31st Jan-2nd Feb: Outboard, Met Station & LED bulbs!
The outboard needs it’s annual service so on the last day of January I removed it from Seatern. Easier said than done, as I suspected when I fitted the Vibrastop pads. The outboard had only just fitted over them and to get it off I had to lever it up with a wrecking bar whilst using my 6-way purchase rigged from the boom gallows to stop it slipping back. When it was off I was surprised at the way the pads had deformed on the outboard well side. Given that they did not reduce the sound of the outboard I’m wondering about removing them although that will leave a few holes to fill in the teak outboard mount. I took the outboard in for servicing at the Rib-Shop and they will have it for about a week so time to think.
The weather station humidity sensor has been showing very low readings and the solar panel is crazed so I replaced both with spare parts from Weather Spares. This gave an opportunity to clean up the plates of the thermometer screen which were very dirty. I also moved the new temperature and humidity sensor location down a plate to get it further from the rain funnel.
Finally, I’ve been replacing most of the light bulbs in the house with new LED ones. All the lights on Seatern, including the Nav Lights, have always been LED. However I hadn’t realised that LED replacements were now available for the 240v bulbs in the house. Whether I’ll ever recoup the capital outlay is questionable, but at least future running costs will be much lower!