Norwegian Steam: Noon Report -- Kauai

Monday, July 16, 2012

Noon Report -- Kauai - Neah Bay, Day 4

I got very little sleep last night. The small (800 gph) bilge pump ran almost continuously and I kept mulling over worst case scenarios in my mind. This is an issue I wrote about before. During the Mexico to Hawaii passage,I was afraid that NS was being sunk by water coming in around the anchor in her bow. At that time, I stuffed foam and rags around the place where the anchor chain entered the boat and had convinced myself that this helped, at least a little bit.

Eventually, my troubled mind came up with some positive steps. I opened the floor panel that gives access to the deepest part of the bilge, turned off the pump and observed. Water accumulated over a 10 minute period, but not a lot. I then turned the pump back on and continued to observe. The pump took an inordinate amount of time emptying the bilge, starting and stopping repeatedly. I then realized that I had been on the wrong tack. The amount of water was not the problem. The inefficiency of the pump setup was.

The small pump is supposed to get the bilge as dry as possible. It is a submersible pump and is installed at the very lowest point. It is controlled by a submersible electronic switch with two water sensors, one above the other. When water is detected by the upper sensor, the pump turns on. When water is no longer detected by the lower sensor, it turns off. There is some additional sophistication that involves timeouts or delays. I had installed the switch just a little above the intake to the pump and this worked very well in a marina, keeping the bilge as dry as possible. I realized that was not working very well in a boat at sea. This morning I reinstalled the switch about five inches above the pump intake. That seems to have solved the problem. Now the pump is running only a small percentage of the time.

We are still sailing north under double-reefed main and the staysail hoisted on the headstay. This seems to be working very well, even when the wind gets light for short periods of time or stronger during rain squalls.

At UTC 2200, July 16, 2012, we are at 29 37.920 N, 159 39.977 W. Our day's run was 120 miles.

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1 comment:

UnknownJuly 17, 2012 at 1:44 PM
"A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for."
-William Shedd
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Norwegian Steam, the vessel

Norwegian Steam is the name of our 35' sailboat. She was designed by Ted Brewer. About 40 hulls were constructed by Miller Marine on Bainbridge Island, Washington between 1976 and the early 1980s. It is rumored that additional hulls were constructed in eastern Canada. Because many of these boats were completed by owners, there is a very great diversity in the fleet. To learn more about the basic design, you can find information about Ted's Jason design on his web site.

NS was completed by Alan with the help of friends, some of them professionals, over many years. She has been sailing since 2001. She differs from most (perhaps all) other instances of the Jason design in that her mast is 6 feet taller and she is rigged as a racing cutter, with large overlapping staysail. This rig design was inspired by the work of John Illingworth, the great English yacht designer and sailboat racer.

Norwegian Steam, the name

The phrase, Norwegian steam, may originally have been somewhat pejorative. When a vessel was powered by sails or by oars instead of by a steam or diesel engine, it was said to be powered by "Norwegian steam", the implication being that the Norwegians were so poor they could not afford engines for their boats. As time passed, the Norwegians themselves adopted the phrase to indicate a "can-do" attitude or doing whatever it takes to get the job done, even with limited resources or under adverse circumstances.

During the great era of America's Cup racing in J-Class yachts, the term took on a slightly different meaning. Many of the American defender boats had Norwegian crews and thus were said to be powered by Norwegian steam. A website has been dedicated to this bit of history.