Waving not drowning?

[Na Mara]

Thanks pete.

[PirateFoxy]

Two things based on experience of living abroad for multiple years:

Re: the dog, if he’s going to be living where you’ll end up, a year is not a long time. The rehoming really doesn’t need to be permanent from his perspective. (There may be other practicalities that influence things, I’m just speaking of the dog. I had a dog I didn’t see for three years who was DELIGHTED when I came home and adapted just fine to having me around again.)

Re: real estate vs investing - unless you think you’ll do quite well buying before you go, due to the local market, I’d avoid getting involved in renting personally. I rented out my house and I had a managing agent who was quite good but it was still extra stress that I wouldn’t have taken on if I didn’t already have the house. That said, I know in some markets finding the right space can be a challenge, so if that is a concern perhaps look into investing but don’t commit until you’ve looked to see if anything you really like is a available. If so, buy it, if not, invest and look again later, rather than buying something less ideal because you feel like buying now is part of the plan?

[Na Mara]

This is my first update on progress since I started the thread.

We have now pretty much minimalised all our possessions. There a few bits and bobs and some furniture left but basically we are there.

The house sale is progressing to plan. We have done a lot of the styling stuff, we have a realtor and stylist, photos and videos are happening in a week or two and the house goes on the market in maybe a month or so. Showing and sale happens toward end of July and beginning of August respectively. We are probably selling into a declining market but having owned the house through a property boom we are probably going to sell for a decent profit anyway.

The dog is getting all the vaccines, passports and so on for his rehoming with my sister in Scotland and that trip is booked and paid for. It’s happening over the second half of July.

We took the forum advice and have preordered a new build flat in Stockholm. Once we sell up the house, we’ll set up an escrow for it to ensure it can be paid for. Moving in date is end of 2023 and so is just under half way through our trip. It costs us nothing until then (excepting what is in the escrow) and we can carry cost of ownership without renting for the rest of the trip if necessary. This gives us a place to live when we return.

All the above is more or less to plan. What is not to plan is the changes in geopolitics close to us and our job situation. The war in Ukraine is pushing up the cost of everything and decreasing the value of our property and other assets. This makes it harder to do this sabbatical financially.

Then it is also the case that my wife just got a really high powered dream job that she may not wish to leave. In this case I might have to leave her ashore and go with just the kids with her using all her holiday to see us as much as possible. On the plus side though that, and the new job offer I got, would make this more affordable. My new offer is to teach distance courses at college from on the boat (this employer is fine with that). With decent telecoms I should then be able to work at least part time while cruising.

The wife wants us to save the Atlantic for when she is there so if she sticks with her job we will probably just do a tour of Western Europe and the Med for the year. That minimizes travel expenses for us to see each other over the year and makes data connectivity easier with mobile data. If she is aboard then we do the Atlantic if I can figure out a way of having sufficient connectivity to teleconference aboard. We are keeping that loose now.

So there’s the update. The only real fly in the ointment is the work on the boat. The yard is promising to do it but I have been chasing them for a quote for the work for over 5 months now. If they don’t sharpen up in the next week I’m taking my business elsewhere. The work needs doing and it’s now only 13 months until we leave.

So the operation has evolved due to changes in circumstance but it’s still a go and we are still making progress toward it but man is it a lot of stress and work getting everything ready.

Any advice on how to ensure streaming-capable data uplink afloat at halfway affordable rates would be greatly appreciated. Anyone with experience of cellphone signal amplifiers are welcome to relay their experience.

[GordMay]

Congratulations on you progress, Na Mara; and thanks for the comprehensive update!

[JPA Cate]

@Na Mara:

Is there any chance you can do the electrics and gas changes to the boat, maybe using your kids for gophers? (Go for x; go for y, etc.) Waiting on yards to finish jobs for you will up your stress levels, and turn your hair white.

It looks like you have everything else more or less under control, as much as life ever is.

Ann

[Na Mara]

Hi JPA, I missed your comment but DIYing everything is indeed what has happened.

So little update first.

House is sold (well an offer has been made and has been accepted). We got slightly less than we wanted for it but with the market the way it is these days we are just grateful that it is sold. The buyers are coming tomorrow to admire their new possession.

We have our stop-gap rental set up to carry us through to departure. Contracts on this are being signed this Sunday.

