Commander #155 'Mephisto Cat'

[mbd]

Awesome! Thanks for sharing your journey with us Rico! Great trip, great pics, and a great boat!!!

[Commander227]

Great trip, thanks for sharing. The idea of actually going somewhere is very appealing to we poor inland lake sailors.

[Rico]

Glad you enjoyed - Thanks!

Here are a few more... In my hurry to post updates I screwed-up the sequence and left a few good ones out.

Picture #1
A little company is always nice when lacking wind... I felt like tossing them another towline. The point pictured is Point Dume, just east of Malibu. (the coast runs east-west on this stretch). Note my nifty winch booties... - $6 on e-bay...

Picture #2
An earlier shot of the sunset above. The islands seen here are (from left to right) low-lying Anacapa Is, Santa Cruz Is, and San Miguel Is. is just visible to the far right

Picture #3
Offshore drilling rigs just south-east of Santa Barbara. These are similar to the ones we were happy to see due to their bright lights during our thickly clouded passage around Point Conception as these were the only points of reference we had to hold a course by. -I was not so happy to see the ones pictured, however, as they left an oil slick, were smelly, and I had to clean some globs of crude off my bow after passing through the area!

Picture #4
Point Piedras Blancas Lighthouse Approx: 35°39'50"N 121°17'10"W - about 6 miles north of the well-sheltered San Simeon Anchorage. (There are not many places at all to duck into along the Central California coast. This makes the weather considerations that much more important...)

The Anchorage at San Simeon was our original destination for the day, but distances, wind, and timing for a daylight arrival at the next port suggested a departure time about the time of our arrival there. Being fairly fresh from our short sail from Morro bay, we just kept going...

[Rico]

Here is a re-cap of the miles traveled from my initial route plan. I've adjusted some distance as shown by my GPS track (the easier ones to get data for), others I've used the expected route mileage. The total mileage (GPS vs Plan) turned out to be very close so any variation in any one individual segment should be fairly small.

The boat was launched in Ensenada(Mexico) on July 12th, 2008. I spent the next few weekends (about 7 or 8) Commuting about 550 mi r/t) from Santa Monica to step the mast, install all the deck hardware, coambings, sails, rigging, do the mast tuning, fit out the interior, and do a bit of sailing prior to departure.

I even participated in a couple regattas held by the 'Ensenada Yacht Club (A small, informal group of sailors who I ran into at the marina where I stayed). A good reason to procrastinate on all the work I had to do...

The commuting was a bit of torture, (especially the crossing at the Border!!)but I was somehow determined to sail the Mephisto Cat to 'Todos Santos Island' and then head North crossing an international boundary as once I gotback to San Francisco, the opportunity to do that would not be readily available...

Anyway - here is how the miles stacked-up approximately:



Leg..................................Distance.... Cumulative Distance... Length of stay...........Facility...................Crew.... ...... Destination Arrival / Departure

Depart Ensenada (Marina Coral Resort)........................................... .................................................. ...............................Shoved off @ 1am on a Saturday.
Ensenada to San Diego.................. 75m..........75....................2-3 Hrs...........Customs /police dock..... Agustin & Guillermo...... Arrived SD:2pm / Departed for Dana Pt: 4pm
San Diego to Dana point................. 65m.........140................. 2-3hrs ................ Guest dock ................ Agustin & Guillermo..........8am / 11am
Dana Point to Newport Beach..........23m........... 163 ................4 days ............. Mooring .................... Singlehanded .................5pm / 11am
Newport Beach to Long Beach ......... 20m ....... 183 .............. Overnight ....... Restaurant guest dock ....... Denise & Michael ........12pm / 5pm
Long Beach to Marina del Rey......... 34m .......... 217 .............. 3 months......... Del Rey Marina .............Singlehanded ...................6am / 3pm

