Repairs & Upgrades Underway: Gibraltar
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| Great, we've made it in time for the Rugby finals! |
Passerelle/Gangplank. I don’t know if I’ve spelt it correctly but,
in effect, it’s a gang plank, walkway that you attach to the bow or stern of
the boat, depending on whether your boat is bow on or stern in to a jetty,
pontoon, etc. In Gibraltar everyone had
a plank except us so we had to climb over the pulpit and then step out boldly
to get onto the (fixed) jetty – not for the faint hearted. I made a passerelle out of an aluminium
ladder with a ply plank bolted to the rungs (plank sourced from a local wheely
bin). At one end, where it lay on the
jetty, I bolted a couple of wheels on (to allow for movement from swell, tide,
wakes made by various passing traffic).
It was a draw bridge arrangement so that the wheeled end was elevated
when not going ashore, which was most of the time. The boat end of the passerelle was attached,
with ropes, at right angles across a sturdy piece of timber that I had bolted
(with u bolts) to the base of the pulpit – it had to take the full weight of me
with groceries, etc. The ropes acted as
hinges allowing the plank to be raised and lowered quite easily. The jetty end of the plank also had a bridle
attached to it (separated a bit just over head height by a piece of plastic
conduit) and the top end of the bridle was attached to the end of the spinnaker
halyard. Pull on the spinnaker halyard
and the bridge rises – lower the halyard to let the wheeled end down on to the
jetty. To assist to make lowering and
raising easier I attached a jerrycan of water to the bottom end of the halyard
so that it became a one handed job to
raise and lower the plank. It works well
and the whole thing cost (ladder, wheels, bolts) about 80 GBP. Alternatively you can buy very nice folding
ones from a chandler for about 350 GBP.
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| Our new passerelle - works very nicely, thank you |
Television and
Movies. In Gibraltar, with time on
our hands, again due to my crook wrist, I purchased and installed a television
and DVD player. I also purchased an
extendable bracket to mount it on the bulkhead so that I can hold the screen
immobile against the wall while sailing but can also extend the screen and
rotate it when viewing it from the comfort of our saloon table while at anchor
etc. It was pretty simple really. Televisions generally only came in 240 volt
or 110 volt (which I needed). There was
a 12 volt car model available but it was expensive, and very small – ie the screen
was about the same size as an aircraft one that sits on the back of the seat in
front of you. For power I ran the power
cable to the nearest 110 volt power point.
The DVD player simply plugs into the TV, however, we never use it. We have been given a heap of movies on a
hard drive which I have installed in a plastic bag that simply hangs on the
back of the bulkhead mounting bracket.
All controls are done through the remote, which came with the TV. I don’t know why I didn’t do this a long time
ago.
We found, the hard way, that the screen can swing about in a
seaway so we put two SS saddles on either side of the mounting bracket, covered
the screen with a towel and use a bungee strap to hold the screen securely
against the bulkhead so it can’t leap around anymore.
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| Why have TV with views like this? |
Digital Weather
Station. In early days we purchased
and mounted a Plastimo brass barometer and a clock on the bulkhead – very
shippy and they look great. The
barometer has been a little disappointing for us, however, since it hardly
moves – it only shows major changes in pressure which is obviously better than
nothing but still limited when compared with other barometers I have used in
the past. We were impressed by the
results demonstrated by someone else who had a portable digital weather station
plus we had one at home and, after a quick check of Amazon, a new one – LA
CROSSE TECHNOLOGY – battery operated – arrived soon after purchase. It’s great – very accurate and shows pressure
variations constantly, plus a whole lot of other information. I still like the brass meters on the
bulkhead, however!!
Shelves in Port
Locker. In the port quarter guest
room, which we have converted to a storage room, there is a hanging locker that
wasn’t been used to hang anything, only for storing things. It was an inefficient use of space. I installed some shelves and now it holds
twice as much as before. Good idea
provided by the Galley Slave (GS) who took one of the shelves to expand her
galley holdings.
Solar Vent for
Compost Loo. After several years of
being on constantly, our solar vent exhaust fan/motor gave up. The battery is still okey but I couldn’t
source a spare motor. So, I am now using
the little computer exhaust fan that came with the compost loo wired into the
boat’s lighting circuit while still venting via the solar vent. I can unplug when I need to empty the compost
bin.
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| We had no trouble at all filling in time in Gib |
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