While Earl was a pretty minor storm by hurricane standards by the time it reached us, we still saw steady winds of over 50 knots with gusts well into the 60s—a lot of wind by any standard.

Everything held up fine on Morgan’s Cloud, including a new and better way to attach the boat to our storm mooring, which we will be posting about later.

In the mean time, here are some pictures that I took from the boat during the worst of it.

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Hurricanes, you just can’t trust em. When we went to bed Earl was supposed to make landfall on the west side of the province, some 80 miles away. But this morning he has wobbled east and is heading straight for us here on the southwestern shore of Nova Scotia.

On the bright side, he is down to tropical storm strength, although that is nothing to sneeze at.

Right now we are getting driving rain and storm force gusts, with 50-60 knot winds forecast.

We are very glad that we did not trust Earl to behave himself and consequently are all snugged down having implemented our 40-60 knot check list, with the addition of a safety chain to the mooring backing up the rope bridle, from our greater than 60 knot list.

As I wrote in the first post in this series on the care and feeding of batteries, and particularly AGM batteries, on voyaging live-aboard sailboats, charging them properly is complicated by the fact that some, perhaps most, battery chargers are, despite the claims made for them, not capable of charging any battery properly. Or at least not without a lot of user intervention.

The basic problem is that batteries are fully charged only when the current (amperage) that the battery is absorbing at the acceptance voltage (typically about 14.4 volts) reaches 1-2% of the battery’s total capacity. In other words, a typical 8D AGM battery is fully charged when the charge current drops below about 2.5 amps.

A Dirty Little Secret

But the dirty little secret of AC chargers is that, while they can monitor how many amps they are supplying at their output, if you are using any of those amps for anything other than charging (as you almost certainly will be on a cruising live-aboard sailboat) the charger has no way to know what part of its output current the battery is getting and what part is powering loads (say lights). Therefore there is no way for the charger to detect when the battery is fully charged.

The practical result of this is that if you have any appreciable loads on while charging, the charger will stay at the acceptance voltage (about 14.4 volts) long after the battery is fully charged, instead of dropping to the correct float charge rate (about 13.5 volts).

Don’t underestimate this problem, particularly if your batteries are sealed like AGM or gell cells. We are pretty sure that the early demise of one set of our AGM batteries was because we, when working on the boat while she was hauled and on shore power, over a cold winter, left the Espar diesel heater on for weeks. This meant that the batteries were being overcharged whenever the heater ran—probably near a hundred hours over that winter.

A Real World Work Around

On Morgan’s Cloud we now work around this problem by keeping our two chargers (see the last post in this series for our system) directly connected to the batteries  on and in Bulk/Absorption/Float mode only until the batteries are fully  charged. A state that we manually determine using our Link 2000, which accurately measures the actual amps going into the batteries. Once we see the actual charge amps drop below 2.3 amps on each battery (1% of capacity), we turn off the direct connect chargers and turn on our third charger which we have set in fixed mode (13.5 volts).

Wait, its gets worse. Our Xantrex chargers have a graph in their manual showing that they will supply their full output for as long as the voltage remains below the absorption level, as they should. But they don’t, or at least ours don’t. As the battery voltage rises during charging, their output tails off way before the absorption voltage is reached.

This is the third instance (see the last post in the series for the other two) where a product supplied to us by Xantrex has not performed as specified, so we can’t recommend Xantrex products.

Tips For Designing An AC Charging System:

1. See if you can find a charger that has a method to measure actual amps going into the battery. This requires a shunt on the battery input. It is interesting to note that the old Heart Interface/Link 2000 system, once sold by Xantrex, had exactly this capability. The gotcha is that, at least as far as I know, the Link only works with the older inverter chargers, which are not true sine wave and don’t come with the  temperature sensors required for AGM and gell batteries—Catch 22.
2. Failing the above, you need to set up a system, like ours, that allows you to both monitor the actual amps going into the battery, and force the charger into float mode when they are fully charged.
3. Make sure that the charger you buy really does provide its full output (amperage) until the voltage at the battery reaches adsorption (typically about 14.4 volts) since, if it does not, charging will take longer than it should. Worse still, testing at LifeLine Batteries has shown that their batteries actually last a shorter time when charged at low rates.
4. Install a system that includes actual temperature monitoring by the chargers at each battery. Not only will this make all your batteries last longer, you need this feature to allow safe equalisation, particularly of AGM batteries.

