A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum... well... not the way to the forum but the mooring in the marina. When we were coming in to the mooring and everything was going fine I notice the mooring buoy disappear under the boat. This has happened twice before. The first time Tim jumped in and pulled it free when we had moored. The second time I just pulled the line to the quayside and it came free... much easier. So we realised this was the solution in the future. It's not possible with a strong southerly wind to avoid this scenario, so a workaround is what you need.

Only this time... well... three seconds after the small buoy we use for the side lines disappeared under the boat, Tim needs to use the bow thruster. There is this decidedly unhealthy noise from the bow thruster and I am concerned that the ropes from the mooring buoy have made their way into the bow-thruster tunnel. That wasn't what had happened... the bow thruster had sucked the mooring buoy into the tunnel and it was now stuck fast like a cork in a bottle!

So we secure the boat with other lines and Tim jumps in again and has to use all his strength, bracing his legs against the hull to pull it free, when it eventually pops free like a champagne cork.  Good job its the Med and not the North Sea... a lot warmer water.

Voyage Data Recorder

We went out for a short sail... first to anchor in front of Finikoudes and then out for 20-30 minutes and back to the marina. From my point of view the aim was to test the new algorithm for the VDR-L (Voyage Data Recorder) and... I was extremely pleased. Looks like this one has cracked it - no missing data points now.

Now when the engine is running and the SOG is slow (less than 3 knots) it logs data points every 60 seconds so you have a record of all the maneuvering. When the engine isn't running or the SOG is greater than 3 knots we assume motoring/sailing in open water and so the normal algorithm means that the faster we go, the more rapidly we take readings, hence the points are roughly equally spaced under those conditions.

Zoom in to the marina and you will see the points even show where we motored as we exited and then re-entered the marina. You can only tell which is which by clicking on them and looking at the time stamp. The cluster just south of the marina is where we anchored.

I'm just using Google Fusion Tables for the display, as a quick and dirty way of getting the data onto a map. It imports straight from Excel, which makes it easy for me to handle.

This isn't an IMO approved VDR, but a very much simplified one for a leisure yacht. Here's the list from wikipedia of what should be recorded - green means working, yellow means possible, but not yet installed, red means possible but I'm not going to do it (it would be invasive and complicated to do) and grey means not relevant to a leisure yacht:

• Position, date, time using GPS.
• Speed log – Speed through water or speed over ground.
• Compass – Heading.
• Radar* – As displayed or AIS data if no off-the-shelf converter available for the Radar video.
• Audio from the bridge, including bridge wings.
• VHF radio communications.
• Echo Sounder* – Depth under keel.
• Main alarms* – All IMO mandatory alarms.
• Hull openings* – Status of hull doors as indicated on the bridge.
• Watertight & fire doors* status as indicated on the bridge.
• Hull stress* – Accelerations and hull stresses.
• Rudder* – Order and feedback response.
• Engine/Propellor* – Order and feedback response.
• Thrusters* – Status, direction, amount of thrust % or RPM. 
• Anemometer and weather vane* – Wind speed and direction

Photos of King Malu and Rebecca Louise

We went out today to try to get some photos of King Malu and our friend Peter's ketch Rebecca Loiuse. Here are some of the results.

King Malu

Rebecca Louise

Photo Shoot Interior

Verna went down to clean King Malu today, so I decided to take advantage of a mega-clean boat and take some interior photos...

FOR'ARD CABIN

GALLEY

SALOON AND NAV STATION

STERN CABIN

STERN HEADS

Overnight to CapeGreco

54 nautical miles

One of the things I wanted to test was the Voyage Data Recorder system I have been working on. I ran the system for both days. If you click on a point on either of the two maps from the outgoing or return you will not only see the date/time as per the Spot locator positions, but you will also see extra information about what was happening at that point, the actual Lat/Lon, the wind speed and direction (compared to the boat, so you can see whether we were on port or starboard tack, beating or reaching), heading, SOG, COG and even the temperature! If the depth field is empty it means it is over 100m deep and so the echo sounder is not working.

