Next Cruise: Towards Shetland (again) in April.

Another attempt at Shetland is pencilled in to start the week before or the week after Easter for the best tides; but the weather may well change that, it usually does.

The two main options for departure to get favourable tides
to and past the Mull of Kintyre.

Leaving on a Spring tide is the best time for good tides to help a quick passage to the Inner Hebrides, if the wind and weather cooperate. With the 31st March being the highest tide of the year (a range of 7.5m / 24.6 ft at Milford) a couple of days later or the 15th April is probably more likely as tides on the 1st will be fierce out past The Smalls and off Tuskar and it will not take much wind to make the sea very uncomfortable and not much more to make it dangerous, especially off South Bishop.

The route will be dependant on the weather but ideally from Mull I would visit Coll and possibly the Treshnish Isles, cross the Sea of the Hebrides where the wild life sightings were so fantastic in 2023 and north to Stornoway via the Shiant Islands, again sailing in waters rich with wild life in 2023. But if the weather is not favourable but OK to go up the Sound of Sleat and inside Skye I will probably go that way as there is always the chance of doing that route in reverse coming back in the summer.

The plan is then to minimise long legs by routing to Stromness via Hoy Mouth (as last year), hop round to Kirkwall in one tide, then sail up through the islands to the bay of Otterswick (Sanday) before starting the 64NM leg to southern Shetland or the 78 NM direct to Lerwick.

Launch Day

The weather was kind, wind and rain promised a few days ago got delayed and it was dry with a moderate breeze so no problems getting out of the lift or onto the berth single handed.

The timing was not good for those going to work and a good number of cars backed up behind when she turned off the road after a couple of hundred yards with no passing place.

And more that wanted to come in were released

from the holding area.

Turning towards the slipway.

On to the slip way, no more pics as I had to climb 

aboard at this point.

Installing a powered USB hub and why

Another post to while away some winter hours, and incidentally to keep the boats documentation up to date. 

Updated after installation was complete.

I use an iPhone and iPad, everything here should also apply to Android devices but I am not familiar with them, research indicates that the the Kingston Hub would not have the problems with Android that I had trying to use it with an iPhone.

I have had a powered USB hub on the boat from the beginning, the reason for the upgrade is my increased use of the PC on the internet. For reasons of economy I have generally restricted my internet use to the unlimited (but "throttled") data only sim in my iPad occasionally using the laptop through its wi-fi hot spot, this year with prices dropping I put a meaningful amount of data onto the iPhone account (and that is from now on also unlimited), the problem then became the wi-fi connection drooping when briefly inactive which was a pain in the neck.

To solve that through 2024 I tethered the laptop to the phone using a USB cable which works well and also gives easier data sharing between the laptop, phone and chart plotter, the problem is then remembering to reconnect the phone to its USB charging point or, without power from the PC, the battery will run down, that only happened once but that is one time to many so to sort that the phone needs to connect to an always on powered USB hub that can also provide charging. 

I was also using an unpowered hub daisy chained to the 4 port powered one and there were lots of wires in inconvenient places.  It was time to upgrade.

Installation should have been straight forward although choosing and getting power to the hub needs some thought and research but Windows 11 threw some curve balls at me as did my choice of the Kingston 7 port hub and I had to redesign on the fly.

The final configuration, click to view.

Connections and Services

For a lot more detail on integration see SV Sancerre: Wi-Fi networking and application integration on Sancerre remembering this was written before the upgrade to a 7 port device, tethering the phone etc.

iPhone (or any smart phone)

• Connects the PC to the internet when a 3 or 4G connection is available.
• Using Garmin Active Captain and wi-fi, transfers routes from the navigation software plus software updates and community notes from Garmin to the plotter.
• Smart notifications such as SMS texts, Facebook notifications, etc. are transferred to the plotter by Bluetooth.

AIS

The Garmin AIS unit only puts AIS information onto the NMEA 2000 network and keeps its GPS data to itself which is annoying as with its external antenna it has the most reliable GPS position on the boat (although the internal aerial in the plotter has not lost a signal yet). 

