Month: October 2024

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How Global Climate Change is Making Hurricanes Worse.

I have been working on Aegir-Ran on the hard for the past two months. Everyone in the work yard have been complaining about how much hotter and more humid that normal, and how the summer weather is lasting longer than normal. NPR recently published a story that discussed the relationship between the weather and storms. In the story there was a chart that confirmed my suspicions that the water is warmer than normal.

Warm water fuels hurricanes and the unusually warm temperatures of 2024 have no doubt contributed to conditions that allowed Hurricane Beryl formed in June (the most powerful storm ever recorded so early in the season) and why Helene and Milton (both Category 4 storms) formed in the Gulf of Mexico within two weeks of one another in September.

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(Re)Estimating Range Under Power

Since I have changed the fuel storage and I am replacing the Westerbeke 35C with a Beta 38, I need to re-estimate the range under power. I previously estimate the range to be 625 NM.

Consulting the performance curves for the Beta 38:

And, considering the tankage of 60 gal for the main tank + 15 gal in the day tank + 30 gal on the deck = 105 gal total, assuming 2200 RPM (fuel consumption is about 2.0 l/h = 0.53 gal/h), and assuming Aegir-Ran would achieve 5 NM/h at 2200 RPM, I calculate a range of:

1 h/0.53 gal x 105 gal = 198 h; 198 h x 5 NM/h = 990 NM

Once the boat splashes, I will begin keeping an accurate fuel log.

Now that I have fuel level sensors and a fuel monitoring system on the NEMA 2000 network, I will start keeping closer track of actual fuel usage.

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Outboard Engine Harness

I looked around for a harness for my outboard motor. After reading several negative reviews and speaking with a friend who was disappointed with his purchase, I decided to make my own. The main problem with the existing harnesses is they are “universal”, and so do not fit a particular motor very well. I sewed a custom harness for my Yamaha F6 in about 30 minutes. It probably cost $2 in material, saving me over $50.