Refit FAQs

Blimey…this blog doesn’t get that many hits, but I’m amazed at how many of the people who do read it then go on to email me – not only with compliments (for which thank you!) but also with questions about Arabella’s refit. Here are the answers to some of the more frequent (and sometimes testing) questions that have come up…


Q. Why did you fit a new water tank?

The old tank (fitted as standard to the 'deluxe' models of the Pandora International) had fallen into disuse many years before. It lacked a lid, and was suffering from blistering, believe it or not – the first time I've ever seen that on the inside of a boat! The previous few owners had simply used a jerry can stuffed into the forecabin - effective, but crude, I thought. I wanted Arabella to look "nice". In the end I opted to go for Tek-Tanks because they would custom mould a new tank to fit the space provided by the old tank at reasonable cost. I also improved on the original by adding filler and breather pipes.


Q. Why did you site the nav station to port? Wouldn’t it have been easier to cable everything to starboard, given that the battery and the cockpit repeaters are both to starboard?

Yes, it certainly would have been easier – and cheaper!! There were a number of reasons for choosing to locate the nav station to port.

First and foremost, I wanted the sliding worktop, which covers the galley to port, to double as a chart table. I could have gone a different way altogether, and installed a retracting or folding table to starboard over the quarterberth, but that would have restricted the vertical clearance for anyone sleeping in Arabella’s most comfortable berth (which would be me, then). In addition, the existing sliding worktop is extremely stable due to the fact that it rests on supports that are already fitted – it is perfectly safe to lean on it when doing chartwork or writing up the log.

Having made that decision, I did face the complication of cabling across the boat. If I had been doing the work, I would have given up very rapidly. But I was paying the yard to do it, and as long as I clenched my teeth and wrote out the cheques, they were happy to do it. I was insistent that I didn’t want cabling to run across the beam of the boat, so all the wires run forward, under the berths and mouldings on each side, under the v-berth forward, and back down the other side.


Q. That’s a lot of electronics for a small, cheap, old boat isn’t it? Must have cost a fortune.

Yes and no. If you discount the VHF (already with the boat when I bought her), speed, depth, wind (and I’ll come back to wind in the next question), then the “non-essentials” are the Navtex and the AIS. I guess it’s just a matter of personal preference – to my way of thinking, both Navtex and the AIS sit nowadays right on the dividing line between essential and non-essential electronics.

The deciding factor for me was cost. My Navtex and AIS were budget-priced NASA models and in the latter case I picked it up at a boat show discount price. In the case of the ST60+ instruments, they were most definitely not budget items, but they came as a sensibly-priced pack and were accompanied by helpful discounts on the GPS and Graphics repeater.

Q. Why did you go for the odd GPS and autopilot set-up? Is everything interfaced? How do you enter waypoints?

This is the trickiest one to answer. In fact, I don’t have a comprehensive answer to offer, because there was no master plan here, just a series of small decisions that over time resulted in the current arrangement.

First, the Raystar 125 GPS receiver came as part of a deal with the instruments described above. It’s a self-contained unit, i.e. not merely an antenna but also a receiver in its own right, and interfaces with the ST60+ graphics repeater to display GPS data, so from the economic viewpoint, it was a good buy. Plus, it could be made, with the help of an NMEA bus, to interface with other electronics such as the VHF-DSC.

Second, I had to decide what kind of GPS interface I wanted to use, for example to enter waypoints. This was where I ran into real difficulty. I love fixed chartplotters, but even with prices falling, these are still very expensive items. In addition, both the yard and I really felt we had gone as far as we dared in terms of squeezing in electronics, from an economic viewpoint, from an aesthetic viewpoint and from a power consumption perspective. I hummed and hawed and turned away from the idea.

Third, I already owned a Raymarine RC400 chartplotter, and I had more recently acquired a Garmin GPSmap 60CSx (which sees regular use on my bike and in my car). Each of these handheld GPS units has its strengths and weaknesses, but both are undeniably capable in a marine application. At the same time, however, each has only limited NMEA interface capabilities, and cabling installation in either case is clumsy – they need to be above decks to get a good signal (especially the RC400) and then you are getting into a whole new ball game about where and how to mount them, and how to cable them in. In addition, despite being the same brand, the RC400 is sufficiently long in the tooth that it won’t talk to the Raystar 125 GPS, so one possible solution – to mount it below decks and use it as the GPS interface – was ruled out. Anyway, I really want the chartplotter up with me in the cockpit where I can refer to it in a real-world pilotage situation.

Finally, I had a (very) lightly-used Navico (now Simrad) TP300CX left over from my last yacht. Arabella came with a more basic, but entirely functional TP10. The TP10 had no interface capability, however, while the TP300CX did. It therefore made sense to install the TP300CX as well as retaining the TP10. That way, I would have a back-up tillerpilot and some interface capability, at least with the main unit.

So there it was, a messy mixture of old and new kit, all of which I wanted to use, and economic considerations to consider as well…I could either bin a perfectly good, brand-name GPS receiver that came as part of an attractive package deal, or integrate it as best I could and work around it. I chose the second option, but quite possibly if I had been richer I might have gone a different way.

