Cruiser Connections « Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

Balancing Act

by steve, on March 4th, 2012 (Division II, New Zealand, Proximity)

As the bad weather came through we did manage a fair bit of down time on Saturday. However, we did spend much of the morning being fairly busy. We moved the rest of our disconnected and spare batteries from the front cabin area to the rear. We also shifted all our jerry cans of fuel and spare anchor to aft. The combined effect of this weight redistribution lifted our bow water line out of the water.

We managed to lay the anchor down inside our under seat locker in the rear. The fuel is not so easy to place. We’re thinking that for long trips we’ll simply keep the spare fuel in the cockpit area and transfer it into the main tanks as that fuel is consumed. The empty cans can be stored forward without a problem. It’s probably good to keep cycling the fuel through the cans.

I spent some time with Dan from Division II who is going to help me next week put in a new floor and battery boxes below the stern guest cabin. After some discussion we have it all worked out. I then spent some time with all my various batter cables figuring out what lengths I need to keep and some to cut to make up our new battery bank. The new bank will sit further down and be more accessible than the last. We will also get some additional storage space.

I ran into Rod and Elizabeth from Proximity at one point in the marina. They’re here too. They knew we were here as they saw us coming up the river on AIS. That’s a good test. In fact I am very pleased with the new setup. Right now I can see four vessels at Marsden point over 10nm away and not line of sight. Great stuff.

We treated ourselves to sushi for lunch which we ate on the boat. The afternoon was mostly R&R. I pulled out the XBox and played for a few hours while Helen read. Outside the wind howled and it alternated between sunshine and downpour every 10 minutes it seems. A good day to be inside.

Back in the water

by steve, on March 3rd, 2012 (Albatross III, Migration, New Zealand)

The last morning in the yard continued to be a busy one. I attached four more batteries onto the house bank bringing it up to eight our of usual twelve. Three of the newly attached batteries were sitting on top of the bunk leaving us access to the void below as we have ideas for this space.

We had two coats of paint to apply to the sail drives and the four patches where the old shafts and supports had been removed. Helen applied the first coat and I the second.

We decided against putting propspeed onto the new props. It needs 24 hours to cure and given the expense of it I didn’t want it to go wrong. So there will be some prop scraping to do perhaps. There are worse things in life.

There was some toing and froing around the bills making sure the separate bill going to Beneteau and our bill had all the correct items on. In the end this was all worked out and the bills settled.

I took a trip into town to learn where we’d be placed. We were booked on the very end of the finger dock which was perfect. Easy approach and on the river side so we can come and go when we want.

While there I bumped into Ruth and Roy on Albatross III. They had been heading down to Auckland but had ducked up the river to avoid the nasty weather forecast for today (Saturday). It didn’t take too many nanoseconds before drinks were lined up for the evening. I also ran into Bruce from Migration who offered to line handle for us when we arrived later in the day.

Back at the yard we focussed on tidying up. Helen cleaned the interior of the boat while I spent some time sorting all the goodies left over from all the work. I also discovered both ends of one of the hoses in the gas locker were leaking. I used four of my new acquired hose clamps to fix this.

Bertrand and Joel took a well earned extended lunch break. When they returned we took both cars into town and returned in one so we had the means to be mobile later.

Then we all waited while the boats ahead of us were processed in and out of the water. Then, all of a sudden it was all go for us. The boat was lifted and within minutes in the water. Unfortunately I’d left the memory card from my camera in the computer – again – so no pics of launch.

Joel and Bertrand were first aboard and testing the engines. They both fired up first time. An issues was discovered when starting the generator as the house 110V and air conditioning 220V circuits were switched over. This, apparently, was due to some mislabelling of wires at the factory and once diagnosed was soon fixed. As far as we can tell no damage was caused by this but I do want to double check our main charger this morning.

Once all was checked and ok we were off. The new controls which physically control the motors by wires are a lot stiffer than the electric controls which were light as a feather. I was a bit nervous bringing the boat out of the dock with new engines but all was ok. Soon we were motoring up the river, against the current and into a 20 knot head wind. The old electric motors would have had a hard time under these conditions but the new engines handled it with ease.

