Lane Finley’s comment on John’s post, A Model T Offshore Voyaging Boat, got me thinking. I agree that some of the reasons women are reluctant to go cruising are those that Lane posits: seasickness, loneliness, inconvenience, discomfort…not to mention separation from children/grandchildren…But I’m wondering if there isn’t more to the issue than that. And, as I really don’t feel I can speak for anyone other than myself, I’m going to talk about my own struggles and hope that they will speak to those of other women too.

It’s Unfamiliar

I came to sailing in my mid-30s when I met John, a long-time sailor and voyager: he knew (almost!) everything about cruising, I knew nothing; I had to give up everything from my familiar lifestyle, including career, to take on John’s lifestyle; I removed myself from the support of friends and family to venture out on a long thin limb (and connections do get more tenuous when you’re so far apart and doing something that’s so foreign to them); and, as I’m sure is true for a number of other women, I jumped into the deep end of cruising instead of starting in the wading pool.

Giving up everything familiar and taking on this challenging lifestyle had major ramifications: it affected my self-esteem, my sense of myself as an independent and competent person, and produced feelings of insecurity (what if something happens to John? I gave up my support network and my ability to support myself to go out voyaging with him). Together with John, I’ve worked through a lot of these feelings over the last 15 years, but it hasn’t always been easy.

It’s Unnatural

That is one big part of it. Another is that sailing just doesn’t come naturally to me. Because I didn’t sail as a kid and because I wasn’t even an athlete when I was a kid (I was a piano bench potato!), it really really doesn’t come naturally to me. So I am constantly in a situation where I feel bad because I don’t have a drive to do this activity we are involved in (I dislike outboards; I refuse to dock the boat, which would be like parallel parking a semi before ever driving a car; I really really don’t like going to windward…). To constantly be faced with this “flaw” in my character doesn’t make me feel good about myself. And I realize that my ambivalence is hard on John, who loves to sail, which makes me feel even worse about it.

It’s Scary

Another thing is that I battle with anxiety and, I must admit, there are times when I wonder how long I will be able to continue to live a lifestyle that contributes in so many ways to this anxiety: the rough motion of going to windward, the noise and motion of the boat at anchor or at a dock in anything above 20 knots of breeze (I don’t sleep when it’s noisy and noise raises my anxiety level), the potential of heavy weather offshore, the potential of something happening to John when we’re way out there…the list goes on.

It’s Limiting

And, back to what Lane alluded to, how long before the urge to settle down somewhere where I can do things that I want to do but are hard to do when voyaging (like take regular yoga classes, join a reading group, take music lessons, or join a choir…) and where I can build a support network in case something happens to John, reaches critical mass?

It’s Also Great

And yet, on the other hand, I love living on Morgan’s Cloud; I can’t imagine sending John off on his own without me for passages and just arriving on the other end on a plane—I’d worry and miss him and be miserable, not to mention that it would feel like cheating!; I do like arriving at a new place to explore with new people to meet; and we have this wonderful moveable feast of friends just about anywhere we choose to go.

So, for now and for me, the positives outweigh the negatives. But I can see how one day that might change, and then John and I will be faced with the issue of how to deal with wanting radically different lifestyles (unless he decides to join the choir too!). And that’s a real hard one to deal with.

Get Naked

Well, I’ve gotten naked, anyone else out there want to too? Especially other women…I’d love to hear from you. Please leave a comment.

Further Reading

• My post on being new to voyaging and the compromises that must be made.
• Further writing on teamwork.
• John gets naked about his own fears.

A year and a half ago we installed a new house-bank on Morgan’s Cloud, and embarked on a field test of AGM batteries and the care regime that Justin Godber at LifeLine Batteries helped us develop. We now have some solid results.

Our Usage

First off, let’s put the results in perspective by talking about our usage. Since installing the batteries we have spent a total of six months in a marina with shore power available and the other 12 months out cruising.

When we are in the marina, we cycle the batteries to about 20% discharge once a day (mainly powering our diesel heater) because we turn off our shore power when we go to bed—the hum of the isolation transformer and the whirr of the charger fans is very irritating. A comparatively light use.

Once we get out cruising our batteries get a real work out with at least one 50% discharge every day and sometimes two.