However there is a USB port for set up and diagnostics and when I installed it I suspected that it would use standard NMEA 0183 protocols; why invent new ones when standard ones exist and you already have code for dealing with them? And so it proved, so the USB cable is permanently connected to the hub, the Garmin USB driver presents a logical COM port to applications and those that are capable can use the differential GPS / EGNOS fix (& Glonass), I use mainly use GPS with SeaPro 3000 and Memory-Map but it can also be useful for Google Earth and other applications.

GPS

As backup I have a USB GPS device (they are less than £10 with support for GPS, GLONASS, WAAS/EGNOS, etc.), that allows the PC systems to take over position fixing if the plotter and NMEA2000 network should fail. It is also occasionally useful when switching between SeaPro and Memory-Map, perhaps to use the Antares charts or to check a route on the standard Admiralty raster charts. The AIS com port can not be shared between applications and even if you close one application down the PC is likely to think the port is still potentially active and the newly launched software gives an error. 

I set Memory-map to use the USB GPS and SeaPro to use the AIS output and I can then have both active at the same time or switch between them without problems. In the event of a failure I can easily change the configuration to allow SeaPro to use a USB GPS or Memory-map to display AIS.

GND

Some of the many re-sizable windows available
on a connected PC with Nexus. They can be moved
around to fit with or on top of other windows.

Is a bridge between the wind instruments and NMEA200 but also runs as a NX2 server for Nexus software providing most of the information from the NMEA 2000 network down a USB connection, unfortunately that is not usable by SeaPro or Memory-Map but free software allows you to display it on the PC. I can't remember when I last used it but it is free so it might as well be connected.

NAVTEX

I now rarely use it as the met office forecasts are readily available on their website and navigation warnings from the Admiralty website and they are also broadcast by the coastguard but venturing further afield it is a useful backup or replacement for IridiumGo (which does not carry the nav warnings).

USB-3 connections

This can be used to connect various ancillaries that benefit from a fast transfer rate such as a card reader (not included on my new laptop) or DVD or to plug in an iPad. This is also a powered port so will do a better job of supporting an iPad.

Power

This might be the tricky bit. Powered hubs are intended to run from the mains, using an inverter, even if you have one installed, does not make a lot of sense - converting 12V DC to 240V AC and back to whatever DC voltage the hub uses.

However all is not lost, over the years makers have been standardising many PC related items to run off of 5V DC as used by USB devices, even my latest lap top when on mains uses a 3 Amp 5V supply connected to the PC by a USB-C plug (for some reason the car 12V lead and converter to 5V uses a different socket). 

My original 4 port hub came with a 240V 13Amp USB charging plug and a USB-A to centre pin lead, I just replaced the 13A plug with an off the shelf 12V to USB socket available from the chandlers and elsewhere.

 

The 7 port powered hub. Preferred to others as it is small and does
not have unwanted switches or lights. It is USB-3 so fast and
2 ports will provide additional power with automatic detection.
The voltage is marked by the socket on the end. Not as it turned
out a good choice if connecting an iPhone.

This time I could not find one like that and online suppliers don't seem to specify the intermediate voltage of there units, but if they have a detachable lead the voltage should be noted beside the socket and it should also be on the power supply; usually in almost microscopic lettering with the rest of the spec. So the trick is to expand photos to read the info from there. I found that the Kingston units were definitely 5V, the power cable is captive to the power supply so in a worst case I would cut the cable and splice it to a USB cable, fabricate from scratch (but there is an easier route, see below) or look for one, but the cable on my old hub does the trick. 

As it turned out it would not work with the iPhone so it was relegated to be a passive hub and the topology changed. Fortunately the 4 port hub I had been using as a passive hub could be powered and was USB3 compatible so that was promoted to be the powered hub. Connecting the power was straight forward using a USB A to USB C cable.

12V to 5.1V step down unit with
fast charge.