Marina Del Rey to Oxnard............... 54m .......... 271 .............. Overnight ...... Channel Is Marina ........ Singlehanded .................. 7 am / 8 pm
Oxnard to Santa Barbara ............... 33m .......... 304 .............. 4hrs ................ SB Guest Dock ........... Carol ............................ 7am / 4pm
Santa Barbara to Morro Bay ............ 128m ........ 432 ............ 10 days ....... MB Yacht Club / Mooring .... Carol & Kristen ............... 8pm / 9pm
Morro Bay to Santa Cruz ................ 143m ......... 575 ............. 2 days ....... Santa Cruz Marina .............. Carol .......................... 8am / 5pm
Santa Cruz to Half Moon Bay .......... 53m ........... 628 ............. 5 hrs ........... HMB Guest Dock ............. Carol & Kerry ................. 9pm / 2am

Half Moon Bay to Golden Gate Brg. .... 26m .......... 654 .......... in transit ......... in transit .................... Carol & Kerry ................ 10am / 10am
Golden Gate Brg. to Sausalito ........... 6m ............ 660 ......... Overnight ..... Schoonmaker Pt Marina ....Carol & Kerry ................... 11am / 4am
Sausalito to Vallejo ........................ 25m ........... 685 .......... Homeport .......... Vallejo Marina ................ Kerry .......................... 2 pm



And a few more pictures:

Picture #1
Cruising along the California coast around Ano Nuevo Island (East of Santa Cruz once again, the coast runs east-west on this stretch).
This is the start of the cliffs that Richard Henry Dana describes in his great sailing book "Two years before the mast".

Picture #2
The Pigeon Point Lighthouse (Note Kamikaze seagull in picture)

Picture #3
Fort point in San Francisco and the silhouette of Alcatraz Island beyond.

Under the arch at the South end of the Golden Gate Bridge lies Fort Point. This fort was completed just before the American Civil War, to defend San Francisco Bay against hostile warships. Funny how one generation's most advanced formidable defense is another generation's mere obstacle to public transportation...

Picture #4
The city comes into view through the morning haze. You can see the top of the spire of the Transamerica tower in the middle of the picture.

[commanderpete]

Excellent adventure and some great pics. Thanks

[Rico]

Ok... Now back to our sheduled project documentation program -already in progress:


The Coambings
The Mephisto Cat came to me with what I assume are the original coambings. They appear to be Teak (evidenced by Smell, feel, & grain) and although they were well weathered to the gray patina commomn to weathered teak, and had a bit of mold in the areas not exposed to sunlight. Fortunately, they responded quite to just a bit of cleaning-up and looked relatively good for the next year without any oil or varnish.

They were untreated, but in great shape. I would guess that they had been varnished at some point long, long past, but it seemed that they had received only oil -if anything- in the more recent past, and nothing for at least the last few years.

I do not have specific 'before' shots (I missed these...), but you can see them in some of the previous pictures of the boat on this thread.

After a couple scrubbings with a bit of Ajax cleaner (A bit odd, yes... But it works great on teak!) they came right back to a nice light brown color. This encouraged me to do a bit of work on them and to eventually get them all varnished-up.

Originally, I thought I would not bother removing them, but since I had already taken everything else off of the hull, I thought I might as well...

In hindsight I am glad I did. Taking them off allowed me to be able to get a nice prep on all surfaces while working in comfortable positions, and to do the repair described below.

It was a bit of a bear to get them off as they were quite solidly attached to the boat. There was a bit of well-cured polysulfide against the fiberglass and this held them on quite strongly even with all the fasteners removed.



Reinforcing/Repair of the coambings.

The coambings are positioned with a slight curve to them and this provides a bit of rigidity against bending of the wood plank in the vertical plane, but it still remains a wide piece of wood that is only supported laterally at the cab attachment, and at the winch stands, and at the bottom edge (at the3" or so...) as they are fastened to the fiberglass.

As I mentioned, my coambings were in great shape, but a bit of eager help in removing one of them caused a longitudinal crack along the sharp corner cut into the coambing as it transitions from the deck onto the cockpit's side. (See last picture below) The removal of the polysulfide bond responds much better to warmth from the sun, small wood wedges, and some guitar strings (think cheese-cutting wire) as opposed to brute force...

I did not want to have a weakened coambing as I thought the crack would only get worse over time, but I also did not want to have an obvious repair with wood or metal reinforcements visible.

