Refit year 13 (2024-25)

 

13th refit and 6th winter in Marina Coruña, Spain

Sometimes I get the question why I keep returning to Marina Coruna Varadeo each year. After all, it's situated in the very far North-western corner of Spain, not far from Cape Finisterre, meaning the end of the world! 

 

The first reason is actually the location itself.

It's ideally placed for a variety of cruising areas.  First of all, you can easily sail north to the English Channel (3 days sail) or even further to Ireland and Scotland. If you don't wish to stretch it so much, there is the beautiful south coast of Bretagne just 2 nights away, where you can spend most of your summer.

Then, new to me, was exploring the north coast of Spain in 2024 - all the way to the French border in the Basque country close to the Pyrenees. It's like sailing in the mountains and the food is fantastic!

Sailing south following the Galician coast, you soon reach Portugal including the Algarve not too far away with excellent sailing - even during winter.

For the bigger adventures, the Atlantic islands Madeira and Azores are not that far away, so we will sail there in 2025 again. And for the shorter holiday your have the entire beauties of the Galician coast just to the south. For a short week-end cruise, you have the Rías around La Coruña just outside the marina pier.  

 

Orcas? Really no problem if you avoid them time-wise and follow their pattern, comply with some safety rules and then have some last-resort emergency measures ready. 

 

 

Secondly, and maybe the major reason why I keep returning to Marina Coruña are the people at the yard! These wonderful people keep Regina Laska as their dearest boat, I feel, and treat this classic yacht as their flagship!

Let me introduce the team to you by means of the below photobook I made when I last left Regina Laska in their good hands for the winter refit of 2024-25.

Click on the little dotted square in the right top corner inside the frame for full view of the photo book I made for Marina Coruña Varadero:

 

Here is also a short video when Regina Laska was demasted and transported into the shed for the winter of 2024/25.

 

Polished and extra hard waxed hull

As in every year, Regina Laska's hull is being polished and waxed. New for 2025 is that Regina Laska will get an extra layer of hard wax for extra protection. 

Look below how shiny she is, even before she is being touched by Ruben at Marina Coruña! The photo was taken in October 2024, just after she went into the shed, still hanging in the slings of the travel lift.

This shine is still from last winter's treatment. Incredible, how shiny she is, even after 6 months of intense sailing. When a great ground work has been done, it lasts a full season!

 

 

 

Re-activating Coppercoat

The hull is being sanded to a minimum to re-activate the Coppercoat. 

 

 

New pressure tank  

After 12 years, it's time for the preventive measure to just replace the pressure tank. It's a rubber membrane inside which gets brittle over time. I'm surprised it has worked so well for so long!

 

"Colonoscopy"  

The never-ending issue with sailing in warm, salty water is growth inside the through-hulls. Especially when you have a strainer under the hull and can't reach inside with a brush to clear it out while snorkling or diving.

On the hard is a good opportunity to use my "Colonoscopy Camera" (Inspection Camera with a snake cable connected to my iPhone).

 

 

 

 

Some through-hulls have a scope mounted over the hole from the outside. This strainer is to prevent large things like plastic bags or jelly fish to enter the boat and also to help pushing the water up if mounted forward, like for the watermaker. The main engine raw-water intake has its scope facing aft, however, not to flood the engine while sailing! N.B. Powerboats, which don't move without the engine running, have the scoop facing forward. This is an important difference not to neglect our your engine may be flooded!

Both through-hulls cannot be cleaned from the outside unless the scoop is screwed off, unfortunately.

 

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Taking off the scoop and to look inside does give some surprises: miniature animals have been sucked into the through-hull and then they grow inside - on the wrong side of the bars! Winnie-the-Pooh, eating honey, remember?

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Of course, the water intake is getting blocked. The same strainer as seen from the inside:

 

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Below examples of other photos of the through-hulls. Some surprisingly clean, especially the ones leading water outside back into the sea or taking in water in larger quantities but not continuously (like the main engine or the generator were both clean).