Using an off the shelf USB socket for the power source does have a down side, all of the ones I have seen working from 12 volts deliver 2 Amps, useable but not that good for recharging a phone or iPad and would be marginal if an iPad and phone were connected a the same time. The solution is a step down unit, these are readily available on eBay and elsewhere, most deliver 3 Amps for 15 Watts nominal costing £5.89 including postage and is available with USB or  bare wire output that would be easy to connect to the power lead that comes with a hub. I found one that delivers 5 Amps through up to 4 female USB-a sockets @ £6.91. Whilst not as fast charging as a good mains powered charging station  I'll settle for a potential improvement of 2.5 times over standard.

There are 4 outputs from the unit so one powers the hub (and phone) the other has  a male to female USB A cable for charging other devices, in my case, several lights, lighters for the gas, battery charger for the camera and iPads if I should let them run down.

I prefer things fused and switched so the step down unit has both, getting power from the low power switched bus behind the electrical panel. It will normally be left switched on at the panel and will go off when the master switch is off, but if I am a long time at anchor (quite likely) and short of power (unlikely) I can switch it off to save the small parasitic current it uses.

The nav station with recently updated electrical panel and the PC
connected to the internet via the iPhone and USB and running 
Memory-map with a GPS fix from the dongle, and Nexus Race
software showing 3 virtual instruments at the top of the screen,
iirc heading from the Raymarine autopilot sensor plus wind
speed and direction from the Garmin sensors

Windows 11 Issues

These were very frustrating and together with the problem with the Kingstone hub took several hours to resolve, particularly as the Windows issues made fault finding difficult and more prolonged as I had to keep rebooting because of the first issue.

Com Ports:

First Windows 11 consistently allocated COM3 to a newly added USB virtual serial port connection even when it had previously allocated COM3 to another device, this did not happen under Windows 10. This confused the applications as the COM port can only support one at a time. Google AI says this does not happen, but it can and deeper research after I had worked round the issue confirms this and gives some of the reasons why. I did not follow though with that as its now working but there were references to changing registry settings as a fix.

To fix this I first identified which of the two "COM3s" was the newly added one (IIRC it was always the 2nd on the list) then I changed the COM Port number manually and rebooted and it would work, fortunately as it is a new PC I knew the highest com port already allocated. 

I don't have a device at home that uses a virtual COM port so I can't give precise instructions on how to do this but you start by right clicking on windows start, select device manage, select COM Ports (the devices have to be connected to see them), then the one you want to change, then look for something along the lines of "settings" where there will be an "advanced option" where you can change the port number, it will give an error message that the port is in use, ignore this as it is the first COM3. Then reboot, selecting scan for hardware changes might work but I would want to reboot to check that the fix had taken so there is not much point.

Garmin drives and security settings:

The Garmin drivers for virtual Com Ports for AIS and GND units are not compatible with a particular security feature of Windows 11 (these drivers are also implicated in the COM port issue but they are the latest available), the error message gives the necessary info to turn this off (it may be an option I opted into that defaults off but I can't be certain, the PC is not that new).

Winter work - November & December

14th November: 

All work is on hold at the moment and has been since shortly after my last visit 6 weeks ago, first bad weather with humidity over 80% - too high for painting, then my wife's fall alarm stopped working and it took a fortnight to get a working new one, then I badly hurt my back and it is still not fixed, hopefully next week I can get down to at least do the work necessary before relaunch in four weeks time.

Tuesday 26th November:

Still with back problems but I went to the boat today, primarily to take down the antifoul etc. so that I could have the work done for me if necessary. 

Wednesday 27th November:

The paintwork it not as good as my last effort,
in cool weather the new Toplac+ definitely
needs thinning as you can't brush it out enough
 to avoid curtains. Also, in my view it needs
"tipping"/Laying off so when single handed you
 may as well use a brush as I did on the port side,
 the starboard, done in warmer weather with
 a roller is OK but I'd have done it better
with a brush.

It is necessary, I managed to get the second coat of paint on the port side which I could just about do standing up on a walkway but decided that the antifoul would be too much for my back, also I currently need a soft bed to sleep on or my back gets worse.