So you think that’s a pain in the neck. Wait till you find out what this dirty little secret means for alternator regulators. That will be the next post.

Have a question, a better idea of how to manage this problem, or best of all, experience with a charger that does not exhibit it? Please leave a comment.

Further Reading

• Other posts in this series

It is now pretty likely that Hurricane Earl will give us high winds here on the south-western shore of Nova Scotia. However, a deviation of just 50 miles either side of the forecast track will likely make the difference between us experiencing gale force versus hurricane force winds. And that in turn will determine whether we do very little preparation on Morgan’s Cloud or a lot.

That brings me to the subject of this post: the danger of relying too much on the many sites on the internet that repackage the information generated by the US National Hurricane Center in visually appealing ways (sizzle) but in so doing, lose much of the really important information (sausage).

For example, someone living in New York with a boat in one of the comparatively open mooring fields of Long Island Sound who took a quick glance at StormPulse this morning (Wednesday), could be forgiven for assuming that he or she had little to fear from Earl.

But a careful read of the NHC forecast discussion for the same time yields a very different picture of the risk to that person’s boat (the emphasis is mine):

“…THE TRACK GUIDANCE IS IN GOOD AGREEMENT WITH THIS SCENARIO. HOWEVER…THERE ARE SOME SMALL DIFFERENCE IN THE MODEL GUIDANCE THAT COULD HAVE LARGE IMPLICATIONS IN TERMS OF IMPACTS…

…THE GFDN…NOGAPS…AND UKMET FORECAST THE CENTER TO PASS NEAR OR OVER THE NORTH CAROLINA COAST AND NEW ENGLAND. THE OTHER MODELS ARE FARTHER TO THE EAST…KEEPING THE CENTER OFFSHORE…”

…THE INTENSITY FORECAST IS A CONUNDRUM. ON THE FAVORABLE SIDE…THE HURRICANE IS OVER VERY WARM SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURES…HAS GOOD CIRRUS OUTFLOW IN ALL DIRECTIONS EXCEPT TO THE SOUTH…AND HAS A GOOD CONVECTIVE STRUCTURE. ON THE NEGATIVE SIDE…EARL IS EXPERIENCING 15-20 KT OF SOUTHWESTERLY VERTICAL WIND SHEAR…”

The point of all this is not who is right or wrong, or even what actually happens in the next few days. Rather the take-away for me is that in this modern world where we are constantly exposed to really slick ways to display data, we must also understand that by definition that very slickness can result in the loss of vital information. In this case, the forecaster’s concern that a small, and quite possible, deviation from the models could result in millions more people being exposed to the devastation of a category four hurricane.

I have lived most of my life in the direct line of fire of Atlantic hurricanes, first in Bermuda, and now on the southern shore of Nova Scotia.

But no matter how familiar I am with the damned things, or perhaps because of that familiarity, I always have a slight feeling of constant tension at this time of year, which I’m sure I share with every rational resident of the east coast of this continent, Bermuda and the Caribbean. And, of course, those of us that are boat owners have even more to worry about.

This year is no different, with, as I write, two active hurricanes out there and one brewing. One even looks disturbingly as if it has us in its sights.

So I thought I would share some of the resources that I have found useful in keeping an eye on hurricanes and assessing the risk of getting clobbered.

Fist off, I don’t like to get any of my information from the main stream media—too much fear mongering and too little information. I also avoid many of the government broadcasts since, having experienced at least twenty of varying intensities, I already know that hurricanes are dangerous.