As we approached the dock I called Bruce from Migration who came over to help. We eased onto the dock and were soon tied off. First cruise was a success.

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Once everything was shut down we celebrated with a beer. We thanked Joel and Bertrand for doing a fantastic job. They have been a credit to Lagoon/Beneteau going above and beyond the call of duty so to speak with the work they have performed. Helen and I are both feeling pretty good at the moment.

After the beer I took Joel and Bertrand back to Norsand to collect their car. There we parted ways until Sunday when they’ll return for additional testing.

Helen and I then popped off for some fast food then returned to the boat to shower in the hot water resulting from our short trip up the river. One of the benefits of going to diesel is that the port engine cooling circuit runs through the heat exchanger in our immersion tank so we get hot water for free.

Then we were off to Albatross III for the evening returning around midnight after far too much to drink.

We’re truly back on the water.

The only issue we really have at the moment is the boat is now currently front heavy. With the old electric motors and batteries in the back we were fairly balanced. Now we’re not. I still have eight batteries forward and they should be moved. We may have to reconsider where other things are, like our dive tanks, to even things out.

Today the nasty weather is due in. Already the wind is up and forecast to increase. The dock lines are creaking against the strain. We have a few things to do but both fancy a bit of a lazy day.

2nd Thursday in the yard

by steve, on March 2nd, 2012 (Kalida, New Zealand)

Another busy day.

Before getting out of bed I updated our main website (www.aboarddignity.com) removing the references to hybrid as that we no longer are. Probably once we’re up in Fiji and we’ve had some time on the new engines I intend to write a retrospective on our experience on the hybrid system and a comparison to the new.

I spent some time reading the manuals for the new sail drives and motors. I now have a good idea of servicing requirements now. There will be oil changes every 250 hours with an extra one thrown in at 50. I will have to reread and check I have all the things I need to do these jobs.

The big event of the day was the installation of the diesel motors. The crane arrived on time and the motors were lifted into the lockers in turn. There were millimetres to spare as there were guided in by Bertrand with Joel down in the locker settling them onto their bed. To get the starboard engine in I had to move one of the wind gen supports. I tided this high up to the starboard bimini support. Once the engine was in we have to reverse the work. All went well.

Looking at the weather forecast for the weekend we see 50 km/h winds forecast for our launch on Saturday. That’s a no no. Shouldn’t set off with new motors in a gale. After some discussion with the yard they’re going to try and squeeze us in today. The techs say they’ll be ready. We have a busy day ahead.

We applied two coats of primer to the sail drives morning/afternoon. We’ll try and get two coats of anti-foul on today but it will go in wet. Probably going to have to do a lot of scraping down there over the next couple of years.

I inspected the SSB ground plane and found that the corrosion was largely superficial and decided to leave it in place. Later in the day the work was finished under our bunk. The spare parts from the hybrid system went under the bunk, drawers replaced and all the stuff from under our bunk went back – all creating a lot of space in the boat. Our nest in the cabin was dismantled and our bed moved downstairs to it’s rightful place.

Derek and Alison from Kalida have agreed to take our life raft down to Auckland where it will be serviced. So that was removed and taken to their boat. I made up and printed out a map for them to find the place.

Helen and I spent a while checking the forward port locker for leaks as we know water was getting in. We knew the bridle point was letting in water so we fixed that first. We confirmed that the hatch was letting in water where the support meets the hatch so that was also fixed.

In all this we found time for Helen to wash down the foredeck and me to fix her computer cable.

As implied above the techs made very good progress yesterday. By end of day we were clearing up the rubbish under the boat. The scrap metal guy came and took away our spare motor. We subsequently learned the second motor is not going to be sent to Oz so we need that picked up too.

We’ve been left with all the purchased tools and left over parts. I had thought of buying some spare hose clamps but now have loads of them as well as many assorted bolts, nuts, washers, cable ties, etc. that weren’t needed.

