Ramblings
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A Sailing Holiday – Arklow to Rosslare
The original intent of this leg was Arklow to Kilmore Quay, but the forecast wind didn’t go as far into the west as expected, and the sea running up the coast was not pleasant. We left Arklow around 10 am, aiming to catch the south-bound tide from Dublin, shooting ourselves around the corner. Unfortunately, the…
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A Sailing Holiday – Arklow
We spent several days in Arklow, weather-constrained. It’s a small town, with a very busy shopping centre (at least on rainy days). The Kynoch’s walk (archive) is quite nice – starts at the shopping centre, goes past the marina, and then goes north along the sea wall, through some bushes/trees (with fairy doors), and back…
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A Sailing Holiday – Dun Laoghaire to Arklow
The planned holiday this year was for K and I to take Blue Opal to Ireland’s south coast. Initial passage planning had us going Dun Laoghaire, Greystones, Arklow, Kilmore Quay, and day-hopping west along the coast. After asking around about cruising the coast, the plan changed to Greystones, Arklow, Kilmore Quay, and then push for…
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Making a cockpit table
A tale of measure twice, if not thrice, yet also cut thrice… Blue Opal does not have a cockpit table, but she does have a Cobra compass binnacle setup, and it’s more than sturdy enough to play host to a cockpit table. SVB and the like all have teak tables costing several hundred Euro, so…
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Maintenance round-up
I’m finally going to get Blue Opal out of Dublin Bay and the surrounds later this year, so it’s time to finish up a bunch of jobs. The sanitation hose from the toilet to the diverter valve has been replaced. The new hose (HT Sanipomp Extra) has a “vanilla scent”. It’s better than the smell…
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Refurbishing the wind transducer
Ever since I bought Blue Opal, the wind transducer has been a bit finicky. It had problems indicating low wind speeds, and would sometimes just stop spinning. I kind of ignored it, because I don’t need to know the wind speed most of the time – I just look at the water, the state of…