[This Weekend's Achievements]

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 being shaded at anyone time (via back stays or radar or wind genny) and in parallel because if one gets shaded(high chance) the other is not affected.

 

thats good about the mppt controller tripping out, was a little worried there knot me.

[This Weekend's Achievements]

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

[This Weekend's Achievements]

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.

[This Weekends Achievements 16-17th Sep]

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 the top of the mast both sides and down. One side is changing colours (has stupid settings) so if your round the marina at night thats ours thats all lit up

[This Weekends Achievements 16-17th Sep]

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 brushes) anyone know the best place to get that done in wellington?

[This Weekend's Achievements]

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

[liveaboard]

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

[liveaboard]

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 in near perfect condition inside and out, very lucky find. looked at one and the whole thing was about to go would have been a lot of work and the guy wouldnt budge on price, boat still hasnt sold. keep looking youll find a good one - we did and we nearly missed it

[liveaboard]

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 our experience thus far:

 

We looked at so many yachts and we bought one that was setup as a livaboard already (thank god we did) because all we need to do now is kit it out for sailing while living on it (which is easy as the living parts havnt been touched hardly at all and we can go through our daily routine with ease). If it was the other way around I imagine it would be quite a mission to live in something that your building and renovating, its been hard enough sometimes for the wife with various things for the yacht in the lounge that she has come home to find ( I miss having a garage! ).

 

We bought 43ft and I'm glad for it, wouldnt go any smaller. Friends who have sailed the world for 10 years in a 37ft love their yacht but personally I feel cramped on it and feel in the way. I'm 6ft2" and you need full headroom or just under (think our roof is 6ft1") and plenty of space for all the friends who have to come see the boat.) another factor for size is the ability to get in and fix stuff. Our engine is very accessible as with a lot of things, but the smaller you go the smaller you need to be or more stuff you need to remove to get to. One guy was telling me about moving the engine today just to get at a pump that was leaking!!

 

I read somewhere the smaller the yacht the less loads your dealing with the easier it will be for you handle the boats sails etc. When the yachts start to get big, the loads get bigger and thats when things start to hurt if things go wrong or you need to man handle something (same article)

 

43ft is starting to get heavy, people notice it when assisting us berthing. Yes the bigger you get the more fun your going to have berthing etc. Also the more expensive things get, as they are just bigger in nature ie anchors, sails etc. already finding this out with ours.

 

But a bigger yacht has benefits. We have a 37" flat screen tv, full bose entertainment system with sub, washing machine (that saves us heaps and in time spent trudging up and down in winter to the amenities), microwave, bigger fridge freezer than we had in our house, 2 kayaks, 3.7m tender with 15hp, wakeboard, waterskiis, full height electric toilet (must have for ease for guests) and separate full shower (what sold the boat for the wife) which will doubles as dive tanks storage and wet storage whilst sailing, 12hp diesel genset, dive compressor, 1.5m lathe, welder/plasma/tig welder [8ft inflatable swimming pool for the deck - which you just didnt read(great for the kids) ] etc etc

 

Those are the main bulky things but we have the room being 43ft. we had one kayak, a lathe and 12hp diesel engine sitting on our lounge floor at one stage. Our table comes off and we had 5 people dancing with a lot of room to spare. A roomy yacht is a nice yacht if you live on it and have people over often.

 

I would look yankiwi up, that is on the market and was a liveaboard here in wellington. Its being moved to picton. 47ft roberts steel. its had a fresh paint job last summer and new engine. Its currently listed at $119,000 (prob go for less than that i would say) and had two adults and 2 teenagers living in it. I class that as a large yacht, cutter rig will do 12 knots apparently. vinnings have it (google it, in there over 100k yachts and its blue)

 

remember youll need 10% of the purchase price / year just to maintain it and youll need to change stuff, buy new stuff (whatever it doesnt have to get cat 1 plus toys)

 

Our additions have been thus far in 1 year,

New tender and outboard (big enough for cruising needs to be 15hp and sized tender accordingly)

Autopilot (still coming)

New roof for dodger

paint inside

new freshwater/saltwater toilet system

new bilge pumps and freshwater pumps

radar tower and crane for existing radar

chartplotter

lathe

genset

welder (we are steel)

 

we still have to do:

new anchor and chain

new headsail

2x spiniker poles

cat 1 gear

AIS

.

.etc

 

And the list keeps going and going. We are one year in and made all those modifications and been across the cook straight 6-8 times (often in the middle of a modification) so far. We have also spent some of the most amazing nights just in wellington harbor at somes island. We have researched and researched cruising and whether its a mistake or not. Every time I have read one of these posts, half a dozen cruisers jump in and say DO IT. Its not a question of whether you can afford to do it but more can you afford not to. that might have been in a video i watched recently not a forum. that one stuck with me the most.

 

Our friends and neighbors have just hit the islands year and I can tell you it sux big time to be left behind getting the boat ready, especially when they are in tonga and fiji and in their HOUSE! next year that WILL be us, a lot of work but it will be worth it. We plan to come back after a season have a couple of kids and then bugger off for a long time at around the same age as yours. I work with a lady who used to teach via correspondence to kids on boats and all around the pacific and the kids did exceptionally well compared to normal kids due to the one on one learning with their parents etc. Something I'm looking forward to believe it or not

 

Anyway I'll stop dribbling on but its nice to see someone in the same place we were a year ago, exciting times ahead for you if you follow the dream. Our next exciting bit is sailing to chch from wellington (Coool)

 

cheers

mike

 

p.s remember don't buy the first one you look at. we looked at heaps and then bought the first one we had looked at