There's Change In The Air
There's change in the air, thank goodness the cold spell has been broken and we've had a bit of sunshine for a change. The boatyard has become much busier as everyone who didn't get their boat in the water for Easter scrabbles around to finish off the antifouling whilst they can. Last Saturday the riddle of the mooring at Langston was solved; in the autumn all the boats suddenly disappeared, why? Driving past it all became clear, the owners club together to get a crane for a day and have a hauling fest; suddenly it's a hive of activity and they're all back in the water.
On Lively Lady it's been a bit of a slog to get all the systems installed but now there are real signs of progress which is just as well as time is slipping away so quickly. The Hydronic heater is now installed neatly in the engine bay and just about up and running apart from a few problems with air in the pipework. It's just like a home central heating system really with two fan assisted radiators (like car heaters) from Kurunda installed, one in the saloon and one in the forepeak. They're both connected to the tiny eberspacher heater unit using car heater hose and a gazzilion jubilee clips. You can just see one of the blowers on the right under the port bunk all boxed in so that the air gets sucked in from the saloon ducted to the blower, nicely warmed up and out again. Can't wait for a chilly evening out on an anchorage to try it out for real!
This is also where the domestic pressurised water pump, the accumulator to smooth out the flow and the piping for the tank has now been re-instated. It's been a bit of a faf to find sensible places to locate and fit everything in but this arrangement seems to work alright. As the water tank has osmosis which will taint the water we've installed two filters under the galley, one standard one and a ridiculously expensive one that's apparently guaranteed to take the taint out of the water. The remainder of the installation is in the forward end of the sail locker where the little calorifier (the blue hot water tank in the photo on the right) sits at the bottom surrounded by pipework and ancillaries. I can't get over how many jubilee clips were needed, we're now over 100, I always seemed to be at the ABC chandlery next door to get more. At least there are plenty of drain and venting points which should help long term, hope they don't leak!
The other systems that have taken an age to install are the electrics. All the heavy current and charging equipment is now installed so the switch panel is live which was cause for celebration. On the left you can see the new battery boxes for the starting and domestic batteries, the 110 amp/hr battery here is paralleled up with another in the forepeak which should give us plenty of capacity. It's all industrial strength, fused and switchable to avoid any problems later on; hopefully this will all just stay under the covers and never need to see the light of day. Next it's finishing off the low current wiring from the panel and the NMEA network; the end is in sight!
The change of the seasons has been really noticeable, especially as the evenings are now so much longer. The geese seem to have noticed too, they were around in huge numbers a little while ago but have now left for the summer. It was quite difficult to concentrate on one day when there must have been a thousand or more geese feeding on some unfortunate farmers land adjacent to the yard. In desperation he set off a maroon to scare them away; it made a mighty crack and sent them all up in the air, at least for a while, an amazing sight!
On Lively Lady it's been a bit of a slog to get all the systems installed but now there are real signs of progress which is just as well as time is slipping away so quickly. The Hydronic heater is now installed neatly in the engine bay and just about up and running apart from a few problems with air in the pipework. It's just like a home central heating system really with two fan assisted radiators (like car heaters) from Kurunda installed, one in the saloon and one in the forepeak. They're both connected to the tiny eberspacher heater unit using car heater hose and a gazzilion jubilee clips. You can just see one of the blowers on the right under the port bunk all boxed in so that the air gets sucked in from the saloon ducted to the blower, nicely warmed up and out again. Can't wait for a chilly evening out on an anchorage to try it out for real!
This is also where the domestic pressurised water pump, the accumulator to smooth out the flow and the piping for the tank has now been re-instated. It's been a bit of a faf to find sensible places to locate and fit everything in but this arrangement seems to work alright. As the water tank has osmosis which will taint the water we've installed two filters under the galley, one standard one and a ridiculously expensive one that's apparently guaranteed to take the taint out of the water. The remainder of the installation is in the forward end of the sail locker where the little calorifier (the blue hot water tank in the photo on the right) sits at the bottom surrounded by pipework and ancillaries. I can't get over how many jubilee clips were needed, we're now over 100, I always seemed to be at the ABC chandlery next door to get more. At least there are plenty of drain and venting points which should help long term, hope they don't leak!
No comments:
Post a Comment