Recent content by Richard.C

Plan it well and pick your weather window, it will be a great adventure. My passage plan from Torquay would not take me down the Alderney race so no need to worry about that. However I would probably stop over night in Guernsey and split the journey, Guernsey is a lovely place to visit. Weather...

You might want to do a little VHF test, with the antenna so close to other electronics it's best to ensure you don't get interference when transmitting. It can be difficult to diagnose but concentrated RF energy can cause weird issues.

My very approximate experience and what I'm learning to expect is that I get 1 or 2 years with basic maintenance items plus a couple of extra smaller costs of repair. Then every 3rd year or so tends to be a bigger bill, something of more significant cost to replace, cockpit canopy, bathing...

Thanks for the reply, I'm surprised it all needs dedicated antenna, I thought things would be more networked for position data with just a couple of back ups.

I appreciate the idea of redundancy but how many GPS antenna are really required?

That's another mechanic to avoid then....

I've worked on the assumption wool for a cutting compound and foam for a polish, not sure where I saw that but probably a youtube channel. Having said that I never got on well with a rotary polisher, once a year meant I never got enough practice and struggled with swirl marks so I swapped to a...

Thanks Pete, that looks great, was the surround custom made to fit and is it sat on the same shelf the SMEV oven was on or did you need to fabricate a way to secure the microwave? Richard

Pete, I'm interested to see your solution if you have progressed the oven replacement? Richard

Thanks for sharing, it's amazing to see what goes into maintaining a boat like this, I think it's quite scary and expensive.

Thanks for sharing this journey with us, enjoying it all so far. I think you should add one of the following to the toy list though, unfortunately doesn't have the range to get from Jersey to SOF but would look cool tied behind the mother ship! ICON Aircraft | Maker of the ICON A5 Amphibious...

I have only done night passages on a sailing boat, haven't had the need in a planing motorboat but I wouldn't feel comfortable at planing speed and wouldn't do it. That is a personal choice though, with an average range of 250 miles at planing speed I can use all my diesel in the daylight (in...

Howards Way and Bergerac, there always seemed to be a reason to get back from the boat on a Sunday night in time for a TV show.

Looking forward to many more instalments of this story.

I use a DD8L Junior on my 43ft boat, it stays on the boat all year round, comes in handy at beginning and end of season to prevent too much condensation on windows and hatches in the morning to clean up. I don't know why you would want one on a timer, they are designed to maintain a preset...