Safety on board

We were doing a few jobs in King Malu today prior to lift out on Monday morning. One of the things was to replace a mast step that was broken. Being as we are now the regional representative for Kaya Safety, we were of course using their safety kit: Fall arrest harness, Safety Helmet, Red Rope Grab and Work positioning lanyard.

Firstly the fall arrest harness is very much more comfortable than our previous harness, which was safe, but didn't give the support this does. Secondly the work positioning lanyard meant that when I was at the right place on the mast I could secure myself to the mast which meant that I could push with the battery drill easily without me moving away from the mast as I pushed. In the past I had to use one hand on the drill and one hand on the mast holding on. This was way easier.

Thirdly the rope grab... that is a really clever device that allows you to be attached to a second safety line (as you should) and your assistant is only managing the main line not both at the same time. This is much safer. Basically the 'rope grab' is a device that allows you to be attached to a separate static rope up the mast. As you climb you move it up with you. If you fall, it grabs the rope and stops you falling. The device is triangular and if you move it so that the triangle is pointing sideways not upwards then you can move downwards. This sounds complicated but in fact is very easy to to.

So with all that safety stuff you will be surprised to find I had an accident. I was using a long arm rivet gun, something like this one. The arms are longer than the distance I was from the mast. I was using the work positioning lanyard remember... so when I closed the arms, with gusto, the arms hit my face, pushing my glasses into my cheek with such force it cut my cheek.

So other than blood on the deck it was a good job well done!

Mainsheet traveller

One of the problems we have noticed with King Malu is that she doesn't point too well into the wind. This is normally corrected by moving the mainsheet to the centre line.

The old traveller system was the original from the boat many decades ago, parts of it welded together and basically... unusable! The track was OK, but the traveller car wheels well run down and not really something you could move easily.

The concern we had was because it was so old we were not sure if we would have to replace the track as well. The system was made by IYE, so out came Google and...

We found not only were they still in business but you could buy spares and buy parts to upgrade to a more modern system. Which is what we did! We ordered a new roller kit for the traveller and replaced all the rollers. It's much firmer and runs better.

We are really pleased with the result. New single sheave control ends and cleats, and we used Harken airblocks attached to the traveller itself.

The control ends make it really easy to move the  car, so we cannot wait to test it!

Extra crew?

We went out for a sail this morning. Fresh winds and great sail. Didn't bother to put up the main sail though. Got back for lunch as the winds were picking up. We had a wonderful lunch of Halloumi and pita bread.

Shortly after lunch I heard a cat meow... from the boom. Then a little squeak. A very tiny squeak...

So we unzipped the sail cover and a cat jumped out. Tim then unzipped the bimini to get at it and looked inside the sail and there was a tiny kitten about 10 days old.

We gently carried it to shore (the cat had already made a dash for it) and put it in the grass where the mother cat picked it up and carried it away.

Chris's Dive Boat... a new RIB

 5 years ago Tim and I rewired Chris's boat at Alpha Divers.

This spring he asked if we could re-wire his new RIB. We didn't have time to do the complete re-wire, which is what he wanted, so we came in at the end to check everything over and fix all the problems.

This morning he launched it, with Tim and me watching. Great to see him able to take out people in a lightweight RIB.

Wiring a RIB is not simple. It still needs to meet all requirements of a commercial vessel, but without the space to do so. It also has to be 100% watertight.

5.72 kWh in 8 days!

8 days of the new EPEver Tracer 3210A solar charge controller... and 5.72 kWh put into the batteries!

You can buy in from our website. More technical information: http://malumarine.com/renewable-energy/Solar/Tracer-3210A

PS, ignore the fact it implies only 3.19 kWh for the month... I reset the date in the middle of the week to make it correct!

MPPT Solar Controller

We installed the new EPEver Tracer 3210A solar charge controller today for testing in King Malu.

This is the first of the new MPPT charge controllers we will be selling as Malu Marine. You can buy it from our website.

We have been evaluating which MPPT controller to use and to sell and this seems the best compromise. Some are very expensive, this one comes in as a complete kit at €229.00.

I was keen to try it out, so installed it immediately. As soon as we had done so I began so see the benefits of MPPT controllers...

08:00 hours
Wind power providing 4 amps...

Silentwind controller showing 4 amps wind power

Sun still low providing 4 amps...

EPEver solar charge controller showing 4.2 amps sun power

13:00 hours

Sun is full, but a little overcast... providing 10.3 amps 

EPEver solar charge controller showing 10.3 amps sun power

Now this shows the power of an MPPT controller compared to a PWM controller: We are getting 8.1 amps at 17.4 volts from the solar cells, ie a total of 140.94 watts being converted into 10.3 amps at 13.5 volts, ie a total of 139.05 watts. This is an efficiency of 98.7%. If it were a PWM controller it would convert the 8.1 amps at 17.4 volts into 8.1 amps at 13.5 volts, which would be an efficiency of 77.6%. In other words the MPPT gives you about 20% more from your solar cells!

Cape Greco again... trying out the davits

Off to Cape Greco again for the night. This time with the inflatable dinghy on the new davits. It rolled somewhat, because we had a couple of fenders to stop it being damaged by the bathing platform. We were the only people in Cape Greco, which surprised us somewhat. When we got back we used the spinnaker pole as a derrick and lifted it easily onto the foredeck. So easy, that in the future we'll take it that way. In the past we had manhandled it on and off the foredeck hence why we were trying the davits. The davits will be useful for just lifting it out of the way, but not for sailing for a day or longer.

ברוך הבא - Welcome to Larnaca!

Overnight to Cape Greko

Long weekend, because it's Cyprus National Day and the weather is great and so it's time for a sail.












Out to Cape Greko for the night. Tim, myself and Jacko, a friend of Tim's from South Africa.












