Lightweight Tools

Performance boat sailors will do crazy things to save an ounce. I was just packing a small tool bag to leave on my F-24 and was a little appalled by the weight. In fact, over the years I've noticed my tool bags keep getting smaller because I hate lifting heavy bags (and because it's easier to find stuff and to take only what I'll need). I carry more bags, but they are lighter.

The dingy and round-the-harbor race guys probably just leave the tools at home. But what of the ocean racing guys that build with carbon-everything but have to actually fix stuff?


In no particular order....

Carbon Wrenches. Carbonlite tools makes a set of 5 wrenches (10-15mm) that weight just 6.7 ounces. Your wallet will also be $140 lighter. I'm also guessing I can't add a cheater or hit it with a hammer.

Aluminum Wrenches. There are a number of manufacturers making Aluminum 6061 T6 wrenches. Of course, the yield strength is only about 1/2 of that of a good tool steel (35ksi vs 80ksi). Specifically, they are used to not scratch pretty anodized hydraulic fittings on custom cars. On the other hand, Rigid started using aluminum handles on pipe wrenches for industry decades ago, and they were a godsend.

You can replace a bunch of wrenches with an adjustable wrench. Of course, they don't fit as many places and they are really good at ruining nuts. Same with vice grips, although they have other merits.

Multi-Tools. I have one, but it's not a tool kit.

I think I would rather save weight by taking fewer high quality tools.

A lightweight tool box helps. I use a travel toiletries bag for my lightweight kit. Organized, contained, and very light.

Of course, there is the matter of cleaning out lockers and discarding old might-need parts that no longer fit anything you own. But that's a spring topic.

Very Shallow Bilges

rev. 7-25-2024

Keel boat sailors think in terms of feet when measuring the depth of the bilge.  Multihull sailors think in terms of inches. In the case of my F-24 MK I, more like 1.4 inches in the center groove, 0.7 inches outside the groove, and zero less than a foot to either side.

Typical bilge pump float switch turn on at 2 inches and off at 3/4-inch. That will leave water on the cabin sole, where I would like to have a carpet. In fact, I got a wet carpet. The common bilge pumps are intended to operate in that range.

I'm still looking for a solution I like, but for the moment, I've settled on a tiny pump and a timer, with a float for back-up if the timed pumping is not enough.

Update: Four years later the system is still working. I replaced the pump at 3 years.

The tiny 1-amp pump runs on a timer, for just 1-minute each day. That is more than enough for the minor leaks we have not been able to resolve. Discharge is through the sink drain. The float switch in the background turns it on if the timed runs are not enough. I'm not really worried about sinking, because the trimaran can easily hang from her floats and there isn't really anything other than fiberglass below the probable flooding line.

An Aird Bilge System would be sweet, but $900 seem like overkill.

Check Your Furlers

Winter seems to be the season for shredded head sails.

• Taking the sail down and storing either in the cabin, or better, at home is the best answer if you won't be sailing until spring.
• You can barber pole the sail with a spare halyard... but this guy did that and it wasn't enough.

 The root cause was a failed UV cover, but poor furling contributed.

• Furl tightly and wrap the sheet a few times.
• Check the condition of the UV cover. If it starts to fail it will balloon and pull the sail open.

The difference between a winter gale and a summer squall is that the gale will blow for many hours or even days, while the strong part of the squall is over in 15 minutes.

Wide Pulpits

Working at the pointing end of monos and tris can be a real challenge.The deck pinches down to nothing, making reaching the anchor, attaching snubbers, or dealing with the furler really unpleasant. A simple solution is to bump the stanchions out a little.

But the World Sailing Off-Shore Rule says we can't do that:

Of course, Ian Farrier, designer of the F-22 didn't really care about that, since his boats are raced inshore and lack many of the railings the rule requires. Many trimarans do, since side rails are in the way and reasonably useless on trimarans (there is no reason to be far out on the tramp).

I can see that they would be easy to step through. If this were a larger boat and I were taking it off shore I'd run a strong Dyneema line across the bottom and fill in the space with 1-inch netting.

Compare that to the more conventional F-24 pulpit. Notice that I added short lifelines coming back at the aft corners because sometimes it felt a little exposed. They also reduce sail and sheet hang-ups. Fill the space with netting? I don't think so. There are times when tying up or anchoring when reaching through the pulpit is necessary.

