Vision 444 - How to (hopefully never have to) use a Storm Sail

 How to use the Storm Sail on a Vision 444

My fellow Visionary Pierre on Umbono reached out recently wanting to review the steps for deploying the Storm Sail, since he was forecasted to be in less-than ideal sailing conditions in the next day. What better opportunity to write a blog article!

This is going out quickly to support Pierre, but I will come back and add pictures and maybe link a video later.

Preparation

• Keep the Storm Sail and everything you need for it somewhere where it is easy to get.
  We keep ours in the large lazarette under the Cockpit table seating.
• If you think you might need the Storm Sail, you probably should have the jacklines put out too. 
  The system we use to deploy the Storm Sail reduces the time we need to be forward, but wearing a life vest with harness and being clipped into the lazy jacks is the way to go here.
• Our Storm sail is in it's own bag with the following:
• A port sheet attached to the clew with a bowline
• A starboard sheet attached to the clew with a bowline.
• A sail tie, so that we can secure the jib, since we will use the Jib Sheet as the Storm Sail Halyard, preferable tied onto the cinching line for the sail bag, so it is easy to find.
• Each of the above mentioned sheets also contains the following:
• A low friction ring threaded onto the sheet which is spliced onto a custom Soft Shackle for easy attachment to the padeye in the end of the jib track.  The Soft Shackle need to be long enough so that the sheet does not drag against fiberglass/EVA.
• Another low friction ring threaded onto the sheet, which is spliced onto a custom Soft Shackle for easy attachment to the mid-ship pad eye located near the toerail. (If you don't have this padeye, you can just as easily attach to the toe rail). Again, make sure the length is right to prevent chafe.
• A stopper knot (figure 8, etc) at the bitter end of the sheet.
• The Storm sail is stored in the bag, flaked and hanked onto the rigid stay so that it can be easily and quickly deployed.

Overview

Here is a brief description of how the sail is configured:

• The Storm Sail is already hanked onto a rigid stay that has a 3:1 purchase, lock-off block at the foot.
• The stay that is part of the Storm Sail is soft shackled onto the dyneema line attached to the mast, just above the Jib sheet mast entry, and normally attached to the bottom of the mast with a bungee and kept out of the way.
• These two are connected to form a solent stay, on which the Storm Sail is hoisted.
• The Jib Sheet becomes the Storm Sail Halyard.
• The sheets are dedicated for the Storm Sail and are already attached and stowed in the bag (preferably as a Line Sinnet / Daisy Chain as it will not tangle and is very easy to deploy)

Deploying the Storm Sail, Step-by-Step

Here are the steps we follow.  I strongly suggest practicing these and adjusting them as you see fit.  If you need to use your storm sail, you want to make sure it gets up quickly, easily and safely.

1. Be Safe. Employ all safety precautions prudent for the conditions (Life Vest, Harness, Lazy Jacks, etc).
2. Douse the Main and Jib and use the motors and autopilot to hold a heading.
3. Prepare the Storm Sail for Use
1. Slightly loosen the Jib Sheet (6 inches).
2. Turn on the deck lights if dark.
3. Bring the Storm Sail bag to the longeron and secure to the trampoline.
4. Find the Sail Tie in the bag and securely tie the Jib at the Clew so that it cannot unfurl.
   When you are done and sure it can't possibly untie, add another loop and knot.
5. Take the sheets out of the bag and undo the Line Sinnet by pulling from the bitter end.
4. Rig the Sheets:
1. Choose one to be port and attach the "first"(closest to sail) Low Friction Ring Soft Shackle to the Jib Track padeye on the port side.
2. Attach the "second" (closest to stopper knot) Low Friction Ring Soft Shackle to the port side, mid-sheet padeye.
3. Properly wind the sheet onto the port, aft winch, including going into the tailer.  You should have four full wraps, then the tailer and a short length of rope and stopper after.
4. Repeat these steps for the Starboard side.
5. Create the Solent Stay
1. Take the Storm Sail out of the bag and secure the bag. Place the sail with the tack near the Dog Bone loop and the clew on top of the longeron.
2. Make sure that the 3:1 purchase block at the foot of the sail's stay is fully loosened.
3. Free the mast-connected Dyneema stay and attach it to the snap shackle at the head of the Storm Sail's stay. You have created a Solent Stay that has yet to be tensioned or connected.
6. Connect the Storm Sail Halyard
1. Make sure your Jib is securely wrapped with a Sail Tie.
2. Dis-connect the Jib Sheet from the Jib Track Traveler by undoing the Soft Shackle.
   Reattach the Soft Shackle to the Traveler .
3. Remove the Jib Sheet from the block on the clew of the Jib.
   It should come directly from the mast to your hand.
4. Use this soft shackle from the Jib Track Traveler and attach the Jib Sheet to the Head of the Storm Sail.  This is now the Storm Sail Halyard.
5. Just behind the Jib furler is a Dyneema line with a dogbone on one end.  Feed this through the foot of the Storm Sail's stay and then insert the aluminum dogbone fitting into the mating Dyneema loop on the longeron.
7. Tension the Solent Stay
1. Pull on the tensioning line that goes to the 3:1 locking block to tension the Solent Stay. This should be very tight.  Make sure the line is locked off into the V-groove of the block. Coil the extra line and place out of the way.
8. Deploy the Sail.
1. This is best accomplished with two people.
2. One person will be raising the Storm Sail Halyard (labeled Jib Sheet) from the Helm.
3. The other person will make sure that the hanks can easily ride over the snap shackle and do not bind on the way up.
4. The person at the helm should be looking at the Halyard and making sure it is flowing smoothly and that the person forward is able to prevent it from binding on the way up.
5. The Halyard should be tightened enough to remove all creases from the luff of the sail.
   
