What is our hull speed?

12 nautical miles

The wind started off light, so we motored round to the north side of the harbour, anchored and made coffee. Tim took a swim... well... not a voluntary swim, he wanted to remove the growth from the outboard motor. We had sprayed it with anti fouling, but we are still seeing growth - mainly see grass - and he rubbed this away with a soft brush.

The forecast said winds of between 12 and 17 knots (Bft 4-5) from about mid-day. So we sailed off towards Cape Pila. One thing we wanted to do was rewire the windlass control box, but I didn't really want to do that while at anchor since if anything went wrong the windlass would not work. So... we had a few hours sail and then turned for home.

On the way back the wind picked up as per forecast and we were touching 5 knots with just main and genoa. At one point Tim started the outboard to see if we could get the yacht up to hull speed. The formula is 1.34 x square root of length of waterline. The waterline of a Nicholson 39 is 30 feet, so the square root is 5.47 and multiplied by 1.34 it is 7.34, ie the maximum speed we can expect out of King Malu is 7.34 knots. 

Adding the outboard added about a knot, so we got up to about 6 knots but no faster. I think we have had about 7 knots at one stage in the past, but it was interesting to see. King Malu seems to cruise happily between 4.5 and 6 knots from what we have so far seen. But we have only been sailing her 5 months now - seems a lot longer - so still trimming the sails and experimenting. Certainly today the tell tails were flying straight and true.

When we got back we did re-wire the windlass and it all looks a lot neater now.

No sailing today... just helping a mate

Today we went down and helped Chris from Alpha Divers with his boat. The refit he is doing is a task not to be undertaken by the faint of heart and so we are helping with the electrics. It's going to look great when it's finished.

Run for coffee

Sometimes, very early in the morning Tim and I will take King Malu round to the anchoring site for a coffee.

On this occasion we were joined by Mick, a friend from Birmingham.

To get to the small boat anchorage you have to pass through the large ships anchorage. When when you get there, sitting sipping coffee looking out over the Mediterranean is peace personified.

Mast Steps

 Tim and I went down to fit the mast steps. Yes, I know it would have been wiser to do this before fitting the radar, but, well... it's done now and another job off the list!

It does mean that even I (Richard) can get the sail cover off, as I had previously had to clamber onto the toast racks to reach the top of the sail cover. One time doing that I had slipped and fallen. I didn't do any damage, but showed we needed something to make it safer.

The mast steps we fitted are folding and so clear any ropes when folded away. The old ones further up the mast as fixed, which makes it easier to climb.

 Another little task we completed were the loops inside the sail locker to the 'quick to get' ropes. We also fitted the throwing line there for safety.

I cannot remember where we saw this idea, but as soon as we did, Tim believed it the best thing for King Malu.

Sitting drinking coffee after doing these little jobs we saw the Sea Scouts  rowing round the marina. The interesting thing about this is the wearing of life jackets. Everyone wearing one, but the leaders not done up, so would slip out of it just as soon as he fell in. Not exactly a good example!

A really enjoyable sail

13 nautical miles

We first motored up to the Larnaca sailing club and moored to do a little bit of work on the boat. We had bought some extra folding mast steps to enable us (or me in particular) to climb the mast without having to stand on Tim's shoulders to get to the first step. Now why didn't we do this before fitting the radome? 

We were very careful to make sure we mored away from the gas and oil pipelines in this area. There are all sorts of dire warnings on the chart about this. The new chain markers were good so we could (at last) tell how much chain we had deployed.

We sat and had a coffee and watched the club boats out sailing before going for a sail ourselves.

We tested the radar, using the MARPA system to track speed, direction CPA etc of targets. I also re-arranged the display to give what we want: Because the display is not that large we want some of the text data displayed larger than the default so we can read it easily from the wheel. One thing that we want to see easily is the LAT/LON numerically. This is because Oscar Charlie (the VTS system for sailing into Beirut) and others call you up with 'Vessel at position ___ traveling at ___ knots in direction ____, please identify yourself'. So we need to know the position easily and clearly to know if they are referring to us.

All in all, a very enjoyable day.

Fitting the radar

When we purchased the chart plotter we agreed a buy-back so that we could upgrade to one with radar at a later date. Today was the later date! Time for the old big ugly non-working JRC radome to be replaced with a new Raymarine radar system.

Getting the old radome down proved easier than I hoped. First, we let Jacob go up the mast to secure a line to the radome and to loosen the threaded rod that was holding the supports. I was concerned that the nuts on the threaded rod might be corroded and so prove extremely difficult to move. Jacob found them to be not much more than finger tight. Which was worrying for different reasons.

Then I went up the mast and knocked the threaded rod through and we dropped the old JRC radome to the deck.

Then we needed to connect the cable to the radome. This is pretty easy to do if you follow the instructions... however Raymarine had not stripped back the screen braid enough which must be in contact with the metalwork of the radome, so we stripped it back further to make good contact.

Next was to fit the new bracket to the mast.

Raymarine have a very easy to fit method for mounting the bracket to the mast: There are four solid clips that you mount to the mast and then the bracket fits into those four clips. The clips are each secured with four pop-rivets. So, what I did first was to bolt the clips to the bracket and take that up the mast and mark and drill the holes on the mast. Then rivet the clips to the mast without the bracket attached.

Then we attached the radome to the bracket and fed the cable down the mast while the new radome was hoisted on a halyard.

Finally I bolted the bracket (with the radome attached) to the clips and it was all secure. Well... not quite finally... I then attached the extra safety strap for the radome.

Then run the cable through to the new chart plotter, connect it up and hey presto we now have radar!

The new chart plotter is slightly bigger than the old one, but looks smart in the panel.  The radar worked first time it was turned on!