Day 1 largely consisted of arriving on board, going to sleep, waking up, drinking coffee and going to the pub! Tony joined us after lunchtime and he and I went on a chandlery raiding party but that was about as exciting as the day got so we'll move swiftly on to day 2!
It was a murky misty start to Thursday morning ...
(pic courtesy of Tony)
... and we were slow getting started due to a distinct lack of enthusiasm! Once we got going, the first order of business was to check over the engine after its winter hibernation.
The heat exchanger anode was barely half worn so that's got some life in it yet and apart from that all that was needed was to wash the water filter. Then it was time to fire her up and give her a run
Happily, she started the moment I pressed the button and ran sweetly although a certain amount of muddy silt was initially ejected from the exhaust. That'll be down to my faux pas of pumping the seawater system full of mud the other week! It soon ran clear again.
Less happily, we found that the morse control lever was reluctant to engage gear. Some fiddling and faffing about later, we managed to adjust it properly
We'd purchased the new rope to replace the badly frayed genoa sheets yesterday so Tony set about whipping an eye into the end of each line. This would later be bent on to the genoa clew with the existing soft shackle
The new sheets are colour coded. Red fleck for port, green fleck for starboard. This is part of a cunning plan to overcome Jane's innate inability to tell left from right or port from starboard. In future I'll be able to refer to "Red" or "Green" and she'll know what I mean (I hope!)
Whilst that job was in progress in the cockpit, I fetched my battery testing kit from the car. Outcome was that our domestic batteries are a little below par. Not enough to make immediate replacement a necessity though.
However, that may be due to the charger being configured for sealed batteries whereas ours are open cell. Add to that a rather short absorption cycle time for the size of battery bank and it's no great surprise that the batteries were somewhat under charged.
I reconfigured the charger to reflect the size and type of batteries inn our battery bank and we'll monitor their performance for a while before deciding whether it's time to shell out for new ones or not.
Various other minor tasks were dealt with culminating in the removal of the cockpit tent and preparations for tomorrow's mast climbing endeavours which included a trip to Burnham to borrow the mast ladder off "Laurin".
Whilst in Burnham, the ingredients for a hearty stew were procured from the Co-op. Edit: The chef has insisted that I make it clear that there was no heart in the stew,, that would be offal. It contained nothing but the very best beef. We consumed said beefy stew and a bottle or two from the No.1 Beer Hold.
There endeth the second day ...
It was a murky misty start to Thursday morning ...
(pic courtesy of Tony)
... and we were slow getting started due to a distinct lack of enthusiasm! Once we got going, the first order of business was to check over the engine after its winter hibernation.
The heat exchanger anode was barely half worn so that's got some life in it yet and apart from that all that was needed was to wash the water filter. Then it was time to fire her up and give her a run
Happily, she started the moment I pressed the button and ran sweetly although a certain amount of muddy silt was initially ejected from the exhaust. That'll be down to my faux pas of pumping the seawater system full of mud the other week! It soon ran clear again.
Less happily, we found that the morse control lever was reluctant to engage gear. Some fiddling and faffing about later, we managed to adjust it properly
We'd purchased the new rope to replace the badly frayed genoa sheets yesterday so Tony set about whipping an eye into the end of each line. This would later be bent on to the genoa clew with the existing soft shackle
The new sheets are colour coded. Red fleck for port, green fleck for starboard. This is part of a cunning plan to overcome Jane's innate inability to tell left from right or port from starboard. In future I'll be able to refer to "Red" or "Green" and she'll know what I mean (I hope!)
Whilst that job was in progress in the cockpit, I fetched my battery testing kit from the car. Outcome was that our domestic batteries are a little below par. Not enough to make immediate replacement a necessity though.
However, that may be due to the charger being configured for sealed batteries whereas ours are open cell. Add to that a rather short absorption cycle time for the size of battery bank and it's no great surprise that the batteries were somewhat under charged.
I reconfigured the charger to reflect the size and type of batteries inn our battery bank and we'll monitor their performance for a while before deciding whether it's time to shell out for new ones or not.
Various other minor tasks were dealt with culminating in the removal of the cockpit tent and preparations for tomorrow's mast climbing endeavours which included a trip to Burnham to borrow the mast ladder off "Laurin".
Whilst in Burnham, the ingredients for a hearty stew were procured from the Co-op. Edit: The chef has insisted that I make it clear that there was no heart in the stew,, that would be offal. It contained nothing but the very best beef. We consumed said beefy stew and a bottle or two from the No.1 Beer Hold.
There endeth the second day ...
No comments:
Post a Comment