Ft Lauderdale Re-visit

Cape Florida Lighthouse on the tip of Key Biscayne off Miami

We sailed back up to Ft Lauderdale yesterday from No Name Harbor on Key Biscayne. The plan was to leave from Key Biscayme, cross the Gulf Stream and go on to the Bahamas banks on our way to the Exuma island chain in the central Bahamas. But who needs plans? The sail up to Fort Lauderdale was hard on the wind at 20kts, so it was a bit lumpy and bouncy. We made it in about 4 1/2 hours – so it was a fast run. Entering Port Everglades we were greeted by the Sunday afternoon traffic jam.

  There were 6 giant cruise ships taking on passengers and getting ready for their week long run into the Caribbean. These ships look like they giant condominiums. If you turned them on end, they’d fit in fine with the condos along Miami Beach.

This gal was flying off from Biscayne Bay along with us.

So why’d we head back to Fort Lauderdale? This is our Village Marine water maker sitting on the dock after I removed it from deep in the bowels of Georgia. I recently ‘upgraded’ the water maker to the new vessel container and 40in membrane – the blue tube in the picture. After this upgrade I couldn’t get decent water quality out of the beast. I took the unit down to Southeast Power, AKA Village Marine Tec Ft. Lauderdale. The tech there was great and we stuck it on his bench and did thorough bench tests. Well, I now know a lot more about water maker membranes. Turns out the 12v Village Marine units will only work with low-flow membranes, not the standard Dow high flow ones. We switched the membrane to the low-flow type and the water quality was great (TDS 250). Problem solved. Now we have to still wait for a decent weather window to get across the Bahamas.

If you’ve read this far then you surely have too much time on your hands and have a decent Internet connection.

Take a look at this Amazon product for sale. The product isn’t much, but there is hours of reading fun available in the customer reviews at the bottom of the page. http://www.amazon.com/Hutzler-5717-571-Banana-Slicer (Thanks Bill for sharing!)
Paul

Off the Dock at Fort Lauderdale

Georgia laying on the south side of the New River shore in downtown Ft Lauderdale. The building behind is the Nu River Landing, one of the many high-rise condos. We didn’t make it far off the dock today, just down the New River to Lake Sylvia, which is a small lake just off the Intracostal Waterway near Bahia Mar that makes a good place to anchor for the night – and it’s free. We’ll leave early to sail past Miami to Key Biscayne in the morning. Getting off the river wall was a little on the challenging side. We were just east of the draw bridge, the current was pushing east and the wind blowing west. The river looks pretty small when you are trying to get the boat turned around before some monster mega yacht comes by to center punch you. Fortunately I had Chris on board to take care of the stressing out.

We had some good visits with my Dad and sister in Ft Lauderdale. Here’s Dad taking a look at the boat and no doubt making some wise remarks.

Las Olas Blvd is a short walk from the docks. This is an old shopping district that went way down hill when I lived in Florida. It has been revived and is full of high-end shops, restaurants and tourists from all over the world. Here’s a group of Euros taking it easy on the boulevard.

Paul

Rebuilding a Sparcraft Boom Vang

A non-travel blog.
A few pics for anyone who needs to rebuild their Sparcraft vang. The replacement gas shocks are available from Sparcraft. I got mine from http://www.americanriggingsupply.com/ for a reasonable price and quick service.
First step after taking the vang off the boom was to drill out the rivets at the mast end of the vang. On my vang the mast end was riveted and the boom end was screwed. This is apparently somewhat random on these vangs and you may have all rivets or all screws.
Pulled the mast end fitting off. The gas shocks are just held in by pins that easily push out.
Boom end unscrewed with the plastic cap slide up. This is the upper end of the gas shocks showing. They are also pinned in at this end like the lower end is.
The new shocks upper and the old ones lower.
Just in case you want to try and source the gas shocks without going through Sparcraft, here’s the part numbers (click to biggerate).

The vang put back together and now the shocks actually hold up the boom. The repair is quick and pretty easy. The longest time was spent drilling and tapping the lower end piece where the rivets were drilled out. I used machine screws instead of rivets to put it back together.
Paul