Recent content by extravert

Hey I used to have one of them - hence the username! I'll be in touch by pm.

Blue and yellow too. It's the way forward.

A calm grey day... and a less calm grey day...

I'm not going to make any recommendations about how to run a low electrical power boat, because when I have done this in the past, the 600 Amp Hour battery brigade have rubbished my suggestions. However, I do successfully run a low power boat, so instead of telling you what you should or should...

MultihuIl Promotions (who import DragonfIy trimarans) have a UK demonstrator - usually a 920. You have to pay but this is refunded if you buy one. It's probably as near to chartering a trimaran as you'll get. Call them on +44 1243576533 or Google to get their email address.

That's not urban myth - that was me. When I came to sell my previous boat I found that the VAT documentation provided by the broker when I bought it was not worth the paper it was written on. I was selling my boat to Sweden where VAT is higher than here so rather than reduce the selling price...

A typical Welsh day

Spares are not just expensive, they are really expensive. My previous boat had a 10hp single cylinder DV10LSME that was 16 years old. It was scrapped because of the price of spares, for example... Saildrive leg £1200 Cylinder head £800 Starter motor £750 Head gasket set £98 Good grief...

Only now do I find out from the great Captain Mullet that a MacDuff26 can be sailed at 16 knots. Well how peeved am I about that? After a lot of time and expense to obtain a whizzy boat from Scandinavia, I discover from Inspector Mullet's amazing website that an everyday MacDuff will be just as...

It's a good site for free, but I think that the information is either out of date, or not as detailed as can be obtained from C-Map cartridges and a plotter. For an example near Bute, there are many more buoys round the Burnt Isles than are shown on the website. My C-Map plotter shows them, but...

I bought a new engine for my previous X99 10 months before I sold it. It was rather painful financially, but the previous engine was kippered, and so it had to be replaced. I reckon it added about half the price of the engine (engine plus fitting was £5k) to the value of the boat. It certainly...

Sounds familiar. I had exactly the same problem on my 1981 7.5hp 4-stroke Honda on my Extravert, and my dad had the same problem with his on his Duet. Both cured with the same fix, as you describe. It seems like it's common. Easy and cheap to solve, once you know what the cause is. I don't know...

More winches than you can shake your winch handle at. More wenches than you can shake your wench handle at. <hr width=100% size=1>My ultimate dream - sailing a superyacht on the Sea of Okhotsk

I realize that it was closed so there won't be many reports. The Russian who did write the linked report though seemed to have some good techniques for blagging his way round the former Soviet Union to places he should not have gone to. Were you there in summer, or only winter? <hr width=100%...

Ah, but if you did pull up the mainsail by hand, it would make you sweat. I expect. You can pull them up by hand even with electric winches, can't you? I don't know. I've never sailed on a boat with electric winches so I am winging it here. <hr width=100% size=1>Summer is what you expect - rain...