The wind is very low, so the Asymmetric is the order of the day...

















Jacko is taking all the photos, so there is the unusual occurrence of photos of both me and Tim in the the cockpit together!











Just past Cape Pyla there is a large fish farm. It's charted, but still not the place to get entangled with.

We set off about 14:00 so arrived at Cape Greko just as the sun was setting.

















The overnight wind was from the north so we decided to anchor in the south bay.  You enter by creeping round this rock and staying as well clear of the antennas as possible.











It's not an anchorage we have been into before and so Tim and I are peering out to check what it's like. The photo makes it look lighter than the twilight we had.











The antennas are something to avoid. Normally we stand off about 2 nautical miles. Too many boats have wrecked their navigation instruments on the HF transmitters. However, it's a beamed array, so it's only south of the beam that is dangerous. The bay in the north and the one to the south that is actually to the west of the transmitters is quite safe.








I did find that my trusty iSailor chart plotter was not quite accurate in this bay. No we didn't anchor on land... the chart is wrong! The depth is the same for both iSailor and RayMarine chart plotter, but the depth is wrong, it's about 2m more than chart datum.









The following morning we see what the bay is really like. The anchor dragged a little, when the wind turned from southerly to northerly, but dug in firmly after that. Our anchor alarm went of in the early hours, so Jacko and I got up to check while Tim, unusually, slept soundly!

So much mention of Jacko, so here's a photo early in the morning.  He looks more awake than I feel!

This is the rock on the west of the back from the bay side as we are leaving to return to Larnaca.













It's Asymmetric time...














Wind as predicted? Hmmm... if it had been as forecast we would have made the plotted chart line.












And finally back to Larnaca Marina.

All in all a very enjoyable sail.

Washdown and short sail

Well, it came to that time of the year, when we needed to wash down the main sail. Actually we hadn't done it for a couple of years and the stack pack stitching had deteriorated in the sun, so we took it and the mainsail off. We then restitched the stack pack and washed down the main sail.

We couldn't get all the dust off, so as we put it back up we rinsed it down and let the slurry run over the boat, which then needed cleaning!

It's amazing how much higher tall people like Tim can reach. Shorties like me climb to get some places and Tim just reaches up!

So, having done that, let's take King Malu out for a brief sail...

The weather has turned warmer at last, which means, not only is Tim in shorts and T shirt, but I am too! (Though I do have a sweatshirt on as well).

The wind is modest, 10 knots, but the sun out, so what do we get on the wind and solar?

11 Watts of wind and...

198 Watts of solar.










However, there is something significant about this: Silentwind have produced a new BOOST controller, so the modest 11.7 Watts of wind is actually coming from a wind generator that is only putting out 5.5 Volts. The BOOST controller takes this and converts it into energy that can charge your batteries.

Want to know more about this fantastic new controller? Contact us at Malu Marine.

Solar panels for boats

One of the biggest problems on sailing boats with solar panels is shading. There is so much gear that can shade the panel! These two photos illustrate it exactly. But note that we are developing flexible smaller panels... in each case there are two panels not one. Hence, in the first photo, one of the panels has 40% shaded (low output) and the other 5-10% shaded (close to full output). On the other side of the boat one of the panels is 100% shaded (almost no output) and the other 5% shaded (almost full output). If these were single large panels then they both would be significantly reduced output power.

Short sail forecast wrong... And right!

Yesterday we decided on a sail today. The forecast was for light winds and sunshine. Erika checked a different forecast and predicted rain. Sadly she was right and we were wrong! Still it allowed us to put water under the keel as they say!

This is what it was like after we came in!

Battery systems

We had 4 battery banks on King Malu: Domestic, Engine Start, Navionics and Bow Thruster. We started the transition to the new distributed system today... The engine start is no longer needed (we have a totally electric drive system now) so we added it to the domestic bank. We have the Silentwind generator with 300W solar working now, so we would like to charge both Navionics and Domestic and Bow Thruster. So what we did was to merge (temporarily) the Navionics and Domestic and then use a Sterling Battery Maintainer to top up the Bow Thruster battery bank.

This is not the final solution, as I hinted at in the beginning we aim to have a distributed battery system. More of that later. Watch this space as they say!

Silentwind

We upgraded our Silentwind generator on King Malu this weekend to the new boost version. The boost version delivers more power at lower wind speeds, which is particularly useful in the Mediterranean where we have more sun and less wind. The upgrade involves two parts: a new generator assembly and a new charge controller.

Having made the change we took out King Malu today in minimal winds. 

We had Beaufort 1-2 and although we didn't get world shattering results we were seeing the wind generator delivering power. Unless your batteries were very flat that would not have happened prior to the boost controller.

The charge controller also integrates solar power and we have installed 300W in six 50W panels. A large number of small panels is better for a sailing boat because the rigging often creates a shadow on the solar panels reducing the output for that panel. All the panels that are unshaded should still deliver full output. Note... remember you need Schottky diodes for each bank or you'll damage the panels that are shaded. 

We have added a stainless steel frame to the back of the boat, made for us by Technometalliki  in Larnaca. This enabled us to mount two 50W solar panels on the stern plus a Webcatcher Antenna.

We are working on some new solar panels for marine use based on an affordable array of small panels to get over the shading problems. We will also be supplying small marine panel combiner boxes using Schottky diodes. Watch this blog for more information.

We have also been doing tests on the Webcatcher Antennas in Larnaca marina. We provide an free access point there in partnership with Cablenet Business.

Webcatcher has three different antenna versions: 8.5 dBi, 10 dBi and 12.5 dBi. The 8.5 dBi works best in a marina close to a high Access Point, but has a more limited range. The 12.5 dBi works best long range but is more limited if you are close to the Access Point on the second story or higher of a building.