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Today we met with David H. our PacCup inspector. He did a thorough job at checking that we met the race requirements, and we passed! The past 4 months of work have paid off. This is a major milestone on our get ready list. There are a few more, not the least being two videos: one of a crew overboard recovery, and the other of us steering with a drogue.

I think I had taken the storm sails out of their bag a while ago but I just couldn’t exactly remember how they looked. There is the trysail, a large storm jib, and a smaller one. For the PacCup we’ll only take the large storm jib with us.

The new sails will soon be ready too. So things are progressing nicely.

After a few adjustments, I think we’re now very close to having a straight mast! Next weekend I’ll ease the port V1 a half turn again and I think we’ll be spot on then.

Last Saturday we also looked into the anchoring situation to ensure that we meet the requirements for the PacCup race. Surprisingly, I would have to say that the French and the Americans may disagree on this topic. I’m assuming that Changabang came equipped with the proper anchoring equipment as required by the Class40 rules. And that doesn’t work for the PacCup.

There are two anchors on CaB, of the same type, one heavy and one light, which should work in sand or mud bottoms. We have 4 links of chain (we forgot to measure its proof/coil size though): 14 ft 2 in, 18.5 ft, 36 ft, 51 ft. This should be plenty to meet the requirements but we were short on 3-strand nylon rope, of which I purchased 200 ft (and a thimble, which I’ll have to splice in).

I also had to purchase a floating lamp for the life sling. I think that’s it for this weekend! Plenty more to do on the engine front …

We learned that a picture helps better determine if the mast is straight, and we discovered it wasn’t as straight as we thought. In an attempt to restore straightness, we eased the starboard D2, which helped, but it’s not perfect yet. So there will be more attempts: easing the starboard D1, taking on the port V1. And if that doesn’t do it then we’ll start from zero.

In the business of small jobs, we also mounted a holder for the Dan Buoy. I serviced the mainsheet and spinnaker sheet port cam cleats (all others had been taken care of already). The spring action wasn’t perfect. I also replaced the D shackle of the mainsail halyard block, which was showing signs of chafe (stainless steel chafing!). I’ve received most of what I need to continue the engine maintenance, so it’s a matter of finding the courage to go through that now. Last weekend we topped up the fuel tank and added a few additives (biocide, injector cleaner)

In addition to being our navigator, Alex is now also our Safety Officer, preparing us for our first round of inspection on 2/3/2024 with David H.

I sold the old standalone GPS for $100 on eBay so that was taken out of Changabang.

Pfew, on Double Espresso, with the old outboard, there was no maintenance that I did. But Changabang’s diesel engine is more demanding. It’s also essential as without it I can’t imagine myself getting out of and into my slip (as I could with Double Espresso). So today I took a day off work to make more progress and:

• Clean the seawater strainer.
• Replace the seawater pump impeller. When inspected the old one had a couple of small cracks.

After I placed orders for oil and coolant: next are the oil change on the sail drive and the coolant flush.

I also replaced one of the two fire extinguishers. The show must go on … The thing that most preoccupies me with the PacCup race is getting to the start line and not being 100% ready. I don’t mean from a sailing skills perspective )as that can always be improved) but from a boat systems perspective.

I explored a couple of other items too:

1. The purchase system to pull down the hydrogenerators: I flipped it and now I can reuse an existing cam cleat instead of installing another one. I also extended one of the lines, which was too short and always a mess to hook to the purchase/tackle. I put anti-chafe tape where the line may be chafing.
2. I explored a new solution to lead the backstay control line to the cabin top winch. It’s pretty straightforward with a line from a toe rail pad eye with a low friction ring deflecting the backstay control line to the winch. I don’t think that winch can take a lot of load but it’s certainly a start.

Moving on …

After the lubrication system, I focused on the fueling system. I replaced the fuel filter and the fuel pre-filter insert today. Next, I’ll have to care for the cooling system, the seawater pump, and the seawater filter.

Yesterday I spent some time in the navigation table removing a few old items and cables. It looks a little tidier in there but it’s still a messy bundle of cables. I also removed the old satellite terminal.

Today with Alex we also started sorting out the liferaft situation. The access door was well shut so we had to cut through the seal and we’ll have to get that repaired. I think we have a good solution now (which was there all along):

1. Open the aft access door to the liferaft compartment;
2. Pull the liferaft out and let it drop into the water;
3. Pull the painter to a cleat if necessary;
4. When ready to board, proceed.

