Captain’s log
Dateline: 25.07.2022

Davits

Used acetone to wipe old paint off the davit system. The process mostly felt like wiping dust — the UV has made the white paint disintegrate completely.

That whole contraption is aluminum — no idea what grade though. There's a pretty thick layer of zinc chromate underneath the paint that was used as anti-corrosion barrier, and I have to say it's done its job. I'd like to sand and repaint the whole thing a little bit later, but for now it no longer stains my skin and clothes on contact, and will serve as a good holder for my tender.

Radar pole

There’s a tall aluminum radar pole located on starboard side, it holds GPS antenna and Raytheon radar. Both are not in use and more than two decades old, besides I want to have my new B&G radar to be placed on the mast. Once the Raytheon radar is gone, I plan to use this pole for wind generator. From aluminum I’ll switch to carbon fiber. Then I want to take down the existing air generator pole from the port side and mirror the exact same base and carbon pole for my second wind turbine on that side, too, to make it symmetrical.

That pole has caused me a lot of trouble — mostly due to rain getting caught between the hull and the pole, and dripping into my aft compartment where autopilot and black water tank are. It was a design flaw, so I’ve solved it for now by wrapping that aluminum pole with white polyethylene barrier tape, that should prevent any moisture from accumulating at its base.

Captain’s log
Dateline: 26.07.2022

Letters

I need to take down "NORTHERN BOUNTY / VANCOUVER CANADA" and put "CURIOUS CAT / LAHAINA HAWAII" on my boat’s stern. It’s part of that whole USCG compliance shebang that also includes vessel registration number placard, having documents onboard, and a couple other things.

The transom area is 24cm (9.5") tall, davits’ legs hug that area around the center and hence I have to place my vessel’s name and hailing port either inside the space of 100cm (39.5"), right underneath the davit system, or put "CURIOUS CAT" on port side, to the left of davits, and "LAHAINA HAWAII" to the right, on starboard. Need to check USCG requirements for that. Currently the vessel and home port names are located in the center, so hopefully letters don’t have to be too big to satisfy the requirements and will fit in there.

This guide states that my letters must be at least 4" inches tall (10.16cm), "can be on the transom or either side of the vessel", "there is no requirement for block letters or any other restrictions to type, font, or color for federally documented vessels" — that one last is good, I should be able to use font that looks either very round (to match curves of my beautiful chunky cat), or go for pixel font, something like one of my favorites, Visitor TT2 — to match QR Codes that I plan on slapping on the sides of my boat. Also, this is a bit worrying yet nice at the same time, "When dinghy’s are stored on the swim platform or transom causing the vessel’s name and hailing port to be obscured from view, there is no Federal requirement to place the name and hailing port elsewhere. That is a Law Enforcement issue only".

Overall all good news, everything will fit under the davits and as long as I keep the dinghy lifted high enough, it shouldn’t cause any issues.

Compass lights

Traced and connected two wires for my compasses’ backlight — green and white(red stripe).

There’re two Ritchie compasses on Curious Cat, one per helm. They have built-in backlight, or if you can count very dim tiny LED as one. I hope there’s a way to adjust something and make them brighter. They might be intentionally dim by design, not to be mistaken for navigation lights, since they’re lime-green. I’d like to have something brighter, perhaps with built-in photodiode to toggle and adjust its backlight automatically.

There’s currently no switch in the circuit, they’re always-on. I’ll connect them later to a breaker — there doesn’t seem to be any fuses in the circuit after all.

The compass on my starboard side seems to be either older or just way more damaged by the UV; even with backlight on I can’t see anything at night on that one.

Captain’s log
Dateline: 27.07.2022

Stern light

Finally managed to hook up my stern light — that’s a USCG requirement and a sure way to make other people see you at night when moving or at anchor. One more little victory.

I started working on it right after getting the boat, just took me a long time to figure out which wires belonged to it. First I’ve MacGyvered new stern light out of two — one that I bought on Amazon, and old one that was there when I bought the boat. That old one had its plastic window eaten by the UV to the point that it looked opaque — ended up being just solid gray piece of plastic that once was transparent... pretty wild. Twenty years of direct sunlight can do a lot of damage. Wear your sunscreen, kids!

To this moment I have no idea how those wires go from my port’s stern to the breakout box, but it wasn’t too hard to recognize them. It’s a white two-prong cable with 14 AWG cables inside — red and black, probably doesn’t need to be that thick, will likely replace it with something thinner, if that’ll make sense... but that’s when I get a new stern light, this one honestly looks very and very ghetto.

It’s nice to have visibility at night, the product description claims the light should be visible from 2 nautical miles after all. The downside is that it’s one more thing that will attract fish and bugs. Maybe I should put a horizontal plate of sorts underneath it so it’d still be visible to boats but not sea monsters?

Outboard

Got back my 9.9hp Yamaha outboard from the boatyard. Why not 10? — probably to stay under some regulations. The boatyard didn’t have time to fix it, supposedly it has problems. It’s not light, at least 60 lbs. Carrying that bad boy for quarter of a mile wasn’t too fun, but I needed a good exercise.

Is it two-stroke, is it four? Does it work at all? Does it need oil? Can I sell it for parts? Many questions, no answers. It’s over 20 years old, was probably used only a couple of times, and it’s made in Japan. The sacrificial anode is dead, and I’m not sure if it’s because it wasn’t rinsed after its last use or because it was used too many times and nobody ever bothered to replace it.

I can’t express how much I hate internal combustion engines, but it’s a nice challenge and could teach me something. As long as it doesn’t cost me a finger, that is. If I fix it, it could be a good ego boost, and let me have some pocket change after selling it. I’m getting an electric motor for my dinghy, can’t stand the smell of gasoline — one of the reasons I chose salt life.