We've been a busy couple of bees these last few days. The last two days we've been gathering necessary supplies to create a power system in our boat. We went down to Harbor Freight Tools on the Pacific Highway and grabbed forty-five watts worth of solar panels and nabbed five gel cell car batteries for electrical storage. A battery with a "gel" cell has an injected chemical that change the liquid components into gel so they will not leak when tipped (which tends to happen quite a bit on a monohulled boat). We got a pretty good deal on the batteries by going off the books and the solar panels by just finding the right sale. With those panels set up and the existing 6.5 watt panel we have on the aft-cabin, we'll have over fifty watts of charging power.
After getting the panels, we were presented with a problem, that of mounting them. The aluminum mounts the panels came with just wouldn't do in any sort of wind, so we made our way to Minney's. Minney's is a yacht surplus store that will give you store credit for used parts you bring in. They also, obviously, resell these parts yielding a warehouse of well-priced yacht parts. We managed to find some pieces of brand new aluminium that we will use to mount our solar and called it a day. The rest of the night was spent conversing with our lovely neighbors who so kindly fed me a delicious ribeye with potatoes on the side.
Today, Dan got to work on mounting our panels while I dove head first into organizing Leeway's drawers. The order of the drawers under the chart table was, to put it nicely, in disarray. Not a single thing was in a logical position, nor were any similar items grouped together. For the first three hours of my day, I sat on the cabin sole and sorted through just fasteners: nuts, bolts, and nails. I had a magnet that I ran over each piece to check if the item was ferrous. Ferrous items, that is those containing iron and thus attracted to magnetic fields, are virtually useless in the marine environment as they hastily corrode Only a few metals can stand up to the tenacious corroding ability of the ocean air: stainless steel (the most common), bronze (turns to verdigris), brass (a soft metal used for jib hasps and other items requiring malleability), aluminium (lasts the best when anodized), and titanium (outrageously expensive). Most other metals will fall apart after a few months at sea, especially if they are frequently exposed to the saltwater. So I separated the nearly useless ferrous fasteners from the stainless, bronze, and brass ones and ordered the useful ones in a divided container.
After this, I grouped the various objects strewn throughout into a logical placement. I made an electrical drawer, consisting of multimeter, crimping tools, wires, etc., a plumbing drawer with fittings, valves, and tubes, a rigging drawer with hardware for the rig, and swaging tools, a sticky-slippery stuff drawer with everything from tape to lubricant, and a fabricwork drawer with all the items for repairing sails, sewing, and such. I still haven't touched half of the drawers. I'll probably be creating other categories as well as surely making a miscellaneous drawer for the randomest of things. Tomorrow I hope to finish the organization efforts while Dan finishes the mounting of the solar panels. Then we may just get to hooking up our batteries.
After getting the panels, we were presented with a problem, that of mounting them. The aluminum mounts the panels came with just wouldn't do in any sort of wind, so we made our way to Minney's. Minney's is a yacht surplus store that will give you store credit for used parts you bring in. They also, obviously, resell these parts yielding a warehouse of well-priced yacht parts. We managed to find some pieces of brand new aluminium that we will use to mount our solar and called it a day. The rest of the night was spent conversing with our lovely neighbors who so kindly fed me a delicious ribeye with potatoes on the side.
Today, Dan got to work on mounting our panels while I dove head first into organizing Leeway's drawers. The order of the drawers under the chart table was, to put it nicely, in disarray. Not a single thing was in a logical position, nor were any similar items grouped together. For the first three hours of my day, I sat on the cabin sole and sorted through just fasteners: nuts, bolts, and nails. I had a magnet that I ran over each piece to check if the item was ferrous. Ferrous items, that is those containing iron and thus attracted to magnetic fields, are virtually useless in the marine environment as they hastily corrode Only a few metals can stand up to the tenacious corroding ability of the ocean air: stainless steel (the most common), bronze (turns to verdigris), brass (a soft metal used for jib hasps and other items requiring malleability), aluminium (lasts the best when anodized), and titanium (outrageously expensive). Most other metals will fall apart after a few months at sea, especially if they are frequently exposed to the saltwater. So I separated the nearly useless ferrous fasteners from the stainless, bronze, and brass ones and ordered the useful ones in a divided container.
After this, I grouped the various objects strewn throughout into a logical placement. I made an electrical drawer, consisting of multimeter, crimping tools, wires, etc., a plumbing drawer with fittings, valves, and tubes, a rigging drawer with hardware for the rig, and swaging tools, a sticky-slippery stuff drawer with everything from tape to lubricant, and a fabricwork drawer with all the items for repairing sails, sewing, and such. I still haven't touched half of the drawers. I'll probably be creating other categories as well as surely making a miscellaneous drawer for the randomest of things. Tomorrow I hope to finish the organization efforts while Dan finishes the mounting of the solar panels. Then we may just get to hooking up our batteries.
good stuff just letting you know you still have readers
ReplyDeleteIt's really interesting because of the way you explain things. Tom said that you use colorful language which makes the technical rendering more interesting.
ReplyDeleteI think it's great that you are blogging about your preparations for the "big leave." It helps us to know what to do while we're waiting for our turn.