Sleeping Aboard

[talbot]

Let's return for a moment to the question of elimination.
1. Human urine, being essentially sterile at the point of exit, is almost certainly cleaner than the lake on which I usually sail.
2. All the lakes on which I sail are small enough that there is no excuse for dumping any other waste product into the water. Even rowing, you can make it to a shore in time.
3. While taking an ASA Basic Keelboat certification class a couple of years ago, I learned that a large number of drownings are associated with:
a. Being male
b. Drinking alcohol
c. Having one's pants down

Summary answer to the question about on-board potties: You can pee over the side, and you can fall overboard. Keep both facts in mind.

[talbot]

Adding to my store of experiences:
Arriving off a rocky shore an hour after sunset, seeking the gap in the lava reef that leads to our wilderness campsite. Resources include wife/crew, luxurious camping kit, and no GPS locator. Troll-motoring slowly up and down the shore among the rocks didn't seem to change our location (Not There Yet). So the crew made the following suggestion. Well, it wasn't exactly a suggestion. Get this boat into open water and figure out how to spend the night. Now.

So after all this speculating about how to set up the boat for sleeping aboard, in the end it just happened. We anchored off shore a couple of hundred feet, wrestled the whole kit into the stern, laid out our beds in the cabin, set up the camp table in the cockpit, and served cold chicken and white wine while we watched the moon rise. Night in the cabin was as cramped as you might imagine, but in time we dozed off.

In the morning, with crew still sleeping, I perched on top of our huge pile of gear and motored up the shore a few hundred yards to our inlet. I beached softly and managed to get the camp chairs set up and coffee made before my wife emerged.

Summary:
1. We're still married.
2. I might get a GPS for Christmas
3. I am not to leave on a two-hour crossing one hour before dark. Or if I do, I'm going alone.
4. A battery-powered camp fan would probably reduce condensation in the cabin..
5. As others noted in this thread, throwing a tarp over the boom is a quick shelter. We used our tent fly. Useful, even if you sleep in the cabin. It keeps the stuff in the cockpit dry from dew and makes for a warmer camp.
6. If there is a chance of anchoring out, make sure all the gear you need is accessible: ground tackle, flashlight, tarp, chicken, white wine, etc.

[jeadstx]

I'm impressed that two people could get in the cuddy cabin, although having met you, you fit better than I do. I've looked at the cuddy cabin. I'm pretty sure I can get inside, just not sure I could get back out. I'll stick with my bed boards and a cockpit tent for sleeping on board.

John

[talbot]

Yeah, getting out is the problem, because you have to crawl over the lip of the bulkhead. Very hard to turn around in the cuddy, so whether you go in head first (better sleeping angle) or feet first (better ventilation), you come out the same way.

If you spent a couple of weeks doing this, you'd be in pretty good shape. Sleepy, maybe, but limber and with upper body strength.

We found that one essential for living aboard is an extendable boat hook. It lets you sit in the cockpit and drag things in and out of the cuddy. The only time you actually have to descend into the cave is when you go to bed.

[ChrisB]

+1 on the boathook. My boathook gets much more use fishing camping gear out of the cuddy that it does actually docking the boat.

[TIM WEBB]

The T-handle of the paddle I keep in the cuddy has been used to fish everything from pfds to bailer buckets outta there ...

[jeadstx]

I've used my whisker pole to get things out of the cuddy cabin that have wandered way forward.

John

[talbot]

Has anyone made a combination whisker pole-boat hook that actually has appropriate fittings for both uses at the ends? It would have to be extendable, because I'm pretty sure the whisker pole length is shorter than even a fully collapsed standard boat hook.

[GreenLake]

Has anyone made a combination whisker pole-boat hook that actually has appropriate fittings for both uses at the ends? It would have to be extendable, because I'm pretty sure the whisker pole length is shorter than even a fully collapsed standard boat hook.

I've used a paddle for both. I wrap a very short bungee just below the handle and secure it with a simple knot. Now I have two "ears" (the ends of the bungee) sticking out right below the handle. With these, I can fish for anything in the cuddy, or snag halyards that have gone up the mast, or whatever. One of the bungee hook goes into the jib clew, or the jibsheet bowline, and the blade gets wedged against the mast and presto, I have a whisker pole. (It helps to tighten both sheets for this maneuver, to positively lock the paddle in place - I also have a fitting on the mast that makes for good wedging).

The bungee has not gotten in the way of using the paddle for its nominal purpose.

I've used this setup for many seasons, but last time I refinished the paddle, the bungee went AWOL and I've not yet found another one that's nice and short (but thick enough, so it's a bit stiff) for the purpose.

[jdoorly]

Several years ago I took my 2 joint extendable boat hook (from West), and bolted a plastic snap hook to the 'outboard' end, then took off the plastic handle on the 'inboard' end threaded an eye hook through the handle's hole, poured some thickened epoxy in the handle (around the eye bolt) and shoved the handle back on and left it pointed at the planet until it cured. I opened the eye hook just enough to be able to force the eye around the spinnaker pole bale and have it not fall off.

It worked very well for holding the UPS clew out while running. But, I was never very comfortable with using it since I singlehand and using it meant I had to go forward to set it or release it so one had to plan one's event horizon further out into the future.

[talbot]

Hm. I could see that would work with a UPS, because of its longer J-length than a standard jib. I'll think about it next season. The boat is now upside down on its trailer, parked and blocked, with it's hull cut up where I've scuffed open the gel-coat blisters. No time up north here to think of anything but getting the boat sanded down and dehydrated enough to seal before the rains. Looks like that's about it for the "Sleeping Aboard" thread for this season. I suspect I'll only be posting in the "Maintenance" section for the next six months.

[Breakin Wind]

Yeah, getting out is the problem, because you have to crawl over the lip of the bulkhead. Very hard to turn around in the cuddy, so whether you go in head first (better sleeping angle) or feet first (better ventilation), you come out the same way.

If you spent a couple of weeks doing this, you'd be in pretty good shape. Sleepy, maybe, but limber and with upper body strength.

We found that one essential for living aboard is an extendable boat hook. It lets you sit in the cockpit and drag things in and out of the cuddy. The only time you actually have to descend into the cave is when you go to bed.

I took a page from the jdoorly design book to solve the easy in/out of the cuddy issue, and then to get to the things really up front, I added a deck hatch for tossing in the jib sock, loose lines, bumpers and retrieving errant items deep in the cuddy.



Plus it helps to have short crew... Scott

[GreenLake]

great crew!

[talbot]

Nice. Any more detail pictures. Of the hatch, I mean, but I can look at crew pix, too, if you happen to have them in your wallet.

[Breakin Wind]

Nice. Any more detail pictures. Of the hatch, I mean, but I can look at crew pix, too, if you happen to have them in your wallet.

Sorry for the slow response talbot. Did you mean the foredeck hatch or the Cuddy door/ hatch?