It’s dead, low water and the tide is turning. Borderline is one of the lucky ones in that she only draws about 0.25 meters of water and depth at her mooring never gets less than 1 meter. I am getting a good look at some of the other boats that are usually hidden. As you […]
Read more "ESPcat Electric Tipping Point"Is it reasonable that we are more worried about keeping our bottoms clean than we are about climate change? Should we be panicking like little Greta Thunberg or should we take a more laid-back approach like us boys at the boat club, pulling our boats out for Spring bottom cleaning. Gallagher and I just had […]
Read more "ESPcat Keeping Your Bottom Clean"Cleanliness is next to godliness so being a heathen, I decided to install a hand basin in Borderline’s toilet as my only way of getting closer to the Magic Guy in the Sky. As you can see, this installation requires precision cutting which, unfortunately, I am not very good at. Nevertheless, I am going for […]
Read more "ESPcat Clean Cut"I have managed to take heat from the sun and turn it back into heat! Not everyone can do that. It turns out that there is indeed spare power left over from the twin 100 watt solar panels that operate the under bench refrigerator. I decided to put that spare solar energy to work running […]
Read more "ESPcat Solar Microwave"Yes this shag is fully charged. I know because moments after this photo was taken, he discharged right onto the wharf! These guys have been a bit scarce over the winter with only the occasional shag in evidence. Now that spring is just around the corner (3 days) they are back. I suspect the warm […]
Read more "ESPcat Fully Charged #fullycharged"See how happy Borderline looks, floating with her friends. We have had some beautiful weather lately but quite cold here in Auckland. And what’s really cool is that the latest version of the Solar Generator V3 appears to be working well and keeping the refrigerator cool in the safe range. With the cold weather, the […]
Read more "ESPcat Floating Among Friends"My God this is exciting! It’s almost as good as sex! I just love a new lithium battery! These ones are 50Ah or 185 Wh. There are 7 cells for a total of 1,295 Wh. Since you can only really use 80% of a lithium battery (compared to about 35% of a lead-acid battery) the […]
Read more "ESPcat Solar Generator V3"SEIZING CABLES – I went to a lot of trouble to tidy up the workbench before taking the cover photo for this blog. My friend Charlie Reichner claimed that when he visited our old farm house in Maine, he could see the remains of every project the family had been involved with for the past […]
Read more "ESPcat Seizure Control for Boats and the World Economy"Borderline looks quite peaceful sitting there at the end of the dock but it was a bit of a performance getting her there. It turns out that like many a good woman, she is quite headstrong. When designing the cabin shape, I was careful to make her streamlined when going into the wind. This is […]
Read more "ESPcat Headstrong Lady"One of the things that has kept me from going out on Borderline is the difficulty of picking up the mooring on my own. Borderline is so wide (6.4 meters) that she is difficult to maneuver if she gets sideways to the tidal current. I have learned from bitter experience that you can’t manhandle a […]
Read more "ESPcat Mooring"