Had a great holiday on Windermere – first holiday for a couple of years. Good to get away.
Continue readingHoliday on Windermere
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Category Archives: Boat
Tesla Model 3 Towing Dinghy – Actual Energy Consumption
Having now been on holiday I’ve got some real figures for energy consumption:
The average seemed to be around 290 – 310 Wh/mile. This was for a fully loaded car, two adults, two children, towing a Wanderer dinghy with lots of stuff inside it and a towing cover. Speed was around 55mph(90km/h) on motorways and A-roads.
Continue readingTesla Model 3 Towing Dinghy
I wanted to get an idea of energy usage involved in towing Custard – a 14′ Wanderer sailing dinghy – so I could work out our range when towing the dinghy.
Update: I’ve now got the actual figures.
A Better Route Planner provides an easy way to work out how to get somewhere with charging stops along the way. You can also tweak your car’s energy usage. Their base figure is nominal usage at 65mph.
Custard’s trailer has higher drag that I would expect – in my Mazda 6 it looks like petrol consumption goes up by 25%. This doesn’t appear great for something that is fairly aerodynamic (boat shaped) and not particularly heavy (I guess around 340kg). When I used to tow a Jaguar 21 – 1100kg plus trailer – it seemed to double petrol consumption so for something much smaller 25% seems high.
Anyway, first guess was that the energy consumption in the Tesla would go up by 25 – 33%. The nominal energy consumption per mile is around 255Wh/mile at 65mph according to A Better Route Planner. This seems close to what we get on a normal local journey. So this would mean consumption of around 320 – 340 Wh/mile.
Continue readingDIY Launch Trolley Jockey Wheel
I took Custard to the lake for a shakedown at the end of last week. Everything went well, but getting her out of the water up the slipway was almost impossible on my own. Not pleasant. I managed in the end.
Mounting trailer tyres with hand tools
The best way to mount 8″ trailer tyres is to take them to a tyre fitter. This method is how I did it and I’m noting it for future reference. However a lot of swearing is involved.
First look at the wheels and tyres. The ones I did years ago went on fairly easily. These laughed at me – no way were they going on.
Wanderer Dinghy – Mast Step Repair – Part 3
I’ve cut some more bits of wood. There is:
- A big block cut from a fench post – possibly Larch. This provides somewhere for the screws to go and takes the vertical force into the old plywood hog (which I cut a section out of).
- A top plate that is split into front and rear halves. Since the tabernacle is glued in, it isn’t possible to get the top plate in in one piece. The top plate transfers the side-to-side force into the new ribs.
- A couple of fiddly little bits to block up the remaining hole in the front buoyancy tank.
Towing cover
I made a towing cover:
The idea is to reduce the towing drag, make the boat a bit more secure in transport and provide a cover when away from home. It is made from uncoated acrylic canvas. The colour was chosen on the basis that (a) it is cheerful and (b) it was half-price.
The towing drag is important as we are planning to get an electric car and towing can reduce the range by 50%. Custard has always felt particularly draggy on the trailer so hopefully this cover will reduce the drag somewhat.
Continue readingWanderer Dinghy – Mast Step Repair – Part 2
Making progress. I cut down the GRP a lot more, then removed the old tabbing holding the central ply in place.
The plywood doesn’t look too bad. There is definitely damage in the frontmost section but this isn’t structural.
Continue readingWanderer Dinghy – Mast Step Repair – Part 1
The Wanderer dinghy – mine at least – has marine plywood cunningly concealed at the lowest point of the boat. The plywood runs from the front buoyancy tank, under the mast step, and to the centreboard case. Sitting at the lowest point of the boat, the wood is often sitting in water. My boat is now 40 years old and poking around in the front buoyancy the wood appeared a bit softer than I’d like. Well – the wood at the top could be pulled apart with my fingers.
In addition, my boat has a free-standing mast without shrouds. This is both a good and bad thing. The shrouds help to keep the mast upright, but they mostly try to pull the mast through the bottom of the boat. The wood is obviously designed to resist this downwards pull. However, the free-standing mast has huge sideways forces at the foot and if that foot isn’t really attached to anything strong then this would be a disaster – both for the boat and anyone sitting near the mast.
Continue readingImproved sheet on Custard
Finally got round to doing some improvements on Custard.
Firstly, I’ve changed the sheets to this:
Here’s a picture of it on the boat. I’ve put it together with the current blocks and string – they aren’t ideal but will do for now.
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