 

 

Click here or on the small picture below if you wish to see the results of the colonoscopy: 

 

 

Moving the raw water intake for fridge & freezer 

There are various ways to cool the fridge and freezer compressors. The most basic design is simply to let the air around the compressor cool them (not very efficient). They you have internal heat exchangers where the cooling liquid is led along the hull on the inside hoping that the cooler water on the outside cools it. This works well on metal boats but on isolated GRP hulls, this is not very efficient wither. The third option is to lead the cooling liquid to a heat exchanger inside a through-hull  so it actually exchanges the heat directly with the water standing inside the through-hull. This is a smart system by Isotherm. The down side is that it is only efficient when the boat is moving (even a slight movement while sailing on the anchor is enough), since the water standing inside the though hull gets warm and needs to be exchanged. In a marina, for instance, when the water is standing still, this system is less effective, but, on the other hand, that's when you mostly have shore power compensating for the loss of efficiency. What I also don't like with this, otherwise very smart system, is that the through-hull used is made of brass. 

Most effective is, instead, to pump raw-water from the sea and lead it around the compressors and then pump the heated water overboard again. While this saves energy and cools efficiently, the downside is that you constantly pump seawater into the boat which is a risk of flooding, of course. Further, the compressors can't run dry on the land and always need to be cooled with seawater. So when I leave the boat for anything more than a couple of hours, I try to empty the fridge and freezer content and then switch off the fridge/freezer completely and close the through-hulls. Since I live onboard for extended periods, this is a minor problem and I have decided to go for the most efficient cooling system.

So, constantly, water is slowly pumped inside the boat. 24/7 whenever the compressors are running. This has one further draw-back: the constant water intake means that miniature sea-life, such as hardly visible baby mussels, are continuously pumped inside and then they get stuck in various strainers, filters, hoses and in the pump itself! Regular filter cleaning becomes necessary, but for me, it's worth the price since they cool very efficiently.

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Due to the above problem with fouling I have decided to move the intake of the cooling water.

I have come to the conclusion that it's not a good idea to have a scoop for the fridge water-intake due to the fact that it is sucking in water 24/7. I know by experience - the hard way...

So instead of having the fridge water sharing the through-hull with the watermaker (which must have a scoop pointing forward), I will now share the fridge water intake with the generator (which shall not have a scoop, for whatever reason. It says so in the manual by Onan).

With no scoop, I can easily clean this intake when snorkling or diving from underneath. Orin in best case, creatures getting into the through-hull will then fall back outside whenever the pumps are stopped. Let's hope it gets better. Can't get any worse, at least....

Outboard  

It's time for a major overhaul of my 4 year old Yamaha outboard. It ranges from standard service to exchanging some bolts and nuts that got rusty and cosmetically doesn't look so smart any longer.  

 

 

New AB Dinghy 

Our highly versatile and popular Caribe 9L dinghy is replaced by an AB dinghy that is officially approved for 5 people. Taking four guests, I need the approval for five, hence the upgrade. 

Therefore, our current, still perfect Caribe dinghy is up for sale. Great for anyone passing by La Coruña on the way to the Med or the Caribbean. 

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The new dinghy is the AB 9.5 ALS aluminium RIB with unpainted aluminium hull for the extra sturdiness. It was also ordered with a built in little bow locker for life jackets, anchor, NaviSafe lights etc. It was specified in co-operation with BootAkkrum in The Netherlands and built by AB in Colombia.

See the AB 9.5ALS offered by BootAkkrum here.

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The service by Jan-Jetze van der Meulen at BootAkkrum has been outstanding and we got our dinghy in time with a lot of special requests. It's colour is "arctic grey" with "ocean blue" rubrail, which is not standard (see photo above). 

 

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The specs of our new dinghy are shown below:

• The bottom of the keel has a Gatorguard KeelShield protection.

 

• It has reinforced anti-slip top for comfortable and safe sitting without sliding around. Thse anti-slip toppings are also good when locking the dinghy against the davits.
• The davits have soft cushions for anti-chafing by Palm that are originally intended when transporting surfboard etc on a car roof. Works perfect on a davit. 

 

• Special extra eyes are welded onto the aluminium hull from the inside for better lifting in the davits as well as for placing a chain with pad lock.

