The puffins are back!

Saw dozens of them when we were out this afternoon. Seriously cute wee characters.

The fruits of our labours

Though some would say (indeed have said) that it's a bit late in the season for this sort of thing, we wanted to show off a few of the jobs that have been recently completed.

1) New sails
Here's a shot of the main and genoa in action, taken this afternoon out on the Firth. They were made by Owen Sails, in Oban, and are rather magnificent.


2) Improved reefing system
Finally managed to mount up the clutch cleats for the reef lines - big improvement. They're mounted on tufnol pads, shaped to fit the curvature of the boom and riveted in position.




3) New instruments
The utterly superb Tacktick wireless instrumentation. As near as possible wireless. The anemometer unit at the masthead and the displays (pictured, below the compasses) are solar powered and wireless. The depth/speed/sea temperature triducer has to be hooked up to the 12V supply and the hull transmitter, which sends the information to the displays.


4) Transducer containment
Always a good idea but essential on a drying mooring is the removal of the through-hull transducer when not in use and its replacement with a blanking plug. Though the through-hull is fitted with a joker valve that stems the flow of water, there's no way to avoid getting some in at each swapover. To make the clearup easier, I decided to glass in a watertight box around the transducer. Not only does this eliminate the need to clear out the entire locker when pulling the transducer, it also protects the fitting from shifting locker contents during heavy weather.