I thought of using a loooong stainless or bronze wood screw from the bottom edge as this would remain invisible. Failing to find such a beast I used a length of coarse-thread 316 stainless-steel allthread rod and epoxy.

First I glued the cracked surfaces together. Then I took a 5/32" drill bit (9" long, I think it is...) and drilled a hole through the middle of the thin dimension of the coambing. I smothered the sides of the hole with epoxy (using a twig from a natural broom) and then used my drill motor to screw in the length of 3/16" stainless steel all-tread rod into the pilot hole.

This not only pulled the two pieces tightly together, but it should provide solid reinforcement against future side-load stresses that may cause cracks. Especially towards the front where the Commander's coambings are up to 12" tall... and towards the very rear where the stern-most few feet remain unsuported.

After seeing the results, I proceeded to put four more pieces of rod into this coambing. two more as further reinforcement where the crack was and another at the unsupported rear end close to where there is the rear sharp corner cut into the coambing.

...then I put another three pieces of rod into the other coambing. - Just for preventative strengthening...

The holes look large because I drilled a 1/2" hole about 1/2" into the coambing to allow for the jaws of my drill to drive the rod below the edge surface of the coambing and then filled this in with resin.

The driving/screwing of the rod takes quite a bit of torque, as you can imagine. The trick is to keep the pilot hole in the middle of the material - a bit tricky with such a long drill bit / rod.

Out of the six holes I drilled, I only sort of screwed one up. The rod actually came onto the surface but only at the very tip. I ground this down to make smooth and left it. (Somewhat visible in the third picture) - Not too bad for work with a hand drill...

I then cleaned the wood up, did a bit of sanding, and over the course of the next few months sanded and applied some 8 coats of Epifanes clear varnish. The pictures were thaken sometime in the middle of this long process so the coambings do not look their best at this stage.

Epifanes is wonderful stuff. (It is made in Holland - one of my of my most favourite former homes!) I've had good results with it and it is amazingly long-lasting. It really brightened the coambings up nicely... They look pretty amazing and it is one of the first-things that people comment on about the little boat.

[ebb]

Like the wrinkle of your driving the allthread in with the driver.
Should be locked in there til kingdom come.
I believe it may be better than what 338 got which were two 6" long 1/4" bronze rods in each of the corners. Drift pins!

I'll wager there isn't a single Commander or Ariel that doesn't have this splitting problem coming out of the knotches.

The rod may be all that is needed - yet the coamings get a lot of bending moments on them - not from sitting against them so much, but sitting on them, and sometimes standing on them.
The aft end might also have a small corner block added on the deck at the end - with it screwed into the coaming and the deck, Something to make absolutely sure the top can't be moved on these 'open ends'.

[Tony G]

That is one of, if not the best fix I've seen in a long time. Besides, anyone who so aptly uses the word 'smothered' gets my vote.

[Rico]

Thanks TonyG. It was not to hard to do... and I think that the rod will certainly help the coambings.

Here is a bit on the issue of outboard performance addressing some of the most common issues brought-up on the board:

The 'Mephisto Cat' is a 'Well in the lazarette' / outboard model' from the factory. I am happy to not have to deal with an oily bilge! Although I could learn a thing or two about diesels... And I salivate a the big & handy storage space that is available in the lazarette to those of you with inboards... Hmmm...

I can only dream of the day when a nicely suited electric motor is available!

In any case; So far I've used a 2003 NISSAN 6HP, 4-stroke outboard engine with the long shaft (20”) on the Mephisto Cat. This NISSAN model, as well as some other brands (Mercury?) is apparently made by TOHATSU so they share the same mechanicals - only the marketing bits are different...

I’ve used this motor for a handful of seasons in San Francisco Bay, as well as at Marina del Rey (Santa Monica), and on coastal voyages from Ensenada, MX, to San Francisco as described in previous posts on the Mephisto Cat gallery thread.

I can only wish that a 2 piston motor will become available soon - for reduced vibration!

