Sunday, February 9, 2014

San Diego: unoared




        Going from the mound in the cockpit in the last post to the above was easier than I anticipated thanks to the well made Oceanbrake deployment bag.  This is an accessory, but, I think, almost essential to organize a very long line that has to run out cleanly.
        This is the intermediate stage.

        The white strips parallel to the edge are elastic sewn into 2” loops.
        This is not the entire assembly.  There are two 15’ bridle lines of huge diameter and with equally huge shackles to fit the hull attachment plates.  They are secured to an eye splice at the lower right hand corner of the photo.  And a 15 pound weight, which in GANNET’s case will be the Delta anchor, is shackled to the eye at the end of the line in the upper left.  This would be dropped overboard first and all the rest should seamlessly follow.
        Finding a place for the rolled deployment bag led to crunch time.  There is very little more to go onto GANNET, except provisions and possibly an emergency rudder, which is just as well because there is no more room.  Not quite literally true, but certainly no more room that I want to fill.
        I spent a couple of hours moving and removing stuff, finally finding a better way to stow the spinnaker pole and deciding that the 10’ oars had to go.  They are too big and too much in the way and, once I decided not to install a self-steering vane and to keep the Torqeedo, it is highly unlikely I will use them.  So I gave them away.  Not the first stuff I’ve given away and not the last.  
        I managed to fit the Spade anchor down below beside the Delta and will give away the 5 pound Danforth that came with GANNET.  And that won’t be the last either before I sail away.

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        If you’ve visited the tracking page,


you will have found the Yellowbrick dutifully sending up position reports every twelve hours as directed.  As I mentioned, I’ve set the time to UTC, the politically correct abbreviation for what was GMT when the Royal Navy was the most powerful force on the planet, so the updates are a few seconds after 0000 and 1200 UCT.  San Diego is -8 UCT, so this is 4 a.m. and 4 p.m. here.
        As presumably you have discovered, the yellow circle with a black center marks the latest position.  Clicking on it brings up a box with the time of the position, Lat./Long., air temperature, altitude.  If you zoom in close enough blue dots indicate past positions and when clicked upon bring up the same details.
        It has been interesting to see the positions move about the slip.  As I write the latest at 12:00:06 UTC today is closest to the actual position of the Yellowbrick, only about three feet away.
        Most of the information given is within acceptable parameters.  The Yellowbrick is about 1 meter above sea level.  However, some air temperature readings at the 00.00.00 position are considerably too high.  One showed 30°C, which is 86°, and it hasn’t been nearly that hot.  I expect that the late afternoon sun shining directly on the nearly stationary unit heats it beyond the true air temperature.
        I haven’t checked the battery usage yet and don’t plan to for a week or two.