K4309

Sometimes, what we used to think was perfectly normal behaviour, or infact behaviour to be proud of and celebrated, sometimes that turns out to be really feckin bad for you. But it takes time to understand that what you are doing is stupid. Before rugby league cracked down on the kamikaze tackles and high shots, a little Bulldogs player was making his name as the second coming of David “Cement” Gillespie. Kyle “Killer” White was built like a halfback, but no one dared tell him to play like one. It didn’t matter what number was on his back, he would hunt down some of the game’s

It doesn't actually matter what causes the head injury, it's still a head injury. I'm fascinated by the resistance to even the thought of wearing a helmet by some. Many other aspects of wind-powered water sports require helmets now. The most obvious being kids dinghy racing, but all the wind & wing foiling, kiting and high speed sailing boats. Modern helmets are comfortable and great. We aren't talking construction hard hats with a single chin strap. They are light, easily adjusted and well fitting. I have one for wind foiling that is incredibly comfortable. Not far off wearing a

OK so based on your anecdotal evidence that 75% of boom injuries are helmsmen, my above statement is wrong. Fair enough. My statement was in response to Clipper saying that to get a helmsperson to put on a helmet is an exceedingly dangerous distraction. I still maintain that statement is nonsense. Unless you are solo, there is someone to swap with while putting on said helmet. In Clipper's world, does the helmsman not clip on because it's too much of a distraction? Do they not wear lifejackets cause it's too much of a distraction? This statement is clearly a nonsense. But, what I'm w

That is a nonsense statement. The helmsman isn't the one that gets hit by the boom, it's all the other crew. Usually a trimmer standing up.

Helmets don't need to be compulsory, but who actually carries one or two on a keeler? Now we are aware of the risk of the boom and consequence of head-knocks, it is only logical to give some thought to mitigating that risk. The obvious is behaviour (keeping your head down), but having a helmet onboard gives you the opportunity to put one on when conditions are getting hairy. Maybe deep running in the dark in a nasty sea-way. That and for particular jobs like climbing the mast underway. We are required to carry lifejackets and have the responsibility to work out when to put them

I think the big difference is between mass-casualty events and individual boat events. You can never say never, but I would posit that the risk / probability of a major mass casualty event is markedly reduced due to modern weather forecasting and current safety standards, crew training and boat construction standards etc.

To answer your question, I'll tell a little tail: I raced in the 2007 Fastnet. I was navigator so attended the safety briefing with the skipper. The weather situation and weather map was identical to the 1979 weather map. There was a weather map of the '79 event inside the front cover of the book "Fastnet Force 10". They put the '07 weather map up on a screen in the briefing and the hairs stood up on the back of my neck - very freaky. The start was delayed by 25 hours. 1 day plus 1 hour to match the tide through the Needles Channel. At the time it was glassy calm and smoking hot, so

Has anyone looked on the Chatham rise yet? Doesn't mean it's not there. Took between 2 and 5 years to be discovered on Barrier. Was there all along. Has spread to Waiheke and Kawau, Iris shoal. Not a lot of boats anchor on Iris Shoal. Most boats anchor in Bon Accord, hasn't been found there...

When they get caught, that is.

I don't think vilifying boaties as the sole cause of the spread helps much either. Wind and tides anyone?

Don't disagree that life needs to be made easier for the Barrier locals. There is no supermarket there, and a lot of their food comes from the sea. But that doesn't explain why you can anchor (and clean your gear) at Great Mercury, but not in Tryphena, Whangaparapara or Bowling Alley Bay, can all through Fitzroy but can't in the Te Puna inlet. Everyone wants to do the right thing. If only we could work out what that was.

There is no logic. There is no logic to any of it. It's just rules for rules sake. To look like something is being done, when it isn't. It is just how our country deals with stuff. Stuff and nonsense.

You'd need a resource consent to do that. If you're going to go to all that trouble of getting a resource consent, you may as well drop in a whole marina...

