New inlet socket for 230V & leakages

In this blog post we will share some of our work from last weekend; continuing with our 230V system and also uncovering more leakages on our sailboat as we remove more styrofoam.

Since there was no rain for a couple of hours this weekend we managed to do some outside work, which was to add a new, fine inlet socket for the 230V system.  The connection towards land was earlier just a hole into one of lockers in the cockpit. The hole was on the outside of the cockpit which didn’t we thought didn’t feel so safe.

So we took a piece of teak and made it look nice and adapted it to a inlet socket Thomas had from before. It is a socket from Victron which is waterproof to IP56 and has a nice locking mechanism. It will keep water out from the lockets and will result in a safe 230V system whenever connected to shore.

Other than that we also continued with prepping for our mahogany strips, by starting to get rid of the styrofoam in the main cabin in the bow.

With all the removing of styrofoam we haven’t only found a lot of dirt, we have also found a lot of leakages from several places, probably mostly from stanchions or the chain plates (at least that is what we think right now, could be more places as well).

For the winter we try to cover the boat as well as we can with tarps. We have also made some kind of “skirts”, with some help of vulcanizing tape, for the chain plates in hopes to keep most of the rain and snow out. Of course, some will still make it’s way in but hopefully less.

We are pretty lucky that the core material of our sailboat is not balsa. Instead it is Divinycell, which doesn’t rot as balsa would. We still have some wood as core material, for example some parts of the cockpit has a wooden core.  Even though it doesn’t rot the water inside can still  cause damages as cracks in the plastic if it freezes for example. We hope for a relatively warm winter and that our cover will keep most rain and snow out.

When the spring arrives and with it warmer weather comes we will deal with the leakages once and for all. We are researching on internet for ideas regarding leakages on  a sailboat and have some ideas on how we will seal the leakages. Does anyone have any great ideas for leaking stanchions, chain plates etc? Something that has worked very well or something that hasn’t worked at all?

As usual we had to do some shopping as well, always some small thing that we need to buy, this time it was some things for the freshwater system/watermaker. Pipe connections, hose etc.

When on the shopping topic, it was a while ago we updated our cost pages, but they are now updated with latest cost status.

If you are interested in reading more about what our preparations for our sailing adventure costs and what equipment we recently have bought, you can find an overview of the costs in the Costs & Information page, and from there you can navigate to the different categories; Sailboat Renovation, Sailboat Equipment and Other Equipment.