Some solutions to minor boat issues this year

[Captain Jan]

The previous thread ref. the future of this forum may make writing up this years lessons learned irrelevant, but lets hope a solution is found- so here goes;
Water in the bilge, was found to be from dripping from the cracks in the exhaust manifold water jacket- Renewed the exhaust water jacket section system with original Volvo parts.  No more water.
Ref. Nav equipment, our AIS has had poor performance for years, so we fitted a new AIS  aerial, but this did little to improve ais range. Solution-  fitted a new unit, the Icom.  Though the older class b Transceiver beacon transmit interval, it is a good unit for us which receives targets at 25 mile range. Also , for navigation, we have been using The Dutch "Quicktide" app, for Frisian island tidal channels  and the Navionics phone app /charts which have instant updates.  Both V.G.
To help with clearing the prop , we have a 5 minute breathing set. Dive shops tend to not be helpful for refilling due to Chinese certification, , so bought an old 12l aqualung tank off ebay with certificate,  the dive shop  refilled this so now we can top up the small bottle as needed.
For fuel transfer to the main tank, we have run a fuel hose from the port deck locker to the fuel tank via the steering flat and fitted it to an unused fuel connection on our s.s. tank. The port locker has 3 x 30l outboard motor tanks with male bayonet fittings.  , just connect the pipe to the tank, a few puffs of the puffer type pump and the 30l siphons into the fuel tank. Then , when needed, shift to the next tank.  This eliminates funnels and jerry cans. Lastly, For repairs to our PVC fabric tender , we found the Dr Boat liquid patch, and the Kaiheng TPU repair tape to be better than conventional repair kits.