I have to keep reminding myself this is a sailboat and not just something that requires vast amounts of work, money, and cursing. It was a project weekend this trip. Lisa was much more successful than I was at getting things knocked off her list. She stripped off the bimini while making many new spider friends so we can take it home and get it cleaned and put back on in time for the new dodger. She cleaned the drawer under the stove to prepare it for easy to clean contact paper. She also scrubbed the oven spotless and pulled the racks out to take home for a good scrubbing as well. Lisa measured for rugs to decorate the salon and give it that homey feel as well as protect the wood from Sophia’s doggie claws. Another take home project for Lisa is to build custom made silverware trays for the galley drawers since they are too small for any store bought trays. And for the grand finale Lisa vacuumed the mess I had accumulated cutting the square for the new VHF radio.
I spent the two days getting our new VHF installed and wired the chartplotter, autopilot and VHF together. I didn’t get to test all the components to see if they all talk, but I did get a radio check on the installed VHF so that is a significant upgrade from when the boat was purchased. The new radio was also able to pick up satellites from its new location. DSC and AIS features will love this. I also installed a remote hand mic at the helm station so we can monitor the radio from the helm. This should be a nice upgrade from where the radio was previously located at the companionway.
I first had to run all the wires from the helm to the navigation station and from the antennae to the nav station. The antennae wire wasn’t too much trouble as Hunter supplied strings through the conduit so I could tie off and pull the cable through. The helm to nav station wiring was another matter. There was a conduit from the binnacle to the cabin that was too tight to fit a 16 gauge wire, much less the cabling for the remote mic. I sliced the conduit, ripped out the housing to the cabin, ran the wire and repaired the conduit. Then I had to get the wire from the aft cabin to the nav station. I had some 12 gauge wire that I straightened out and used that to fish the cabling through another conduit to the nav station. After all of that it was cutting out a slot for the actual radio, hooking up the wires and voila, a completed radio check. It all sounds kind of easy writing it down. Of course I left out how I had to find the conduit, scrape my arms across all kinds of fiberglass and repair wiring from the previous owner. I think it was about 12 hours of work to get just the radio installed. I can’t wait for the next sail to see if all the components actually work as advertised.
Yay, sailing!!
I spent the two days getting our new VHF installed and wired the chartplotter, autopilot and VHF together. I didn’t get to test all the components to see if they all talk, but I did get a radio check on the installed VHF so that is a significant upgrade from when the boat was purchased. The new radio was also able to pick up satellites from its new location. DSC and AIS features will love this. I also installed a remote hand mic at the helm station so we can monitor the radio from the helm. This should be a nice upgrade from where the radio was previously located at the companionway.
I first had to run all the wires from the helm to the navigation station and from the antennae to the nav station. The antennae wire wasn’t too much trouble as Hunter supplied strings through the conduit so I could tie off and pull the cable through. The helm to nav station wiring was another matter. There was a conduit from the binnacle to the cabin that was too tight to fit a 16 gauge wire, much less the cabling for the remote mic. I sliced the conduit, ripped out the housing to the cabin, ran the wire and repaired the conduit. Then I had to get the wire from the aft cabin to the nav station. I had some 12 gauge wire that I straightened out and used that to fish the cabling through another conduit to the nav station. After all of that it was cutting out a slot for the actual radio, hooking up the wires and voila, a completed radio check. It all sounds kind of easy writing it down. Of course I left out how I had to find the conduit, scrape my arms across all kinds of fiberglass and repair wiring from the previous owner. I think it was about 12 hours of work to get just the radio installed. I can’t wait for the next sail to see if all the components actually work as advertised.
Yay, sailing!!