Looks like the wife's job is permanent and my daughter just wants to dip in and out of the trip as she feels like it (typical 18 year old) so it is now mostly me and my son with occasional hangers on. But my son is really, really keen on this trip and he is pushing the envelope of where we are going. Faroes, Iceland, Svalbard, Nordkap, Egypt, Tunisia have all been added to the list of destinations at his request. Its going to be one hell of a trip.

As JPA suggested, I have now totally given up on getting the boat fixed up by professionals and have decided just to DIY as much as possible. This has started with the electrical system. The specifications of which are:

Improved ventilation and lining with fibreboard (fire, water and heat resistant)
in the centre cabin locker converting it to an electrical cupboard.

3 x 200Ah Victron Lithium smart batteries with external BMS in battery bay adjacent to cupboard.
1 x 130Ah Victron AGM deep cycle battery used as starter and backup to LFP bank also in bay.

Bow thruster and starter off AGM battery, everything else off LFP bank.

Victron Lynx distribution system with integral BMS, shunt and fusing.
All chargers are brought to this system to charge the LFP bank directly. The engine battery is trickle charged off the inverter charger and charged off a DC - DC charger from the LFP bank.

Victron Multiplus II inverter (2400W) charger (120A) from/to the LFP bank.
4A trickle charger to the AGM battery.

Victron DC - DC 30A charger charging the AGM battery off the LFP bank.

Victron MPPT 150/45 controlling 600W of solar (4x150W uniteck BC panels) wired in parallel
mounted on an easy fix arch over the cockpit.

100A Balmar alternator regulated by a Wakespeed 500 regulator with
VE bus connection to the BMS.

Cerbo GX monitoring everything and feeding data to the existing AXIOM pro plotters.

Solar charging should be sufficient to meet all power needs aboard except perhaps underway in mid winter. Alternator will charge at 90A from 80% DOD to full in 8 hours
assuming 20A average usage. Full charge will last 3-5 days at rest, 2-3 days underway and
should bridge any weather related deficits.

I'm DIYing all of this with the help of my son next week (well the solar happens latter but everything else is next week). My son is so into all this that he's delighted to be a gopher.

I made up the wiring diagram for all this and it took days to do. The main power distribution system is simple enough, but all the ATD, ATC, DATA, sense and other controls going everywhere makes for a very complex diagram. Fortunately, as a physicist I'm pretty confident I can handle this.

The inverter charger arrived today and its a beast. It weighs 20kg and covers just under 2 sq feet of wall area. Its going to fun mounting it.

The gas system I am less confident about as a mistake here isn't just a fire risk, but an explosion risk. I need to do a bit more research about how to do this safely. I know what is required by way of regulations, I just don't know if I'm confident in connecting up a gas line by myself. What if it leaks?

Then there is everything else that needs doing. I'm going to have to write a list tomorrow and make up a calendar to ensure everything that needs doing on the boat gets done before we leave next June (less than a year now). I've done that on the home front but I neglected the boat because I was just going to get professionals to do it all. Now that isn't happening I'm going to have to get more organised about all this and its going to have to take up more of my time over the next year. Time constraints might necessitate some hard choices about what we have time to do before we leave. Some things (life raft service, engine service, boat registration, boat insurance, EPIRB, etc), just absolutely have to happen no matter what, but others (spinnaker boom, new sails, heating system repair, engine blower repair, etc) we can probably live without.

In the next month, hopefully, contracts on accommodation will be signed, the boat will have a new electrical system worthy of the trip, and we will be in Scotland trying to re-home the dog.

Wish me luck.

[JPA Cate]

What if it leaks?

Mix liquid dish washing detergent in a glass, half and half with water. Use an old basting brush or the cheapest paint brush you can find. If there is a leak, the joins will make bubbles, and you tighten them, and re-test, till there are no bubbles. I believe your gas is scented, with a kind of "garlic" smell. Such a smell means, turn off the electricity and thoroughly air out the boat.

As to the 18 yr. old's plans, I'd say if you get into conditions you feel are too dangerous, you'll have to put the kibosh on it for at least the short term. He needs to accept that you're the skipper and have final say. It can be hard to accept (don't ask), but it's gotta be done.

Ann

[MicHughV]

I can 100% guarantee this.

Even the best laid plans will change the second you untie the dock line.

Just take each day as it comes.

Some days the weather will co-operate...other days not...

Etc, etc, etc....each day will bring new friends..." hey, we're going here....come join us..."