The information I use these days is all internet based but, perhaps surprisingly given the plethora of information out there, the list is pretty short:

The National Hurricane Center

There are a huge number of portals displaying hurricane information, but I figure why not go to the horse’s mouth. I like the NHC site because it concentrates on hard information, not pretty graphics. And because it makes clear in a multitude of ways that hurricane forecasting is still subject to error, particularly beyond 72 hours from forecast time. They even quantify that uncertainty in this product, which is also available by weather fax:

But the best part of the NHC site is not even a graphic, and it’s certainly not pretty. I’m referring to the forecast discussion in which the duty meteorologist shares, in a refreshingly informal stream of consciousness manner, how they arrived at the forecast, and most importantly, what his or her level of confidence is in it. (You can get this over slow speed link too, since it’s a text file.)

THIS IS A GOOD TIME TO REMIND EVERYONE THAT NHC AVERAGE TRACK
FORECAST ERRORS ARE 200 TO 300 MILES AT DAYS 4 AND 5.  GIVEN THIS
UNCERTAINTY...IT IS TOO SOON TO DETERMINE WHAT...IF ANY...PARTS OF
THE U.S. EAST COAST MIGHT SEE DIRECT IMPACTS FROM EARL LATER THIS
WEEK.

Now if only economists and central bankers would be as open about the weaknesses of their forecasts—but I digress. Wait, I can’t stop: You know why god invented economists? So that weather forecasters can feel good about themselves. OK, I’m done.

Before we leave the NHC, a big hat tip to the people that work there. When hurricanes don’t behave as forecast, it is easy to forget that the error is most likely due to the limitations of the science and fundamental uncertainty principles, not incompetence. Bottom line, these folks are really good at what they do.

And while I’m writing about people we mariners owe a debt of gratitude to, let’s not forget the Hurricane Hunters. They may not be sane (how could they be given what they do), but hurricane forecasting is much improved because of them.

Storm Pulse

Definitely one of the pretty graphic web sites. But it has one really cool feature that keeps me coming back: If you click on a storm and then select “Forecast Models” in the top right corner of the screen it shows you the plotted outputs of at least a dozen models, which is a really good way to assess how likely it is that that particular storm will behave as forecast and what some of the other scenarios are.

And…that’s it. I told you the list was short. And by keeping it short I avoid the temptation to spend hours surfing for hurricane information of dubious value, and in so doing, scare myself witless.

What resources do you like to use to keep track of the whirling monsters? Leave a comment.

Further Reading

• Our Morgan’s Cloud storm preparation check list.
• My rant about fear mongering in government weather broadcasts.

In part one and two of this series on the care and feeding of batteries on a live-aboard voyaging boat, we talked about what batteries need for a long life. In the next few posts we will move on to how to actually get those battery needs met.

We now have a fair, but certainly not great, battery charging system; however, getting here was anything but easy. The story of our long and costly struggle on Morgan’s Cloud and the lessons we have learned will, we hope, help you.

I start the story with some bozo (that would be me) plugging in a heavy chop-saw while forgetting that the shore power was off and that our venerable Heart Interface was on—end of that charger/inverter.

First Lesson

Inverters may claim to have over-current protection, but they are not idiot proof. Think about what you plug into them, particularly tools with heavy electric motors that produce very high start loads.

Perhaps we could have got the Heart Interface repaired, but since the inverter produced square waves, which some modern electronics don’t like, and not sine waves, and because the charger was not fitted with temperature sensors allowing automatic temperature compensation (required for AGM batteries), we decided to replace it.

After carefully studying the specifications, we bought a Xantrex 2000 watt inverter/charger, and so commenced a two year saga of frustration: The first unit had unstable charge voltage and, we suspect, AC ripple superimposed on the DC charging voltage. The result was the death of a brand new pair of AGM batteries in just six months.

The second unit worked fine, but had a 30 amp draw limit on the AC side when charging (in direct contravention of the published specification) which meant that we could not run our fridge and charge the batteries properly at the same time while running our generator. Not only was this a waste of fuel, it also meant we could not fully load the generator at any time during our daily charge cycle—very bad for it.

After much letter writing, Xantrex agreed to upgrade us to the 3000 watt model free of charge. But the 3000 watt unit had a design error resulting in the AC and DC grounds being tied together, an absolute no-no on an aluminum boat.

