My O’Day 22 Sailboat Blog

Anyone who uses an outboard motor in the ocean knows the hassle of keeping the salt water flushed from the system after each use. Also keeping the top-heavy machine upright during storage is also a must to prevent flooding. One of the easiest ways to do that is to get a outboard stand. You can store your motor on it without much hassle as well as flushing it out with a bucket of water underneath after each use.

As all marine products typically are, outboard stands are way over priced for what you get. It is literally a few pieces of bent metal and a piece of plywood while West Marine would not hesitate to charge you $120 for one.

That is why I decided to make my own little contraption. It’s no work of art but it’s serving me well so far. A couple pieces of wood and some galvanized hardware that costs me just around $12 and a Saturday morning later, I have my own little collapsable outboard mount.

It uses exactly 2 pieces of wood: a 8 foot 2×4 and another 8 foot 2×6. It is made to hinge so you can fold it flat when you are not using it or for each transport. Straps at the bottom keeps it from doing the splits when the motor is mounted and I am even gonna mount some wheels on them so it can also be used as a dolly. All that for under 20 bucks. Take that West Marine!

Jose from Santa Barbara whom I mentioned in a previous post has sent me some photos of his mainsheet relocation project. I have been wanting to do this but just have not had time to complete other projects on my priority list. His mod looks pretty nice and apparently works well for him. He agreed to let me repost the email he sent me along with photos of the mod. Here you go:

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I am attaching two photos of the mainsheet relocation to the center of the cockpit. I actually have not yet installed the traveller. I wanted to see how this would work, and also the $160 for the little car and track sort of put me off. as it is I do not think that will make much of a difference speed wise. My design, however, will accommodate the track and eventually I will add it to it. But for now I will spend that money on things more usefull, like the jiffy reefing controls.

I also got you a picture of my new companionway. Regular plywood, TONS of polyurethane, seems to be holding!

Finally last week I got the thru-deck connectors for the masthead light in the mail. I have had to wait on this project since I got the wiring through the mast about a month ago for a couple of reasons. First is I didn’t really know where I wanted to drill the holes for the thru deck connections. I didn’t really feel comfortable with drilling holes directly on the deck as any mistake may lead to water getting into the core of the deck and cause big problems later. Another reason was the antenna connectors have been difficult to find. No one seems to have the exact part I need. There are some thru deck antenna connectors that allows the wire to be fed thru but it will be a problem for me when I lower the mast for transport. What i really needed was a PL-259 type coupler that can be fed thru a hole on the deck and secured using nuts and washers on either side. I ended up having to piece this together using parts I got from Fry’s Electronics and Lowes hardware store.

I finally decided to drill the 2 holes on the forward hatch of the boat. It is a few more inches forward on the deck then I’d like but I figured it would not really get in the way of the headsail during tacking and a hatch is made of solid fiberglass and easily replaceable so my deck core will be safe from water penetration.

I prepped it by simply measuring where my holes needed to be and applied masking tape to the surface to be drilled.

Once the holes are drilled I applied marine silicone sealant and inserted the connectors. I used stainless machines nuts and bolts to secure the masthead light connector and the PL-259 coupler is just secured with the standard nut and washer I got from the hardware store.

After some more splicing, soldering and taping, I have my thru-deck connectors in place.

Electrical tape doesn’t look as pretty as it can be but it will work for now…

I bought a new marine radio for the boat from Amazon and I figured that it would be a good idea to setup a base station at home so I can monitor channel 16 and also let my wife contact via the radio while I’m out sailing. I didn’t think I would need a new radio since it might not get that much use so I looked to eBay. After bidding on a few of them without success I finally won an auction for a used Standard Horizon Eclipse. After about a week and a half this radio lands on my porch. It was pretty much as described once I opened the box. A closer look revealed the PL259 antenna connector is fused to the radio due to salt water corrosion. I was kinda bummed out. luckily there is enough cable coming out the end to allow some splicing. So that’s not that big of a deal.

The radio as it was posted on eBay.

After splicing some wires and cables I got the antenna setup on the side of the house with a cable running into the house. Using a 6 amp converter I have 12v power as well. I connected everything up and turned the switch to the on position…. Nothing…. Not even a click. This was pretty irritating. I email the buyer from eBay to let him know that this thing was not as described. While waiting for the response I figured I may as well try to do some trouble shooting.

I first checked out the connections and immediately found that the inline fuse also has a lot of corrosion build up. I scraped off both ends of the fuse as well as the terminals in the containing and put it back together. This time the radio turned on! I was thrilled. I was thinking that I would email the seller back to let him know that I had fixed the problem. Before I got that far I picked up the microphone to make sure I can communicate with my handheld. After setting them both to channel 71 I tried to press the button on the mic…. Nothing again. This is starting to piss me off. The button on the mic doesn’t even move. It is permenantly depressed but the radio does not transmit although it receives just fine. This radio does not have a detachable microphone so replacing it is pretty much out of the question. I didn’t want to go into that much trouble if the seller would just let me return it.

