Waves against wind

6 nautical miles

Tim had been in London for Thursday and Friday and we discussed over the Internet what we would do. He suggested sailing Sunday not Saturday, but I had invited Jeremiah and Elliott from the office so checking the weather we decided to chance it. Our fear was that it would be cold and slight rain so not very pleasant. As it turned out there was sun for a greater part of the day. But...

Overnight there had been strong winds from a different direction to the wind this morning, so the wind and waves were coming from different directions and the wind was light at about 5-7 knots. What this meant was that not jus pitching through the waves the boat was rolling a lot too. This affected Elliott and he got quite sea sick. When Jacob too god sea sick we decided enough was enough and headed for the marina.

We then cleaned up, had lunch and fitted the final two turnbuckle covers. Finally, took out quite a lot of the anchor chain along the dock, measured it and put coloured markers on the chain to let us know how much we have let out.

A shockingly good sail

22 nautical miles

Today was a brilliant sail. Having put up the genoa with its new sacrificial edge we sailed out and really enjoyed ourselves. 

But then Tim said the fateful words, 'We haven't had our incident today, what went wrong?' A few minutes later Jacob was in the cabin and he heard a clicking sound in the cabin. It appeared to be coming from the VHF transceiver while it was turned off! It couldn't be so I got Tim to try listening too... yes, it was coming from the turned off VHF transceiver.

Removing the antenna connector from the transceiver Tim got a severe shock. The VHF antenna which was arcing, every few seconds and that was the clicking sound we heard. The measured voltage across the antenna (while disconnected from the VHF transceiver) was in the order of 120 volts AC. The ONLY unit capable of this voltage was the Inverter, so I totally removed the 12 volt power from this and the arcing/voltage disappeared.

During this time the Inverter had been left in remote mode and the remote had it turned off.

When we got back to the marina I investigated further and could not reproduce the fault, but did find that with the 13 amp plug disconnected (ie nothing connected to the output of the inverter) there was a 136 volt AC potential difference between the earth on the output of the inverter and the negative (ie low voltage earth) on the 12 volts of the inverter.

This is obviously extremely dangerous and would explain why the RCD on the shore power would occasionally trip. It would also explain why the Automatic Switch failed, caused by a high earth potential where it would never expect such a voltage!

Interface boards and water filters

Tim is in the UK at the London Boat Show today, so no sailing. No doubt there will be loads to report from that show. I remember about 3 years ago going to the Southampton Boat Show and having a whole day wandering round looking at boats and different parts. The only thing is that Boat Shows are better enjoyed in the company of someone else. So you can discuss the different boats and gadgets and whatever.

We are trying to get an onboard computer system working for monitoring the new electric drive and doing various other things like converting SeaTalk to NMEA, chain counter, Navtex, backup navigation computer etc. And of course being a computer for blogging and the like. The 12 volt LCD screen has what looks like a normal connector, but the size is just slightly different to those available here. There are two standards, both have 5.5 mm outside diameter, but one has 2.1 mm inside diameter and the other 2.5 mm inside diameter. Those available on the island have 2.1 mm, which means they don't fit. I was looking for some other wire to connect up the interface box and I came across a number of 5.5 mm power connectors. Sadly they were all 2.1 mm inside diameter too!

One of the problems we have been having is the fresh water pump continuing for quote a few seconds after we turn off the tap. We have traced everything and cannot find a leak anywhere. We thought last time that maybe there was an air lock somewhere so we flushed it and it did seem to work slightly better. Today I fitted a new water filter and found there was an air lock. I tried flushing it, but cannot seem to get rid of it, in fact the air lock seems to re-fill up after I have flushed it. This is strange, I would have thought if air is getting in, then water is getting out, but we cannot see a leak anywhere. We'll just have to investigate further.

Short 8 mile sail

8 nautical miles

The day started with very low wind and despite the forecast I wondered how much sailing we would have. Today it was the three 'regulars' - me, Tim and Jacob. We rigged and cast off as soon as we could to be out sailing for as long as we could.