Each iteration required wrestling the 70lb units out of and into place and then shipping the defective one across the continent. The light finally went on in our heads:

Second Lesson

Don’t combine the charger and inverter functions since you end up with one very complex and heavy single unit. And when any part of that machine fails you lose your entire electrical system.

We managed to convince Xantrex to take back the last inverter charger and give us a 1800 watt sign wave inverter (which has worked well for three years) and two 40 amp three stage chargers in return.

Why two chargers you ask? Because, at least at the time, charger manufacturers had decided, for reasons that escape me, not to make large chargers unless integrated with inverters.

This deal meant that we now have three (we already had one) Xantrax  TrueChargers. Each of the two 8D batteries that make up our house bank has its own charger wired directly to it with a temperature sensor and the third is wired to the “Both” side of the battery switch.

This is a reasonably good system that allows all three chargers to be used together to pump a theoretical 120 amps into the batteries and  also allows us to equalise one battery while using the other.

Also, we have lots of redundancy, always a good thing on a cruising sailboat. We even have a small portable inverter to backup the big one.

So now we have reached battery charger nirvana, right? Sadly not. Due to limitations in these, and we suspect most, chargers, this is anything but a turn on and forget system.

In the next post we will write about a fundamental weakness of  almost all of the readily available charging systems, both AC and alternator based, and how these systems must be managed if you want a decent life from your batteries.

If you have any questions, or thoughts on our hard earned lessons, please leave a comment.

Further Reading

• Other posts in this series

There is so much about this story that worries me that it is hard to know where to start. A single-handed sailor abandoned his boat because he was totally exhausted from three days of hand steering, not because there was anything wrong with the boat.

"On May 8th, I left Little Creek, Norfolk en route to Scotland. The wind and general conditions were much stronger than expected. So for the next three days, I stayed at the helm. No water, no food and no sleep! After three days I called my wife on the satellite phone and was hallucinating, seeing things that were not there. From my conversation with my wife she determined that I was in trouble and called the U.S. Coast Guard."

The key take away is that when going to sea, particularly short-handed, you must have a tried and proven way to leave the boat safely to herself in heavy weather while you rest.

See our heavy weather series for how we have rigged and equipped Morgan’s Cloud to make sure that we can always take a break.

Please leave a comment on any system that you have used successfully to take a break at sea.

Pèlerin, our boat and home, is an OVNI 435 cutter designed by Philippe Briand, built for us and launched in 2008. Here is a brief introduction to her, what has worked for us, and what we’d do differently if we were starting again.

The Designer

Philippe Briand has long been one of the foremost French designers, and a notable helmsman in his day, winning the half ton and one ton cups during the 1980’s. What was noticeable in those early days was that even his race boats were good looking, during an era that wasn’t noted for handsome lines. He then went on to design many well-known production yachts for the likes of Jeanneau and Beneteau, although today he is more involved in super yacht design. He designed many of the OVNI range, including the 495, which remains in production.

The Builders

In 1973, Alubat were amongst the first of the French builders to adopt aluminium as their build material. They have stuck to their formula of chunky, multi-chine designs with lifting keels ever since, and currently produce around fifty boats each year from their main base in Les Sables D’Olonne.

Specifications

LOA 44’ (13.37m)
LWL 34’11” (10.59m)
Beam 13’11” (4.22m)
Draft 2’4”-8’4” (0.74-2.54m)
Displacement -dry (10.3T)
Sail area (working) 1065sq ft (99sq m)
Measured rig height (I) 52’6” (15.9m)
Fore triangle base (J) 15’6” (1.69m)

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Cruising history

After 16 years skippering yachts commercially (in my case), Louise and I had Pèlerin built to fulfil a long-term plan to go cruising. With that in mind, we had a great deal of input into planning her above and below decks, assisted by the experienced team at Alubat who gave us much good advice and converted our ideas into reality very well.

Having lived aboard for over two years, we are currently making our way South after spending the 2009 season in the West of Ireland and the Western Isles of Scotland.

