Posts Tagged “Seamanship”
When we go to sea in Dirona there are usually only two people on the boat. That means automation and reliability are super important to us, and we want early warning of problems or unusual conditions. Maretron N2kView is a good-value display system that has worked very well for us and allowed us to incrementally expand what…
PassageMaker Magazine Jan/Feb, 2016: A globetrotting Nordhavn 52, Dirona, offers a case study in range & consumption planning for long-range cruising.
Oil changes at sea get pretty close to a universal response from boaters I know. Everyone says loudly “DON’T DO IT.” The risk of something going wrong when hundreds, if not a thousand miles, from shore is simply too high. And, with oil change intervals ranging between 250 and 375 hours, there typically is no…
We currently are underway on a 3,650nm non-stop run from St. Helena to Barbados. Prior to this passage, our longest non-stop run without fueling was 3,023nm from Dampier, Australia to Rodrigues, Mauritius. The current 3,650nm passage is at the very limit of Dirona’s range and we are, naturally, monitoring fuel economy closely to ensure we…
Almost everyone has had a brush with disaster. Some are really big events like being standby and not making an airplane flight that crashes, or missing a bus that ends up being in a serious accident. Some are more minor like a near-miss when driving. But, whatever the cause, nothing catches your attention like “almost”…
Our NavNet 3D black box failed as we neared Reunion. After some debugging, we determined we needed a replacement Elsa Gladiac 776 GS graphics card, last produced in 2006. We’d first gone to Le Port computer store Plug n Play in an attempt to buy a low-voltage relay for another project. It turns out Plug…
Our NavNet 3D black box began showing screen anomalies the night before we arrived in Reunion and blue-screened as we neared the dock, reporting an nv4_disp device driver problem. This is an Nvidia device driver–almost certainly we have a hardware problem. NavNet 3D is a Windows XP Embedded device, so we don’t have direct access…
You never know your boat’s real range until you start to make substantial ocean passages. Theoretical range in flat water with no current and little wind can be surprisingly optimistic so we probe the bounds conservatively. The 3,023 nm Indian Ocean crossing from Dampier, Australia to Rodrigues, Mauritius is the furthest we have ever gone…
Electronic charts are the future of modern marine navigation in both the commercial and recreational worlds. Some view this as a big step forward and argue that modern electronic systems can do a far better job of presenting all forms of data for the area being traversed. Electronic charts can show AIS targets, RADAR ARPA…
We bought an ocean-capable boat not because we were convinced we would round the world, but because we wanted the flexibility to be able to go anywhere in the world if we wanted to. We bought a strong boat not because we were convinced we needed to test it, but because we wanted a boat…
Most autopilots have NAV mode, which essentially asks the pilot to steer to a plotted route rather than just in a specific direction. It’s particularly useful in cross-currents and strong winds, or when travelling longer distances. NAV mode has not worked on our system since day one, and now that we’re doing longer trips it…
I maintain a work-related blog mostly focused high-scale services, data center design and operations, server hardware design and optimization, high-scale storage software and hardware systems, flash memory, service design principles, power efficiency and power management at http://perspectives.mvdirona.com/. Because most of my work centers around making very high-scale services run well, run reliably, and run economically,…
We keep our boat ready to sail at all times, with drawers all latched and loose items stowed. When we’re heading out for the weekend, we just need to start the engines and go. Before we lived aboard at Bell Harbor Marina, we could arrive at our Elliott Bay Marina slip on a Friday night…
One of the reasons we made the offshore run from Seattle to Prince William Sound was to gain experience. A gale in the Gulf of Alaska wasn’t exactly the sort of experience we were hoping for. But we did learn that the boat, and our rough-water preparations, could take the conditions. The full log of…
Teakerne Arm Marine Park is a popular summer destination in the Desolation Sound area (map). The main attractions are Cassel Lake and the waterfall draining it that spills over a cliff into a basin at the inlet head. The park is even more spectacular in the winter, when two waterfalls gush from the lake, churning…
We moor most of the time at Bell Harbor Marina in downtown Seattle. About a third of the marina’s slips are available for monthly moorage over the winter, and the remainder are for transient moorage only. We enjoy the continually changing scene as boats come and go. Some weekdays the marina will be almost empty,…
On our Christmas trip to Desolation Sound this year, we were looking forward to testing the boat in some rough winter weather. We’ve been out in a few gale warnings, and the boat has handled well, but we wanted something more serious. We got our chance one morning on a trip from Gorge Harbor to…
Two weeks ago, while anchored off Blake Island, a Defender Class Coast Guard boat approached. Rare before 9/11, we now frequently see these boats around Elliott Bay, accompanying ferries, patrolling the shoreline, or passing through Bell Harbor Marina where we often keep our boat. This one approached unusually close, and the crew indicated that they…