Later that day the seller emails me back apologizing about the mistake in the posting and agrees to refund me. Great. I write back asking for the time frame and the method of refund but got no reply for the next 24 hours. I wrote back again. This time I suggested that I should get my refund before I have to send the radio back since that is how I first acquired it from him. Makes complete sense to me as this would be how the transaction would be done if I was to sell it to someone else on eBay. You get the payment for the item then you ship it. This solicited an aggravated response from the seller. He writes back.

“I have allready told you to return the unit and I will refund the purchase. You must return the item first or nothing. I will not go back and forth on this, just do it my way or nothing. This is my final offer, I will not answer again. If you leave feedback I will leave feedback immediately positive for positive or negative for negative.”

WTF??? This guy is nuts. I looked further into the history of this sellers history and saw dozens of negative feedbacks regarding DOA items. One of the reasons that triggered this research was that he wrote me back using a different eBay account than the one I originally contacted him with. The inquiry showed that this guy had another eBay account that he had been using since 2001 that has a rating of 631 but 16 negative feedbacks. His new account has only been established since 2005 and it already has 4 negatives. I figure this is not gonna go down quietly.

I began an onslaught of research and record keeping through both eBay and PayPal. I was prepared to drop this guy his 5th negative feedback of the year and hold on tight for the aftershocks. Well, not so fast I thought. This thing has the potential to drag out forever. Do I really want to do that? I may not see my money back and I’m stuck looking for another radio on eBay unless I want to take the blow and buy another new one. I decided that I may want to give it a shot at fixing the microphone. I figured it couldn’t hurt since it is already broken.

I opened up the microphone casing and find further corrosion of parts. Its not completely hopeless as most of the parts seem to work fine. Specifically it is the push-to-talk actuator that suffered the brunt of the damage. It was corroded pretty badly and it is also the reason why the push to talk button was stuck on as it no longer has the ability to push back. I ran down to the local radio shack and picked up a replacement microphone for 25 bucks and came home and opened her up. There was the exact part that matched what I needed to replace in my marine radio. I just don’t know for sure it the internal schematics have changed that would require me to wire it differently when I resoldered them back up. I went ahead and started disassembling anyways.

The microphone showing in this photo is the one I sacrificed for the radio.

The new microphone disassembled. The object to the right with all the wires going to it is the part i needed.

The original part that needed replacement. The black part on the right goes in and out when the push-to-talk button is pressed. This one no longer moved.

desoldered the old part and ready for disposal

The new part prior to desoldering and removal of wires.

After awhile of fumbling parts around and making sure nothing gets shorted out I managed to rewire the old mic with the new part and placed everything back into the little compartments inside the mic casing.

Reassembly of the old mic. The new part is installed and soldered with the correct wires as I know it.

Now came the moment of truth. I started with a useless radio and soon I may end with with another useless microphone. I plugged everything it and clenched my teeth as I pressed down on that PTP button….

The radio turned on and ready to be tested

The PTP button depressed and transmitting!!!!

Hooray! It worked. Note the red light under the LCD screen. It worked. I am pretty glad I don’t have to find another radio. But I still have this eBay guy to deal with. At this point I have spend about 80 bucks into fixing up the old radio and for another 20 I could have bought new. I guess you live and learn. Maybe this ebay guy will agree to refund part of my money for the repairs. I’ll write an update when I find out.

This is what’s left of the now useless new microphone from Radio shack. Note the old PTP module on the bottom left.

Yesterday I finally got my new main sail after a few months of hunting for one. For those of you who have followed this blog, you know the trouble I’ve been through to get one. Yesterday was no different.

After tracking the package online with UPS I finally was expected to deliver yesterday. However I experience something I’ve never seen before. The tracking website showed and exception. It said it didn’t have the correct suite number. I called their 800 number and they setup a time for me to pick up at their distribution center in town. They were suppose to call me when it was available before 7:30 PM. Of course that didn’t happen. I just decided to drive there and see if I can find this thing. Apparently after the customer counter closes, the entire UPS office turns into a mad house. People are playing basketball in the parking lot, people are talking to their buddies on their cell phones, people are horsing around yet these packages still somehow manage to find its recipient. Mostly anyways. They finally track my package down after 15 minutes or so and I was a happy sailor.

the box the sail came in.

I was happy to find that the sail came with slugs already installed. It is also amazing the quality of a new sail vs. my old one. Everything is constructed very solidly and materials seem to be of high quality. It includes one set of reefing points which is something I didn’t have on my old sail.

Reefing point clew and batten installed.

What this sail has the I was not going to get with Porpoise Sails is the insignia of the boat. It is not that big of a deal but its always easier for people to find you out in the water. If I wanted to have my hull number on the sail I will have to make it myself. Maybe another day. At this point, I just want to sail it and see how it performs.

O’Day 22 insignia.

Head of sail with sail slug.

View of the sail. The cut is much fuller on top than my old sail.

Came with a nice sail bag.

Sails East logo by the tack of the sail.

Reinforce clew of the sail. Note the little pocket about the clew.

I couldn’t wait to test the fit on the boat so I went there last night before I went for my daily jog. It was a perfect fit. The old sail was loose footed but I think this new one fits better using the rope. At least for going upwind. I think it will perform much better going upwind but I will have to wait to find out tomorrow. I will take some photos of the sail on the boat and post it here as soon as I can.