After 3 months, you will wonder what the hell happened to your " plan"..

You may have planned to to go to A, B and C but will have discovered that you are now in D, planning to go to A via G.....

[Na Mara]

Contracts are signed on the house, it’s gone to a lovely young couple who are going to raise a family there.

We are moving into temporary accommodation in mid august.

rehoming attempt for the dog happens in 10 days.

Finally I have started installing the new electrical system myself, all DIY. The system is good enough to go all electric on cooking and that will be the next step. The picture is of installed tech prior to wiring it all up.

We are getting there.

[Pete7]

Plans coming together nicely, good luck

We have also recently replaced the gas system and like you a little worried. However, I installed one of these gas bubble testers. Press the button down and if it bubbles gas is flowing and leaking. Gives some confidence that the system is gas tight and the hob isn't leaking.

https://www.gasproducts.co.uk/carava...ubble-etc.html

[Manateeman]

Things are just stuff. It really of no importance because ... You have your health. You have an opportunity to take your two children on an adventure which will change their lives.
We feel you are Kinda overthinking all this because no one knows what will happen...good or bad...when you set sail.
Many years ago a boat sailed into our cove. They had punched a hole in it and had no money and no materials for repair. They were very poor. They were gathering periwinkles to eat. Their children all had names from the south seas islands where they were born. We gave them what we could. The children had a pretty difficult life but they were loved and looked pretty normal and happy.
I’m not justifying their parenting nor do I criticize it. I’m just reporting what we observed. I’ve often wondered what became of this family. I’ve seen children turn out a lot worse from ideal situations. Maybe it was simply the contrast, the poverty, the hunger, the difficult living conditions...maybe it forges an appreciation for the smaller things in life. Sibling affection, respect for other cultures...tolerance. Simple kindness.
I know your children will never be the same ever again. Neither will their children.
You have youth and good health on your side. What importance is the rest.
Just do it.
Happy trails to you.
Captain Mark and his crew of manatees

[Na Mara]

Re-homing attempt of the dog starts tomorrow.

Electrical system is now successfully installed.

It took me and my boy 4 fully days of work to do it and a whole lot of heavy lifting but the bulk of the electrical system is now done.

Everything seems to be working as it should though I haven't taken it fully live yet as I did not have the necessary MK3-USB adapter (why not include that with the inverter charger?) and spare PC to do the configuring of the inverter charger and I am not connecting that to the lithium batteries until it has the right charging profile and until the BMS can tell it what to do though the VE bus.

There is a single AGM battery is the engine starter battery (130Ah). At the moment it charges off the trickle charger for the multiplus (when that is in charging mode and is trying to charge the lithium batteries) and off the Hitachi alternator. In a month or so I am going to change the alternator to an externally regulated one (a WS500) which will charge the lithiums directly and the starter through the 30 A DC-DC charger (not presently wired up apart from the ATD signal wire). The engine starter motor, bow thruster and windlass are all powered off this AGM battery.

There are 3x200Ah Victron lithium smart batteries. That is 600Ah with room to breath in a space that barely squeezed in 375Ah of FLAs previously and more than 3 times the usable capacity. These batteries power everything else.

The system is designed so that in the event of a BMS shutdown of the lithium system, the boat can be entirely run off the AGM battery charged from a hastily switched out alternator and the solar panels. With only 70 Ah of usable capacity, however, this is very much a get you home in an emergency solution for keeping the instruments and lights on.

DIYing all this comes with four significant downsides I have discovered,

1. The stress of being responsible for it all: There is lots of money that can be lost through installation error (each LFP was 2200Euro!) of the new equipment. There is also the possibility of an electrical fire resulting from improper cable sizing or fusing resulting in the potential loss of the boat and/or life. Finally, there is the risk of injury from 12V electrocution and the risk of death from 230V electrocution. If all that doesn't stress you out when doing a project like this then you probably shouldn't be doing it.

2. The time required to do it properly: In total, including all the time necessary to plan everything out, the whole project has taken about 3 weeks of full-time work to date and will probably take another week or two to finish (installing and connecting up chargers). Two thirds of that time was just planning everything out. I had not appreciated previously how much planning is involved when doing boat electrical. You have to find the right components to the right specifications at prices you can stomach, you have to determine cable sizes, fuse sizes, and then determine how much of everything is required. You have to plan out not only the wiring diagram but also the physical placement aboard. If it wont fit then you have to go back to the first step and start over. Once you've got a system that will work and fit, then you have to order it all, keep track of it all in transit, pay for it all once delivered and checked, and finally transport it all to the boat. Only then can you actually install it all and test it.