Size

For us, Pèlerin is a near ideal size. Not too big to handle, especially at close quarters, and just the right side of affordable in terms of gear and maintenance. She has true shoal draft with her hydraulically controlled lifting centreboard and rudder and ability to take the ground, which gives her amazing versatility and opens up many otherwise off-limits cruising grounds. Being easily driven she doesn’t have a huge rig and is simple to handle short-handed. Like many centreboarders, upwind is not her favourite point of sailing, but if sailed a little free she’ll get on with it. Downwind, with the plate raised she is fast and stable and is the most controllable boat we’ve ever sailed. With her ballast all mounted internally she has a very comfortable motion in most conditions, and is a relaxing boat to sail, capable of keeping up good average daily runs without putting big demands on her crew.

Aluminium

OVNIs are all aluminium, chosen not necessarily to make them light, but to make them robust. Aluminium construction is massively strong with its matrix of frames and stringers, and should deform on impact if necessary. It lends itself very well to custom fabrication and features at little extra cost, and we tried to make a virtue of that, welding everything possible on deck to avoid leaks and corrosion. In any case, Alubat have many years of experience building in the material, and have long ago learned how to avoid most of the pitfalls.

Most of the problems with aluminium and electrolysis can be traced to connection to shorepower, so we installed an isolation transformer soon after delivery. OVNI’s also have a leak meter which will detect any current bleed via the 12V system, which we check daily.

We had Pèlerin fully insulated at the build stage, hull and deck down to the waterline, which keeps her cosy and condensation free in winter and cool in the summer. It also cuts down on one of the less attractive aspects of aluminium construction which is noise inside – she is really quiet at sea.

Rig

Pèlerin is a true cutter with a high cut Yankee and staysail. The Yankee is mounted on a roller and the staysail is hoisted conventionally. She has a fully battened main running on a Harken track, which has single line reefing worked from the cockpit. Much effort (and expense) has gone into reducing friction in all areas of sail handling, which has really paid off, so that reefing is now straightforward and effective. All working sails are in laminated fabrics, and are wearing well.

We carry a hanked on storm jib, but not a trysail. Our mainsail has three reefs at larger than standard spacing, and so our third reef is effectively not much larger than a trysail. The staysail can also be reefed.

For light airs we have a lighweight No 1 genoa that sets on a stay just aft of the roller, which has really improved our upwind and close reaching ability below 8 knots of wind. We also have an asymmetric spinnaker mounted on a gennaker furler, which sets from a detachable bowsprit, which is versatile and easy to use.

We have one power driven winch to handle all halyards, which also double for hoisting the dinghy aboard, and lifting large heavy items from our forward store room and workshop.

Mechanical systems

Pèlerin is fitted with a Volvo D2 – 55D normally aspirated diesel engine currently driving the original three blade fixed prop via a Hurth gearbox. The engine is adequate for the size of boat, and we when we fit a Max-prop in the coming months we hope we’ll gain some extra grip astern, as well as better sailing performance. In calm conditions we motor at around 6.5 knots, using around 4l of fuel per hour. We carry 300l of fuel in two integral tanks.

In keeping with our policy of simplicity we have no diesel generator. We do, however, have 180W of fixed solar panels, which can be augmented by a further 85W of portable panel when at anchor. We also have a highly efficient (and now quiet!) Superwind wind generator. So far a combination of these units combined with relatively frugal daily demand has allowed us to avoid running our engine to charge the batteries. We carry a small petrol driven Honda generator for emergencies, but have so far only used it once to test it out.

We have no bow thruster, although there are times when we wish we did. OVNIs are not the easiest boats to handle in tight harbours, especially in cross winds.

We carry 600l of water, which is adequate, but we have our one concession to complexity in the form of a Spectra Ventura 150 watermaker, which is not too power hungry, and allows us to have showers whenever we like.

Our refrigerator is by Isotherm, and is well insulated, and so very efficient. We have a 5Kw blown air diesel heating system by Webasto, and so far it has worked very well.

Electronics

On deck, we have a Simrad integrated system, including radar, plotter, wind, AI 50 AIS transceiver and a Simrad AP 28 hydraulic autopilot. We have an Echopilot FLS Gold III forward looking sonar, with a custom aluminium transducer housing. Down below we have a back-up Furuno GP 32 GPS linked to an ICOM M505 DSC VHF radio, and an Iridium phone for e-mail and long distance communication.

