3rd April 201625th May 2016

Refit Part 4 – Some Assembly Required

by Matthew

Kinship has been moved from the shop back to the marina. Having spent about 6 weeks taking the boat apart, now we start the process of putting her back together. First up is reinstalling the holding tank and getting the floor back down. Peggie Hall – The Headmistress strongly recommends putting holding tank vents on both sides of the boat to allow cross flow though the tank. Our tank has dual vents but we had not installed the starboard vent. Over the summer we noticed a bit of a wiff if you happened to be sitting in the cockpit when someone flushes, so we decided to install the second vent with the expectation this will solve this problem. After a lot of struggling we got the hose in place and now we just to drill for the vent and connect everything up.

Boat work is often two steps forward and one back. The backwards step this time is a leaky starboard water tank. It has dumped its contents into the bilge since the boat was moved and it needs to be replaced or repaired. Of course this means that we can’t connect the extra vent for the holding tank. The tank is not really the right shape for the space, so I am looking at modified design with a better pick up location and perhaps a little more capacity. Material choice is up in the air, my first sense is to use welded plastic, but the Saga hive mind is favouring stainless or aluminium, I need to do more research.

We are making some progress, we got the wheel repainted, covered and a new turkshead tied and it is ready to go back on the boat. We installed the new audio system, a Fusion MS-RA205 with a Bluetooth module and it works great. I am the sort of person that thinks the first thing you do when you move into a new place is get the tunes working. Listening to music or podcasts while I work just improves my mood.

Progress is slow, the weather has not been great so far, today is -8C and we are at home updating the blog rather than working on the boat. I am trying to accept that we will not be ready in early May. We are going to be on the boat for a year, if we are ready in May or late June does not really matter.

20th March 201623rd March 2016

An Iwasaki Sextant with a Bit of a Mystery

by Matthew

Update: I have managed to work out that the date of certification is August 16 1970. The date on the certificate is a Showa date, Showa is part of a system of dates are based on the rule of Emperors, in this case Showa indicates a year is the reign of Emperor Showa or as we knew him Emperor Hirohito. 2016 is Heisei 28, after the current Emperor.

This date matches the condition of the box and sextant and is consistent with other Japanese sextants of a similar vintage. It also matches the first to digits of the serial number. This Yamatar sextant made by Taiyo & Co. LTD is almost identical, save that this has a brass scale and is lighted, it was for sale here at the time of writing.

I stumbled on a great deal on a sextant. The person I bought it from had inherited it some time ago and had no information on its origin. It is made by in Japan by Iwasaki & Co., Ltd, I have not found any reference to Iwasaki sextants on the internet other than the ad for this one.

The label, partly in English seems to state it was calibrated on August 16, 1945, the day after VJ day. It is hard to imagine why a Japanese company would have English on a label at that point in history.

Iwasaki seems to be a common name in Japan, the founding family of Mitsubishi is Iwasaki and this family controlled a huge segment of the Japanese commercial cargo fleet at the outset of the war. It seems possible this might be an in-house instrument company. Alternately the Iwasaki Electric Company seems to have the right type of history, but again no reference to sextants. More research seems to point to a number of small companies building sextants in the Tokyo area in the 60s and 70s.

The sextant seems to be very well made, it came with a 4x main telescope and a 12x. The 12x has an inverted image, but I imagine it will be great for star sights.

12x telescope installed.

The drum does not have a vernier, but it is large and easy to read and I think I can get about 0.2′ precision on readings. The clamp and drum work really nicely and very accurately set up. The overall condition does not match an instrument that might be over 70 years old. is 46 years old.

The label on the case is just in English, could this be from 1945?

I could not be happier with my purchase, but I would love to find some more history of this sextant.

17th March 2016

Bringing Mementos aboard

by Kathleen

In such a small living space, there is no room for useless knicknacks or mementos, everything has to serve a useful purpose. So, as we are clearing out the land-base, what to do with all those runner’s bibs that adorn our refrigerator door? Can’t bear to part with them, but what use are they, other than for sentimental value? The answer: a lap quilt, for those cool evenings on board when a little blanket over your legs makes relaxing in the salon so much more comfortable. The runner’s bibs can continue to be favourite mementos, while serving a useful purpose aboard!

First step: After some research, I found fabric sheets that allowed me to use our home printer to copy the bibs onto fabric suitable for sewing. Not cheap (about $3/sheet) but easy to use and look great.

The search for colourful scraps of cotton to surround the bibs gave me extra incentive to clear out my sewing-room closet, killing two birds with one stone. Just look at all those empty cubbies now!

Then it was on to blocking the quilt. Lots of fun, since the bibs were not standard sizes, and I had varying sizes of fabric scraps to work with. Like building a jigsaw puzzle. I am very pleased with the way it looks so far. Still lots of work to do, putting together the layers of batting and backing, then of course all the hand-quilting. That will be my next winter project while living aboard Kinship. Watch for future updates…