Steering, autopilots - and their saga

After many testing sessions and a few extra repairs, we seemed, by the time of the first departure for our circumnavigation in the summer of 2017, to have found most of the needed and acceptable settings on the Furuno whereby the Simrad-Robertson hydraulic drives no longer swung the wheel too wildly from port to starboard, and the Mamba drive didn't feed electro-magnetic information back to the course computer which then went into "fail" mode... Before leaving in 2017, unfortunately, we never got round to properly testing our auto-pilot drives for long-term reliability. We were quite dismayed, therefore, that during our trip down to the Canary Islands one autopilot after the other failed in mid-sea. Actually, this was a salutary experience as we were obliged to have to sail our boat manually for nearly two full days. Thus we discovered that: a) it could be done quite easily; and b) it was not as exhausting as we had feared. In fact, our boat steers very nicely and very lightly indeed!

When the boat was in Lanzarote, we reviewed both autopilots critically and ordered plenty of new and back-up spare parts for them so as to avoid repeats! Some issues remained, and the Simrad Robertson hydraulics again broke a connecting pin near Bonaire in the Caribbean! Continuing our circumnavigation double handed and entering the Pacific, we felt that we needed 2 fully operational autopilots that we could trust 100%. The upshot of our deliberations was that this was yet another factor that contributed towards our decision to return to Europe to look into this and a number of other issues that we had with the boat...

On our way back to Holland, we stopped over in Swanwick marina in August 2018, where we had both old Autopilots removed and replaced with a pair of new Raymarine Evolution EV-400 Autopilots. These steer the boat quietly, confidently and ever so gently! Our boat electronics people, Maricom who are based at Swanwick marina, installed two completely separate and independent autopilot systems: Autopilot-1 and Autopilot-2. N° 1 is our main pilot as it uses the Simrad-Robertson hydraulic drives; N° 2 uses the Mamba drive to steer the boat. You switch from one pilot to the other with a simple switch on the steering pedestal. There is a 5 second delay as screen of one pilot goes off and the other pilot comes on line. All power is removed from one drive and transferred to the other drive unit and for the pilot to come on line. Both pilots already generate a lot of their own data, and receive some extra navigational data from the remaining Furuno equipment via two pretty complicated-looking, but apparently quite simple data "bridges". Compared to the Furuno information displayed, there is just one line now missing on the plotter, namely the current fixed heading line; you do retain, as with the Furuno pilot, the general heading of the boat as corrected and adapted all the time by the autopilot. Perhaps in close coastal sailing one would want the peace of mind offered by that straight line of the fixed heading. But as under the old set-up the Furuno pilot wandered 30-40° off course in all directions, that fixed line was a joke anyway.

As already indicated above, just before our second departure for our circumnavigation in July 2019, Mr Feldbinder, our "Mr Furuno", came and updated our Furuno software. No sooner had he left, and we started experiencing problems with our Raymarine autopilots. Despite best efforts from Raymarine (not Furuno) we found that the only way to stop our auto-pilots from being 'alarmed' all the time was to disconnect the data "bridges". Two new data bridges were installed by Maricom in early 2021 (Raymarine Spain actually admitted in Las Palmas that their proprietary bridges weren't very good!!!) so that from then onwards we should (again!) be able to have two complete auto-pilots systems. Actually, even without wind and water speed input, the Raymarine autopilots demonstrated that they perform VERY WELL under nearly all circumstances. They just get a little twitchy when a series of following waves throw the boat around! It's a pity that we haven't been able to recover the smooth operation of our auto-pilots that we had in August & September 2018 and which was sabotaged by subsequent software updates.

There are control units for the Raymarine autopilots at the steering pedestal and at the inside chart-table. The Smartpilot remote control that we have will operate whichever pilot is active at the time. It sits in your hand and allows full steering from where you are on board. Its base station has been moved from the aft cabin to the walkthrough ceiling as the handset sometimes lost its connection with the base station in its old position (the main course computers have been installed in the aft cabin under the port sofa that we have there)..

