Bestevaer 49ST

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by malbert73

Is that a thrust bearing for the prop shaft aft of engine? I think that means the engine doesn't take thrust and hence a CV type joint can be used for better vibration insulation? Did the transmission have to be specified with a different bearing?

Originally Posted by Sailmonkey

When you install a python drive or similar the engine gearbox remains unchanged.....it's just no longer required to absorb thrust from propulsion.

Yes there was an Aquadrive in the process of being fitted when the photo was taken. This is basically a marine CV joint.

The advantage is the thrust of the engine is not transmitted to the hull via engine mounts. Engine noise and vibration are reduced and there are no concerns about engine misaligment. The gearbox, dripless seal and cutlass bearing all have an easier time. The gearbox is unchanged.

[Juho]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

I'm also starting to make the preserves for next season (chutney, jam, raspberry vinegar, lemon extract, harissa etc).

Do you have all the storage space (fridge, bilge, cellar) to store all that for the whole year while cruising? I'm also conserving stuff right now, but mainly for the home base .

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by Juho

You have also your pilot house. In our experience that means that there is usually no need to stay in cold rain for any long periods. We use boots mostly for our outdoor activities, e.g. in the islands. The first problem with cold is having to put the heater on in the late autumn at some point.

I am so looking forward to that . We recently sailed to Amsterdam on another Bestevaer and retreating to the pilothouse once the sun had set on passage was just brilliant.
I am rethinking wet weather gear. I have a Musto HPX that has delaminated after about 8 years of use and I need to replace it. A warm middle layer (someone suggested down) plus a thin Goretex shell (climbing store rather than marine) may be the best solution now. What are your recommendations?

Originally Posted by Juho

Do you have all the storage space (fridge, bilge, cellar) to store all that for the whole year while cruising? I'm also conserving stuff right now, but mainly for the home base .

No fridge space, but plenty of storage otherwise. We should be able to carry all our long life supplies for at least 3-6 months (a year when it comes to home made preserves), as we did on our old boat. We have always preferred isolated anchorages and supplies have often needed to be carried long distances via back pack, so it is good to minimise the need for this.

SWL

[Juho]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

I am so looking forward to that . We recently sailed to Amsterdam on another Bestevaer and retreating to the pilothouse once the sun had set on passage was just brilliant.
I am rethinking wet weather gear. I have a Musto HPX that has delaminated after about 8 years of use and I need to replace it. A warm middle layer (someone suggested down) plus a thin Goretex shell (climbing store rather than marine) may be the best solution now. What are your recommendations?

We are actually quite under-equipped . We don't have much sailing specific clothing. Just some old regular raincoats and trousers, and pullovers etc. Sailing specific clothing would be even better for some situations, but so far we have been happy with regular cool weather clothing. The pilot house has actually a lot to do with this (and autopilot too). If I had to steer several hours in rain, in close to freezing temperatures, I would definitely seek for the best pro sailing gear. But in the pilot house even a T-shirt is enough if you switch heating on. If it is cold and there's no rain, I usually stay outside, with some warm clothes, sometimes behind the sprayhood to avoid wind and spray. I do recommend best possible gear though, although it may not be a mandatory requirement .

[noelex 77]

I had a great time today hooking up all the new toys important instruments in the workshop at home. We are fitting most of the navigation instruments ourselves, although KM are installing the equipment that needs engineering such as the autopilot drive and radar dome.

I have fitted instruments to several yachts and enjoy the work. It is also much easier to troubleshoot when you have put the system together personally.

KM have been very accommodating. A boat like this takes a long time to build, but part of the pleasure is regular visits that allow us to see the details unfold and plan things such as where instruments will be installed.

We sometimes just sit with a beer in the half finished pilot house and imagine the adventures to come

The proper installation should be a bit neater than this .

[JPA Cate]

Wow, the excitement is really building, isn't it! Good on youse guys!

