We Sold the Boat

I'm a little late posting this, but Nov. 2019 :

We SOLD the Katie Lee!

She is still in Houbihu Marina, Taiwan where the new owner plans to leave her for a while.

He also likes the name and plans to keep it named the Katie Lee.

I bought an old school bus and am converting it to an RV. We seem to be calling it "Da Boat". See the link above.

Tinypilot Installed and Working

Sean's Tinypilot is installed and steered from Okinawa, Japan to Southern Taiwan. I had a number of issues wit the rest of my navigation setup, but the tinypilot steered all the way.

My new Octopus hydraulic steering pump

 I mounted the steering pump on the aft bulhead of the engine room below the water-lift muffler. There was a by-pass valve above. I replaced it with the new hoses. The 3rd hose is the vent and runs up to the wheel steering pump in the binnacle. The power wires run to a 30 Amp fuse on the forward bulkhead of the engine room. The control wires run through the bulkhead to the motor controller on the other side, in the dry, clean area.

Sean's large motor controller

The large motor controller mounted on the outside of the aft bulkhead of the engine room where there is little chance of getting splashed with salt water or worse. On the bottom are the 12volt power wires coming in and the 2 wires to the motor. On the top the serial control cable up to the tinypilot in the cockpit. I had to extend the serial line to about 6 meters. The other wire is the home-brew rudder position sensor under the aft berth next to the rudder post.

Rudder position indicator before installation

The rudder position indicator is just a precision potentiometer tied to the rudder post. The pot is wired as a voltage divider across 5 volts giving an output ranging from 0.1 to 1.1v a 10k pot is probably best. My 5k pot needed resistors added to each side to get the range set.

Keyboard and mouse for OpenCPN and Tinypilot

The tinypilot is double sticky taped in position on the front of the dodger. The serial cable and a USB power supply. I intend to add wire clips screwed to the hatch frame, but haven't finished yet.

Tinypilot and it's remote

 A closer view of the tinypilot display and the Raspberry Pi Zero W under neath. It is currently running in the Access Point (AP) mode. So it needs to listen for UDP broadcast packets and forward the GPS and AIS data to the opencpn computer mounted above.

Opencpn and my Garmin 152H GPS

Opencpn and my Garmin 152H GPS are mounted at the top of the dodger enclosure. I thought they would be safe from wave splashes there. They are, but they white paint reflects a lot of light making them difficult to read in the daytime.

Normally opencn runs on an Orange Pi PC 2, an H5 cpu quad core 64bit ARM chip. But it's SD card memory is failing so I have backup Orange Pi PC Plus, (32bit) and also a Raspberry Pi 3B+ that is new.

In the past I've only run opencpn standalone. But with the Tinypilot I am trying openplotter on the RPI, but I don't have an evaluation of it yet.

We have put the boat up for sale. 19 years of a pretend autopilot, and just now I have ordered parts for a real autopilot! Why did I wait so long?

We have hydraulic steering, which made it difficult to choose a servo-pendulum wind vane for steering, but we did choose a Cape Horn. I put a small tiller pilot on the wind sensor for the Cape Horn and let it be the autopilot. It worked ok for most wind conditions across the Pacific, but that was mostly downwind. It does not steer well if the wind is forward of the beam. Also the little tiller pilots only lasted about 15,000 miles each. That means the current one (the third) is due for failure any time now. Also it was very difficult to set and to disengage. Trinda couldn't manage it. One had to get on course, steer straight then tighten 2 ropes to the wind vane, and pull a cable like a manual choke that disengages the wheel, then activate the tiller pilot.

Therefore, I ordered an electric hydraulic steering pump from the the folks that manufacture most of the pumps for the brands of commercial autopilots. It is the Octopus 2.0 liter/minute 12volt pump.And a few other parts for the boat, like shackles and T-bolts, zincs and a new Mic for the radio.

I ordered a new, custom autopilot control system from https://pypilot.org. It has 2 major components, a course computer and a motor controller. The course computer is based on the small ARM computer boards that I have been playing with recently. It has a totally electronic 9-axis inertia motion sensor instead of the old flux-gate type of electronic compass that were so picky about placement. It can be easily integrated with opencpn, my favorite choice for navigation software.

A big reason for choosing pypilot is, since the boat is for sale and most new owners are very choosy about the brand of instruments, pypilot gets me equal or better features, possibilities for enhancement and does not make the choice of integrated system vendor for any potential buyer. It was also very inexpensive compared to the brand name stuff.