11 August - 28 nautical miles

12 August - 26 nautical miles

For those who are interested I read NMEA 2000 data from the Raymarine C70 chartplotter and record the data onto a mini SD card. The hardware and firmware are what I have been working on. It's not 100% yet, you will see there are three or four data points where the SOG is actually 10 times what it should be, but on the whole it's working well. I am pleased to have a 2 day trip for testing it.

It also appears to be missing some data points, which is slightly strange. The gap between data points is supposed to be irregular, it depends on the speed how often samples are recorded. The missing data points may be because I have a problem with my algorithm for the data recording based on speed, but a long two day test is what I wanted to show up problems like these.

Last night our friend Peter who lives aboard Rebecca Louise in the marina was kept awake by a concert on Finikoudes, as we left the marina we could see it was set up for another loud and late concert, so Peter was looking forward to a quiet weekend at Cape Greco.

Quiet weekend up at Cape Greco? There are at least 50 other boats here!

When we turned around the cape and saw  into the bay. I was absolutely shocked to see how many boats there were in the bay. Jacob set to and counted them, but gave up at 50.

Morning Star is the sloop (sailing boat) on the right and were the friends from the marina we were joining. It's quite strange actually to meet friends on boats who you are used to seeing along the pontoon at the marina.

This is a composited panorama photo (done by hand so the matching isn't perfect) of the bay just behind Cape Greco after we had dropped anchor.

Tim and Jacob took a swim and then cleaned all the growth off the outboard and the hull. It was amazing to see how much growth King Malu had accumulated in a few days while Tim had been away!

NO, NO, NO! Two disco boats arrived in the bay. Seemed like thousands of watts of amplification is turned up sufficiently loud to do permanent damage to those onboard.

Fortunately they didn't stay for the night and eventually departed, much to the pleasure of the crews of the three remaining sailing boats.

King Malu looked spectacular moored in the bay. She looked in her element!

As the sun set behind Rebecca Louise, Peter had invited us over for a BBQ. We made a pasta salad to take along. We sat on the foredeck, with a feast before us and enjoyed great company.

The following morning we set off early back to Larnaca.

One thing we had been warned about for this location was potential damage to the yacht electronics from the very powerful medium wave transmitters located at the end of Cape Greco. We knew of two people who had damaged their electronics that way. We stood off 1.5 nautical miles to be safe.

Tony, Skipper of Morning Star, went closer and said his log was showing more than 10 times the correct speed. But, he said the beams were very directional and if you were in the beam (you can tell if you are in the beam, because the transmitter hall building would have antennas on either side of it and you are south east of the cape) then it is dangerous, but outside the beam you are safe.

One problem we had seen was that the new genoa was wearing where it rubbed against the safety lines. So Tim had prepared a piece of soft leather to sew over where it rubbed.

The task was not an easy one for two reasons. Firstly the sail cloth is tough, as is the leather. Secondly just after he started the wind picked up and we were batting along at 6.8 knots.

So, or should I say, sew, while Tim sewed, I played the main sheet to try and keep us on an even keel. Once he had started, he had to continue!

Not all the crew were working hard of course, some were resting.

Anyhow the finished result was definitely worth it.

All in all this was a great sail. And... as Tim said... something we should do again!

Testing... testing...

(View Malu Marine Test in a larger map)

Ever been to the garage with your car and they plug it into a computer and tell you where you have been and what happened? Kind of like the black box recorders on aircraft... well... click on any of the data points on the map and you'll see where we were and what was happening on King Malu during the first part of today's sail. The engine data is not valid data, just dummy data from my test system, but wind, gusts, depth etc etc is all from the instruments. It doesn't really work so well on the embedded map, if you follow the 'Malu Marine Test' link the data points can be seen more easily.

We're working with another company on developing and testing an electric drive system for yachts. We're working on the throttle part of it right now and I have been writing some program code to allow us to talk to the Raymarine equipment we have on board. With a little bit of luck we'll have the mark 3 version for testing before the snow falls on the plains of Ohio... [1]

The data is recorded onto a micro SD chip which I then copied to my Mac, imported to Microsoft Excel; imported the processed data to Google Fusion, and thence to Google Maps. It works!  Very pleased with that. 


