Bow ladder and the other stainless tuning

Last year, we were cruising the whole season on our famous dam Orlík on the river Vltava. It's very deep with steep shores so the most common way of anchoring preferred by local freshwater rats is to drop anchor from the stern slowly approaching the shore with the bow. This way you don't have to retract the centerboard, rudder or the outboard motor, like when dropping the anchor from the bow and reversing to the shore.

Example of anchoring with the stern first

This maneuver with bow first can be done easily single handed, however you suppose to have some kind of ladder on the bow or bowsprit.

Example of anchoring on Orlík with bow first, near the castle Zvíkov

The boat on the left is using the kind of add-on foldable ladder to the bowsprit. This is good, but you have to store it in the anchor locker after every use.
The other advantage of this type of anchoring is, that you can reach the shore with dry feet.

A good friend of mine David, lent me his add-on ladder to test it and it was working perfectly.

Foldable add-on ladder test

So was decided to add some foldable ladder to the bowsprit permanently for an easier manipulation.
After many hours of checking the various ladders found on the internet, I've found these 210mm narrow, 3 step telescopic ladder from Osculati article #49.541.23.
At first I wanted to bolt it somehow from the top of the bowspirt, but found it bad with too many edges for bare feet and it would collide with the anchor.

Ladder on the top of the bowsprit

Final decision then was to weld it bellow the bowsprit tubing. I've cut the hinges to the shape of the existing tubing and added a small piece of 3mm thick stainless strip as a reinforcement near the bolts.

Modified flange

Then asked the local welder to weld it under the bowsprit and this is the final product.

Welding from bellow

When retracted, it's also usable for boarding from marina pier

Simon was the testing monkey

There is a little flex on the ladder itself, but there is no problem holding me (84 kg) with no flexing on the ladder flange or the bowsprit itself.
The last thing is to add some line to it for easy retraction when standing on the bow, but this has to be tested once on the water.

When I had the TIG welder on the place, I prepared him some more work.
The factory anchor roller is mounted on the plates under the bowsprit which has a pretty sharp edges. I've tried to file the edges a bit, but still chafing the anchor line. So I've fabricated the 4mm thick rods chafe guards and welded them to the front edge of the roller plates.

Anchor roller chafe guards

The last update was to replace the railing clamps for the addition lifelines ends and gennaker sheet blocks with the stainless steel rings. They were created from 5mm thick rod winded around 11mm tubing, then cut with the angle grinder and flattened.

Welded rings for the stern lifelines

Welded rings for the gennaker sheets block

Finally polished everything and one more job finished.

Adriatic sea - Croatia 2016

In the year 2016 we went again to the Adriatic sea with our little boat. This time we were fortunate enough and found new friends - Jirka and Stana with the same boat Phobos 21 called "Lente" and their two kids Luky and Verca. They are great sailors and Jirka is also a good writer, so he wrote a great report from this trip on the pages of Krasa Jachtingu.

I know I'm posting this a little bit late, but I was a little busy doing other stuff, mainly demolishing the garage to be able to get the boat from the distant yacht club onto our property.

Anyway the trip was fine, everything has been working without any issue. The weather was very hot and we had sunny days expect like three days at the end of the vacation, when we were hit by a strong local NE wind called Bora. The maximum gusts we were able to measure was around 47 knots.
I've tried to sail under these conditions when the Bora was getting weaker after after 3rd day, but these winds are just too much to sail on just a piece of genua.
My wife was a bit scary, but the boat proved to be stable when close reaching just with the motor. Healed just a little.

Click on picture to get into the gallery

Small video can be also found on my previous post.

This time we used  a local mobile crane to launch the boat. I cannot say, what is more difficult, but at least, the trailer was saved from the salty water.

Click on the picture to get more details

Some boring statistical data:

• Distance sailed:143 NM (I know, not much for 3 weeks)
• Starfish: 5+
• Various fishes: 40+ (caught by son....fresh are so delicious!)
• Octopus: 2 (one eaten)
• Sea urchins: infinite!
• Dolphins: 0

Dalpol Yacht owners group

I was contacted recently regarding the Phobos yacht and as I do personally know some other owners, I thought that it would be a great idea to create the Facebook group called "Dalpol Yacht Owners".

I think we should connect all together and share the ideas, sail trips or even sell your boat.

If you are the Phobos owner or just love these boats, you are more than welcome to join!