Summarising therefore -> Based on our sailing in August & September 2018, the new system worked perfectly, and our stress levels returned to normal - the way it should be! UNFORTUNATELY, in May 2019, Mr Feldbinder of mare-Multimedia who had installed all the Furuno equipment visited us in Bruinisse and updated all the software on the Furuno plotters and the Furuno instruments. Rats, the perfect chatter between Raymarine and Furuno via our "bridge" was disrupted by regular "No pilot" alarms appearing on the Raymarine screens. When it comes to "software", finding the error is develishly difficult! After all this, our conclusion is that Furuno Autopilots are not made for (our) sailing boat(s); Raymarine autopilots are. Furuno makes good radars, although the latest Raymarine units certainly give Furuno a run for their money. For other navigational equipment, any brand will do. Perhaps it was just our bad luck, but EVERY individual Furuno instrument on board has broken down or displayed one or several quite severe faults: log, odometer, depth, wind instrument, water thermometer, Navtex. Even the plastic holder of the GPS aerial manages to rust! Our experience with Furuno Customer service has been quite appalling too... The company simply ignores you and hopes you will go away, or promises to do something which then never materialises either. In short, WE ARE NO LONGER FURUNO FANS!!! Our frustration with Furuno increased again because as a result of updating the software in our instruments, the seamless communication between Raymarine and Furuno in August 2018 disappeared in June 2019 - Oh Furuno, can't you ever get it right??? Rubbish equipment in our eyes!!!

In 1995, Hallberg-Rassy fitted out our boat with a Whitlock steering system. That was a long time ago, and the Whitlock brand/company has since been bought up by Lewmar. Unfortunately, information on early steering systems is very hard to come by, as are the people who know something about them. The documentation that was supplied with our boat was in part irrelevant, and on several points quite unclear as to what should be done to the system… After some trawling on Internet, we found Cliff Mogridge of Whitlock steering who proved to be helpful with designs and information on our steering system. Cliff used to work for Whitlock and Lewmar. Unfortunately, he never responded to our fervent request that he come on the boat during 2018 summer to look at, and service our steering. A pity, especially as we know a few other HR owners who have had him on board! And he knows his business! Mechanically speaking, Whitlock systems are pretty simple and extremely robust. They do require regular maintenance, but can take large amounts of abuse before actually failing. The various components are: the steering wheel, the pedestal mechanism and a gearbox; a bevel-head and gearbox in the engine room (this box also has a splined shaft sticking out which allows you to simply fit the 24 Volt 1/4-HP Mamba drive on to), and a draglink just next to the rudder quadrant. These components are inter-connected with solid stainless steel rods and two sets of universal joints to get round angles in the engine room and under the aft-cabin bed. In the end it was Yachtservice Van Swaay that did the maintenance on the system and, reassuringly, found no traces of excessive wear in the bevel-heads or gear boxes after 27 years of use.

A word should be said here about Mr Dirk Roegiest of Deurne. Thanks to a contact at the Belgian Boat Show (which is normally held each year in Ghent in February), we were given his contact details as the man who could sort out our breaking connector pins between the Simrad Robertson drives and the rudder quadrant. Mr Roegiest provided us with a wealth of information and advice and we left him with the bronze rudder fitting to which the Simrad-Robertson drives are connected. He machined down the outer end of the fitting (which had become damaged by the previous breakages, drilled out the 12mm holes for a couple of 14mm ones. And he made up a new set of strengthened and hardened connector pins. When you look at the photo, you'll find it hard to spot many differences with how things were. But the whole set-up is now definitely many times stronger. Mr Roegiest's work has seen us cross the Atlantic and half-way across the Pacific; and not a single nut was loose or showed any play. (see photo above)!

Communications

> A SIMRAD RS35 DSC VHF with integrated Class B AIS receiver unit as our principal VHF - situated at the chart table, with a wireless extra handset for use in the cockpit (installed in August 2018). This unit backs up our Comar AIS Class A system as well as the Raymarine a700 AIS system.

> There are three hand-held VHF sets: ICOM MC73-Euro - Raymarine 101 plus a 3rd Brand X yellow h/h VHF as our grab-bag backup. In 2022/23, the Simrad and ICOM units were updated to reflect the different new VHF channels in use in Europe.

> An ICOM IC M-802 SSB with an ICOM AT-141 tuner Single Side-band (SSB) unit, connected to a Pactor modem p4 DR7400 also installed in August 2018 to complete our long-range communication systems - a "Giant Dynaplate" installed under the port quarter of the hull makes for the adequate grounding of the SSB. Pictured here is just the equipment needed to install the SSB set itself; we managed to find spaces for everything (see pictures of chart table area above). The unit gives good reception and transmission, as we experienced during our daily World ARC SSB-net chatter sessions.

