Chilly Hope Island

The lines were loosed on Saturday after lunch and tied again on Sunday about the same time, and somehow those 24 hours were once again far longer than seems possible. Had a nice sail for a while up Budd Inlet and an easy night at Hope. It's a beautiful full moon now and there were cloud breaks enough to see it on the water transcendent magical. The current really pumps along that south side of Hope Island and the only problem is that the current will hold your boat in line with it and perhaps beam to the prevailing winds and waves. Not too much fetch, but enoough it would be unpleasant in winds 20+. The island is deserted of other humans and so the wilds were fairly wild. There is an enormous amount of debris down on the trails, such that if you aren't familiar with the basic course of the trails you could easily miss them. Those rangers, if they even do it, have some work to do later this spring.

Lovely sail up Budd Inlet

Winds came up a bit overnight and one of my complaints with the NWS is that the forecast area is way too large for Puget Sound. The Puget Sound and Hood Canal forecast area goes from all the way up in Everett all the way down to Olympia, and that's ridiculous. Even the large scale systems effect these places at different times and strengths. I've generally found that whatever the forecast says for Puget Sound, it might do that for Seattle, but will be much less around Olympia. Except when it's not. We had 10-15 on the nose coming home in Budd Inlet. No problem. A wonderful get away. Once again, Aeolus is our space ship and was problem free and lovely.

Upgrading AC cable

My Gulf 32, like yours, was built with what was probably the common AC cable of the day in 1988. I don't know if there was tinned cable available back then, but there sure is now. When I installed the new SmartPlug system a bit ago, I noticed and mentioned that the end that connected to the old plug looked like it had heat damage. I made a mental note to replace it ASAP. 

Original AC cable. Note heat damage and brittle covering

I did that today. 

I bought enough Ancor Flat Triplex 10/3 cable to do most of the boat, but am starting with the easiest to access and most critical part that carries the most load. From my research the 10/3 cable seemed the best size, capable of safely carrying all AC loads that well surpass the breaker I have installed. On a Gulf 32 the stretch of AC cable between the shore power and the inside power panel is relatively easy to access. 

Ancor 10/3 tinned cable 

Several years ago I installed an AC breaker between the shore power connection and the panel, to protect against various potential fire causing problems. You can read about that in an earlier post here. The old cable looks adequately sized, but is now 43 years old and was not tinned to begin with. Between the shore power connection and my breaker, the cable is held up by several mounting cable ties that hold cables together and keep them out of trouble. I keep a bag of these on Aeolus as they are often enough used. 

I used No Ox ID on the connection ends, even though they are tinned. Practical Sailor has done several studies that show it to be the among the best at preventing corrosion and oxidation. 

Sometime soon I will go back and replace the section between the breaker and the power panel. After that, I might slow down as getting new cable to each of my outlets will be tricky. I feel good about upgrading this bit of the system, as it is one less thing to worry about causing a boat fire.