Large motor controller

Course computer consists of keypad,remote, display and IMU and Raspberry Pi Zero W

The pump is heavy duty and draws 6 to 8 amps normally but as much as 22 under stress. That meant I must use the large motor controller from pypilot.

The small motor controller is good for up to 3 amps. Several folks are using an old car windshield wiper motor with it's reduction gear to make their own wheel pilots and tiller pilots. If I can find such a motor I may try for a wheel pilot also. It might use less power when sailing in nice conditions. The small motor controller is in a case like the course computer will be in, only 1.5x2x3 inches.

The next problem was finding a hydraulic supply for the hoses and connectors to install the pump. Having no Japanese didn't help, but I did find one, "Only a 20 minute walk.", says Google maps! They must be young kids!

I did get it installed. The course computer needs to know the position of the rudder to keep from trying to turn past the stops and to adjust for currents and in general. I made a custom rudder position indicator from a precision potentiometer.

I hope to give more progress reports as I finish.

We are getting old!

Sold ! The Katie Lee is for sale!

http://katielee.tcls.com/

Miyakojima Visit

It was a short visit in miyMiyakoj. We really only stopped because of the weather. And the only picture I took is not that much, no view.

Me returning with the laundry

We did have a good time. We met a very helpful Mr. Tomari who is chairman of the miyako Yacht Club. He helped us tie up, let me use his washing machine to catch up and laundry and gave us a ride to town. He even threw a BBQ on hisbohis for us. Trinda has had the flu the whole time here so didn't go. Salad, grilled steak, chicken legs and onions. Very nice.

 The yacht club dock is over 2 miles from town with no transportation except taxis.  We tried to get a taxi to the store but a cruise ship came in and reserved all the taxis for the whole day.

Sailed to Ishigaki

After only 2 years we left Taiwan for Japan. We planned to leave at 7am, but ....

I had started the engine the day before and let it run for 30 minutes to be sure all was ok. But this morning I got no cooling water out of the back! Back to the dock. I thought it might be the impeller in the raw water pump so I took it out to check. About 30 minutes and equivalent bloody scratches and cuts! No problem found. Ok must be the intake hose or through hull valve.

I took off the hose and blew through it. Yes, I was rewarded with a face of cold salt water. I put the hose back to the sea strainer and we took off. Made it to the next dock before it over heated again. Down to look in the engine room. More water in my face. I had not tightened the radiator hose enough. It had slipped off. Easy fix, just put it back and refill the radiator.

Off to catch up with Heinz who had been sailing in circles waiting for us.

Sailing was great the first 8 hours or so. 7.5 to 8 knots by the GPS. We had found the north bound current and a nice breeze on the beam.

But then the wind shifted, the waves got bigger and the current changed. Very slow, uncomfortable trip, hand steering cause the autopilot didn't like the wind angle and bouncing off the walls from the waves.

The engine kept over heating at much above an idle but we made it.

Side tied to Heinz in Ishigaki

I had missed a little when I was putting the engine back together in Taiwan. I used a silicone liquid gasket for the heat exchanger/exhaust manifold and didn't get it on one side enough. It leaked exhaust gas pressure into the radiator. Be so an easy enough fix. I pulled off the flange, cleaned it and re-did it again. Works fine again.

Eating Out in Taiwan

The last few days we have been eating out to much. First at a friend's steak and pizza place, Doju's a couple nights in a row. They are nice kids, Way and Emilie. And several of our friends/acquaintances go there too.

Steak and salad

Then today we went back to the Rock Garden Campground. We had been there several times last year. Nathan makes some nice pizza. Trinda has a J-Boo pizza. Sausage, pepperoni, bacon and ham with lots of cheese. 

Because this is a 4-day weekend they have live bands playing most of the nights. Most of the younger people either rent tents or bring their own and spend the weekend eating, drinking beer and listening to the music. Lots of them also play some instrument.

Also a guy from up island, Hualien, Tw,  brings pulled pork and smoked brisket. We got one each to go, as we are too old to sleep on the ground in a tent. We plan to eat them back home on the boat.

BBQ Brisket on the left and Pulled Pork on the right

On the way back I stopped to take a few pictures of the valley and some dragon fruit plants. They look a lot like cactus.