> Our main AIS equipment is a Comar 300 Class A unit - this semi-professional unit allows us to send out our own messages and information and is eminently visible! On our World ARC, other boats often used us as a marker beacon because we were visible for some 60 Miles and more!!! Furthermore, we have a Raymarine a700 Class B transceiver as a second, fully-operational backup system. Both AIS systems can be used separately

> A Furuno NX-300 modern Navtex receiver with its own aerial, but it is currently linked to our RR Mast-head aerial for long-range communication (using its the supplied Furuno aerial gave the most appalling results!)

> A Sea-Me active radar transponder on our radar pole (which seems to be reaching its end of life and looks like needing to be replaced; the cost for a new set is quite prohibitive, so for the time being the old set remains in situ) & an Echo-Max passive radar reflector in the mast

> Iridium Pilot satellite phone (or IOP - Iridium Open Port) and Internet communication unit, with an on-board Netgear WiFi hub which links this external communication with our computers & iPad. We have two dedicated laptops (an HP Pavilion and a Durabook laptop), both specifically suited and programmed for our communication needs. One has a solid state hard disk, operates under Windows 7, and has all possible automatic downloads switched off to minimise the risk of unwanted downloads at costly Iridium dollars. The other is a "doctored" laptop that operates on Windows 10 (we've had this one "throttled" and "muzzled" so that it doesn't - unless given express permission - chatter with the world via Iridium at $10 per Mb) and offers nearly a Terabyte of hard disk space. It has been specially protected to conform to quasi-military standards of robustness; it withstands humidity and can be dropped up to 1 metre!
Our Iridium air time provider is the AST Group. At one point we were inadvertently let down by them when they cut off our SIM card in mid-Atlantic in November 2017, apparently because a programme called Google Marketplace (we didn't even know this programme existed) had downloaded multiple tens of Megabytes and exceeded our monthly quotum several times over! We have established new and better rules with AST so as to avoid such a thing happening again, as we felt it was completely unacceptable to be left without any communication with the outside world for more than a fortnight on an ocean crossing! No meteorological information, no medical communications, no chats to family who were worried sick! We had a second run-in with AST in Tortola, where we spent a lot of time on the phone with them, as we were experiencing difficulties with the "voice" side of our Iridium. Probably the only problem was that after the hurricanes of 2017, the telecom companies in Tortola were heavily using very powerful satellite communications as most land lines were dead and that these were interfering with our much weaker Iridium signals. Once out of BVI, our Iridium Pilot set was working perfectly again! AST, who had at a distance determined that our aerial was definitively defective and no longer under guarantee because of a faulty installation, concluded, after full testing later in the UK, that the aerial was perfectly OK! Surprise, surprise... We did follow their requirements and have adapted the set-up of our aerials at the back of the boat and the Iridium aerial now sits higher than anything else, including our radar. AST now reckons that our installation is fine; the Iridium has certainly been working okay ever since. So I guess that makes us contented AST customers these days. In all their correspondence, they refer to us as Dear Valued Customer, which has a nice ring to it!

But as technology advances, we will probably remove all our Iridium equipment and replace it with a Starlink system at some stage in the future... Watch this space, as they say.

> As an Iridium back-up we have an additional Iridium 9555 h/h phone with air time bought from another service provider, so that we are not dependent on AST and the IOP alone!

> We also have a Yellow Brick Y/B tracker Pro, which not only transmits our position, but can also be used for Text messaging and simple e-mails (and even short updates on the boat's Facebook page, although this latter service seems to be suspended at the moment)

> A couple of Sony SSB & Worldband radio receivers are on board as well as a Blaupunkt radio/CD-player in the saloon which enable us to pick up a multitude of (analogue) radio stations around the world and provide on-board musical entertainment

The radio, television & Navtex equipment are all connected to our very sophisticated RR Pacific aerial in the mast; the many 'boxes' with the antenna's outputs near the chart table look very impressive and when we finally got our television connected to the TV-output, we were astonished by the plethora of signals that (still) came out there (signals need to be analogue though, as modern digital signals are not recognised). As you can't stop progress, and many countries have moved to digital television signals, we modernised our television and aerial in 2022. Our new on-board television and its antenna are now compatible with these latest signals. How long will our on-board (Blaupunkt car) radio remain operational??? We will need to think about a DAB replacement soon...

