Maintenance 2013 Valves replacement

In 2013 I replaced all valves and fitting with maritime bronze ones. This long term investment was quite expensive, but sea-valves is one of these things you should not got for standard, but buy best.

Also very important, as bronze is the most noble metal sea-valves are made of, they are safe from electrolysis corrosion between ships. These valves are totally worry free.

Note, the Anode is fully intact. That proves, taking of the electric landline (if not at home) pays off. 

the old anode

Taking out the fittings, cleaning and primer.

Engine room on BB

Removed the spare valves in the aft cabin, wich have been installed for an optional 2nd toilet. I didn't like the idea and prefer having a chemical toilet in the aft cabin complementary to the sea-toilet in the front. 

Engine room SB

Primer the bottom of the keel

I did this for 4 layers!

cleaning and primer.

preparing the propeller for antifoulding.

new antifoulding

brand new bronze fittings

propeller with new anodes

new engine room fittings

back to water after 4 days of work.

Maintenance NMEA 2000

Today our ship will make a step forward into a new generation of electronic systems. I will install a new generation bus system, NMEA 2000. This bus is quite practical because it interconnects all instruments and exchanges all information (wind, speed, log, gps, ais, autopilot, and engine supervision). This is a great advantage (only one cable) and at the same time its biggest disadvantage. There is absolutely no redundancy. If this bus fails all instruments, except the plotter fail. The solution is an old fashion Forumo GPS as backup. Later I have to replace step by step the vdo sl instruments.

Maintenance Electric System 230V

If an electric circuit fails, the troubleshooting can be very time consuming. Basically our installation is well done, but all adds or changes over the last 25 years were badly executed. There is no point in having a box with circuit breakers when things are connected straight to the main service battery. 

Here the steps of improvements:

- clean up the existing cabling; remove everything which is not needed.

- replace the connectors, or place the right connectors in case of blank cabling used. 

- in long term nothing connected straight to the battery. 

A second big step is the 230V circuit. Actually there is only a 230V plug connected to the battery charger and some schuko plugs in parallel. No circuit breaker or emergancy switch. For secutity reasons I don't want to mix up 12V and 230V in the same switching table so I decided to install a new second box. 

The 230V switching box should in first order have a main circuit breaker (FI), dedicated fuses for every circuit (charger and some plugs) and a relay to switch between shorepower and the 12/230V onboard converter. 

230V circuit breakers

2013 Friends visiting for the WE

2013 Fuel problems...

2013 Sailing

Navigation corner

Cleaning

Maintenance Marine VHF

The ship is equipped with an very old VHF Radio, the Sailtron RT 80. In some way I like it very much, so I would like to use it for inshore Nederland. Unfortunately I couldn't find a way (yet) to change the MMSI ATIS number. So bad luck I go for a new model to have a radio for mid Mai for our first coming trip.

Sailtron RT80

I decided to go for a Lowrance LVR 880:

The order is placed, a post about the installation will follow soon.

First time sailing

Some pictures on our first weekend on the ship. 

There were many things to do and many things to discover. 

Installing the side lines in the berth and some protection carpet.

The cosy front cabin.

Waking up the engine after wintertime. From Hellevoetsluis to Stellendam.