After a great time at the cabin we came back to the Twin Cities for doctors appointments and Chris had to fill in as race crew on her sister #1's J 22 sailboat. She was fill in as sister #3 sprained her ankle and couldn't walk let alone put up a spinnaker. They had a couple of decent finishes yesterday but Chris (sister #2) fell on the dock and pretty well messed up her leg. So now with 2 of 4 sisters down sister #1 has run out of sisters and may have to rely on daughters. There are only 3 of them but with only 5 races left sister #1 just might make it to the end of the season.
Depending on what the saw bones say next week we will be headed back to FL soon. We miss the Belle and my lists of to do's has probably grown beyond what I can do this winter. The biggies are new electronics and auto pilot. We have been using one of our old Garmin GPS units from our now long gone 'Harry" as a primary and the lower helm unit is being reserved for the Smithsonian exhibit on the early history of marine GPS units. The radar is even older and kidding aside it still has vacuum tubes. There are so many ways of doing the new electronics from bare bones to full on network systems that will even turn your coffee pot on in the morning. We will probably go with a main unit that will have network capability and add abilities as time goes on. And no, the coffee pot will not be networked.
The autopilot on an old boat like the Belle has it's special problems as the steering is chain drive. Even when this boat was built in the mid 80's chain drive was out of date so most of the manufacturers don't even make the components to do the job. Raymarine seems to be the only mainstream manufacturer that does but it is expensive and will take a bit of engineering and fabrication to make it all work. The good part is that the Raymarine electronics should be able to network quite easily with the new Garmin GPS / hub that we are looking at. This is important as we should be able to set multiple waypoints for a route on the GPS and the autopilot should be able to take the commands and follow through with steering adjustments. Even tho both manufacturers say there stuff should be able to communicate with the others equipment it's not plug and play according to comments on the internet. Again, I'm being dragged into the world of modern technology.
Chris's big thing that she wants changed on the Belle is the addition of an enclosure for the flybridge to keep us from the cold, rain and /or wind. They are pretty much standard on trawlers these days and are a nice deal as it would make the bridge much more usable when the weather would normally force us down to the lower helm where the view is poor.
I just got a call from Tom at the marina and he checked on the boat this morning. No smells and no water in the bilge was the report. I like short reports. I asked him what the weather was like and he said the conditioner in his boat was on. Nuff said, I want to go home...
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