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March 30, 2009

Sailing & Snagging

Lots of upwind sailing this weekend.

The 1st problem encountered happened as soon as I hit the auto button on my autopilot remote control, we instantly veered off course. After much swearing and cursing I discovered my spare autopilot remote control in the chart table under lots of stuff. The buttons on it were being pressed in.

The plate around the mast at deck level was lifted and re-bedded. Hopefully the indoor shower leak I had has now been resolved.

Some new heavy duty Wichard blocks from Proboat have been installed.

My Iridium satellite phone hookup has been tested. I am using UGRIB for weather data and ONSATMAIL for onboard email and access to weather fax/ice charts.

Finally Monty had a super time...

Posted by ninjod at 09:10 AM | Comments (0)

March 23, 2009

First Sail - A Success

Saturday Jan, my father Phil and I finished off the last few jobs and cleared all the power tools off of NINJOD. With only 7 to 10 knots of wind we dropped our mooring lines and headed out into the river Orwell under engine power.

We pointed NINJOD into the wind and hoisted the mainsail, putting all 3 reefs in as it was hoisted. The headsail followed the mainsail and as we bore away pressure built and the engine was stopped.. phew what a relief to actually be sailing after all the hard work that has been put in.

The light winds gave us a chance to really look at everything. The hanked on headsail set nicely, the batten tension was good and after some adjustment the lazy jacks stopped their flapping.

We headed to wind beating up the river and as the boat speed rose the apparent wind speed increased. With 15 knots of apparent breeze the wind generator spun at a spectacular rate, generating enough power to run all the instruments, the laptop and the autopilot that was steering the boat. The bus voltage was pushed up to 14 volts and 2 amps were being pumped into the batteries. This was really good news as it means that in relatively light conditions I can generate enough power to match the amount of power I consume.

After sailing up and down the river a few times it was time to head back to the marina. I wanted to see what would happen if I let the halyards holding each sail up run free. The headsail was first and as hoped the sail dropped nicely onto the foredeck with minimal hassle and, thanks to the hanks, with no chance of the sail going over the side. We headed into the wind again for the mainsail drop. As the mainsail halyard was released the sail fell at speed. The lazy jacks did their job and gathered the large sail into its folds with no assistance.

Although I do not plan on fully dropping the mainsail in the race there will be occasions when I might have to drop it slightly for reefing or even fully if the weather becomes very extreme. The lazy jacks provide a great way of managing the mainsail and give me a chance to sort myself and it out without filling up the cockpit up with it or worst still, loosing it over the side.

Posted by ninjod at 05:53 AM | Comments (0)

Food

A fair bit of thought has had to go into food for this trip. What to take, how much of it to take, the constraints of storage and preparation, these points are all more complicated when discussed in the context of living aboard a 35 foot yacht for 25 days (or more).

On the advise of some other more experienced sailors I contacted Ian at Expedition Foods. Ian very kindly sent me some samples of freeze dried products that we tried on sunday while working on the boat.

I now have an assortment of meals all carefully sealed in orange bags. Everything from porridge and sultanas to shepards pie is now stowed aboard NINJOD. The plan is to boil a kettle in the morning and fill a flask each day, pouring the water into my orange packet as and when I have time to eat.

I also purchased a second type of meal from Ian at Expedition Foods. These come in 2 parts. The 1st part is the meal itself, precooked in a vacuum packed bag. The 2nd is a heat bag. These bags have capsules in them that when mixed with a small amount of water generate enough heat to warm the food to a pleasant enough temperature to eat. These are my emergency meals because there will be days when I will be busy or it will be too dangerous to boil a kettle.

Finally I anticipate taking a few treats along to compliment the freeze dried food. Not sure what yet but know chocolate will be in the mix.

Posted by ninjod at 05:23 AM | Comments (0)

March 16, 2009

Some Introductions

A little under a week a go I met Pip Hildesley and her yacht "The Shed". Pip had recently arrived home from a 6,500 mile solo voyage from Uruguay back to Levington. Pip and "The Shed" are also competing in the OSTAR. Pip's race preparations now kick off at full speed.

Also last week while wondering through Spitalfields market in search of lunch I met Montgomery (Monty). We discussed sailing and he turned out to be keen on the idea of helping me out. As a result a financial transaction took place between myself and Monty's owner and I am now pleased to say that Monty will be making his way to Rhode Island with me via his own custom made swing (made by Jan). The new internal grab rails are proving to be useful already !

Posted by ninjod at 05:46 AM | Comments (0)

Charging Extravaganza

On Saturday my father Phil, Jan and I set about installing the solar panels and wind generator.

I wanted each of these components to be easily removable for when NINJOD is not participating in long offshore events.

The wind generator mount can be fairly simply and quickly removed and the cabling is split at deck level with a fairly heavy duty deck plug/socket combination. The solar panels proved a tad trickier as they are mounted onto either deck at the stern of the yacht. To achieve this expensive flush fixings with an internal M5 thread were bonded into the deck, 1 for each corner of each panel. When the bonding agent hardened the panels were screwed into the fixings. Each panels cabling is again split at deck level with a heavy duty plug/socket combo.

Switch on was very impressive. The wind generator spun into action fairly quickly and once we had worked out the different switch positions (brake, charge and something else) we saw power pumping into the batteries. The Morningstar MPPT solar regulator and array just worked,even in low light towards the end of the Saturday the solar array was producing 13.5 volts. When we returned on Sunday in glorious sunshine the batteries were fully charged and the array was producing over 17 volts.

Posted by ninjod at 05:25 AM | Comments (0)

March 08, 2009

Mainsail on. Lazyjacks tested. Windgen mount installed

Emily, Jan and I had a busy morning on the boat. 2 large boxes of stuff got taken to the boat and stowed away in different locations. Emily kept track of what went where so the stowage chart can now be updated.

The lazyjacks work well and the wind generator mount us now installed. It was very windy today so installlation of the generator itself will take place next weekend.

Posted by ninjod at 01:10 PM | Comments (1)

March 05, 2009

Lazy Jacks

I just arrived back at my desk to an email from Scott, my local sailmaker and chap responsible for building my lazy jack system. It turns out he has fitted them onto Ninjod. Here is the picture he sent me.

These should help me manage my rather large fully battened mainsail.

Posted by ninjod at 01:21 PM | Comments (0)

March 02, 2009

Nearly Ready

NINJOD came out of the shed towards the end of last week. Consequently instead of heading south to the Solo sailing festival Saturday and Sunday were spent completing jobs from the list.

The electronics have been re-commissioned
New clutches have been installed. New cams were installed for some of the existing ones.
The new water ballast pump was installed
The cuddy was installed
The new stove and gimbals were installed
Solar panel cabling and controller were installed
A huge amount of cabin bags were installed
The steps and chart table were sanded down and re-varnished.

We ( Jan, Phil and myself ) finished late on Sunday evening. I just managed to grab some snaps.

NINJOD will be put back into the water this week. The rig is due to be tuned, the lazy jack system is due to be installed, the wind generator platform will be installed this week and finally I will get my headsails back with hanks installed.

Posted by ninjod at 07:08 AM | Comments (1)