Thu Jul 15 2021
In Canada there’s a National Park named “Head Smashed In”. Apparently the infinitely clever First Nations folks used to herd buffalo toward a cliff and the buffalo fell down and went boom. That’s what they used to tell us about the lifties on the wings of an aircraft when I was at the Air Force Academy. Pull back on stick, aircraft goes up. Pull back farther, lifties fall off wings, aircraft fall down go boom.
So when your catamaran starboard bow hits something really hard and goes boom and the lower bow gets smashed in like some buffalo head everyone has lots of great ideas about how to fix her right up and get on sailing. I had lots of great ideas, plans for how we’d drill holes and install clamp style braces and a blunt bow shape. Mike Tyson used to say, “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face” or something like that.
Turns out the drill we have onboard is electric. Battery powered yes, and perhaps we can reasonably well seal it up in a big plastic bag so it doesn’t get instantly destroyed by salt water intrusion. Maybe. Thinking about all the other things I might need to use that one drill for when building braces for the inside of the collision bulkhead made me think twice about taking it near the water.
We had a suggestion to cut up a 5 gallon plastic diesel jerry can and find a way to affix it to the bow to create a sort of blunt bow replacement. I liked that idea and now we’ve got one less diesel jerry can and a funny looking thing currently lying in the dinghy on the stern. Lots of folks thought that using Dacron sailcloth to create a condom-like device over the trashed bow would work. A very close friend spent hours messing about with origami folding techniques to try and hatch a way to do it. Turns out our bow is a rather complex shape with the curvature of the trampoline supports and lower hull flare. How do we secure the Dacron in place? Install a bunch of grommets? Glue and screw to the hull, creating more holes in the structure where water might find a path into the boat interior? The gentlemen from RV Lady Amber did give it the old college try with a giant cargo strap but I finally told them to give it up.
The second day we were hove-to and getting input from friends and the Seawind factory it was pretty calm. I had built the jerry can thing and used the dinghy as a work platform to try and drill some holes for mounting structure so the jerry can bow could become reality, I got about half way done. Turns out the boat and the dinghy heave up and down at different rates due to this thing called inertia. Stupid physics. Being a wise ass engineer, I had the bright idea to sit in the bosuns chair and have Isabel lower me over the side into a position where I could access the work. At least I would move along with the boat. I even remembered to wear a wet suit. Got a bit farther along with the project until I started to feel a little hypothermic which didn’t take long. The water was somewhere in the 17 Celsius range, maybe even a little cooler.
Since this is the freaiin’ Pacific Ocean the water didn’t want to be flat like a frozen mill pond and even without wind waves the swell made life hard. Isabel did her best to control my lateral position with guy lines but it was an awful exercise in frustration. Day 3 when Kaden from RV Lady Amber showed up he was wearing a DRY SUIT. Of course he’s a highly trained Navy diver so he knows a little about cold water. Wearing my gloves and booties and helmet and suspended in the bosuns chair he was at least able to cut away the ragged fiberglass bits and pieces, but the chop was building and there was no hope of drilling any holes for anything, Shame on me for not carrying a waterproof pneumatic drill and compressor on board. Kaden spent a lot of time trying to hang on to the work with one hand and the hacksaw with the other, often with his head under water. It wasn’t pretty and he did get it done, but thank goodness he didn’t get hurt.
(TBC)
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