Aboard Dignity (Lagoon 420) Blog

After a final, not so encouraging look at the weather, we decided to leave Gulf Harbour and see what we’d find. We popped round to Kilkea to say our Au Revoir’s as we could well be parting ways and the next possible time we might just meet up would be in the Far East late next year.

Leaving the dock was easy as there was no wind in the harbour. There was not much more outside so we made the decision to go to Kawau Island. We motored all the way putting up the head sail for a bit of an assist when a light squall came through and gave us a bit of a blow.

We anchored near to the yacht club again with our minds on Fish and Chips for dinner that evening.

By now the skies had cleared and the day warmed up. Perfect for some relaxing. The Kilkeas had shown up in the same anchorage promising company for the evening.

After a lunch of hot soup and bread I read for a while then dozed off. Only for a bit because my mind took off with two problems whirling round. One was a Project Euler problem I’d read a week or so and forgotten about. An approach to solving it had come to me so I couldn’t rest without trying it out.

While my solution (which turned out to be correct) was running the second problem began to bug me. Although I’d used the main VHF radio to communicate with Gulf Harbour Marina in the morning as we departed I was struck by it’s quietness. Ordinarily I should expect some announcements from the NZ coast guard on channel 16 but we’d heard none. I called Kilkea for a radio check and it was not good. With the squelch turned right down I could hear them over the hiss but as soon as I squelched the radio, nothing came through.

The obvious thought was there was something up with the antenna splitter. I started undoing panels and getting at wires, checking things out and doing further tests between my handhelds, the main unit and Kilkea. At one point I tried putting my old AIS antenna directly onto the radio. Same symptoms. This suggested a problem with the radio itself. All this was frustrated by finding my box of radio spares missing. We turned the boat over looking for it. In the end, Helen seems to recall, putting the contents into another container which is now buried very deeply. We’re not sure about this and there’s a nagging and horrible possibility the stuff got tossed out by accident during clear up in the yard.

I dug out our old Raymarine radio which still worked but had been replaced as it did not have the capability of a remote handset. With it in place everything worked ok. I spent some time trying to figure out if there was a setup issue with the Icom radio but could not find a cause or solution.

My conclusion is that there is some damage to the receiving circuit on the VHF radio. It may be a coincidence that I’ve been plugging in and out the AIS transponder/splitter recently but I can’t discount it. Nor can I discount the possibility I had things wired incorrectly and blasted too much signal into the radio thus damaging the receive side of things.

It was now late in the afternoon and I’d missed my relaxation. I tidied things up a bit, including myself, before we headed off in the dinghy to pick up David and Marian and go ashore.

We ordered fish and chips but were persuaded to go with burgers instead. The ‘Kawau Burgers’ were delicious and were nicely washed down with a couple of beers. We were treated to a fantastic sunset while chatting outside.

Once the sun had set it turned cold quite quickly so we soon headed back. We dropped off David and Marian with a rerun of the morning’s goodbyes – not unusual when cruising.

We finished off the evening watching a few TV shows. In parallel I researched the options with the VHF radio. Things weren’t too encouraging. The unit is no longer on sale in the US and costs a kidney here in NZ. Icom have an inferior unit on sale in the US which doesn’t come with a remote. They have an exciting newer unit (for which I’d also have to buy a new remote) that hasn’t yet received FCC approval so is not on sale. Awkward.

There are options to have the radio repaired here in NZ but that would mean diverting back to Gulf Harbour and missing the next opportunity to sail out to Great Barrier Island. It might be the cheapest option but we may never get anywhere. At the end of the evening I found a bunch of ex-display units for sale on Ebay in the US for a decent price. Result.

I’ve ordered one for piece of mind. Sam will bring it. If I can get the current unit fixed here then all the better. For now I’ve got the old Raymarine jammed into a hole too small for it in the console and consequently sticking half out. It’s ugly but it works.

We have wind predicted for today but it’s from the north to north east. Not the best for sailing over to Great Barrier. So after putting things back together (I had to cut a lot of my cable ties which made things neat while troubleshooting yesterday) perhaps I can have my missed relaxation.

Sunday or Monday look better for the trip to Great Barrier so we’ll watch and wait.