Sail Vicarious: SailBlogs

Radar Tracking

Spencer — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:50:47 -0600

I learned how to track other boats and set up alerts when boats or markers enter one of four rings that I can set around us. It is a very cool capability that reminds me of my days flying the AV-8B Harrier - pretty much the same. I just move the cursor over the target, lock on, and it tells me the heading that they are on and our closing speed... too cool! Goose would be jealous! (Continued...)

Car-Free

Spencer — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:44:05 -0600

And in the middle of the bilge storage project, I sold my truck today. It was bought by a dealer in Asheville. They drove 7 hours to take that great truck off my hands. They tell me that they can't keep them on their lot, since all the snow this past winter. I'm now driving a rental car, waiting for a cargo van to come in any day now at Enterprise Rental. It will be my rolling storage and workshop until we cast off. (Continued...)

Bilge Storage

Spencer — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:40:14 -0600

Today's project was making use of the 4 inches of air space above the main water tank and under the cabin sole. I built a storage area that is about 4 feet x 2 feet and four inches high. Just right for wine bottles perhaps! We will probably use it for small bags of tools that I won't be using very often once we get cruising. The picture doesn't look to good, but the storage area is strongly suspended by the cross beams under the floor, not pressing on the water tank. (Continued...)

Inverter Swap

Spencer — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:36:48 -0600

The big, good news of the day late yesterday was that I changed out the Xantrex Prosine 1000 for an 1800 and the Splendide Washer/Dryer works like a charm! I need to let the folks at Westland Sales know that this appears to be a great match for boat or RV installations. I disconnected shore power and the wash, rinse and spin cycles worked fine. I reconnected shore power for the dry cycle, since it was pulling about 100 AMPs DC, but all was well, running off of the Inverter, which is NOT connected to shore power. (Continued...)

Starting Battery

Spencer — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:32:22 -0600

All these fancy new electronics came with instructions that said not to hook them up to the same battery that starts the engine. Well, the electical system that I designed and installed a while back had one, 600 amp/hr AGM battery bank for everything except for the windlass. I felt that this was a simpler system and wouldn't be wasting any battery power. (Continued...)

Tanbark Sails

Spencer — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 16:02:18 -0600

We love our Tanbark sails! (View Post...)

Practice

Spencer — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 16:00:16 -0600

We had a great trip to Oriental yesterday, sailing most of the way! We were wing-on-wing for a couple hours of perfect sailing! We both love to sail and look forward to the days when we can shut off the motor and move along in silence - with music playing. (Continued...)

Filters

Spencer — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:55:45 -0600

I changed most of our filters today. From the left are: Napa 10 mil filter and Racor 2 mil filter that all fuel is pumped through by an electric fuel pump on the way to either the engine or generator polishing tank. Then the fuel goes through either the Racor 10 mil and then Beta Marine 7 mil engine filter or it goes through a small Racor 10 mil filter before entering the generator. It may sound complicated, but is really quite simple and should be very effective at cleaning and drying diesel fuel. (Continued...)

Precise cuts

Spencer — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:08:23 -0600

I always measure 3 or 4 times when it comes to cutting holes in the fiberglass. I gave this install a lot of thought and this is the best that I could come up with. The engine room blower and generator blower outputs are on the port side, behind our winch. I hope that rain water doesn't find its way in. (Continued...)

Engine room blower

Spencer — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:04:38 -0600

Today I installed the engine room blower and the duct work for the generator blower. It took all day - two trips to Lowe's for two hole saws and a dozen squeezes into the deepest corners of the lazarette and under the cockpit to install the ducts, wiring and blower. (Continued...)