Kit reviews

For those who might be interested we have now been aboard for several months and we thought we would note our pro and cons on some of the kit we have aboard, best buys and things to avoid.

Chartplotters:
We have two main plotters aboard, the first of which is the Garmin GPSmap 750. We really like the smoothness of the cartography, the extra info on tides and moon phases etc is very handy too. The touch screen can be very fiddly though, especially with any motion on it becomes very difficult to locate your finger in the correct part of the screen. Another downside we find with this plotter is that when planning routes you can easily lose it all and have to start over, when planning around the many rocks and skerries of Norway it can take ages to set in a route and to lose it is a real pain!!

Our other plotter is the Seiwa Explorer 3 which is a unit without a screen and so we have it connected to a 22inch screen, the fact we have it plugged in to such a large screen is great, removes the need to squint over small screens. The cartography can be quite glitchy though and route planning while on the go is a disaster. The maps are more basic than the Garmin, but we do like the fact that the currents are displayed by varying arrows so you know what the current state is at anytime. The additional images for many harbours is a fun add on. The toggle button can again be difficult to use in any motion, but all in all the large screen is very helpful. Using both plotters along with the paper charts gives us the best of all worlds, meaning we can have one plotter zoomed right in, with the other one giving an overview.

Other Navigational Electronics:
One of our best buys this year was our Nauticast AIS. Bought second hand for a good price this old technology class A transponder AIS comes with no colour display like many of the newer ones, but having a written display of nearby vessels bearings and speeds etc means we can get a picture of what's around us, what to avoid etc. The unit despite being old now, seems to work well and we can be spotted by other ships too.

Raytheon Radar, again old technology too, which makes for a pretty bulky unit on the wheelhouse roof,but that said its very helpful in the few times it has been needed when foggy. A handy thing to have, when used properly having learnt the zoom procedure its a useful safety addition.

Garmin Fishfinder 140, basic but simple to use, turn it on and it does the rest, very helpful for anchoring and giving an idea of how much chain to put out etc. The theory that it spots fish is yet to be proved... mind you our fishing technique is probably to blame and not the fishfinder!! Its nice to have something to blame though! One thing to watch out for is that it seems to get confused by the engines running, possibly air bubbles confused for masses of fish.

Solar Panels, we have 4 solar panels aboard and they do a great job of keeping batteries topped up. They can be walked on and aren't as fragile as the glass type. Free energy is always good! We have got almost 10a/h  from them, and even on relatively dull days they seem to be able to find the suns rays!

Engines:
Last Norway trip we came with a backup Tohatsu 9.8hp this year we have a twin installation of Yamaha 8hp high thrust engines.  One of the yamahas is power tilt whilst the other is manual, while the power tilt is more convenient the manual tilt obviously has less to go wrong and so they compliment each other well. Both are remote controlled from the wheelhouse and we have them steering through one wheel, the biggest disappointment from the Tohatsu to the Yamaha is that they have no back up pull start. The Tohatsu also had a choke which was controlled from the remote, where as the Yamahas require someone to go out to the engines. Not a big deal but something that we lazy people quite liked!! The Yamahas in general perform well and we like that they are high thrust and have a bigger gear box. For this boat we would need a massive engine to make her plan, so not trying to achieve that we thought the setup offers good power and control, thanks to the twin installation we have more manoeuvrability. With them both running we can reach our hull speed, and at 4.5knots they do 1.3 miles per litre in total. The high thrust also offers great stopping.

Our Volvo, what can we say, this engine has been reliable and performed very well. We have twice had problems, firstly the earthing problem in 2014 which was really not the engines fault. Then the overheating problem this year, which we have since discovered to be the water pump, which isn't even a Volvo part, so we can't find any reason to complain about the engine! For a now old engine its done very well, even when we had -8deg C it started instantly with no complaints. The Sterndrive which is even older (1990!) has had no problems at all. Whilst petrol would not normally be our chosen engine, the smoothness and quietness of this engine has been great, this along with the fact that the main engine, the backups and the generator all run on the same fuel is handy. Fingers crossed in the next few days we will get the engine running again, and hopefully there has been no internal damage.

