S/V Rainshadow

Our boat has 10 portlights, 5 on each side of the cabin. We learned on our recent passage to Hawaii that they are leaking. There are multiple reasons why.

  In the spring of 2015, we left our land-based home in Hawaii and returned to the Pacific Northwest.

Rainshadow spent a month on the hard at Sea Marine in Port Townsend starting in late September so we could complete the following maintenance tasks:

Even though we left Rainshadow by herself while we spent the winter in Hawaii, we still made quite a few improvements at the end of the 2012 cruising season and the start of 2013 season. Here’s the list: – Had the fuel injectors rebuilt and checked valve adjustment. Engine continues to run great. – Replaced […]

Rainshadow overwintered at her slip at the Port of Poulsbo. It’s a good slip, but we were spoiled rotten having our boat only a 1/2 mile walk away prior to this – now it’s a 35 minute drive each way. Anyway, it didn’t stop us from making a lot of improvements this winter/spring.

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.

Nicholson 38’s do not have a cutlass bearing, they have a white metal bearing in a stern tube. This works well as long as you keep it well greased, and that’s why there is a stern tube greaser integrated into the stuffing box. But after 37 years, the white metal bearing was worn enough, you […]

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

Yes, it’s true – we bought new sails! Though our original plan was to try to make our own sails – we decided to go with the professionals. I’ll give a review of how everything went.

A few months ago, we had our fuel tank professionally cleaned. We vowed to keep the fuel clean so we are not stranded by our trusty Perkins when we need it most.

This posting is about good ideas and bad ideas. Or maybe I should say good ideas with bad and good implementations.

It was a major project to add a holding tank – it took about 4 months and touched so many areas of the boat. But it’s finally done, and I’m happy with the outcome.

One of the things the pre-purchase survey turned up was that the propane locker did not meet ABYC standards, in part because it did not have access via the top of the locker. Instead, it had only side access, and difficult side access at that. So we decided to do something about it.

Here’s a great project that we think will really make a difference to our cruising enjoyment. It all started with our efforts to figure out where to install a waste holding tank.