Busy and exciting day ahead of us today. It’s not certain we’ll go in but the yard will try their best. One large cat goes in early then they’re hauling a monohull which has a hole in it’s side. Then in we go. If all went well earlier and we have time. Fingers crossed. Otherwise it’s Sunday.

At the end of the day it was really nice getting into our own bunk. It felt like we’d finally arrived home.

Sunday in the yard

by steve, on February 27th, 2012 (Kalida, New Zealand, Sidewinder)

We had very little breeze in the morning so we were able to complete the stainless steel testing. The results for the forward port support were also encouraging. Having tested the key areas we now need to run the pictures by a metallurgist for their expert opinion.

I managed to find someone in the yard who had an AIS receiver and was able to test the system. We first tested with the AIS splitter in place and didn’t see anything. I hindsight this might have been due to us not waiting long enough so this will need to be retested. After leaving the other boats AIS receiver on, going back to our boat, connecting the AIS transceiver directly to the antenna and returning to the other boat I could see Dignity loud and clear. I also managed to confirm that the boat length was indeed programmed incorrectly. In the end this turned out to be very easy to fix. While the configuration software stated it could not be reprogrammed twice, the message was referring only to the MMSID (radio license id). I can change the dimensions and ships name as much as I like.

It’s worth noting that I’m definitely getting better range/reception out of this new set up. I can see boats at the mouth of the river which we never could with our old antenna.

The rest of the day was spent finishing off the nav station. It took more time than I had imagined but I got there in the end. You can see the before and after pictures in the slideshow at the end of this blog.

Although it looks finished there are still a few things left to do. The SSB control head and speaker are loose and probably need to be glued on. In the past panel the speaker was jammed in but the current hole is just the right size so I can’t do that. Because the control head is nearer the edge I can’t use the old method I used to fix it. Hence I may have to glue them on. I also have to create a hole to run the USB cable from the SSB modem. I’ll also pass the wires for our portable GPS through this hole as will pass the RS232 connector that will allow my PC to receive information from the various GPSs. I then need to connect all this up via the rotary selector switch and connect these all to the SSB and VHF radio so each unit will receive GPS signals again. In doing all this I also need to connect the new AIS to the chart plotter.

Ok. So I haven’t finished the nav station but it looks it and I feel happy with the result.

Bertrand and Joel came for the morning. They spent quite a lot of time on the rear rail which covers the join between the top half of the boat and the bottom. Turns out the weight of the dinghy and the movement at sea have pulled the parts apart. They fixed all this and did a fantastic job of it. The pics below show the separated parts (after all the current glue had been removed). Need to get one of the finished result as it looks good. I need to hunt around for what else they did. It’s hard to keep track at times.

In the evening there was a bit of a get together at the communal area to hear about some recent adventures of a mixture of Fijians and westerners who took to the sea in a group of vessels based upon traditional Fijian designs. It was quite interesting but a great excuse to get everyone together. Dave and Suzie from Sidewinder were there as were Derek and Alison from Kalida. We met a few other folks from here in the yard who we hope to see again over time.

Thursday in the yard

by steve, on February 24th, 2012 (Here And Now, New Zealand)

First thing after waking up was to look at the power supply / video problems for the new stereo. I didn’t want to lose any length on the wire so I had a tedious time picking away at the crimps with my wire cutters so I could release the wires intact. Once apart I tested an alternated idea with the positive wires to switch the unit on and off via an external switch. That idea worked but for the time being I left the wires simply twisted together. I then installed a relay which would ground the brake switch detector after the unit was switched on. That worked too. Now the unit will play videos and show pictures. Not essential functions but may as well have them.

Next I had a trial run with the dye penetrant. It’s a three stage process. First the stainless steel has to be cleaned. Then the dye has to be sprayed on and left for 10 minutes. After cleaning it off, a developer is sprayed on to draw the dye out of any cracks. When I sprayed the dye it went everywhere including all over the gelcoat nearby. So it ended up being a rapid clean up job. I got my lessons learned. Next time we need no wind and lots of protection for the nearby surfaces. As the weather was deteriorating rapidly, I postponed the rest of this work.