The wind started off as just a gentle breeze of around 10 knots then quickly rose to between 12 and 15 knots, which is a moderate breeze of Beaufort 4: King Malu was flying along at 5 knots. Although the wind was in that range the sea state had not grown to anything like one might expect for that wind speed because the day before we had almost no wind at all. We had full genoa and full main up. Tim remarked that it felt like she was sailing better having cleaned and put new anti-fouling on the hull. The growth wasn't that bad so it is probably just psychological.

The wind was from the north and therefore quite cold. I had on my Gill offshore jacket, Tim hand on a light sailing jacket and Jacob was in t-shirt and shorts. It is pretty obvious who feels the cold the most and who feels it the least. I also put on a knitted beanie to try to keep my head warm.

Keeping warm was the order of the day, so Tim went below and turned on the generator to make some coffee. That was something I was really looking forward to. I was sitting at the wheel and suddenly the wind comes up to over 25 knots, King Malu starts heeling and the autopilot fights to maintain course with a large course correction. Just at that point Tim turns the switch turn off the generator. At the same instant all the Navionics including the autopilot dies. I grab the helm, which was still turned significantly leeward and turn her back into the wind to reduce the heeling. Tim quickly comes on deck to drop the main and partly furl the genoa so we are sailing under reduced sail.

With Tim at the helm I then go below to try to find out why we have lost Navionics power. Nothing seems to be wrong. All connections look like they are still good. The sudden high wind had blown over one of the solar cells and Tim wondered if that had shorted something and made it quit. I didn't think so, but as I was checking the switch on the solar Tim shouted that power had come back. What I had done was to cross feed the domestic and navionics bank so we were now using the domestic power for navionics, which isolated the fault to somewhere in the navionics bank. We had two 1/2/both switches, which means we can quickly reroute power from the domestic bank either to navionics or to engine/generator start.

We checked the outboard motor and it started with no problem, but because there was nothing obvious
we turned for home. It might be a minor problem, but it would be good to check it out.  The wind was still around 25 knots (Bft 6) and the waves coming up and this was rattling King Malu quite a bit. Suddenly the snap shackle on the genoa sheet flies loose. I try to hold her on course, but we have now lost motive power, so she will start to spin. With the tension suddenly released on the sheets and the furling line they somewhat beautifully tangle themselves.

Tim goes for'ard to try to reattach the genoa sheet, while I try to sort out the mess between the furling line and the sheet. Jacob was helping Tim. Both have life jackets on, but not safety tethers. As King Malu spins and was bucking I think to myself that this was not the place I really want to pick up a man-overboard. The furling line and genoa sheet suddenly untangle themselves resulting in the genoa flying out with full power, Tim still holding it, nearly falling over Jacob and then letting go so now the full genoa was flapping over the yacht and watching this I was doubly concerned about someone going overboard.

I furl the genoa and Tim manages to attach the sheet and we are back to stable again. Both incidents happened in a matter if minutes and although it was concerning it was actually encouraging to see how we acted as a crew together. For the future we will always have safety tethers on deck when the wind reaches 15 knots so that they are readily available should we need them if the wind comes up suddenly.

There were a couple of rips in the genoa along the leach, so when we get back to the marina we call Charmiane to arrange for her to put in a sacrificial cloth along the leech which will strengthen it a lot. The sail itself was basically sound. The problem was that the leech was unprotected for some time while the previous owner had removed the sacrificial cloth and so it has now become sun damaged.

On the way back in we see another yacht Daphne coming out. Some of the crew are in wet weather gear and some not. A few minutes after we are moored we see Daphne coming back in. This time all the crew are in wet weather gear!

By midday the wind had dropped back to 12-15 knots again and Lauren came down to join us for lunch and Tim rustled up a lunch of scrambled eggs, sausages and Cyprus bread. Although the incidents lost us some sailing time - we had expected to get to Cape Pila and back - it was actually encouraging to see how well King Malu behaved in these conditions and to have given the crew a chance to try out some minor incidents in what the Beaufort scale describes as a 'Strong breeze'.