3. The shear physical labour of installation: The inverter weighs 20kg, each LFP battery weighs 20kg and has ridiculously small handles, the AGM battery weighs north of 35 kg. Just lifting all that around is heavy stuff. Add to this the awkward position in which you are working (in my case, bent double on my knees for most of the installation) and it really takes its toll on a forty-something's body.

4. Limited assistance when something goes wrong: It took me ages to figure out why the battery protector wasn't allowing the LFP's to connect to the DC-loads: It was because I had stupidly not connected it to the negative side of the system so it couldn't read the voltage. It took me nearly as long to figure out why the ATD signal wasn't working (the victron manual on the lynx 500 BMS aren't to be trusted on that point. It is not the case that both pin 5 and 6 are ATD signal outputs, it is rather that pin 5 is a positive power input to the ATD and pin 6 is signal output that feeds that through, or not, depending on whether discharging is allowed, or not.). It also took me a while to figure out that ATD and ATC for the inverter charger is actually through the VE Can bus via the cerbo GX and not through the remote (its through the remote on every other non-ve.Can bus victron device), etc, etc. If you are going to do all this, then you have to count on a lot of time spent head scratching trying to figure out why something isn't working. I read the manuals cover to cover in the planning stage and it still happened to me several times. i must have spent at least 6 hours trouble shooting.

But there are also significant benefits to doing it all yourself.

1. Intimate knowledge of your boat's electrical system: Until I did this upgrade my boat's electrical system was a mystery to me. No longer! and that gives me a great deal of confidence that I will be able to cope with any unforeseen issues with that system in the future. That is worth a lot.

2. Significant savings: Even allowing for the fact that a professional works twice as fast as I do, this system was still about 7 days worth of skilled labour. It will be about 10 by the time its finished. In Sweden, skilled labour is expensive; it runs at about 700 euros a day. By installing all this myself I have saved about 7000 euros. That is about half of the material costs so I will have saved approximately one third of the costs of a professionally installed system. Thats not to be sneezed at.

3. System to exactly my specification: All the wiring is laid out logically now, the batteries are securely fastened in place, the electrical components are mounted on fire and water resistant fibreboard in spaces that are well ventilated, the cabling is a size bigger than it maybe needs to be, as are the busbars, etc, etc. All of these things took extra time to do and probably wouldn't have been part of a professional installation.

4. Great father and son time full of teachable moments: My son now knows a lot about electrical and even a fair amount about the electrical systems on the boat and how they work together. As he will be my main crew, this is an excellent outcome.

We'll be back at the electrical system after we return from the dog rehoming. Next jobs are configuring the inverter charger, connecting the LFP's to the distribution system permanently after an initial charge up from the multiplus, wiring up the DC-DC charger, replacing the alternator, and then fitting as much solar as the boat will carry. At that point the electrical system will be ready for departure, and it will be time to sort out all the safety systems. Next instalment on this thread in 5 weeks or so.

[Na Mara]

And here are some pictures of the installation for those who are interested.

[Na Mara]

Little update.

Dog has now been rehomed.

That was a particularly hard thing to do. Where he is is wonderful: Wide open fields of long grass for him to play in. A little stream to bathe in. Owners who work from home and can keep him company nearly all the time. A prospective friend.

If he is being put out to pasture then the grass is certainly greener. He will be very happy there of that I am certain, but there is a big dog sized hole in my life now that is yet to be filled. I miss him a lot.

However, we are moving out of the family home on Monday and into a temporary rental and I have now got the yard working on the boat and getting things done. We are t minus 10 months from departure and things are slotting into place. The last hurdle to clear is ensuring that we can afford to do the trip whilst completing the purchase on the flat we are returning to.

[JPA Cate]

Good on ya, Na Mara. Yes, there will be a big dog sized hole for a while. (I still dream about my Malamute, and it is 32 years since I re-homed him.) However, once you are aboard, knowing it was a space never fit for your dog friend, it is going to be somewhat easier. Quite possibly, your sadness will be healed by the getting ready to go process, which does gather momentum as the days to moving aboard come closer.

Good luck with it.

Ann