Fogg

Agree.

Infrastructure lacks resilience. Especially power. Numerous examples over last decade. Cables should be under the road by now.

Go to your boat?

Micron 66 doesn’t work so well in gulf area now. I used it for 10yrs but noticed reduced performance so switched to even more expensive Micron Ultra.

My conversation with Chorus this morning: Me: Hi there you’ve got a pole outside our house with a line down on the ground in front on my drive. Not sure if it’s power or phone line but you probably need to check it out. Pole number xxxx adresss zzzz Chorus guy: Ok, any idea why the line came down? Me: Yeah a tree came down on top of it. Chorus guys: Ok, any idea why the tree came down? Me: Have you heard of a program called ‘The News’?

People out west saying it was the strongest winds in 24 yrs. Just goes to show you don't a 'named' cyclone to cause the biggest winds. Interesting that the Metservice warnings weren't anywhere near as dire as the last couple of TCs that came through i.e.this time they undercooked it.

+ I add a squirt of fairy liquid to the outside of the taped joint just before pulling through

Yes philstar I was intrigued to see Oracle still proudly on display at Redwood a few weeks ago! This weekend is equally good if not better - better sailing breeze and here in Onetangi we have about 8 boats right now!

I think the cost of a life raft (purchasing & maintenance) is trivial compared to the other running costs of those boats. Most of them are running around with a pair of 250-300hp outboards on the back and I’ve been onboard during a routine refuel and the fuel bill is big and would dwarf the cost of a life raft - especially if they arranged a proper commercial supply agreement.

The RNLI is a superb outfit made up of a combination of professionals and volunteers. As someone said they look and feel more like the navy if you have any dralings with them ie reassuringly competent. And of course they have huge resources because despite being a charity they are far better funded than NZ CG for obvious reasons. By comparison my experience with CG NZ is that the onshore service is great but the on-the-water experience varies hugely depending on the crew you get on the day. My biggest concern / complaint about NZ CG is they operate lots of small boats sometimes in v ma

IT was there a time-lag between you uploading your vessel photo and it showing on the marine traffic system (maybe whilst they approve the image)?

Thanks

Hey IT can you see me?

Having gone through most of the others Marine Electrics are the only guys I trust. They do all my electrical & electronics work from alternators through to AIS and mast wiring.

Yes our SWR test predictably showed old antenna & cable as terrible but new setup as great. But to add to the confusion the SWR showed the vhf transmission to also be fine - hence our confusion about poor radio test result. Our verdict was that vhf set was transmitting some kind of carrier signal (as seen by SWR) but the voice part was not making it onto carrier signal correctly. This is the bit that I think was broken by me using PTT with a deteriorated antenna & cable. A proper radio check needs to be done at real distance eg in Auckland that means the outer gulf or Barri

My new VHF + AIS transceiver is being fitted today so by end of day I should be seeing AIS data on my plotter and gps position on my vhf. Also getting second station mic & controller installed in cockpit so I can easily listen to & use vhf from helm. This was all triggered a month ago when I tried to do a routine radio check. My transmission was weak & broken from Gulf Harbour and inaudible from Kawau or Barrier. Assumed problem most likely in antenna / cable / connectors so when we found a connection under the mast that was corroded we felt onto the problem. And when we c

When you buy a used boat that the VHF callsign does not automatically transfer over to the new owner because it is not assigned to the vessel itself but to the owner. So even if you've done all the right paperwork for the S&P of the vessel, you need to do a separate transfer of callsign from the old owner to the new - otherwise the new owner needs to buy a new callsign. Which means if you've bought a boat and just started using the existing callsign (most likely printed next to the VHF) then technically you're not legit. I didn't realise this and I suspect a few others don't!

Yes in the end I got a call from a very helpful lady who talked me through the options and set everything up on the spot. So now I have renewed VHF callsign and new MMSI for all my kit - perfect!

Just filled in online form on CG website that looks like I’ve ordered myself (and paid for) new MMSI. But acknowledgement email I’ve received reads as though I’ve ordered an online boating education course. So god knows what’s going to arrive!

Very timely as I'm literally just setting up for new VHF + AIS transceiver now. How do we apply for MMSI?

Sounds like a soft crew and some poor decisions.

Turns out my engine room has an air intake duct the same size as the extractor fan duct. So my extrator fan is helping the engine breath by sucking fresh air in through the ventilation duct. It also helps vent general engine smells and when I was running the engine with the extractor fan broken for a brief time I noticed a difference with more engine smells around the companionway area. These have gone now with extractor fan replaced.

I just presume that there are enough natural sources of fresh air ingress from a combination of the 3 removable engine panels (front, back & side) plus bilges. I recently did a test at WOT and the engine ran 100 over it's stated maximum of 3000rpm and sat there happily driving us pretty fast with no sings of overheating, shortage of air or any other problems. Whilst there are many disadvantages to production boats, they also have big advantages like having 1000s of similar boats running similar systems and so if there is a fundamental design problem it has probably either been sorted b

My production boat has extractor fan fitted as standard in the engine room. The original Jabsco unit recently died so I replaced it with a identical TMC 4” in-line blower but after 3hrs use the fan blade flew off. A few days later Burnsco swapped it another TMC (on the advice that TMC is normally good kit) but exactly the same thing happened to the new unit after 30 mins. So I returned it for a refund and will never buy another item if TMC kit again. So stick with Jabsco is my advice although as someone else said they are all quite noisy.