Last, we cleared out a few last hurdles for the safety list of the PacCup and identified what needs to be done. One thing that’s amazing with these events is the number of small things that need to be thought through. It all adds up. Most importantly these things need to be tested at sea. There are still plenty of big things to go through for sure, for example:

• Film a crew overboard recovery sessions.
• Devise an alternative method of steering (drogue?) and test it upwind and downwind.
• Figure out our sail crossover chart.

So we did re-install the Kevlar cables but … the headstay is not tight enough and there is too much tension in the V1 (Alex got a Loos gauge!). So we’ll have to re-do the headstay lashing. Oh, oh, and Alex put the down payment for a new A2 and a new (fancy) jib!

In the small updates category, I replaced the three 12V sockets. This is both preventive maintenance (corrosion possibly damaging these) and an upgrade (replacing two of the cigarette lighter sockets with USB plugs).

I also ventured into diesel engine maintenance today, which proved to be quite hellish. I purchased the parts to replace the oil filter, fuel filter, pre-filter fuel insert, and impeller. I also purchased an oil extractor. So today I proceeded to extract the oil with what proved to be more a toy than a tool. It took almost two hours. Then I tried to twist off the oil filter but it wouldn’t budge. To make a long story short it took three trips to the Nappa store downtown Half Moon Bay to get the right tool (and with traffic, each trip was about 45-60 minutes long). Ultimately, I got the oil filter off and a new one in. So I think that job is done pending leak monitoring over the next few engine runs. So that’s 1 of 5 jobs and it took me 7 hours. At this rate … What’s left is 2 filters, the impeller, and a coolant topping or flushing.

My trip to France was not as successful as I had hoped. The big plan was to get in with the NavTec cables, drop them at the rigger, pick them up on my way back to the airport, and fly back with them. Well, it was a tight plan and it didn’t work. Don’t fret, they were shipped back, and I got them yesterday after a few hooplas with the customs clearance. And here’s the box after a long trip!

Today, with Alex, we put it all back together. As discussed in the previous post, I replaced the chainplate fitting and this will work much better for at least two reasons: one, there isn’t room for chafe; second, if there is chafe it will be visible! As previously, getting enough tension in the headstay took a couple of tries. And I think we may still want it tighter than it is now.

Unless I’m getting taxed for import, the cost will have been less than $5,000 (not including my trip to France) to replace the headstay, the inner headstay, the 2 upper backstays.

There are still quite a few things to do to get ready for the PacCup event so more to come!

I combined visiting my mother with sailing related activities. Monday we were in Locmariaquer visiting with Xavier of Atelier Cables. They were the original riggers of CaB. We may be able to make things work and I may be able to bring the new cables back with me next week. After a very long day we sleep in Quiberon. The next morning I hiked along the Côte Sauvage (like I did two years ago). After that we had lunch with the team at Atelier Cables and discussed things more, in particular how the headstay lashing is being damaged. Originally the fitting was going to be something else but the builder decided against. We’re going back to the original design. It’s ugly and heavy but it should prevent the lashing from fraying. The fitting to the head chainplate is also original so we decided to replace with a new one.

New headstay setup!

On our way back to my mother’s we stopped in Nantes and I spent a couple of hours with François Lucas. The key takeaway was the chart below. In total there should be about 4 cubic meter of reserve buoyancy. It would be good to add more in the back to even out though.

A few months ago we decided to replace the headstay, the inner headstay, and the upper backstays. The plan is to replace them with equivalent NavTex and even re-use the end fittings of these sleeved Kevlar cables. Today we took them down. Alex first sent me up the mast to retrieve the inner headstay and the upper backstays. And then we released the turnbuckles for the D1 and the V1 so that we could remove the headstay lashing. All the while we kept the mast under forward tension using the jib and the spinnaker halyards. We reset the turnbuckles and loaded the inner backstays. I think the mast is well stabilized.

I brought the 4 cables home and fit them in a suitcase to take them back to France, here: https://ateliercables.fr/

While we were there I also charged the batteries a bit and started the engine. It will at least be 3 weeks before we sail again.

Yesterday with Alex, we had a good day working with the masthead code 0 and the gennaker. I was reminded that the gennaker is fractional and requires a swivel at the head; I rigged it masthead, without a swivel. And when I tried to furl it back in, I ended up putting twists in the halyard, which finished to destroy the cover in a couple of places.