top of page
Writer's pictureNigel Barrow

Thought for the day - Blue boat refurbishment well underway

After tracking down all the leaks and pin holes on the boat, it was resprayed with 2 pot enamel. I spent probable the best part of a day tracking down each pin hole by immersing the boat in a fish pond and pumping air into it. The end result is no leaks so I expect it to sail dry. Today is fit out day and once complete, I can get it on the water using my Britpop rigs. I have to build 3 new rigs for this so I can sell the boat next year with a brand new set of Housemartin sails. The boat is fitted with RMG winch, Dave Creed foils and bulb and will add in a Futaba transmitter and receiver. The boat is extremely light in the ends, laid up with 3 layers of 124gm S glass.


The rigs will be as per the web site with PG spars with hooks for shrouds and jib attachment as I have learnt my lesson on repairing these when they fail at an open meeting. Brad Gibson was right on his web site. You have to balance between an elegant solution and one that is easily replaceable/repaired if a failure occurs. My fingers were burnt at the last ranking event.


Today I had a schoolboy error and fried an RMG winch, well certainly the cables to it. I connected the winch direct to the battery with red wire connected to black and visa versa. which i don't think it liked. If you read the circuit diagram on the user guide, it clearly shows red goes to red and black to black. I should know as I did some basic training as an electrician. The heat generation was instantaneous and led to broken winch and battery. Just as well I have a spare but will concentrate more next time. Electrics are not to be trifled with. The funny thing is I had set it up the other day with the battery connected to a switch and that had all worked nicely as all the wires matched. I hope Bill Green will be able to fix it.


On a positive I fashioned a winch bracket holder to hold the winch to a bulkhead out of an old bit of drainage downpipe. Here is the piece. Amazing what you can do with a Dremel and a bit of plastic. 6 gm.



50 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

What now

I think I need to regroup and get back to basics. Clearly I am not good enough in a big fleet Racing and slightly off the pace. So wi...

Comentários


bottom of page