Round Britain for the RNLI Blog

I have been to Oban several times before but I didn’t know about McCaigs Tower - a Romanesque folly on the hill overlooking the town.

 I was walking through the town today when I looked up the hill, away from the harbour, and I saw what looked a little like the remains of a roman amphitheatre. I decided to investigate and walked uphill where upon I discovered Mccaigs Tower. I didn’t know what it was as there are no signs or information boards that I could find but I looked it up on the web on return to the boat.

It was built by a philanthopist in the late 19th century and nothing to do with Rome! More info at Wikiapedia.

See my photos here.

I have used up so many Round Tuits today that I can’t believe that anyone near here has been able to find any and therefore will not have achieved anything today. I have painted, hung things on walls, filled in cracks, polished and washed, as well as paying passing interest in a 14 yr old playing some remarkably good Tennis at Wimbledon, watching Qualifying at Silverstone and watching "Criminal Justice" a crackingly good drama from the Beeb.

I also tried to find somewhere for Paul to collect, without luck. Not easy when you can’t arrange it with several week’s notice.

I want to thank everyone who has donated to the RNLI by handing me cash after seeing me in port.

Two couples just stopped by the boat in Oban and handed me some cash for the RNLI after seeing the boat. This is fantastically encouraging for me as with all the hoo-haa with weather etc, it is easy to forget that the purpose of the event is to collect for the RNLI and for people to hand me cash un-prompted is a HUGE boost to myself… thank you so much.

Looking at the forecast for tomorrow I think it should be OK for me to get the 30 miles from Oban to Corpach to enter the Caledonian Canal so that is the plan.

I have a bit of a tight schedule tomorrow… the fuel is at Puffin Dive Centre which is about 3 miles south of Oban Marina but I am going north, it doesn’t open until 10am but I have to get to Corpach Sea Lock by about 1300hrs as it closes in the afternoon because of low spring tides. It should be easy to make that schedule but I don’t have much scope for slippage so I will be up and away at 9.30 so I am first in the queue for fuel.

Weather tomorrow is expected F4. The low pressure system is hanging around so the weather may not change much for a few days until that moves on but once I am in the canal the weather is a little less critical so I can relax a little then.

I am expecting to take at least 2 full days, perhaps 3 or 4, to get through the canal so I aim to be in Inverness by Thursday.

As usual… more tomorrow morning.

On the last leg I was struck by how interesting some of the information on my chartplotter was and so I thought I would show you a little more of what information I have at my disposal when at sea.

Firstly here is a pic of the chartplotter when I was on the west side of Jura/Lunga yesterday…

Apart from the chart information there are 3 distinct areas of information… top left, top right and finally all the info at the bottom.

Top left

There are two numbers…
- the top number is the GPS speed. Currently showing 18.4kts. I do not have a log and so this is my only way to determine speed and it always shows speed over ground (SOG).
- the bottom number is the battery voltage. Currently showing 14.9v. I use that mainly in port to determine the state of my battery charge but it is useful at sea to determine if the alternator is working.

Top Right

This is the depth from my sonar sensor which is mounted on the transom. Currently showing 143m! The Lowrance LMS-332 is also a fishfinder and so it is useful to determine bottom composition which can give a hint to how good anchor holding might be. It is useful for finding fish too!

Bottom

This is probably where my system differs from most chartplotters. My Suzuki DF115 engine has a NMEA2000 data link to the chartplotter and it can display many engine related data and it is from the engine that the data items on the bottom are sourced. All of this data is fuel related. I will run through each item in turn and explain how I use them when at sea. Hopefully you will see how useful this info is to me on this event.

There are 5 data items… two bottom left, two bottom right and one bottom middle.

Bottom Left

- The top number is the fuel flow at that exact moment in litres per hour. Currently showing 18.6 ltrs/hour.
- The bottom number is fuel used since the last reset. Currently showing 28.18 ltrs. I always reset the fuel stats prior to leaving port so this shows fuel used on this leg.

Bottom Middle

This number is calculated by the system. Currently showing 71.78 ltrs. Prior to leaving port I enter into the system the number of litres of fuel on board. The system knows how much fuel has been used (from bottom left) and it simply subtracts that and displays here fuel remaining. I use this as a cross-check against the normal fuel gauge to double check the current fuel remaining.

Bottom Right

This is the section that I find most useful when at sea…

- The top number shows the fuel usage in miles per litre. Currently showing 0.98 nm/ltr. It calculates that from the fuel currently used (from bottom left) and the speed over ground (from top left). It really shows me how efficient the engine is at that moment. Typical readings here are 1.0 when planing in smooth water down to 0.6 when running in rougher water. It can read 0.3 just before getting onto the plane and I did see 5.0 yesterday when on tickover but still doing 7kts downtide! I aim to keep this number between 0.7 and 1.0 and that means that I will be using fuel between the best and worse case scenarios that I have planned for.
- The bottom number shows my range in miles at the current rate of use and with the current fuel remaining. Currently showing 70.3 nm. This is a great number. It shows me how far I can go given the current usage of fuel… which means current conditions, current engine rpm, current speed etc. Basically, it tells me that if nothing changes then that is how far I will go before I run out of fuel completely. Obviously I do not plan on running out of fuel and I always want this number to be well above the distance to my destination. How do I know my distance to my destination? Well that is on my navigation screen and I will explain that in another blog entry later in the trip.

Summary

Having this amount of fuel usage and range information at a glance is an absolute must for me when going on extended trips. Many RNLI callouts are a result of vessels running out of fuel and to ensure that you don’t run out you need proper planning before leaving port, up to date and accurate information when at sea that is constantly monitored and used properly so that if it looks like there may be a fuel problem then some action can be taken to ensure that you don’t actually run out - such as slow down which can often save fuel or even divert to a closer port.

I hope you have found this post interesting. Please comment and let me know.

When I get the chance I will do a blog on the navigation page on the plotter.