Ocean Wolf has electronics from yesteryear. Let’s say it sports several generations of legacy navigation equipment.
Some of the legacy B&G kit has recently been upgraded. There is now a colorful multifunction display with a NMEA 2000 backbone.
Thus the next challenge was to make the Raymarine plotters work together with the new B&G kit.
One challenge was to figure out how to connect these physically into the NMEA 2000 network. The much larger challenge was to arrange for the required cable to make it all the way through the postal service and onto the ship. It turns out that it’s much easier for the local postal company to return items to sender once at smelling distance from its final destination than to actually deliver at the indicated birth.
Eventually it worked out.
The B&G now shows the course over ground and has an indicator for the direction of the nearest way point as received via the Ray Marine plotter.
Ray marine plotter view
This looks promising.
Category: Boatwork
Pre-Xmas challenge
Shortly before xmas Ocean Wolf decided to throw its crew a little challenge. The toilet vacuum pumps demanded emergency maintenance. 
The Dometic Sealand pump for the port cabin failed to keep vacuum. Given its location behind the pump for the port cabin we decided to give them both a clean and replace the duckbill valves and the ‘plungers’. It was a shitty job but turned out well.
It also inspired the creation of a detailed spares inventory such that it’ll be easier to find the required spares next time around.
Corfu – Gouvia Marina – Caulking the deck
The deck has various spots that are in dire need of new caulk.
If the rain gods are with us the caulk will be set before the rain starts again.
We had a few drops of rain but quickly covering the cleanly sanded deck seams prevented them from getting wet. We caulked after priming the seams in the late afternoon and were able to remove the tape without smearing caulk all over the deck. The initial results after a dry night look promising.
Corfu
Corfu is beautiful. The weather is excellent.
We can even have hot showers again after replacing the boiler heating element.
The food is delicious and plentiful.
Policoro
Exit old waterpump. Replacement installed.
Autopilot lost the knack.
Ocean Wolf is navigating the Sardinian waters.
Oddly the trusty old Segatron autopilot is acting up. Every now and then it is a bit slow with rudder corrections. This makes cruising the Mediterranean somewhat more of a challenge then it ought to be. While not fully clear what is causing the problem the electronics are the prime suspect. By sheer luck we recently obtained a 2nd Segatron including an unused spares kit (currently located in a storage facility in the Netherlands). It has be salvaged from a ship that is currently being overhauled and will be refitted with an all new autopilot of more current vintage.
At request of the crew the custodian of the spares kit quickly sprung into action and dispatched a package containing a spare Segatron brain.
We hope UPS delivers it undamaged to Ocean Wolf. A liberal amount of tape has been applied to the box to aid the process. With some luck the new electronics will fix the rudder problems. Fingers crossed.
Update:
It arrived at the Ocean Wolf and replacing the original turned out ok. The initial test are promising, the Segatron is making quick rudder adjustments once again. Full testing will commence on the voyage to Sicily.
The latter made possible in part by the latest navionics chart that has been installed. It covers the Mediterranean in full while the previous chart only covered it up to Sardinia.
