The last couple of days we have had a small oil leak on the port engine. Not much – what you see above is after six hours of running – but we wanted to find the source before proceeding.

A careful check lead us to oil filter cartridge. Not the gasket as you would normally assume. But a pin hole in the bottom. We have eight of these filters in inventory. Hopefully this is an isolated incident.

A note on changing cartridge filters. These usually have an O-ring or lip seal and it is best to wipe a film of oil onto these before hand tightening the cartridge.

We’ve been using a digital programmable thermostat to control our diesel boiler. This allows us to program four different set of time and temperature during the day. Our sleeping cabin is kept cold during the day, turns the heat on an hour before bed time, and goes to low heat (but still on) until morning, when we are programmed to warm up just a bit.

The salon is just the opposite. At night it is set to very cool, comes on during early morning hours, and turns down during the afternoon.

The problem with the salon is that if we are underway we want more heat at night. So, we have to reprogram the T-stat, and then put it back to where it was once our passage is over.

Now we have a better solution. The smaller analog thermostat below the digital model is wired in parallel. If the analog unit is turned off, as shown here, the digital T-stat controls. If we want more heat the analog unit is turned up and takes over.

Close observers will note exposed wiring. We have not yet drilled an extra hole in our lovely timber. We want to use this for a few weeks and make sure we like the concept.

We submit the photo above as a baseline for thinking about anchor size. We are ensconced in Vikingevagen, Norway. A tight, protected anchorage. Water depth is 40 feet (12m) and the barometer is plunging. It is gusting 40 knots, and the granite shore is 150 feet (45m) off our stern. This is not a situation in which you want to worry about anchor size.

So, how big an anchor is right?

This is a tough calculation. Typical tables published by anchor suppliers or organizations like NMMA are a joke. They assume good holding, and moderate, protected anchorages. Our basic rule has been to use a multiple of what would be considered a storm anchor.

This pays dividends in every day use allowing you to anchor with much shorter scope

At the risk of repeating ourselves (this topic is covered in great detail in our books), and using one of the new generation highly efficient hooks like the Rocna, Spade, or Bruegel, we would carry the following:

• Sundeer 56/60 – 110lb/50kg
• Sundeer 64/68 – 176lb/80kg
• Beowulf 80 – 240lb/110kg
• For yachts in the 40 to 50 foot range – 80lb/38kg
• For yachts in the 30 to 40 foot range – 60lb/28kg

This assumes a chain rode.

To begin with, the radar is in one of its stabilized modes. In this particular case, the radar picture remains oriented in the direction of the latest update we have applied. If our heading remains the same, the course line stays pointed up. If our course changes from the last heading update, the course line projecting from the bow reflects this, and here we are headed a few degree to port from the last update. It is an excellent quality control for the pilot. You are probably used to seeing the radar bearing ring numbers start at zero at the top but in this stabilized mode those numbers show the heading at the update point, and the true heading of any target relative to us. Stabilized headings typically show more accurate intercepts from AIS and ARPA, hence the use here.

AIS target “A” with the yellow highlight, has a hook on the end of its pointer at right angles to port. This hook (there is another a couple of ships back pointing to starboard) indicates the target is turning in that direction.

Some of the targets are not marked by ARPA. When we are in crowded waters we typically use just AIS, which is supposed to be more accurate and faster at updating. The radar will turn a target automatically into an ARPA symbol, but we leave this off unless we are well offshore.

The trail of dots behind the targets are a function we can turn on or off. The intervals are also controllable (i.e. 30 seconds or five minutes, etc.). They are helpful in figuring out what the target has been doing and maybe what it is going to next. You can do the same thing with trails, but this would be much too cluttered with all of these targets.

