This post is all about loops and circles. If you like things to look neat and tidy, here is one way you can organise your mooring ropes.
As you can see, I use a total of 6 ropes to moor Artemis at the marina. It might look overkill but if your boat can experience strong winds and waves in the berth, this is definitely necessary. I used to be stingy in the ropes by using a bare minimum number of three mooring ropes. And within 1 month, one of the ropes broke. Luckily someone saw the broken rope and helped me to tie the good end of it to secure back my boat. I still don't know who this kind soul is, but if not for this person, my boat might pin ball around in the marina.
On top of doubling the number of mooring ropes, I also upgraded the ropes to those black ones with build-in elastic bands. This elastic band helps to absorb the impact from the waves thus lengthening the lifespan of the rope and also gives more protection to the boat body. And of course this kind of rope is much more expensive than the normal white ones too.
My port side engine was very unstable. It would just shut off without any reason randomly. I suspect there might be problems with the fuel intake. So I checked the fuel tank outlet and found this bunch of 'circles' inside.
I do not know what are those, and how they got into my fuel tank. But hopefully the engine would be stable after removing this. Because if one of my engines suddenly breaks down while berthing, it can be quite a disaster. Just like what happened to my hand rail.
The boat spin out of control when one engine died suddenly and the hand rail got caught in between the pulpit and anchor of another boat, causing the base connection bolt of the rail to break off. I had to replace the connection with base fittings instead. But the rail base fittings come in standard angles and my deck is sloping, which makes the angle between the sloping deck and the hand rail an unique angle. So I had to cut a few rubber gaskets to fill up the gap after trying a few types of base fittings in vain.
Well the consequences could be much worst than a broken hand rail. Artemis was lucky to escape without any 'scaring' both to herself and to others.
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