Month: June 2019

1800 Miles from Tortola

colin bastable Leave a comment

I have several hours of video from my solo Atlantic crossing, and have been too busy to create a video of this 2nd leg of my sail from Gosport to Corpus Christi, Texas.

Four years and three months ago I was heading to Tortola, BVI. I came across a short video clip, and turned it into this short message relating the solo sailor to starting up a business: there are many talented sailors, but only a few are “the willing”. Likewise in business.

It is not really a “Frank-Just Frank” video, but without Frank I would not have been there. BTW, I never did get to Tortola, heading instead to St Croix, where I immigrated to the USA and parked Frank for a few months at St Croix Marine

 

Webasto heater exhaust repair

colin bastable Leave a comment

I have not posted for a long time, but I have been busy on Frank.
A recent project has been replacing the exhaust pipe on the Webasto Airtop 2000 ST heater.
The pipe was corroded and split in many places.
The heater takes a small feed from the boat diesel tank. So I need the diesel exhaust to be safely outside the boat.
The heater has been installed backwards – the warm air is supposed to be sent for’ard, but it is sent sternwards and then ducted to the saloon.
Not sure why it is setup this way: there is a hole in the rear bulkhead that is evidence that the heater was once installed to Spec.
Anyway – the heater still does not work (it did work for a while, albeit briefly, and only for a minute or so, until it overheated and cut out). The fault indicator suggests that I need a new glowplug.
Anyway – the exhaust is fixed. I just need to turn the unit around. So I will remove it, service/clean it, and re-route the ducting.