Ramblings

  • A breezy sail

    A breezy sail

    A lovely sail today. A bit breezy and choppy, and thus I had to reef the main and furl the jibs a bit.

  • Cleaning the bilge

    Cleaning the bilge

    On the trip from Conwy to Holyhead, Blue Opal‘s bilge got filled with the contents of a canister of clean engine oil. You can imagine the panic this caused when we reached Holyhead, and performed an inspection of the boat to ensure that everything was fine. It resulted in one of my crew climbing down…

  • Of broken winches and autopilots

    Of broken winches and autopilots

    While out sailing over the weekend, two things decided to go crunch and sproing respectively. The stripper ring in the port sheet winch went crunch; this became evident when the sheet in the self-tailer guide suddenly went under the lift arm, and doubled up in the self-tailer. I cleared the jam, and found bits of…

  • Customised blankets :)

    Customised blankets 🙂

    Courtesy of K, a pair of customised throws / blankets for Blue Opal.

  • Sunday Sailing

    The first one has a bit more wind noise than I thought it would.. turn your volume down 🙂

  • Water system – accumulator installed

    Water system – accumulator installed

    The water system upgrade is complete. A new backing plate was installed opposite the existing one, and the shelf for the pump was moved to this plate. Old piping was removed, new piping (shorter mostly) was added. The non-barbed connectors are an absolute pain to work with when you don’t have a way to heat…