6. When fully up, the sail and sheets may be flogging, so it is best and safest if the person at the helm uses the leeward aft winch to take in on the sheet enough so that it is not flogging and the person forward can safely walk aft.
7. Stow the Storm Sail bag where it will not flog or blow away.
9. Trimming, tacking and Gybing
1. Trimming, tacking and gybing the Storm Sail is very similar to how this is performed for the Jib, albeit with two sheets.
2. Remember, comfort is also a part of safety, so if you bear away from close-hauled, you will likely have a more comfortable (and therefore safer) sail.

Dousing and Stowing the Storm Sail

Follow these steps to stow the sail for quick use next time:

1. Be Safe. Employ all safety precautions prudent for the conditions (Life Vest, Harness, Lazy Jacks, etc).
2. Prepare for dousing
1. Turn on the deck lights if dark.
2. Fully loosen both sheets, however, keep them attached to the aft winches.
3. Bring the Storm Sail Bag forward and attach to the trampoline.
3. Lower the Storm Sail
1. This works best with two people.
2. One person will ease the halyard as the other will be forward, flaking the sail.
3. The halyard can be lowered quickly and will make the work of the person forward easier.
4. The sail should be flaked into widths that will fit easily into the bag.
5. The halyard will need to be very loose to reattach to the Jib.
4. Reattach the Jib Sheet
1. Push the Storm Sail fully down on the Solent Stay.
2. Disconnect the halyard from the Storm Sail, and pull plenty of slack to re-rig the Jib Sheet.
3. The Sheet runs from the Mast, down through the Jib Sheet Traveler Block, entering on the Aft side. It then runs in from the bottom side of the block on the clew of the Jib, then comes from the top of that block to the Jib Track Traveler and is soft-shackled.
   Important Note!: Before you feed the jib sheet through the Jib clew block, rotate the jib until tight against the furling line to make sure you are reattached the jib at the same position on the jib furling line. It is likely you lost 1 wrap when originally disconnecting the Jib Sheet.
4. Un-tie the sail tie from the Jib and then tie it to the Storm Sail Bag cinching line.
5. Tighten the Jib Sheet.
5. Disconnect the Solent Stay
1. Un-tension the solent stay by releasing the tension fully of the tack block on the stay.
2. Disconnect the Storm Sail stay from the Dyneema Mast stay using the snap shackle.
3. Re-stow the Dyneema mast stay, making sure it is not hung up on any other rigging.
   We find that a wrap or two around the lower diamond stay prevents it from noisily slapping against the mast in wind.
4. Disconnect the foot of the Storm Sail stay by undoing the dog-bone connector.
6. Stow the Storm Sail Sheets.
1. Disconnect the four soft-shackled Low Friction Rings and remove the sheets from the aft winches.
2. Slide the soft shackled Low Friction Rings forward to the clew of the Storm Sail.
3. Starting at the Storm Sail, use a Line Sinnet/Daisy Chain to tidy each sheet and place them on the flaked Storm Sail.
4. Place the storm sail back in the bag, make sure the Sail Tie is inside, then cinch the bag closed. Store the Sail Bag somewhere you can get to in the worst conceivable conditions.

Found any typos or errors?  Please let me know with a comment.

