David’s Voyage Blog

Publish Date: Monday, November 2, 2009
I’m still on my own here in Beaufort, South Carolina. As I expected, the bachelor life gets old pretty quickly. The girls come home from Boulder this Thursday, and it will be nice to have them back aboard.

I completed two big projects over the last few days. The first was the installation of a pair of fans in our master stateroom. This stateroom is amidships, so it has limited ventilation compared to Ayla’s forward stateroom. The key is to get the air moving around, which will be very helpful on still, tropical nights. I installed the fans right over our heads, near the portholes. Theoretically this should allow us to pull fresh (cooler?) air in through the portholes and blow it around the room. In the most stifling conditions we can even adjust the fans to point directly on our heads if we want to. (I hope you appreciate the photograph — I had to make the bed for the first time since Kathryn left to make the stateroom look nice!)

I’m pretty happy with the fans we chose. They’re a little noisier than I would like, but I suppose they will provide white-noise to drown out the revelers in the anchorage. I really like their simplicity (no housing), and they really move the air around! With both of them going I can create quite a vortex in the room — just what I was hoping for.

The second project was to install a new anchor/steaming light. As I described in a previous blog, our old light has given me problems ever since we owned the boat. My goals for this project were to (a.) separate the anchor light from the steaming light, (b.) upgrade to a more industrial-strength fixture (with bulbs to match), and (c.) install an LED anchor light bulb to save power while at anchor.

The first step was to buy the fixture: I chose on an Aqua Signal Series 40 Combination Anchor and Steaming Light. I’m really happy with it so far — it feels like the BMW of navigation lights (it is a German company, after all). Once I had the fixture in hand I had to engineer the mounting. This particular fixture is intended to be mounted on a flat surface, which we don’t have up at the top of our stack. Using a combination of components I created a pedestal on a mast, and mounted it using a standard ratcheting antenna mount. My first solution used a white nylon mounting bracket, but that bracket proved to be too flimsy, so I upgraded to the stainless steel bracket you see in the photo. I’m really happy with how this turned out.

The last step was to select an LED anchor light bulb. After surfing the Internet for a long time, reading numerous reviews, and using some common sense, I found what I was looking for. Bebi Electronics is a small company based in Fiji, run by a couple of experienced cruisers (sailors), and it provides employment to the local islanders. Their LED lights are very serious, and I’m very happy with the product so far. I was able to install their LED fixture right inside the Aqua Signal housing instead of using the standard bulb. It’s brighter than our old anchor light, and it uses almost no power — I can’t even detect it on our amp meter. This is VERY cool!

One nice side-effect of this project was that I was able to simplify the anchor and steaming light circuit. The old fixture used the same light on the forward side of the fixture for both anchor and steaming. When the anchor light was turned on, a second light on the back of the fixture was illuminated to complete the 360 degree anchor light. But this arrangement meant that there had to be some fancy electronic circuitry to allow different switches to turn on the forward half of the fixture. Because my new solution completely separated the anchor and steaming lights, I was able to remove this inline circuitry. I love it when you can simplify things and make them better at the same time.

So that’s what I’ve been up to for the last couple of days. I still have a few smaller projects lined up, but I should have the tool box back in the lazarette by the time Kathryn and Ayla get home. And then it’s time to get cruising again!