SV Cascadia

After two years away from the bookstore, I finally fell back into reading every day in 2021. As of October 1, I had over 60 books under my belt this year. Audiobooks make up the bulk of them because I can work on noisy and/or mindless boat projects and read at the same time.  This list includes every book I finished this year, in order of completion. I often have more than one book going at a time. Sometimes I'll download the library e-book of something I'm reading in paper so I can carry it with me or read in bed without turning on the light.   I enjoyed some of these more than others, but all of them were worth seeing through to the end.  Reminder! libro.fm sells DRM-free audiobooks and supports the independent bookstore of your choice. Buying through them means a portion of your purchase price stays in your community, and another portion supports a small company in Seattle. Subscription is the way to go, but you can also buy individual titles without a membership...

"Where should we eat?" This question recently prompted a firehose of recommendations via text. Spreadsheet to the rescue! Most places on the list are in Puget Sound, but there are a few entries for Las Vegas, Portland, and other cities. Our favorite grocery stores and other markets for comestibles are also included. Have we missed your favorite place? Want to know if we've tried something? We are always happy to share our opinions about food and drink! World class lamination at Saboteur Bakery in Bremerton, WA.

  Getting towed to Port Townsend for haulout Coming into Port Townsend mid-evening We are onto the next stage of getting ready for the next stages. Cascadia  is in Port Townsend awaiting haulout. We will be in Boat Haven to finish re-powering, re-wiring, re-rigging, re-modeling, re-everything-ing.  Port Townsend and Boat Haven are more amazing than we ever imagined. As we were getting towed into dock, we were greeted by loads of boat tenants, invited to check out their similar installations. And then, two slips away was another Formosa 46, SV Grace !  We will be landlubbing for the next six months, so that we can tear into boat projects without having to worry about clearing a space to cook dinner and sleep. Stay tuned...

Decades ago, as a ski bum in Colorado,  I cooked breakfast at the Crooked Creek Saloon ("Eat  'til it hurts,  drink 'til it feels better").  I ended most shifts with an enormous breakfast burrito,  and to this day I veer toward the breakfast burrito on almost any menu. I always hope to encounter a magical mountain of crispy griddled red potatoes, scrambled eggs, and savory black beans, wrapped in a tortilla and smothered in green chili,  melted cheddar,  sour cream,  and guacamole.  Like most food memories,  this one is intertwined with my nostalgia for that place and time; it exists only in my brain, forever out of reach. This green chili only vaguely resembles the vegetarian version we served there,  but it scratches the itch for me.  I have no idea how this compares to any other green chili, authentic or not,  but it was delicious.  I'm putting it here because I'll want to make it again.  Vegetarians could sub...

Here's where things get interesting. This is Part 3 of our engine removal. Another way to preface this is: "If it ain't one thing, it's every other damned thing." Part 1: Towards Electric Drive Part 2: Removing a Large Engine While in the Water Surprise! Churn What I Would Have Done Differently The gantry has proven itself well. It pulled everything thus far with no creaks or groans. Now to test lifting the engine! Here we are testing it all out. No groans or creaks. The gantry is solid and performing as expected. Surprise ! And then... this. Well. Shit. The crack doesn't look so bad because the engine has been put back down on the stringers. We overbuilt the gantry beam. Two 2x6 fir beams should have been sufficient, so of course we used two 2x8 beams through-bolted so they behave as one beam. It turns out that materials capacity tables can't take into account defective materials. One of the 2x8 beams snapped at a knot on the bottom of the board. Fortunat...

This is Part 2 in our adventures in repowering our sailboat with electric drive. Based on questions and feedback, this is going to be long. I try to keep the detail relevant to people who may want to do this themselves. We are happy to answer any questions that arise. Part 1, "Towards Electric Drive" is here. Part 3. "Actual Engine Removal" is here. The Problem(s) The Planning The Execution The Problem(s) All of that is coming out. All of it. Most of the time, we get to stand on the shoulders of sailors that did something before we did. Most sailors don't have a Large Diesel Engine they are trying to remove in an unconventional way. There is some information out there on removing engines from boats, but they all involve smaller engines or a boatyard and large crane. We had a few problems to solve. Working on your house while you live in it is always a tile puzzle game. Even more so on a boat. The overarching problem is: we need to lift Large Diesel Engi...

This is Part 1 in a long journey. Part 2: "Removing a Large Engine While in the Water" Part 3. "Actual Engine Removal" is here. Background Why What Background I wanted electric drive since my first sailboat. The voltage regulator in that boat died because the previous owner just dropped in AGM batteries while using the same internal voltage regulator. This can be a non-issue if AGM batteries are never deeply discharged. But I discharged the batteries to 60% on a long sail. AGM batteries can accept up to 50% Amps (A) of the Amps-hours (Ah) removed. For example, if 500Ah were taken out, the batteries will gladly gulp down 250A when the alternator gets energized. AGM batteries require a a regulator designed for the charge profile of that chemistry. Just slap on a new Balmar with an external regulator and call it done, right? Wrong. What was a "simple" $1000 replacement quickly ballooned to $3500 and four months because of other issues, custom fab, a...