Electricity and Green Energy

I'm afraid we're still very old-fashioned here and haven't gone down the Lithium route. Shown here 2 of the 4 GEL batteries that are installed at the base of the mast (2 others are installed in the aft cabin under the double berth - see further below. The new GEL units actually look exactly the same as the AGMs which was a bit of a disappointment when looking for a new "wow" factor when installed. Back in 2017, we managed to "cook" the two aft AGMs through over-charging during the 48 hours of motoring during our Biscay crossing! They had to be replaced in September 2017. We suspected a faulty regulator, which has since been replaced by a much better model (see below). In September 2017, we also added 3 battery switches and 3 Victron Argofet battery isolators. We are now able to isolate each of the battery groups and to charge or run them individually. Allowing for up to 50% of this capacity to be used before really harming these deep cycle GEL batteries, we have found that our battery bank requires recharging every two days or so. On our travels, we experienced only one situation in the Caribbean where we needed to take down our (then AGM) batteries to 54%; neither the batteries nor I really liked this. Four years later, in 2022, battery performance of the AGMs started diminishing, pointing the way to a new set of batteries being needed for 2023.

In addition to our normal shorepower charging ability, the boat has a set of two medium-sized Sunware SW20165 panels on deck as well as two flexible Solbian SP 125 & two SP 130 solar panels (making a total of 4 Solbian panels), regulated by a Victron Blue Solar 100/50 MPPT regulator. The Solbian panels are mounted on our bimini. All our solar panels together should yield a maximum of some 600 watts of solar electricity in the tropics when the sun shines directly onto the panels (usually we clock up about 400-450 max). Furthermore, there is a Watt & Sea 600W water generator (the small Sunware panels are connected to the smart regulator that came with the Watt & Sea). The Solbians are connected to their own Victron smart MPPT regulator, which has a display showing exactly how much electricity they are producing. Finally, Ngahue IV has a very solid Westerbeke 6kW (230V) generator installed in 1995 by Hallberg-Rassy in the Engine room The photos show the psychedelic colours of the Watt & Sea regulator sited under the seating in the aft cabin, and the Westerbeke in its red soundshield.

When operating, the Westerbeke generator (pictured twice here, the middle photo as we found her in 2016; the right one is as she is at the moment - for instance the old black feed has disappeared) is quite silent outside the boat and only really audible in the cockpit (the sound insulation of the cockpit sole is quite thin). It is used mainly for feeding the watermaker and the washing machine with AC; these are the major 230V users and require significant quantities of power. Unfortunately, when the Yard installed the generator, they certainly did so in an aesthetically pleasing, but perhaps not totally practical manner... To explain, the cooling system often ended up with airlocks in it because of the long circuit that the cooling water needed to follow. Furthermore, the hose dipped down and came back up again, and offered ideal opportunities for forming incapacitating airlocks to form everywhere... In the 2018/19 winter lay-up, we had the cooling circuit relaid by Van Swaay Yachtservice in Bruinisse (which you can see if you look very carefully at the middle picture). The new circuit is considerably shorter and a dedicated seawater entry point with its own water filter pot just for the generator was added. Previously the generator shared a seacock & filter pot with the freezer, toilet and watermaker. Westerbeke doesn't disapprove of this, but suggests not sharing inlets with other users as it is not quite ideal. Well, that point has been remedied. The watermaker too was given its own inlet in 2021.

