RM Sailboat Called "Horatio"

Recently it was brought to my attention that somebody named their brand new RM 1060 sailboat after me. That's right, me HORATIO. Either the new boat owner has been reading my blog or he has a dog named Horatio. Take your pick. 

You can find the "Horatio RM" boat at the RM Yachts website in their blog section. While you're at it, also check out their main site. 

RM sailboats come in various sizes, feature really amazing panoramic pilothouses and have attracted a cult following. Did I tell you they're made of plywood? We're talking about an epoxy plywood shell reinforced by a galvanized steel structure. Unfortunately they also cost a small fortune. I thought plywood was cheap.

But what I really like about them is that they have twin keels and a very long rudder, enabling them to stand up like a three-legged dog at low tide. That's really useful for scraping the hull, changing a zinc or having a picnic in the shade under the boat. 

The new RM 1060 called Horatio fresh out of the factory. May you live up to your (my) name!!!

Here's another crappy film shot sailing to Nazare on my Corbin 39, a more traditional boat. I seriously need to take film lessons.

Lastly, and sadly, I ran into a problem replacing my gearbox. To remove it, first I need to pull the prop shaft back. To pull the shaft back, I need to loosen some screws on the Duramax stuffing box. A piece of cake right? Wrong, two of these screws have stripped heads.

So I spent a couple of hours watching Youtube films teaching me the fine art of removing screws with stripped heads. Problem solved, right? Wrong. Where am I going to get new screws of the exact same size. I think I'm screwed and it's no laughing matter.

I emailed Duramax today urgently asking/begging for new screws. The problem is that they also manufacture stuffing boxes and many other parts for large ships, so I'm not too optimistic they'll pay much attention to my tiny screw predicament. Time to think like a Cuban in need of unavailable car parts.

On some occasions being a boat slave is a bit of a hassle and an impediment to a carefree life.

Haulout in Nazare

 I woke up at 5:45 and immediately rolled out of my bunk. The previous evening I had fallen asleep like a baby fully dressed, and that's how I got up. After a wash and a change of clothing, I ate a couple of bananas, brushed my teeth and was ready for the day.

When I poked my head out the companionway it was as still and silent as an oil painting and the water was like silk. Looking around I spotted a hose on the pontoon and decided to give the filthy deck a wash down. My running rigging is so grimy it's embarrassing I tell you. A naked boat is one thing, but a dirty naked boat is quite another.

As I was rolling up the hose, a friendly young GNR policeman walked down the pontoon to check me in. Just for the record: Portuguese GNR working at ports are as friendly and helpful as they come. You may be unlucky to come across a sour puss in a bad mood, but that's a rare exception.

It turns out he owns a sailboat too so we talked at length about sailing, anchorages, marinas...a perfect morning. 

Then I went to the yard, talked to the travelift operator, checked into the marina, had breakfast at the café/grocery store joint, trotted back to the boat, motored around to the yard and got lifted out - everything smooth as could be. I'm getting to be an old hand at this.

The slime came off very easily.

That definitely explains my lack of speed.

Painted with Plastimo Performance 2 years ago. The paint is in perfect condition without any flaking.  

Anybody interested in a cheap fixer-up? 

Traditional fish drying racks on the beach of Nazare.

The long Nazare beach strip - it's supposed to be warm and sunny. Something weird is happening with the climate this year.

You see old ladies everywhere holding "Rooms, Zimmer, Chamber" signs. Haven't they heard about Airbnb or Housetrip?

Walked to the bus station, but instead found a building under construction. This old lady told me where the new station was - which turned out to be a temporary container with a ticket wicket where the buses stop in the street. Bought a ticket on the 15:10 express bus, found a café serving a cheap "mini prato" lunch with wine and then took a long leisurely walk around town. Killed some time sitting on a bench facing the beach and ocean. Why can't I do this every day?

Shot some film during the trip but left the camcorder at the boat.

Sailing to Nazare - Part 1

A brief escape from boredom.

