Boat projects

The standing rigging.. These are all the cables you see that are connected to the mast. They support the mast, and if one snaps it can be catastrophic. There are various schools of thought for when to replace standing rigging, but the general consensus is that if you don't know the last time it was replaced, it's been too long. 

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Don't we have water tanks? Well yes, we do. We can hold about 400 liters of water in 3 tanks. But, not having to worry about where we will go to fill up those water tanks is one less thing to worry about. Being able to turn sea water into drinking water also means that water rationing is almost a non issue, provided our water maker is functioning. This is Ryan from Ryan and Sophie Sailing, and they have a great video on DIY watermakers

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Electricity is something that we always seem to consume at astonishing rates. We do have solar, but sometimes the sun doesn't shine, or it's overcast for a few days. Having a high output alternator means that we don't have to run the engine as long to charge our batteries. On the days when its sunny, we will have about 1300 watts of solar which will more that satisfy our energy needs. 

Every boat has small chips throughout the boat. Most of our chips are purely cosmetic, but we still want to fix them. It's our home, and we want it to take care of her. 

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Switching to LED lighting. LED lighting uses about 10% the energy of halogen. Switching everything to LED will be an easy way to reduce our energy consumption. 

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People seem to think we are crazy. A washing machine on a boat?? We are crazy yes. Some friends of our installed one and we thought it was such a great idea. We found a pull out version that will fit perfectly in a drawer. This project is going to require us to make a fiberglass frame and some supports, but it will be fun and completely change our quality of life. Click the image to learn about out saga. 

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Sometimes confused with standing rigging, running rigging is all of the rope ( aka lines, sheets, halyards) that is used to manipulate the sails. These control lines can be made of many materials, but nylon and polyester are common. If you've ever had a sunburn, you know how damaging the suns rays can be. Overtime, the running rigging starts to break down from the sun and elements, and need to be replaced. The amount of force on these lines is more than you may think!

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Just like the running rigging, sails are exposed to the elements. Overtime the stitches weaken, and a sail may tear. We have a few fixes that we need to have done, one being replacing the leach line on our genoa. It tore out last year during a storm. 

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If we are making our own water, why do we need to worry about purifying our water? Well, the water we make will still be stored in our water tanks. In hot humid climates, there is always a risk of bacteria growth regardless of how clean we are. A uv filtration system is a small appliance that we can mount under the sink on a dedicated tap. It purifies the water right before it comes out of the faucet, which means nice and clean drinking water. 

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We do have a solar arch right now, that's what is supporting our 450 watts of solar. But, our arch isn't mounted to the boat. The arch is mounted to the pushpit, and is susceptible to lateral forces. These lateral forces overtime can cause stress fatigue which means damage. Our new arch will be made of 2 inch diameter 316 stainless steel, and bolted to the deck. 

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Understanding our current battery charge is something that we really struggle with. Unless batteries are sitting, disconnected from all loads, it's impossible for us to get an accurate readout. That's where a battery monitor comes in. This little guy keeps track of all of our electricity use, and displays it in a simple easy to read format. It also comes with an app, for more in depth information on our electricity. 

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