Adjusted engine valves

I knew it had been a while since I adjusted the valves on Aeolus and I had started to notice some unusual knocking and pinging. Adjusting valves is both fun and easy, and I launched into it today. It was a bit rainy and though there was some good wind, I chose to maintain rather than sail. The boys read books and played with figurines while I was sprawled around the diesel. Overall the valves were in decent shape, with some not needing any adjustment at all and several needing minor corrections.

This photo shows the identical parts of a Universal diesel, though it isn't one.

New cabin heater, bilge hoses, windlass batteries and..

Given the sheer volume of projects I pursue at any one time on Aeolus, it is easy to forget them when I sit down to update this blog. But to honor the purpose of this blog, I really should try to include at least a few of the smaller things I am doing all the time to make Aeolus a better boat.

Three day sail, high winds, no kids

While our boys are away with the grandparents for the week, Amy and I jumped at the chance to go on a trip. It turned out that Friday also had high SE winds and that determined our sail plan for us pretty well. We had toyed with the options of going to Victoria or Port Townsend or up into the Gulf Islands. All good choices. Turned out that Friday had 30 knot winds from the SE and so heading out Cattle Pass wasn't going to be much fun and so we headed north, with the wind.

It was fantastic. We put out a handkerchief of genoa and still did hull speed of 6.5 knots downwind all the way to Prevost Harbor on Stuart Island. Around Spieden Island things got pretty choppy as the waves reached 2-3 feet and gusts were reported to hit 33 knots. Aeolus handles that stuff gracefully and Amy did all the steering in the beautiful conditions.

New cabin lights with ABI fixtures and Sensibulb LED bulbs

Lighting has been on my list of next projects for a while and I am finally tackling the challenge. My existing cabin lights are cheapo plastic RV fixtures that used a 20 or 25 watt incandescent bulb. I wanted to upgrade the appearance of the fixtures, improve the overall lighting in the cabin, and greatly reduce my electricity draw. I did all three!