Painted UV Strip

Crazy? Probably, but I had an old dog of a sail that wouldn't withstand stitching and needed something.  I tested some paints on test panels, chose one of the best, and ...

... after three a seasons it's still looking good, no pealing.

This is an inflatable paint I have used before (MDR Amazon Inflatable Boat Paint), so I'm not expecting any trouble. It seems to stretch with the cloth and I know it can handle the sun. Would I spec a new sail that way? Undecided.

A full report will be in Practical Sailor next year.

Large Scale Littering

This appeared this spring in Herring Bay (north side--the Deale breakwater is just visible behind the boat's bow). I guess this guy was salvaging a few parts.

It isn't in a channel and is in a portion of the bay that few sail, so I imagine it will be there forever. Probably uninsured and certainly without a responsible owner (or rather, with an irresponsible owner). At least for now we can see it, but someday the mast will fall off or someone will salvage it, making it a hazard to navigation.

Hydrilla Mower

This is what you get with the weeds in the marina are worse than the weeds in your yard.

But they can't keep up. They started in 1987 and have sort of given up the fight. The stuff grows FAST. The hydrilla does have benefits; the fish like it and it is good for water quality, but it also has the downside of any invasive species.

Washington Sailing Marina, 2017

UV Protection for Sails

Yup another Practical Sailor Teaser.

A year ago I began researching the use of paint for UV protection on roller furling jibs.

I started with test panels on the roof. House paint samples failed right away, either chipping or pealing in strips. But special purpose paints, compounds either for sails or cloth, generally held up pretty well.

Last week my primary jib basically died, with multiple (4) tears through the Kevlar leach. The only thing that kept it from spliting right across was the Sunbrella cover and strong repairs just forward. The foot also developed multiple smaller tears the same day. It was breezy.

Thus, it was time to install my back-up jib, which has only a failed UV Dacron cover.

• Will the paint stay on? I painted it months ago, I've rolled it in and out a dozen times, and tacked dozens of times, though in moderate wind. So far, it looks and feels good.

Amazon MDR inflatable paint. Left over from the dinghy. It lasted ~ 5 years on an inflatable, with very little pealing, so why not? I'll report aback in a year or so. Sooner, if it fails... but I don't think it will.

Time will tell. I also have samples of painted cloth burning away on the roof. I'm thinking I'm going to leave them until next Fall, and then make them into flags and drive around for a few days, giving them a severe flutter test.

I'm also going to get some quotes on a new jib. Even if the paint does fine, this one is long in the tooth and I don't trust it. I'm about done with laminates for furlers. It's a bad marriage. I'm going with polyester next time. 

I still like a Mylar main. It lives under a cover and does not flog (full battens). Yet both of them (I have two sails of indeterminate age) developed tears along the bolt rope, because the cloth does flex there. Compared to the leach, of course, this is a non-structural area, and is far easier to repair. And unlike polyester, they don't stretch, at all. When it comes to square top sails, that's a big deal.

Local Bridge Decoration

July 1, 2019


It's an old railway bridge abutment along side a rails-to-trails path. Someone got busy with spray paint last week. I like it.

 And less than 2 months later is see some boring functionary had them paint over it. I'm sure he was pressured by some boring Vienna busybody.

What a shame. It made me smile every time I passed it. Silly and informal is nice.

Bealton Flying Circus

I'm not an air show guy. I'm not into old planes. But this past weekend I joined the family at the Bealton Flying Circus and was wowed to find 9 Stearman biplances in perfect flying condition, along with nine enthusiastic pilot, performing stunts, taking folks for rides, and generally showing off their babies.

For those of you that are not into aviation, at all, the Stearman was the primary trainer for the Navy and Army Air Corp during WWII. These are not reproductions. These are museum quality aircraft that still fly an airshow every summer weekend.

After the show--which is a great entertainment for a summer afternoon--you can walk down the line from plane to plane. The pilots know the history and clearly treasure their birds.

Museum quality... but flying every week! And they don't fly them gently.

If you are in the area, check it out. When you stop to realize these planes are all 80 years old, and that none are reproductions, you just have to be impressed.

What they suffer from is an atrocious lack of publicity.

The Bealton Flying Circus