Through this time, Helen started cutting out paper templates for all the items that will be going onto the new nav station. This was to allow us to move them around and design an ideal layout. Helen did a good job of this and ended up with a pretty good solution I think. I dread cutting out all the holes as one mistake will require a restart. Don’t fancy that.

We’d promised Sam a new laptop while in the Uk and while chatting with him online we found a good candidate via the Dell refurb site – something we’ve used a couple of times before and have been very happy with the results. Being refurbs one has to pick from what’s available without customization and what’s available can change over time so if you see something you like, it’s worth ordering. So I did. Another item off the list. Or so I thought. This morning I found an email from Dell saying the order had been cancelled and not saying why. When I check on line there is no trace of the order. I called the customer support who couldn’t help. They put me onto someone else, who also couldn’t help. They put me through to sales to sort this out. Turned out this was accessories sales. At this point I was a bit pissed off and explained they were the third person I’d spoken to and I felt I was getting the run around. They promised to have someone call me back. We’ll see.

The French technicians, Joel and Bertrand, showed up in the morning. They had a walk through of the boat to check things out. They then needed to buy tools so I went as passenger taking them to the local Bunnings (big DIY store) to get the tools they needed. On the way back we popped into a marine store then we talked to the yard manager, Peter, to understand services available from the yard. Despite the late start the techs are still targeting a launch on Saturday, March 3rd. They’re going to be busy.

The next job for me was to fit the AIS transponder and antenna splitter. It took a while to decide where to put them but in the end I decided on behind the lounge seats where we currently have a fuse box. This meant moving the fuse box too. The fuse box used to have all six connections used up for various items at the nav station. Because I’ve now gone for fused switches on the nav station the fuse box behind the lounge seats now will only have a couple of connections – one going to the nav station switches. So it doesn’t matter if it’s a little out of the way.

In the end I got everything in and accessible. I needed a power source for the two AIS components and decided to wire up the new switches panel prior to installing on the as to be cut out panel (which Helen has been designing). That meant hooking up the inverter to the panel, the new radio (finishing that job off) and the two new components.

Next was testing. I first tried the AIS transponder on it’s own, connecting it to the VHF antenna without the splitter in the circuit. Using the provided s/w and connecting it to my PC I was able to detect one boat up in the Town Basin Marina. So I know it’s receiving which is good. But I don’t have a read on sensitivity as I don’t know how many boats I could/should be seeing. One disappointment was that on checking the configuration, I discovered the supplier has got the boat length wrong and the boat width set to zero. The configuration s/w says the unit can only be configured once so I’ve sent an email to the supplier asking for suggestions.

Next I tried the transponder in line with the splitter. That worked too. I then hooked up the VHF radio to the splitter and tried a radio check while the AIS was running. That came through loud and clear too. So all the vital functions are good. An annoyance with the boat spec to sort out. And I need to buy a longer cable to join the splitter to the VHF radio as the one we have isn’t quite long enough. Pity. I also need to get a cable that will join the splitter to the new stereo so we can also use the mast antenna to listen to the radio. I think Helen is getting fed up with my playlist.

By now it was getting close to 5pm so it was time to tidy up the immense amount of mess I’d created. As I reached the end of the tidying we cracked open a beer each to celebrate a good days work. At this point we were greeted by knocks on the boat. Dave and Elana had found us. We were due to meet in town but they’d decided it might be fun to scour the local boatyards and find us first. As it was now passable inside we invited them in to sit around on toolboxes and the like. We subsequently went out for a Thai meal in town and then went for a walk along the waterfront. It was nice to catch up with them, find out what they’ve been up to in the last three years and to share some of our experiences.

We were quite pooped when we returned to the boat. We did well avoiding opening a bottle of wine, our usual habit. Perhaps this is the first sign of our progress towards Helen’s target of four bottles per week.

I did get a response from the email that NZ Garmin Customer Support gave me. Turns out it’s for returns. I’m pretty sure I’m not still under warranty so this is a dead end.

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Balancing Act

Back in the water

2nd Thursday in the yard

Sunday in the yard

Thursday in the yard