Circumnavigation Status

UPDATED 29/8/2011

BWR:

We have completed the BWR and Enchantress is now berthed in Marmaris in Turkey.

Enchantress:

The boat is in good shape although there are a number of repairs to be done, particularly to some of the electrical equipment including the wind generator and the inverter.

Navigation:

We had 3 systems on board:

• The Navionics Gold electronic charts which work in our cockpit Chart Plotter and also on our PC. We had charts for the full trip incl.:

  • the UK& Ireland

  • Fance & Iberia, incl the Canarias

  • The Caribbean

  • South America, incl the Glapagos Islands

  • The Pacific, Indian Ocean & Australia

  • The Mediterranean

• The Maxsea PC system with charts (dating from 2005) for the whole world

• Paper Charts. We have charts taking us all the way round the world until we got to the Med. We will need to add some Med charts in 2011/12.

Safety Issues:

These were all attended to including:

• Our liferaft was serviced. I saw it blown up and it looked in excellent condition.

• We bought 2 new Spinlock lifejackets which are more comfortable than our Crewsaver jackets. We still have our high spec Crewsaver lifejackets for friends and for us to use in heavy weather.

• We bought a Jordan Series Drogue  for storm conditions. It was a major task to put it together - a job finished in Antigua, mainly by Susan.

• We have 2 EPIRBs (satellite emergency beacons) on board one of which was new with an internal GPS.

• Man Overboard Detectors. We fitted the detector we had on Pinball and had our 4  EPIRB watches with us, although we seldom used them.

• We fitted an AIS system. This picks up transmissions from all large boats giving their name, speed, course etc. We will also transmit our details. This was a superb safety addition.

• We have 3 fixed GPS systems on board, 1 for the Chart Plotter, 1 for the AIS and 1 old one as backup. We also have 2 hand held GPS systems.

Water:

We fitted a Schenkerwater maker, which makes 30 Litres per hour. We have 750 ltr in our 4 water tanks.

Power/Batteries:

We have 4 domestic batteries giving 450ahr of battery power for domestic use and an engine start battery. We have quite a lot of equipment which relies on the domestic batteries so battery charging is a key issue. We also have some equipment which relies on 240 volts.

12 Volt:

• navigation & sailing instruments (Chart Plotter, AIS, MOB System, Depth Sonar, Speed, Log, Wind, VHF, SSB, Radar, Navtex, GPS, Navigation Lights, Domestic Lights, Water Pump, Bilge Pump)

• electric genoa winches

• Fridge / Freezer

240 Volt:

• Microwave, PC

For battery charging we have:

•  an 80amp generator on our engine

• a diesel generator which gives 240 volts to drive the 240 volt systems plus a 12 v battery charger

• wind generator

• Aqua generator, which we could tow on long trips

• 2 x 30amp solar panels