Raising the dinghy, easier!

The Davit System

The Vision 444 comes with a Carbon Fiber Davit system that is used to hoist a dinghy.  As time has gone on, some of the exact specifics of the davit system have evolved and changed slightly, but for our boat (Hull #11) and the ones near to it, this is how it operates. 

Two Main Steps

First, after attaching the dinghy to a forward and aft attachment line, the davit arms are raised; pivoting on axles which mount the davit to the transom of the boat.  This step is accomplished by attaching a line which runs through several blocks to the starboard, aft power winch.  Pressing "2" (low speed) on the winch power buttons and raising the davit into its full upright position, where it can be lashed to the boat with Dyneema loops.

Second, is to raise the dinghy to be close under the horizontal beams of the davit arms.  The dinghy attachment lines, that are attached to the dinghy's bridle, run up through a fixed block at the end of the davit arms and then to a "single block with becket" which can move along the length of the davit arm when pulled by the lifting line. 

The forward and aft dinghy lifting system is identical and operates as follows. A line begins at the becket of the "single block with becket".  It then travels to a fixed block mounted at the forward end of the davit arm, then travels back to the "single block with becket", going around the block and then back to the forward end of the davit arm, where it goes through a clutch.

The line is pulled through the clutch, which gives a 2:1 pulley system, reducing the amount of force needed by half, but requiring to pull twice as much line to raise the respective end of the dinghy.

It looks like this:

Photo of standard block setup - Photo Courtesy of Grant Mackenzie

Overall Thoughts

Even though there are some areas that I chose to improve, the system is very good.  Our friends that are on monohulls are left mouth agape when they see how easily and quickly we can raise our dinghy.  We are usually completely done lifting it, securing it for a passage and heading inside before they have gotten the dinghy even fully out of the water.

Some of the greatest attributes are:

• It uses an existing motor (a winch) instead of needing a separate specialty motor.
• It is a simple system that uses simple blocks.
• It lifts the dinghy exceptionally high out of the water, which is really important in bad weather, especially following seas where a low dinghy could get swamped.
• It is very easy to fully secure the dinghy for off-shore passages.
• It can be used to safely lift a dinghy by one person as long as it is not overly choppy or rolly.

We've found some aspects of it that have challenged us in its use.  After living on the boat for 21 months at this point, we have come up with quite a few solutions to those challenges.

Here are the parts we wanted to make better/easier:

• Lifting force required
  It is pretty difficult to lift the engine end of the dinghy (we have a 30HP Yamaha that weighs 53kg / 120 lbs) with a 2:1 pully system.  When hoisting the aft end, we are basically lifting the engine and half of the boat weight (about 30 kg), which is about 83kg / 182 lbs.  Even at half that with a 2:1 pully system, it's a lot of force required.
  The forward end is easier, but since the fuel tank (20kg when full) and the anchor and chain (5 kg) are at the bow, most of that weight is borne by the bow lifting line, so we estimate that at about 50kg / 110 lbs, which even with a 2:1 is not easy.
• Noise from the harken blocks when lifting
  The original blocks that allow for lifting of the davits are attached to pad eyes on the forward end of the davit arms using the standard stainless steel shackle that comes with the block.  As the davit is raised, the angle of the line changes slightly, which causes the shackle to change position on the pad eye. This movement causes a metal-on-metal noise that gets amplified through the tensioned lifting line. It's not anything that is causing any damage, but it's not a fun sound.
• Being able to quickly and easily hook and unhook the hoisting lines from the dinghy bridle
  This matters most in rough conditions, when you are trying to hook the dinghy in while also trying to balance and also trying to prevent the dinghy from bashing into the sugar scoops. But, it's also nice all the time for that process to be easy and safe.
• Stress on the Davits when lifting the dinghy in rolling conditions
  As delivered by the factory, the dinghy lifting lines that go from the moving "block with becket" on each davit arm to the dinghy attachment hook are a very high quality Dyneema line.  This is generally viewed as the best rope material to use on all parts of a cruising yacht. However, since Dyneema has exceptionally low stretch (~2% at 50% load rating), when we are hoisting the dinghy in rough conditions, the boat is bobbing up and down as the dinghy is fully raised from the water.  This results in the lines being slack and then fully tight as each waves passes by. This causes the davit arms to take a heck of a shock load and vibrate and also a torquing motion can be seen from one arm to the other.  These arms are made from carbon fiber, so addressing this is probably being overly cautious, but this was a point of stress for us when hoisting.
• Possibility of over tensioning when lifting the davit and absolutely destroying a block
  While lifting with the winch is great because it removes the need for one more (specialty) motor on the boat, it is not without it's minuses. When we hoist the davit arms, the goal is to pull the line just enough so that the davit is fully against the rubber stops at the top end, which allows us to easily attach the securing loops that take the tension off the hoisting line, blocks and clutch.  If we lift slightly too little, we can pull on the line that runs from one arm to the other to increase the tension the last little bit to be able to get the Dyneema loops attached.
  However, if we pull too much the Harken 46 electric winch can pull with 1300 kg / 2860 lbs /1.43 tons of force!! The 8mm double braid Dyneema line can handle that (2100kg breaking strength), but the poor little block that leads the davit hoisting line to the winch certainly cannot (1100kg breaking load). 
  Guess what happens if the winch is pressed for 1/2 second too long?  The Dyneema tensions and because the Dyneema stretches so little, the full force force of the winch is applied to and absolutely explodes the block, making it rain with the internal ball bearings landing in every direction.

