Maintaining a sail boat
The seas between Rome and Naples are busy, very busy. The Italians love their motorboats, July and August are probably the not the best times to enjoy remote anchorages. At between 90 and 160 euros per night, marinas are to be avoided too. We have made the most of it though by slowly travelling South. …
I am still in Mayon waiting for the wind to be strong enough in the right direction to cross to Sardinia. I moved the boat to a marina for three nights mainly to pick up some spare parts for the dinghy engine and to get a passport exit stamp. Today I moved back to the …
I spent about a week in Motril, it’s a lovely place and a refreshing change from the other Costas towns. The people are friendly, the views of the mountains stunning and I got a lot of boat maintenance done. First job when I arrived was to got to a local vets to get Dotty a …
We reached A Caruna last week and have been carrying out various repairs, sightseeing, resting etc. We need to stay a few more days but the weather is not looking kind to continue around the corner to head south to Portugal and Gibralter. on the way here we anchored and explored Ferrol.
I have been at Chateaux Marina in Brest the last few days waiting for a new Windlass to arrive. DPD tracking says it should be with me today 🤞 In the mean time I have been doing some cleaning and maintenance and had a look around the Town and the Naval History museum I have …
The last few days have been tough on both me and the boat. I want to get on but the weather and strong currents around here mean slow progress. The sail from Guernsey to the French coast went well. It started with good winds which dwindled to nothing and ended in strong winds gusting to …
Lady Cindy has spent the last two weeks out of the water to have her bottom cleaned; we all need one of those. No issues were found with the hull, so we rubbed her down and applied new anti foul. The blue section got polish and a touch-up wherever the gel coat was damaged. All …
Note that the title is managing, not preventing! Dampness is an inevitable fact of living above a large body of water out in the open so water can come in from any direction. Add to that the moisture in the air from evaporation of bilge water and from your breath, there are many sources of …
Last year I installed Lithium batteries from Sterling Power onto Lady Cindy. This is how I did it and a summary of how the system is working out in real usage. The problem with lead Lead acid batteries traditionally used in boats suffer from a major problem over time… sulphation. This reduces their life span …