Floating Picnic

Last Saturday of the grandchildren came aboard for the day.  She wanted to come aboard for a birthday treat.  It was too windy for sailing, being F5-ish. Tipping the boat on it's side and scaring Granddaughter half to death probably isn't the best introduction to boats. Instead we stayed on the mooring and had a floating picnic.

It was sunny but windy. The combination that burns even with sun cream.

But we had a good few hours eating the picnic and watching the world go by.

Thursday and Friday of this week I was on the boat after work. I finished off wiring the port and starboard nav lights.

I found out why the old ones weren't working: the feed to the nav lights went to a chocolate block in the forward bilges from there it split to the port starboard and aft nav lights. Unfortunately the block has been underwater for some time and the port and starboard wires had corroded away. The aft wire was a thicker gauge and hadn't corroded.

So the next job is to replace the wire to the aft nav light, running a new wire from the new fuse box and get rid of the chocolate block connector. I also got an LED stern light and I'll fit that to complement the LED Port and Starboard lights.

I also looked at the wiring to the mast lights. The wires in the cabin roof connector looked a bit black, but other than that intact. The running light works fine and there is power to the anchor light. Unfortunately I can't see if the anchor light is working during the day, the angle from the boat is too acute.

Once the wire to the stern light has been replaced, I'll have replaced all the wiring in the boat apart from the short wires from the fusebox to the mast light socket.

Everything has been replaced with thicker gauge wiring, the fuse/junction box has been replaced for more space and better connections and eventually all the lights, including those on the mast I hope to replace for LED versions.

Eventually I'll have to look at those big jobs I've been putting off for years: the window rubbers and the mast beam. Gulp!

UPDATE:

I was on the boat until 9:30 last night waiting for some semi-darkess to see if the masthead light comes on. Indeed it does, so that's another tick in the box.

While I was waiting I epoxied some plywood pads in the Starboard cockpit locker, ready to screw some p-clips onto for the stern light wire. The autopilot wire follows a similar route so I may route that through the p-clips too. I may even get some thin trunking and run that along the locker if I can get trunking small enough to be held by p-clips.