• Prepared for Båtsystem RIB ladder

 

 

 

 

• Wheels facilitate moving the dinghy onshore, especially on a ramp or beach in tidal waters, where the dinghy needs to be pulled up quite significantly 

  The dinghy is getting Beachmaster retractable wheels, which are said to be the most sturdy ones. The New Zealand company didn't answer neither telephone calls nor e-mails but in the end I dared to order without speaking to them, nevertheless. Guess my surprise when 5 working days later they had arrived from New Zealand to Marina Coruña. 

 

• The weelmark approved Navisafe navigation lights are again installed on the new dinghy.

 

 

 

New Gas hoses and bottles 

As a standard procedure for a commercially classed vessel, I have to undergo regular inspections and replacements. All Safety equipment needs to be sent in for inspection annually and the gas hoses need to be changed ever 4 years. So, it's time again.... 

After 10 years of service life, it also time to exchange the Swedish aluminium PA6 gas cylinder holding 6kg of Propane.

I normally store two Butan Camping Gaz 907 (2.8 kg) on top of each other for sailing in the EU and use the Propane bottle when I leave the EU, e.g. to the Azores. Here, filling a Propane bottle is the best option. When I sail away from Europe for a longer time, I would carry two non-rusting gas bottles. See more about gas onboard Regina Laska here. 

Which bottles shall I buy to replace the discontinued Swedish PA6? Most bottles have a 300mm diameter, but they don't fit into the gas compartment! I am sure Hallberg-Rassy once designed the gas hatch to fit exactly these PA6 bottles. The bottle is 250mm (diam) x 500mm (hight). But as times go by, the standards change and the classic boats remain.

 

 

Most Propane bottles seem to have a diameter of 300m these days, e.g. the aluminium bottles by Alugas or BBQ-Master, which is actually made by the same company. And gas cylinders made out of composite also have a diameter of 300mm which, for a classic HR, is too wide to fit thought the hatch (it would fit inside, however). 

 

 

I am now looking at a 5.4 kg Propane bottle made out of AISI 316 stainless steel by a Belgium company called JSP Europe.  It has a diameter of 229 mm and a hight of 487 mm and should fit well into the compartment. 

Another alternative would be the composite bottles made of Kevlar by Polish Gas Bank.

 

More info to follow in due course. 

 

 

Volvo Penta Service 

As a preventive measure, the thermostat is being changed and the heat exchanger cleaned and the internal cooling water changed. The turbo is inspected and so is the elbow for the exhaust water/gas mixture.

The isolation cover over the turbo is changed manly due to cosmetic reasons, but also to avoid burns, of course.

Exhaust Gas Temperature Sensor (EGT) 

There is a plan to install an EGT sensor that measures the very high temperatures where the exhaust gas reaches the cooling water in the elbow. This value gives a much earlier alarm than the temperature of the lubrication oil that is normally measured as "engine temperature". 

It is also easier to make diagnoses of the engine when monitoring the exhaust gas temperature. 

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Temperature Sensor at alternator 

In order to monitor any faults in the alternator, a temperature sensor will be placed close to the HOA (High Output Alternator). This is especially important when you hare Lithium batteries and the alternator works much harder than on boats with traditional lead-acid-batteries. 

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Temperature Sensor at water-maker 

Another temperature sensor will be place close to the water-maker, since when it gets too hot in the engine room (main engine is running, alternator (HOA) is charging to the max with anything but full batteries, plus water-maker running at the same time) it becomes time to switch on the engine room fan.

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Additional analogue CZone interface

In order to gather all the analogue temperature readings, a new CZone interface will be installed which then only gives one value at a time into the NEMA 2k bus system. By this, the bus is not experiencing several new devices, which might overload the bus since I have so much date on it already, but, instead only sees one input device. 

All the information can then be displayed in the NMEA 2000 Network.  

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New NMEA 2000 instrument 

In order to display the above temperatures, including all other data on the NMEA bus, a new multi-talented display is installed over the companionway: the  Maritron 4.1" display can literally show anything that is rushing by on on the NMEA 2000 but, something the Furuno displays actually can't. 