SWL: within the last couple of months, El Pinguino, Snow Petrel, and Nigel1 got in a discussion about what gear works best to keep them warm. It might be worth a search to acquaint yourself. People vary a lot in how well they cold acclimatize. As a side note, the nicest piece of foul wx gear I've ever seen was a rain jacket a friend bought in Sweden. Waterproof, and light and a beautiful "hand".

Ann

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by JPA Cate

Wow, the excitement is really building, isn't it! Good on youse guys!

SWL: within the last couple of months, El Pinguino, Snow Petrel, and Nigel1 got in a discussion about what gear works best to keep them warm. It might be worth a search to acquaint yourself. People vary a lot in how well they cold acclimatize. As a side note, the nicest piece of foul wx gear I've ever seen was a rain jacket a friend bought in Sweden. Waterproof, and light and a beautiful "hand".

Ann

Thanks Ann. I haven't been online much lately and missed that thread.

I have found the NZ blend of possum/merino excellent in cold conditions for socks, gloves and hat. Either silk or very fine merino is good as the first layer. What I am completely rethinking now is the need for a good sailing jacket (an expensive purchase). With the pilothouse bad conditions I may just be nipping out briefly for sail adjustment.

I will go hunt up the recent thread and see what was discussed.

SWL

[Panope]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

........With the pilothouse bad conditions I WILL just be nipping out briefly for sail adjustment.........


SWL

Fixed that for you, SWL

Steve

[Eleuthera 2014]

Hello SWL,

I have a dodger with Bimini and side curtains. Sailed 9000nm in 2 years and never needed wet gear. Your pilot house will be a dream and cost of foul gear will go down. Trust me... :-)

[Pyxis156]

Originally Posted by noelex 77

I had a great time today hooking up all the new toys important instruments in the workshop at home. We are fitting most of the navigation instruments ourselves, although KM are installing the equipment that needs engineering such as the autopilot drive and radar dome.

I have fitted instruments to several yachts and enjoy the work. It is also much easier to troubleshoot when you have put the system together personally.

KM have been very accommodating. A boat like this takes a long time to build, but part of the pleasure is regular visits that allow us to see the details unfold and plan things such as where instruments will be installed.

We sometimes just sit with a beer in the half finished pilot house and imagine the adventures to come

The proper installation should be a bit neater than this .

Noelex,

I recently did a complete refit of our boat instruments from Furuno with a mix of NMEA 0183 and 2000 to a large B&G / Maretron / Offshore Systems setup that is all NMEA 2000. Two thoughts that may help as you undertake your install...

1) Maretron's N2K builder software is free and was very helpful to design and document the N2K network. It will automatically confirm you meet termination, voltage and branch length restrictions. It is geared towards Maretron's equipment, but you can easily add "generic" items to accurately represent your non-Maretron equipment on the network.

2) While not cheap, Maretron's N2K Meter proved invaluable for troubleshooting and tracking down intermittent N2K "gremlins". For example, we had one branch with instruments that would occasionally drop off. We tested all the cables individually, but the problem turned out to be a multi-port (non-Maretron) that must have had a poor connection internally and its impedance was out of spec. Would never have suspected a new connector with that problem, but it was fairly easy (if time consuming) to track down with the right tool.

Good luck with the new install and have fun! It is immensely gratifying to know you did the install yourself... and it will pay off in spades if/when you need to do any troubleshooting.

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by Pyxis156

Good luck with the new install and have fun!

Thanks for the tips.

My previous electronic installations have been NMEA 0183 or a mixture of NMEA 0183 and NMEA 2000.

The new installation is likely to be pure NMEA 2000. It seems easy by comparison, although a completely new install is always simpler than trying to marry old and new equipment.

I will do a review (or more correctly first impressions) of some of the instruments

[noelex 77]

Thrane LT1000 GPS compass:

This is an interesting product. Until recently GPS compasses have been very expensive and only used on larger ships. Lately they have come down in price and there have been a number released, mainly by Simrad.