I also got the Blakes Seacocks back together after cleaning the removable parts at home. And I fitted the new aluminium prop anode, aluminium to help with the Brackish water in the marina, I now have one of each. So in a worst case she could go back in the water as she is to avoid charges for storage (she is currently in the "free" 10 weeks ashore I get with the marina berth). However with less than three weeks to go I have placed a work order with Windjammer Marine for them to:

• Put 2 further coats of anti foul to the hull and shaft.
• Fill irregular depressions along boot line - most identified with primer and most on port side. These were the result of my problems with weed getting into the Awgrip above the boot line during lockdown when the boat was unattended and heeled most of the time in the current. I had hoped that repeated applications of antifoul would hide them but they haven't.
• Put 3 or if necessary 4 coats of white to the boot line.

With the time lost I'll have to abandon some cosmetic interior painting which I probably can't do whilst sleeping on the boat but she can go back in on December 15th and I can start putting things back together after the big varnishing effort. Hopefully before launch I'll have time for a few jobs:

• Repack the stern gland, tightening would almost certainly be fine but it has been a while so some new cord would be good.
• A fresh coat of silicone on the propellor.
• Refit the cable locker clam shell drain guards.
• Refit the SeaFeather servo blade now revarnished, I would rather do that just before sailing but that would mean putting the dinghy in the water which, now I am on a berth, is safe and dry in it's bag and will stay there until needed, probably somewhere in Scotland next spring.

Tuesday 3rd December

Windjammer have put 2 coats of antifoul onto the hull and hopefully today filled and faired the boot line for a coat or two of anti-fouling tomorrow.

A nice job on the anti-foul and the boot line looks a lot better smooth!

They queried the launch date as being a Sunday and on checking there looks to have been a typo on the email sent to me, launch is now on Monday 16th, first in (starting?) at 08:30. I'll be travelling down on the Sunday, the hotel room is down to £54, in early October I could not get one for less than £180! If my back is up to it and the weather not too bad I'll then stay down on the boat for a night or three to start the next phase of work.

Video of  the move to launch in another post.

Day trips to the boat to carry out maintenance are no longer an option and to reduce the number of long car trips I'll likely be staying on the boat for several days at a time in the early part of next year so, as it is almost Christmas, I have bought myself a present - a "meter maid" electricity meter (not required at Deacon's or Hasler where I previously berthed as they have meters built into their systems) so I can go onto power and run an electric fire and / or the diesel heater and stay toasty warm without worrying about batteries if it is overcast and windless as it frequently is at Milford in winter, at least when it is not blowing a gale.

27th - 30th December.

With reasonable weather forecast and early January not looking good I took the opportunity to get down to the boat to finish off some jobs and in particular to drain the engine down in case of severe cold, I don't normally as salt water freezes at a couple of degrees colder than fresh and it is normally moving but with few movements through the lock and lots of fresh water coming down the Pill, water in Milford Dock does not move much and the surface is brackish and the top few inches potentially almost fresh so better safe than sorry.

I achieved most of what I set out to do although one smallish job had to be put off and another took longer when my electric drill seized up 😡. There are a few jobs left to do before I start rerigging to go sailing but nothing major apart from cleaning so I don't have to go again until March, although the dehumidifiers will probably be full sometime in February so I might start the pre season clean down in late February rather than in March, if there is a dry spell and its not cold.

Completed on this trip:

• USB hub work completed, not without some aggravation as described in my post Installing a powered USB hub and why.
• Electrical work referred to in a previous post completed, pics below.
• All joinery removed for varnishing reinstalled.
• Painting of the Heads and hanging locker almost complete, an additional coat in a small area would be good, as would some Damboline in the small storage area below the locker and the area around the Heads sea cocks, but I can live without if time presses to go sailing.
• Engine drained of water, anodes checked - still no significant erosion after 5 or 6 years in place, and the water pump impeller replaced.
• Warps and sails apart from the genoa are back on board so only one delivery trip will be required for hardware before refitting the running rigging and a final one to load the dinghy, outboard, cloths etc..