How to improve on a great starting point

None of these solutions came about immediately, but since this is like taking our car our of the garage and we do it almost every day, we had plenty of time to think about solutions and try some things out.  Here is what we did to make the dinghy lifting process even better.

Lowering the Lifting Force Required

There are really only two options; reduce the weight (nope) or increase the mechanical advantage.

The goal with this was to increase the mechanical advantage without having to make the solution look ugly or have to drill extra holes in the davit arms.

To accomplish this, we needed the line to start at the fixed, forward end of the davit arm and add another pulley at the moving end. The "adding another pulley" part was easy, we simply replaced the "block with becket" (Harken 2601) with a "Fiddle Block" (Harken 2621).

A fiddle block is a double block that has two blocks inline (one smaller, one larger), instead of having two same-sized pulleys side-by-side.

The harder part was having the hoisting line start at the fixed end. We needed a fixed block (called a cheek block) with a becket, and we needed it to mount using the same hole pattern as the existing cheek block. That doesn't exist.  Actually, even a cheek block with a becket doesn't exist from Harken. We could always add another pad eye to the davit arm, but one of the goals was no more holes (not too mention, it would have been difficult, since adding a pad eye would require a backing plate to make sure the pad eye didn't just pull out of the carbon fiber).

The solution was to create a Dyneema loop of just the right length that is fed through the body of the existing cheek block and then is shackled to the end of the line. The only important point here is to make the loop just long enough so that the metal shackle is not applying force to the body of the cheek block.  I used a 4mm uncovered Dyneema line to do this and it is doubled up to get the required strength. This solved the problems and has made raising the dinghy so much easier!

Our solution after swapping out the aft block and making a new line connection

As an add-on note, we shared this solution with Kris and Pierre from Umbono (Hull #10) and Pierre implemented this part slightly differently.  Instead of the Dyneema loop and shackle, he made a soft shackle to a length that was just enough to thread through and attach to the eye in the end of the hoisting line.  I think this is a much better solution and is what I would recommend. It's on our list of enhancements! I would suggest a custom soft shackle (easy to make) that is made from 5 mm Dyneema.

Quiet down over there!

The metal-on-metal noise was basically fixed by replacing the two provided blocks (Harken 2600) that attach to pad eyes on the forward end of the davit arms with Harken 2151 blocks that attach with included loops of Dyneema.  Since there is some movement while under tension, I also added a Dyneema cover as a friction guard to the Dyneema line. Now, the connection is metal pad-eye to Dyneema cover which doesn't make a peep!

Harken 2151 block with Dyneema connection loop and protected by Dyneema cover

Hooking made easy

I don't remember what types of hooks came on the original hoisting lines because we changed this before leaving South Africa, but using a 3" / 75mm Safety Snap Hook has been wonderful.  We also spliced thimbles into the dinghy bridle, so clipping this safety snap hook on is utterly simple. Wichard (part 2481) makes a wonderful product for this, but it is pricey.  There are other brands out there and if they are rated for at least 400 kg working load, they should work fine.

Wichard Safety Snap Hook - Ⓒ Wichard Marine

Stop stressing me out!

The shock loading of the davit arms was very disconcerting, mainly because you could see the amount of force being applied to the arms as the dinghy got jerked up and down.  Our solution for this was to replace the double-braided Dyneema lines with three-strand nylon. Three strand nylon stretches a lot; approximately 12%!

