| May 24th, Open House at the Sailing Center. We had volunteered to take folk out for a harbor ride in Averisera. We headed to Charlestown bright and early, to get the boat ready, and then motored over to the Sailing Center. |  |
| Folk were lining up in the parking lot on Lewis Wharf very early in the day. The Open House didn't start until 1pm, but people came several hours early, so they would be sure to get a ride. |  |
| Once the gates opened, we had a constant flood of guests on our boat. I don't know how many trips we made, somewhere around a dozen I guess. Families, young people, old people, all sorts of people. It was fun to be busy and on the water, introducing land lubbers to a view from the sea. |  |
May 2008 Archives
Wil joined me at Averisera after the weekend release. I had been up for 30 hours, so not as lucid as I would like to be. The day had started out with heavy rain, that petered out, so by the late afternoon, after I was freed up from work, the sun was out and the day looked lovely.
Wil and I checked out the forward running light, which we had trouble with on Wednesday evening. It has always been intermittent, somehow shutting off only when we are under way, and Norm has just gone below for a nap. Frustrating.
We took the light unit apart, and it just seems like the contacts are not flexible enough to keep touching the light bulb. When you insert the light bulb, it pushes the contacts up a bit, and then the bulb settles down into its slot, and the contacts at that position are barely touching. Any stress on the bulb, or maybe just gravity, causes the contacts to lose touch. We inserted 2 plastic ends from a wire wrap, into the space where the contacts are attached, which puts some pressure on them a bit more. This seemed to help. I'm not sure that they won't wiggle out, but at least I know exactly what the issue is now. We will probably replace this unit with an LED model at some point.
Next we worked on the Ockham instrument mast display. We had not been able to get any output to this unit, after the mast had been stepped and we reconnected all the wiring at the base. I had noticed that the BNC connectors all seemed pretty corroded, so I had purchased an additional 100ft of RG58 in anticipation of having to rewire the 10base2 network. We had replacement BNC connectors already in the spares kit. Wil and I took the mast display off, and moved it to a working connection, closer to the Ockham CPU. It worked. Next we tracked the network to the next connector and tested with the multimeter. This was at the boat heel input device. Disconnected the network there, and tried the unit. Again it worked. So we now knew where the failure was, in the section beyond that connection which went through the deck to the base of the mast. We separated the connectors there, and with the mulit-meter tested the continuity for that section, which failed. Instead of immediately replacing the section, we decided to just replace the BNC connector. Success! The unit now worked. One of the two displays on this unit was not showing all the digit positions, so we took that off the unit, and I will be sending it to Ockham for repair.
Wil and I checked out the forward running light, which we had trouble with on Wednesday evening. It has always been intermittent, somehow shutting off only when we are under way, and Norm has just gone below for a nap. Frustrating.
We took the light unit apart, and it just seems like the contacts are not flexible enough to keep touching the light bulb. When you insert the light bulb, it pushes the contacts up a bit, and then the bulb settles down into its slot, and the contacts at that position are barely touching. Any stress on the bulb, or maybe just gravity, causes the contacts to lose touch. We inserted 2 plastic ends from a wire wrap, into the space where the contacts are attached, which puts some pressure on them a bit more. This seemed to help. I'm not sure that they won't wiggle out, but at least I know exactly what the issue is now. We will probably replace this unit with an LED model at some point.
 | You can see the Ockham displays in the cockpit starboard side, and on the mast |
Next we worked on the Ockham instrument mast display. We had not been able to get any output to this unit, after the mast had been stepped and we reconnected all the wiring at the base. I had noticed that the BNC connectors all seemed pretty corroded, so I had purchased an additional 100ft of RG58 in anticipation of having to rewire the 10base2 network. We had replacement BNC connectors already in the spares kit. Wil and I took the mast display off, and moved it to a working connection, closer to the Ockham CPU. It worked. Next we tracked the network to the next connector and tested with the multimeter. This was at the boat heel input device. Disconnected the network there, and tried the unit. Again it worked. So we now knew where the failure was, in the section beyond that connection which went through the deck to the base of the mast. We separated the connectors there, and with the mulit-meter tested the continuity for that section, which failed. Instead of immediately replacing the section, we decided to just replace the BNC connector. Success! The unit now worked. One of the two displays on this unit was not showing all the digit positions, so we took that off the unit, and I will be sending it to Ockham for repair.