The autopilot is matched by a Windpilot Pacific vane gear, which is powerful, easy to use and seems to match the boat very well.

Some other things that make Pèlerin a great boat

• She has a feeling of immense strength which leads us to have great confidence in her
• She is not at all demanding to sail, and has a very comfortable motion
• She is very light and airy down below
• We had considerable input over the interior design, and so far we feel it has worked very well, both at sea and in harbour.

What we would change if we had a magic wand

• A solid dodger/doghouse like on the Boreal 44 that we recently tested. We couldn’t have one at the build stage (although we asked), but plan to have one fabricated in due course, either in composites or alloy plate.
• Fit a Max-prop. We didn’t, and we regret it.
• NO PAINT! There is no question that the one real downside to aluminium construction is keeping paint on it. If it had to be painted, then just the coachroof and deck, but, please! Not the hull!
• We would change the deck hatches- all of them – to Goiot or perhaps Gebo.
• We have changed nearly all of the deck gear to Harken, and what a difference it has made. We’d change the rest if money were no option.
• Install a day tank so that we could monitor fuel condition and consumption.
• Better engine access – the engine is mounted very low in the hull to assist stability, and despite numerous detachable access hatches access is not good. This is especially true of the stern gland, which is a Volvo seal, and needs to be ‘burped’ every time the boat is dried out – a job best suited to a contortionist.

Related Reading

• You can read much more about the process of building and fitting out Pèlerin here.
• Read about Colin’s test of the Boreal 44 here.

Do you have questions or comments about Pèlerin? Leave a comment.

It’s Saturday evening and we could not wait until next week to take the bubble wrap off the new site, so we pulled the trigger. After six months of work on this project, it’s time for a large scotch.

Vagabond is no ordinary yacht

There’s no mistaking the profile of certain boats, so it was easy for us to recognise the red yacht transiting the Caledonian Canal one day in early April, despite the near blizzard conditions at the time. ‘Vagabond’ is a well-known yacht in polar circles, and there is really nothing quite like her visually.

Built in 1979 in France originally as ketch, she is now cutter rigged and has had a deckhouse added to the original design. Since 1999 she has been owned by Eric Brossier, who, with his partner France Pinczon du Sel and (more recently) their two daughters have notched up an impressive record of polar firsts with her.

First North Pole Circumnavigation

Between 2002-3 for example, they completed the first polar circumnavigation via both the North East and North west passages. The North East passage was particularly impressive, being the first yacht to make the passage without wintering or the assistance of an ice-breaker.

Between October 2004 and July 2009 she was engaged in a European Union funded climate change research project called Damocles, spending five winters ice bound in East Spitsbergen. With her crew actively engaged in the research, as well as communications and film work, she also acted as a base camp for other scientists involved in the project, a role she has been specially modified to carry out, whatever the conditions.

We saw her again in the marina in Brest early this summer, where she looked like a tank parked amidst a fleet of fairground dodgem cars. Although not a huge boat at around 47ft, her looks are dominated by the huge aluminium deckhouse, which makes her seem far bigger. She has relatively shoal draft of around 4ft., and with her twin engines with their protected props, seems more of a motor sailor than a pure sailing yacht, which, given her unique role, probably makes more sense. Designed (like other polar yachts such as Northabout) by Gilbert Caroff, she has many of his trademark features such as the ice-breaker bow. Everything aboard seemed functional and massively strong, as no doubt it needs to be.

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Future Plans

Vagabond has recently been declared a Heritage Interest Ship in France, where she is currently undergoing a major refit. She is due to depart at the beginning of May 2011 for North-west Greenland and Ellesmere Island to take part in a research project on walruses. Meanwhile her intrepid family crew are currently in East Greenland aboard a kite assisted aluminium motor yacht called Ecotroll, exploring new ways of making such voyages, and evaluating ways of reducing the environmental cost of power driven craft. You have to admire the courage and dedication of such people, and their commitment to the polar environment, and I for one will be watching their progress as Vagabond heads out once more next year.