So our batteries have seen some 180 20% discharges and about 400 50% discharges. They have also been abused by three 100% discharges for testing purposes (not recommended).

Results

We just ran a discharge test and are pleased to report that both batteries show just about 90% of their original capacity left, which is a huge improvement on the life we got from the last two sets that both died after about 400 50% discharge cycles.

While there is no knowing for sure, I would guess that, based on this test, we are going to get at least 1000 50% cycles and possibly as much as double that, before replacement—pretty impressive.

What’s Changed?

With the previous two sets of house batteries that failed prematurely, we had done all the usual things that conventional wisdom dictates, including installing a three stage alternator regulator and battery charger, and never discharging below 50%.

This time we took a much more active approach including reprogramming our alternator regulator from the factory defaults, equalizing our batteries once a month where possible, and manually managing our shore-power and alternator charging.

Conclusions

This has been an interesting and rewarding process that we have drawn the following conclusions from:

• The standard wisdom about battery care is flawed and, on a sailboat that spends most of her time far from shorepower, will result in premature failure.
• Most charging equipment, including the fancy three-stage stuff, that claims to automatically take care of your batteries, won’t.
• There is a huge amount of absolute rubbish published and rumoured about battery care, and the “professionals” are often the worst offenders in this regard.
• Most staff in boat yards are almost totally ignorant about proper battery care, but that does not stop them having opinions.
• (There are shining exceptions to the last two points, but distressingly few.)
• You don’t need a lot of highly expensive or complex gear to take care of your batteries properly.
• If you follow our relatively simple “Eleven Steps to Better Battery Life” you will do fine.
• The single most important of the eleven steps is monthly equalization.
  
• Batteries that can’t be equalized have no place on a cruising sailboat far from shore-power.
• The testing seems to indicate that good AGM batteries that can be equalized can last just as long as liquid-filled, although the latter can probably take more abuse since fluid that has been lost can be replaced.

Comments

If you have any questions or suggestions, please leave a comment. But before you do, please read the articles in the links below. To be blunt, we have done our homework, please make sure you do too, particularly if you are going to challenge our conclusions.

Further Reading

• Eleven Steps to Better Battery Life
• Details on how to equalize and some important cautions.
  
• The background and reasoning to the Eleven Steps
• Our testing methodology

Thank You

A big thank you to Justin Godber at LifeLine Batteries for providing the batteries and advising us as we tested them.

A Boat with a large derriere and a cheap (relatively) price. This is NOT the model T offshore boat. But it might be a start.

Lately, I have been thinking and worrying about how hard it is these days for newcomers to get into our sport, pastime, lifestyle, passion, or whatever you want to call offshore voyaging.

It’s not so much that it is that difficult to learn to handle a boat offshore. Take a good sailing course, maybe a Yacht Masters, do a few crossings with an experienced mentor, mix in a good dose of common sense, and you’re good to go. (Of course you should read every one of the 500 plus posts on this site too!)

No, the real problem is the difficulty in acquiring a good, safe and comfortable offshore boat at a price that does not require the buyer to be seriously rich.

The Old Boat Option

Sure, there are lots of old boats out there for sale at reasonable prices, but when you start to look for a decent offshore boat, the list gets shorter, a lot shorter. And then, even if they do find a good older boat, how does a newbie go about refitting it, which most older boats will need?

If they take it to the professionals, today’s labour rates will soon escalate the price into the stratosphere. Worse still, only a very small percentage of boat yards are capable of fitting out a boat for offshore sailing without very close supervision from someone with…you guessed it, years of experience offshore—Catch 22.

Of course the boat owner could do the refit work themselves, but to plan and execute a good cost effective refit generally takes…years of offshore boat owning experience—Catch 22 again.

A New Boat

If they want a new boat, the wannabe boat owner had better have deep pockets, really deep. It seems like half a million US dollars is the starting point for a decent new offshore boat in the 40 to 45-foot range.

Smaller Boats

Sure, a smaller boat is an option, but even a new well built 35-foot offshore boat will set you back some serious coin, and anyway, these days most people want the comfort and speed of a boat in the 40-foot range.

