The Old Matelot



matelot;
noun,
sailor; from the French mat-el-oh (plural matelots)
A slang expression, chiefly in Britain, may also mean mate or companion.

Welcome to the Old Matelots' blog, my first (and probably last!) journalistic endeavour. Watch its development and evolution as I make the transition into retirement and the live-aboard, off the grid lifestyle on the sailing yacht, Circe. Follow my fortunes (and misfortunes) in the posts as I work to rehabilitate my home on the water.

UPDATE - Due major back-to-back relationship and health issues during 2017 & 2018 I was involuntarily beached and forced to let Circe go. The blog will remain up for the foreseeable future for informational benefit to other owners of these magnificent boats.


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2013-11-30

Multi-Colour Monday

Having rolled our eyes watching the less enlightened members of the populace engaged in the annual charade of Mindless Materialism over the weekend (aka Black Friday etc.), we decided that we would initiate our own, less stressful, celebration......Multicolour Monday!



















We got a bit smarter this year with our Christmas lights, we zip tied them to a couple of lengths of 5/16" line before hoisting them to the masthead on a spare halyard. The lines allowed us to tension the light strings without putting undue strain on them. 

2013-11-20

RC Cockpit Lights

The clocks have changed and another winter is descending upon us, our third year living aboard full time. As a result we find ourselves returning to the boat in darkness more often so the issue of safe boarding raises its head for Old Matelots. 

The ugly truth is that our night vision and dexterity ain't what they used to be! Either at the slip or, more specifically, on the hook, making an elegant arrival into the cockpit (usually loaded down with 'stuff'), finding the right key, getting it into the lock, safely negotiating the companionway steps and turning on the interior lights is a lot more challenging in darkness! Headlamps and flashlights are helpful but limited in their capabilities. Several times in the past we had considered a more permanent solution to our cockpit/companionway lighting issues but, somehow, we never got around to actually doing anything. So, co-incident with the recent time change, we put the project on the top of 'The List' and started looking for solutions. 

First we put together and prioritised a short list of cockpit lighting 'wants and needs'......
  - LED fixtures for longevity and battery economy. No floodlights.
  - Subdued light level, adequate for safe boarding as well as evening 'socialising'.
  - Small unobtrusive fixtures, (Headlamps are fine if we need  more 'lumens' once aboard).
  - Means for remote activation/deactivation.

Next we spent a lot of time browsing the web for suitable fixtures and controls and were amazed at the wealth of choices in fixtures, suppliers and prices. All, very confusing. 

Wait a sec......are we over-thinking all this? We had good luck with the compact fixtures we used for the LED Courtesy Light upgrade that we did back in 2010. They are small, quite powerful for their size and seem to be very durable (we've had no failures since the conversion). They aren't too pretty but they aren't too ugly either....why not use them again on this project?




The compact LED license plate/utility lamp from Superbright LEDs.....under $6 a copy.









Having decided on the lamp fixture the next thing was to find a simple, 12v wireless controller. After some more web surfing we found this nice little one channel unit on eBay for around $35.








OK, next step, how many lights and where to locate them? After a bit of fussing with some jumper cables and duct tape one night, trying different locations, we settled on two lamps, one directly above the companionway in the fascia under the hatch and a second in the centre of the top tube of the dodger frame. 




Here is a shot, in the pitch dark, of the companionway lit by a single utility lamp taped to the hatch fascia.....impressive for a small 25 lumen unit!









Again in the pitch dark (and slightly out of focus), here is one of the companionway, with a single lamp taped to the top tube of the dodger frame. Despite the small size of the lamp the reflection from the white doors helps give an overall brightness to the whole cockpit area.


OK then, all we have to do is install everything. Here we are fishing the power cable for the companionway lamp from the hatch fascia, under the headliner and out to the  zippered access flap. It was very fiddly trying to get the fishing wire past the foam and took many attempts! 







Here is a close up. Even after measuring four or five times, to make absolutely sure we would break through exactly between the cabin roof and the headliner, we still sweated a little while drilling the hole. 






Here is the first lamp mounted in place. We couldn't decide between black or chrome and finally went with black. It seems to blend in well with the teak fascia.  









To mount the second lamp on the dodger rail we needed a mounting pad profiled to match the 1" dia. stainless tube. We used a scrap block of teak, cut a hole with a 1" hole saw then cut the block in half to get the radiused form.....it turned out quite well!  








We drilled clearance holes through the block so that the mounting screws could be tapped directly into the dodger rail.










Two chipped cobalt drill bits later.....the second lamp was mounted on the dodger rail! This shot was taken after the first mounting hole had been drilled and tapped. Hand drilling, overhead, into the stainless tube was hard work.  









Here is the finish mounted lamp. We had to partially unzip the dodger to access the tube and we will cut and bind a suitable slot in the Sunbrella flap so it can be zipped back in place.







This one shows the #20-2 power cable exiting the dodger rail and going into the cabin through a compression fitting. Surprisingly, fishing the power cable through the tube for the second lamp was a lot easier than the first lamp, even though it was double the distance.






The control box was feather light so we just used self adhesive velcro pads to secure it to the cabin roof under the headliner for optimum antenna performance.





Because there is no manual switch in the circuit, and because there was limited space for wiring between the headliner and the cabin roof  the wiring was simply Gorilla taped to the cabin roof. Not the prettiest thing we ever did but it is secure. We had bought a terminal strip to connect this wiring together but there really wasn't  enough room for it.







Moment of truth.....











It works......! We tested it off the boat and got good response from nearly 100 feet away, more than enough for any forseable conditions we may run into.









Here we have cut a small aperture in the dodger flap to allow the zipper to close. As (bad) luck would have it the aperture fell almost exactly on the dodger manufacturers label so there was a lot of old thread and adhesive to clean off.









In this one the aperture has been edged with leather binding. After cleaning off the label it almost looks like a pro job. No more banged knees or ebows and groceries on the cockpit floor!



On to the next project!