I finally made it to Nazaré, by boat! Nothing to boast about, but I'm here and it's the best two days I've had in a while. 

The day began at 5 am so I could finish a translation first. Then I roared out of here at 9 am, bought two jerrycans of diesel on the way to Peniche and stopped at the bus station to get a bus schedule for getting home from Nazaré...by the time I got organized and clunked the boat into reverse at the marina, it was past 11.

Hardly any wind or waves. I was hoping for a light breeze so that I could at least motorsail, but no luck. Raised the mainsail anyway to make people on land envious. Kept myself entertained dodging a maze of fishing buoys for the first few miles.

Cape Carvoeiro (Cabo Carvoeiro). A German boat going to Peniche.

I started out doing 4.5 knots at 1800 RPM. Not bad for a boat with a bottom growing a two-year beard and a propeller encrusted with mollusks. Later, when my velocity gradually fell to 3.6 knots, I thought the sick gearbox wasn't going to make it. Not a good situation without wind to sail back. 

I even worked out a plan if I lost power out here. I'd tie the boat to a fishing buoy, wait for the fishing boat to come out and then offer them 200 euros to tow me into port.

Opened up the engine compartment, put my hand on the gearbox and OOOH, it's hot. That's it, I'm doomed, I concluded.

The hot heat exchanger hose was lying over the gearbox, so I did this:

High tech engineering - tied a rope to the hose lifted it off the gearbox and secured it to the pilot house steering wheel.

I also toyed with the idea of sporadically pouring water over the gearbox to cool it off. Instead, I reduced the RPMs to 1600.

I also thought about putting on sunblock, instead I did this:

Why get myself all greasy. And who was going to see me anyway..hmmmm, all the people who read this. OK, so I'm not too bright sometimes.

After concluding that the gearbox is supposed to run hot, or after I stopped worrying about it - forget which had more influence - I went back to 1800 RMP and the speed shot up to a dizzying 3.9 knots. When you're going that fast, it's important to keep an eye out for these guys:

These things are a menace and seem to pop up out of nowhere.

About 2 hours from my destination a breeze actually filled the sail and pushed the speed up to 4.3 knots until it died down on approaching the port of Nazaré. 

Land ho! It was so calm I was getting drowsy.

Entering the Port of Nazare

Nazaré marina, incredibly peaceful.

Docked like a pro, which isn't always the case, cleaned up, put the position markings on the toerail for the haulout straps, had some sandwiches, drank two glasses of wine, lied down on the pilothouse settee to relax, fell asleep and woke up at 5:45 feeling that life was grand, at least for now.

Boat Filming Techniques

I've had a lot one request to shoot a video of Jakatar's interior. What's so special about it? Not much. Despite that humble fact, the video is truly amazing crappy. If you can force yourself to watch it until the very end, you may have what it takes to cross an ocean on a really slow sailboat under constant rain.

I was planning on adding a voice-over narration at home. Since Windows Moviemaker doesn't have that feature, I used subtitles and really boring music.

If you can watch this you can watch anything! And please, do not get distracted by all the electronic gadgets.

The sailing community is full of eccentrics, but none like the transient sailor who arrived in Peniche the other day. He walks into town wearing an inflatable life-jacket (crotch strap, harness...the works), sits down at a restaurant, eats a meal very well irrigated with wine and then wobbles back to his boat grinning like mad all harnessed up.

Moving right along. After having been tied up to the dock for about 10 years, the Norwegian tank, Bonanza, sailed motored against the wind headed to Norway. I hear it's cold up there, but Norwegians seem to like live with it...seals do too.

That's Bonanza on the right getting ready to head north.

A boat parked at the transient dock got me thinking about the classic vs. plastic controversy that usually rages in the community of highly opinionated boat owners. Although the new plastic boats make a lot of sense from a maintenance and simplicity perspective, they just don't cut it when it comes to setting one's wanderlust hormones on fire.

The beauty and the...hmmm...plastic tub facing it. Sophia Loren meets Twiggy.

