Jump to content

chippie

Members
  • Content Count

    67
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    1

Posts posted by chippie

  1. Just been away for three weeks and had the gas sensor go off a couple of times.  Checked everything with the soapy water method and every connection was fine.  (not many connections because we only run the stove off the cylinder).  Almost accidentally dripped some of the soap solution on the actual solenoid casing and saw bubbles coming from both the top and bottom of the casing.  Took the regulator off and replaced it with our spare non solenoid operated regulator, carefully tested and everything fine.

    I'm bit perturbed by this.  The solenoid operated regulator is only about six months old and the bracket that holds the solenoid is already showing corrosion.  The whole installation is in a weatherproof box.  This is a particular concern because the gas must have been leaking through the solenoid throughout the whole trip.  We turn the gas bottle on at the beginning of the trip and religiously turn the valve off at the stove after use but leave the sensor on at all times while we're away.  In this case, the gas must have been leaking out irrespective of us turning off the solenoid. 

    Two questions.  Has anyone else had a similar problem?  And secondly, where can you buy a truly marine grade solenoid operated regulator?  I've googled, but not come up with anything in NZ.

     

  2. I feel your pain BP.  Almost exactly the same thing happened to us with a similar product nearly twenty years ago.  

    We'd got all the old antifouling off and spent many hours longboarding the hull getting it as fair as we could.  The guy who sold us the product insisted on applying it as well to "make sure it was done right".  He sprayed on the first coat and we started to get the impression that he hadn't done much spraying before because it was a pretty unusual technique compared to what we'd ever seen before.  It came out grossly orange peeled with major runs everywhere.  

    Got a bit worried at that point, but he said he was waiting for it to tack off for the second coat and that the second pass would have it all come out perfectly smooth.  Yeah right.  The second coat just doubled all the imperfections of the first.  I think we got good coverage but as a smooth racing finish I'm not exaggerating when I say it got close to the old textured ceilings type of finish.  

    We'd got past the worried stage and were well into aghast.  Not to worry apparently, an hour or so with 300 grit would give us a beautiful burnished copper finish.  Anyone tried sanding epoxy with 300 grit?

    Long story but we took it to small claims court and won.  The funniest part of that and probably the weirdest, was that he brought a small half model of a yacht hull about 300mm long to the hearing and told the adjudicator that he thought we were being unreasonable because it had only taken him an evening of sanding to produce the smooth finish on the model!

    Our experience with the (similar) product at the time was not good, but I would hope that twenty years of development would vastly improve it but I also think it requires a very skilled applicator.  

  3. Also wonder if there's any value in asking the question as to how many boats are in shared ownership.  

    We have been for many years.  It's worked out great. Two to share the costs so either half the cost or twice the boat for the same money.  (very roughly speaking)  And two people to do the maintenance.

  4. We had a "bruce" type anchor on our boat when we bought it.  Can't remember if it was branded or not.  Lovely stainless steel thing that we unhappily dragged all round any sea bed we tried to anchor in unless it was flat calm and then we think the heap of chain on the bottom did all the work.

    Ashamed to say we sold it on TM to a launch owner.  Shackled on the spare which was a Delta, ….much, much, better.  Then KM talked us into a Sarca Excell.

    Best ever!  Do it right and the thing hooks on almost immediately and don't let go.  So good, we occasionally have to short the chain as much as we can, flick it off the winch and onto a cleat, then give her a burst in reverse to get it out.  

  5. That's exactly what I've been wondering.  Will it work on a bigger boat even though I know how well it works on a smaller one.  The only tricky thing I remember is trying to get the far end of the pole into the ring on a bumpy day.  We're 44ft, anyone doing it on a similar size boat?  The kite pole thing I mean.

  6. It's a leisure furl boom so the sail cover is well clear.  Now that it sounds like it will not be a problem I'm thinking about the most elegant way to design the stowage.  It's got to be practical, easy to use and secure.   Thinking the outer end of the boom needs to be some kind of ring or semi enclosed ring and the front an eye to clip the pole end into?  I remember the Piedy one used to rattle like hell in big winds!

  7. We're thinking of getting a longer kite pole and the guy at the front end keeps nagging for a carbon one.  The one we've got is an alloy 5m and we're thinking of a carbon 6m but it would be a bit harder to stow on deck and avoid all the other bits.

    I remember that in our Piedy days (long ago now) we used to stow the pole along the boom in couple of brackets leaving the topping lift attached during the race.

    Our boom's long enough to take the longer pole (although it's a bit higher off the deck than the piedy one was)  and wondering if I'm nuts thinking it would work in a scaled up version.  Or does anyone currently do it?

  8. We've taken out the furling line too.  Much easier and less foulups.  You can also do it single handed if you either take the halyard around the winch and back into your other hand or just put one or two loose turns on the halyard winch and then wind from the front of the mast.  The Leisurefurl guys made us a stainless insert to replace the alloy socket which got too worn after a while.

  9. We had a Piedy way way back when at least twenty boats would race with Akarana.  Tightest racing we ever did but kind of sad to see so many of the names have changed.  I think you lose the history of the boat when you do that and I always thought many of the names like "Dancing Mouse" for instance, were pretty cool.  Ok, now I'm going nuts trying to remember some of the names.  

    The Fleury boys had "Rising Damp", there was  Waimania, Lelant, Triumph, Pied Piper of course, Minx, Rat Catcher, Ratz, Motamouse, Beep Beep, Party Piedy, Humbug, Clarinet as above, Hot Water Pipe, Jim Beam, Tartar, Woodstock, Livewire, Pinotage,  help me here people, I've only got nineteen!

    I started keelboat racing on a Reactor but after watching those stroppy little buggers come planing past us …….well….

  10. Hi Kevin, plucked out of one of those obscure bits of the brain which seem to hold odd information and not entirely sure I've got it right.  

    Earling Tambs and his yacht was called Teddy, but I think he went up on this end of Kawau.  Engineless, and had stowed his anchor below in preparation for going to sea.  No wind and he got pushed onto Challenger Point.  Saved his wife, child and dog but lost the boat.

  11. I don't know if the current "copper coat" is the same product as one we tried way back in '94 but we certainly had problems.

     From memory, it was a water based epoxy and the copper grains were stirred in just before application.  We spent many, many hours sanding down the old antifoul, long boarding until we couldn't stand it no more, followed by a couple of coats of epoxy primer.  When the agent at the time sprayed on the coppercoat, the finish was unbelievably rough, way past orange peel and into avocado type texture.  We expressed concern.  He said it would flatten out.  It didn't.  

    Months later, in the small claims court, he produced a model yacht about two feet long and pointed out that it had only taken him an evening to sand the copper coat smooth.  The room went silent as both the adjudicator and ourselves looked at his model and extrapolated that to our 35 foot not unbeamy yacht.  

    No surprise that we won the case but after three or four years when we'd sanded and "renewed" it about three times, we gave up.  Much more sanding later we were back to where we started.  More epoxy primer and put on Warpaint.  We would get nearly three years out of Warpaint, admittedly scrubbing muchly for the last six months.

     Warpaint is highly underrated in my humble, we use Micron 77 now (that's right, 77 not 66) but only because our current boat came with Micron 66.   The Micron 77 has been on a year and it's still a sponge off for racing.  

    Not keen on going back to the "antifouling every year" days and in the end, I think it's cheaper in the long run to buy the better antifouls.

    Going back to the Copper Coat, I sincerely hope it's a vastly improved, or different, product  because otherwise it's going to be hullo Mr Longboard again for some people and believe me, it's a LOT harder than sanding antifoul.

×
×
  • Create New...