Tim and I decided to have a weekend away at Cape Greco. The weather forcast looked great for sailing (12-15 knots in the afternoon on both days) so it would be a chance for a relaxing sail, but a longer test for the PropEL electric drive.
I also added some extra configuration/code into the HUI for the VDL (Voyage Data Recorder) function. You can see the detail of the logger as we motored out of the marina!
We sailed over to Cape Greco, using the motor only a little. The VDL log shows just past Cape Pyla. It was a really pleasant sail. We only had main sail and genoa up. Although we have a large asymmetric we didn't want to run that as Tim had hurt his back and the last thing we wanted to do was make it worse!
I also added some extra configuration/code into the HUI for the VDL (Voyage Data Recorder) function. You can see the detail of the logger as we motored out of the marina!
We sailed over to Cape Greco, using the motor only a little. The VDL log shows just past Cape Pyla. It was a really pleasant sail. We only had main sail and genoa up. Although we have a large asymmetric we didn't want to run that as Tim had hurt his back and the last thing we wanted to do was make it worse!
Just past Cape Pyla we we hailed by another sailing yacht by name. They had seen us show up on their AIS and wanted to know if they were visible on ours. Yes they were, but their name and call sign were not shown. It appears to us that a significant number of the leisure boats don't correctly set their AIS systems up: Very few of them display their ships name.
Tim had seen on the weather forecast that there would be an early morning northerly, bearing east and then south east. So... 3:20 am was time to rise (note the times on the VDL are GMT) and creep out of the mooring. This was so cool with the electric drive... almost silent so we didn't disturb out neighbours... well, I suppose the windlass did. But at 3am in the morning it was amazing, creeping along under motor bordering on total silence! It was almost eerie, with with the sea mist. I could see some craft moving about thought AIS and used the radar to check for those without AIS. I must say I love AIS.
The start of the journey back was quiet and I went below to catch up with a few minutes sleep. I had hardly slept at all during the night. I kept waking every 30-40 minutes. We're still testing the system, so although we have seen 5.2 knots, this early morning motoring was at low speed. The motor can do more, it's the power pack that is currently letting us down and we will be ordering new batteries and new power packs this week or next so, as they say... Watch this space!
The start of the journey back was quiet and I went below to catch up with a few minutes sleep. I had hardly slept at all during the night. I kept waking every 30-40 minutes. We're still testing the system, so although we have seen 5.2 knots, this early morning motoring was at low speed. The motor can do more, it's the power pack that is currently letting us down and we will be ordering new batteries and new power packs this week or next so, as they say... Watch this space!
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