Wrong Headed Offshore Boats

And that brings me to the boat in the picture above, a brand new 21,000 pound Beneteau Oceanis 45 that is, in my never humble opinion, about as far from an ideal offshore cruising boat as it is possible to get. (I won’t go into the details of why, since Colin already did a brilliant job of that, see the link below.)

But There Is Hope

But here’s the thing, Beneteau lists that 45-foot boat for €171,000 or $225,000, which is half the price of a decent offshore boat of around the same size.

Now suppose Beneteau, or someone like them, went to say, Bob Perry, and got him to draw a really sweet offshore boat along the lines of the Saga 43. A boat with a long water line for speed, and moderate beam and symmetrical ends for sea kindliness.

And suppose they built the boat really simply, but strong, with none of the silly foo-foo features (in my opinion) of the Oceanis. They could also make it smaller, say 40-feet, say about 18,000 pounds. (Boatbuilding costs are scaled by weight, not length.)

The boat I envision would have a simple functional interior made from Formica-covered marine ply cut out by computer driven milling machines. There would be no drawers—you know what it costs to build a drawer? Don’t ask—just shelves. There would be no varnish or fancy trim, on deck or below. (You can make an interior like this very pleasing to live in just by putting up some photographs and posters.)

Lose the second head, the in-mast roller furling, the too big engine (30 HP would be plenty) and the twin wheels. Make that solid mainsheet arch into a hard dodger.

Keep the equipment simple. Do you really need a $10,000 electronics package for a low latitude circumnavigation or a cruise of the Caribbean? No you don’t. Two hand held GPSs (one for backup) will do the job for less than US$400.

The boat would have no options, none, zero, zip. And you could have it any colour you want, as long as it’s white. The builder could use an advisory board of experienced voyagers to come up with a specification that would meet most needs. The stamp of approval from that board would also help sell boats and persuade buyers to go with the minimalist gear list.

Well, I could go on and on, in fact I already have, but you get the idea.

A Model T Boat

I wonder, could we have a really great, very simple, mass produced offshore cruising boat for just US$175,000, or even $150,000, sail away? I think maybe we could. Kind of the Model T of voyaging boats. A boat for the more fiscally constrained future the world is faced with.

And that would be really great. I think they would sell a bundle of them—a lot more than they are selling of these just-another-big-assed boats.

A Game Changer

Say a couple of hundred of these boats got built in five years. That would significantly increase the number of new participants in offshore voyaging.

Many people would buy them as starter boats and then up-grade once they had some experience and knew that they really liked voyaging. But that would be good too since suddenly we would have a base of wholesome, relatively new, second hand offshore boats at very reasonable prices.

And that would make it possible, once again, for younger people to go cruising for a few years before getting “serious” about their lives: They could buy a good used boat for say $120,000, go cruising for a few years, and then sell it for not a lot less than they paid for it, since I believe a boat like this would hold its value well.

Hello Beneteau…anyone…someone…is anyone listening?

Do you have any ideas to make this a great boat? If so, please leave a comment, but do remember that the whole idea is a simple inexpensive boat, no fancy systems or unnecessary complications. Let’s put our heads together…

Further Reading

• Colin’s Series on The Desirable Design Characteristics of Offshore Boats.
• My Rant Against Big-Assed-Boats.
• Boats we like, the Saga 43.
• Bob Perry Yacht Design.

It's a marine circus out there! Common Dolphin in the Irish Sea.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of cruising is that it puts us in a position to encounter rare and attractive marine life in the wild in a way that is beyond the reach of shore bound observers. And that privilege gives you a great opportunity to make a photographic record for your wall at home, or to show your friends. But time and again, the results are a bitter disappointment—the colossal whale is just a distant blob, or the acrobatic dolphin a blurred splash—I should know. But there are many simple, practical ways in which you can really up the ‘aaaah!’ factor, and capture some truly memorable shots.

Go Large!

The first thing is to look at your camera. Compact cameras, no matter how good, are not designed for this type of use, and cannot compete with a good SLR or mirrorless camera with (at least) a couple of lenses. If that’s all you have, all is not lost, though, as some of the simple techniques that will be outlined in Part II still apply. But for those of you who already have (or aspire to own) an interchangeable lens camera, let’s start with the kit.