Ron, Gladie, Wil and I got a chance to get out on the harbor. We saw Agora, Dei Gratia, and Superstition out practicing their moves, so it felt good to be out. We also saw Cone of Silence being towed from the top of the harbor by the BSC whaler;, looked like they were heading to BSC. Wonder what is going on there?
We put up the number 4 jib, since I am still not sure why we have a kink in the new forestay, so played it safe with the smaller sail. Have a call into Kevin the rigger to ask about it. The wind was about 10 from the south, no gusts to speak of, temps in the low 50s.
We had a nice relaxing sail, tacked down the harbor, and jibed back up, made some circles, looked at the view. It was somewhat overcast, the clouds were blocking the sun as it sunk lower in the sky. All in all, a very pleasant evening on the water.
We put up the number 4 jib, since I am still not sure why we have a kink in the new forestay, so played it safe with the smaller sail. Have a call into Kevin the rigger to ask about it. The wind was about 10 from the south, no gusts to speak of, temps in the low 50s.
We had a nice relaxing sail, tacked down the harbor, and jibed back up, made some circles, looked at the view. It was somewhat overcast, the clouds were blocking the sun as it sunk lower in the sky. All in all, a very pleasant evening on the water.
Norm has been home and then boomeranged right back to Tortola. Sigh. He had a day or two to work on the boat, which involved some new running rigging, particularly the pole downhaul line (salsa) and blocks, as well as the running backstay tails (purple). On Saturday, May 10, we put the Tuff-Luff back on the forestay, which was a little tricky to get on. Then we took Averisera out in 15-20kts with big gusts and put some pressure on the main to tune the new rig. Lots of tacking and sighting up the mast, a turn on the turnbuckles, a tack, another turn. Until it felt balanced and straight. We noticed that the forestay has a kink or a bend in it, all the way at the top, where the swage ends. A call is in to Northeast Rigging to see what we can do about that.
On Sunday, we were down at the Marina fussing again. I got a call from Gabe, my youngest, asking if he and sister Alicia could take me out for lunch, it being Mother's Day. I suggested a picnic at the Marina, since it was a beautiful day, and I still had to drive down to the Cape to be with my Mom later in the day. They arrived with sandwiches, salads, olives and drinks, and we had a lovely lunch sitting by the pool. Then they came down to take a look at Averisera, and the view from the cockpit. Maybe one day I will get them to come out for a sail! Who knows?
On Sunday, we were down at the Marina fussing again. I got a call from Gabe, my youngest, asking if he and sister Alicia could take me out for lunch, it being Mother's Day. I suggested a picnic at the Marina, since it was a beautiful day, and I still had to drive down to the Cape to be with my Mom later in the day. They arrived with sandwiches, salads, olives and drinks, and we had a lovely lunch sitting by the pool. Then they came down to take a look at Averisera, and the view from the cockpit. Maybe one day I will get them to come out for a sail! Who knows?
 | Son Gabe |
 | Daughter Alicia with her husband Stos |
My mom has been saving corks from wine bottles for years. Every time we go to visit her, we have a good giggle over her apparent out-of-control habit of consuming large quantities of wine. At least it appears that way from the evidence. Her explanation is that you can make a corkboard out of the corks. Uh huh. Sure. Right, mom.
So Norm and I were very surprised to find that mom is right. We took this picture outside the Ironside Grill in Charlestown. Who knew?
So Norm and I were very surprised to find that mom is right. We took this picture outside the Ironside Grill in Charlestown. Who knew?
