One of the boating rules of thumb that I keep coming across in my travels around the internet and YouTube is that your maintenance bill generally works out as a percentage of the cost price of the vessel. For example, if you paid $50,000 for your yacht, then the maintenance bill, averaged out over a few years will work out as a percentage of that $50,000. Not too sure what the actual percentage is supposed to be, but I would…
As soon as one major project is finished, the next one is champing at the bit to get started, or recommenced, or finished, or something. We have known for some time that the batteries were just about dead. The main house battery hasn’t been holding a charge for some time and the smaller starting battery is probably near the end of its life also. The designations for which battery is the house and which is the starter are purely mine. …
It’s so easy to get carried away with technology and to enhance your lifestyle with whizz bang gimmickry. We are all suckers for the latest gadgets that promise to revolutionise our hobby/lifestyle, or at least take a little bit of the drudgery and hard work out of things. Yachts certainly fall into this category. Which is a good reason for not going to boat shows. Boat shows are definitely dangerous places for the unwary and you can get suckered into…
Watch out seagulls! La Mouette now has an engine that works, however, as we all know, it’s not enough for a diesel engine to just go suck, squeeze, bang, blow. It also has to propel the said vessel through the water to destinations with palm trees. Well at least to get the boat out of the marina to where the sails can take over, and then go to destinations with palm trees. But I am getting ahead of myself here…
The world of Facebook is a weird place and I sometimes wonder why I even have an account. As much as we all complain about it, we are nonetheless compelled to continually check it out and inevitably winge and grumble at all the crap we see on there. At the moment, people are having a complete meltdown about some of Donald Trump’s policies, however, Facebook is one of those things that at any one time, someone is having a complete…
Serious Burns Unit Will I give in to temptation, and like all the other bloggers out there in the ether, blog about Christmas and the New Year? Aye, of course I will – “Nae man can tether time or tide”. As a public servant in the State of New South Wales, we get a two week shutdown every year over the Christmas period. Despite being forced to take annual leave, the break is very welcome, especially as my job gets…
The range of skills you need to have to successfully maintain your boat is really quite broad. You need to be a rigger, an electrician, a carpenter, diesel mechanic, painter, sewer/seamstress, fibreglasser (or whatever a fibreglassing expert is called). These are just the basic skills – then there are some specialist skills such as welder/boilermaker, fitter and/or machinist. The mind boggles – how do you learn all this stuff? A lot of books on the cruising lifestyle suggest you go…
May you live in interesting times, the old Chinese curse goes, and events lately have certainly proved to be very interesting. As I write this, the world is going mad over the new President Elect of the USA, a Mr Donald Trump. Well Facebook is certainly going crazy. I have never seen a time where people seem to be so polarised over their particular brand of ideology. Never has the gap between the left and the right been so big. …
What started out as a dodgy gearbox in the Yanmar soon escalated. As previously described, we removed the engine from the Gull and dropped it off at the diesel workshop, Minards Diesel up in Newcastle. I had a really good chat with Neil, the guy who would be working on the old clunker and he really knew his stuff. Neil also recommended getting some head work done. Apparently you have to change the head gasket every five years or so,…
The last blog was about time and how it seems to slip through our fingers like sand, or alternatively, there isn’t enough of it to hold in your hand. But we seem to be through the tunnel and are now able to devote weekends to La Mouette. After a hectic couple of months with work commitments, a holiday, Pipeband stuff, Deb’s Mother being in hospital as well as moving out of my flat, things have stabilised somewhat and we can…