Most of the big camera makers produce some really great gear. Canon and Nikon have control of most of the pro market, with a phenomenal range of lenses and other equipment to give you an edge, but at a price. Most of the other ‘name’ makers have their own ranges, and there are good quality lenses available to fit most makes from after-market firms like Sigma and Tokina, that can give big name lenses a run for their money at far less cost. The choice is yours, but remember that whichever make you choose it’s likely a long-term commitment, as changing from one maker to another will almost certainly mean changing your entire kit—at huge cost.

Choosing A Camera For The Job

Starting with the camera body, you’ll want one that allows you to manually override the Auto setting, where the camera makes all of the decisions for you. For much wildlife, especially fast moving animals like dolphins, you need to be able (at least) to set the camera up for shutter priority, to enable you to adjust the shutter speed to freeze the action. Most modern cameras can also be set up to take multiple frames per second, which can also be a way of getting ‘the shot’, although this is often more tricky than it looks.

Pro model cameras are generally very robust and have seals on all controls to keep moisture out, but even they are no more than splashproof. If you want to use the camera in all weathers you can improve moisture resistance with adhesive tape over joints, or even by putting the body and lens into a clear plastic bag with a hole cut in it for the lens to protrude through. Better yet, EWA Marine make some really nice rain capes to suit a variety of model and lens combinations. I’ve used these for years in all conditions, and have never damaged a camera as a result.

Lenses Are The Way To Go

A camera body is just a machine, though, and even the basic ones are pretty competent these days. If you have money to spend, then lenses offer more bangs per buck in terms of obtaining great images. For most purposes a couple of zooms that cover a moderate range of focal lengths are a good way to start. A really wide zoom (say 20-35mm) is a good lens for more than just wildlife work, being ideal for deck and crew shots, too. A longer zoom taking you from 70-200mm is an ideal lens for bringing the action closer to you, and is indispensable for capturing intimate detail with smaller creatures or birds. Many of the more recent lenses have Image Stabilisation (IS) that offers a huge benefit in terms of reducing the shakes with longer lenses, especially when there’s any sea running.

Will It Break The Bank?

It’s generally best to avoid budget zoom lenses with a huge range of focal lengths—many of them just cannot deliver at either end of their range. Ditto on spending a fortune on ultra fast pro lenses with front lens elements the size of soup plates; unless you’re built like King Kong the weight of these lenses makes it almost impossible to control the camera unless the sea is flat calm.

Finally, when considering what equipment to go for, it’s as well to realise that you don’t have to spend a fortune on new equipment, as there is a massive amount of great quality gear available second-hand at good prices. It’s true that image quality continues to improve, but many of the most recent benefits are only enjoyed in extreme conditions, such as very low light. Any relatively recent semi-pro model body with a couple of good quality zoom lenses is an excellent place to start. Time spent improving your technique with such a set-up will consistently deliver more great shots than just buying the latest and best pro model and trusting it to do the job for you—as we’ll see in Part II.

Further Reading

• Lots More on Photography Gear
• More of Colin’s Photographs

In the last post I explained how to receive text forecasts while offshore. Now I want to share one of my favourite forecasts, that I suspect very few people bother to get:

The forecast discussion in which the duty forecaster explains in very frank and informal terms how he or she arrived at the forecast, and most important of all, their level of confidence in said forecast and their thoughts on what other scenarios might develop.

Particularly if there is a strong storm or a hurricane brewing, I always get the forecast discussion to help me evaluate the likelihood that the storm will behave differently than the current forecast is predicting.

A Real World Example

For example, the forecast discussion warned us three days ahead of time that the fast forming Halloween Storm of 2011 was a very difficult one to accurately forecast and that it might come closer to Block Island, where we were anchored, and be more intense than the forecast and GRIBs at the time were predicting. Of course that is exactly what happened, but thanks to the discussion we knew that that was at least a possibility well ahead of time.

(The excellent US weather office always provides a discussion, I’m not sure about other offices. Anyone know of others? Please leave a comment.)

Further Reading

• Our Weather To Go series.
• Example forecast discussion.
• Weathering the storm at Block Island.

In this, the final installment of my series on our weather information gathering system, I’m going to write about how we receive voice (well, really not) and text forecasts while at sea and in remote places.