Now Dave’s tough question. With four vessels closely spaced what is our tactic for crossing, and how close is reasonable under these conditions? First, our preference is always to take the stern of targets. This eliminates problems from miscalculations or is there is a mechanical breakdown which might leave us in the path of one of the ships. If we are in open waters, we want to see a crossing vector of no less than two nautical miles if we are taking someone’s bow. But we are a twin engine power boat able to adjust speed up or down with ease. Under sail we’d want three or even four miles. Otherwise, we slow down and/or adjust course to take the ships stern.

But this situation is more complex. If we slow down and let this gaggle of ships through, we have a second pulse coming through right behind. Here we are trying to maintain a one mile separation of our vectors, but in reality this was down to a half a mile in several cases.

AIS is a great tool for dodging ships. But we still take visual bearings on the ships to make sure that the AIS (or ARPA) hasn’t developed a bug.

OK, back to the radar photo. We took the sterns of the first group of ships, then sped up to pass ahead of the third group to starboard just outside the fourth (eight mile) ring.

We see two pay to play wifi options with our high gain antenna and access point. Both – BT Open Zone and Something Wireless – are slow and of intermittent availability. We subscribed to both – roughly US$22. per month for each – so we had a choice.

But wait. It gets better.

Then we learned about the O3 system. This is a 3G (phone) network with a stable connection and reasonable download speeds. You are required to purchase a USB dongle and SIM card for US$30. You then buy data capacity. 3 gigs of data for a month is US$22. This set up is significantly less than we were paying Verizon in the US and we are told there is good coverage throughout the UK. So far, with a week of Skype calls, web surfing, sending photos to magazines, and lots of e-mails we have used about 700Mb of data.

Now that we have the USB dongle we can purchase SIM cards for it wherever we are cruising with the 3G system (most of Europe and Scandinavia).

We have been using the same set of Yale Ropes high modulus dock lines coming onto four years now. These 11mm (7/16″) ropes are as strong as our normal 24mm (one inch) polyester, weigh a fraction of the latter, and are less prone to chafe. And they are obviously a lot easier to handle.

When we started out with these we assumed that we’d use them to get the boat secured and then switch to heavier polyester. However, except for two situations, this has not been the case. The first is when we are in storage mode, leaving the boat for long periods of time. In this case there is no benefit to using the higher strength and more expensive cordage. The second is when docked with a surge. The high mod materials have little stretch and in some case transmit an uncomfortable snub to the boat. In both cases we switch to a “brait” style polyester.

Take a look at the outer cover chafe above. This occurred during a fueling stop in Pango Pango, American Samoa in 2005. The edge of the fuel barge was sharp concrete, and the spring lines were laying across this surface with a four foot (1.2m) swell running under our hull. The polyester cover was damaged, but the inner high modulus material was barely affected. We are still using these dock lines.

If you are cruising on a yacht of 50 feet (15m) or more, high modulus dock lines may be worth considering.

A final point. We use bowlines for knots. These are left somewhat lose, as shown in the first photo. If a conventional tight bowline is employed we have found these work themselves tighter to the point where they can be impossible to untie.

A double dose of blankets did the trick. But the pain of warming the cool sheets at the beginning of our sojurn abed disuaded us from further experimentation.

This year we decided to experiment with – now don’t laugh – a bed warmer. Not the familiar electric blanket, but something which goes between the bottom sheet and mattress pad.

We have been testing this device and are pleased to report it works really well. Ten to fifteen minutes after being turned on that painful chill has been removed from between the sheets, and our bed is pleasingly toasty.

We are happy to tell you that power consumption is minimal – about 75 watts at the highest setting. If you assume this runs for 15 minutes, allowing for some inverter losses we are talking about something in the neighborhood of two or three amp hours of capacity in a 12 volt system. And the diesel heater stays off all night.

What’s next you might ask? Well, we have not solved the problem of the ice cold toilet seat…

• Avoid damage to the plumbing system and machinery from a prolonged freeze.
• Keep the humidity under control so there is no risk of mildew or mold growing.
• Maintain battery state of charge.
• Keep an eye on the freezers, which have a few items left over from last year.
• General security for the boat.