 

The display is placed to the right of the Furuno displays over the companionway, while the outsideloudspeaker will be replaced and situated elsewhere. 

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New VHF speaker 

Since the old VHF speaker had to give way for the new Maritron display, there is a new speaker, originally intended for motorcycles and thus watertight. I is being placed behind or next to the Furuno 16" TFT plotter somewhere. 

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New main VHF 

The VHF is one of the most important safety and communications devices onboard. That's why Regina Laska has no less than four VHF s onboard. One fixed with three terminal stations plus two Icom M25 handheld for everyday use and one GMDSS SOLAS approved VHF in the grab-bag by Jotron. 

A huge wave came over the side on my last Atlantic sail from the Azores to Portugal when we deliberately chose to sail into a low to get good winds (see video here in German and with no spoken word). This wave made a short circuit in the VHF station at the steering helm, while the other stations were still fully functioning. I like 3 command stations for the main VHF, however (one at the pedestal, one under the hardtop and one at the navstation below). Instead of trying to repair the broken output channel, the 12 year old Furuno FM-4721  VHF is replaced  by a new Icom 605. 

 

VHF's don't change much over the years, but this one is said to be made of a very high quality in Japan (manufactured not far from the Furuno factory, actually). The hardware is the same as the wheel-mark approved class A ICOM GM600, except that this non-SOLAS VHF is made for one antenna only (Class D). 

One nice feature, maybe, is that you can just click on the MMSI-number directly on the AIS-display and call the other vessel via DSC (Digital Selective Calling) without having to call by voice-call or put in the MMSI number by hand. 

 

New Hailer and Fog Horn 

I have been working with Italian Company Marco to improve their automatic control unit to better follow the Collision Regulation Rule 32 concerning sound signals. The approved fog horn EW2-M also has a hailer function with it's own dedicated microphone placed at the pedestal.

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The EW-2 is approved by RINA, LLOYD'S REGISTER MCA, BUREAU VERITAS, NMMA and BSH for vessels under 20m.

The sound signal itself (one long for power driven vessel and one long followed by two short ones for sailing vessel or vessel not under command) is controlled by CZone and can thus be controlled either by the navstation by means of two buttons or, alternatively, from under the hardtop on the Furuno plotter.

Of course, the fog horn also has a manual button situated at the pedestal, for auxiliary signals and which always overruns any automated signalling. 

 

Since the foghorn is so large, it needs a stainless frame around the horn at the spreader.

 

Cassens&Plath Compass 

The new hand-crafted special Reginasailing compass, designed in co-operation with Cassens&Plath has been hand-crafted out of a solid brass housing with a white compass rose in Bremerhaven, Germany. I got this photo of the new Reginasailing compass from the workshop, ready to be shipped to Marina Coruña. At Cassens&Plath, in Bremerhaven, Germany, compasses are still made by hand, to the highest of standars and they have done so for over 120 years!
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Being a classic navigator, I love stylish, beautiful precision instruments that don't consume any power and accurately support terrestrial navigation. This model did not exist before with a solid brass housing combined with a white rose, which is so important when you check your compass by means of the shadow of the sun using the central vertical compass needle in celestial navigation. This is, for instance, extremely important when you have had a lighting strike (nearby). In such a case, it is very likely that not only all electronics are failing, but also that your compass has received an unknown deviation. In 60 miles, a deviation of no more than 5° means a full 5nm off track!
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Besides, this compass becomes the jewellery of Regina Laska and pairs up so well with my equally beautiful Cassens&Plath Horizon Ultra sextant. 
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Most compasses today are unfortunately made of plastic. They might work, but where is the style?!  If you ever have dreamt about a polished brass compass made for serious navigation, hurry up to order one before they all turn into plastic....  They are such an eye-catcher! 
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Sailing in Safety, Comfort and Style!
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h2a] Changing Voltage Stabiliser [/h2a]

A Voltage stabiliser is essential for a long life span of LED lights. Every electric motor, be it a water pump, an electric winch, the windlass or the bow thruster all give voltage spikes. They are not long (milliseconds), but enough for the life span to decrease. See my old video on the subject here. 

