Ocean Marina - Portsmouth VA
Magic Friday
Phil, Di and Annelise
Thu 26 Apr 2018 17:16
A good time to change the engine oil and filter whilst waiting on the 20m Simrad masthead cable to arrive (from Spain)! A messy job - although this time managed to get the oil the oil out into the suction container(works very well) and remove the old oil filter out in such a cramped space without spilling black oil all over the engine!
More time to sort out the forward cabin locker space along with regular visits to the Dock Office to see if the courier had arrived as the weather was perfect for more mast trips. Finally, in the late afternoon it arrived - thankfully no customs or other delays - not bad ordered only 48 hours previously!
So, roof panels pulled down to access the old cable connection, a quick check the new cable was good by connecting the old anemometer to the system - yes, wind spend was reading on the instruments. Up the mast with the cable to check it would work / recognize the new anemometer before figuring out how to feed the cable inside the masthead. Success again - after making the required "auto-select" (as suggested by one of the many Simrad engineer calls) - we had both wind speed and direction readings on the instruments below. Next, how to feed the new cable inside the mast - unfortunately, the inspection panels in the mast were not too useful in this case - despite "peering in" as hard as we could! No other choice, one last trip up the mast in the now escaping afternoon to attempt to feed the cable through the mast from the top using the old cable as a lead..
Well, that was the plan. Unfortunately, the riggers at Hanse in their wisdom had decided to tape all three cables together (anemometer, masthead lights and VHF ariel) ALL the way down inside the mast (or at least as far as we could extract the cables). I understand this probably protects the cables against rubbing as the halyards and sheets are also in the same conduit (I presume) BUT impossible to take one lead out and replace it with another. After a long time up the mast trying to get to the end of the tape, with cut fingers, we had to call it a day in the fading light and building storm clouds, to re-think.
Defeated for today but not beaten (yet)!
Phil and Di