Why Copy Forecasts

OK, I know I have beaten this horse before…probably nigh unto death. But one more time: You should not rely exclusively on GRIBs for your weather information because GRIBs are simply the unfiltered automated output of a single computer model, whereas a forecast is prepared by a meteorologist from multiple models that have different strengths and weaknesses.

OK, now we have that out of the way, let’s talk about the best way to receive forecasts.

The Bad Old Days

I have many memories stretching over some 35 years of trying to copy voice forecasts hunched over a shortwave radio straining to hear and copy down the weirdly pronounced words of Perfect Paul. And all the while bracing myself at the chart table while trying not to blow my lunch. Of course Sod’s Law guaranteed that the forecast I wanted was being broadcast during my off watch too. In short, copying voice forecasts has always been one of my least favourite jobs at sea.

Navtex, A Step In The Right Direction

So when Navtex receivers came out that provided forecasts in text, I was an early and enthusiastic adopter. But the trouble with Navtex is that most countries substantially condense the information they broadcast, so you miss out on a lot of good stuff if you rely exclusively on Navtex.

A Better Way

In my last post in this series I wrote about SailDocs as the best way to get GRIB data. But SailDocs can also send you a condensed text version of any HTML page on the Internet over a satellite phone or a single side band HF radio equipped with a pactor modem, and that means that this seasick prone skipper will never again have to copy another voice forecast, and that is way cool.

Even In Danish

I have enough trouble trying to copy a voice forecast in English. Add a foreign language to the mix and I don’t have a chance. But when that same forecast, for example the weather forecasts for Greenland, which are in Danish, is available in text form, Phyllis and I (OK, Phyllis) were able to consistently puzzle them out using our smattering of Norwegian and a dictionary.

Preparation Is Key

The key to making this work is that you do your homework before you go: You need to download the web page on which the met office whose forecasts you will be using is listed. When searching out the information that you will use offshore, it is important to understand that the visually sexy forecast pages that have come into fashion of late will do you no good because SailDocs will strip the graphics when it sends the page.

How To

Here are the steps to get text forecasts over Saildocs:

1. Before you set out, go on the internet and find the forecast list pages for the areas you are interested in and then save them on your computer by clicking on “save as” under the “File” menu in your browser. (I have listed several examples of these text forecast listing pages under Resources, below.)
2. At sea, when you need a forecast, open the page you saved in step 1.
3. Right-click (Windows) on the link to the forecast you want and select “copy short cut”, or some such (depends on your browser).
4. Paste that URL address into the body of an email after the word “Send”.  For example “Send http://www.morganscloud.com” (without the inverted commas) will return the home page of this web site.
5. Send the email to query@saildocs.com.
6. Sit back and wait a few minutes.
7. The SailDocs server will send you an email with the text only content of the page you requested in the body.

Resources

• Instructions on the use of SailDocs.
• US National Weather Service text forecasts by zone.
• Another listing of US text products.
• List of Canadian text forecasts.
• UK shipping forecast.

Do you have a favourite text forecast? Please leave a comment.

Further Reading

• Our Weather To Go series.
• Our Navtex.

In reading the headline of this post, you could be forgiven for thinking that I have completely lost my mind and decided to leave the nautical arena to become an investment blogger. Not so. Almost everyone out there voyaging is relying on their savings, to at least some extent, and most of you who are planning to go cruising are saving to do so. Here at AAC we warn you about poor anchors and other nautical dangers, this post is just an extension of that.

The Danger

Here’s the danger: If you have an investment account that allows you to use margin it is possible, maybe even likely, that your broker is using your securities to gamble for their benefit.

I’m no finance expert, but as I understand it, what the broker does is rent your securities out to people shorting the market and/or uses your securities as collateral to back their own bets. And if one of those shorts goes bust, or your broker does, you lose—maybe everything. Think MF-Global.

Worse

It gets worse: this may be true whether or not you actually use the margin facility.

Worse Still

And worse: your broker may be able to gamble with all of the securities in your account, even the ones that are not margined.

Don’t Assume

You may have a margin account, even if you never consciously asked for one since some brokers will set your new account up that way by default.

