Tuesday, April 27, 2010

More "Little Grace" pics

David Appleby sent a couple more pictures of his refurbishing project.


Due to the extended and exceptional winter conditions in Finland (it is still freezing at night and it snowed again over the last few days) David Appleby has abandoned the refurbishment of Little Grace in favour of throwing everything back on and going sailing. He will use bathroom silicone sealant for the fittings and only round the holes where appropriate so they are easy to get off when work resumes next autumn. Hopefully – 20 will not be the norm for so long and the job will get done.


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Sunday, April 25, 2010

First daysail and geekiness

The first daysail of the season occured today. I went out to an island, anchored and had coffee. Sailed home. Made a boring video. Almost froze my hands off when I hauled up the anchor line out of that ice cold liquid I was sailing in (or on). It was quite warm and sunny, though and the wind was good.

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I have also tried out the solar charger and battery combination I was experimenting with lately. It's an old alarm battery from work connected to a small solar charger. So now I've a proper 12V system and can charge anything with a usual car charger. Charges the iphone in less than three hours. Not sure how long the solar thing needs to top up the battery after that, but shouldn't be longer than the iphone takes to run flat again.

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Oh, and here's the video.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Launched!


Hooray! I got an unexpected phone call today at lunchtime from the club's crane guy. He had found time to launch me ahead of the rest again this year. So I'm in. The engine took some extra pulls this time, but then the winter had been exceptionally cold. At last it started! Very very pleased!

As you can see, the rubrail is now white. It will probably not stay that way, but it looks very nice right now.