Tag: maintenance
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Engine musings
Sunday saw me on Blue Opal for the afternoon doing an oil change, and then staying on board overnight to make the early tide to Malahide (to get the damage from launching dealt with). A bit of cleaning and tidying occurred too! I was in Malahide by 1030 hours on Monday (having left just after…
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Plumbing adventures
Since the renovation in 2019, the cylinder-fed hot water supply in the house has had air in it. Constantly. Every day. So I’d go to take a shower, and have to clear a bunch of air out of the feed before the shower would be happy. Worse, it would occasionally feed air mid-shower too, which…
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Back in Dun Laoghaire
Blue Opal is back in the water. Launched her on Thursday, and got the mast stepped in the correct slot this time (it had been mounted forwards one notch for the last few years). We put the cap shrouds on the wrong deck points initially, and wondered why the tension was as high as it…
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Lighting up the wiring locker
A bit of LED strip light, IP65 rated, makes it really easy to see everything in the wiring locker without resorting to beams of light that get blocked by hands, require your third hand etc. The wiring still needs some more tidying and labeling, but it’s getting better.
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Upgrading the alternator cable
Another observation during all of this wiring work is that there was a drop in the voltage from the alternator terminal to the splitter input – up to 0.5V. A drop at the batteries is expected as the relationship between amps and volts changes during charging, but in the ~4 metres from the alternator to…
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Re-wiring the battery locker
Given the voltage drop at the water pump, the next wiring upgrade was to take the battery locker to wiring locker wire up to 16mm sq. This was completed today, and while it’s made things a bit better at the water pump, the voltage drop is still 2 volts. Along the way, the main battery…