Nearly there

[Guest]

Well we move out of the house on 16 May, still loads to do to the boat but Adverc got fitted, so now we have efficient battery management, monitoring equipment next. I'm still making the series drogue but we are almost at the splicing stage and I don't even get a Blue Peter badge for all the sticking, assembling and sewing I did. Once we are on board the SSB, Sat antennae, watermaker, salt and fresh water manual pumps will be fitted and I will lose my internet, which I think I will miss. It is hubbies actual last day at work today, so it all starts for real. Hard to believe we will live in a space not much larger than my kitchen! I can't wait.

 

[summerwind]

Congratulations. It looks as if I will be following you at the beginning of June, as long as the house sale completes on time

A couple of questions if you don't mind: What model of SSB did you buy? Where did you buy it, and (Really rude question) how much did you pay?

Thanks for your responses.

 

[HaraldS]

Congratulations! Fantastic to watch your progress. I'm sure you'll love your new life.

We will follow soon. And tanks again for the fastmail reference, works very well.

All the best. We'll miss you on the forum once you're sailing, but I don't think you will miss us much.

 

[ccscott49]

Good luck and fair winds, fastmail works a treat, thanks again!
Colin.

 

[Guest]

SSB

We bought the ICOM 710 with the tuner and a whip antena from Marine Electronic Services, we paid about £1400 but it is around £1200 from them if you are in ARC, we are doing ARC but didn't sign up till after we bought SSB, stupid or what!

 

[Guest]

Fastmail

I too signed up and it seems excellent but I don't really understand IMAP, is it worth my while learning? Do you use it or POP? Once we go to boat until the Iridium is up and running, we won't be able to connect. We have thought of using a mobile phone but as we will be cruising, everwhere we go we will be roming and that's expensive, maintaining an ISP will also be expensive, as you have to dial their UK number, even with AOL they tell me that they still charge extra if you use their foreign numbers to connect. Anyone found an easy way? Iridium seem the best bet as they give you a gateway for the cost of the phonecall, although that it expensive if we are only collecting email it shouldn't be too bad.

 

[markhankey]

Hi

A quick question.....where did you get the pattern for your series drogue?
We are about a year behind you and this is one of the things on the good old
list of things to do !

Very much look forward to hearing from you and more importantly.....best of luck

 

[jonic]

Well done Norma,

Does it all feel sureal? It does for us. All the furniture is in storage now, two weeks left at work and then the wedding and then we're off!! Well sort of. I think we are going to hang about on the south coast finishing the boat as our honeymoon. Just the epirb to get and all the equipment ordering is finished.Our SSB cost £1700 (icom710) and we have gone for an iridium fixed installation. I think it is going to be cheaper than messing around with ISP's and roaming phones. Certainly less hassle. Friends and family are pleased that just one number and one phone call gets straight through to us.Dont worry about losing the net..........we are going to do something very very real. Cyberspace can have a back seat for a while.

Good luck!!

See you in Gib in October?

http://web.ukonline.co.uk/yacht/serafina/

 

[Guest]

Kit for Drogue

We bought a kit from www.sailrite.com, cost $190.00 but if you know someone who could get one in USA and then bring to you, you would save the postage which was quite expensive. It is easy to make but fiddly, I really want that Blue Peter badge. We went for drogue rather than a parachute, as there is no chafe involved in the system and if we ever get into the sort of weather which it will be needed then we just put it overboard and retire below but you do need two stainless straps fixed to the stern to attach drogue to boat. Look up the site it is all explained. Good luck with your preparations.

 

[Guest]

Wedding bells

Good luck for your wedding, I hope the sun shines (it poured on mine 33 years ago). I will send our Iridium phone number to you and maybe you can get in touch once you start sailing. We don't expect to leave here much before end of June. We still have to order our sails, watermaker, trysail track, whisper pole and battery monitoring equipment. We also have to order the data kit for Iridium but we still haven't decided where to put antenna, everywhere we think of there is another radar or antenna in the way, but we will sort it out soon. There are lots of other bits that we need to do but we made the boat roll proof last year, nearly everything locks below and hopefully wont open in a roll. Have you checked out fastmail?

 

[jonic]

Re: Wedding bells

Thanks for your good wishes. Checking out fastmail now. Can you tell me about your battery management, as I'm a little undecided here.

Regards

http://web.ukonline.co.uk/yacht/serafina/

 

[ccscott49]

Re: Wedding bells

Reference you iridium antenna, I put it just above the Radar on the Mizzen mast, I saw one guy put his actually on the top of his radar dome, screwed on and sealed, never saw any interference! Which surprised me, but there it is! FWIW.

 

[markhankey]

Re: Kit for Drogue

Thankyou very much for that, I will blow the dust off the sewing machine and
await the post with eager anticipation. Best of luck with your trip.

Regards and fair winds

Mark

 

[Guest]

Thanks Mark

I have actually finished the drogue now, although it has not been spliced, we are a bit too busy finishing moving out (why did we keep so much rubbish). Husband had his retirement do last night and was given a beautiful barograph as a present, it will look gorgeous on the boat, as well as being really useful. We are both exhausted as we never seem to stop at the moment, things keep going wrong with the house and of course they must be fixed before next Friday. Still hopefully we can start relaxing a bit once we are on the boat.

 

[Guest]

Batteries

Well John we know enough about batteries to cover the head of a very small pin, so we have taken advice from the experts. We assumed that we would need a high output alternator but apparently we don't, indeed it would do our system harm. We have installed an Adverc, or rather we had it installed, which makes sure that the batteries are charged in the most efficient way and we. The monitor we thinkwe will go with the CruzPro VAH30, which looks like excellent value. We just took advice from our local expert. He has done four ARCs including the last one and said that if he hadn't done the others, he would never have gone again, it was so rough last time. He has been really helpful and Trev was with him when he installed and he explained exactly what he was doing, so that, hopefully, if it goes wrong we can fix ourselves. We were recommend a great book by the man from Adverc, which was a Practical Boatowner book and it really is great, sort of electrics for dummies and well worth the price. We also have Nigel Calder's book but it was very difficult to understand, maybe once we know a bit more we will also understand it.

 

[cynthia]

Good luck, hope things go better during your housemove than ours! Fair winds and safe landings.