Orana 44: In General

[zerompg]

Originally Posted by rmaher

Watching zerompg/stress less' YouTube video today, reminded me of a installation flaw I recently found on my roller furler (after 4 years of ownership-doh!)

Looking through the Facnor installation manual (http://www.facnor.com/uk/technical_s...slx2012_a5.pdf) I noted on pg. 28, section 5.1 that the furling line is led "through the stainless steel guide". Mine was not and explains why I occasionally had the line roll over the top of the drum and jam (even writing this I can't believe I didn't see it sooner!!) On my 'original' install the stainless steel guide faces fore and aft with the furling line led off the starboard side but wrongly outside of the guide.

Zerompg - I believe I see this in your install and wonder how many others (possibly because of the same misguided installer) have this issue.

FWIW - Rob

You appear to be correct, mine is fore-aft with the line no "inside" the guide. I'll take a look and see if I can change that easy.. Thanks!!

[zerompg]

Another thing bugging me is mast height, I'm not sure how high ours is. It's factory 2012 i'm fairly sure. I found s brochure http://www.fountainepajot.com.au/wp-...ochure-web.pdf Which state air draft 63.8... I thought we were 68'... We're right next to a lagoon 420 and he said his was 65' and I can't really see a difference from the dock or from a distance. Not 3'.

What is your Orana mast height! I'l love for it to be 64.8 that would open up many possibilities. What's the easiest way to measure this?

Thanks

[rmaher]

If you pull down the manual, section 6 on the same page (28) shows how simple a fix it is to loosen the hex bolt and rotate the guide. It took me longer to refeed the furling line!

Hope that helps!

[zerompg]

Yup!! I see it now, the French was hard then found the English.

I'll adjust that, thanks again for the catch!!

We're getting 2 new fuel tanks installed Monday (Finally)!!!!

The condition of the original tank was terrible, videos to come.


Thanks for watching the videos!!

[rmaher]

Originally Posted by zerompg

Another thing bugging me is mast height, I'm not sure how high ours is. It's factory 2012 i'm fairly sure. I found s brochure http://www.fountainepajot.com.au/wp-...ochure-web.pdf Which state air draft 63.8... I thought we were 68'... We're right next to a lagoon 420 and he said his was 65' and I can't really see a difference from the dock or from a distance. Not 3'.

What is your Orana mast height! I'l love for it to be 64.8 that would open up many possibilities. What's the easiest way to measure this?

Thanks

From what literature I've found and have some confidence in based on our travels down the ICW, we are 63.5' to the top of the mast and another 8" for the furuno wind instrument sender.

Now I am far less confident in the listed bridge heights on the ICW (both on the charts and as appears on the tide boards at each bridge)

[rmaher]

Originally Posted by zerompg

Yup!! I see it now, the French was hard then found the English.

I'll adjust that, thanks again for the catch!!

We're getting 2 new fuel tanks installed Monday (Finally)!!!!

The condition of the original tank was terrible, videos to come.


Thanks for watching the videos!!

I'm anxious to see how the fuel tank install goes - best of luck!!

[pstadt]

Concerning the question of mast height - we have a 2011 and our drawings show the same, 63'-6" to the top of the man cap (which, by the way is angled slightly upward from being a horizontal flat cap). I'm guessing that the measurement was done at the middle of the cap so the actual height is perhaps an inch more - we haven't made an actual measurement of our rig, but....

On our way down the east coast this winter, we were convinced by some fellow sailors that if we stripped the mast cap, we could fit under the 65' ICW bridges. Drawings indicated that it seemed possible (at 63-6). Long story short, the posted air drafts, at least at the first three bridges south of Port Canaveral in Florida are either incorrect or our drawings are incorrect. Not confident in our actual mast height, I had constructed a sort of "feeler" mechanism made out of yardsticks that I strapped to the bare mast cap (no antenna, no anemometer and a dismounted mooring light). The idea was that this "bridge feeler" would contact the span before the mast and it did so on the third bridge. We had approached each bridge with no other traffic around, in the calmest of conditions, after checking both the north and south posted air draft boards by dinghy (which by the way indicated somewhere in the mid 64' range of clearance), and ever so slowly. No mast contact but snapping off that yardstick on the third bridge convinced us not to take anymore chances with bridges that are about the same height as our mast.