Katie Lee Gets New Batteries

The house bank of batteries that we bought in the Philippines is failing, so we ordered new 6 volt deep cycle lead acid batteries.

I have not had good luck with batteries. I thought they are supposed to last 5 or 6 years. But I keep having accidents with them. Except this last set. The first one to fail had a shorted cell at only 6 months. A one year warranty replaced it, but then we left the Philippines. No warranty out of the country. At about 14 months 2 more have a shorted cell. Using just using 6 out of the 8 for the past year. Now 2 more have a shorted cell. No accident on this set, they are not good batteries.

Looking back through the log book this is what I found about buying batteries:

May 5, 2006 - ?brand X? - San Carlos, Mx (Tucson, Az) - $65 ea

over discharged several times

Feb 1, 2008 - ?brand X? - Kona, Hawaii - ?? (Had a green label I think)

charger/inverter problems - charged at too high current to much

??? -  US Battery US2200 - (this is what I took out in Johor Bahru)

forgot to fill water as I had stopped using water recovery caps

Mar 5, 2013 - US Battery US2200 - Johor Bahru, My - RM480 ea. -$120 ea

left boat and caretaker put in wrong water

Oct 10, 2016 - Motorlite Golfmaster - Danao, Ph -$100 ea

just defective

Dec 29, 2018 - US Battery US2200 - Hengchun, Tw - NT5468 - $181 ea

I hope they last longer

My battery boxes are under the salon settees, 4 on each side to distribute the weight evenly. After all they weigh around 65 pounds each. Moving 8 batteries out and 8 more in is just less than a 1000 pounds for this old tired body. I haven't got them all up to the edge of the dock yet!


The old batteries in the boxes: Port  and Starboard

New

Installed:

Port Settee

Starboard Settee

After a week they are doing well.

Hardware Stores in Taiwan

A friend asked me what hardware stores look like here. So I thought I'd post a couple of pictures of them. First, here is the plumbing store where I bought the kitchen and bathroom fixtures. It is a small shop but it has most of the things necessary. They did have to order the kitchen one, but it only took a couple days.

Hengchun Plumbing Store

Next are two shots of the hardware that has tools, bolts, hose, some paint, etc. They are very typical of SE Asian Chinese stores. They all spill out on the sidewalk in front. They are narrow, as if store front was taxed by the width but very deep.

Hengchun Hardware Store outside

There actually is a second isle to the left, but only accessible by the owner and he is thin!What appears to be the back end of the isle is only the first segment. There are 3 or 4 more parts of the store going way back. Big bolts, rope and plastic hose are in the next segment and cement, fencing, etc. next. I haven't been all the way to the back. You can just see the owner leaning back into the isle just before the aluminum ladder.

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The one isle

I bought a pair of medium channel lock pliers today for about $9 USD, so no great price break on good tools. I don't remember any other prices, but cheap China stuff is cheap, but USA/Australian is not.

A little boat maintenance, facuits

Just finished installing a new fixture for the shower. Of course it's for a boat so I had to create it from stainless plumbing parts.

New kitchen faucet installed and ready to go. Even hot water in the hot side! Only 12 years to get it. (Reminds me of Snuffy Smith.) But we didn't have a hot water heater most of that time. I left the tap on the right cause it's filtered water.

We went to Taiwan

I should do a real post, but we are in Taiwan now. Having fun and eating!

Not My Dog

When we arrived here there were new puppies from a yard dog. Trinda and son=me of the other girls started feeding and messing with them. Pepe took one home to his house fior a guard dog. Another cruiser took this one down to the vet for neutering and shots. But no one claims the black dog.

He is friendly and nice, loves attention and has even learned a few tricks. Hi-five is the worker boys favoriet trick with him. They normally completely ignore dogs, but since we domesticated this one they all like him.  BUT me!

Blackie - alias: Not My Dog

We are back to painting again. Maybe the last coat of primer before the glossy white and non-skid on the deck.

Every coat of paint or varnish has come with the muddy foot prints of a certain black dog, Blackie, also known as "Not my dog!". He is sure Trinda is going to feed him as soon as the paint compressor stops.

The not so dog proof barrier.

At first just the lower of the Styrofoam blocks was enough to deter him a while. But he soon learned to wiggle underneath. A bungee tied across the top stopped that.  Just to be replaced by carefully jumping over and landing on the narrow catwalk to the boat.

