Winter escape on Sydney Harbour

Well, it is still getting to minus 5 degrees C in the mornings down in Canberra, but our Sydney getaway weekends on Lucey Blue remind us that summer is just around the corner. On the boat the kids didn't seem to notice the cold and continued to play water sports.











Even Sam only needed a beanie in the morning and by the afternoon everyone was in shorts and T-shirts and the cockatoos came to play (we kept a close eye on him and his big chewing beak).....







After mucking around in the sun, Emily and Sam inspected our new steering idler only to find a large pool of rain water which needed to be bailed out by hand. Emily went into the void under the cockpit floor to bail, but soon wanted to escape the confined space.......





The source of the rainwater was a bit of a mystery for a while, but turned out to be the locker under the cockpit table which had been jam full of inflatable dinghy and overflowed in the rain!!!!

While the girls were playing, Ryan and Dad explored the front bow locker for a suitable place to install a salt water deck wash system and larger sullage tank as ours is currently only 40 liters. I am always amazed at the size of our bow lockers when we get a chance to empty out all the bits and pieces. But then I remember that one of the previous owners used to have a spare single berth in one and a toilet in the other - crazy!!!!!







Despite the long drive and short time onboard we all love the time away from Canberra. One minute you're swimming in work-related tasks and the next you're in another world.

Calling Cards and T-Shirts

It has been very quiet in here hasn't it? It is so cold at the moment (minus 6.7 in Canberra on Tuesday morning) and we just haven't had the time or inclination to go playing on Lucey Blue (although I am still sitting on a stack of photos from our long weekend up there a few weeks back...once my hand thaws out, I'll think about posting them ;-).

I have also been sitting on some pics of our new calling cards:




I ordered these cards through Vistaprint and they cost about AUD18.90 for 250 of them, including postage. That price also included the upload of the personalised image, full colour on the front and greytones on the back (it would have been about AUD8.00 cheaper with a blank backside), and gloss cardstock.

They arrived here (from Belgium I think) in about three weeks (which is pretty much standard O/S postal timing for us). I love Vistaprint for things like this. I have used them a fair bit previously, for partyplan-type advertising gumpf, and they have never failed to deliver. You do need to sign up for the special/cheapest online deals...and then you will get bombarded with 2-3 emails per week....so I'd supply an email account that wasn't your day to day one if you despise spam.

We also splashed out on some Lucey Blue t-shirts:


They cost us about AUD15.00 for two cotton t-shirts and upload of personalised design, plus some small amount of postage. Even the smallest size is dress-like for the kids...but they'll grow in to them...eventually!

The photo is one of Lucey Blue in Musket Cove, Fiji. It was taken before we owned her, but is one of my favourite shots of her so far. I am sure there will be many more to come.

Well, I'm off to chip the ice off the windscreen hope it is warmer wherever you are.

Sam.

Volvo Penta: 12 volt charging system overhaul

Lucey Blue’s two D2-55 Volvo Penta engines are factory fitted with 115 amp alternators, but we can never generate enough power. We are not really power hungry and have a large house battery setup comprised of eight Trojan T105. However, our 12 volt fridges do chew a bit of power and on average we burn through about 100-150 amp hours per day.

The boat has sailed many thousands of sea miles from the US to the Caribbean and then Europe to Australia with the current electrical setup. But it must have been a chore running the engines each day to generate sufficient electrical power.

Part of the problem is the diode block used to isolate the house battery bank and starter batteries. The diode block does its job well, but there is a voltage drop across the input and output terminals of approximately 0.6 volts. This means that the alternators only ever deliver a maximum of 30 amps (total) even when the batteries are nearly flat.

As a short-term fix I have been using a jumper cable to bypass the diode block and feed the alternator power direct to the house battery and one of the starter batteries. This technique has ensured we get approximately 60 amps to the batteries, but the alternator’s internal regulator soon drops the current back to 20 to 30 amps and it still takes an age to fully charge the batteries.

Our ultimate solution is simple - replace the diode block with a voltage sensitive relay and install an external smart regulator on one of the alternators.

The voltage sensitive relay will link the batteries during the charge cycle without a significant voltage drop and break the link when the engines are off. The external smart regulator will ensure the alternator supplies maximum current until the battery voltage reaches its required value rather than trickle current into the system like standard automotive regulators. I will let you know what kind of improvement we see once the system is installed, but the difference should be like night and day based on past experience.

We are also going to invest in some relative large solar panels to ensure we have another source of power. But more on that later………

Scrub a tub

We are pretty lucky with the seagulls at the moment, but Lucey Blue still needs a wash down every so often.

Emily and Ryan were so keen to help out we almost had a problem sharing the scrubbing brush – we have now bought enough for everyone.

There is a lot of surface area on a Lagoon 42, but no one complained even when doused in cold water and the boat looked pretty shiny in the end.