Captain’s log
Dateline: 05.08.2022

Love letters

My name and hailing port vinyls are done and should be on their way. I used Lettering.com since they seem to have their shit together. Used Arial Rounded in Bold — curvy and serious enough to compliment my cat’s appearance.

CURIOUS CAT

LAHAINA, HI

Didn’t splurge on any kind of fancy adhesives or materials, it’s all temporary anyway since I urgently need to paint the boat, in different color.

Glass helm

Ordered 16" Zeus³S Glass Helm chartplotter from Charleston Yachting. That Zeus was the last one their supplier had, lucky me!

B&G makes those screens in 16, 19, and 24 inch sizes. 24 might be too big for my boat, she’s not a cruise ship, 19 is not that much bigger than 16, and they all have the same exact resolution – 1080p. This tragically means that the larger the display, the worse the picture quality. I also rather buy a couple of 16" screens and place them side-by-side, instead of cramming my chart, radar, and sonar all on the same large screen. It’s also good for redundancy.

If 16" turns out to be not enough, I’ll sell it and get 19", or move the 16" outside next to my helm and keep the larger display inside at my nav station.

Captain’s log
Dateline: 09.08.2022

nke

My autopilot and other gizmos from nke have arrived!

After first shipment of $12K worth of electronics got lost (courtesy of FedEX), 4 months after the day I ordered them, they’re finally here. I obviously got very unlucky. Plus they were shipped via freight, not air mail. And didn’t go directly to me but went through one of the only distributors in the US.

Supposedly they have the best set of instruments and autopilot. I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference since it’s my first marine autopilot and my first boat, but the feature that really caught my attention is their little remote control that you wear around your neck while sailing, and if you fall off the boat, it’ll point the vessel into the wind, effectively slowing it down enough for you to swim to it and not die alone in the open ocean. Might come in handy.

New name, new life

Received two stickers from Lettering.com that I ordered 4 days ago. The order was shipped yesterday, and I received it today! Color me impressed.

It was Friday afternoor when I placed my order, so I totally understand why it wasn’t manufactured last week instead of yesterday, I only have my procrastination to blame.

GoPro

My GoPro Hero 10 is here! This means I’m very close to starting my YouTube channel and becoming like one of those people.

The feature I’m already missing is that it doesn’t support wireless charging. With salt everywhere here including the air, it might give up the ghots sooner than expected, but I’ll do my best to only open it when far away from moisture. I might be able to add wireless charging to it, we’ll see.

Attached a floating strap to it, will test tomorrow to see if it’s enough to keep it afloat.

Sealing round hatches

Four out of ten round hatches in my cabin weren’t glued shut, so I had to get them prepared with acetone and then sealed using black 5200. Their locks are old and broken, and I’m not comfortable having a boat that’s easy to get into, so decided to convert them into windows. This Saturday, before departing, I’ll remove those handles to give larger and clearer field of view from the cabin. It makes the boat look more polished somehow.

Ryobi’s power caulk gun really helped, turned out to be a very good tool! I used the lowest speed, but the moment you lose angle or slip even just a little, the neat string of whatever substance it’s exrcreting messes up the target surface and you basically have to use it like a stick to kinda sorta undo the damage and make things a little bit more even. I think I did well. Well enough for a project boat that’s slowly turning into a real amazing catamaran she once was. I’m gonna ditch those round hatches for something larger and prettier anyway.

Will sleep in a different state room for a couple of days, those fumes of curing 5200 seem not to be too good for you. That thing takes at least five days to set, but after that — bound forever.

EPIRB NOAA registration

My 406 MHz GPS emergency beacon got registered with NOAA today. I’ll email them my AIS MMSI when I have it, so they could update their records to have that there as well. Should probably also give them address of this website.

They’ve mailed me some kind of decal that I’m supposed to physically put on the EPIRB itself. I won’t be back in Hawaii for at least three more months. My documents for the boat will likely also be shipped to my mailbox in there. I’ll basically need to forward mail from Maui to myself somewhere on the mainland in order to go through Panama Canal. That NOAA EPIRB sticker should be in my mailbox along with my vessel documents by then.

Stanless steel nuts for lifelines

Installed new 5/16"-24 stainless steel nuts. It’s for my lifelines, four pelican locks located on the bow side, more specifically. There were only two bolts when I bought the boat, and those were a bit rusty and had no markings of steel grade on them. So, now they’re all 316 and at least come from the same factory. I wish them to live long and stay shiny.