My trip to Nazaré is being delayed by weather, ocean conditions (going north with an unreliable transmission), work and other hassles that must be attended to.

And one more thing. The blue stripe on my boat gets very hot in the sun and, as a result, the underlying gelcoat is crazing badly. Ryker brought this to my attention. I must be going blind becaused I never noticed it.

Went to a large Aki hardware store thinking they'd have a huge selection of paints (and they do - interior paints). The smallest can of exterior paint comes in a 5-litre can. Makes sense, right? Who's going to paint a house with 1 litre? 

Boat Maintenance for Dummies

I have friends whose sailboats look shiny and tidy rain or shine. My boat, on the other hand, is a perpetual disgrace. I'm always fifteen projects behind and no hope of catching up. It just occurred to me that the boat owns me; it's a 39-foot, 11-ton parasite and I'm the host that keeps it alive and floating.

If I had more time, more money or six muscular arms equipped with power tools, brushes and scrapers - and wings to work on the 51-foot mast...But MORE TIME is the only realistic goal to shoot for. I'm working on it.

I'm in the process of scraping the flaking paint to prevent corrosion caused by salt and water trapped in paint bubbles.

My mast has a bad rash. It's taken hold mostly on either side of the sail track which I painted in 2007. Let me bore you with my existential experience six years ago when I unstepped the mast, sanded all the bad spots, degreased it, washed it and, under ideal conditions, applied International's two-part etch primer. 

The instructions said something like this: "once applied, the etch primer should change from bright yellow to dark yellow within about 30 minutes. If it doesn't, it hasn't catalyzed and must be sanded off to the bare aluminum and redone."

Guess what? After staring at it apprehensively for 40 minutes, it remained exactly the same shade of yellow as when I applied it, exactly the same! I stood there feeling as if I and my yellow-streaked mast were the only two objects on earth - nothing else in the universe mattered except me and the stubborn yellow etch primer. 

I read the instructions at least ten times, stared at the yellow color until my eyeballs were ready to pop out. What's going on!!!! What am I going to do now?

I did what imbeciles and idiots do; I convinced myself that it couldn't be true. I even whipped up a used-car-salesman theory: it didn't catalyze because I had sanded the aluminum powder coating and that's what the etch primer was supposed to react with. It'll be OK. What an idiot!

Did I tell you my mainsail cover's zipper was thoroughly destroyed by this winter's strong winds.

A creative way to live without a zipper.

Is that rust on 316 stainless steel? A new meaning for stain-less, since it could also stain-more, but I doubt it.

Stainless. Why is it stained again? I cleaned it last year.

Then there's the dungeon. I always keep this door closed, and if a guest asks me what's in there, I say "a boogeyman, don't open it!"

Simply disgraceful.

I removed all the junk to measure the anode bolts so I can buy a replacement before the haultout. I have a huge anode bolted to the outside of the hull which is connected to nearly all metal parts via a thick copper cable running through the bilge and branching off everywhere, terminating at a grounding plate near the mast support. 

I've been told this is bad, and I've been told that it's good. I figure it's "better than worse".  Americans seem to favor bonding all metal parts, Europeans have a more laid back approach and tend to believe that bonding will launch all your metals into a galvanic corrosion war. I was educated in Canada, so what would you expect me to choose?

I removed everything to get at the bolts under a removable plywood floor.

7-inch gap. Digital cameras make everything look so filthy.

Then I put everything back just the way it was. What else would I do? Remember, I got no time - I'm an overworked translator.

Now here's the final touch. The exposed chain is so rusty that I'm trying to conceal it in a rag. I guess I'll have to change it end over end at Nazaré, get the rusty part in the chain locker attached to a U-bolt and bring out the shiny galvanized end for my shiny new Rocna anchor. 

My manual Tiger windlass is also in desperate need of some TLC. Even the lock by my foot is rusty - there's just no end to this mess. Plus, there's another boogeyman in the starboard sail locker - a dinghy that looks like it was salvaged from  a garbage dump.

