Category Archives: Boat Technical

Specifics about the boat.

Stabilizer Failure

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Tuesday, December 3, 2024 – It was supposed to be an uneventful day. The plan was to do chores around the boat in preparation for our 6.5-day passage to Puerto Vallarta, then head out at around 1500 (3:00 pm). 

Since we weren’t paying for another night, the marina encouraged us to leave earlier since check out is officially 1300. Their nudge turned out to be a giant blessing in disguise. Eric started up the main engine at around 1330. There was an issue with the stabilizers – when turned on, the screen said “server rebooted, call factory.” 

Eric has spent the last 1.5 years renovating Kosmos. We plan to write more extensive posts about the renovation, but for the moment we’ll summarize the work with: 1) The boat was 18-years old and many things had reached their life limit and needed to be replaced – including a lot of components on the stabilizers, and 2) We outfitted the boat 18 years ago when there were only two of us. Now that there are three of us; we needed to configure the electrical and water to be better suited for three people.  

Eric immediately called John Gumb Yacht Services, the company that did our stabilizer work, to help troubleshoot the problem. John Gumb had no silver-bullet answer, but the initial trouble shooting indicated it may have been electrical in nature. Eric called Weber Marine next, the company that did our electrical work (and more!). Weber also had no silver-bullet answer. 

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Emergency Training: Inflating the Old Life Raft

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When Kosmos was new, we bought a six-person Winslow life raft that was vacuum-sealed for extended life. We got a Maxi model with food, water, EPIRB and lots of great features. All these years, we kept it under the settee in the salon, so it was very protected. Even though it was 18 years old, we believed it was still in good shape thanks to the protected location.

Unfortunately, our insurance company wouldn’t recognize such an old life raft, so the insurance company insisted we get a new one before going to the Sea of Cortez. We chose the Winslow Ultra-Light Offshore four-person model that has all the same non-perishable goodies, but does not have perishable items in it. Our old life raft was 70-pounds — there was no way Keith nor Christi could launch it without help. The new life raft is 35-pounds, which Christi and Keith can each manage alone.

Our ditch bag was a large, heavy duffel bag. We’ve replaced it with three water-proof backpacks (one for each of us). One of the backpacks has the perishable things that were previously in the life raft; the other two have the rest of the contents of the old ditch bag. With the bags on our back, our hands will be free to launch the life raft and deal with other things.

We decided it would be a great safety training exercise to inflate the old life raft. Our friend, Marty, joined us. Marty gave us a lot of helpful information. Here is a video Marty took of it:

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The Last Leg Home — Our 8-Month Baja Adventure is Officially Over

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(*Sorry for the delay in posting. Life got busy once we got back to San Diego)

On Sunday, March 5, we awoke at 0300 to do the last minute things to get Kosmos ready to go to sea. We untied at 0400. It was about 60-nautical miles from Marina Coral to the mouth of the San Diego Bay. Here was the sunrise

The day was mostly overcast and grey. Had we not done the previous difficult passages to Bahia Tortuga and Ensenada, we would have said that the conditions were rough, but compared to those two, sea conditions weren’t all that bad. We were hobby horsing a lot, but the swells weren’t giant nor the intervals rapid enough to make it a miserable ride. We were all functioning normally (for the most part). Here is a “sail” boat passing us… in 5 knots of head winds.

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Passage from Bahia de Tortugas to Ensenada

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On Monday, February 27, we woke up at 0300 to do the last-minute things needed before setting out to sea. We pulled up anchor at 0400. Christi station-kept while Eric went out to set his custom made anchor plate locking system. He could not get it to lock into place. Later, in the daylight, it was clear that mud from the anchor/chain had gotten into the mechanism. While Eric speculated it may be mud, at that moment it was too dark to tell, so he just tightened the chain on the windlass to secure the anchor lock system as good as was possible. By the time we finally got going, it was 0430.

We were not excited about leaving in the dark, but unfortunately, the weather window was small and there was no leaving any later. The 3/4 full moon was luminous and offered a little bit of light; having some light was reassuring.

As soon as we got out of the bay, Kosmos started hobby-horsing like crazy and the ride became uncomfortable. Maybe a better analogy was bucking like a rodeo bull. While standing, we had to hold onto the boat at all times to keep from being knocked over; on the stairs, we needed to hold on with both hands. The sea conditions basically stayed the same for about 30-hours, then they very gradually started to calm down. During the 30-hours, we guesstimate that the swells were 6 – 8-feet at 6 -8-seconds with the occasional 10 – 12-foot wave. When the bigger waves came, Kosmos smacked down hard. Once there was a bit of green water coming over the bow at one point. True wind speed was about 15-knots. Here was sunset on Monday evening:

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Bahia de Tortugas, Day 1

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Continuing on with Wednesday, February 22 — We decided to anchor near the only village in the bay. We’re unclear on whether the name of the village is Bahia Tortugas or if it is Puerto San Bartolome — we’ve seen both. There were three sailboats and three trawler-style fishing boats already anchored there, though one of the trawlers looked to be abandoned.

At about 0730, we made our first attempt to anchor. Unfortunately, the anchor didn’t set. When we brought the anchor back up, we saw that it was covered in seaweed. We moved to a different spot. The anchor didn’t set a second time, either. We moved locations again. Fortunately, three times was a charm and the anchor did set. We saw quite a few dolphins while we were anchoring.

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