For 12 years, I have had two 190W Voltage stabilisers from Whisperpower which have been working flawlessly, but they do have a built in fan that starts making noises. I have had these computer fans exchanged but they are still not 100% quiet. 

Time to move on into the fan-less future with two Orion-Tr 24/12-20 240W voltage stabilisers by Victron. 

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Changing Nova to Stella lights  

2025 Regina Laska will take a major step up when it comes to lighting. First up is the change of ceiling lights.

12 of the classic Nova ceiling lights are exchanged. Hundreds of thousand of these classic Nova lights made in Sweden have been installed in countless RV's and boats all over the world and has for decades been the standard in most boats. They are made out of plastic and despite being declared as not being water tight, I have been testing one and the same Nova light over my shower where warm moist vapour has reached the ceiling on a daily basis for 12 years, while sailing 6 months a year. This is impressive to say the least.

 

The light now feels a bit outdated with visible LED dots and giving no more than 145 lm of light with a 2W power consumption. It was time for something better!

Working jointly with  Båtsystem these lights now have the very practical feature that they got the same outer diameter. In other words, they can easily be retrofitted in all boats which today are equipped with classic Nova-lights. Further, I requested a spotlight model which is tiltable. High Colour Rendering Index (CRI) and warm-white colour temperature was obviously also on the wish-list. 

As the celestial navigator I am, I'm now proudly presenting Båtsystem's "Stella Series", fitting snugly into the holes of an old Nova, giving 200lm of light with the same power consumption of 2W, 25° of spot cone, tiltable to 90°, 3000K warm-white passive dimmable ceiling light. The are now also officially tested to IP65 watertightness. For elegancy, it's no longer made of plastic but stainless steel.

 

13 of Regina Laska's Novas are replaced by Stella Spot and I'm just keeping my red/white Nova's for night sailing in the salon, run by my emergency secondary 12V power system. The red/white interchangable colour is the only feature Stella doesn't have, and nothing I really would miss. I prefer very dimmed down white lite to red bright light during night sailing. But possibly I might glance at the Prebit red/white EB12 for next year, who knows?

 

Upgrade to Prebit Wall Lights 

A major step up is that the interior and outside light will be changed to Prebit. Prebit lights are made in Germany and are generally considered as the high end of interior lighting. They are installed on larger yachts, superyachts and also the high-end brands of middle sized yachts, such as Scalar, Sirius Yachts, Faurbu and, of course, Hallberg-Rassy. See some examples of Prebit lights installed in sailing yachts here.

It's time for Regina Laska to step into the elegant world of Prebit lights. The reason is that they produce elegant lights that are beautiful to look at. 

During night time, you wish to be able to dim down the light all the way to candle-light strength and then, the lights should go down in light temperature from 3,000 Kelvin to some 2,200K in order to spread that cozy atmosphere.

The four wall lamps in the salon are being replaced by Prebit R1-1 in golden colour and chalk white shade. 

The golden colour goes well with the brass instruments on the main bulkhead, such as the Chronometer, the Barometer, and inclinomete. The decoration should also work well with the golden tint: the Piraya fish, the wall paintings of northern Bohuslän, Valletta and Limburg (my three shore-based homes) as as well as Wagner's Rheingold plate with Alberich and the three Rheindaughters Wellgunde, Woglinde and Floßhilde illustrating my musical (but not political) favour for one of the greatest Opera composers (when it comes to the music).

 

 

Read here, how I describe the way from oil lamp to a cozy wall lamp and why the new dim2warm® function by Prebit is so important for reading lights.  Another important feature is that it can be dimmed down really much, which is essential for night sailing, something I have been lacking before. 

The built-in USB charger is impressive! It gives up to 65W and automatically changes the voltage depending on the connected device and charging status, ranging from 5V all the way to 20V (if connected to 24V onboard power). This means that laptops can be connected directly to these lights! 

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New Stella Spot under the hardtop 

The hardtop light also gets a good upgrade with three new lights. 