Outboard bracket modification

We have ordered our boat with an outboard motor bracket capable of holding 10HP four-cycle motor. One of its design specialty is that instead of pulling spring, there is a pushing gas spring/struts. It's made by Topiko.

Outboard bracket with gas springs

However the shipyard installed the default version for 15HP outboard motor which weights 52kg dry thus with 4 gas springs with 600N of lifting force each. We have Mercury 8HP long with electric start which weights "only" 42kg dry. It's not that big issue, you just have to push a little more to lower it down to a running position.

The main problem is that these ordinary automotive gas springs cannot withstand the saltwater, even we are on the sea for only a few weeks. After two seasons or 6 weeks at sea, the terminal eye pads were severely corroded and it started to move a little harder.
The other issue was that the springs were mounted upside down with the gas cylinder heading downward.

Gas springs mounted upside down!

Inside the gas cylinder there is an oil for the rod seal lubrication. If mounted wrong, it can result in a shorter life!

That was a time to buy a new stainless steel gas springs. The Topiko suggests 400N of the lifting force for a 8-10HP motor. There is however a problem that stainless steel gas springs are very expensive, because they are usually custom made. After searching in the European market I had to switch back to China again and bought it there. They are made from A2 stainless (AISI 304), but still better than plain steel.
They made it for me with the 450N of the lifting force.

When I was changing the gas springs on the bracket I also took an opportunity to grease all joints with marine grease.

Finished gas spring replacement

Some technical information:

• original springs: Krosno FA 21490, length 405mm, stroke 160mm, force 600N, galvanized/painted steel
• replacement springs: SmartSolu, length 380mm, stroke 150mm, force 450N, stainless steel A2

Building custom instruments pod

A friend of mine Jirka, with his own Phobos 21 called "Lente" build this custom instrument pod on the top of the companionway hatch.

So with his kind permission I'm sharing his building process.

He used the 3mm ABS board laminated with an acrylic film. These boards are often used as an advertising sign.
Then he formed the curves using the hot air gun (around 200°C). Side walls are glued and then polished. Finally, it has been straightened inside the pod using the fiberglass and epoxy.

paper template

gluing the side walls

template for the instruments holes

finished pod with fiberglass reinforcement

installed instruments

finished pod (depth, compass, wind)

If you have any enhancements, please don't hesitate and send it to me. I would be more than happy to share it. Phobos 21 is a wonderful class.

Centerboard noise reduction

I call this post a noise reduction, but it's more like a hummer banging reduction that centerboard produce when you are cutting through the waves.
That's because the centerboard iron plate has too much play in the trunk, almost 10 mm on each side and when the boat heels to the opposite side, that small gap can make noticeable banging sound.

Searching through the internet, I've found several solutions like a piece of rubber or stainless steel spacers with HDPE sliding pads as on Avar Yacht A25 of a friend of mine:

Avar Yacht A25 centerboard spacers -
two pairs in front and back of the steel plate

This is the stainless steel centerboard used on TES 678, but same design is used on Phobos yachts:

TES 678 staineless steel centerboard

However, last year we met a sailor with his older Phobos 24 and he fixed it with just an ordinary carpet. It did not sound very marine solution, but he told me he has it for more than 6 years without any problems.

Luckily we have a trailer with two support bunks so I can reach the centerboard trunk easily.
Using the hot-knife a.k.a. modified soldering iron, I cut two 2cm wide and 1m long stripes of the ordinary fully synthetic carpet and glued it with Sikaflex 291i covering the area starting just behind the centerboard pin to the end of the centerboard.

centerboard with carpet on the walls

detail of the carpet

The banging sound disappeared completely so we can now enjoy the silent nights with a dropped centerboard.

Solar power extention

During our trip in the hot Adriatic seas, we have found out, that our actual 50W solar panel is not sufficient to be ultimately shore power independent. During that hot summer days we were able to keep the fridge running only for like 12 days before I had to recharge the battery from the shore.

One of the issue that was that our boom tent partially covered the panel during the day, so it has prevented the proper function.

So I've decided we need more solar panels. The question is the where to place it?
At first I was thinking putting them to the mast support or on the backstay.

solar panel on the aft mast support

solar panel on the backstay

However all these positions needs some maintenance and I think it's not really handy for a trailer-sailor when you need to simplify all the mast raising/lowering tasks.

A final decision was to get the semi-flexible panels and put them on the top of the cabin. The only possible free area for them is besides the mast base. Due to area limitation I was able to find these two suitable 20W ETFE semi-flexible panels from China with dimmensions of 600x300x2.5mm. You can also walk on these!

