Month: July 2019

  • Wiring locker re-do/tidy

    Wiring locker re-do/tidy

    Blue Opal’s wiring locker behind the chart table is a combination of neat and messy. All of the from-the-yard wiring is clipped together nicely with small cable ties, the bundles to the switch panels are wrapped in mesh, and it’s all done very nicely into chocolate block terminals. As happens with boats, however, other wiring…

  • Changing the head seacock

    Changing the head seacock

    Blue Opal’s head waste seacock has been recalcitrant since I bought her, and the survey noted this too. In fact, I had the yard in Conwy give it some attention, and they said it had been freed up. However, I’ve always found it hard to move, and K can’t even get it to budge. It…

  • Reversing on to the pontoon

    Reversing on to the pontoon

    This morning, as I departed the pontoon with the RIB alongside, I suddenly twigged that the RIB keys were not in it – they were up in the boathouse. There was no wind, and I didn’t feel like doing a full loop, so I tried going on to the pontoon astern. Worked like a charm.

  • Rewiring the batteries

    Rewiring the batteries

    Blue Opal’s battery layout, like everything on a boat, made compromises. In the port side of the saloon, there’s a small locker under the aft central cushion, and a long locker under the aft port cushion. The two house batteries occupied the entire small locker, running transverse across the hull, and the port locker had…

  • Fixing a Seawolf 520 windlass

    Fixing a Seawolf 520 windlass

    The club committee boat, Hawaiian Goose (I have no idea how it got that name), has had a dodgy windlass for a while. Brian has spent the past week re-wiring it completely with large gauge cable, just in case it was a wiring fault that was causing grief. Symptoms: Windlass will start out just fine,…

  • Working helm windlass control

    Working helm windlass control

    With K’s help down in the hole yesterday, we got the 3-core cable run from the console to the solenoid box for the windlass. The first problem we encountered was the one Dad and I encountered – push the wire down the pedestal steel tubing, and it stops right at the bottom. The idea was…