanks for the recommendation Laura.

We were at anchor last week in Nanaimo harbour with the snow falling and our windows all fogged up. I was using the squeegee and paper towels but wasn't really keeping up with the extra water. Now there is an alternative.

Great idea. Thanks.

-evan

Re: We’re Back!

eheffa — Wed, 28 Sep 2016 08:31:10 -0000

Congratulations!

What a ride!

Thank you for the cruise by proxy.

It's been entertaining and educational. I've enjoyed your recent accounts of some of the haunts more familiar to us... but I dream of heading further North some day.

We were at Tumbo / Cabbage Island at Easter this last year & had a lovely quiet night on one of the buoys...followed but a second very lumpy night when the Strait of Georgia blew up into a strong NW'erly. It's lovely spot but a bit exposed to the NW. We moved to Winter Cove the next night but didn't attempt Boat Passage, opting for the more safe scenic route ;-)

Welcome home. (Bittersweet eh?)

-evan

Re: Reflection Totems

eheffa — Sun, 11 Sep 2016 06:46:35 -0000

Great work!

The high contrast B&W treatment and flipping the axis 90 degrees makes these quite otherworldly.

- evan

Re: Taku Harbor to Ford’s Terror

eheffa — Thu, 30 Jun 2016 08:30:57 -0000

Lovely Images Laura!

Bucket list getting full... ;-)

-evan

Re: Misty Fjords | Day 2

eheffa — Tue, 31 May 2016 11:06:28 -0000

Beautiful place.
Beautiful Images.
So inspiring.
Feeling the pull.
Must go...

Thanks for the inspiration.

- evan

Re: The New Nordic Tug 40

eheffa — Wed, 11 May 2016 12:44:13 -0000

Yeah...I'm not sold on the new lines either.

I do like the idea of the softer chines though. A little more quiet at anchor would be nice.

Re: Day 3 – Newcastle Island to Lund, BC

eheffa — Wed, 11 May 2016 12:37:02 -0000

Thanks for the daily updates.

We are hoping to follow a similar (more abbreviated ) track very soon & appreciate the scouting you do for us... how thoughtful ;-)

Happy voyaging!

-evan

Re: Getting Ready for Alaska!

eheffa — Thu, 05 May 2016 11:10:26 -0000

'This allows us, among other things, to run the water heater off of the inverter (so now we can have hot water all the time, rather than having to run the engine, or the generator, or plug into shore power to get hot water'.

Wow! I'm impressed. I didn't think that was feasible.( I have to say the one thing we miss from our Airstream is the propane fired hot water & fridge.)

How many A/H do the Lithiiums give you?

You must have an extra high capacity Inverter yes?

Please elaborate further.

Thanks.

- evan

Re: K-dubs and the Po-Po

eheffa — Sat, 16 Apr 2016 10:41:01 -0000

Sorry, I'm Canadian & obviously don't get out enough...

I have to ask:

What are 'Carharrts' in this context?

-evan

Re: Carhartt Guys: the Plot Thickens

eheffa — Fri, 15 Apr 2016 11:31:45 -0000

Hmmm. Nice Camus shot!

We were thinking Patos might be our first San Juan destination once we get our Nexus card; now... Not so sure.

Thanks for the heads up.

- evan

Re: Airship’s Solar Upgrade

eheffa — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 19:38:29 -0000

Thank you.

-evan

Re: Airship’s Solar Upgrade

eheffa — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 12:58:15 -0000

May I ask where you got the 260W panels from?

-evan

Re: Airship’s Solar Upgrade

eheffa — Wed, 09 Mar 2016 08:57:48 -0000

Very interesting.

We had to replace our 4 x 300 Amp/h 6V AGM
house batteries on our Nordic Tug 37, as they were worn out and ready for retirement. We replaced them with 4 x 260 Amp/h AGM's thinking that that would be plenty of capacity but have found that it still isn't quite enough reserve in the winter with the Wallas running all the time. We only want to get down to 50% draw at most. (This is
despite frugal use of power with all LED lighting etc.)

So we are adding another 2 of the same AGM's to give us 6 x 260 Amp/h (6V) for ~ 390 Amp/h of real 12 V working capacity (50% of the 12V nominal capacity. That should help, but it does bug me a little to have all these obligatory loads like the furnace and fridge/freezer drawing us down and needing to run the generator daily.

Lithiums would be great but the price of admission is a little too daunting for my taste.

We installed solar on our Airstream once upon a time as well. It's wonderful not needing a generator to stay charged & in action. (I tried to attach a link to our installation report (on Airforums) but Disqus flags that as spam. It's off-topic anyways I guess.) We too bought all our parts from AM Solar. They are good to deal with. I would think that their panels would hold up well in a marine spray environment? Did your old panels show any signs of corrosion?

We really would prefer not to have run the generator every day & we
wouldn't have to worry about too many trees shading the panels like with
the land-based trailer. My mechanic mentor feels that Solar is too expensive when you already have a good generator & diesel is so cheap (compared to the solar hardware outlay), but I would much rather only need to run that generator for an hour every other day than 3 hours a day to recharge.

Thanks for the nudge & the food for thought.

-evan

Re: On to Port Townsend (and another thing to fix) - Riveted

eheffa — Wed, 10 Feb 2016 10:55:47 -0000

Hmmm, is the Glow plug on the Wallas expected to fail this early? Is it considered a maintenance item or would that still be on warranty?

We are out a fair bit this time of year and our Wallas heater runs continuously for a few days at a time. (I'm wondering if I should have one as a spare for ours...)

Thanks for the warning.

-evan