Our hole in the mud!
It's been a busy weekend getting as much sorting out on board done as possible as work is starting to come in as we come to the end of the sailing "season"
After launching, Pagan spent a couple of days alongside the river pontoon whilst I turned her back into a sailing boat rather than a workshop
It was blowing hard from the north yesterday, not ideal for getting onto our berth as the prop walk already pushes the stern away from the finger pontoon and adding a strong wind blowing us off makes the job doubly tricky
So today was the day.
With next to no wind by this afternoon, or was also an ideal chance to carry out a trial under power both the test the rebuilt stern gear and find out whether changing the prop pitch had been a success
Well she ran beautifully and better still with the extra inch of pitch she now happily chugs along at five and a half knots plus at around 1700rpm, a reduction of 500rpm which should significantly improve fuel consumption
And opening the throttle wide now gives us over seven knots at just over 3200rpm compared to 6.4 knots at 3600rpm
That's excellent as we're achieving close to theoretical hull speed at sensible rpm
The mechanicals seem to be working fine, the steering is now much improved and best of all the autohelm can now hold a course without assistance.
(It's still slated for replacement with a modern unit but now we can save up the pennies and do it in a year or two rather than having to dip into our reserves to pay for it)
The fun over, I shaped up to get into our berth which is not the easiest of maneuvers. It would have gone fine, with assistance from a couple of fellow boaters on the pontoon, if I'd not left her in gear when I dashed on deck to get a line on the centre cleat (I thought I'd knocked her into neutral but I hadn't)
No harm done other than a bit of paint scuffed on the stem. It'll not be the last I'm sure!
Much fiddling with mooring line lengths ensued until I was happy that I had Pagan back in place to sit in the mud
And happily she sat straight and level without drama
The "to do" list is still enormous but I'm over the moon to have got this vital but exhausting phase of the refit over
It's been a busy weekend getting as much sorting out on board done as possible as work is starting to come in as we come to the end of the sailing "season"
After launching, Pagan spent a couple of days alongside the river pontoon whilst I turned her back into a sailing boat rather than a workshop
It was blowing hard from the north yesterday, not ideal for getting onto our berth as the prop walk already pushes the stern away from the finger pontoon and adding a strong wind blowing us off makes the job doubly tricky
So today was the day.
With next to no wind by this afternoon, or was also an ideal chance to carry out a trial under power both the test the rebuilt stern gear and find out whether changing the prop pitch had been a success
Well she ran beautifully and better still with the extra inch of pitch she now happily chugs along at five and a half knots plus at around 1700rpm, a reduction of 500rpm which should significantly improve fuel consumption
And opening the throttle wide now gives us over seven knots at just over 3200rpm compared to 6.4 knots at 3600rpm
That's excellent as we're achieving close to theoretical hull speed at sensible rpm
The mechanicals seem to be working fine, the steering is now much improved and best of all the autohelm can now hold a course without assistance.
(It's still slated for replacement with a modern unit but now we can save up the pennies and do it in a year or two rather than having to dip into our reserves to pay for it)
The fun over, I shaped up to get into our berth which is not the easiest of maneuvers. It would have gone fine, with assistance from a couple of fellow boaters on the pontoon, if I'd not left her in gear when I dashed on deck to get a line on the centre cleat (I thought I'd knocked her into neutral but I hadn't)
No harm done other than a bit of paint scuffed on the stem. It'll not be the last I'm sure!
Much fiddling with mooring line lengths ensued until I was happy that I had Pagan back in place to sit in the mud
And happily she sat straight and level without drama
The "to do" list is still enormous but I'm over the moon to have got this vital but exhausting phase of the refit over
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