The first iteration of the double Styrofoam only lasted till the tide went out. The end of the catwalk came up and pushed the stack over.

Today the stack is well tied and with a bungee too. But a little rain, thunder and lightning, I don't have high hopes for a clean deck in the morning for the first coat of finish paint.

Bike Accident in Philippines

Motorcycle trip to town (Cebu, 35km away) today. Greg noticed his front tire needed air, so we drove kinda on the shoulder at about 40 kph. Instead of our usual 60kph, dodging tricycles and jeepney/minivans.

We got about 11 kilometers away. Greg noticed a gas station on the left so slowed to make a left turn into it. A couple on small bike had deciced we were too slow so was in the process of passing me (over-taking they say) and didn't notice Greg slowing to turn. He had his signal on and slowed enough to put a foot down when they hit his rear tire and lost control. Crash! Including faceplant and really messed up little finger. No helmet, shoes, gloves, long pants, jackets or brains, or even attention. He was talking to his wife/other on the back when he hit Greg's tire. He first thought about passing in the on-coming traffic lane, then changed his mind to go behind him. Indecision is a bitch. The highways are full of flat squirrels!

Greg pulled on into the station, I pulled on to the right side a while then into the station too. The other guy sat in the street crying and his wife hugging him and crying too till the police and the ambulance came. He did have road rash around his eye, arm and his little finger looked bad. His bike was not very damaged, only cosmetic and the mirror. After a while more telling their story in filipino, they were off in the ambulance to see about his hang nail.

The police asked Greg to follow them to the station in Compestella. I followed too. They took a statement and the said to wait. The chief sat with his phone and dual ear-phones on the whole time, only taking them out to talk to another officer in Filipino occasionally. Sometimes talking to us and sometimes to the mic on the headset. He did come out and inspect the bikes and asked how it happened. He pointed out the scuff mark on Greg's rear finder as the only place the other bike had hit. From behind. We talked about the lack of training and following of traffic rules here some.

After an hour or so I got tried and asked if there was something I could do. "No, go on." was all I got. So I went on to town and did the shopping Greg and I had planned. He was released, without drivers license a couple hours later.

I went ahead and shopped for both of us and then started home. After I passed Compestella, two of the first officers, on a bike started to pass and recognized me. I stopped and waved them over to ask about Greg. But they asked first about his phone number. Seems they neglected to get it. Then they asked me to call him and request he return to the station for the investigation, as the 'victim' had been released from the hospital and was at the police office.

I headed on toward home, but when I saw Greg, he asked if I would come back to the police office, as a witness for his side. I had Big Mac's for friends (that haven't learned that McDonald's will make you fat) getting cold, but I turned around and went back with Greg.

The other guy, the 'victim', had brought his English speaking daughter who pretended to know all about the accident. The chief told her several times to stop talking and sit, as she wasn't a witness. The victim did a good act of drugged and in pain. I noticed the officer also had a large scar on his forehead from a past accident, most likely on a bike.

He drew chalk marks on his desk describing the hyway. Then produced two toy cars and two motorcycles and asked each of us to show the accident. Of course Greg and I had one version, but they had a different one. Their's did not match the damage to the bikes though. After an hour of this we went outside, positioned the bikes in the parking lot and went through it again. It was obvious the chief favored Greg's story. Back inside he lectured the victim about how one is supposed to make a left turn across the traffic and what the vehicles behind are supposed to do, about 10 times. His wife still didn't get it.

Finally he got out the drivers licenses and pushed them across the desk. Then he asked about the hospital costs. They said more than 10,000 pesos, but couldn't produce a receipt. He finally suggested Greg offer 4000P even though he was not at fault. Greg agreed. But he only had 3000. Young daughter piped up with "His friend should loan the rest."

I said "Hell no! You follow too close, don't wear the required helmet, shoes, etc don't pay attention and rear-end someone, get hurt, YOU are liable for the damages!" The chief told me to loan Greg the money. OK. We left.

All finished, no future obligations, the officers remember my name... Probably a good thing.

The foreigner has money and will always pay, even when right. Just less than $100 USD, and no damage to the bike, but ruined a shopping day in the big city. I have been wishing for a dash cam. It would have come in handy today, if I had looked the right direction at the right time. But it might have shown how quickly Greg changed his mind about turning left at the station too.

