Category: Sailing
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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…
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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.
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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…
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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…
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Re-fitting the hose lid
The new hose layout in the heads means that the lid over the hose collection doesn’t fit any more. A bit of work with a large piece of cardboard and a box cutter gave me a decent template to work from, and a shiny new oscillating multi-tool worked nicely to cut the wood. I do…
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Adventures while changing the oil
With Blue Opal alongside for the week, and the new water pump installed, I figured it was a good time to change the oil and the oil filter. Borrowed the oil vacuum from the club, and started the engine up to warm up the oil. As I’m pottering around waiting for the engine to warm…