Progress Notes

In the middle of last week I decided to postpone the haul-out of Pachuca because the wind prediction the day was so bad. A wind prediction 5 days not exactly 100% reliable but I could not take a chance on having a gust of wind slam me into a jetty or, worse, another boat. It turned out to be a good call. The wind howled all day well over 35 knots, with gusts in the high 40's. There was one gust of 57 knots recorded at Rottnest Island.

So for the three days I worked on lighting. I replaced the double-tube fluorescent lights over the cabin, galley, and navigation station with new ones. The old ones worked OK but looked faded and worn out. I also replaced the small dome light in the head with a fluorescent unit. I then installed the recovered dome light in the clothes locker where a light was badly needed.

While at Yacht Grot I asked Trevor about a strobe light for the top of my mast. He thinks that a better solution is to replace my masthead tricolour with a German-made unit that has a dedicated LED for each colour, and one on top for the anchor light. The LED's give out much more light, consume much less power, and are guaranteed for 50,000 hours (i.e. about 6 years of continuous operation). The bad news is that the unit costs over $600. I told him that I'll have to get used to that price. $600 sounds like a lot of money, but I must balance that against day after day of greater visibility, less power, and good assurance that I won't have a light blow out at the wrong time, not to mention having to go up the mast in a boatswain's chair. Chances are 50-50 that I'll do it.

The haul-out is scheduled for Thursday 12 July.

Yesterday on the way out I touched base with Martin at DeGroot Marine Services. We went over the entire list of through-hull valves and agreed that we will swap out any that look questionable.

Hmm. I've just found the following on the net:

Raymarine: AIS for leisure boats

Raymarine has launched its AIS250 receiver, a compact unit designed to integrate with Raymarine’s SeaTalk network, bringing the ability to see AIS transponder information on chartplotter and radar screens.

The AIS250 is a switched dual channel, multiplexed system, which means a single receiver uses complex software to monitor AIS Class A and Class B transmissions over both standard VHF frequencies. For ease of fitting, the AIS250 uses a splitter circuit to utilize the existing VHF antenna and cabling, and links to the existing VHF radio on board.

Raymarine’s E and C Series multifunction displays have been upgraded to show AIS symbols and information directly on to both the chartplotter and radar screens.

It appears that I may not need a second VHF antenna after all.