A conventional GPS cannot provide any heading information, only COG. In other words the GPS does not know which way the bow is pointing, only the direction in which it is moving. A GPS compass uses two GPS units and from this information can deduce direction. This is combined with a number of gyros and a conventional fluxgate compass to smooth the output and provide a back up if the GPS signal is lost, for example inside a tunnel.

The technology has the potential to provide better heading information than the best 3D gyro compasses. The primary advantage is that accurate heading information helps the autopilot steer more accurately, but it also has benefits synchronising a radar/chart/AIS overlay and gives improved accuracy for MARPA.

A secondary benefit is they tend to produce a more accurate position output, so for example SOG is stable.

The Thrane unit also has a number of other outputs that are useful. These include the heel angle, trim angle (the amount the bow or stern is pitching), rate of turn, barometric pressure and air temperature. It sends this information out simultaneously on NMEA 0183 and NMEA 2000. Some GPS units that transmit NMEA 0183 and NMEA 2000 force you to select one or the other.

So far I have only mounted the unit in my workshop, so a full report will have to wait until the boat is launched. Installation is easy. The unit can even be switched to include a termination resistor if you want to have it on the end of a backbone. The only difficulty is that to work well it needs to be mounted with a reasonably clear view of the sky and free from multi path distortion. On the plus side, there is less concern with magnetic fields such as from electric wires, providing these are kept a reasonable distance away.

Some parameters can only be adjusted via PC, but there is no need to do this if the compass is mounted level and in line.

The initial impression is very favorable. It responds very rapidly to any heading change and the readout is completely stable if the heading is unchanged. The heading information is slightly changed when there is nearby magnetic field. Much less than a traditional electronic compass, indicating it is primarily using the GPS signal, but obviously integrating a flugate compass together with the gyro into the heading output.

One negative is that the temperature reading is accurate, but the unit slightly heats up, so the temperature is a couple of degrees above the actual air temperature. This would be less with some airflow, but the compass is likely to heat up from sunlight. An offset to the temperature is possible but accuracy is likely to be poor.

The unit is reasonably small for a GPS compass: only 151 mm (about 6 inches) long. This makes it far more practical to mount on a yacht, but it reduces the separation of the GPS units. This will have some effect on the performance and it will be interesting to see how good the heading information is in practice. On the plus side, the compass has more sophisticated GPS units and gyros than the opposition. The claimed heading specifications are more accurate than the equivalent Simrad unit, but it is hard to compare numbers from different manufacturers.

If nothing else, the Thrane unit should provide very accurate 10hz 72-ch. GNSS and GLONASS GPS unit together with useful outputs like the angle of heel and air pressure. It is about 2.5 -3x more expensive than a good quality conventional GPS. Not cheap, but arguably worthwhile for these features alone, even ignoring the heading information.

[Sailor g]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

Not an exact date, but most likely November .



I am flat out here working on a heap of projects - finishing cockpit seat cushions, splicing mooring ropes, sorting out the series drogue (I will probably buy the cones and attach these to tapered lengths of the line myself). I'm also starting to make the preserves for next season (chutney, jam, raspberry vinegar, lemon extract, harissa etc).



Lots of items need to be ordered from all over Europe and these take time to research and source. The next to arrive will be the under bed ventilation layer. Most of the instruments have now been delivered and these have been wired up at home so we can have a play with them.



Excitement is simmering along with the pots on the stove .



SWL

Wow! You have quite the wide array of jobs! As you get closer, I'm sure, the excitement helps get you going! November is so close!

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by Sailor g

Wow! You have quite the wide array of jobs! As you get closer, I'm sure, the excitement helps get you going! November is so close!

Things are progressing rapidly now. Last bits of wiring are being completed. A few days ago we met on board with the uphosterer (Yvette from HJF de Koning in Grou) to finalise the last little details. The timber has received 2 of 3 coats of oil.

The packages make it feel like Christmas did as a kid . Today's arrival was the under bed ventilation from SVB.

SWL

[Pelagic]

Great to catch up on your progress...

..probably discussed before, but I missed it
..Have you chosen a Name yet?