During the first Atlantic circuit part of our circumnavigation we had lots of problems with the generator (as everyone seems to have). This led us to increasingly question the reliability of our Westerbeke (referred to as "Wester-break" by a charter company manager where we were moored at the time); we felt that the unit would be best completely replaced by a modern Whispergen one... A patient and conscientious engineer in the BVI looked at the Westerbeke and found that previous maintenance had not been done properly, e.g. the seawater pump had been mercilessly hammered and bolted into the engine block so that the pump axel and impeller were misaligned (see photo) and led to early failure of our impellers. The exhaust elbow also failed to allow for a free flow of cooling water into the exhaust system. All of this had been hidden by the fact that the cooling water of the Westerbeke is normally - on our boat - directed BELOW the waterline. Although less friendly to the ear, we have now redirected the water flow through the normal exhaust ABOVE the waterline, which allows you to see whether there is a clean flow of water coming out of the exhaust. Yes, this set-up could lead to a pressure build-up in the exhaust, which isn't good. But the Westerbeke has a sufficiently big 3 cylinder diesel engine for this not to be a problem. The new seawater pump and exhaust elbow have transformed our Westerbeke into a much more reliable machine. Maricom recommended that we also install a Blue Sea Systems M2 1838 AC multi meter to electronically monitor the electricity produced, both by shore power and more importantly by the generator. That way we can see immediately whether the electricity-generating side of the generator is operating properly. We therefore decided to stay with our Westerbeke, which has worked faultlessly since. It's only done some 700 Hours, which for this type of generator (generally designed for some 2000+ hours, apparently) is quite low, with lots of margin left.

On the solar front, we started off having just two high-performance Solbian SP125 black contact flexible solar panels that we simply "velcroed" and zipped to the bimini. Whether the boat is at anchor or sailing, these two panels potentially generate 250-plus watts at 24V. We thought that this would be enough to cover our (mainly) refrigeration needs. Already in Belgium, on a sunny day, we found that they easily generated 150 watts; in the tropics, with careful positioning and on a sunny day, they reached approx 225 watts at midday. Our initial experience during the first departure on our circumnavigation showed that this output was a little inadequate. Therefore, we decided to add another two Solbian SP130 panels to generate a total of 450-500 watts from say 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day. When we doubled the number of solar panels, we of course also needed to upgrade the Victron regulator to their 100/50 model. We also discovered that we needed to adapt the wiring of the 4 panels as in series they started producing close to 100V: a bit too close to the operating limits of the Victron regulator. By connecting the 4 panels in parallel, the voltage drops to about 45V, and the overall power output reaches the hoped-for 450 watts quite easily. In addition, there are a further two fixed Sunware SW20165 CA-10/207 solar panels fitted to the deck, just before the cockpit windscreen. These new panels replace 2 Photonic 50watt ones which hadn't withstood the tropical sun and looked awful (but still seemed to generate some electricity!!). These are wired into the Watt & Sea regulator, which specifically allows for two inputs: one from the water generator and one from an extra 'green' source, in our case these two panels. These two panels do tend to get shadows on them from the boat's superstructure, so their output can drop dramatically at times.

Regarding our hydro-generator, it is of the essence to keep the Watt & Sea well down in the water (at least a foot/30cm in the water), so that the propeller can achieve its full electric output. Unfortunately, the HR53 sugar scoop stern comes up quite a bit and despite having the 'long arm' version, our Watt & Sea often lifts out of the water, especially in moderate to rough seas and on a port tack. After our first Atlantic experience we decided to fit the larger 28cm propellor on our Watt & Sea in order to generate more electricity! Clearly though, the rated 600 watts is only generated by boats that sail much faster than we do and manage to keep the propeller well down in the water all the time. At a rough guess, I'd say our Watt & Sea delivers about a quarter to a third of its stated output when operating in downwind/tradewind sailing conditions (covering probably the fridge and/or freezer needs). In the Pacific trade winds, the boat was heeled over more favourably for the Watt & Sea. Several people we have spoke to all agree with us that the Watt & Sea is an interesting unit, but needs relatively high boat speeds to attain the output that is claimed for this unit!!! Obviously we need to sail faster, which we managed for example on a trip up the North Sea in 2022, when the Watt & Sea on its own managed to cover more than 90% of the boat's daily energy requirements...

Watt & Sea hydrogenerators are subjected to lots of pressures when dipped in the wild waves behind your boat. They pivot around to follow the boat's movements; but in doing this, the plastic bushes in the retaining brackets wear away. In 2022 we replaced these at a reasonably moderate cost; later we sent the whole unit back to the factory for a much-needed service. The system is good to go around the world again. In our collection of You Tube films, there's a short one on the Watt & Sea dancing around behind the boat when one of the retaining lines chafed through - we have since reinforced the line and insert a long screw through the Watt & Sea leg to keep the unit firmly down and in the water.