The electrical panel with a few additional fuses and the power switch for
the hub and fast USB charger, also a new securing batten to the left. The
securing screw will be replaced with a coach bolt and wing nut when
I am on board with a serviceable electric drill.

The back of the electrical panel, I would prefer it a bit neater
but there have been a lot of changes over the years and running
new wires as things move is not always practical. Lots of fuses
arranged in a hierarchy means that any wiring fault will take out
the minimum number of services.

Click here for launch day. A long wait now with not a lot to do until just before the new season starts.

Winter work - October 2nd Visit.

I managed quite a lot of work in about 21 very full hours over three days (plus 9 hours travelling), the weather was good enough to stay another day but I had had enough, I was out of blue gloss paint and a load of logs delivered at home needed putting away before rain on Sunday night; which were good excuses.

• Paint and filler on the forward few inches of the keel hull join that was blasted off during cleaning in March replaced: Fertan, primer, epoxy filler, grind, primer.
• 1st coat of anti-foul below boot line applied.
• A replacement rope / weed cutter belatedly installed after all of the problems this year with weed and plastic bags around the shaft and prop.
• Two coats of gloss applied to the starboard side of the hull and one on the port side after finishing the prep work - about 1.5 sides not done on my last visit. Painted largely with a roller without laying off / "tipping" as per the instructions, quick but I may revert to a brush which I think gives a better finish with less chance of "curtains" below the top of hull profile and avoiding changing from roller to brush to paint the profile with the previously applied paint already drying, or dried.
• The engine box front, drawer surround, steps and the after part of the cabin sole replaced after varnishing at home with a new hidden fixing piece of timber replacing a damaged piece. A few brass and stainless screws replaced with bronze so they all match with those already in place. The attached fire extinguisher and mount was replaced with a new.
• Movable parts of the heads Blakes seacocks removed and taken home for cleaning / polishing (done), fixed parts yet to be done.
• Fuel tank filled (fuelling is not allowed in the marina except at the fuel berth or I would have done this sooner) and extra fuel treatment added for the winter to hopefully prevent "diesel bug".

My 1976 Seagull 40+ at  Swanage in 2017.
The same age as the boat.

One 3 or 4 night visit should have all the work required before re-launch on Dec 15th completed, the bilge cleaned and some odd painting jobs done topside that are not allowed in the marina.

At home some repairs have been made to the dinghy, it's transom painted and most of the varnishing of pieces removed from the boat completed. Otherwise only servicing the outboard, cleaning and re-lacquering of the barometer and the standby marine clock are outstanding. 

As an aside now that Sancerre is in a marina and I don't need to keep going out to a mooring, I am considering reverting to the old, lighter, now repaired, 2 stroke Seagull outboard rather than cart around the 4 stroke motor that is about 50% heavier. 

Away from the mooring the outboard was only used it twice in 2024 on the Truro river to Malpas and Truro, at other locations it was easier to row ashore rather than rig the derrick and put the motor on the dinghy.

If it were not so noisy, smelly and had a clutch it would be a done deal.

7th November: I had the Seagull out this morning, not run since I fixed it in May 2019, new fuel, new spark plug - probably unnecessary but I had one to hand - and it started first pull. Now have to track down the air intake cover that has gone AWOL.

Click here for work done, and not done due to various factors, during November and December.

Winter work - October 1st Visit.

Tuesday 1st October

Down to the boat today to start the serious winter work; but the weather is not helping, it should be OK through Friday when the the boat comes out, then the forecast is for rain pretty much continuously until the middle of the month so instead of staying through the weekend to start work on antifouling, painting etc., I am now planning to return on Friday or Saturday so there will not be much progress on the paint work.

2nd /  3rd October

Work Done:

• 800 hour engine service (except the water impeller that will be done in March), including replacing both replacement of fuel filters, both of which are a pain to do. But glad that I did as I clearly picked up some iffy fuel at some point as both were dirtier than I normally see.
• More painting in the area of the heads and hanging locker.
• A lot of the pieces varnished at home refitted.
• Anchor locker, chain etc. hosed down ready for some painting.
• Started work cleaning the bilge but did not do much due to the difficulty of getting rid of the waste when at the end of a pontoon.
• Removed more items for varnishing at home including the table which also requires a minor repair, engine box, companion way steps and the floor section below.

