Tag: Blue Opal
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Boat works 2025 – round 1
Blue Opal was scheduled to lift today at 10 am, so K and I came up the night before with bedding, replacement lithium battery (for the house bank), and a few other odds and ends. The drive up through Dublin was a right pain in the ass, with road works and long queues (due to…
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Boat works 2025 – prelude
Blue Opal was built in 1998, and has a Raymarine navigation electronics suite from that era. On our trip in 2021, I used an Android tablet (with OpenCPN and a few other bits) as a cockpit-based MFD-like tool for charts access etcetera. This didn’t work out too well, due to the power consumption of the…
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Responding to a Mayday Relay
The other Saturday, K and I decided to make the most of the warm weather in Ireland, and sailed to Killiney Bay, dropped the hook, and had lunch. As the tide turned, the movement became a bit uncomfortable, so engine on, anchor up, sails up, and we started heading back. Glorious wind and boat speed…
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Solar upgrade
As noted a while back, the solar panel I have on Blue Opal wasn’t working well with the Votronic MPPT solar charger. The panel I have is a 55 Wp panel, and the testing I did led me to the conclusion that it basically can’t put out enough voltage that the Votronic can buck down…
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Fuel senders
It turns out that Blue Opal has had an electronic fuel sender since I bought her, it’s just never been hooked up to anything that can display the signal. I’d noticed the wires going to the top of the fuel tank, but had concluded that they didn’t do anything useful. As it happens, this conclusion…
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Jammed single line reefing
The other day I discovered the single line reefing setup on Blue Opal had jammed in the reefed position; we were able to go sailing anyway, with the reef in, and it didn’t interfere with our sailing (other than reducing the sail power in the lighter airs that were present). I figured something had jammed…