aardvarkash10

^They work great! Unfortunately, double-sided foam sticky tape is not sufficient to keep them on the bulkhead, so I am going to have fix them with screws from behind. If anyone needs a pulse-width modulation dimmer for DC circuits to 30V and about 1.5A I have a few more of the complete circuit boards hanging around (no face plate or LED, but does include the control knob). $3 per board plus postage at cost, PM me if you are interested.

Hi Tai - welcome to the crew forums. You can never have too much battery capacity. However, keep an eye on the paralleled batteries to make sure they are in similar state of charge at all times - if one battery does die, it can lead to the charging system thinking the batteries are near full all the time, and so both batteries get under-charged. There are very good bits of electronics that will do this for you and manage it, but they are not cheap and may require other changes to your charging system.

Yes, with the provision that there is significant effort put into understanding why stocks are depleting, and that any quota used after the rahui/ban is lifted is monitored and adjusted seasonally with the commercial users paying all costs of monitoring. Quota was once thought of as an environmentally sound management system that would allow increases and decreases in catch depending on the current state of the fishery. Now it appears more like a licence to plunder until the fishery is so decimated its not economical to fish.

look for an old school engineering supplier Jon - places that sell belts pullies and drive systems for industrial equipment would be a good place to start and save time. If you can get a decent gauge to measure the keyway, great. If not, take the clamp and the existing key with you. Its more important that the key matches the keyway in the shaft rather than the tiller

Totally. Reversable if you get it wrong, relatively cheap and easy and permanent if you get it right. https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/marketplace/building-renovation/tools/hand-tools/measuring/listing/3459853267

whats the advantage over just tying the sheet to the clew?

do like me a good hard chine

There seems to be a lot of confusion and misplaced othering around rahui. It's contentious but worth discussing imo. Fish's earlier thread implied that rahui were legally enforceable and had some sort of official standing. They don't. They are a symbolic prohibition. In this respect they are similar to those "slow down, we love our children" signs you see on country roads where mummies drive European 4wds. They are a nudge to improve behaviour. They can act as a nudge to govt as well. Effectively a rahui is an indicator of public opinion. Not all public, but sufficient th

no, thats the same as any place you drop anchor.

Much though it pains me to say, if we support a haul out facility for privately owned boats on public land, do we support provision of vehicle hoists and other useful stuff so I can service my car on public land? Just wondering...

somewhere we covered the cost of cheap yachts and I did estimates on SO so far (almost two years). $14k purchase, about $1k on purchase costs (inspection report etc) Replaced water tanks, new water pump and taps, depth sounder, antifouled (stripped to the sealer coat and refinished with undercoat and 3x antifoul) new sail cover and dodger, minor rot repair in the cabin top, new fridge, added 130w solar, new house battery replacement anchor, recovered squabs, recarpeted, fitted secondary winches, engine out and replaced exhaust mixer elbow and rear main oil seal, fitted LED strip ligh

for an inner gulf liveaboard, yeah. You could get away with it for a year, but not longer. She has had money spent, but on fixtures and fittings. She really needs 6 weeks on a hardstand and a full strip and refinish. I really like her lines but she is looking very tired.But that leads me to questions on the rest of the yacht. I don't think my refurb budget estimate would be far off. All imo, and only from observations in passing. She is getting used and was out last weekend.

Auriga is on the mooring next to us. At a minimum she needs a full repaint - cabin tops to keel. She is looking tired. Unless you feel like dropping about $30k on deferred maintenance and thats doing it yourself, I wouldn't

anyone need a radar arch?

at least the lights won't go out...

If you have substantial capital backing, yes. Many are effectively mortgage extensions. The rest are at eye-watering interest rates.

or Grandpa's axe

"Hi, yes is that AussieBank Corp? Cool great, yeah, you know me I've been with you since I was about 8 and you offered those CashIsJustCrackForKids accounts - yeah, the no fees, no interest ones.... Anyway, because you guys have been handing over money for houses like you are Santa Claus in the Cadbury factory I can't afford a house, so I want to live on a yacht - can ya gimme, say a 100k? Hello,  hellllllloooooo...  are you there?"

^the irony being that it appears the priming bulb in the existing line has been the point of failure!

Disclosure: We own a 10m Spencer, and Mrs Aardvark's family built three of them in the 1960s going from 25 foot to 45 foot in the process. The later yachts cruised and raced locally and internationally. ANY yacht in your budget will need maintenance, and the Ply construction of a Spencer is now different. Upside is that ply is easy to repair (comparatively), and the construction methods were simple and repeated across the range of designs John drew/built - this means a surveyor has no difficulty in identifying any potential problems.

In a similar vein. If your engine stops on a weekend day, say, Sunday of a long weekend, and you have to bleed the low pressure fuel supply to start it, its probably leaking and will let you down later, like, perhaps, on a Monday of a long weekend just as you approach the river entrance in a fast running rising tide and with 20 knots up the jacksy. Apart from that, a fun weekend and I have some new fuel line to run this week. Mrs Aardvark has a new vocabulary. We are pleased we have a diesel, not a petrol engine. Otherwise we could have been in BP's predicament.

Named Seize the Day? There was a series of Pan Pan calls on VHF late this morning this afternoon Marine Radio.

look for unloved or idiosyncratic yachts. Case in point: https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/boats-marine/yachts/keeler/listing/3436430999?bof=QOOpYPx3

Excellent. Good to know I am not alone. Even if I was that day. Was he also trying to inspect a rudder tube?

One day I will write up in the Stepping Out thread about the time I got wedged upside-down in a stern rope locker. With no-one else onboard. I thought I was going to die there...