It’s International

Apparently this is happening in the UK, Europe, the USA and Canada, at least, and probably in many or even most other places.

They Take The Profit, You Take The Risk

What makes this so heinous is that the broker is reaping all of the benefits of this activity and you are taking all of the risk. It’s just like being a taxpayer: the finance industry reaps all the profits and you get stuck with the losses—oops, who said that?

It’s Not Paranoia If…

Of course, when you tackle your broker about this, they will, as mine and several other people’s did, pat you on the head and tell you not to worry your little old yachty head about such things. They would never do such a thing. Yea, right, and I’m still waiting for the fat guy in the red suit to deliver presents.

Don’t ever forget that many, perhaps most, of the people in the “wealth management business” are really in the wealth transfer business…from you to them. One of the reasons that Phyllis and I are still voyaging is because we remind ourselves of this fundamental truth before any dealings with the finance industry.

My Source

How do I know about this? By pure luck. One of my oldest and best friends is a risk management and securities custody expert with thirty years of experience in keeping money and securities safe.

But I Need Margin

Some of you may say that you need margin to support your trading activities and so that you don’t have to leave a large cash balance in your account to fund your next investment. Fine, if you want to take this risk, that’s up to you. But for me, the benefit of making a tiny amount of interest, by the improvement in cash management that a margin account allows, is not worth the risk of losing everything in a crash.

How Can You Check?

I urge all of you to immediately check your broker statements and contracts (you may have to ask for the latter) and make sure that you do not have a margin (type 2) account.

The Smoking Guns

Look for the following:

• Any indication on your statement that the funds available to you are more than the actual cash balance.
• Any use of the word “margin”.
• Any use of the words “hypothecate” or “re-hypothecate”.

Further Reading

For more, from an industry insider, on this danger, I urge you to read this blog post. Also, Wikipedia has a good definition of hypothecation here.

Disclaimer

I have no qualifications whatsoever in the finance or investment industries. This post is not investment advice, but purely a warning about a danger that I believe to be real, but could, of course, be wrong about.

Ever since John took up photography, our hikes have turned into strolls interspersed with numerous long hiatuses while he records our surroundings for posterity. This initially caused a certain amount of friction, until I developed my own obsession—sea glass.

Now John often has to wait for me, while I zigzag slowly along the shore, looking for that elusive glint of colour in the sand. The funny thing is that some beaches are fantastic for glass while others produce only plastic, or rocks, or wood. And I have yet to figure out which beach will harbour an incredible treasure trove and which will disappoint. So I can’t ever assume and just walk on by.

For me, finding a piece of glass or a shard of pottery is a connection to the past as I try and imagine where it came from and how long it has been washed by the waves. It provides me with a memento of where we’ve been that doesn’t take up a lot of room (we live on a boat after all!) and that doesn’t cost anything, except my time and attention.

Though I am all for recycling, I’m also sad that sea glass will become more and more rare as we stop throwing our garbage into the sea. I guess I’ll just have to come up with another obsession when that happens—I’m thinking I’ll try my hand at drawing, in which case I’ll be moving even slower!

Several books have helped me learn more about the wonderful world of sea glass:

• Pure Sea Glass
• The Sea Glass Hunter’s Handbook
• A Passion for Sea Glass

Do you collect anything on your travels? Please leave a comment.

Disclosure

This post contains links to our affiliates. If you buy something using these links, we will receive a small commission that costs you nothing, that we will put toward the out-of-pocket expenses of running this site.

As most of our regular readers know, we just completed a 10,000 mile, eight month voyage to the Arctic and back on Morgan’s Cloud, our 56-f00t McCurdy and Rhodes aluminum cutter. A voyage that constituted a gruelling test of all the gear on the boat. Here is our report on how the engine and drive-train did:

Perkins M92B Engine

In the Arctic, where it tends either to blow like hell or not at all, a reliable engine is vital. We repowered with a Perkins M92B a year before leaving on our Arctic voyage.

