Progress Notes

The latest visit included two days of pretty harsh weather. On Friday all operations at the hard stand were canceled. On Saturday my anemometer reported one gust of 46 knots. The sideways rain caused a few drops of rain to drop onto the vee berth, and we've got water dripping from the window over the galley and a ceiling panel on the port side. I'll try to track these leaks down when things calm down on other fronts.

Yesterday I swapped out the two-tube neon light in the main cabin. That went well so I've ordered three more lights: two to replace the ones over the galley and navigation table, and one to replace the small dome light in the dark head area. The old neons looked dingy with their opaque plastic covers.

Yesterday we were one week out from Pachuca's lift-out so I did some notifications.

I got a visit from Greg Hansen, the man who runs Maritime Electronics. We will put the radar dome nice and high just above the inner forestay. The radar cable will pass in conduit to the base of the mast where it will be connected to an extension that will run to the navigation station. The old radar cable passed diagonally under the cabin ceiling. It would have been a major effort to replicate that path. Fortunately because the new radar display will be at the nav station and not overhead on the ceiling like the old radar was, we can run the cabling from the base of the mast to either below or behind the port seat - all nicely hidden away but accessible. We agreed that I would do the hack work of cabling - Greg prefers that because he thinks that cruisers should know as much about their boats as possible.

Greg thinks that a lightening "rod" at the top of the mast is a good idea. He recommends that the shrouds as well as the mast be earthed to the keel.

He also thinks that a strobe light will be a good idea, so I have asked for that.

We discussed radar detectors with the aid of a good article that I had in hand. I wasn't that sold on radar detectors but the better ones were better than nothing. Greg got me interested in AIS, "Automatic Ship Identification". This is something that has been mandatory on larger ships but is being extended down to pleasure boats. I'll need a dedicated VHF antenna (that can act as a spare if my main one goes down), a dedicated GPS antenna, and the AIS electronics. Pachuca will continuously transmit its name, type of vessel, location, course, speed, etc to all vessels within VHF (line of sight) range. Thus all ships equipped AIS can see what all other ships in their area are doing. This appears to be far, far superior to either radar reflectors or transponders since everyone can get details about everyone else (e.g. name, registration number, size, cargo type), and can detect course and speed changes instantly. See http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/enav/ais/default.htm and other sites.

Greg went away with a list of things to order, e.g. cables, radome mast support bracket and guard, GPS antenna and cabling, lightning protection. I also left a note in his office reminding him that I would need the ball bearings in the anemometer changed.

I visited De Groot Engineering about the cockpit valves. He mumbled that they were busy did say that he had showed the photos of the job to his man who said that he could do it. They will visit the boat this week to see what parts they must order and will target the job for next Tuesday.

I visited Scotty and notified him that I would need three more GPS antenna stands (one for the chart plotter, two for AIS). He'll do it next week when the boat is on the hard stand.

Debbie is supposed to have made the templates for the canvas work early this week and should be well into cutting and sewing. I will phone her next week and remind her about Pachuca's hard standing.

I spoke with Steve Hartley. They are set to fit the track for the storm trysail next week while the mast is down.

Before I left Pachuca I disconnected the electrics running down from the mast (after drawing the wiring diagrams and taking photographs). On Saturday or Sunday Brenda will help me to get the mainsail stack pack off the boom and I might even remove the boom. I discussed this with Edgar, who was up a mast on D jetty as I walked to the car. He says that any pre-work that I can do will save time and money.

One of my jobs next week will be to drill new drain holes for the anchor well and plug up the old ones, which were too low to start with. This is on connection to that anchor well work that I did a few months ago. I would rather have the sea water brought up by the anchor chain to be drain outside rather than into the bilge.

So next week will be a big one for Pachuca and myself.