Category: Cruising

Eventually something was going to blow up….the liferaft is in for servicing and the cylinder fired. Checking out as fully serviceable the raft will be vacuum packed and refit with the required safety gear to meet the ARC SOLAS specifications. The procedure is being witnessed by an equally inflated crew under going dry suit testing.

Activating a USB port to enable NMEA data inputs within an older (pre-USB plug-and-play era) was proving a source of frustration. Activating the port via a direct USB feed taken from a protected circuit driven my an Actisense Multiplexer was the intended solution but Open CPN was unable to recognise the USB port on a laptop. Although there are a number of costly solutions on the market but after fitting (the brilliant) multiplexer adding another unit in the chain seemed folly. Enter the FDIC chip which fools a USB port into recognising RS232 inputs, which are direct NMEA feeds taken

The stern light bracket is ready to fit after a bit of grinding and polishing. The picture also shows a Chinese copy of an Aqua Signal 40 Series light, a 40% cost reduction. The lantern is identical in almost all respects. The bayonet fitting for the lamp in the Chinese housing is an upgrade but the cable seal is a poor design so is being modified by re-cutting a thread and fabricating a brass collar. A plug has been turned out of nylon and is ready to weld into the base. The brass rod will be drilled, turned and threaded.

Welding a 316 steel bracket to raise the stern light from deck level which otherwise reflects brightly off the pushpit and liferaft bracket – if the Oriana were dead astern in the pitch black you would hear it long before seeing any navigation lights. Once raised well above deck level we can return to peering into the mystic depths of darkness as well as retain our night vision.

We have decided that our agency is an inverse one; our brochures are mostly about what to avoid where and when. The destination footprint often reads very rough, dangerous, not to be attempted at night…..

The posts have slowed recently as packing the house has moved up the priority list especially with daytime temps of 3 degs C. Boatwise the watermaker is the main show at this time. The first issue has been to decide whether or not to run with pre-existing holes in the hull or to drill more. And if drilling one or two more then where? What would the pipe routes be and what fittings would be required? Eventually it was decided that we would use the pre-existing through hull fittings that had effectively been made redundant. That gave rise to the

The Ship’s Cat gets stuck into the ARC Manual to ensure that everything is under control and the rally flag is ready for the port spreader