The Good

• The M92B has run reliably and smoothly for over 1000 hours.
• We had a small fuel leak from a return line fitting, and when I completely miss-diagnosed this trivial problem as something much more serious, the engineers at the Perkins factory in the UK were immediately responsive, knowledgeable and patient in supporting me.
• Our decision to change from a six cylinder 120 HP Cummins to the four cylinder, 86 HP, low revving (2400 RPM top end), high torque, industrial engine, has delivered even better fuel savings than we had hoped for: economical cruise in smooth water is an astounding 7 knots at 1.5 US gal (5.3 l)/hour and if we are in a hurry, 2.4 US gal (9 l)/hour yields a tad under 8 knots.
• The very high torque of this engine means that we don’t miss the extra 34 HP of the Cummins. In fact I can’t really detect a difference, even when manoeuvring in tight quarters in a strong wind, which is when we use the most power.
• The Perkins burns far cleaner than the old Cummins.
• The Perkins is very well laid out and easy to work on, with one exception.
• The shop, parts and operators manuals are very good, but see below.
• Parts are readily available from the US distributor, fairly priced, although not cheap, and can be sourced in a hurry, for a price, via FedEx.
• Carl, the parts manager at Perkins Power Northeast, is a great communicator and goes the extra mile.
• The power and torque of this engine match the boat perfectly. We cruise at 1500 to 2000 RPM, which is right in the sweet spot on the power curve, properly loading the engine, and still have plenty of grunt in reserve.
• The electric fuel lift pump, which we initially had reservations about, makes the engine a breeze to prime and incredibly tolerant of air in the fuel, as we found when our primary fuel filter started to suck air.
• Then engine just feels and sounds robust and commercial.

The Not So Good

• The engineer that decided to put the on-engine fuel filter behind the cooling piping should be condemned to change said filter once a day for the rest of his or her life. On the bright side, because we have a fuel polish system that in turn lets us use a very fine off-engine primary filter, we only need to change the on-engine filter once a year.
• The shop manual is for an industrial engine with an electronic injection pump, which is a very different engine, although based on the same block, as the M92B. There is an excellent user’s manual that does accurately match the marine engine, but even so, there is an information gap between the two that can be frustrating. Having said that, the great factory support from Perkins goes a long way to ameliorate this problem.
• We still don’t like the fact that the energise-to-run solenoid requires 24 volts on an otherwise 12 volt engine and therefore requires a 12 to 24 volt converter (supplied)—just an unnecessary complication.
• The heat exchanger is a bit small for the engine so that if it becomes even slightly dirty, on either the fresh or salt water side, the engine will run hot when being pushed over 2200 RPM. On the bright side, it is easy to clean.
• We have had to replace three formed hoses on the salt water side of the cooling system due to pin hole leaks. We suspect that this problem was caused by our engine being stored for two years before it was sold to us.

Verdict

The Perkins M92B is a great engine that we highly recommend without reservation.

ZF 45A Transmission

This is a commercial grade gear that is heavier and more robust than those found in most sailboats. We think it worth the extra expense and weight, particularly with the number of transmission horror stories we hear from other cruisers.

The Good

• The vertical offset allowed us to move the engine up higher than the old one which has improved access to both the engine and the bilge under it.
• Unlike many smaller and lighter transmissions, the ZF is fitted with an oil filter, which must be a good thing.
• We got the reduction ratio at 2.03:1 pretty much exactly right to optimise our fuel burn and still give us plenty of grunt in a tight spot.
• The transmission has worked flawlessly to date.

The Not So Good

• None of the fluids recommended in the manual are readily available in North America. I spent a good half day on a search to determine what the correct locally available ATF was.

Verdict

Highly recommended.

Aquadrive

The change to a four cylinder engine from the old six gave us room to install an Aquadrive system. Here again, we went up a size from that normally recommended for an 86 HP engine to a B10 21:210 axel with an upsized B20 CV 21 thrust bearing.

The Good

• The system transfers the thrust load from the propeller, normally absorbed by the engine mounts and transmission, to a thrust bearing that is bolted to a custom built heavily reinforced support plate that we welded into the hull.
• The transfer of thrust loads to the hull allowed us to use very soft mounts, also provided by Aquadrive, which significantly cut down on the noise and vibration from the hull.
• The axel allows the engine to be out of direct alignment with the shaft and this feature, together with the great job that Chris (welder) and Dave (machinist) at Billings Diesel and Marine, did modifying the beds, means that if we have to get the engine or transmission off the mounts for any reason, they can simply be bolted back into place without any alignment—how cool is that!