First of all the old Båtsystem Neptun that sat under the hardtop have corroded (no blame, it's made for indoors and thus only IP21!). The three Power LED by CREE light source inside the light is still going strong, but the housing didn't survive the harsh outside environment which they never were made for. 

The Neptun is thus replaced by a Stella Spot which is IP65 watertight, has also a spot function with a simliar beam width of 25° and will shine up the cockpit table when dimmed up and the cockpit floor during night sailing when dimmed down to almost nothing. 

 

 

 

 

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Two new Prebit EB42 under the hardtop 

 

Further to this central Stella Spot light, both current Båtsystem MARS flood-lights on either side under the hardtop are replaced.  This time by beautiful Prebit EB42 lights. These Prebit lights are IP67 watertight, giving either white or red light for night sailing and have a built-in dimmer instead of the the metal switch where I hit my head so often. The Prebit EB42 has a CRI> 90 and shines with an impressive 780 lumen at max each, giving some 1600 lumen under the hardtop when needed (e.g. as extra deck light at anchor or in a marina). The previous Båtsystem MARS  were neither watertight, nor do they shine in red and only give 150 lm each with a CRI of no more than 80.  

 

Since it's watertight, it has its external watertight Prebit dimmer switch. of which there are three, one for each EB42 plus one for the new watertight outer nav-station light Flex05IP68 (see below). 

New Prebit watertight nav-station light under the hardtop 

A new watertight Flex05 iP68 with a black powder coating for extra robustness is installed on the starboard outside navstation.

 

 

Changing the buttons for electric winches 

The softer the electric outside button is to press, the less reliable it becomes, it seems. Therefore the push-buttons that are intended to be used by hand are sometimes getting stuck with the winch continuing to turn despite having released the button! This is dangerous! 

One of the best buttons I have come across are the windlass buttons by MZ Electronics. They normally sit in the harsh environment on foredeck with loads of green water and still keep working correctly. I changed them on foredeck after may years of service and found no corrosion whatsoever (scroll down on the 11th refit here for new windlass buttons). 

Being so content with the MZ Elecctronics buttons, the winch genoa and main sheet buttons will now also be exchanged to MZ buttons.

 

New anchor stopper 

The anchor stopper I had installed in 2022 has some hazardous issues with possible hurting fingers, when closing the lid for the chain stopper. Further, the pin keeps wobbling out during harsh weather and big waves, and I had to fix it with a rubber cord and cable ties, which doesn't look that extremely smart and trustworthy.

 

Fifth emergency bilge pump added 

Regina Laska now has five emergency bilge pumps increasing the total capacity to close to 1,200 Liters/minute or close to 70 tones per hour if they are all running simultaneously.  This is in best case, and there can always be a cause that one of the pumps don't work or the voltage in question is not available or one of the pumps are clogged up. Hence the redundancy. 

The new Kärcher SP22.000 is originally designed to empty flooded ground floors or cellars, but can easily also be used as an efficient bilge pump if you have 230V onboard. 

For redundancy purpose they run of different batteries and voltages as follows:

• 1 x manual Jabsco Amazon Warrior, 135 L/min, no electrical power needed
• 1 x Whale Gusher, 14L/min, running off 24V main batteries
• 1 x Rule 4000, 256 L/min, running off 24V main batteries
• 1 x Rule 4000, 256 L/min, running off 12V emergency battery system fed by 24V system, main engine and generator
• 1 x Ebara Best One 10,200L/h @ 1.5m, 170L/min @ 1.5m running off 230V system, fed by 24V (inverter) and 230V generator
• 1 x  Kärcher SP 22.000 20,000L/h @ 1.5m , 333L/min @ 1.5m running off 230V system, fed by 24V (inverter) and 230V generator, new for 2025

Total: 1,164 L/min

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No, I don't believe we will sink and it's maybe only a self-imposed psychological treatment against anxiety, but I would regret it a lot if, for some reason, the boat is taking in water and I could have saved her! The definition of floating is so easy:

"Floating is the state when you pump out more water than enters the boat!"