All of which left me in the following position, which I am happy with:

(a) I can’t enter waypoints into the on-board, fixed GPS system. I don’t care because I use my handhelds all the time when in the cockpit, and all I ever do anyway is move the cursor (on either handheld) to my destination and hit “Go to Cursor”. I’ve never entered a lat and long into a GPS in my life, and don’t intend to start now.

(b) If I am working at the nav station, I can read the lat and long from the fixed (Raystar 125) GPS and enter it on the chart or in the log book. Seems easier than running a fix or an EP to me.

(c) The VHF-DSC automatically knows where I am if I ever have to hit that little red button…

(d) With no means to enter waypoints into the fixed GPS, I cannot set the Navico TP300CX tillerpilot to ‘Steer to waypoint’. Again, I don’t care. I’m sailing a yacht in tidal waters, not a mobo in the Med. Ever tried sailing from the Needles to Cherbourg by steering to waypoint – it’s quite funny, in a painful kind of way, when you realise why it doesn’t work. As far as I am concerned, I want the tillerpilot to steer a compass heading or steer to wind – as to which, see the next point.

(e) The Navico tillerpilot is interfaced with the ST60+ Wind – so it can steer to wind. Just what I want.

On balance, I like the set-up. It does what I want it to do. Others may disagree, especially those who would shell out for a fixed chartplotter and have done with it. Well, that’s an option for the future as the cabling and interface capability is all but there to stick a C- series plotter in, but it’ll be for a future owner I suspect – not for me.


Q. How are you going to power all that electronic wizardry, anyway? On a small boat, you can’t have much battery capacity, surely?

Quite right. But here, in contrast, I did have a master plan. The whole electrical supply issue is such a large topic that it deserves a post of its own – click HERE to see the details. In brief, however, I chose a deliberate mixture of shorepower, solar and outboard charging coupled with a decent capacity battery. The result is that a full battery (without top-up charging) will power me through a day and a night at sea, perhaps also into the following late morning. The battery can also be charged either on the go or once tied up again at a marina. Charging at sea is a losing battle, in the sense that the top-ups don’t quite replace the Amp-hours taken out. The effect, instead, is to extend the battery capacity by some hours beyond that just mentioned. How many more hours precisely would be a function of how sunny the weather was (for solar charging), and how much petrol I could spare to run the outboard purely to charge the battery.

It wouldn’t be a viable solution for long-distance cruising. However it’s perfectly adequate for - say - a long channel crossing, which is as much as, if not more than, Arabella is ever likely to do.

Refit: March update

Another month, another cheque to the boatyard...but Arabella is really starting to come along now.

A quick visit today confirmed that the (once daunting) worklist has shrunk considerably. I have drawn a line in the sand for an early May launch, and the boatyard are now working hard to try and deliver on that.

Left: Arabella's modified pushpit has now been fitted, and various antennae installed as described below. The lines of the original pushpit (now the lower section) can still be clearly identified.








Above: The modified pushpit, viewed from inside the cockpit - the sense of security engendered by the modified version, as compared with the original, is considerable. The Raystar GPS antenna/receiver sits amidships, with the new Hella Marine LED stern light. The extra height now allows the horseshoe buoy to sit cleanly above the transom - on the original it overlapped and obscured the name of the yacht.


Above: Metz Manta VHF antenna (for NASA AIS unit) to starboard quarter. This unit, supplied by (YBW forumite) Salty John is a surprisingly dainty little thing - I had always envisaged it as being the size of a can of Heinz beans with a whip sticking out of the top, but in fact the base unit is smaller than that.

Above: A waterproof VHF speaker has been installed in the starboard quarter of the cockpit.


Above: Photostitch of the nav station to port - nobody has quite dared tighten the screws on it yet (!), but it's basically there...



Above: ...and this is what I was trying to achieve: with the sliding galley worktop in the aft position, acting as a chart table.


Above: Internal cosmetics are still going slowly - and may indeed not be finished before Arabella goes back into the water, because of my insistence on a firm launch date - but this shot shows one of the new LED interior lights. There are three white lights (two amidships and one forward) and a red LED located over the nav station.

Above: Detail of one of the LED interior lamps on its teak mount.

New forehatch and pushpit

Above: Arabella's original forehatch was badly cracked and had begun to leak. This is a test-fitting of the replacement, fabricated by the boatyard, which they've made a really nice job of.


Above: Not the most glamorous possible shot of Arabella's new pushpit, prior to installation, but it gives the general idea. The original pushpit is the lower section, onto which the fabricators have welded the upper rail, while continuing the former lines. I was trying to work out how to place the various antennae today. They fit, but by the time the AIS antenna, Navtex antenna and GPS mushroom are all fitted, together with the dan-buoy and horseshoe buoy, it's going to be a squeeze to allow sufficient room to use the boarding ladder as well.

Refit: December update

Above: Chaos reigns below decks!



