Mooring at Saundersfoot

After a few years on the waiting list Enfys' name finally came up for a permanent 24' mooring in Saundersfoot harbour. After a short season on the Milford Haven Waterway we eventually got a chance when the weather was OK and we were not working and had some holiday time to make the passage round. Saundersfoot always dries and on the row where our allocated mooring is we have water for about two hours either side of HW so our trips are going to be even more dependent on the tides than at Angle. A different local cruising ground for us to explore now...

Spot the only wooden yacht amongst all the plastic!

Battery Stowage Improvement 2

To make enough room to fit the new boxes I removed the original battery trays and mounted them direct to the supports attached to the boat's framing. The boxes are firmly clamped by broad stainless steel straps bolted through the bulkhead. The lids are a snug fit and have pegs arranged to keep them wedged in place.
These have done a season now and gone is the 'thud' of the batteries sliding around when the boat tacks!

Original battery tray removed

Port battery - engine starting

Starboard battery - boat's 'house' services

Battery stowage improvement 1

Enfys has two batteries both of about 100Ah stowed low-down just abaft the cabin bulkhead in the engine space, one port and one starboard.  They are connected via a BEP cluster switch and arranged so the port one is for engine starting and the starboard for 'house' service. As built she has a tray in which each battery sits held in place by a loose stainless steel strap and a basic plywood drip shield to protect them. Like this did not feel that they were well enough secured or protected - the Finesse does not have a self-draining cockpit.

Starboard battery in original stowage arrangement

I made two boxes out of 9mm marine plywood sheathed in glass mat and resin to make them stiff and watertight. With lids and cut-aways for the leads, the batteries are held down by webbing straps and the whole box can be lifted in and out with battery in situ.

Battery box under construction

Centre plate fell out!

Out for an evening sail in late August and just over the shallows in Angle Bay there was a thump and she stopped dead! After initially thinking we had struck something it slowly dawned that the centre plate had dropped down and was jammed into the bottom. Obviously, unable to wind it back up we had no option but to drop it completely. We did this in a drying part of the bay and a few weeks later in early September were able to retrieve it.

Finesse 24 Centreplate - no longer in boat!

Now to re-unite it with the yacht..

2013 Review

The 2013 season  was not very long for us but we managed quite a few day sails especially to Dale, a nice quiet anchorage where we were able to watch the comings and goings and swim from the boat.

Anchored at Dale

Dale

Another nice hidey-hole on the haven is Sandy Haven.  Here we had a couple of overnight stops. Enfys is ideal here as she takes the ground and sits upright on the sand.

Sandy Haven - looking up the pill

Dried out in Sandy Haven - no water in sight.

Sandy Haven - the view towards the sea, out of sight.

Some important updates - 2

'Enfys' had been fitted with the ubiquitous 'Off-1-2-Both' switch to connect her two batteries to the entire electrical system, including engine and all boat services.  After a small scare when we found we were running both engine start and boat batteries down together I decided to upgrade to a split system. Also the wiring to the VHF radio, 12V socket and instruments is in a bit of a state, as can be seen:

 I installed a BEP 'cluster' switch with a 'Voltage Sensitive Relay' (VSR) to switch the batteries and re-cabled them:

 On the other side of the boat there was the original power distribution for the boat with 2-pole isolator (in series with the other switch) and a redundant regulator from her original Yanmar engine.  I stripped all this out when re-cabling the main battery leads:

Here is a battery monitoring unit that I obtained to install in the boat's switch panel:

 The switch panel for boat lighting etc. now fitted with new switches. The original ammeter is open circuit and had a large external shunt that I removed to install the battery monitor.

 Switch panel front view before ammeter was removed:

 Finally.. I invested in a fitted overall laying-up cover for 'Enfys'.  It arrived at the end of the winter and will soon be off....

Some important updates - 1

One of the items on the Surveyor's report when we bought our Finesse was a recommendation to improve the stowage of the gas bottle and the connection to the stove to comply with relevant standards.

Here is a how I made a new gas bottle locker that is gas-tight with a drain out through the hull.  I used the Boat Safety Scheme Part 7 technical literature and other info mined via the Web in order to set it out.

 This is how we had been keeping the 4.5kg bottle from flying around; lashed to the suction hose of the bilge pump.  Its previous stowage was behind the engine's control panel and above the starting battery - not good.

This is the connecting pipe where is goes from flexible hose to copper before vanishing through the bulkhead on its way to the stove.  There was not one clip along its entire length and too many joints.

I decided to make a gas-tight box and install it in the same locker with a drain out through the yacht's side.  Here I am deciding which plank to put the skin-fitting in.

A box was made to fit the space to carry the 4.5kg bottle out of 9mm marine plywood.

Trying the box for size - there was just enough room for it to stand in the base of the cockpit locker and for the lid to go over it - just!

The regulator wouldn't fit but a little modification gave a space for the flexible rubber hose to run.

The box was completely sheathed with GRP and painted. Here it is with the hose taken through a protective sleeve in the side of the box. In the base of the box is an in-fill to keep the bottle central. Still to be fitted is a webbing strap and clip to hold the bottle down.

This picture shows the drain from the bottom of the locker.  It is a requirement to have a minimum of 19mm internal diameter on the drain hose and fittings so I used 3/4" fittings. A 'fall' is needed all the way from the box to the outside air and this was a fiddle to achieve...

As can be seen in this picture as water is caught in a low point of the pipe. A clip now holds this up to continue the downward 'fall' of the drain pipe.  The seacock is shown closed in this picture.  We close it when sailing as water fills the locker as the boat heels, leaving it open when she is moored un-occupied.

Here is the drain outlet - just above the normal water line.  I was not keen on having to bore another hole in the yacht's hull but such is the price of safety regs compliance..

A new copper gas pipe was run in one run, clipped with non-corrosive rubber lined P-Clips to a batten fastened to the hull. The flexible rubber tubing lengths were kept to a minimum length and the whole of the gas pipe line is visible for inspection.

I fitted a shut-off valve adjacent to the stove. A looped length of flexible rubber hose allows the gimballed stove to move.



The main problem I had with the installation was buying tubing and fittings.  It was possible to buy BSP fittings, but only for metric tube, its seemed, and then impossible to find a source of metric copper tube in reasonable lengths.  In the end I used 5/16" tube bought from one supplier and fittings from a couple of others including our local Chandler's - this took more time than actually doing the job!