Back to the UK for a winter refit

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I feel like I've been forced to take the long way round on this one, if you know what I mean. If I'd known this kind of skill existed on my doorstep, I would have just had the old risers modded for the higher horns, and be done with it.

The guys at Pipecraft were amazed when I told them how much Volvo charge for the risers, they pointed out that they could have fabricated them from scratch for much less.

So my suggestion to anyone else staring down the barrel of a £3.5k bill to replace risers and associated pipework on D6's is - go to Pipecraft and get something lovely made bespoke, and still have enough cash left over for a decent birthday dinner at Benares in Mayfair :D [/injoke].

In fact Nigel has kept that jig that he made - so it should even easier for anyone else going down this path in future.
Really nice job Jimmy. Just needed Ricardo to do a Wave simulation to ensure gas flow optimisation :)

UK manufacturing gets a poor press. In reality we have some great skills here. Just need more of them.
 
Back at the boat both days this weekend, and this morning I thought I'd start by seeing if the reworked riser actually fitted or not. Phew:

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This reverse angle shot shows where the problem was. In the end the overall height of the riser was reduced by 32mm, and pulled forward a bit - so it is easy to see the where the conflict with the grp was. Remember that this still needs to have a thermal jacket wrapped round it, so all in I'd say this was just right. Well done again to Pipecraft.

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However, in accordance with Boating's Third Law, every step forward must have an equal and opposite step backward. Today's anti-progress is that the searchlight (on the goalpost) will not tilt down; there's power on the tilt circuit, which suggests that the fault is in the searchlight itself. So, the goalpost has come back off and is back here for a bit of investigation later. Annoyingly, in the process of trying to track down the error, one of the pins in the goalpost connector broke off, so I also now need to get hold of a new Amphenol C16 connector pdq so that I can replace that and get the goalpost back on the boat.
 
Perfect conclusion and a work of art Jimmy, not surprisingly solved by a craftsman and not a fitter. Sadly not much of that around anymore......
 
Today's anti-progress is that the searchlight (on the goalpost) will not tilt down
You're saying that as if it would matter! :)
I've had a searchlight on my current boat for 15 years now, and on another couple before her.
Two decades overall, and I can't remember of having ever turned them on for any reason other than the curiosity to see if they worked...

+1 on highly admiring Pipecraft job.
I would struggle to choose between the jig they made and the modified riser as the most impressive bit!
 
Two decades overall, and I can't remember of having ever turned them on for any reason other than the curiosity to see if they worked...
Haha! That was my thought exactly. Useless bits of kit, yet included as standard equipment OEM on almost every production boat
 
The one on our new boat fell off so they replaced it - so that cost them 2 search lights and likewise I have never turned it on! On my T40 it used to go round and round but not up and down. I played with it once to see if i could fix it but could not. I looked at a replacement for some strange reason ( I like stuff to work) and it was some daft amount of money so it never got fixed.

We do carry a large rechargeable torch and that is really useful and cost about £15 from that well known nautical supplier Homebase!
 
Mine doesn't work either. Fixing it has been on the to-do list for years. An easy item to push back as a torch is just so convenient.

I've considered switching it to fixed light pointing backwards and downwards to the swim platform. Might become handy when getting on/off the boat in the dark or (heaven forbid) in recovering a MoB.
 
I've considered switching it to fixed light pointing backwards and downwards to the swim platform.
Alas I have one of those -was one of the 450 things on my custom list, mainly intended for night time tender recovery (although the www.lumishore.com are better for that, tbh). So with that option not available as an excuse for the search light's existence, I have to keep the searchlight working! :D:D
 
You're saying that as if it would matter! :)
I've had a searchlight on my current boat for 15 years now, and on another couple before her.
Two decades overall, and I can't remember of having ever turned them on for any reason other than the curiosity to see if they worked...

You're completely right, of course, but I'm just no good at having things on the boat that don't work the way they are supposed to. I have used the searchlight in anger a couple of times - but literally only a couple of times. So now it is on the floor of my sitting room in many pieces while I try and figure it out...
 
Mine doesn't work either. Fixing it has been on the to-do list for years. An easy item to push back as a torch is just so convenient.
I've had quite a few boats and the spotlights have either stopped working or never worked at all. I've never been quite sure why boat builders fit them
 
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