Winter list

I've not been sitting on my home pontoon since returning from our week away, but we've had several trips out making the most of the return of some warm weather, alas little wind the last time out but we're still honing our skills, trimming and tweaking my sails and rigging to get the best out of what we've got.

I think this is probably the biggest reason why trailing a lure just returns little reward.  If only my skipper would sit down and watch the world go by, but no that's not him, he's watching the wind in my sails, easing or hardening the Vang, adjusting the tack on the jib, playing with luff lines just to get the best shape and every ounce of wind to good use.

Not only that but he's also been down quite a lot other times, sorting out, measuring up and preparing himself for the next ideas he has in his head.

He's also been up the mast to replace the last of the normal bulbs with power saving LED, the fitting of the amp meter some time ago always raised eyebrows every time the anchor light was switched on.  To remind you the picture above is Skipper's view looking back down at me with the bucket of tools and spares tied to him; he's nearly 100 feet above the water.

The VHF speaker in the cockpit has been replaced, apparently, it was a hardware issue which comes down to circuit board failure as the speaker skipper fitted was still functional.  Unfortunately, Raymarine has forgotten to return the back plate, so it's currently taped to me, there's always something else.

He's been making a new control panel too, the original tachometer that indicates the revs of my engine had failed and he's decided to take the opportunity to add a combined water temperature and oil pressure digital gauge.  It's fancy so I hear, the figures are displayed in different colours, so for instance purple for when it's reaching working pressure/temperature; then go green for at working state and then red if it exceeds its working limits and flashing red should it be allowed to remain in that state.  This is from his past days when he built and drove rally cars, not that this type of instrument was available to him then, no this is on his sons' car now, but skipper likes to know what the engines doing so he can spot issues before they become problems.

New control panel

(hole top right is for push stop button)

He's also had the stainless steel cut so that the bracket can be made up that will provide the support to the foredeck fitting to take the J3 sail.  This needs to be welded and then when I'm out of the water on the hard, skipper will fit it ready for next season.