Hotsocks in the snow causes Coldsocks!

Greetings and Happy New Year... it h

as been a while since I have posted and I will probably not apologise for this given that there was little to post about! HotSocks has been wintering in Shotley Marina, and now that budget has been confirmed for 2012 it is time to sort things out!

I am delighted to announce another year under the title sponsorship of International Paint, and we have an extensive calendar of solo, double and corporate sailing lined up!

So, it was a case of getting down to it on the jobs list, and with the help of good chum and 18ft skiff sailor Tom Kiddle we began the task of ticking of the "re wire" box on said list.

Typically, as is often found in boat maintenance, the allocated time to complete this task fell far short of the actual time required and was another lesson to myself with regard to time management and boats! For future reference the following equation should be used....

Actual Time required = (Anticipated time required to complete task*2)*1.5

You will probably have enough time to finish your task...just!

Anyway, the plan to remove the NKE instrumentation and fit a new Raymarine suite ended with removing all the wiring internally. This decision mostly came about due to the excessive amount of duplicate, obsolete and unknown wiring that was to be found, which frankly could equal weight saving. So starting off with an essentially blank canvas means that our new installation will be light, efficient, organised and easy to fault find.

So apart from a literally freezing weekend, cold digits, frequent defrosting trips to the car and a lot of stretching into cramped corners, lockers and engine compartents, it was an otherwise productive and, I am tempted to say, enjoyable! Still, I don't think Tom is in any rush to complicate the otherwise simple systems already available on his skiff!