Communications

Yesterday I was invited by Jim Routt aboard his Valiant 40 named "Alii Kai Too" for a demonstration of Sailmail, the software for using email while out at sea. I was pretty impressed and am looking forward to having it on Pachuca.

Today I was up at 6 AM to begin the preparation for the new system. I don't enjoy these projects because it invariably involves widespread disorder in the boat with tools and parts scattered from one end of the cabin to the other. Nevertheless it had to be done so I got on with it.

The results were better than I had expected. I have removed the Kenwood SSB radio and tuner, and all associated cabling. I left the coax cable hanging from the backstay for removal when we hook up the new system, and also left in place the power and earth wiring for the radio, well insulated, and clearly marked. This may be of use one day because it feeds off a dedicated 20 amp breaker. Ron wants to connect the new radio directly to the bus bars, and not through a breaker.

I then did some woodwork to make a larger opening for the new radio, bolted the mounting bracket in place, then fed the required cabling to the lazarette and forward to the power bus bars. Tomorrow I will prepare the mounts in the lazarette for the automatic antenna tuner. Ron wants the tuner to be as close to the antenna as possible, which means the lazarette. Yesterday I bicycled to Home Depot and found a bin full of offcuts, picked two pieces and told an employee that I was looking for ABP (anything but pine). One piece was oak, one was ash or maple. I took the oak and paid less than $1 per foot for about 5 ft. Because I was entitled to two free cuts I had the man cut two 10-inch lengths. Tomorrow I will use epoxy to fix these pieces to the counterstern section of the lazarette. When the time comes we will fix the tuner to this timber using screws.

That time will come after the installation of the wind vane steering because we will be doing some rough and sometimes frantic work in that area and I don't want to put the new tuner in peril.