Slow Start

Well, let's start with some good news.

This weekend was the first of the May bank holidays and whilst again another trip planned had to be put aside, work leading up to the break had Skip discovering two minor issues that had lead to the rev counter and his new gauge from not working.  The rev counter comes with three terminals at the rear, well four actually but let's discount the one for the backlight as that's straightforward, that left ground or earth, again straightforward and two more.  Ignition and pulse, for some reason Skip, had lead two wires back to the intelligent regulator where he could take the pulse connection from and clearly had in his mind where the ignition feed could come from too. However, all he needed to do was to link up with the wire back to the alternator at the back of the ignition switch some 4" away.

Once he'd worked out which was the wire to the alternator and made a connection to it, bingo, the rev counter did exactly what it's supposed to do. The second was even more straightforward so more puzzling, in fitting the new gauge he had to extend all the leads to the sensors, as these are based on a car dashboard to the engine not cockpit to the engine.  However, the earth lead he made and heat treated clearly lost conductivity somewhere along the line and so no earth, once discovered, fortunately, before remaking all the other connections, the gauge too came to life.

It was Skip's intention at Easter to take me over to the Channel Islands and fill up with diesel and then spending a few days in St Malo, however, his workload suddenly took a turn for the better and so the trip was put on hold.  Also with the control panel not working as it should, he felt reluctant until he had it sorted.

Again this bank holiday, the plan was to sail to Weymouth on Saturday, chill out Sunday and return Monday.  Monday was looking rather light with the wind so much would've been under the engine for the return trip. However, his crew member didn't feel that great with lightheadedness and so Saturday was abandoned and instead on Sunday we pootled off to Totland for an overnighter.  Thoughts were for Studland or Swanage, with the former being a bit exposed to the Northerly winds and the volume of motorboats and jet ski's, the latter was considered.  Winds in the Solent were fickle, one minute the tide providing the only source of forward momentum the next 10.0 SOG (speed over ground).  Knowing that Monday's forecast was for little wind a decision was made at the 1m-Warden green starboard buoy, the point where we usually turn for the Bay and so in we went.

Sure enough, Monday was as forecast and at 1400 rpm we were middle of the Western Solent at a steady 5.0kts of boat speed with the autohelm struggling to keep me straight as the tide was occasionally nullifying the rudder.  The rudder needing water flowing over it to work.

So till next time, Skip still has to sort out the intelligent regulator the only thing that's not working that was before I came out of the water for winter!