Tahoe Jack wrote:Hey ....I strongly recommend reading Chinook's excellent Alaskan trip diary! See his link earlier in this thread. Very interesting and well written.
Sure would be interested in some of your gear choices....e.g. number and sizes of fuel tanks, water system, GPS preferences, etc. Ground gear...e.g. how much chain. Also, how effective is your 3.5hp kicker as a get-to-port solo power source...what speed, will it handle a bit of wind or rougher water, etc.
Jack
Hi Jack,
Glad you enjoyed the diary. We've got my son to thank for pulling all the e'mails and digital photos on cd's together and producing the website.
Regarding gear, we set up as follows:
Fuel tanks: We bought the boat with a pair of 12 gallon tanks, set in the usual cockpit fuel tank lockers. They slip in with just a little trimming, but you need to install round access plates in the cockpit seats above the tank fill caps in order to reach the caps and fill the tanks. Fuel hose nozzles just do fit into the hole and reach the tank openings. We knew 24 gallons wouldn't be enough for the distances involved in SE AK (160 nm between fuel docks in a couple of instances along our intended route). I decided to carry a pair of 5 gallon plastic fuel cans, but the problem was stowage. I didn't want to be stumbling over them for 3 months. I ended up fitting a platform on the aft deck area, under the steering seat and above the steering arms for the outboard. I used components to an outdoor plastic deck system, which snap together. It was tricky maintaining clearances for the steering arms and allowing full tilt for the 50 hp ob, but it worked. It made stepping aboard through the stern a lot easier (no tubes to dodge with feet, and also provided enough flat surface on the port side (the side where the steering seat hinges) to accomodate a pair of upright style fuel cans. I installed eyelets and secured them with bungees, over the top and around the sides. Very secure, and I could fill them in place at the fuel dock. I was also able to slip a pair of 2.5 gallon plastic gas cans under the steering seat without getting in the way of feet. Finally, I carried a 1 gallon plastic can which I used for mixed gas for the kicker. This was usually strapped in the dinghy, which we trailed for most of the trip. I didn't like the idea of carrying more gas than that in the dinghy.
Water system: I never cared for the 5 gallon plastic jug system: too small, and too hard to fill. I spotted a design for installing a rigid plastic tank with external fill on the mod pages of this website. Don't know if it's still described, but I followed the description and it worked out great. I was able to fit (barely) a 9 gallon tank into the space, port side, between the forward galley base cabinet and the access cover under the port settee cushion. The fill line then snakes along the ballast tank under the galley, under the battery box, through the bilge under the king berth, and eventually up into the head cabinet under the sink and eventually up through the starboard gunnel toward the front of the cockpit, with a standard screw top water fill fitting finishing it off. It took almost 20 feet of heavy flex water line (2" I think) to make the connection, and was like wrestling an anaconda to install, but I love it every time I fill. I can see the water level rise through the translucent wall of the tank while I fill. I kept the 5 gallon jug for the head faucet, which doesn't get as much use. I installed a nice stainless verticle hand pump which works much better than the stock plastic rocker pump, and I also hooked up an electric pump to the same faucet, controlled by a pull switch. For big pots we run the pump. It's a nice setup. I also brought along a pair of spare 5 gallon collabsible jugs, but only filled one of them occasionally. We carried our backpack filter along incase we had to use stream water, but never needed it. We are very careful in our water use. We chose to use paper plates and bowls, so as to reduce dish washing needs. I usually went ashore each morning and burned the burnable trash below high tide. This saved water and kept trash accumulation to a managable level.
GPS: We use a Garmin 188, which is a combination chartplotter and depth sounder. That gives both instruments on a single screen, which I like for the small space available. I stowed a handheld GPS with spare batteries in a ditch bag for backup. I had chartbooks covering the route as far as Cape Caution, just across Queen Charolette Sound, but didn't see good chartbooks for the area further north. The marine atlas was too small in scale and hard to read. I ended up purchasing Maptech CD's for coastal BC and for SE Alaska. I spent much of last winter planning out the route, and I printed out chart pages for the planned route. I was able to connect my Garmin to the computer and load up waypoints for the route, and I drew them onto the paper charts. It was quite a project, but a nice way to spend the winter. The pages were slipped into plastic sleeves for protection from rain and spray and assembled into 3 ring binders (it took 4 binders to cover the entire 2100 mile route). I cross referenced the pages so they worked just like a chartbook, and I always had the paper charts with me in the cockpit. The waypoints were all loaded into the Garmin, and appeared with the generalized map of the world which comes with the unit. I had our laptop set up down on the table below, running on an inverter, and wired into the Garmin on the pedestal. The Maptech CD's were loaded onto the laptop, and the GPS connection allowed our boat to show position on the laptop. The pages advanced as we proceeded, and I could see the screen quite well from the steering position. I could see our track, and could zoom in when we had to maneuver into tight spots, which we tended to do a lot of.
Ground gear: I installed an anchor roller on the bow (our 2002 model has the running lights on the pulpit railing, which simplifies installation of a roller. I'd been using a Hydrobubble plow type anchor as my primary anchor, with 20 feet of chain and 200 feet of nylon rode, and started this trip that way. On the way to Prince Rupert I had a lot of trouble hooking. Hard cobbly bottoms and 30 to 40 foot anchoring depths. I saw a lot of boats with Bruce anchors, and picked one up in Rupert. It made a huge difference. I set it up in place of the plow, which I stowed below. In addition to the Bruce, I carry a Fortress Guardian danforth type with 15 feet of chain and 150 feet of line. With the Bruce secured on the roller, I can carefully flake its rode plus the Fortress and its rode all in the anchor locker. It's tight but it works, and they're both out where needed. Only inconvenience is having to lift the Fortress out of the way when I anchor, but I bungee it together so I don't create a mess. On advice of the Hales, who publish Waggoners for this area, I set up a 500 foot poly stern tie line for shore tieing. I used a plastic hose reel from a hose cart. Tore it apart, threw the cart away and salvaged the reel. I was able to attach a plastic pipe extension to the hub of the reel which fit into my Perko fishing rod holder. Quite handy for paying out the line and cranking back in. Only had to use it once, in Desolation Sound where I couldn't get the anchor to hook and ended up running bow and stern lines to shore across the mouth of a tight little cove.
Kicker to port: The 3.5 is a great dinghy motor for our 10 foot porta bote and it also does a good job from its swing down stern mount as a trolling motor for the big boat. I lock it in position and steer with the rudders down. It can push us along at around 4 knots with no current, light to no wind, and relatively smooth water. However, in much of SE you have currents of 3 to 4 knots, occasionally much faster. At full throttle it uses a fair amount of gas, and it uses an integral rather than external tank. It's more of a psychological kicker for the Mac than a real aid. In an exposed location with 30 or 40 miles to go, I wouldn't like to be relying on it. Still, it feels good seeing it back there.
Happy sailing, Mike Cecka
