The ups and downs of being a Sailor.

[capnsensible]

Last tuesday, had a lovely few hours out doing a bit of coaching on a friends boat. Loadsa sunshine. Dolphins.

On thursday and friday, was due to do a couple of training sessions on a boat with a very nice liveaboard couple new to sailing. Roller furler jammed and engine threw a wobbler.

Today, was gonna take out some other friends on their cracking Beneteau 331, a yacht I really like. Mate taken into hospital yesterday afternoon. Released last night (hurah) but clearly no sailing today.

So, got our brand new tender that had been in lockdown in the local chandlers, inflated with the most fantastic electric pump ever, named the boat (Daisy the Dinghy) and launched, now commissioned as the official Tender To our yacht. And the outboard started at almost the 15th pull!

That amused us for the rest of the morning, tootling round the marina and the adjacent anchorage chatting at a suitable distance with people we know and sending photos on Wassap to friends in UK who cant get to their yachts. Not to be annoying at all. Also some rapid retraining on the conduct of outboard driven tenders with no inflatable keel to give at least some kind of directional stability.

Anyway, Back out on thursday on first yacht. Will re thread training and when my oppo gets sorted, off we go again.

It may even be that having stopped being liveaboards and started being normal, we might even get our own yacht to sea!

 

[davethedog]

What electric dinghy inflator do you have as thinking of getting one for our dinghy?

 

[capnsensible]

What electric dinghy inflator do you have as thinking of getting one for our dinghy?

Mornin! Im going down the boat shortly and will check. At the moment all I can say is its blue! Mrs S has got a coven meeting so Im outa here!

Looked at forecast for tomorrow. Any less wind, it would suck..... Might just get a mid morning onshore breeze.

 

[cherod]

What electric dinghy inflator do you have as thinking of getting one for our dinghy?

i modified a car tyre inflator , easy , plugs into cigar plug .

 

[Easticks28]

Ups and downs ? A dim and distant memory ?

 

[Stemar]

What electric dinghy inflator do you have as thinking of getting one for our dinghy?

I got one of these. It's heavy (LA battery) and the price brought tears to my wallet, but I need to use it on a pontoon with no leccy nearby, and you quickly forget the price when you set it up and wander off to get the OB and the flubber's half inflated when you get back.

 

[cherod]

I got one of these. It's heavy (LA battery) and the price brought tears to my wallet, but I need to use it on a pontoon with no leccy nearby, and you quickly forget the price when you set it up and wander off to get the OB and the flubber's half inflated when you get back.

200£ !!!! ( do you not have 12v lecky on your boat ? )

 

[capnsensible]

What electric dinghy inflator do you have as thinking of getting one for our dinghy?

On boat. Sevylor. Works a treat and gives you optiobs for lots of different valves. Like.

 

[capnsensible]

On planeta huerto. Google watches.......

 

[capnsensible]

Inflador 12V
1000mBAR/15 PSI
Sevylor

 

[Stemar]

200£ !!!! ( do you not have 12v lecky on your boat ? )

Yes, but my yacht is 300 yards from the club pontoon.

The purchase was slightly more logical than it appears, because it was a few months after a serious illness resulting in open heart surgery, and I was struggling to blow up the dinghy by hand.

 

[cherod]

Yes, but my yacht is 300 yards from the club pontoon.

The purchase was slightly more logical than it appears, because it was a few months after a serious illness resulting in open heart surgery, and I was struggling to blow up the dinghy by hand.

you have my sympathys there, i have not had the surgery ( or any other ) and still struggle to blow it up by hand , that is why i did a simple mod on the car one , ( 15£ from Lidl . )

 

[capnsensible]

As predicted, light onshore winds today.But with a small group of people that are unbovvered about sailing at two knots, we had a very pleasant reach up to Lanzarote Airport and back. No Dolphins, but a few flying fish around. Plus, as usual, some camels hanging around at the Safari place at the top of the hill seen from the car.....

 

[davethedog]

Sounds fun and what do you find the best (most accurate) weather app for the canaries?

 

[capnsensible]

Sounds fun and what do you find the best (most accurate) weather app for the canaries?

Windfinder. Use it daily! I like to get an overview on passageweather for the general situation. Some of the local radio (FM) stations are .....a bit not very good.
Quite often catch the 1305 Coastguard forecast for the Canaries. Usual all ships on 16, then various channels for where you are. In English and Spanish. I reckon its very good.

 

[davethedog]

Thanks mate and have found the same as the fm radio stations forecast are a bit.... Crap,

 

[franksingleton]

Windfinder. Use it daily! I like to get an overview on passageweather for the general situation. Some of the local radio (FM) stations are .....a bit not very good.
Quite often catch the 1305 Coastguard forecast for the Canaries. Usual all ships on 16, then various channels for where you are. In English and Spanish. I reckon its very good.

I have never been overly impressed by Windfinder. Its large scale charts are the GFS. Its detailed forecast starts with the Gfs 25 km output and no other weather data. I have not looked at it for a while now but the current version looks less useful than it used to be. Or, have I missed something? Where are the detailed charts?


For detail in that area, I would have expected El Tiempo. Predicción marítima: Costa de Andalucía Occidental y Ceuta - Mapas - Agencia Estatal de Meteorología - AEMET. Gobierno de España7 to be as good as anything. Run by a professional weather service, using a good model, HIRLAM, and good basic data input.

If you want other than wind and sea then use Ventusky with the GFS or ICON.

 

[Iliade]

here: Windfinder - wind, wave & weather reports, forecasts & statistics worldwide

 

[capnsensible]

I have never been overly impressed by Windfinder. Its large scale charts are the GFS. Its detailed forecast starts with the Gfs 25 km output and no other weather data. I have not looked at it for a while now but the current version looks less useful than it used to be. Or, have I missed something? Where are the detailed charts?


For detail in that area, I would have expected El Tiempo. Predicción marítima: Costa de Andalucía Occidental y Ceuta - Mapas - Agencia Estatal de Meteorología - AEMET. Gobierno de España7 to be as good as anything. Run by a professional weather service, using a good model, HIRLAM, and good basic data input.

If you want other than wind and sea then use Ventusky with the GFS or ICON.

I really dont need massive detail for the sailing I do here in the Canaries. Windfinder does it for me.

A good resource for the Straits of Gibraltar, IMO is Steph Ball at MeteoGib. The website forecast is basic but if you need a bespoke forecast and advice, for a small fee, she is a true expert on the area. When I was a bit time constrained with sailing school courses, she was brill at helping with passage planning.

gibraltar webcam weather

 

[alahol2]

I have never been overly impressed by Windfinder. Its large scale charts are the GFS. Its detailed forecast starts with the Gfs 25 km output and no other weather data. I have not looked at it for a while now but the current version looks less useful than it used to be. Or, have I missed something? Where are the detailed charts?

Windfinder Superforecast

They claim a 4Km grid for the Canaries, 7Km for Europe.