The Sailing Bug

I have now managed to get a gallery up and running on the site with a few pictures of the boat and her crew in there. It is currently undergoing a few changes so expect to see things moving around in there for a few weeks as I tweak behind the scenes a bit. Just click on the link in the right hand column or here if you are lazy! Phrixus also has some more pictures of the boat in his gallery if you want to see more.
I have also just setup a discusion forum that can be accessed through the link on the right hand side - this is another part of the site that will be undergoing changes at some point but feel free to drop in and post a message or have a chat in the mean time.

I recently brought one of these Henri Lloyd smocks and though I would post a review of it.

It is a TP2 smock with hood and is from the new `05 range. It was initially brought with the intention of being used for foredeck duties as I needed something that was light and sealed at the neck and cuffs so I did not get totally soaked when the boat goes through a large wave. It features a neoprene sealed waist, latex seal around the neck and cuffs and a fleece lined collar. The addition of the fleece collar makes a huge difference compared to similar smocks I have used as it does not rub and irritate your neck after a few hours and it keeps you nicely warm. The seals all work well and the brightly coloured hood does come in useful when it starts to get really wet.

In summary it is a great buy for use on the foredeck or anywhere on the boat where you need a watertight jacket that does not restrict your movement but still provides a high degree of comfort and protection from the elements.

I have just created a new section for reviews. I will be shortly posting some reviews of the sailing clothing and electronic bits and pieces that I have brought recently. The aim is to review all of the new stuff of interest that is brought and to offer an impartial view of it (although if Henri Lloyd want to send me anything to review I will be more than happy to review it ;-P ) Hopefully this will be of use to some people who are looking to buy the kit. If you have any questions about the kit then leave a comment and I will see if I can help at all.

It has been a while since I last posted so I thought it was about time for an update here. I have just finished the upgrade to Wordpress 1.5 and you may have noticed a few changes to the layout. I am currently in the process of trying to find a theme that suits the site and hope to be adding some form of gallery for pictures fairly soon as well as making some subtle tweaks here and there . I have got some pictures of the work we have being doing aboard Mystere recently and these should be online soon in an article once myself and Phrixus fit the NMEA multiplexer that has not arrived yet.

What is NMEA?

Over the last 20 years, NMEA has slowly become the standard method by which marine electronics devices talk to one another. The standard specifies both the hardware connections that make up an NMEA system and the format of the data sentences that carry the NMEA information. The NMEA 0183 standard is a digital data transmission method, using ‘1’s and ‘0’s in a binary format, to communicate a digital representation of the required information (depth, speed etc.) to a connected instruments. All NMEA data is sent in the form of text sentences, each beginning with a $ symbol in plain “ASCII” text. We hope to monitor the installation of our network by viewing this data realtime in a Terminal application on our laptop.
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A big well done to Ellen MacArthur who last night returned from her successful attempt at breaking the single handed round the world sailing record late last night. She is now one of only 2 people in the world to have succeeded in breaking this record.

To put that into perspective:
1800+ people have reached the summit of Everest
450+ people have been in space
12 astronauts have stepped on the moon
6 solo sailors have attempted to race around the globe non stop on multihulls (the fastest and most extreme boats to traverse the oceans)
Only 2 succeeded to go the distance non-stop and set a new world record

A truly great achievement.

As my first post on this site, I have decided to focus on the most fundamental technical side of sailing… the sails!! Proper sail trim is as important as making sure an engine is firing on all cylinders… one bad connection and you will get backfires and look really silly trying to get along!! Quantum Sails have a number of downloads available on their site that cover some very in-depth and technical aspects of sailing. I have copied 2 of the documents to this site as they offer some very good information in a very readable form which is exactly what I was looking for. If you want to learn about sail trim, have a look at these;

Main sail trimming guide
Head sail trimming guide

If you have problems because the files are PDFs… please leave a comment on this post and I will look for other ways to get the information to you.
I am aiming to cover some more of the technical areas of sailing in the future as the site develops so please keep coming back to see what’s new!!!

I have just got in from a long day of boat repairs and improvements aboard Mystere. Mystere is the 25ft MG Spring that is owned by Phrixus and Phocus that I crew on during local races. We got some useful things done including mounting the autohelm correctly and wiring it in, complete tidy up of the wiring cupboard, reattached the door below the cooker and a few other minor things. Unfortunately in trying to get the GPS, Navtex, auto helm and instruments talking via the NMEA protocol we managed to get something a bit wrong with one of the above not working in whatever wiring configuration. Despite a good few hours of head scratching and de-soldering and re-soldering it still was not working. The evening was topped off by a chinese takeaway and a bottle of Tiger beer kindly brought by H. Looks like a case of RTFM for the problems we are still having and another attempt at fixing it next weekend.

Just as I was about to leave for work this morning the postman dropped off a couple of parcels for me. They contained the NMCS course and equipment I ordered which is pretty good service seeing as I only confirmed my place Wednesday evening. I did not have time to have a close look at all the items but it seems like they have included about 6 of the course modules (most of which appear to be navigation based) and at least 1 exam along with some charts and books. I will post more later when I get home and have a chance to have a proper look at everything.

Myself and Phrixus took a trip down to the local chandlery this lunchtime to pick up some replacement rope for the spinnaker sheet which we lost during the sailing race last Saturday. After a ten minute discussion on which colour and size of rope we settled on some bright yellow rope that should do the job nicely. At least if we loose this rope then should be able to find it in the sea again! One thing that really surprised me was the cost of the shackle for connecting the rope to the spinnaker - over £30 a shackle! Next task for me is to find a decent online chandlery with more competitive pricing otherwise boat ownership is going to cost a fortune.

We also popped into the local PADI dive centre just opposite the chandlery and got some information on SCUBA diving courses. It consists of a book to read followed by 5 classroom sessions and then 4 dives in the pool and open sea. It sounds like a good course and I will probably head back there in a few months to sign up for the course.