It really is a fundamental safety element to be able to parallel the house batteries to start the engine when the start battery has an issue. I've never heard of anyone successfully push-starting a boat. In my view not being able to do this, or having questions marks over doing this is a major red flag for Lithium. I really don't understand how everyone says lithium are so great when all these issues are hanging around. As an aside, when I was looking at Lithium batteries, one of the suppliers made a point of telling me the BMS was fully serviceable. I was rather confused as to why y

I don't think you can use Schedule 2 Clause C willy nilly. The point is that situations change en-route. There is also the requirement that there be an emergency. Again, the skipper is the sole arbiter of what constitutes an emergency on his boat. I'd make a note in the logbook if something cropped up mid-voyage. "Not been able to prepare dinner while underway, getting hungry, emergency declared at 17:42 hours, diverting to Bowling Alley Bay" "Feeling a bit queasy, clearly haven't got my sealegs yet. Emergency declared at 13:15, diverting to Bowling Alley Bay" Or any m

Haha, so you've seen the child sized handprint on the back of my car then? Sunblock them up then jump in the car to go to the beach... Nekminnit sunblock handprint... But that stuff must be safe, we lather ourselves in it daily all summer.

Suntan lotion is very bad for PVC dinghies. It reacts with the plasticers. I thought it makes it go a tacky / sticky though. It is a known problem though, suntan lotion wrecking PVC. It is probably the most plausible explanation.

Fatigue is the underlying cause of a massive number of accidents. If a prudent skipper had a choice of proceeding directly to Bowling Alley Bay, which depending on where you were coming from is maybe 4 to 6 miles closer, and avoided navigating past multiple sunken rocks, islets and islands and then down an incredibly narrow, unlit, rock lined channel. It's already dark, the crew is tired (if you have one) and the skipper is fatigued, what option would the prudent skipper take? Obviously, based on the CAN, the Skipper would have needed to set out for and intended to make Fitzroy, but

Yes, but you can anchor in red if you observe Schedule 2 Clause C of the CAN: Anchoring in emergencies: Anchoring is permitted without the need to acquire a permit for the following situations: 1) In the event of an emergency that c) no other alternative safe sheltering locations or mooring can be easily acquired.

Crikey. What brand lip seal did you go with? Was your shaft in good condition? We put a new shaft in at the same time as the dripless seal. There was a bit of necking on the old shaft. I suspect that would have made it difficult for a lip seal to sit down properly. We did have to put a water pump onto it to provide cooling water. It was thought we wouldn't need to but the temp alarm went off after a long motor one day. Very strait forward putting a water pump on, no issues there, but it was another job and another item to keep an eye on in the future.

As P said, I'd just repack and lots of grease. Since you have the shaft out and your own the hard, re-packing is super easy. I have an idea the replacement hemp stuff is only something like $20. In my view, you can't have too much grease. If you over-pump it, it just comes oozing out, hardly a major issue. You can over tighten them of course, but you can't really over pump it. I used a regular grease gun so I could just drop a cartridge in it. None of this trying to scoop grease into your little 1/4 turn thingee thing. If you are trying to scoop grease into the thingee thing, you could be

If you feel like spending boat dollars, and have a little space, you can retrofit a dripless shaft seal. We did this after years of tolerating our packing gland dribbling and carrying on. Haven't looked back. We got one from Henleys. Was in the order of $600 / $700 about 5 years ago. Alternatively, you can re-pack the stuffing and connected a grease gun to it. I'd give the grease gun a pump or two every time we'd been out. I was super smart and put two connecting hoses onto the grease gun, so I didn't have to crawl to the far end of the bilge to get at it. Noting that packing gl

Is the inference then that if you try starting the donk with a standard LiFePo house battery, say by paralleling it with the start, you could fry the FET in the BMS and be a bit buggered? I've fried FET's in my autopilot. Didn't have to try very hard, just a fairly innocuous system malfunction and then the the whole thing was buggered.

I don't understand this. How can it have 70% capacity remaining if it has been discharged to 80% DoD? Are they measuring DoD as a percentage of full charged voltage o discharged voltage, and DoD as a % of amphr capacity? Edit, posted at the same time as CD's post.

I'm sorry but isn't this comparison chart a nonsense? For life cycles, they are assessing FLA, AGM and Gel to 80% DoD, but for Li they say "70% capacity remaining", which is 30%DOD, isn't it? Then they use those numbers to present the 'Real Cost per cycle @80% DoD' as more than half as much for Li. Accept it's not 80% DoD, its 30%. If you run any of those other battery technologies to 30% DoD they will last for ages as well. It makes the comparison a complete nonsense.