With regard to generating electricity with the main engine, our Volvo-Penta TAMD 41B HD engine was retro-fitted in 2010 with an additional moderately high-output 24/100 Amp alternator. The old unit is still pictured here; it is an American Leece-Neville BSC3014U model (Leece-Neville, a Prestolite brand). Unfortunately, under previous ownership, the alternator had been damaged by copious amounts of seawater dripping on it. When we had the unit off the engine for a rebuild, it couldn't be safely reconditioned (too many internal bolts oxidized together). So we had it replaced altogether by its successor model (which is a smart and mean-looking dark-black unit). The old unit could be serviced though (but not fully reconditioned and rebuilt), and now has a place in the boat with the other spares on board. The new unit did - unfortunately - fail in autumn 2021 because of a broken internal regulator.

The High Output Alternator (HOA) is controlled by a totally up-to-date new Sterling Pro-C Digital high performance smart regulator (pictured here - the red box under the ventilator) that our electronics suppliers Maricom installed in August 2018. It certainly looks an impressive piece of kit fixed to the side of our engine room. We added the remote control panel for it outside the engine room, which is especially useful to keep an eye on what the alternator is getting up to on longer stretches of motoring.

When we acquired Ngahue IV, we "inherited" the electrics as installed by the previous owner. This turned out to be nearly exclusively equipment from the Victron company and specifically their blue energy product range. Our previous boats had been equipped with Mastervolt material. So in addition to getting used to a different colour (blue instead of grey & green), I also needed to adapt to a slightly different approach to energy generation. We have a:

> Victron Inverter 230V/2000W - the Phoenix model;

> Victron 24V/100 Amp battery charger - model Skylla TG (for the main battery bank - it started playing up in mid-2018 and needed to be replaced in 2019!);

> Victron 12V/25 Amp battery charger - model blue power (for the 12V, mainly engine starting battery bank); and

> Odelco Battery Control System DCC 40000 which monitors energy flowing to and from the house battery bank - there is also a Victron MPPT Controller instrument showing how many watts our solar panels are generating.

The inverter and generator outputs feed into the boat's wiring via a hefty selector switch (Off/Ship's batteries - Shore-power - Ship's Generator - Inverter; switch renewed in 2017) and thus allows the direct use of the washing machine, or the Aquatec watermaker which operate at 230V. Plus of course any electrical equipment that might be switched on at sea (e.g. vacuum-cleaner). Below you can see pictures of (from left to right) our Victron Battery charger, the Inverter and two of our 6 Victron AGM batteries - 12V/220Ah, that were unfortunately "cooked" by a malfunctioning regulator (still there from the previous owner, who thought the best place for the control panel and alarms was INSIDE the engine room instead out outside it, which I think had been Sterling's intention!) during two days of non-stop motoring. These are situated under the double bed in the aft cabin. In the second photo block underneath, you can see how we have nearly doubled the capacity of our 12 Volt circuit by a much better use of the available space in the battery box. We now have two 12V/110Ah AGM units instead of a single 12V/130Ah battery.

As on our previous boats, a lot of thought has gone into reducing electricity consumption, e.g. through "LED-ifying" all light-bulbs, and rendering the fridge & freezer cooling systems more efficient. Careful thought has also gone into the boat's electronics, whole parts of which can be switched off whilst ocean sailing, thus conserving energy. With all equipment running, consumption whilst sailing will easily add up to 8-10 amps (at 24V), much of which is normally covered by renewables (= our Watt & Sea water generator and our Solbian solar panels). This isn't always the case (see above) because the water generator is not always deep enough in the water, and initially with only 2 Solbians we were mostly just under self-sufficiency. With about 300Ah truly available from the domestic batteries (on the total capacity of 660Ah - we don't like running them to below about 60-70%), charging cycles at sea are usually about once every other day or so (running the generator or the main engine is also useful to make some fresh and some hot water at the same time). When at anchor, our now extended to 6 solar panels (4 big ones/2 little ones) cover all our energy needs, certainly in the tropics.

Maintaining a cool temperature in the boat is achieved through keeping hatches open and relying on several Caframo ventilators installed around the boat in strategic places. For those people familiar with Renault's 1950s/60s Dauphine model (this was my first car), its instruction manual simply stated: "For ventilation, open the windows"!! We applied this kind of simplicity and deliberately stayed away from installing air-conditioning units because of the heavy energy drain they represent. And we certainly have no wish to run the generator much of the time just to keep cool...

