Continuing in our Creative Cruising Solutions series following are more solutions to the everyday situations and/or problems that are specific to cruising about on a sailboat. Some of these answers address safety concerns, while others pertain to areas of vessel maintenance, personal comfort, or everyday convenience. Most of the ideas present a common sense, practical type of solution that can be done by you for very little cash.
Stopping the Leak Problem: You’re cruising out islands in the Bahamas or elsewhere far away from assistance when your dripless stuffing box decides to give up the ghost. The seals have failed and water starts pouring into the boat from around your shaft at an alarmingly high rate. You may be able to temporarily fix the seals, but first you have to stop the ingress of so much water.
Solution: Thank heaven for little girls! This scenario happened to a sailing companion of ours several years ago and he quickly solved the problem by maintaining a cool head and borrowing some modeling clay from his little girl. He worked the oil-based clay in his hands for several minutes to soften it, and then dove overboard and firmly pressed the clay into the cutlass bearing around the shaft. The inflow of water was virtually stopped, and he was then able to fully address the problem with the stuffing box.
Another more commonly seen use for oil-based modeling clay on board a sailboat is to impede water from entering the boat through a
windlass chain pipe. This technique is useful on older designed boats with
anchor lockers that drain into the main bilge of the boat. The clay is rolled into a cylinder and is then pressed around the chain where it enters the hawse pipe to seal the area. The clay doesn’t permanently adhere to the chain or the pipe, so there’s little mess to clean up.
For both of these applications of modeling clay, make sure that you are using oil-based clay so that it doesn’t dissolve in water.
Flexible Refrigerator / Freezer Space Problem: Many times when you’re out weekending or cruising, your refrigerator or freezer is not filled to capacity. This becomes a very energy inefficient situation since the entire space of the box must be cooled even though the amount of space the food takes up is much smaller than the box.Your refrigeration has to work much harder to cool a half-filled large box compared to a completely full but smaller box. If you are cooling your food with blocks of ice, it’s even more important to avoid the inefficiencies presented by partially filled ice boxes.
Solution: Make the space in your ice box adjustable to fit the size you need for the amount of food being stored. Purchase a sheet of 3/4-inch Styrofoam from your local building supply company. From this sheet, cut out smaller pieces to fit snuggly in the bottom or on the sides of your box to reduce its size and enhance its efficiency. You may need to make your blocks lay two side by side in order to easily get them in and out of the box as needed. To keep the Styrofoam from soaking up moisture and loosing some of its insulating properties you’ll want to add a vapor barrier to the outside of each block of foam.
On
Serengeti, we made special space reducing blocks for our dedicated freezer. We began by gluing together two 3/4-inch thick pieces of foam to form a one-and-one-half-inch-thick block. We sprayed the outside of our blocks with adhesive and applied a couple of layers of aluminum foil. All in all we have eight individual layers of space-reducing blocks that allow us to customize the depth of our freezer in increments of one-and-one-half inches. This may sound like overkill, but keep in mind that 12-volt refrigeration on a sailboat draws more power from your battery bank than most other appliances and electronics combined. Adding efficiency to your ice box will reward you no matter how you choose to cool it.
Solving a Sticky Situation Problem: It seems that on a boat you’re always resealing or re-bedding hatches, ports, stanchions, or some type of deck hardware. Cleaning up and removing the old sealant is your first priority, but it can sometimes become a most time consuming task. This is particularly true if some unknowing sailor improperly applied 3M 5200 as bedding or sealing compound. Removing hardware adhered with this type of product can be very difficult to near impossible. Sometimes the bond between the compound and the gel coat is stronger than the gel coat itself, so applying pressure only serves to free the hardware by breaking the gel coat. This is obviously not a desirable outcome. Other types of bedding materials are a real mess to deal with as they remain sticky and gooey seemingly forever.
Solution: Steam Distilled Turpentine, a by-product of the fallen southern pine tree has been used for years as a premium thinner for oil based paints and varnishes. We discovered during our work on Serengeti that Turpentine is an extremely effective agent for softening 5200. When Turpentine is applied to 5200 adhesive, it slowly softens the outside layer allowing you to work a flat blade under the hardware to break the bond. Keep the area of 5200 soaked with turpentine while trying to penetrate the bond as once the Turpentine evaporates, the 5200 quickly regains its tenacious nature. We found that Turpentine works equally as well as the very expensive and in a tiny little bottle Anti-Bond, a special product marketed specifically for softening adhesives like 5200.
Turpentine is also great for cutting and dissolving gooey bedding materials. After removing the teak decks on
Serengeti, we found a most sticky bedding compound left behind that seemed almost impossible to remove. We tried everything but could not find a solvent. Acetone, mineral spirits, alcohol, etc., etc., nothing seemed to work. Turpentine, however, immediately dissolved the material and allowed us to simply wipe it away. It also works great in the galley for removing the sticky residue left behind when a pricing label is removed. We no longer buy Goo Gone or Goof Off, but refill the empty bottles with Turpentine.
PS: Be aware that there’s a product called Turpatine on some hardware shelves, but we don’t know what the heck it is.
Cockpit Locker Lid Organization Problem: Cockpit lockers tend to be catch-alls for all kinds of boating equipment. Many of these lockers are quite large and smaller items stowed in the locker always have a tendency to find their way to the bottom. This makes every instance of retrieving an item a real ordeal since you have to move multiple, often tangled items first to find what you want.
Solution: Use the underside of the locker lid as a storage receptacle for some of the smaller items. Identify the items you would like to be able to retrieve with ease. For us on
Serengeti, these include items such as a flash light, flares,
dinghy running
lights, and multiple interchangeable ends for our dock pole such as a gaff, fishing net, scrub brush, etc. By permanently installing a combination of Velcro straps, spring metal receiving clips, and clips designed to hold fishing rods on the backside of the locker lid, we can keep these smaller, useful items separate from the rest of the stuff in the locker and easily retrieve each at a moment's notice.
Having our dinghy running lights so quickly accessible in the cockpit has helped us on several occasions when sailing overnight. When a bulb on your bow light blows at 2 a.m., it’s a lot easier to duct tape your battery operated dinghy lights to the bow rail than to hang over the bow and change a tiny bulb in total darkness.