The typical issues faced with outboards on Ariels & Commanders seem to be the following:

1.- Will the motor fit in the outboard well?
The 6 HP Nissan fits quite nicely in the well being able to rotate pretty much throughout its full range. The lazarette cover closes, clearing the top of the motor by two to three inches. (I am unsure if the internal tank version of this motor would fit as the internal fuel tank cap is located at the top of the motor cover, and sticks out at least a couple of inches...)

The bottom unit is thin & slender (unlike some other brand's models) allowing for an easy fit in the well (there are maybe 3" inches to spare around the widest part of the lower unit as you lower it thought the well...) The slenderness of the bottom unit also helps in reducing hydrodynamic resistance while sailing with the motor in the motor well – which I often do….

This motor only weighs 55lbs (Per Nissan) which makes it easier to handle. I think that this is the heaviest you can go while still being able to (relatively) easily handle an oddly shaped mass as an outboard motor - especially at the point where you are lowering it into / pulling out of the lazarette.

2.- How much power do you need to power an Ariel / Commander (HP)?
I find that this motor moves the boat quite well. It will cruise at about 4 to 4.5 knots at ¾ throttle, and will reach hull-speed (~6kt) at a bit less than full throttle.

While sailing in SF bay in the past, where the winds and currents are not to be ignored, I have found the need to use the full power of this motor while fighting a strong current, or while motoring into a channel with a strong wind on the nose.

While using the motor during coastal cruising, I found that when faced with strong winds on the nose - and the resulting long-reach wind swell - the going gets slow... Mostly because out in the open, the wind swells easily kill your forward momentum.

In these cases a bit more horsepower might help, but these are unusual circumstances for these boats. AND I would argue that if you find yourself in this situation at that point you’d be MUCH better off sailing-off with a reefed main and a storm headsail as this will improve your ride and likely progress as well, so the benefit of a bigger outboard in these cases may never be enjoyed… while you’d ALWAYS be burdened by the big outboard’s weight. **

However, in my time spent in coastal marinas, such as Marina del Rey / Santa Monica Bay where currents are negligible, I found myself wishing for a little (maybe 2-3 HP at most) two stroke motor that I could pull out in a jiffy… This would be more than enough to get in and out of the marina when the winds were blowing. If I were still in this environment, I’d definitely go with the tiny motor. If you are in a lake environment doing mostly daysailing, I'd really consider this route...


** As I've learned more about this issue, I found that the solution in this case (from a hydrodynamic standpoint) is not really more horsepower, but rather a larger prop diameter at a lower pitch to increase efficiency of the available power... Providing what is known as increased 'bollard pull' -the equivalent of more torque in a car engine- with the same horsepower...
Unfortunately, these motors will not physically acommodate a prop much bigger than what comes from the factory...

Another wishlist item: An outboard with a BIG - FOLDING prop!!


3.- How fast will the boat go?
6HP will get you to hull speed in most conditions. There is no need for more horsepower. - 20HP will maybe give you hull speed PLUS maybe 1 or 2 knots more, PLUS a big bow wave in front of your boat… and this while using MUCH MORE Fuel. In short, there is no need… (unless, as I described above, you will be ONLY sailing against very strong winds in sheltered waters -with no wind swell. These conditions would allow you to enjoy the extra horsepower to fight the wind, but these conditions are unlikely…)

4.- Shaft length
My motor has the 20” long shaft. (Note: For 2009, Nissan is offering a 25” extra-long shaft.)

I found that the 20” long shaft works really well on these boats. The steepest swells faced were while motor-sailing around Point Conception where we saw 8-10 ft ocean swells that were far apart enough to not present a problem (11-14 seconds). Big swells are not a problem for the motor, but when these swells are reflected by the concave coast between Point Conception and Point Arguello, and become 4-5 ft swells coming in opposing directions, plus toss in a 1-2 ft wind swell… All of these combining at random can present a tall chop which can be a challenge, mostly for your comfort.

Even in these conditions the prop managed to stay in the water but did suck in some surface air for an instant a couple of times as the conditions above combined to produce a steep/deep chop. Note that when the cavitation happened, it was quire unexpected based on the behavior of the boat at the time, and never due to a severe pitch or roll - the prop seems to stay in the water while pitching /rolling. What seemed to do it was simply a very tall / steep chop, in my case, resulting from a combined wave/swell.

