It has been a very long winter with more snow then I would like too talk about. I have spend many cold days and nights working on the boat getting her ready for this summer and dreaming of sailing along the south coast of Nova Scotia this summer.
Iced up at Shearwater Yacht Club
To much snow
Keel sitting on 8 inches of ice
The main goal for me this winter was to get to know the boat better inside and complete a very long list of upgrades before she goes back into the water in May. The big thing I learned working on my boat over the winter is;
a. Every task that you do on a boat takes four times the amount of time that you think it will,
b. You are always missing one small part once you start a job,
c. When doing a job you always find at least one or two more jobs that need to be done,
d. Doesn't matter how big the boat is you always need more room to work.
This winter I traced most of the wiring on the boat and label them. Which end up in a few surprises. Like the fact I had a 4th bilge pump that I didn't know was there. (It now even works). I also replaced all of the black water and grey water piping in the head. Which also included installing a y-value so we can pump out our holding tank ourselves. I think all the piping was original to the boat and was in the need of changing. The vent pipe was also plugged which I think was adding a smell to the head when the holding tank was being used.
We decided also to upgrade the radar, autohelm and charplotter to the latest Raymaire systems. This system will use a lot less power and will give us more confident in the electronics that will hopefully help keep us safe when underway. The install of these electronics were pretty straight forward with plenty of online help. The other electronic item we upgraded to complete the suite was the VHF radio. We put in a B & G V50 VHF radio that has a built in AIS receiver that will tie into the Raymaire network.
Which we are on the subject of electronics I also installed a digital TV receiver which I mounted on the radar mast on the stern of the boat. Once I had it installed I found that I could get 4 channels on the television while at the yacht club. It will be nice to be able to get a new channel while on the boat.
And last but not least I installed a wireless router and wireless repeater so that we can connect to wireless networks while on boat the boat. The wireless router has been installed in the main cabin and the wireless repeater was install on the radar mast beside the TV receiver. I went with +++++ for this equipment becuase of the software that was installed on the routers which seems to be better then other other routers that I looked at. Plus the max power output is higher then other units so this should give me better range for connection and find external wireless networks. When I tested at my home I could see over 25 wireless networks in my neighborhood .
