I can't believe how long it is since we've blogged! Almost 4 months! Doesn't time fly!!!!!!!! Things have been busy,

we've got engaged, tentative date; 29th March 2008
we've finished the water tank plumbing (as far as the pump) having removed the old stainless one and installed a new flexi tank from Vetus. We've also got our neat gadget working from Pro Module which allows us to work out how much water we have in each tank, by means of a little flow meter. I'm going to see if I can put another one on the output of the watermaker so we'll always have an accurate position of the water aboard.

Next up we have installed completely our new Lofrans Tigress windlass and chain. We've just put the new anchor on and it is ready to work.

For those of you Van Morrsion fans we've also gone on a pilgrimage to Coney Island of the song fame in Northern Ireland whilst on a visit to pick up the engagement ring made by an old family friend.

We've also done a lot of the preparation for installing our solar panel farm on the boat. Currently we're planning to have 2 x 75 Watt panels on each aft Quarter and one 130W panel on the stern over the dinghy davits. We many possibly put another 55W panel on top of the hatch turtle/garage for the forward companionway hatch, giving us probably 25-30 amps peak charging at midday, or probably around 280Amp hours a day in the tropics. This should allow us to only run the engine once every 2 to 3 days for battery charging.

Finally we've completed the installation of the Air X marine Wind Genny on the aft of the boat. We're not sure how much this will add to the battery bank, but hopefully it will help us a bit.


This is good news and we are also hoping that our engine trials are finally on course soon!!!!! Yippee!!!!!!

On the more difficult front we've discovered quite a few mast woes with Nichola up at the top several weeks in a row. Our internal sheeves are jammed solid so the mast has to come out at the end of Sept. we'll take that opportunity to redo standing rigging and the chain plates at the same time. Joy oh joy, but at least when the mast goes back in we'll be confident that we've future proofed it for many years to come. Once out we'll also fit folding mast steps to help us get up the mast easier.

We must get back into the blogging cycle again.

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