Pat

[rmaher]

Your experience is not far different from mine and the Florida bridge tide boards were always most suspect. We found we needed to be especially conscious of the tides including any that might be wind enhanced. As you note, the cap is angled upward towards the bow - do you think that had an impact on your feeler gauge also projected upward if only slightly?

[pstadt]

Yes, the angle of the cap certainly raised the tip of the yardstick feeler (approx. 2' long) a bit...perhaps 2" or so. At the end of the stick I had attached a vertical section with a bolt and wing nut that raised it another 3". The intent was that this vertical section, if contacting the bridge, would rotate back, telling us we had less than about 64'-0" (if all calculations and assumptions were accurate). The more horizontal section of the feeler was what ultimately struck the span though.

We are full time aboard, so have the boat perhaps the heaviest it will see (maybe another inch of draft). An additional consideration for those particular bridges just south of Port Canaveral is that there is no tidal effect in that area - so no chance of waiting for a low tide to increase the odds of success. We were told that as you go further south, the tides start to kick in - we know that this is true of the Melbourne area, having grown up there and knowing when it was low tide (unpleasant odor).

Pat

[rmaher]

Was that the Melbourne bridge? Active Captain reports previous problems there.

[pstadt]

No, not the Melbourne Causeway - we were rejected at the Pineda Causeway.

Pat

[rmaher]

Thanks Pat. Pineda doesn't show up on the radar of any of the sources I've found so that's helpful to know. You've probably seen this but this cruiser has documented his experiences with the AICW bridges: Height Board Problems | ICW Cruisers Guide

[browone]

Just curious if any of you have any experience with Orana rudders. I got a call from a friend last week who's rudder fell off his Orana on the way to Tonga. He asked if we could pull our Orana out to get a pattern made for a replacement. The yard pulled both our rudders for inspection and noticed some corrosion on the stock itself and where the stock meets the blade. Getting new rudders made is likely to be an expensive proposition. Any advice/comments from other Orana owners. Ours is a 2009 (hull #55). Thanks in advance.

[pstadt]

During our haul out last Fall, our starboard rudder was dripping for days - no sign of paint disturbance (so no contact with some submerged object) but after two days of dripping I drilled a 1/4" hole straight up from the bottom and water poured out for about 20 seconds. I then had it gouged out along the bottom edge so we could look at it better. It appeared to be a poor layup of glass layers at the bottom leading edge that hadn't been wrapped - they just sort of came near each other at the bottom. Anyway, we had that repaired and went back in the water.
Sometime in the middle of winter cruising in the Bahamas we noticed that the port rudder tiller arm had slid up the stock about an inch (rudder stock had not moved, just the tiller arm that connects the stock to the cross bar). Put that back in place, marked it and tightened the detent and tiller clamp bolt. No further movement on that.
I did notice on the haul out and during cleaning dives that the port rudder sits closer to the hull than the starboard rudder (less top clearance) but those positions have never changed and I just chalked that up to original installation.
A good friend recommended years ago that we should through-drill the stocks and use a nut/bolt arrangement where the tiller connection is made to ensure no movement (and no loss of rudder)...just haven't gotten around to that yet.
Thanks for the posting - I wonder how the stock/rudder connection developed corrosion underwater...had the boat been on the hard for some time? And, being stainless, possibly a poorer grade of stainless was used on those particular stocks?
Good luck with the repairs,
Pat

[browone]

Thanks Pat. Good tip on the tiller through-bolt. I think I will definitely do that.
The boat has not been on the hard much at all (only a week in the last 18 months), although it did have the FP warrantee osmosis treatment in 2015 and was out for several months then. I noticed that the stocks are not connected to an anode, and I wonder if that has anything to do with it? Cheers, Ted.