I sometimes think I should slowly replace all metal with aluminum and titanium, but both those metals look like shit, never shine, and in general bend or break easier than stainless steel. That 60% weight reduction on metal parts is sweet though.

Gecko

Something moved up the wall and scared the living shit out of me. Turned out to be a tiny gecko. I love lizards and snakes, so he’s absolutely welcome to stay. As a captain of this vessel I’m responsible for everyone, including this mysterious passenger. Too bad I don’t have a PFD of his size, but I think he knows how to swim. He better.

He refused to eat a dead mosquito, don’t have anything else to offer him. He’s very young and skinny, probably not even a year old. They live long, over a decade or something like that. Hope not to step on him by accident, he seems like a chill little guy.

Will for now hide that bug zagger so it doesn’t kill him, geckos may be attracted to light just like bugs, don’t need his cold blood on my hands.

Probably got in while I was sealing those hatches, or maybe been here for weeks if not months, eating little bugs.

Captain’s log
Dateline: 11.08.2022

VHF

Sorted out coaxial mess in the engine room and ran the cable from the antenna that’s on top of my mast to my old Raytheon RAY210VHF radio unit. It’s working! And suddenly, like magic, I feel as if I have lots of friends with boats.

If lightning strikes, there’s now a higher chance it’ll probably fry not just my radio, but the rest of the electronics with AGM batteries on top of that. Let’s hope it doesn’t.

Electric current leak

There’s apparently an electric current leak somewhere on the boat — the load current on my switch panel shows around 250–450 (whatever the units are), used to be 001–015 at most under load, and this is both when everything is on and off.

Found more stray wires that should’ve caused big fire by now but somehow haven’t, so will be removing and insulating them today, but it’s probably that Ultima switch that I installed a couple days ago, at least that’s the main suspect. Could be my adventures with rewiring mast lights.

DEUTSCH DT connectors

Purchased some IP66-ish connectors off Amazon. The brand is JPReady, Made in China, but I just want to try them out before looking for something of higher quality. Würth seems to only have ones with too many pins, and largely out of stock. Folks at TE Connectivity have much wider selection, plus they stock them in black.

Steve from Salty Steve’s has told me about those connectors. I was looking for something marine-grade, or at least water-resistant to connect my bilge pumps, switches, and other gizmos that don’t have high loads. MasterCraft pumps come with those attached, so he’s not the only one who uses them for boats. Steve said he puts solder into them instead of crimping to ensure proper contact. I’ll do the same. Don’t have a torch, and not planning on having any open flames aboard Curious Cat, but soldering iron and lots of patience should do it. The thickest my wires for pumps get is 14 AWG, but I’ll use 12 AWG pins just to be safe, and to make them harder to bend. 10 AWG should probably be my goal, but for now these will do just to learn how to properly work with them.

The hardest part will be developing a system of wiring 2- and 3-wire connections, so that it makes sense and is consistent across all of my electric connections, e.g. to quickly swap my high bilge water alarm’s Ultima switch with my pump’s Ultima switch if it suddenly gives up the ghost.

Wheel brake

Researched Edson wheel systems a bit. I have two helms, and the most puzzling thing about them so far was holes on fiberglass pedestals to the left of the port helm and to the right of the starboard one. Really scratched my head hard on that one, thought at first those were mounting holes for horn push buttons that were never installed, but it seems like the mystery is now finally solved.

Enter Edson Pedestal Wheel Brake! Says "pre-2003", and my boat is like fiver years older than that, so that must be it. Newer models of their helms seem to have a lever of sorts instead of a sinkable overpriced pin that's easy to lose. Not sure if I should upgrade or buy those wheel brakes since I’m a single-handed sailor, gotta think about it before I set the sail.

The worst part is now I have to drill a new hole for my horn buttons, and I have absolutely no idea where to put them to make it comfy and intuitive.

Mounting hydraulic motor

Got my 9/16"-18 316 stainless steel bolts and locking nuts from FMW Fasteners.

Putting the motor back on wasn't easy, had to buy some 316 stainless steel washers from nearby parts store to make the whole thing a bit more shiny and corrosion-resistant.

The disc coupling is by Frontline Industries, Inc. It doesn’t say much besides that it’s "BIG BOY" and its HUB-SIZE is "A". Pretty cryptic, but I love the name. There’s another maker of flexible couplings, called Lovejoy — great names all over!

Both motors work now. Not a fan of hydraulics and can’t wait to replace all that desel-hydraulic mess with electric motors. But first need to get out of here and go where I can be lifted out of the water.