Vetus Flexi Coupling

Once Grace was back in the UK, I became aware of a slight vibration when under power and later investigation during routine engine bay checks resulted in me discovering that the Vetus Flexi Coupling between the engine gear box and prop shaft was somehow out of alignment.

Again a video paints a thousand words....

To begin with I was worried that something was bent but after getting some confidence together.... I stripped out the coupling and found that it was basically falling apart. No broken or worn parts. Just coming loose. 

Internal socket head screws hidden between the gearbox flange and the coupling were slowly working themselves out.

I reassembled mr Vetus with appropriate torque settings and thread lock. Grace is running smooth again!

Replaced anchor windlass control

One thing on the hand back report from the PYD delivery skipper was the issue of the windlass remote not working. I isolated the problem to the standard Lofrans hand held up/down hand control.

On stripping it down it was clear that a small leak and 10 years of salt water had done its work. Some internal wiring and PCB track had been eaten away. This is not really a serviceable unit with the breaking of cheapo plastic mouldings needed to release the PCB.

I did a reasonable bodge repair, replaced corroded circuit parts and sealed the lot in Plastidip. It worked fine... for about 2 weeks and then decided to either not work or get stuck in the UP position causing Audrey some serious frustration anchoring off Hayling Island.

In the end I sacked it off and bought a new one. We just can't be dealing with the anchor control doing weird stuff. Its not good for marital harmony.

The new unit had a different plug so I swapped the old one onto it.

Simrad VHF service and fix

Primary is down below

Grace's VHF was re-registed with the new UK MMSI.

This had to be done by Navico, the UK distributer for Simrad.

At this point the VHF firmware was changed over as the transmission profile for UK waters is slightly different to the french setup.

Old with missing pin

I realised that the second handset that can be located in the cockpit was not working. The cockpit plug socket was corroded and one of the pins was simply gone. I doctored a new replacement cable from Navico and soldered it onto the existing wiring. Good as new.

Chop and splice

Gybe Preventer

Grace has a great pole out system for the 130% Genoa and downwind sailing wing on wing is great.
For extra peace of mind, I wanted to have the option of a removable Gybe Preventer.

After much research and a few test systems, I settled on the design showed in this little video I took. Its easier to show it than explain it.

New Batteries

Removing old AGM's

On return to Grace ay SMN I was disappointed to find the service battery bank flat. Fully discharged, which is never a good thing for a lead acid battery. With the boat back on shore power we recharged and I did some basic tests. Not good. The boat would not manage more than 6 hours off the mains, sailing with nav systems on. The AGM batteries were goosed.

On charge and discharge the old cells were getting warm. Too warm. Also indicative of serious issues.




Grace has a brilliantly installed Fischer Panda genset and this is configured to come on if the battery voltage falls below 60% charge capacity so we were fine to go anywhere but I like to have proper power available.

My internet cafe in Port Grimaud

Someone told me that "BOAT" actually stands for "Bring Out Another Thousand" and that is pretty
much what we did. It took a bunch of searching on the wifi of my local cafe, round the corner from Grace but we managed to find a set of three MasterVolt AGM 120AH cells with the right terminal config and form factor to fit.

These things are damn heavy. When I got the old ones out it was clear that the cases were warped and heat damaged. This was not a recent issue.

I fitted the new cells taking great care not to short anything. The power available here is pretty scary.

I tested the calibration of the genset and battery charger making sure we had no overcharge issues. I also tweaked the generator's turn on / turn off points.

Its easy to write this in summary but it took me a few hours to learn and troubleshoot these systems. I am now reasonably confident with Grace main power electrics.


We knew the MasterVolt charger/inverter had non working indicator panels both on the remote panel at the nav station and on the unit itself (seen during survey). On speaking to MasterVolt the only way to get this fixed was going to be to return the unit for repair... thats a pretty big strip out job and one that I may take on in the future.. Testing has proved that the unit is working 100% in both charge mode and inverter mode. Someone is home, its just that the lights are not on!

Done and dusted. New cells in.

After the power refit... Grace ran for 4 days off mains with me leaving stuff on 24/7 before the genset kicked in. I love POWER! Fixed.

Commissioning and prep for return to UK

My Own Stupid Fault

Its the beginning of May 2016 and we return for our last and extended sojourn in the Golfe de St Tropez. The plan was to recommission the boat, have a few weeks test sailing and checkouts before handing Grace over to our delivery crew for the 1900 nautical mile journey back to The Solent.

Bugger

 We loaded the car with a new 3D lightweight tender, second hand Honda 4 stroke outboard purchased off eBay, more tools, bedding, the contents of a small IKEA's kitchen dept and a home made wooden plank!

All was going well until a blow-out just south of Lyon. Turns out this particular profile BMW tyre is rare in France and we lost a couple of days waiting. To be honest we had adopted a flexible mindset that made this wait not too frustrating. I knew we were in for some curved balls, the first one we dealt ourselves by setting out with marginal rubber.

Par for the course....

Grace's First Temporary Home at SMN

By now Grace was back in the water temporarily on SMN's walk ashore pontoons where we were able to load all our stuff and stock the boat up for the first time.

Home in PG2 Port Grimaud

After a short week getting things together at SMN we moved the boat a little deeper into Port Grimaud proper which became our base for the test sails.

Another day, another bay in St Tropez

Some video taken on a test sail with 24 knts of wind on a reach. Grace is very stable and sails brilliantly on auto-helm with zero fuss.

Spring 2016 Service and Prep 1

The weather was kind in March 2016

Audrey and I returned mid march 2016 to start the deep clean on Grace and start prep for her return to the UK.

By now this was my 5th trip to the area and to Grace.

We had decided to use PYD (Professional Yacht Deliveries) to get Grace back and had already factored this into what we considered to be the buying price of the boat. We would hand over to them after a 2 week sailing holiday/commissioning trip we had planned for May when we would bring the car out with pile of kit.

Lots of tedious jobs

I took a bunch of tools out (most of my luggage was tools!) tools that would end up living on the boat.

Audrey developed a hate for polishing and cleaning sand stained stainless steel and aluminium.

I set about cutting and polishing the hull and we both finished together on the superstructure.

By this time Grace was looking more loved but we had done all the cleaning we could stand.

We enjoyed some Grace shopping for new flares and kitchen ware.

Cutting Video!

Polishing Video!

Not all work then! No wine was harmed in the making of this video. Cogolin (The local Mercure became our home from home over this period) was very quiet in March but I like to think we did our bit for its night time ecconomy!

Job done. Come home.

Winter 2015/2016 SMN Jobs Completed

The work carried out by SMN during Grace's first winter (2015/2016) in preparation for our first season:

• New 4 man Liferaft as the old one was out of service date.
• Replacement fire extinguishers for service date.
• Replacement seacock for heads sink outlet (worn/corroded).
• New stern prop seal gland as a matter of course.
• Winterisation of Engine and generator
• Antifouling
• Anodes
• Basic rig check and sign off.
• Repair and laundry of main and genoa
• Repair and laundry of spray hood and bimini