After lunch we fitted the final pieces to make the cockpit look complete - a couple of Pioneer marine speakers. Since we had removed the old ones we had gaffer taped up the hole and two ugly gaffer tape pads were not exactly the most beautiful... actually they were eyesores! Now with the bimini and splash hood finished the gaffer taped looked even worse. Should have been a few minutes job since the old speakers were the same size - 8 inch - but... the original ones had a wider lip so we had to enlarge the holes in the cockpit to take the new speakers.

Tim remarked about the trip these speakers had taken: You couldn't buy 8 inch speakers in the UK, so we had bought them in the USA and had them delivered to a colleague of his there. They were manufactured in Japan before even getting to the USA. Tim's colleague had brought them to a business meeting in London where he had collected them and taken them on their final leg to Cyprus.

I must admit the sound quality of these speakers is superb.

Epiphany lunch

Tim and I went down early since the forecast was for low to minimal wind. Our intention was to turn King Malu around. Since we had the outboard motor we had always moored bow-to because reversing was such a pain.

Over the last few weeks and particularly in the last week we had discussed how we could reverse in. The problem is the prop-walk. In reverse King Malu steers to port whatever you do with the helm. So what we had discussed was how to position the boat to take account of this port prop-walk.

What we did was reverse out, with a tight port turn. The turn to starboard forward so that we were positioned for a port turn back into the slot. It worked perfectly. I must admit I was apprehensive of the manoeuvre. Then we clipped the repaired gang plank back in place.

We had invited Erika, Sue and Tim's two daughters Lauren and Claire to lunch, along with Sidney. The four girls had said they were only coming if there was a gangplank in place. No way were Erika and Sue coming on board if they had to leap onto the bow of the boat. So there was a lot invested in turning her around!

It was nice now that King Malu is in a state to have lunch parties on board.

Launch 2011

We arrived by about 8:30 and prepared for the launch. The wind was getting up a little so we decided to go into our berth for'ards rather than stern to.

When Nickos arrived he put King Malu onto the crane and then went for a coffee. This wasn't just the Cyprus way (everything with a coffee) but we needed time to put anti-fouling over the places where the stays had been and on the very bottom of the keel which had been on wooden blocks.

Then it was time for the launch. The crane proceeded at its ponderous slow speed to the wet dock.

The sky is grey and overcast and looks like rain. Despite this, I am thrilled to see her returning to the water.

Finally the moment of truth, as Nickos directs his assistant, King Malu takes to the water again. She returns to her natural environment and once again looks like a little ship.

Somehow this always concerns me - Will the sea cocks hold? Will we have water flowing in? Of course, the probability is high there will be no problems.

Ready for the water

Today we removed all the 'clutter' from King Malu. The new year resolution being to sail more and maintain less. We spent way too much time restoring her in 2010 and so 2011 should be a year of sailing.

Of course... we still need an inboard motor back on her, but hopefully that will be early this year.

I did some more work on the interface system for the onboard computer this afternoon. I spent ages looking for some connectors in a glass jar. Eventually I asked Sue if she had seen them. She hadn't. Then I mentioned they were fiddly plastic and metal bits in a peanut butter jar... she instantly told me where they were!

Teak oil, clean hull & clean filters

So today we finished all the work for the dry dock: I started the day by finishing sanding around the stanchions and under the toe rail. That all had to be done by hand. Meanwhile Tim found another use for pastamani - to clean the hull topsides.

I then put on two coats of teak oil and then we went for lunch. After lunch, a final coat of teak oil, Tim finished the topsides and we cleaned the water filters.

We then set about sorting what we want to keep onboard and what we want to remove. Most of the paint and a significant number of tools will be removed. The plan is to return King Malu to being a sailing boat rather than a project boat.