Another Monday, another weekend of boat work put behind us. And what a weekend it was.

As you'll remember from last week, we were due to have an engineer out on Friday to inspect that faulty starboard engine... well, he couldn't make it due to an over-running job, so we brought forward drying out the boat by a day. I wanted to dry out the boat to a.) check the anodes, b.) have a look at the rudder as it's still heavy to port and c.) check for any growth and since we're at a drying yard, figured we might as well put it up against one of the jetties.



Now, drying out isn't as simple as it seems - you need to weight the side closest to the jetty to ensure the boat leans against it. In total, it took about 100kg to lean it over enough.











Once the water started to depart, it was time to have a look underneath and give everything a blast with the jet wash. On the plus side, our anodes are still going quite strong after almost two seasons (I put this down to our isolation transformer) although the propshaft anodes needed replacing again. I hit the rudder quite hard with the angle grinder as it was catching on the corners of the keel and it's definitely made the helm lighter to port, but still not as light as to starboard. Hmmmm. The growth isn't too bad; a few small barnacles but nothing to worry about just yet. We'll haul her out after summer and hit it with a fresh few coats of anti-foul.
Anyways, the next high tide was at 01:30 so we took off the weights, dropped the lines and motored her back to our berth.








 

The diesel cooker is playing up again (looks like it's just a bit dirty and needs a clean) and with the cracking sunny weather in town, it was time to plumb in and fire up the BBQ. I really miss BBQs and our Magma didn't disappoint.



Saturday was then spent with jobs - a custom chopping board to overlay one of the sinks (as the diesel cooker has taken some of our counter space), a spinnaker ring bolted onto the forward mast, a fan speed control knob wired onto the diesel cooker, some wood strips around the solar panel, and Lauren cleaning the diesel cooker. What a day. Another BBQ to wrap things up there.



Sunday was all about paint - after all the winter work, we'd trashed the wheelhouse so it was time to give it a fresh lick of paint. Two coats done, two coats to do next weekend, but it's looking good.





Anyways, next weekend we're off to Cowes on the Sunday for an overnighter. The plan is for the engine chap to come on Friday, then for us to wire and re-fit the wind generators on Saturday - at that stage, we'll then be well progressed towards being "Caribbean ready". 58 weeks and counting.

N

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Another weekend closer to our departure (59 weeks and counting) and a number of smaller jobs needed ticking off.

First up was the water filtration system. No longer living aboard full time means the water in the tanks (especially in warmer weather) can start to age quite quickly, so some sort of filter was needed. Having looked at the "marine grade" systems (£400 plus), I did some research and went with a standard 10" home system (about £69). This also includes the benefit of using standard 10" filters (about £5 each), generally available anywhere in the world.

Anyway, to the install. The first tank holds a 5-micron sediment filter and the second holds a 5-micron carbon block filter. I've installed the setup immediately after the tank outlet and before the water pump - I had thought about installing it for drinking water only (ie. under the galley sink), but then this would still have the shower and aft head sink using unfiltered tank water. The placement of the filter housings also means that if any water does spill (through a leak or while changing filters), it'll drain straight into the bilge.

The pump now sounds like it's working a tad harder, but it also no longer cycles so rapidly. Time will tell if the system needs moving upstream of the pump, but for the moment the water tastes great.

Sunday morning brought about another boat jumble. Here's our shopping list:

New Life sling - £20
New McMurdo grab bag - £15
Ocean Dan Buoy - £8
1 x Sika 295, 2 x Sika 291 - £10
2 x Harnesses & tethers - £15
Red webbing (enough to do all the lifelines) - £3
Hand bearing Compass - £2
Horsehoe Holder - £5
Folding Trolley - £5
2 x Mini Strobes - £4
1 x large Flare Case - £10

Now, given the Dan Buoy itself is worth over £150, we made out quite well. Plus there's now more toys for me to play with next weekend.

Something else I forgot to mention is our plan to install an external helm on the aft deck. We picked up a wheel & chain sprocket, plus fibreglass pedestal for £60 at the last boat jumble. Installing them will be a job for next winter....

This coming weekend will be drying the boat out to check the rudder & replace the anodes, having that starboard engine looked into and (if the weather holds), getting the wiring installed for the wind gen installation.

nathan

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Quite an apt post title, given the events of the past 24 hours. You see, after a long 24 hours of sailing, my brain is absolutely dead.

I digress. Bank holiday weekend here in the UK (we get Monday off) and whilst these are normally known for a lack of sunshine and mass amounts of rain, sunshine was predicted instead. We picked up the afternoon tide yesterday (Saturday), left Chichester Harbour and made our way over to the Hamble, via Southampton Water. Now, this whole shebang almost didn't happen as the starboard engine (the one & same that flooded with seawater when it was 2 hours old) decided to spring up an oil leak, but we pressed on and with the tide and most of the sail up, made good time.

The Hamble is a loooooooong river that comes off Southampton Water and having by now dodged a number of coasters and oil tankers, it was time to moor up on a visitor's pontoon and hit the pub.

Cue this morning. Time to go. This would be Lauren's and my first trip out in a long time just by ourselves (we've generally taken crew, given it's an untested boat) so first thing this morn, off we set.

Same issue with the starboard engine and the wind was dead on the nose, so motoring only, but we still made good time and having arrived in Chichester Harbour again, dropped the hook for a bit of anchoring practice before coming back into the marina. 

Which is where we sit, now in glorious sunshine.

Now, the engines. The port one is 26hrs old and has a very, very small leak at the sump gasket (very, very small). The starboard one however has what appears to be the same leak all the way around the sump gasket, plus the oil filter spun off quite easily in my hand. Not good. Also, the starboard engine runs at 105psi when first starting (drops to 80psi after a while) and also runs 20C hotter. I'm emailing the manufacturer now and will see what they say......

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Has it really been almost a month since I last updated the blog? How time flies.

So where are we at. After the fun & games of our last departure from the dock, we laid up the boat for a couple of weeks while we undertook our annual trip back to Australia to visit family and friends.

Back down to the boat this past weekend then to see the state of things. A few issues seem to have come about:

- A drip around the mast needs investigating (and likely another mast base. And more sikaflex. And more creeping crack cure).

- One of the Rule auto-bilge pumps has finally failed after two years - these are the ones that spin up every couple of minutes to check for water then power down if none is present. To be quite honest, having five of these chirp away all night has been a bit of a pain these past couple of years but due to the cost (£60 each), I've been loathe just to throw them out. Anyways, now this one's failed I'll refit a standard bilge pump & float switch, and await the failure of the other four......

- The Dickinson is proving to be a right pain to wire in the variable speed fan switch. The original switch was wired for 24V so after chopping out the resistor, I thought I had it wired in for 12V. Nope. Either off or on at full speed. Next I wired in an aftermarket variable speed controller. Still nothing. How hard can it be right? Any thoughts would of course be most appreciated.

Anyways, that's about it for the moment. We headed out to the Beaulieu Boat Jumble yesterday and managed to pick up a few bits & bobs (nearly all parts now purchased for the external helm addition), even if it was an utter mudbath....

 
The to-do and to-buy lists are shrinking dramatically, and this coming weekend we're off on a 50-nm round trip to another marina. If the weather stays from the north, it should be a cracker. Updates to follow.

n

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