Electric
During the COVID-19 pandemic there have been plenty of YouTube Sailing channels talking about living Off-Grid and talking about their Sustainable lifestyles. However, the two are not the same. Sustainable living is well suited to being able to live off-grid but not all off-grid living is Sustainable. Off-Grid, for sailing
Motor
We are really enjoying watching the Vendee Globe (single handed, non stop, no outside assistance round the world race). Our key sources are the official website tracking and their YouTube Channel but we are also enjoying the content from Sea Wolves. The weather has clearly been unusual and fits with
Plans
Found a fantastic video of an incredible yacht refit which has an interior decor that we absolutely love. You can see the interior in this video. In this video you can see just what a huge project (in every sense of the word) it was to take a former Whitbread
Appliances
Two recent examples have in equal measures frustrated and amused me. In their plans for Ruby Rose 2 Nick and Terysa have oodles of calculations but they appear to be aimed at justifying fitting large diesel engines because an all electric boat isn't possible. They seem to have
Dinghy
So we have a holiday, it being half-term, however, as Manchester is in a tier 3 Lockdown and Wales in a Firebreak, we are at home. It does mean we can take time not just to do jobs and study (including propeller shaft and RYA Yachtmaster course) but also time
Dinghy
So a quick update on where we are at. The situation for Manchester is still chaos without agreement between the national and local governments regarding the level of lockdown we should be in. However, we are expecting to be more restricted soon (bearing in mind that Manchester has had it&
Motor
So I've started the cleaning up of our propeller shaft. It had some brown gunk (like a dried muddy residue from corrosion) but no rust of itself. However, in a number of places it has uncovered pitting. This seems to be concentrated on the bits that were just
Motor
Today, thanks to help from one of our sons, we got the motor in its frame onto the boat and into the motor compartment. That means we have been able to measure all the holes for the motor mounts and the holes to fit them to the brackets and the
Electric
At last the electric motor is in it's frame with reduction gear and extra bearing to support the coupling and Aquadrive connection. Just got to fit the motor mounts into the boat and drill the holes in the frame for them. That does mean 20 more holes in
Progress
We haven't gone to Vida this week. Jane is busy on an essay and has first aid training. So I got some work on done on the extension to the motor frame. This is to support the 400mm length of shaft that connects to the aquadrive. That has
Progress
So we decided it was about time we made some temporary improvements to our comfort as it is getting colder, especially when there is a North wind (colder and blows straight into the cockpit from behind). So we have repurposed a sheet of the shuttering board, that we had boxed
Progress
With winds from the North and arriving late on Thursday in the wet it was a pretty cold boat to arrive to. So we are not ready for the major upheaval of removing the bulkhead between the aft cabin and the motor compartment. It will make our cabin a bit