20W EFTE semi-flexible panel - model LS-20FX1

The installation is again drill-less using the 19mm 3M VHB acrylic double sided tape 49xx series, which has already proved to be working very well even on our hollow non-skid surface. It's just needed to degrease the surface with the isopropyl alcohol.

3M VHB double sided tape on the back of the panels

final placement

final placement

The next task was to create a junction box. I've created a simple circuit board inside a plastic junction box and glued it carefully under the existing 50W solar panel using Sikaflex 291i. It's important that this junction box is completely watertight to prevent any corrosion.

With parallel connected panels, each string to be connected in parallel should have its own blocking diode. This prevents current flowing from one parallel panel into a lower-current panel (shaded) and therefore helps to minimize mismatch losses arising in parallel connected arrays.

The best blocking diodes are Schottky's rectifying diodes like SB540 or similar. They have lower forward voltage drop around 0.3V instead of regular rectifying diodes which has around 0.7V.

junction box scheme with blocking diodes 

The new 20W panels are equipped with cables including the MC4 connectors already, so I've just bought two 1m long extension cables with MC4 connectors, cut them in half and used them as an input connectors.

inside the junction box

One hint here: to protect the circuit board from corrosion, it's necessary to coat the copper and the components with soldering rosin (flux) soluted in alcohol.

junction box glued with Sikaflex

The last step was to replace the old deck socket I've installed before. I bought some cheap China copy and the contacts corroded very badly just after a first season.

So I've decided to use some better connector with gold plated contacts and decided to use these type from Philippi Marine. You can also buy just the angular housing from Philippi and cheaper Weipu WA22 type connectors, which are not labeled "marine" as a primary use, but I believe it's the same quality - gold plated 16 Amps! That's what I did.

Weipu WA22 IP67 16Amp connector

The first test looks very promising and I hope that with a total of 90W, we will be shore power independent, at last.

Sliding hatch fix

Since the beginning, we have observed that under heavy rain, the water gets its way into the cabin though the sliding hatch. The problem was later identified as a manufacturing flaw, because the beneath of the hatch is not flat and drops coming from the edges of the hatch flows back to the cabin.
The other issue is the weak corners and after a few months of light use, the front corners cracked against the ends of the sliding track.

The problem is the small thick of the laminate on the lips with the soft Airex coring behind. So I've decided to remove small piece of the coring and fill it with thickened resin.

Here you can see the cracks on the corners (gelcoat already sanded)

Weak hatch corner without core.

With masked underneath I've filled the gap with thickened resin.

Final stage painted with gelcoat and buffed.

To fix the water intrusion, I've installed 4mm height self-adhesive brush pile seal on the track of the sliding hatch. The other benefit is that I can now slide the hatch very easily.

The second brush seal track was also added at the edges of the sliding hatch, which helps the water to drop off the on the edge of the hatch.

Brush track.

Seal is working just fine.

This is the view under the sliding hatch cover.

Hull vinyl wrapping

This is a nice example, how to change the color of the hull pretty fast and easy.



I'm not sure about the price, but it will protect the hull from UV rays and I can imagine changing the hull color every two or three years :-)

Phobos Days 2015

We had a great opportunity to visit a nice event held by the Phobos Yacht's official dealer here in the Czech Republic. He brought together the whole line of the Phobos yachts starting with Jumper 19, Phobos 21, Phobos 24, Phobos 25 and also a hot new prototype of the Phobos 24.5, which is supposed to be a replacement for the old Phobos 24 to complement the new design line.

The best thing was that it was held on the lake Slapy so all the boats were available for testing sails.

For me, it's good to see the other boats so I can get some inspiration and chat with other owners of the Phobos sailboats.

Phobos 24.5

Phobos 24.5

Inside Phobos 24.5, great standing height

Phobos 24.5 - head

The smallest - Jumper 19

Phobos 21 - hull #39

Phobos 21 - hull #39 - with a diesel heater!

Phobos 21 - galley with fridge - my wife loves it!

Phobos 24

Phobos 25

 

Phobos 25 with additional swim platform and retractable ladder

Phobos 25 with the boom tent made by Ovčička Sails - however the rods are not foldable

Mr. Linhart and me with a son

The conclusion from the council of the expert sailors is that Phobos 21 is exceptionally fast boat :-)
Coming soon for the next season: Jirka a friend of mine, decided to buy a gennaker for his Phobos 21 !!!