The cavitation was only for an instant causing the revs to increase, but only for an instant. I do not think that the motor had time to reach max revs. I do not think that cavitation is an issue for the 20" shaft length based on the amount of time that the motor had to work in these conditions...

In short; If I were in the market for a motor, I'd stick with the 20" version...

The 25” shaft would provide a slightly increase in the safety margin against the above situation, but most of us would not be in this stuff as a matter of routine… (hopefully!!). The down side of this extra length would be a bit of additional drag while sailing, a small bit of added weight, and the 5 extra inches increasing the required storage space.

Thoughts?

[ebb]

Hey Rico! That's the spirit - great report!

[mbowman]

Hey Rico, your boat looks great! That spinnaker looks familiar. I guess the sails are working ok? Where you get the storm jibs outfitted. Looks like they did a good job.

mike

[Rico]

I got the UK-Halsey loft in Venice, CA to put the hanks on. They seem to be doing pretty well. I tested out the Storm sail briefly when we had a bit of a blow. I have not used the 135%, but I did try it on for looks at the dock...

I have to get my act together and complete the installation of the Genoa tracks to be able to use all my sails properly... I know I'm going to regret not having this done soon, but it has been wet recently and I somehow have been lacking the motivation to dive into this project...

I am glad this 'lazyness' did not hit me when the boat was all torn apart!

I am currently rigged for my working jib & storm sail (tracks on the cabin top) and I can also rig up my 180% Genoa (with a NOT-very-elegant arrangement involving my greatly reinforced stern cleats) I took advantage of this rigging arrangement in the Three Bridge Fiasco race (See relevant thread for the story of that race here: http://www.pearsonariel.org/discussi...ead.php?t=1930).

BUT Yes - my sail shape and ability to trim the sails suffers with my limited set-up, but I am happy to be sailing, and seem to not be so eager to keep working! I just seem to want to sail

In any case, I' sure will get on top of it shortly... I'm sure that a bit of nice weather will get me on top of it! (I hope!)

I already have the track and hardware, but I need to look into the different rigging arrangements out there to get some ideas... I got some simple track blocks on cars, but I am wondering what the options are...


Second picture below (Picture after the B/W aerial shot) is a big zoom shot of me going out into the Carquinez straits in a light breeze recently... I am singlehandling with the 180% Genoa. This was taken from the bluff at the point where the Napa River joins the Sacramento River at the Carquinez straits.

This sail is big... (The clew is just behind my shoulder in the picture) I bought it used in almost new condition. It was tailor made for a Commander. I really like it, it is well made, clean, and the price was right... - It works great in a light breeze as you can see by the bow wave, but quickly looses efficiency as the wind picks-up above 12-13 kts.

I guess it won't see much use in the summer!

Aerial Picture (B/W) and Picture of the Mephisto Cat at the Cove Docks
I recently landed at Ayala Cove (on Angel Island in SF Bay) for the first time. We only spent an hour or so there as I wanted to figure out the rules of the park, docks & Moorings... You can use the docks only during the day, but you can spend the night on a first-come-first-serve mooring for $20. It is a beautifully sheltered little cove and is a great place to spend a quiet weekend hiking, picknicking, biking, while the boat is a mooring!



Picture of other Commander (Below on the right)
While on the island, we walked around for a bit. and while dissapointed that the beergarden was closed, we just happened to run into 'Wave' - another Commander! (Which I have not seen on the board...) I do not know the Hull number, but the owner is from Argentina and is based out of Sausalito! He had a bunch of kids out for a fun day...

[commanderpete]

WOW!! Great pics

Do you have lazy jacks and pulpit running lights now??

Sure would like to hear about the installation

The Mephisto Cat looks sweeeet

[kendall]

Part of the lock/latch for the forward hatch

Mounts on the roof, then the screw and wing nut on the hatch itself slips into it to allow snugging it down.

Ken.

[carl291]

Thanks Kendall, since you pointed out what it is and where it mounts, it's embarassingly obvious Now that I've discarded it I'm sure I will need it!