Spurred on by my work last time I replaced most of the in-line 
fuses with blade fuses that are easier to identify & replace. When
I have a few spare hours the in-line AIS fuse will be replaced
by the spare panel fuse and the NMEA backbone & Engine DVSR
override fuses will be replaced with blade fuses. and individual
blade fuses will be put in for the interior lighting and power sockets.
The remaining few in-line fuses would require a lot of work to replace,
so will be left as they are..

Update 17th December:

Upgrade to fusing complete. Some work on the USB hub
remains, hence lack of cable ties top left.

Friday 4th October

I woke up very early to the sound of a strong wind that would make getting off of the berth and into the hoist tricky as the wind would be blowing me into both.

At 08:30 there was a bit of a lull and the hoist was on route to the slip with a boat to be launched so I called in to say I wanted to move out during the next lull in the wind, "pierhead" were fine with that and just then the owner of a nearby boat who lives aboard appeared on route to the showers so I asked him to give a hand with my lines so I did not have to worry about being pushed forward onto the pontoon and I was away without any drama to hang around in the main dock until they were ready to lift me 15 minutes later.

Getting into the hoist and stopping was
not easy with a strong tail wind, the engine was
running astern for the last 50 yards or more
and that does not help the steering.

Turning out of the slip area onto the road.

The boat yard is about 100 yards past past the hotel. A small queue
built up both ways, it was just after 9 o'clock, earlier might have
been worse.

Past the hotel and almost there.

Blocked off waiting for the power wash - the dock has little flow
though it so boats are washed in the yard when practical.

Cleaner than I thought she would be but the hammering I took
off the Lizard probably knocked a lot off and the Mullet had
been grazing - you can see their tracks on the keel.

I was very pleased with the state of the propeller, this after I
had removed the remains of a plastic bag wrapped around it 😡
and gave it a gentle wipe to remove some growth.

With all the agro I have had this year with weed etc. on the prop
and / or shaft I will be fitting a replacement rope cutter this winter
that will hopefully remove most of it.

The cutlass bearing is just fine (having the propeller rebalanced
has clearly sorted previous quick wear of the bearing) so one or
more fewer jobs to do, no need to remove the propeller or do
anything more than putting on a coat of the silicone left over
from the last pack. 

One anode has gone AWOL, fortunately no damage to the hull.

Looking better after her wash, some Fertan applied at the hull
keel join, some of the antifoul and filler had come off when
I power washed her in March but after clearing the surrounding
area I found not a lot will need to be done, prime, some filling
and prime again before anti fouling.

Almost 5 hours to get home but I was lucky, 2 closures of the M4 ahead of me when I left had cleared by the time I got there and another partial closure happened behind me; but, as is frequently the case traffic on a Friday can be a real pain but I was home by 20:00. 

Of course the forecast was wrong and I could have stayed down and got in a day or so's more work in reasonable conditions, but it is probably for the best I came home as, climbing onto the staging for the first time to do some sanding, I had reached out to steady myself and pulled something in my back and it is still causing me problems doing lighter work at home. 

Varnishing at home, Batch 7, coat 1. I need this and the next batch
 done quickly so I can have steps into the boat on the next visit,
and both are likely to need 2 coats.

The companion way steps with new anti-slip
strips, a shame to have to cover up the wood.

The saloon table quite possibly getting its first coat of
varnish on the underside in almost 50 years. It is the
first time I have had the table home or it would have
been done before.

Except for the tiller and self steering servo blade, the last of the
varnishing to be done at home, just a few bits of varnishing left
to done on the boat.

I'm now waiting for 3 or 4 dry days on the trot, reasonably warm and preferably with light winds to go down to paint the hull. It could be a while, the Beeb suggest w/c the 14th might be dry but possibly with very strong winds at times (winds going from 18 to 40 knots for one hour 10 days out does not look that convincing). I'll not hold my breath.

Click here for the next visit.