sailfish

whoa! i've had to unplug from shore power today and let the solar panels do their thing. They are now in desulfating mode - short bursts into the batteries to break down the sulfated layers. Its not quite 400w, 380 to be precise. One thing they did was give me a to small fuse wire and fuse (only 15amps) (must have been for 24v) cause although I havnt broken 15amps yet its come close and those wires are very warm! Mounted on top of my dodger, both panels take up a combined 1.6m2. They sit above our rain catcher with nice airflow underneath. I mounted them so there is only chance of one

Just finished solar panel install. 400w with a 30amp mppt controller. Just trying to drain our batteries a bit to see what solar panels will put in. Currently its very very cloudy in wellington and still in float mode and pumping 6amps in which is good. So on the cloudest days we'll at least get 6amps. Thats enough to run our fridge and part of our freezer during the day

Cut lots of steel out of the engine room in preparation for the 12-18hp(not sure what it is) diesel genny and dive compressor to go in. Made the frame they sit on so I can run it up as a unit out of the boat. Turned the old girl round so I could get ready to put the new 100m's of chain in but that didnt arrive so removed the diesel day tank and cut the off its mounts in anticipation for relocation further into the engine room.

Hey bbay where did you get your furuno nmea plugs from? I need two of them for a furuno 1721 radar and equivalent age depth sounder. Instead of doing the windlass today due to the rain, wired in the radar through some existing cable runs, which unfortunatly meant ripping out the airintake cover as the screws were all puttied over Thinking I had found the hollow caverty where the cables were running I drilled in to intercept but saw daylight eeek, came out in the companion way steps d'oh !! Got it all sorted eventually, ~40m of wires installed (6 lengths) Wired up the xmas lights to

Thought i'd kick this weekends thread off. Try to keep it marine related, no body cares if you swept the drive or cut the hedge I got a lot done but nothing finished Wired up the VHF Pa output to a 12v relay to sound the horn only to realise it outputs audio "stuff" and its not possible to throw a relay. Off to jaycar, one DIY circuit board later and the VHF can now sound the fog horn on automatic every two minutes (just need to solder it all up). Installed an external vhf speaker for the cockpit and wired up the anchor light. Will pull the windless motor out tomorrow (needs new

busy weekend! just finished the new garmin ghp12 autopilot install, rewired the engine room electrical panel after a small meltdown (removed trailer plugs from wiring harness!!) and got the strange VSR box in our kitchen now working between both batteries (it came with the boat and I didnt think it was ever working - and confirmed because it now has LED's blinking ), then went out in the harbor and let the autopilot do its self configuration / setup and then let it sail us around the harbor. We learnt today how cool it is to not steer

looks like a lot of boat for the money. looks like it had self steering gear on the back + water maker. couple of things we still need to get. I imagine you wouldnt be dissapointed and its 13.5m which is roomy (1/2m bigger than ours). really like the look of that side cabin with the sliding door. my2c

This is our home. Inflatable pool is the water catcher or wifes new "bath" as she calls it. should catch a lot of water in the tropical downpours and can also hold it till we go (not sure how long you stay in one place though) top speed on the gps 12.3 down a wave through the kaori rip, just a lil bit scary, main was on its 3rd reef and quickly took it down after that boat came with the 37" tv, not my idea but worth having when living and not sailing. hooked the chartplotter up to it, pretty cool (chartplotter has remote). we are very very happy with the boat, steel is i

I read somewhere you can always buy another house or another car if it doesn't work out for you, but if you don't do it, you'll always regret it and you can't just buy another life or go back and do it when your old My wife and I are trying to do exactly the same as you but the only difference is we are 1 year ahead of you. I'm no expert, in fact far from it (you should see the look on the yachties faces at some of the stupid questions I ask, but i'll keep asking its the only way to know the answers) and so you won't get an expert opinion, just bits of an opinion mashed in with ou