Bargain!

These relatively new top of the range Raymarine ST70 displays are different to traditional instruments as they can be configured to show the readout from any onboard sensor (wind/speed/depth etc) rather than the more conventional single purpose instrument approach.

Anyhow I bought one on eBay today. These things are normally around £450 each, but managed to get this one on ebay for £350 which is nearly 25% off online chandlery prices. Now I just need the rest of the system...  :|

Right now we've got ancient (1987) Silva Speed & Depth instruments, so we'll be looking for something like the above diagram as a minimum. 

Nervous about Baltic Mooring

In the Baltic they tend to moor bows-to against rocky shorelines. This goes against the natural instinct of attempting to avoid rocks where possible. I've not yet looked at any charts of the area, but I assume that there is a very sheer drop down to several metres of depth. I don't even know what scale of chart I'd need to see this level of detail - Luckily Katarina has dozens of charts on board that the previous owner accumulated over the years.

I looked on the YBW forum and found the following in response to a thread about Med mooring:

Re: Mediteranean Mooring with a Shoreline

Dont think it should be necessary to drop the anchor off the stern followed by switching the warps round. You can go in forwards by dropping the bow anchor, heading in forward not too fast, heading a boat length or less to one side of where you want to be, then helm hard over and snub bow anchor simultaneously to spin round in half a boat length or so. If choosing propwalk side, a blast in astern will make her spin on a sixpence. Then take out stern warp to shore by whatever means seem appropriate.

The Baltic way is even simpler if the shore is steep-to: drop a stern anchor, motor the bows in with a crewman standing on the bows looking for rocks. Motor bows right up to the shore and bowman steps ashore onto a rock with the long warp and ties it to a convenient tree. Then tighten stern anchor (I use a sheet winch on the warp to dig it in). Bob's your uncle. 

But I guess that's unfashionable in the Med.

End result looks like this :

Insurance

Navigator & General - £425
Pantaenius - £585

GJW - £650

Pantaenius also insisted in referring to me as Mr Geoff in all correspondance. Eitherway Nav & Gen won.

It's finally ours

We finally completed on the boat last week while we were Snowboarding in Val D'Isere - So it's ours now... Bit scary really. Above is from the web cam of Bullando Marina... I guess one of these boats is ours, but I can't figure out which....

Now there's a big list of things to take care of: Insurance, Sail drive work, new prop, Antifoul (bottom paint), etc. We're planning to launch her for the first time over a long weekend at Easter.

Boats of the London boatshow

We did the London Boatshow and wandered on and off many of the boats. 

Hallberg Rassy 372

Last year we were blown away by the 37 and the 43 MkII. However this year, we were totally underwhelmed by the new Hallberg-Rassy 372. There was something a little more mass-produced about it than the other Hallbergs I've been on - Just sort of lacking that special something. I understand that everything must be built to a cost, but these really aren't cheap boats. Put one of these next to a Malo 37 and I think it would look like the poor relation. I walked off feeling a little sad.

Southerly 38 & 42

Every time we go onboard the Southerlys, we have lower expectations than we perhaps aught to, but they always surprise us: Space, comfort, decent build quality. The 38 seemed like a lot of boat for the 38 feet (certainly a lot bigger than our Sweden 36). Becks really liked the 42 because (obviously) it was a bit more spacious.

There were some nice touches, like specifying more premium hardware like the alloy Spinlock jammers rather than more plasticky ones that prevail on many production boats. 

It's nice to see a British company producing such fresh and relevant products to today's marketplace. In an interview with Dick Durham of Yachting Monthly fame, they claim that they are struggling to fullfil orders (due to demand) and that there is a decent sized lead time for boats right now.

Bavaria 35

Launched at the show this year. Let me begin by saying that I'm not one of the Bavaria haters. They have their place and everyone I know that owns one loves them.

Initial impressions were that she was pretty enough for a budget average white boat. They don't seem to do a 2 cabin version of the new 35, just the 3 cabin version, which hints at a charter fleet life that lays ahead of it. One interesting innovation is an adjustable bulkhead between the aftcabins to switch between one large and one small or two equal ones to shift the boat between a 2 or 3 couple configuration.

She has a retractable swim platform, which I can see it being hugely successful in the Med charter scene (as long as it doesn't break).

I had quite high expectations of a return to the Bavaria 36 of a few years ago. Overall I think I had higher expectations than I should have, because it wasn't the budget crusader I was hoping it would be.

London Boatshow: SeaMe / Echomax Active-X

After reading the MAIB Report on the Ouzo tragedy and the uselessness of most radar reflectors, we'd pretty much decided that we wanted to buy a SeaMe active radar reflector for our new boat. We were shopping around for a good price at the boat show. The best we found at the show was £440 (Mailspeed Marine). 

When we spoke to the guys at TCS Chandlery we were told that they would not be stocking the SeaMe because EchoMax had a new product called the Active-X. It's not even on the Echomax website yet. Their position was that Echomax were so prevalent in the space that "we'll be seeing the slow demise of SeaMe over the next year or so". I'd like to hope this isn't the case because SeaMe clearly are innovators. I suspect that the MAIB report makes such a strong recommendation for SeaMe that they'll survive at least in the medium term. 

It's not yet clear if the Echomax product has an audible alarm like the SeaMe does. I see this as being a key feature as it would be an invaluable aid to short or single handed sailing.

We also saw another Active radar reflector product (sadly I didn't catch the name) that was designed to be hoisted up the mast . The chandler said "there's no mounting bracket yet, but it's very new".  

Looks like this space will start to get a little more competitive - which is often good for the consumer. We're going to hold off making a decision until next season.