 

Interior cupboard door stoppers 

During heavy seas, it's difficult to open a cupboard door to take out something from inside: with one hand you need to hold the cupboard door open and with the other hand you need to hold onto something yourself, so you don't fall over, but with which hand are you supposed to get to that snack inside? Also, they easily touch the wall lights, which needs to be stopped. 

Therefore I have asked the yard for a solution of some sort to limit and door to how much it can open and also to remain in an open position while you are picking out something from the cupboard.

 

 

New Nespresso machine 

The new Nespresso CitiZ Platinum C Titan machine can not only do four types of coffee, including Americano and Americano XL for our American guests, but especially also hot water for tea. There is an extra little parallel pipe bypassing the coffee capsule compartment so that you can make tea by the press of a button and you don't have to even start the electric kettle!

 

New detergent and sponge holder 

Even the smallest updates are sometimes worth mentioning and this one comes from one of my most frequent guests: Sibylle found this one for their own Hallberg-Rassy and the best feature is that it has a sump where water is collected at the bottom, anti-skit feet at the bottom. With a magnet (added by myself) it stays firmly against the wall, even in the biggest of waves. Before my previous holder was constantly gliding into the sink in big waves and left ugly dirt marks underneath.  

I have fitted it with the same type of magnets as I used for the kettle bottom. See my video about it here.

 

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New vacuum cleaner 

 I didn't like Sir James Dyson speaking up clearly Pro-Brexit and then - just after the Prexiteers won -  Dyson moved his company from the UK to Singapore.

This doesn't change the fact that bag-less cleaners are smart. Paper bag cleaners only have their maximum suction in the beginning with an empty bag and then get less efficient the fuller the bag gets. Bagless vacuum cleaner keep theyr efficiency util the bag is completely full.  

There are bagless vacuum cleaners and there is the Dyson. I can just say how compact, efficient and practical the little V8 by Dysen is!

And for all, who wonder: for the remaining floor I first vacuum clean with the Dyson (yes, it works on plain wood as well) and then I wipe off the wooden floor with my "Swiffer" which is so simple to use with its readily moist "tissues" you stick over the Swiffer.

And taken apart, t stows away extremely compact as well!

 

 

Starlink 

Despite not being a fan of Elon Musk to say the least, I have finally given in and will install a Starlink system, despite not trusting Elon Musk for 5 minutes.

This is for my work with video conferencing, video-calls, youtube videos, Podcasts etc that I need a stable fast internet connection. The 5G or 4G cellphone coverage has just not been reliable enough at some anchorages. Also, it would be good to have access to good and detailed weather forecasting when crossing larger areas of ocean. 

For important communication, however, I will keep my good old trusted Iridium phone, backed up by Garmin inReach and terrestrial SSB shortwave radio. 

Solar Panels? 

I have been pondering about where to place solar panels for a long time now. I just don't fancy the look of a stern arch, despite it being highly practical, I an understand. It's ugly enough to have the davits. And on my hardtop I have my beautiful teak which I do not wish to cover with a solar panel. 

So why possibly not placing thin solar panels somehow elegantly over the dinghy on the davits? With a snug curvature that follows the hull shape on a horisontal plane and the hardtop curves looking from the side? And with just enough space for the outboard to sit on the dinghy when lifted and enough space for the head when going down on the swim platform? 

Just some brain storming. Let's see where we end up....  

 

Replacing the earth plates 

After 10 years of usage, the earth plates need to be replaced. They are simply clogged up due to fouling and other debris and don't offer the huge surface they are designed for.

Regina Laska has one earth plate for the instruments and three earth plates for the SSB radion that are now replaced. 

 

 

New horseshoe safety buoy 

A new horseshoe buoy by Lalizas in a snug cover will replace the old one. Inside the cover of the "Quick RD" everything needed in a MOB situation is place outside of UV rays including safety line, light and the buoy itself. 

 

 

 

Bathrooms polished 

As in each year, both bathrooms are polished and refurbished for yet another sailing season in comfort and style.

 

 

All winches serviced 

As in each year, all winches are taken apart and looked at and necessary parts are being exchanged. The new or cleaned parts are being greased and put together for yet another sailing season.