This was simply a matter of replacing the provided lines with very inexpensive and easy to splice 3 strand nylon that is 3/8" in diameter (it's rated for 4,250 lbs of breaking strength, but working load is 5-20% of that depending on age and condition, so between 212 lbs and 850 lbs. Given that that can get close to the dinghy weight and because it is so cheap, I'll replace these lines after no more than 2 years to make sure they don't fail on us). 

The only thing that made it difficult was getting the length just right, given how much it stretches under load.  Unfortunately, I don't remember the final length of the loop I ended up at, but if your dinghy/motor have a different weight, it will likely vary by a little anyways.  

What I would suggest is to splice one end of each line directly to your davit bridle hook and then splice an eye onto the other end of the line for attachment to the shackle of the moving block.  The length should be such that you can't pull the hook up into contact with the block at the end of the arm, when the hoisting line is fully pulled in.  Err on the side of making the line too long as you can always undo your eye-splice and make the line shorter. If when you hoist your dinghy fully, there is still a lot of space between the fixed block and the bridle hook, re-splice the eye after taking a little less than distance of that gap.

Make sure the splices are tapered and clean, as the ends of the splices will have to go through the fixed block. Do not use knots, you will lose too much strength!

Shock-absorbing 3-strand rope spliced onto hook and with eye splice on forward end

Installing a safety valve to save blocks

Having a block that is being used to lift your dinghy suddenly explode into dozens of pieces is unsettling to say the least.  Fortunately, the block in question is located after the clutch, so, as long as the clutch is closed (which is should be) when the block does explode, the dinghy does not fall, it just stops lifting.  Still, far from ideal and blocks aren't terribly cheap.  Plus, without it, you can't lift the dinghy.

This solution is what I would call safe, but not ideal. It requires using a piece of 3 strand nylon rope beyond it's working load to take advantage of it's stretch. There is a backup piece of Dyneema for if/when the 3-strand rope breaks, but it's still not a perfect solution.  It does work really well though, as it provides for more margin of error when lifting the davit, and a safety valve in case it is still pulled too much (and it breaks).

I used 3/16" black 3-strand nylon rope.  It is rated at 1,300 lbs of breaking strength, so about 130 lbs of working load.  I made what's called a rope grommet, which is just a single loop that looks like regular three strand rope, but is made out of one strand that's a little over three times the length of the circumference of the loop.  Here is the video I used to figure out how to do this.

When I install this, I use it doubled over twice, so there are 4 segments of this rope, which effectively quadruples the strength of rope, so we are up to about 500 lbs of working load. This is honestly pushing it, however, the grommet is only under load when we are actively hoisting or lowering the dinghy.  

I could remake this from a larger diameter 3-strand rope to increase the strength, but it would also decrease the stretch.

Increasing this one size and making it from 1/4" would increase the working load to about 840 lbs, without having too profound an impact on stretch and is probably worth considering, however, it also increases the chances that the block would fail before the 3-strand grommet.  This would take some destructive testing that I'm not willing to do to find out for sure!

In addition to this three-strand quadrupled-up rope I mentioned, I have also tied a 5mm piece of Dyneema tied with a square knot to a length that is just a bit longer than what the 3-strand stretches to under load.  If (when?) the 3-strand breaks, the Dyneema will pick up the load immediately.

So far this has worked really well and reduced the mental stress of holding on to that winch button too long and destroying another block. 

3-strand grommet stretch point with Dyneema "safety"

Other Thoughts

• When we are doing a long passage, or anytime we expect especially rough conditions, it's a good idea to lash the hole in the Safety Snap Hook to the rod that goes from one davit arm to the other.
  
  The weakest link in the davit system when the davit is raised and the dinghy secured is the 3-strand rope that hoists up the bow and stern of the dinghy. The other points of failure are the carbon fiber arms themselves, the Safety Snap Hooks, the pivot point on the bottom of the davit, and the Dynemma safety loops that secures the davit arms in the fully up position (I guess also the dinghy attachment hooks and the bridle system). Those are all insanely strong. While the 3-strand is plenty strong for everyday conditions, if the boat is lunging up and down, the forces seen by everything is multiplied by a factor equal to the G-forces being seen at that point.  A 6mm or larger piece of Dyneema tying the hook to the davit rod is just another step for piece of mind while under way.
• Water is heavy!!  Make sure to pull out the drain plug on your dinghy when rain is expected.  It is easy to take on a hundred pounds of water or more overnight! (We use a loop of yellow Velcro looped around the hoisting line to remind us to put the drain plug back in.)
  
