Update for Mike

I got an email from my mate Mike, and because he’s such a nice bloke, I thought I would devote a whole blog entry to his questions….

Mike wrote
“Hey if you can add this to your blog somewhere it’ll be good.
Engines? How did you find them?
Steerage, any comments on the forward rudders?
Handling in marinas?
Sail plan, what have you got?
Main Reefing setup?
Rigging winch clutch / sailing control?
Windage in windward sailing, beating AWA?
Elevated helm access?
Forward visibility from the helm? (through the genoa)
Smart charger?
Batteries?
Inverter capacity?
What is that thing under the floor? 13. Watermaker?
Bridge deck clearance?
Tender davits and access?
Drogues and sea anchors?
Solar panels, how did you go with those flexibles “

1. Lets start with engines.

The 75HP engines are brilliant. Had a few nervous moments with them early on. Wasn’t used to the power in the marina. Now heavy handed Steve has become light handed Steve, its all good.
They also take you places quickly. Can easily motor along at 10 knots.
They got a great work out in the 60+ knots the other day. Thats when you really need them. Glad I took all the advice that said get the biggest engines you could.

2. The forward rudder setup is no worries provided you remember to centre and lock the wheel when doing all those tricky marina moves. Hopefully they make the motors more efficient when you are motoring long distances.

3. The sail plan consists of a bloody big square topped main and a genoa, plus a geneker. It’s a big boat and it needs pushing along. Plan is to get a parasail before we head off across the Atlantic and Pacific.

4. The main reefing setup is something we are rapidly becoming experts on. Two single line reefs, the third needs to be clipped on at the front. Good set-up – they seem to go in and out quite easily. Getting our heads around reefing the genoa as well. It has reefing spots on it where you can furl to, so you can keep things balanced up.

5. Rigging winch clutch / sailing control – all done back at the steering station via 3 big electric winches. Getting very lazy in our old age. The genoa furling line is a bit dicky – has a clutch thats on the pulley. Might need to look at this down the track. Line storage is also a work in progress. All those lines coming back to the one spot, can get a bit messy at this.

6. Windage in windward sailing, beating AWA – its a cat so not great. About the same as Camelot, except it goes about a knot or so faster.

7. Elevated helm access – I like it. Quite a classy looking wheel and instrumentation. No engine keys. The clears bothered me to start with. Need to roll them up for marina parking. Will be good when we get to warmer weather and can take them off.

8. Forward visibility from the helm? (through the genoa) – not all that great from the helm but bloody good from inside the warm, comfy saloon. The visibility through the all round windows is awesome. Can sit at the inside forward facing nav station (with its Raymarine touch screen) and get a nice clear view.

9. Smart charger – Two of. They work really well and the good part is that with two engines running, we get a nice cumulative effect. Pumping in 46amps at the moment on one engine. Have also put in a Victron Invertor/Charger so the genset and shorepower can charge a lot quicker. James alerted me about the standard chargers that come with Lagoon and I’m glad I did this.

10. Batteries – Could have done this better. Lagoon only use 120AH gel batteries. I have four for a total of 480AH, a lot less than the 3 200AH batteries on Camelot. Can live with this for now because of my charging capacity. Will need more solar.

11. Inverter capacity – Good 3000A unit. Combined with the whopping 11KVa Genset, should be able to drive my dive compressor when I get it.

12. What is that thing under the floor – I don’t know – a hull perhaps?

13. Watermaker – still to be commissioned by Allan and I. Now the water is a clearer we will tackle this. Runs off both 12V and 240V which is useful.

14. Bridge deck clearance – seems really good. Only the occasional slap so far. In fact you could count them on one hand so far.

15. Tender davits and access – old man’s syndrome drove me to get an electric winch for this as well. Still have an issue getting it balanced so that it doesn’t flip sideways when lifting it. Still work in progress. Once up, its good.

16. Drogues and sea anchors – not yet. Still cruising close to coast where theres lots of harbours. Have a Sea Brake at home I will get brought over. Definitely need to address before heading out over the Atlantic.

17. Solar panels – four 100W flexible panels, stuck on roof. Look good but lack of sun until yesterday didn’t allow us to see how they performed. Yesterday they were holding their own with the boat on autopilot and the Bose stereo going. No dedicated monitoring for panels like I had on Camelot. Will need to add a lot more panels – will extend bimini top over dingy with about 6 more of the same panels (not good to mix and match). Thought about a windgen but would rather stick with all solar solution.

There you go. Hope it answered a few questions that I’m sure the sailors in the audience would like to know. For the rest of you, I hope I didn’t bore you too much.