S/V Rainshadow

One persistent theme on the Nicholson 38 community forum is the rudder.

OK, so the sailing season is over for us, and I have started several projects, including tearing down the boom.

We hauled out on July 21st, hoping to “haul and hang” for an hour to pull off the old Axiom and put on the new one, but with the nagging fear in the back of our minds that we should have replaced the white metal bearing during our haul out in June.

Axiom made the new prop in just under three weeks, and UPS got it here in just five days. What an amazingly flat world. 

Prop analysis for the Nic 38

I’m sure most people have seen a double rainbow – in good conditions you can see both the primary rainbow (caused by diffraction of light exiting a raindrop after a single internal reflection) and a “secondary” rainbow, caused by diffraction of the light after two internal reflections. But have you seen a “double double rainbow”?

Looking forward, it’s pretty clear that eventually our chainplates will need replacing. Crevice corrosion is almost impossible to stop, and is likely to lead to eventual failure. Whether that is one year from now, or twenty is not clear. We still have nine more chainplates to pull – the first three showed modest corrosion. What […]

The Camper and Nicholsons 38 “hairpin” design for the chain plates is robust and redundant – and like any stainless part on the boat, crevice corrosion is the enemy. Here are some thoughts about why the design is so good and should help prevent dismasting even if one of the rods fails.