Motor into the engine room

The motor has ropes attached and Michael shows why he does weight training helping us move it into the engine room.

We need to line it up carefully, it's quite tricky with the belt drive system right down by the drive shaft.

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Motor on board

We took KIng Malu over to the wet dock and with two halyards hoisted the new electric drive on board.  Next task over the coming two weeks is to design and build the mounting structure to take the motor in the engine room.

Louis came down to King Malu and drilled and tapped the engine bearers to take the rubber mounts for the motor.

It's still hot in Cyprus and the sweat was pouring off him as he laboured in the engine room

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Motor arrive

TNT delivered our new motor today. This is the mark 2 and we have high hopes for it. It's been a long time coming and been through various iterations of design but at last... it's here!

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Ready for shipping

I have just spent the last couple of days in Italy with the guys with whom we are developing the new electric drive. A great two days with Rob and Simone. We tested everything and it's ready to ship to Cyprus.

The latest version now has water cooling, so we're excited to see if that solves all the heat related problems. Also now using a Curtis controller, which should be very much better than the first one. The plan is we will install and do first test, then Rob and Simone will come over to Cyprus for sea trials.

There was only one tiny thing... the prop shaft was too long to fit on the pallet so Simone had to cut it down to length.

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Work on the Marina

They have started work on renovating the pontoons in the marina... now you see why!

Flying with life jacket cylinders

I am just following up a problem I had flying back to Cyprus from the UK with life jacket cylinders. About 2 weeks before flying I phoned the airline to check if I could bring small CO2 cylinders for the life jackets for my yacht with me. The person who initially responded to my phone call did not know so checked with her supervisor who confirmed that they were permitted. The person concerned said they should be suitably packed.

I packed each cylinder in bubble wrap as well as a solid cardboard tube outside to protect even the bubble wrap. I put them into my checked baggage. I purchased 20kg extra baggage allowance for other sailing kit I was bringing with us (10kg each for my wife and me).

When I arrived at Manchester airport, the ground crew asked me to put the three roll-on duffle bags through outsize, not because they are outsize, but because they are soft. When they used the x-ray scanner on the bags the cylinders showed up. I explained I had already contacted the airline and they has said they were OK. The baggage handlers said they were against government regulations. They called airline staff who then called their supervisor who said they would follow whatever the baggage handlers said.

I had to leave the cylinders in left-luggage and get a friend to collect.

I have now checked the CAA (government) regulations on what can and cannot be carried. They clearly say they are permitted (quoted below) and so the baggage handlers were wrong!

Self-inflating life-jacket fitted with no more than 2 small cylinders containing a non-toxic, non-flammable gas, and no more than 2 spare cylinders.

I now have the life-jackets in Cyprus and the replacement cylinders in the UK! I am unimpressed. I have just contacted the airline asking them what is their proposed solution to this problem.

Saga IV

Saga IV - a brand new Lagoon 56 which Tim helped bring from France to Lebanon is moored temporarily in Zygi. A beautiful catamaran, but not Tim and my kind of boat!