Solar cells, wiring and anti-fouling

This morning I took Neil, Paula and James to Limassol. They are returning to the UK by ship. On the way back I picked up three solar cells from David for King Malu. Two are flexible and one is on a frame. We will have to work out how to mount them.

When I got back to the boat I found Tim had completed removing all the anti-fouling. Or so he had thought... Alan, who runs a boat repair, boat sales, etc, etc company came by and told him that he really needed to remove it right back to the barrier coat. This was about the same as George the chandler had said... so... still more to do there. But looks like an easier job than removing the first thick coat. The hull and deck is really cleaning up nicely. Almost feels like by next weekend we will have turned the corner, from taking apart/stripping to putting back together.

When I arrived I did a bit more of the 12 volt wiring and put the batteries in the battery box. Couldn't wire them as there are not enough good battery terminals. Buy some more tomorrow.

Then went back for lunch with Sue. Just as I was about to leave Tim arrived and updated me on the conversation with Alan. After lunch I picked up Jacob and we went back to do some more wiring.

When we arrived Tim was washing down King Malu with the power washer. Today we had enough pressure that it worked properly... most of the time at least. The teak rubbing strip had loads of dirt come off it and the teak in the cockpit seems to come up better each time. But 'each time' the water runs so dirty you cannot believe how much stuff is in the wood!

Water got into the sail locker in the process so we left it to dry and went round to look at different biminis on other boats in the marina. We are trying to find a way to get the maximum usable bimini on King Malu so we have the absolute maximum amount of shade. So many options, its going to be difficult. We will try out with plastic piping first to work out the best way.

Then I got back to the wiring. This time the 220volt wiring. I wired in the phase reverse switch, galvanic isolator and the Stirling Power switch to the consumer unit. Turned on and... loud screech from the unit. The power was the wrong way round incoming and it showed off the phase reverse switch absolutely perfectly. Very impressive.

Well, that was a good weekend's work.