Putting Boatnumberplates.com on our dinghy....

We bought a dinghy a while back for the S/V NiSe, and carried it with us as we moved on to the CarolMarie.   The dinghy is an inflatable Compact RIB-310 made from PVC material, and branded by WestMarine.  The dinghy has severed us well over the last couple of years.  The only problem with the inflatable dinghies is the ability to put the state registration numbers on them.   I first tried the Hardline Products 3" vinyl registration letters and numbers from WestMarine.  They didn't stay on through the season.  The following year a friend gave me a set of boards for the registration numbers that he made from a polycarbonate sign.  He had fastened strings through them to tie them onto the sides of the dinghy.  I bought a new set of vinyl letters and applied them to the sign.  It didn't take long (2 times out with the dinghy on 4th of July 2013) before the broke in half.

So when the time came around this December to register the dinghy again I took a trip to WestMarine to pick up the Boatnumberplates.com coupon.  The coupon gives you a special number to log onto the website to order the product.  I had selected a couple of upgrades once on the website including high end adhesive and the plates with the boats name on them.  The coupon is shown below.

I ordered it all last week, then went to Toronto on business.  When I came back waiting at the door, was the name plates.

The instructions were very clear and easy to follow, coiled up with the name plates in the box.  We first laid out the plates upside down with coffee mugs on them to weigh them down.  Since they were shipped in a box there were coiled up and needed to be flattened out again.

Once they were flatten out the hard part came next.  The dinghy had been on the boat for the last 20 months or so.  We'd kept it clean and covered, but the instructions said to apply the plates at least 65oF or above out of direct sunlight.   In Oregon keeping out of direct sunlight is easy enough because of all the rain, but getting it to be 65oF in February is another matter all together.  We went down in the sleet and freezing rain to pull the dinghy home.  We washed it under the carport, and let it dry in the garage.  Once dried we brought it into the spare bedroom deflated and reflated it.

You can tell a true sailor by what he uses the spare room for; can't you?

Once inflated we let the dinghy come up to room temperature over night.  With the thermostat right outside the spare bedroom door we knew the room temperature to be 70oF.

The next step was to clean the application areas with acetone. We used make up pads to apply the acetone in order to control where it was to be applied precisely.  We didn't want the acetone to get near the glued sections of the tubes.  We let the acetone evaporate for 10 minutes before proceeding.

The next step was to pull off the top of the backing off the name plate.

Then we positioned the name plate in the right area, then removed the second half of the backing material.

Smoothing out all the bubbles, was the second to the last step in the process.  The name plates quickly adhered to the PVC tubes of the dinghy, and don't allow for much working time to position them.  They conformed very well to the curvature of the tubes and stuck solidly on to the surface.

The final step was in the application of the registration sticker from the state.

Once we were done it dawned on me that I didn't follow the instructions exactly.  The registration sticker should be to the inward side of the dinghy, not forward as shown.

The Boatnumberplates.com products were easy to apply.  My wife and I actually had a fun morning do it this weekend.  The dinghy now is also associated with the boat, which I hear in Mexico is a good thing.  Many dinghies I hear are stolen there and having your name of the dinghy helps identifying it later.

Spring Commissioning - Getting Masters MMC Credentials - Captain with no crew

Busy week doing boat stuff this week.  First, with Jim from S/V Ranidan I finished my coursework for the Ship Master's License of less than 100 tons, Sailing Aux. and towing credentials.  My next step is to turn it all into the US Coast Guard Offices next week.

On a separate note this is the teaser weather in Oregon.  Every year in Oregon, in mid to let February we get two weeks of nice brisk spring weather with no rain. After that two week period, the rain comes, and doesn't leave until July.  I call it the teaser weather; because that's when the local companies will invite job candidates out to Oregon for interviews.  This Sunday it looked like we might just have that teaser weather. 

Just like Ishmael in Moby Dick, I could take it no longer and sent out a call for crew.  I got no reply, to my call for crew.  I put the sails in the car, (storing them in the garage for the winter) and headed to the marina to bend them on.  Of course my good friend Jim was already there, willing to help.   We bent on the main and the jibs.

Jim and I trek'ed over to Westmarine to pick up a pre-paid coupon for BoatNumberPlate.com.  The dinghy needed renewal stickers this year, and these guys have a great way to get the registration numbers on the PVC tubing to stick.  Their solution is this nice piece of printed PVC rubber with the numbers on it.  When I got home from the day I ordered them on line.  The process was easy; stay tuned to learn more about how they go on.

Snow and Ice Bound - Winter of 2014

Yesterday looking out from my home office window I noticed a woman skiing on the street.  Not unusual for some parts of the world but uncharacteristic winter weather for us.  It rarely snows in Portland, and when it does the entire city shuts down.

My good friend Jim from S/V Ranidan emailed last night saying he was going to brave the weather and go out the marina.  He graciously asked if I'd like to join him.

When we got to the marina, the scene was from something out of the TV show Deadliest Catch. The marina had frozen over with one to two inch thick ice surrounding every boat in the marina.  Hefty amounts of snow burden most of the boat causing them to lay lower in the water, except of course S/V Ranidan.

Ranidan sat higher up out of the water then usual.  Jim came to the conclusion it was due to the density of colder water increasing.  I think it was because he had a really nice Sunbrella Boat cover that kept most of the snow off his boat, while everyone else's was laden with snow and ice.

After helping Jim brush the snow off his boat cover I went over to shovel the snow off the CarolMarie.

Ice and packed snow had blocked the scuppers, which needed to be clean out as well.

 So off to work I went, shoveling the snow off the boat.

 We are expecting another two to twelve inches of snow and ice pellets before the weather warms on Sunday to 41oF.  I am expecting another trip out to the marina tomorrow just to ensure we don't have any problems.

More armchair winter sailing...

While sitting in yet another meeting at work I have found that I can actually enjoy looking at other ships crossing the oceans of the world.

I recently pulled down an app, for free, then later paid the updated services of Boat Watch.  Boat Watch is an app on the mac that tracks and plot ships based on their AIS transceivers.   Boat Watch is from PocketMariner.com.  They have basically color coded each of the types of water craft reporting an AIS signal so you can pin point them in the chart.  Here's what the legend looks like:

They don't seem to really differentiate the Sailing vs Pleasure craft.  I have seen a couple of pleasure craft that were sailing but labeled as pleasure.  I guess that doesn't really matter too much.  

Here's a look at the projection on the Columbia River Bar near Astoria, Oregon. 

The boats with circles on are at anchor.   Here's another screen shot of San Francisco.  In this screen shot you actually see the velocity vectors of each ship underway.

Boat Watch is a nice app to watch while you're sitting in a window less cubical, wishing you were out on the water underway.   I can at least dream about voyaging through the eyes of others.