Extras:
Wallas 22DT diesel heater, planning to overwinter in Norway meant we needed a reliable and cheap to use heater aboard. Having read Specifications of all the heater options we could find we decided that the Wallas 22DT was the one to go for, persuaded by the low fuel consumption and low battery use. Both of these points have proved themselves, and the heater warms the boat very quickly and is relatively quiet too. The massive downside of this heater is the lighting process, the heater requires a fairly high voltage for lighting and if at any point during the lighting process (approx 10 mins) the voltage drops below this it cuts off and if this happens three times in a row it goes in to lock out. This means even our new battery can't cope with lighting the heater and every time we decide to start the heater we either need to be plugged in to electricity and have the battery charger running or start the generator. A huge inconvenience. We have had the heater just almost lit, with heat beginning to come out when the voltage drops below for a second and the heater then cuts off, in the cold winter climate we really would prefer not to be fighting with the heater.

Spot tracker: when we bought this device it was to not only act as a safety device as it has a SOS button which alerts the emergency services to your location, but it was also a fun way for family and friends to follow us, as it sends out a position every 10minutes which can be viewed as a live track for anyone watching. The tracker requires an additional subscription and we have been sure to top this up so that it can be used still, this year though we will not resubscribe. The tracker has not been so reliable, wether it has developed a fault or the satellite space is low we don't know, but while it flashes the correct colours on the device we have found it doesn't always track us, and this can cause worry for anyone watching at home, as well as bringing it to question how much use it would be in an emergency situation. Now we have the AIS it can be tracked by those at home.

Yamaha ES1000i generator, the generator offers very good fuel consumption, under 250w it uses under 0.2 L of petrol an hour. The generator is also fairly quiet, particularly when producing low levels of electricity, we have bought everything from kettles to Ovens to be used with the generator under 1000w. Its also compact and easy to start. The only change we would make is the addition of a wattage draw counter. The warranty is only for 2 years which isn't as high as some of the competitors.

ROCA windscreen wipers. Because of the thickness of our wheelhouse we couldn't easily install cheap wipers and we thought by buying the expensive and branded ROCA wipers we would have great wipers for the life of the boat. Instead they have been a waste of money from day one, they simply do not work. We have had replacement parts sent and yet they still do not work, totally unreliable and instead we have bought a squeegee and just have to go out and wipe the windows when needed... I'm guessing we are just very unlucky in this case.

Manson Supreme Anchor, we will update you on this as they year goes on and it receives more use, but so far we are very happy with it.

Mariner 2 1.5hp our tender engine! The engine is 20+years old and still starts perfectly, great size and very light, one of the lightest petrol outboards ever made. Very handy for lifting up beaches and moving around on board. The size suits or rather small 1.8m 3D Tender too! The tender its self is rather light too, weighing just over 10kg.

Lidls LED lights, waterproof and bright, run on 12v and can be cut to any length, pretty much ideal for our boat. Take up no room and can take a bash without worrying about broken bulbs.Very low power consumption for good light levels.

Teng Tools 20pc tool kit. What might look like a childs toy as its admittedly tiny has proved very useful. Getting in to tricky areas that bigger tools wouldn't go near the tool kit has been used more than any other tool aboard, and can fit in a pocket.

Incredibly Cheap Fans bought off ebay, costing virtually penny's with delivery we didn't hold out much hope for these but two years on they are still running great! From demisting windows to cooling us down on warm days they were worth every penny!!

Minox BN7x50 DCM Binoculars incredibly easy to use, not requiring focusing and as powerful as useable on a boat they are permanently at hands reach as we motor along. They come with some really cool and useful features too, the only disadvantage is that the binos electronics are easily accidentally switched on leading to a flat battery long before it should be. Besides this they are perfect and used all the time.

Fusion MSCD600 stereo and CD player, good sound and features, we use it to listen to CDs, Ipod, Radio and even plug our laptop in for films etc. Seems a very rugged machine and great for what we need, nice display too. Sound control can be a real pest when switching between the outputs.

Fire extinguishers, not something we wanted to have any experience with but I'm afraid we do! We used 6 extinguishers, some of which were the automatic type, some powder and one aerosol type. The powder ones are incredibly messy, while a nightmare to clean up after they certainly spread well and got in to corners you would never believe they would. The aerosol type last longer despite being much smaller, but in the heat of the action nothing seems to last very long. The automatic are triggered at a fairly high temperature and you are relying on them working automatically which can be risky. We were lucky that the fire was in small area, and we had taken more extinguishers than recommended, never presume its overkill, if a problem arises the more the better and you will be thankful for every one you have. Make sure they are all accessible, and just because you hope not to use them don't allow them to be shoved behind boxes etc, if you need them you need them in a hurry. Fire on any boat is one of the most scary and damaging things, despite being surrounded by water. On that note we also had four bilge pumps which might sound again like over kill, but when two hoses melted it was good to have spare, having the hand pump one was also great as there is less to go wrong.

More reviews and updates to follow as we have had the chance to use things for a longer period of time.