Month: January 2022

An electric adventure today

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Two weekends ago we sold our Citroën van. Last weekend we collected our new car, a 2016 Nissan Leaf electric car.

Tonight, after an evening work meeting, we will go on an adventure in it to the boat.

I fully charged it overnight (normally we are only charging to 80% for longer battery life). This morning it showed a range of 100 miles at 100%. It is 98 miles to the boat.

There are about 8 charge points from 60 to 92 miles on the way, but according to Zap Map the reliability of them isn’t brilliant.

What we don’t yet know is how that range will shrink when driving at a steady speed on motorway & dual carriageway in temperatures of about 4° C. It isn’t far to the M56 and is then nearly 80 miles to the first roundabout. I think we will set the cruise control to 60mph (except where the speed limit reduces to 50mph) and see how we go.

Two sections of 50mph speed limit in Wales are for pollution control. Shouldn’t we get an exemption?

Will be our first use of both public and fast charging, so quite an adventure, in a winter night. Should get there between 12.30pm and 1am all being well.

External Dyneema Chainplates update

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Our latest video has been getting some really helpful comments on YouTube as well as directly. It has also helped us to reach a new milestone 🙂

It definitely seems worth exploring more. Particularly to consider some of practicalities that people have raised including:

  • Is the sheer strength of the Stainless Steel bolts sufficient? Potentially, the load on the bolt could be reduced by attaching the plates for the dyneema eyes with epoxy. Or they could be replaced by carbon fibre tubes epoxied into place.
  • Is dirt going to get in the dyneema and damage it? Could the solid shield protecting from chafe also stop water washing dirt in? Would a soft sleeve such as we plan for our chainplate loops help?
  • Will the water flow damage the Dyneema? Much the same issue as with dirt above.
  • Might there be resonance issues with the lashing (apparently might be more of a problem with more loops of thinner lashing).
  • Will the wider stance affect sheeting angles? Depends very much on the rig. It might allow a cutter rig to be sheeted inside the shrouds.
  • Should we use a standard thimble or low friction ring, potentially with a solid infill to avoid a point load from the bolt? We were trying to avoid metal in the water and keep the cost down but this might well be a good solution.
  • More thinking about whether to have a separate cover to keep the dyneema on and to provide chafe protection, possibly so that the cover can be removed without affecting the chafe protection for inspection or replacement.

We are planning a similar design for attaching a Jordan Series Drogue (JSD), potentially better than our previous idea.

Anyway, thank for the support on YouTube, it is encouraging and YouTube responds by sharing the videos more.

External Dyneema Chainplates: new design, new video

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We are really excited that we have come up with a new way of building External Dyneema Chainplates. It is so much simpler than our previous ideas and we haven’t seen anything like this anywhere else.

Remember that this fits really well with all the Dyneema rigging expertise at Rigging Doctor who have been one of the most helpful channels we watch.

First boat stay in 2022

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We arrived yesterday evening and are here for a couple of nights. It is very cold! Snow in Manchester before we came, snow visible on the Snowdonia range. So, too cold to do any epoxy work. Fortunately, the two panel heaters and two fan heaters can keep the cabin nice and warm.

Instead of working on the starboard backing plates for our main mast dyneema chainplates , we have recorded video footage describing our latest idea for external dyneema chainplates. Could be a great option for lots of older boats who are switching to dyneema rigging and want to avoid expensive fittings or who are concerned about their metal chainplates.

We also recorded progress on redesigning the bilge under our saloon for battery storage, water tank and for the first time some thinking about lightening protection. That involved taking the main companionway steps down, wasn’t as bad as I feared. We now have our batteries stored much better in approximately the right place.

We have also done some more detailed planning for the galley stowage and space for the fridge.

The weather is expected to be wet, windy and cold in the morning so we have some jobs planning work on everything in the motor room.

Coming up next week will be big news about our transport for getting to and from the boatyard.

All very exhausting 🙂 so an early night is next!