Work pressures, coupled with yesterday's less-than-sparkling attempt to get to Southampton, conspired to prevent me from going to see how Arabella's refit was progressing. But the yard's bills just kept on coming in all the same, so in desperation today I rushed through my meetings and made time to go and inspect the work done since September.

The refit was obviously going through a 'messy children' stage at the moment, with various people starting and stopping work around each other's progress (or lack of it). But the process was moving inexorably forward, and even in her unfinished state, it was becoming easier to see how Arabella would look when the work was finished.

Much of the interior work shown here was done in September and October, and the focus had now shifted to the exterior fittings. A key issue for me was the height of Arabella's guardrail. The original pushpit and pulpit were in great shape, and the stanchions had clearly been replaced at some stage and were also in excellent condition. The only problem was that they were all pathetically low. This had clearly been done with a view to maintaining the yacht's visual proportions, and it has to be admitted that in that sense, it worked well. But - call me a wimp if you like - I just couldn't see how they would engender any sense of security at sea. I like to feel that I am in, rather than on, the cockpit. I opted to double the height of the guardrail all round.

This turned out to be quite an undertaking. Each of the stanchions had an extension welded on (and the seam polished out for aesthetic purposes). The original plan was to weld extensions to the pulpit and pushpit, too. This worked well for the pushpit. However, extending the lines of the current pulpit would have led to it overhanging the bow by a considerable degree. Apart from looking odd, this would have increased Arabella's length to the extent that my marina charges would have increased. That didn't seem good for my blood pressure. After taking a deep breath, I authorised the fabrication of an entirely new pulpit. It looked the part, but I would have to claw back the cost overrun somewhere...

Once I had checked the work and taken pictures, I sat down and made a list of the other things that need to be done. Once I got back home and typed it up, it ran to four pages. Damn. I'd learned the hard way on this project that planning was everything, so I broke down the list into as many constituent items as possible and tried to put them into some semblance of order, according to their priority. Then I asked the yard to sit down with me in January and work through the list together.

I'm determined to get Arabella back into commission this coming Spring - before I forget how to sail. If all the work can't be done before then, she can go back in the water unfinished and then come out in the high season, when I rarely sail (I hate the Solent when it gets overcrowded in high season) and the yard is quiet again.

Above: New self-tailing winch (note the custom s/s base) and cockpit instrument heads to starboard.

Left: Plastimo Contest compass to port.



Above: View forward, showing an example of the stanchions which have been extended to create a full height guardrail, and the new pulpit beyond


Above: The new pulpit.

Left: New wooden panels to the rear bulkhead. The Studer Innotec MBC battery charger has now been installed alongside the 240V consumer unit (lower background).


Above: A composite photostitch showing the instrument panel, among the debris, awaiting installation.

An Unsuccessful Trip/"Deep Water"

SWMBO and the kids had left to spend a month in Italy, trailing behind them dark mutterings about the fate that would await me if I allowed work to prevent me from joining them for Christmas. So, having been a good boy and gone into the office on Saturday, what better way to pass a Sunday than to go down to Southampton and check on the boat for the first time since September?

Work had been especially heavy throughout the autumn, coupled with which I had picked up some kind of chronic cough which kept me close to the office or home. Now, feeling increasingly on the mend, I realised that this was the one and only chance I was going to get. As an added bonus, the movie Deep Water was showing at the Harbour Lights cinema in Ocean Village, so I could kill two birds with one stone and catch the movie too.

Normally, I get the train to Southampton and take the pushbike to reach the marina from the station. For whatever reason, I chose to take the car. Big mistake. The traffic making its way south-west out of central London was horrendous. I found myself in a seemingly endless snake of traffic making its way through Battersea at two miles an hour. I was just debating pulling a U-turn and heading over to Waterloo to do the sensible thing, when I drove, at a heady 10 mph, over the kerbs of one of those silly little islands that they put in the middle of the road for no apparent reason. I winced as first the front offside wheel, then the rear one, graunched over the curb which felt like it was at least six inches high, and crashed down on the other side. A grumbling noise and a floppety-floppety sensation confirmed my worst fear. Oh for pity's sake. I pulled the Alfa over onto the pavement, carelessly scattering the pedestrians who seemed to feel that they had some right to be there, and sure enough: the front was completely blown, the rear badly cracked and scarred.

Out with the jack and the space-saver (almost flat, another fine example of Italian car servicing only a few weeks ago) and whipped off the flat and replaced it with no trouble (we're self-reliant, us yotties). There was no point crawling on to Southampton on a deflated spare, and anyway the rear tyre wasn't safe, so I managed to find the nearest Kwik-fit and emerged, just as it was getting dark, £190 poorer.

Expensive game, this sailing.

Anyway, I did get to see Deep Water, at the Curzon Soho, and very good (and deeply moving) it was too. Try to see if it if you can. A tragic tale of an inexperienced sailor's compulsion to push himself to the verge of bankruptcy and beyond for the sake of...here, hang on a minute!