Out on the water again

After spending the winter ashore at Jachtwerf de Haas in Den Haag, Wahine was re-launched last week and I made the trip to Hellevoetsluis, where she’ll be for the summer.

Hall at De Haas Out of the hall Onto the dock Suspended in crane Floating again

Quite an attraction to be heading out of the Parksluizen and into the Rotterdam harbor with s.s. Rotterdam pretty much right next to you. I was tempted to cross the Nieuwe Waterweg to go and have a look, but was a bit too nervous about actually reaching Hellevoetsluis that day to do it.

ss Rotterdam

It was slow going at 3kn on the electric engine, but with a schedule well adapted to the tide and consequent 2kn current ‘sucking’ us through “Het Spui” onto the “Haringvliet” (thanks Erik van Binsbergen for the hint), the journey was doable. After some headwinds on the final leg across Het Haringvliet, I arrived at Hellevoetsluis at 19:00. About an hour behind the most optimistic planning. Not bad at all.

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Démâtage

Oh nooo, cruel, cruel ocean. Now you have a mast, now you don’t. Bon courage Sam!

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100% Ecopowered sailing

Great project for the Vendée Globe. No diesel or gasoline on board.

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Looking forward to the start of the Vendee Globe

Only about one and a half month to the start of the Vendee Globe. Really looking forward to it. A surprising number of names from the edition of 4 years ago will be present again in this edition, so it must be good!

I will be following Samantha Davies. I think she’s a real heroin sailing an 18 meter boat around the world single handed and non-stop and enjoying it as well!

 

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Electric Drive Running

The electric drive system is running! It’s a bit noisier than I had hoped for and the engine doesn’t run entirely smoothly yet. However, Wahine runs at approximately 5 knots at full throttle, which is what I had hoped for. 3 to 3.5 knots can be achieved at 20 to 30 amps, which can be maintained several hours. I haven’t drained the batteries yet and would rather not, so not sure how many, but graphs from the battery manufacturer suggest 6 to 7 hours at 25 amps should be obtainable. Reverse is very poor due to the folding propeller, which was to be expected. A better folding propeller is high on my wishlist now, but expensive.

Next up is connecting more of the controller’s wiring like the engine temp sensor, operation LED’s, improved control box and hooking the controller up to the PC for diagnostics and settings. I’ll also attempt to improve the engine and saildrive alignment en suspension to try and reduce noise.

The whole system now consists of:

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Wahine to Schiermonnikoog

Wahine’s first trip to a friend’s wedding on Schiermonnikoog was a great success. After starting with very little wind, the weather was absolutely perfect. The last part of the channel towards the harbour of Schiermonnikoog is rather shallow, so friend Jan came along as ballast to heel Wahine over sufficiently to reduce her normal draft of 1.55m.

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Wahine Launched!

After about two years of occasional shore based work, Wahine has finally been launched. I was ecstatically happy!

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Keel finally attached again

After numerous adventures with the keel construction –the keel is made of very poor quality cast iron– , it was finally reattached to the boat yesterday. 8 new keel bolts are in place to make sure it won’t fall off. The bending moment at the keel root when the boat is heeling is enormous –an estimated 4kNm at 90 degrees heel–. I am still not entirely sure that both the bolts and the wooden frames will be able to support it. Some glass/epoxy reinforcements planned for next spring should make me feel a little more comfortable yet.

lowered keellowered keelkeel bolts

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Home to work

Very happy with the new office 😀

Zuid 57

Bicycle trip is very doable and refreshing.

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Motor controller, charger and DC converter arrived.

Motor controller, battery charger and DC-DC converter arrived from china today.

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