Recent content by iapetus

Elsewhere, perhaps, but not in the Med, save for a small number of marinas

I had the opportunity to spend a few weeks on two different powercats. The idea was to run a real-life test before buying one of these: - a Leopard 39 PC (the consumer edition of what The Moorings rents around the world) - a Fountaine Pajot MY40 Budget approx 400-450kE at the time if I remember...

Beware of current go-slow strikes. The railway guys stop for 2 days, work for 3, then stop again. A total mess at the moment, and a pity as the ride is really extraordinary along the coast

Thanks for your replies ! I can confirm there are no joiner pieces, only badly cut seal ends 2-3mm apart (it may be too much to re-glue, so is there any other material I could use to make it watertight again ? Silicone probably wouldn't hold ?) A twisted frame maybe the culprit indeed. As for...

How fore the AIS unit receive GPS positions? It should theoretically have its own GPS mushroom

Dear forum, It's been raining cats, dogs and Saharian sand since the so-called spring season started, and I recently found a leak that developed around the starboard hatch. Here is the offending hatch, dirty from "gabian" (vernacular name of these large, aggressive seagulls) mess and last...

Golfe Juan, Monaco, Bastia, St-Florent, Menton all have cleats for anything smaller than 14m (ie. my humble boat). I must confess I always use chain (which some harbours arguably prohibit on cleats as it slowly grinds the metal), springs and spliced loops. And an OXXO with no additional...

A Trefoil (from Osculati, Bruce-like). Good on sand, not so on mud in my experience. It wouldn’t resettle when dragged. I replaced it with an oversized Rocna

Caution with that Baie des Canebiers, the seabed is globally muddy and doesn't hold under windy conditions (and boy can the wind blow suddenly here). We spent an horrible night dragging like mad. Weather permitting, it's definitely a fine anchorage once the youngsters and their blaring stereos...

+1 with Vas, go Chinese. After receiving a generous quote from the local Bezensoni agent (maybe 500-something euros?), I scrapped the original RC box and replaced it with a general purpose (but apparently also coded, just in case) RC with six relays found on eBay. Mine came with five...

If you intended to use that mile-long anchor chain you just fitted, then forget about it. Anchoring is now prohibited almost everywhere in front of Monaco, starting next week. I see a tiny, suitable spot only 40m deep though.

There are a quite large marinas further east, especially on the Côte d'Azur proper. Marina Baie-des-Anges, Golfe-Juan, Mandelieu, Hyères, Fréjus, Santa-Lucia (St Raphael), Cannes... For example, I see two P46s for sale in Golfe-Juan, just east of Cannes, one in Saint-Laurent-du-Var (close to...

I had to pay a certified Raymarine tech for this (iirc, 200€ for both the DSC VHF and the AIS transponder) as you can't reset the MMSI yourself on some (most?) equipment.

You can certainly ask the nearest VP Center to print out the engines' history. In our case they had also been servicing the boat for a couple years (and would, post sale), so they made no problem and charged nothing. My neighbours, on the contrary, hired a totally different VP mech for their...

All LCD screens are polarized on certain angles in order to maximize contrast and viewing angle. As far as I understand, most general purpose screens have a polarizing angle that is not compatible with polarized glasses, depending on the orientation. OTOH MFD screens are designed with this in...