The secret is not to zoom in on anything specific and, voilá, it looks presentable, sort of. Maybe that's why I like anchoring in the Algarve - I don't have to put up with highbrow marina neighbors sipping cold cocktails in the large luxurious cockpits of their shiny production boats looking down their noses at me (my boat, I mean - I still look respectable).

IF ONLY I HAD MORE TIME.

Visiting the Algarve



Albufeira Beach - the manicured look.

All of sudden I decided we needed to drive down to the Algarve. I needed new flares, some mast paint primer, a shackle and whatever else I found irresistible to blow my hard-earned money. Obviously, it was merely an excuse for a change of scenery.

I've been sailing to the Algarve for the last 10 years, so I thought it would be fun to drive down for a change. Let me tell you, there's no comparison: no fishing nets, no lobster traps, to howling winds near the capes, no rolling motion, no work raising and lowering sails. Right!

The Ayamar shop run by a Dutch couple where I had reserved the flares closed at 1:00 pm Portuguese time and did not reopen in the afternoon. That's why we got up at 6 and drove non-stop to Ayamonte on the Spanish side of the river.

When we arrived in the outskirts of town, the road was restricted to one lane, traffic was being stopped by police at intersections and there was a huge traffic jam as far a we could see. Cyclists in tight colorful spandex were zipping by on the closed lanes on fancy bikes.

The shop is smack downtown opposite the marina. My body temperature began to rise when it hit me that we might not get there on time. But we did.

Ayamonte Marina opposite the Ayamar Marine Shop.

The friendly Dutch couple had the Interprotect primer I wanted but only in a 2.5 l can, so the husband convinced me that Perfection paint was just what I wanted.

"See," he pointed to the can, "it says undercoat. It's better than Interprotect, that's why it's more expensive."

Forty-nine euros for a 750 ml can. And guess what? It's not a primer - it's an undercoat to be used after the primer. Lesson learned: undercoat is what you wear under your coat and not against your body. Won't forget it in the future.

During the rest of the weekend trip we did what non-boaters do when on holiday.

View from our studio apartment in Praia da Oura, Central Algarve.

What's there not to smile about. Plus, I don't have to worry about the jeep dragging anchor!

Albufeira has mostly English names, English breakfast, English beer, Chips...you get my drift, right.

Having lunch in Salema - Western Algarve - one of my favorite places. If it only had a bay to anchor, although you can anchor off the beach in good weather.

The Salema fishing fleet.

Micron Extra vs Plastimo Classic

It could - and should - have a been a good day despite the cool and rainy weather for this time of year. The plan was to fine-tune a small book I had just translated and to pressure wash my dirty boat before sailing to Nazaré next week.

Fishermen sorting out their nets or whatever they do...later in the day some of them were sitting on the ground mending holes.

The marina gate was half open - a bad sign. And, just as I suspected, there was no electricity. So, there I was: laptop and lunch bag in hand, the power washer in the jeep, eager to get the ball rolling. But there's no power. Checked the breakers in the panel by the boat - all of which were pointing up and functional.

I then checked the main switchboard by the gate; the breakers were all down and dysfunctional. What you do is switch on individual sectors until you find the one that's tripping the system, being careful not to touch any exposed wires and getting fried in the process.

No luck. Click, click, click...none of them would stay up. Tried different combinations. Nothing. Damn it, don't tell me I have to drive back home. I couldn't go back to my office, I live for my boat day. How anybody can live without the hassles and expense of a naked sailboat is beyond me!

Instead, I went to pick up my Plastimo Classic antifouling paint at Luis' shop. Yeah, that's right, I'm going with cheap paint this time. It might be a stupid idea when you calculate the cost of hauling out, but I'm willing to take a chance on being stupid this year. I normally spend big bucks on International's Micron Extra paint and haul out every two or three years...which also entails lots of diving to scrape growth off the hull and propeller, not to speak of sailing slower after the first season no matter how much you scrape. We'll see what works best.