Update on the New Stove

I never did post a picture of the finish installed new stove. We have used it a lot and obviously have gotten it dirty already. The gimbal seems to work OK. There is not much room for it though. We'll have to wait till we are sailing to find out for sure.

The thermostat for the oven works good. But the painted on temperature settings have rubbed off already. Thats OK though, cause they were in Centigrade and didn't help that much. I have bought a digital thermometer for it, but haven't had time to install it yet.

The white cord going up the back is for a 12volt to 220volt inverter to run the oven light, rotisserie motor and the spark igniter for the burners.

The stainless bar across in front of the knobs is there to keep you from falling onto the stove when the boat rocks. The companion way steps behind give a convenient rest on the opposite side. It makes the kitchen a cozy one person affair.

When we lowered the shelf below the stove to let it sit at counter level it made it pretty low. Trinda decided it needed to be a pullout drawer so she could reach it.. $20 materials and a week and a half for two guys makes a $150 drawer. But it is white inside so you can see the pots. Ha ha ha. And it rolls out nice. It really didn't need to be 1/2" fiberglass to hold those little pots.

Trinda's Birthday

We had dinner out for Trinda's birthday. The banner was quite a surprise. She wanted crispy pata, which is a local specialty. It is a pork leg, boiled till tender. Then deep fried till the skin is crispy. It is actually pretty good.

Of course she blew out the candles on he cake. Not like they were all there....

We made a "Key Lime Pie" but with a recipe adapted for the local limes, called calamanse. They are smaller than key limes and maybe a little sweeter. It took more than 40 to get the required 1/2 cup of juice. But it was well worth it!

New Hard Dodger for the Katie Lee

We are making progress I guess. The new dodger is taking shape. I hope it is not too big. We wanted more shade and protection form the rain.

Oh, ignore the dates, the camera is confused and I can't fix it. This is still 2016!

You may also notice the hull is not so dark green as before. Not to worry, this awful color is only primer. However we have not picked the final color, or even the scheme. We both want to stick with a green, but light pastel or medium bright green are the extremes. I plan to paint the trim teak with an epoxy paint a contrasting color. Thinking about a deep maroon which reminds me of the teak, or a dark forest green. Still taking suggestions about the space on the side above the rub rail that used to be teak. Should it be darker, lighter or the same color as the rest? The deck and cabin-top will remain bright white as before.

A New Range

I'm sure you all have heard us grip about the stove. I broke the oven thermostat so it is very difficult to set a temperature. And the burner caps have rusted away so the flame doesn't come out right. Also the thermocouple for the small burner quit so it will not stay lit. Not to mention it is a little dirty. Was a Force10, new in 1998, burners obsolete in 2001. An it wouldn't cook a cake or bread without a couple fire bricks in the oven to stabilize the temp.

1998 Force 10

I searched everywhere and finally chose this one. An Ariston apartment model. Very few stoves this size have the safety thermocouple for each top burner. We have to have it for the boat because the wind often blows out the fire. And we don't want to explode....

On the show room floor

Rear view

It does have one minor problem though, it is about 8 inches too tall! The width and depth are just fine. That fancy glass top/cover will not fit either. The electric cord coming out the back is for the spark lighter, oven light and rotisserie. BUT it is for 220volts... Well I'll figure something out. Rotisseries are just a clever way to burn grease all over the oven!

The drawer below is for storing extra pots and pans, don't need that. Tin snips should take care if the height issue.

The two stoves have been sitting on the settee for the past week. When I cut the bottom drawer off, the stove was still 3 inches too tall.

Sharing parts. Waiting on the settee.

The "hob rack" (didn't know that was what it is) for the new stove is a conventional black iron grill that slides around even on shore. I took the grill off the old stove and mounted where the fancy glass top was. Now the pot holder brackets will fit too. Moving the gimbal mount brackets was easy too, just bolts in the sheet metal sides.


 So Temmy is lowering the bottom shelf under the stove so it will fit.

Removing the stainless steel liner on the shelf below the stove.

Almost done, but not quite.

Bike Trip to Comotes Islands

We took a bike trip to Comotes Islands with Greg & Grace and George & Jean. We only stayed one night in a hotel, so the girls said we didn't stay long enough. Everyone wants to go back again and stay longer.

We drove pretty much laa around one of the islands, but only a little on the second.

A lookout point

We anchored for the day there 4 years ago with the boys from Drydock.

Lunch at an American Bistro?