The Not So Good

• Although we have had no problems, the Aquadrive adds a whole lot more gear to the drive train that could fail.
• The unit must be sent back to the manufacturer for service every 3000 hours.
• I know of at least two Aquadrives that have come apart in service (very exciting) due to the bolts holding them together backing out. We have drilled and wired ours to ameliorate this risk.

The Verdict

Highly recommended.

Halyard Exhaust System

A disadvantage of center cockpit boats with engine rooms under the cockpit is that it is difficult to design a wet exhaust system exiting at the stern without causing too much back pressure, a sure engine killer.

When installing the Perkins we took the opportunity to take out our old metal dry exhaust system with wet jacket and install a Halyard water drop system consisting of a HFS-o40 separator and HTT120 silencer-water lift, customized for a 3-inch inlet and a 4-inch outlet. We also installed a water flow alarm and no return valve in the water drop exit.

The Good

• The exhaust back pressure measured at the engine is well within specification.
• Standing on the stern right next to the exhaust with the engine running, the loudest sound we hear is the engine room blower!
• There is a much lower risk of getting water back into the engine than with the old system.
• The system has worked flawlessly to date.
• The new system takes up less room in the lazeret and bilge than the old.

The Not So Good

• The system requires its own 2-inch through hull fitting and we hate adding additional holes in the hull.
• The new system takes up more room in the engine room than the old.

The Verdict

Highly Recommended

Coming Soon

This is the first of what will be an ongoing series of reports on how the gear on Morgan’s Cloud performed. We will tell all: the good, the not so good, and the bad. Thankfully, there was very little of the latter.

Further Reading

• Engine Installation Series
• Description of Morgan’s Cloud
• Our Arctic Voyage

John and I just returned from a challenging Arctic cruise, one of many we’ve undertaken over the last 20 years. On all our previous voyages, we’ve only ever seen the back end of one bear running away from us…we were on the boat, steaming out of an anchorage in Northern Spitsbergen.

However, this summer’s voyage changed all that: we saw a mother and two cubs in Baffin Island and a lone bear in Labrador, and we didn’t stop much as we were in a hurry to get south after an intense summer in West Greenland. Other sailors who spent longer in Labrador reported seeing as many as 10 and even 15 bears.

So what has changed? According to Judy Rowell, manager of the Torngat Mountains National Park, polar bears in Northern Labrador (most of which is contained in the Park) seem to be flourishing and successfully hunting from land. Which is very good news, since the loss of any species in our world is a tragedy, and the reduction in sea ice initially looked like it could mean the end of the polar bear (and it still could be the end of other populations, such as the one based out of Churchill, Manitoba, for one example).

A while ago I wrote a post questioning Parks Canada’s policy of not allowing Park visitors to carry firearms for polar bear protection. A number of you wrote comments to that post expressing concern about the threat to polar bears from the reduction in sea ice. So we wanted to pass on the good news about the bears’ adaptation to changing conditions.

But the increased number of bears in Northern Labrador in the summer is only heightening the problem I talked about in that post. Before, when the threat of meeting a bear was relatively low, we felt that going ashore with adequate protection—deterrents and, for use as a last resort, a firearm—was a reasonable action both from the standpoint of risk to us and risk to the bear. However, due to the increased number of bears and the fact that they are now in full hunting mode when ashore, we no longer feel that going ashore in this area is a reasonable action for us, and so this summer we didn’t go ashore in Northern Labrador at all.

There is, however, no guarantee that we will be able to avoid going ashore in a future visit, even if it is just to put in a shorefast in case of ice (to pull ourselves into shallower water), a small anchorage, or severe weather. In these situations going ashore would be unavoidable and the risk of meeting a polar bear would be a very real possibility.

So dealing with the issue of encouraging people to visit the Park who are not allowed to adequately protect themselves from a polar bear attack remains a concern. (To the Inuit’s credit they have agreed that a bear shot in self-defense will be taken off their annual hunting quota, thereby having no effect on the total bear population.)

Tell us—and Parks Canada, they read my last post and the comments with interest—what you think. Please leave a comment, but to avoid duplication, please read the original post and comments, before you do.