From: SV Perception Phyl & Fred Denton <denton@flash.net>
To:
denton@flash.net <denton@flash.net>
Date:
Friday, April 05, 2002 4:17 PM
Subject:
Crews Letter 2002 #03 Commissioning

Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is a new season. Perception weathered the winter without a problem. The good people of Gouvia Marina took care of her. Now, we must get her ready to go back in the water and follow the weather south and east.

Setting her up for the winter took two weeks and consisted of a lot of tasks. Putting her back in shape to sail is no less complex. Fortunately, there are people here who are willing to help when asked. Most of it is not difficult or complicated. Much of it is intricate.

ANTIFOULING PAINT

There are lots of little creatures adrift in the sea, like the boll weevil, just a looking for a home. When they bump into a surface, the first step is to attach. Then they build a little shell for housing. Have a family. Build some more houses and attach more tightly. The net effect is: any surface exposed to the ocean grows barnacles. On a boat they are unsightly, increase friction and there attachment process destroys fiberglass. Perception is built of fiberglass and depends on a minimum amount of friction to move through the water under sail.

Mariners used to have a neat way of protecting their boats from these invaders. They brewed up a paint that was hazardous to the critter’s health. How about a concoction of copper, cyanide and lead? Unfortunately, it worked too well. Marinas or any place that boats congregated were pretty devoid of marine shell life. Some of the metals when placed in salt water created some pretty exciting batteries. Some metal parts disappeared right in front of your eyes.

Now, the schemes center on avoidance, rather an attack. Either the paint is so soft that it always falling off with whoever is trying to catch a ride or it so slick that attachment is near impossible. Either way, it requires an annual replacement. Smooth out the old with sandpaper and add two coats of new.

Perception has added her armor. It’s the fall off regularly variety.

MAX-PROP

Perception came equipped with an Italian built feathering propeller. It is a thing of beauty when it works. It propels the boat forward when the engine drives it forward and to the rear when the transmission reverses its rotation. The beauty is, when the boat is driving forward under sail, the prop blades turn parallel to the direction of the boat and virtually eliminate drag. What a joy when it works.

Last season, Perception’s first season, this prop worked well at the beginning and its performance deteriorated quickly. Within the first month, it became rather unpredictable when shifted into reverse exactly what would happen. By the end of the season, standard procedure when entering a harbor was to do test reverses in open quarters until a reverse was achieved. After she came out of the water  the prop was a bit stiff. Figuring out the solution was left for this spring. This spring, it was completely locked up.

The function of this crafty tool depends on the smooth movement of gears on gears and hubs on shafts. This movement in every case is bronze on bronze facilitated by salt waters resistant grease. When the prop was taken apart this spring, there was no residue of grease. Instead, the bronze surfaces were the graveyard of some shell life from the sea. Probably greasing it was something someone in Slovenia at the boat yard was going to do tomorrow. In the Mediterranean, “tomorrow” means “not today”.

If the lack of grease was not bad enough, the instruction manual was missing, the prop had never been properly assembled and Fred had no idea how to reassemble it. There was no indication of what the appropriate angle for setting the blades. The broker in Nice knows these things and he answers his phone. The instruction manual was available on the internet. Fortunately, just three boats down, was Toutazlmut. Her captain, David, has experience with Max-Prop and he was willing to share his knowledge. After a false start because the Elan team supplied the top of the line variety and the first set of instruction that showed up on the net were for the old, cheap model, everything got sorted out.

Perception’s Max-Prop was now sans sea life. It was full of grease and set at the magical 22 degrees. Unfortunately, the only real test was with the boat in the water and it would cost if it was wrong and had to come out for the prop to be reset.

The in the water test was completed without a problem. This prop is truly a “Thing of Beauty”.

The 2002 Season

The boat and the crew are just about ready to set sail. We are expecting Gualberto next week here at Gouvia Marina. After talking with people who have been there, we have opted for not going around the Peloponnesus. Instead, at the south end of the Ionian Sea we will turn east and sail through the Gulf of Corinth and the Corinth Canal. This should get us close to the Athens airport at Sparta to meet Sarah and Gayle on May 1st. Our contact point will be Olympic Marina. Their cruse will be south through the Saronic Sea to Crete.

Our Marina of choice on Crete will be Agios Nikolaos Marina. They have a good web page for those who would like more details. This will be our contact point for Dave and Carol in late May.

Keep a Tight Luff,

Fred

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