Tag: Blue Opal

  • Pondering the head sea-cock

    Pondering the head sea-cock

    The sea-cock under the head, the one used for the outlet, is pretty darn stiff. This was noted on the survey, and the prior owner indicated that they had addressed this issue (I assume by putting grease up the hole from the outside while she was on land). However, K can’t operate it, and my…

  • Leaving the pontoon

    Leaving the pontoon

    Blue Opal was alongside today so that I could get some shore power to run a steam pressure cleaner (a simple Kรคrcher one) in the head to get rid of some of the dirt on the fittings and piping. Alas, I couldn’t get actual shore power, because her 16A -> Marinco cable isn’t long enough…

  • Slowing the engine down

    Slowing the engine down

    Modern cellphones have some neat tricks built in to them. In this instance, the ability to record at 120 fps, and then slow down the replay to 30 fps, resulting in a slow-motion video. This makes it easier to capture the motion of things like the belt on the front of Blue Opal’s 3GM30 engine.

  • Boat network sorted

    Boat network sorted

    It turns out the last cable that I could not trace could not be traced because it didn’t go anywhere. Anyone with the older Raymarine/Autohelm gear can tell you that instrument displays like the VMG have a triangle of connections – two are for the SeaTalk1 bus (in and out), and the top third one…

  • Ship’s Log – things work!

    Ship’s Log – things work!

    Went down to the club today, and out to Blue Opal, with a few goals in mind: document her data network, get the lift pump for the Webasto to prime, put a screw in next to the radio to stop the melamine from falling down, and start documenting the power looms. I was successful on…

  • Boat data network investigation

    Boat data network investigation

    Part of today was spent investigating the boat data network to find out what went where, and then draw a pretty picture. As the photos show, I was mostly successful – there’s a single SeaTalk1 cable in the helm console that I can’t find the other end of. I suspect it’s a power connector, since…