Hey all,

Firstly a list of thank yous...
Rick of SV Godspeed in Texas for helping track down a propane part for Emerald THANK YOU (check out his sailblog)

Connor Jordan for the Ulster Rugby cap THANK YOU

Tony for the new genoa tracks THANK YOU

James for the offer of help THANK YOU

So been a while since I sat down to write anything. The new year has felt like we've made slow progress in terms of jobs on Emerald.

We started on replacing the staysail tracks... which has led to discovery of a number of leaks around the galley... oh joy!

We think.... they are coming from the portholes over the galley. We are planning to completely reglaze and refurbish these next winter but don't feel we have time this winter.

Therefore I took the trim rings off the outside and discovered the horrors of voids and badly installed portholes, no wonder they leaked! We'll get them out next year (all 14 of them!!!) and build up the fiberglass around them and then cut the holes out properly and bed them in properly, a pretty big job. But for now i've filled the voids with silicone frame sealant as a stop gap solution which should stop them leaking into the galley.

We are still waiting on some parts to get the new staysail tracks mounted then I can rebuild the galley deckhead (or kitchen ceiling for land lubbers) which was showing its age. As this is directly over the cooker, we've decided to line it with polished aluminium with a hardwood trim surround.

This will be a tricky job because of the different angles involved at the corners, to get the trim lined up. However I cannot start this yet as I have to mount the staysail tracks first....

Therefore I decided to start something else.... as if we aren't already in enough chaos! (sorry Nichola!)

We'd switched off the freezer to defrost it several months ago. I wanted to add extra insulation to the inside of the box to reduce our 12 volt power consumption. (the freezer sat at around -1F or -18C but to do this it ran constantly using about 3amps per hour or approx 65 amphours per day)

Therefore I wanted to add 3 inches of closed cell foam and aluminium foil to the bottom of the freezer box, 2 inches to the back wall of the box (as it is against the engine room bulkhead), and an additional 1 inch all-round the other sides. Then I re-lined the box with some white pvc panels. The closed cell foam was left over from the forepeak refit, so in total we only had to buy the liner plastic and some seam edging. It cost a lot less than we thought. Good news in these austere times!

The whole job took three days, and looks good. We are pleased with the outcome. We'll have to see how the power consumption goes down.

I'll probably reset the freezer to cool down to 0F with a six degree spread between off and on (-18degC to -12degC), so I'm going to hopefully get the daily power down to maybe 40amp hrs a day for the freezer, time will tell!

We switched it on a noon today and it has dropped by about 25 degC in 8 hours. I think it should be down to temperature by tomorrow morning then we can have ice for the gin and ice cream!!! Ahh the little things!

slainte
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