Continuing preparation of "Every Day"" Part 7

The boat is fianally in the water and the new thru-hulls make the boat watertight. We still have to hunt down a leak in the pressure water system and fix the drain in the aft shower, but that's about it for the plumbing systems.

This month we move to research. When we get back we will use our Hart Interface to determine the power consumption for each and every light and piece of equipment. It should not take too much time but it should help us to know how much power is being used and if we estimate the usage for each item, we hope to put together an estimate of total power consumption. This should allow us to size the generator, wind turbine and solar cells. We will also confirm these estimates by not hooking up to shore power very often and log actual power use throughout the summer both underway and at the dock.

We are also starting to figure out what spares we need. How many fuel filters, water filters, etc. We've read that you should have one year of consumable spare parts and enough spares to get out of foreseeable emergencies and the rest is why there's FedEx international. We also plan on being back a couple of months each year and that will allow us to replenish special parts and tools that are not readily available wherever we happen to be.

We hope to sail down next weekend, July 4th weekend. We are excited about trying out our new autopilot and radar. We think it should be pretty fun. See you all when we get back.