To keep us safe from stray currents when plugged into shore-power, we have had a Mastervolt 6kVA isolation transformer complete with a Mastervolt soft-start unit fitted, which accepts 110 & 230 volt inputs. The soft-start unit is there to prevent our electricity-hungry boat from tripping all the fuses in a marina electrical system when initially plugged in... Apparently adapting the isolation transformer from its current setting 230V to 110V is very complicated. In Saint Lucia we bought a step-up tansformer to turn 110V into 230V. It's not a huge unit, so we only can keep the essential users plugged in when using it!

All our new electrical, communications and electronics that were fitted in May 2017 and again in August 2018 have been installed by Dave Cobb, Paul Olley and Mike (son of Dave) Cobb of Maricom. I was first introduced to Dave and Paul in October 2004 by the Hallberg-Rassy UK representative, and have been a happy and loyal customer ever since. Twice now, I have even asked them to come especially to the Netherlands and to Belgium respectively to work on our Ngahues (III & IV). They have a deep insight into what equipment is on the market, and what generally works and what generally breaks down. Their advice - which evolves with what is available on the market - is always to the point and completely neutral. We have systematically followed their advice and rarely been disappointed! A phone call or a text-message have sufficed to put matters right, even for things they had not installed. It's a shame for us that because of Brexit we can no longer use our U.K. supplier network these days; but we are building up a new network of good service providers for our boat in the Benelux...

Water & the Water-maker

As already stated, our main problem with this unit, when we started fitting the various parts of the watermaker into the boat, was the sheer length of the two tubes containing the membranes. After much looking around, we found that we needed to install them in a visible (though not too invasive) place under the starboard cupboards in the aft cabin. Readers can be the judge of whether we succeeded... Fortunately they are white and reasonably decorative and don't intrude in the furnishings of our aft cabin too much... In true Hallberg-Rassy production style, we mounted key elements of the watermaker on grey wooden boards (which we made up in the comfort of our home in Brussels - most of the work was done over the winter 2016/17, and although the boat was "inside", you could hardly call the engine room an inviting environment to work in). In the Yard, these boards are then simply screwed into place and interconnected once the worker returns to the boat - it's an easier way of working. Pictured here one of those boards with all the primary filters... These are sited in the aft end of the engine room and do not impinge too much on the space available there. You can still quite comfortably walk (or crawl) into the engine room to work around the main engine and the generator without getting too caught in equipment... A refinement we introduced after a year of working with the watermaker was to give it its own dedicated through-hull and seacock. The idea is to avoid any air bubbles getting into the high-pressure pump, which apparently can play havoc inside the pump mechanism!

The Galley

The galley on Ngahue IV is situated to starboard, as you descend the main hatch and stairs. This is a pretty standard lay-out on many boats, including Hallberg-Rassies. Increasingly though, on the bigger Hallbergs, galleys have been placed in the walk-through to the aft cabin. The advantage of our set-up is, we find, that the cook is firmly wedged into a very safe U-shaped galley and can work reasonably safely at sea. The cook remains visible to people in the cockpit, and can hand up mugs and plates from the safety of the U-shaped galley. During our first 15,000M sailed with the boat we discovered two issues really. The first issue was the fridge, which is a top-opening unit, set in a corner of the galley. As described in more detail below, we needed to "un-improve" the fridge by stripping out the insalubrious layers of extra insulation that the previous owner had added. We then discovered that the fridge is actually a VERY BIG BOX and that you need long and flexible arms (the kind of arms you'd expect from a cross between a gorilla and an octopus) to be able to reach for the food that is stowed in the lower recesses of it. We've half solved the issue by using plastic baskets with stiff high handles to lift things out of the fridge. The second issue was our Force 10 gas cooker. The pan holder on it was the wrong design, so that when the cooker swung around in a seaway, the knobs on the pan holder knocked against the galley working surface and flew off. After studying a gas cooker for sale on Tortola, we discovered that another and better designed pan holder - one with an off-set built in (see photo below) - actually was available from Force 10 (the company has been taken over by French oven-builder ENO). We ordered it and fitted it: problem of flying pots and pans solved! One really wonders why this particular pan holder model wasn't fitted on our cooker in the first place! The oven burst into flames late 2022; so it will be replaced by a new unit during the winter lay-up.