New paravanes are doing their job
Hi John,
Good to see your post and hear that you're still improving your gear.
I have removed the deck winches and cleats and have been looking closely at
the Nordhavn setup again. I have the elevtric winches, although I can't
decide whether to use them to raise the outriggers or raise the fish. Anyway, I
have the fish tamed for now after having learned the hard way what not to do.
Bob Sutton's "Mona Mona" is here in Chag and I have had a chance to converse
with the owner about her Beebe-designed gear. Her tow wires are fixed and
equipped with nylon springs, unlike those of Seahorse, which are adjustable and
have no springs. His solution to entering shoal water is to "just raise the
poles enough to reduce the fish depth appropriately." This is what I do now,
winching the poles up to about 20 degrees and then using body weight to raise
the fish to about 10' depth, but I have to heave-to briefly to do it. Good
excercise, but not always welcome!
Someone else on the list once sent me photos of his means to raise the fish
with a power winch independent of the tow wires. That's one option; I'm
thinking of. By the time they are leave the water, the tow wire length is so short
they cannot strike the boat.
Looking forward to your thoughts...
Best,
John
I agree completely. I've been hoping to see some pics since hearing of there
installing the paravanes.
I've wanted to see the retrieval mechanism mentioned since their original
post.
We have them and use them extensively but I'm still working on a better
system for deployment and retrieval as well as a system for varying depth and
self-storage.
I'm working on a reply to another listee re: this.
Hope to see pics,
John
I have removed the deck winches and cleats and have been looking closely
at the Nordhavn setup again. I have the electric winches, although I
can't
decide whether to use them to raise the outriggers or raise the fish.
Anyway, I
have the fish tamed for now after having learned the hard way what not to
do.
COMMENTS:
My 2 electric winches are mounted near the center of the length of the boom.
The 50' cables runs from the winch to the tip of the boom and then are
attached about 8' above the paravanes to the tow chain. This places the
attachment point about 4' under water when the paravanes are deployed. I am
above to lift the paravanes to near the stern single handed and then hold
their cable off the hull and lift the vane up to the holder on the stern
rail with the winch and then set it in its holder. My outriggers are raised
with a block rope with 2:1 block and tackle from the top deck. I never
operate them anything but full down in the water i.e. about 12'. I have a
set of push buttons at knee height in the cockpit for each electric winch so
the whole operation can be done single handed. I usually have the boat
running at idle speed of about 3 knots while launching or fetching the
vanes. I usually do this with 2 people but one is no more difficult, it
just takes twice as long.
I hope this is helpful to your thoughts, send questions if you wish.
John Harris
World Odd @ Sea
I have been using Global Marine Networks' X-Gate email gateway for
several years. It is wonderful software. It allows you to use your
usual email program to rapidly retrieve your mail in a highly
compressed format. If you are using HF radio or Iridium, it is
simply indispensable.
I have just become aware that they have added a new feature that can
automatically embed your vessel's position in outgoing email. Using
their software, your position can be displayed on your or their web
site automatically. They use a virtual serial port driver to share
the GPS NMEA data between your nav program and their software. There
is no hardware to set up or buy. Very cool, and I think very useful
to members of this list.
http://www.globalmarinenet.com/index.htm
Usual Disclaimers. Just a happy customer.
Best,
Steve
Steve Dubnoff
1966 Willard Pilothouse
www.mvnereid.com
sdubnoff@circlesys.com