Giles and Paula's Great Retirement Adventure
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Read about AIS here, but basically, I would not go to sea without it, it is great for viewing which vessels are around, it integrates with charts and radar as overlays and you can set various proximity alarms, it increases our situational awareness exponentially, especially in the dark.
Our system could see other AIS targets, but not transmit until we got it fixed a couple of days ago, which meant we were "dark", something Russian oligarchs find useful, but I found scary - not good especially in a plastic boat with a low profile that radar struggles to see.
Our AIS unit is this one.
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Yikes.
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I started a FB page a while ago. Mostly I post the same shit there as I do here, but if you want to follow us there too. Here it is:
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And, as I just posted on FB:
The fuel pump on the port engine is bust. It was analysed as thus on Thursday, the Volvo Penta guys here, got a new one expressed shipped to them and it arrived Friday morning. Spirits onboard were massively uplifted, but then it turned out that the pump was for the previous iteration of our engine and thus would not work
Another new pump is arriving Monday (we hope), and once fitted we should actually be able to get on our way. If you have been tracking us at https://www.vesselfinder.com/pro/map... , you may have seen us move today. We popped over to Gibraltar, on the starboard engine only, to buy diesel, it's tax-free in Gibraltar and because we are 18 meters or over, we qualified for duty-free fuel into the bargain. Paid 92p per litre instead of the £1.45 we paid in Ibiza -
@Giles yeez G that’s pretty f*ckes up.. hope the new one arrives and you can by speedy G again! How’s the trip so far? Enjoy and have a nice weekend
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6 days longer than we planned to be in La Linea, is a bit of a pisser.
SAKURA is easy to handle, is very nimble and does not mind a big wave, she is a joy drive. On the way over to refuel in Gibraltar today, I did some speed turns and 360's in her own length using the thrusters, it was great fun.
Once we had parked at the fuel berth, the pump man complimented me on my accuracy and speed of parking, I was chuffed to bits. Paula drove home and did a really great stern to moor in the marina at La Linea....
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@Giles at the risk of sounding daft, how does one go about getting the replacement parts/equipment delivered to a boat? Is this something that the providers of such items provide? Is it a bit like a mobile repairer/servicer? Is this something that a tracking like the ASI system can be used for, an automatically updated nautical address?
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The pump failed on the way into Gibraltar. Because we have 2 engines, we still had propulsion and we berthed OK. So we are at a marina at a berth with an address "berth 1410", so the Volvo Penta guys we got in touch with (needless to say, we are under warranty) knew exactly where to come.
Had we been at sea and lost propulsion we would have used the VHF to call a Mayday or a Panpan, depending upon how at risk we were. In both cases, we would have been taken to a safe place and moored up. And yes, AIS would probably have been used by the rescuer to find us...
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What a mess
hope you get the spare parts needed soon and continue the journey
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@Giles love that Spanish flag
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Great view! We go to Tarifa regularly to kitesurf as the wind there is fabtastic. I took my other half scuba diving off the side of the island with the lighthouse in the photograph one year and nearly lost her in some wild currents!! She hasn’t been underwater since….
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bon voyage...