Few more bugs to iron out with the system yet, but hopefully will do this with Tim is away for the next month. I have a load of parts on their way from Farnell's in the UK for the next stage. Tim is helping a friend deliver his new Lagoon 56 catamaran from La Rochelle in France to the east coast of Italy. You can watch his progress on his blog: tim-price.blogspot.com


[1] This is reference to a US company that purportedly said they would release software before the snow melted on the plains of Ohio. The meaning was one that they will not be rushed to create the right product, nor will they fix a tight timeline, rather that organic timelines are more meaningful.

Folding Chair

Thanks to a gift from a friend we now have folding chairs for the helmsman and one other person in the cockpit. We'd tried an aluminium folding chair (without legs) but this fractured... the material version seems stronger

Very early morning sail - with easterly winds

32 nautical miles

We had been thinking of an overnight sail starting at 3pm on Friday, but various things conspired to make that impossible, none the least that the forecast temperature meant it might be insufferably hot!

So... we decided to start at 5am on Saturday. This is definitely not a Richard time of day, so I decided to sleep on the boat to be ready for Tim in the morning. He arrived pretty much on the dot of 5am and we were out sailing by 5:14!

The aim was to get as close to Zygi as we could. Normally winds are southerly or westerly and very rarely easterly so since the forecast was for south easterly we tried to make the most of it. The winds were very gentle - we didn't see 10 knots till we were arriving back at the marina, mostly we saw 6-8 knots with some periods of 3-4 knots. That makes it Beaufort 2-3, which is considered a 'gentle breeze'.

The new sails are brilliant! We were seeing very good speeds - 4 knots in 6-7 knots wind. Our highest speed being 5.7 knots. The asymmetric on the magic furl was particularly impressive. I say new... they were new last season, but the improvement in performance never ceases to amaze us.

First thing in the morning was a thick sea mist so we turned on the radar and used that to locate the plethora of fishing boats out. Visibility was down to 30-40 metres, but even very small boats were trackable on the Raymarine radar we use. Partly this was because of the very calm sea, which meant two things: firstly there was little or no 'sea clutter' and secondly King Malu was relatively upright and pitching and rolling very little so the radar gave good targets.

Melvin, a friend from the UK, has sent us some folding chairs, if that's what you can call them for the boat. They are basically padded bottom and back with adjustable webbing straps. Worked brilliantly!  Photo to follow.

10 June 2012

12 nautical miles

Sailed out towards Cape Pila, then over to the Larnaca Nautical Club to see what was happening there.

6 nautical miles

As we were leaving the marina we saw a survey ship moored in the bay. Presumably it is part of the prospecting for oil off the south coast of Cyprus.

It's a strange looking ship with the large heli-pad on the bow and a 360 degree bridge, like a tugboat and a huge crane on the stern.

We motored round to look at it on the way to the club.

Today was Kataclismos race day for the Larnaca Nautical Club and so we took King Malu round to the club to act as committee boat... well really to be one end of the start/finish line.

We intended doing some maintenance on King Malu while we were moored. The bow navigation light had stopped working and this had been traced to the wiring between the light fitting at the bow wiring box.

The wires thread through the pull-pit and through the windlass locker, through a crew locker and finally to the bow wiring box. It took is almost all day to re-thread the wires!

There were actually only 6 boats taking part in the races.

Some of the boats are new and privately owned, and sail very well. When sailed to the limit they are fast. in 8 knots of wind on a downwind run they touch 3.9 knots. I measured their speed on the MARPA on the radar.

Jacob was sailing a club boat. The sails on the club boats are somewhat tired and don't have the sharp 'crinkle' sound of the new sails. However, he did well - sailing safely, but not at the speed of the racers!

There were three races today. The kids seemed to enjoy themselves and worked hard. It's a pity so few of the parents get involved in the club or even come down to watch their offspring race!

These are really preparation races for the island wide events later in the season.

Although they are just practice races, some of the kids were taking them very seriously!

Really today was a coaching session, with Anna and Katerina in the rescue boat giving advice.

For the sail back to the marina we invited Sheila and Marie to join us - they had come out with Jörn to watch the final race with Jacob in it - and Sheila had her first chance to actually sail King Malu. If all works out I will be teaching her to sail in Galini over the summer.