• Things moving around in the dinghy while it is hoisted and you are underway is not great.  We attached a carabiner to a piece of thick shock cord that is tied to a bridle anchor point in the dinghy.  Before we hoist the dinghy for the night, we clip the carabiner to the outboard handle so that the outboard can't pivot from side-to-side while we are underway.
• Oh yeah, hoist the dinghy for the night!  Unless you are in the safest of safe places, RAISE IT!  The most common entries on CSSN (Caribbean Safety and Security Net) start with the words, "An in the water and unlocked dinghy..." following by something bad.

What's Left?

Our Dinghy Davit system is near perfect.  There is really only one thing I can think of that would be better, and that is if we could prevent the side-to-side swing of the dinghy when we are raising it in rolly swell. 

The dinghy is hanging from about 30" lines before the fore and aft hoisting lines are pulled in, and that allows for a lot of sway.  When it is very rough at anchor, this requires both of us to be involved, one to hold the dinghy from swaying and the other to operate the winch.

I haven't come up with a good solution for this yet, but that would be about the last thing!

Do you have any thoughts?  Please post a comment below with any thoughts or questions!

Moved on to Eleuthera

After a little over a week in The Abacos, we waited for a good weather day to make the trip from Little Harbour to Spanish Wells. Wednesday was the day. The wind was forecasted to swing to northerly, which meant an entrance through the narrow and exposed-to-the-north Ridley Head Channel would not be a great idea. We instead pointed for the further but safer Little Egg Island passage. 

We were still with Umbono, Mira’s sister boat and her owners, Pierre and Kris. 

We left at about 8:00 am with a light breeze from the west. Before long that picked up and we hoisted the main and Code 55 and motor sailed for an hour or so. Then the wind swung as forecast and built more. We put away those sails and raised the asymmetrical spinnaker with 15+ knots almost right behind us. 

The wind continued to build to 18,19, with gusts to 22 knts. The asymmetrical is good to about 20 knots, but since we were downwind running, surfing down waves and generally hauling ass, our apparent wind never went above 15 knts, even at the bottom of waves, so the sail wasn’t being stressed nearly as much as the true wind speed indicated. 

On the trip we were routinely in the 8-9s, sometimes consistently in the low 10s and on one particularly fast surf down a wave, hit 13.1knts! We saw apparent wind speeds of 6! (This is what the wind appears to be because our forward speed is negating some of the true wind speed). 

It ended up being a beautiful sailing day; we even went back to the main (reefed since we would be heading towards the wind after turning, thereby making the apparent wind be faster than the true wind speed) and jib as we entered the protected bay south of Royal Island.

We even caught a nice-sized, male Mahi Mahi on the trip on our rod and reel which we were trolling with. It put up quite a fight on the way in but gave us 8 beautiful fillets. 

Chuck was most excited about our catch!

Kris and Pierre were fighting with some sail issues so motored longer than we did and headed for the Bridge Point entrance, to the Northeast of the town of Spanish Wells. We went the longer route but because we were sailing so fast at that wind angle, we both arrived to Spanish Wells within about 2 minutes of each other (after a trip of about 60NM)!

We even had a pod of 4 dolphins swim by both our boats as we set the anchors. 

There is some great snorkeling around here so hopefully we’ll be able to check a bunch out in the coming days.

We spent Thursday walking around Spanish Wells and checked out some shops and got lunch and a drink at Budda’s Snack Shack. 

Then back to Mira to watch a nice sunset from the roof. 

Quick history lesson: Spanish Wells was so named because it was once a Spanish outpost where early sailing ships would stop before their return from the New World with gold and silver riches. They would stop to get provisions (including filling their water supply) before the long trip to Spain. 

Mira - Network Diagram

 A few people have asked for more details about out network on-board.  Instead of trying to describe it, and because I should have one anyways, I decided to create a Network Diagram.

So far, the network has been working great.  On occasion, the 2.4 GHZ radio in the MNC-1250 stops responding, however I am working with their tech support to get to the bottom of it.  We have that device mounted upside down to the "ceiling" of what I call the network area in the owners cabin.  I have a suspicion that it maty be overheating as it it not sitting in the orientation it was designed to be in. 

As it turns out, I have a spare 12v computer-type fan that I am going to wire into the 12V fuse block in there and mount it to the router and see if that makes a difference.  I also went into the configuration settings and turned down the output power of both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz radios, since the signals do not have to go very far to cover the boat.  This should also reduce the amount of heat generated.

Have a look at the diagram and let me know if you have any questions!

SV Mira Network Diagram