Island Time

A significant percentage of the cruising boats that go from NZ to the islands every year are in a similar situation to these guys. Everyone must start somewhere. However, i'm surprised they got cat 1. Part of the regs are to do with crew experience - C4 had little. A simple addition to the crew, or replacement of one of the members, with an experienced offshore sailor (or 2) would have made the boat a lot safer. IMO. There is nothing wrong with storing your liferaft on or at the transom. No lifting or carrying required, and the ability to potentially launch it when the boat is inverted. Ho

I watched the vid. I thought it was a pretty typical voyage from NZ for a beginner crew. They did say they lost the "main" liferaft - and there def was another on deck, but perhaps smaller. They had a few issues, but they were lucky the weather was pretty benign. It's interesting how the general public seem to see crossing oceans in a small vessel - not at all like reality! I'm not all all sure that any of the crew actually understand what a broach is!

Well, if that is the case it's incompetence. Should have been easy enough to have performance requirements written into the upgrade contract. Standard practice... And how about the sea trial in Singapore? Surely they tested the speed and consumption?

Yep, seems like more of the same. Hayden (SOWID) whats the real story??

Yep, that is pretty normal. The official service agents should have the info to reset it to the factory "unused" state, but it is not meant to be in the public domain - too easy for idiots to enter any old thing, and the system loses most of it's value if the wrong numbers are used. AIS units are the same (or should be - some from ASIA are not). Good luck!

A proper joining link will be as strong or stronger than the chain - no risk!

Eric, You can fix that chain pretty easily - cut the bad bit out and get a joiner link from KM on here - hell give you a quality joiner as strong as the chain...

OK, what I heard was that there was a meeting last week (not sure if it was a special one or what), at which the Kawau Yacht club was discussed, and that there was a deal that has been done to open it again with new personnel. All second hand, no real details or official confirmation. I thought it would have been the meeting you went to Wild Oats, but obviously not. I was wondering if it was true.... Perhaps just I rumor, but I hope not! What did Chris Dickson's email say?

Nobody went to the meeting last week? Anyone know the facts, rather than rumors?

Who was at the squaddy meeting the other night and can tell us the details of the resurrection of the Kawau Club ?

Actually, the use of stainless steel keelbolts presumes they won't get wet as well. Stainless is not really suitable for installations below the waterline, where it may come into contact with stagnant seawater. Monel would be heaps better... Galv is better in some situations, as is bronze.,

I have done a bit of research on the 40.7 over the last few days. As tuffy said, there are reports of two of them leaking from the rear keel bolts when max backstay is on, in one case from new. There are two cases of lost keels, one from a severe grounding, and this one, from as yet unknown causes. There have been 550 first 40.7's made, and they have sailed several MILLION miles between them. Still, a failure rate approaching 1% is still too high when it is such a major component. You have to consider operator error in these cases - the backstay, - what was the system in use, and was

Tuffy, I'd be interested in your source? Can't find anything online about that - admittedly only a quick search. FNG you beat me to the pics..

Not sure I agree with that. 2 front bolts remain in place. Hex heads and washers visible. Rear bolt shows rust marks, possible corrosion. Center bolts appear to have pulled through the hull taking some laminates with them. There is a high res pic and ongoing discussion about this on sailing anarchy. Consensus seems to be prior damage. There are a lot of bene 40.7 s sailing all over the place, without issues. My condolences to the families, sad to see. Without knowing the boats history, and examining the wreck, anything else is speculation.

Fineline, the weather routing plugin is what I'm working on now. Currently I have been unable to make it work due to a change in the Grib file programming. It DID work, but is currently broken. That is being worked on by the developers now, and should be sorted soon. If you are interested in it, like the polars, I have the beta versions now... Send me a PM if you'd like a copy, they are not (easily) publicly available yet... You can see the bit where it says "Grib Failed" in the left hand window. That is the problem. Sean (Boat Alexander) has it working on his "optimized" version of

Yes, absolutely. Have a look on http://opencpn.com for the various downloads. IMO no decent way to do it on andriod (yet). PC,MAC,Linux, no problem. The main development is done on linux systems...

Seeing you asked, I checked, He was reporting he was in Borneo 3 days ago...

He went to Vanuatu. After that I don't really know. Sean is a very gifted guy, and a prolific programmer. I guess he is one of those people who just wants to be left alone to do his thing, and he does not fit into society well. His contribution to opencpn over the last year or so has been HUGE! If he was working for money in the IT industry, he'd be worth a lot. That he is not, is interesting, and fits with what we know of him.

OK Guys, I said the other day I was working on the Polar stuff for OpenCPn. It's not public release yet, but I now have it working; [attachment=0]OpenCpn with Polars.jpg[/attachment] You can manually add Polar data, import it from a spreadsheet or several other apps, or build your own from NMEA data being fed to opencpn. For those who don't see the point, or don't know what polars are - Polar files tell you what speeds you should be doing on any point of sail, for any wind. They will tell you your target speeds, so, for example, if you don't have ideal sails, trim, hull is dirty, o

Good to hear AA, I don't know how you stayed away so long! I get withdrawal symptoms - longest I've ever done is 6 months.... It was nice out there today!

JE, mines in a sock, cause when I got it the furlers were not really common. Now I'd use a furler!☺

Just thought I'd post these two (not great) pics of coming home from Kawau on Sunday. I must say I am enjoying the easy sailing in this part of the world!! And Booboo, I LOVE the A2 jennaker! I know its a few years old now, but just to say it really is a fantastic cruising sail. I way prefer it over the spinnaker, and our top sailing speeds are normally using this sail. Those of you cruising without a Asymmetrics, or no kite either, really should consider one. No pole, easy to use, and keeps you sailing when you might otherwise be motoring! and

Great progress Ash! Well done

Thats a great story, thanks Elly!

The solid state wind gear is the way of the future. Also starting to see transducers that speak NMEA directly, so you can connect them to anything - really flexible, and brand independent. In my systems, all the devices can work independently, but you get better info from them connected, as well as enhanced functions. I believe Ash has got the instruments sorted for free or low cost anyway. Conduits are strongly recommended for Ash at this stage, once the final positions of the electrical gear is decided ..