LED Lighting

The day started at Tim's flat. He'd been to London this week - a good week apparently, and left him mentally exhausted and happy to be Ken and my runner for the day. His two big roller cases plus a roller carry on were all full of paraphernalia for the boat, for his office and for my office. Opening them up there were packages and packages of stuff. 'It's just like Christmas all over again', his mother remarked. Well... I don't know exactly but in our house Christmas presents aren't padded with underwear!

For the boat Tim had a number of LED bulbs as fittings, a fresh water pump for the sinks, shower etc, eight lifejackets, liquid insulating tape, cellulose sanding sealer, a water pump and a timing belt for the engine, a manual for the engine (it's an old Ford York diesel similar to those in the mark one Transit vans) and a thermostart plug.

OK, so I know you are all asking 'What's a thermostart plug?' Until recently I didn't know. I have driven diesel cars so was well aware of glowplugs which are little heater plugs which go into the cylinders and preheat the air to make it start in cold weather, but 'thermostart' was a new one to me. The old one had burnt out.

So first I needed to find out about thermostart and then try and get a replacement. Basically a thermostart plug goes into the air intake and has both power and fuel attached to it. The power heats a coil and then opens a valve to allow fuel to flow which ignites in the air intake heating it up and initializing the combustion in the cylinders. One website I went to said it was almost frightening to behold with a jet of flame darting into the manifold if you had the air filter off while using the thermostart.

It's not used in many modern cars, but is still used in tractors and other industrial equipment in cold climates. Yes, I know Cyprus is not a cold climate but we're trying to wean the engine off the ether start that the previous owner had been using. Kind of like a drug rehab unit for engines!

Having sorted all the boxes, tried on the new life jackets and repacked what we needed for the boat we went off to the marina. We were greeted on the quay by Ken. Obviously we had taken a lot longer than I thought. As we arrived at King Malu she was bouncing around quite a lot and the wind was such that we decided inside work was order of the day.

Ken worked on getting the exhaust back in place while I did some electrics. I'm not quite sure why it was quite so difficult, but the task involved ropes tied to parts of the exhaust running variously up past the stern gland to the locker in the stern cabin and up past the generator into the sail locker. Tim was the motive power to pull of aforementioned ropes and at one point I saw him doubled up in the sail locker wondering if he was stuck and would ever get out!

FInally it's all fixed. Just as Ken is extricating himself from the engine room (customary title more like a cuddy than a room) there is a bang and a yell from Ken. Somehow the electric screwdriver, while remaining in Ken's hand, had flown across and hit him just below the eye. Over coffee Tim tries to persuade me to take a photo today and tomorrow of Ken's eye as he reckons he'll have a whopper of a black eye in the morning.

As I mentioned, one of the things Tim brought back from London were the LED bulbs and fittings. In the main saloon there are some nice round light fittings that take festoon bulbs. Festoon bulbs use loads of electricity which is a bad thing on a yacht! So we intend changing them to LED festoon bulbs. There are two types: warm and cool. So we bought two of each to try out. The brightness of the LED bulbs was approximately the same as the incandescent but consumed approx 10% of the power.

They were as I had guessed, but wanted to confirm before buying -- the warm ones make the teak shine and look nice in the saloon, but the cool ones are brighter and better for everywhere else.

There were also a number of 12v volt fluorescent fittings around the saloon and galley which will be changed to LED.

In the saloon they were oblong fixtures with two 12 volt fluorescent tubes inside.

Because they exactly fit into the holes in the ceiling there was no way we wanted to change the fittings, which meant we needed to change the tubes inside the fittings.

So out came the two tubes, plus the starter/inverter leaving an empty white box for two LED 'tubes'.

The LED 'tubes' come as strips with the voltage regulators on the back. They are almost exactly the same size as the flourescent tubes they replace.

But how to mount them? Unlike the flourescent tubes, they didn't come with any mounting hardware and they are relatively fragile PCBs with the LEDs on the front and the regulator etc on the back and two wires coming out of either end.

Well I wired them together as a pair, which was easy and then Tim suggested using silicone 'glue' so two blobs later on each one and some judicious blue masking tape to hold in place till it set and we shall see tomorrow morning if this mounting procedure is as elegant as it seems.

One thing lacking in the lighting for King Malu was any red 'night lighting' so I also bought a red LED festoon bulb for the fitting above the chart table. We will also mount a 60cm LED 'tube' above the chart table for if we need really good bright light.

One of the things I did on Thursday afternoon was to put a white lacquer paint coat over the inside paintwork of the saloon. Today it looked really nice.

But the prize must go to something Tim had found to make the painting easier. I had really worried about how to mask up the teak for the saloon and Tim found some 3M drop cloth.

This is amazing stuff... it's basically 3M masking tape with very thin plastic sheet attached which drops down masking all the lovely teak from paint splatters.

After lunch we came back to try starting to make the gang plank. Sounds like a pirate ship where you are persuaded at cutlass point to walk the plank. But not in our case. On the way back we notice all the boats are really being thrown around by the waves, even in the marina. So we tighten the bow rope on King Malu. We're not sure if the concrete blocks or chains in the marina have moved, but with these waves she is almost hitting the floating quay.

We pass Echo, Matt's boat and stop and then go back and get one of our fenders. She is banging both the floating quay and one of the pilings quite badly. So I phone Matt to tell him. Later in the afternoon, Tim and I have a further thought and I return to mount an old tyre from King Malu on Echo and move the fender to the bow to stop her hitting the piling so hard.

One of the old timers at the marina passes me as says 'Have you ever seen it like this?' Well, since my Mirror had been wrecked by a tornado a couple of years ago and earlier this year the nautical club had looked like a wreckers yard, yes, I had seen it like this.

So back to the gang plank, er... gang way, boarding ramp or passerelle. Actually, I gather passerelle is the correct term and means a 'bridge' between boat and land. We had many ideas about this: From buying a professionally built one, through a DIY project with an aluminium ladder to the final one we are going to attempt - a cellular structured passerelle made from marine ply.

On Thursday I had bought a sheet of 9mm marine ply which I had them cut into the right size - two 45cm strips for top and bottom and the rest in 10cm strips for the cellular structure. However, when we looked at it, three layers of 9mm marine ply appeared to be too flexible for the passerelle, so we are thinking again - maybe using other wood for the cellular structure and two pieces of 9mm marine ply for side 'kick boards' which will then give it sufficient rigidity for the walkway. Watch this space as they say.

One thing I forgot to mention was he also brought back a replacement Sterling Power AC32, which is an automatic switch for the power. Both Yachtbits and Sterling Power were pretty efficient. When Tim arrived in the UK last weekend he sent the faulty unit off to Sterling Power on Monday [with covering emails from from Yachtbits], they checked it out and sent a replacement back to Tim's office in London by Thursday so he could bring back on Friday.