Escaping Singapore

Crazy Curved Buildings At The Marina

That's us on the right, so keen to move, sitting here with our mainsail up in the marina. Only two days to go and we'll be away - north from Singapore to Penang, and then on to Langkawi for haul out and yard work.  

This will be our (count 'em) eleventh passage through the Malacca Straits.  Never again, we said last time....

Crystal Blues has been neglected for quite a while, so we're putting energy into cosmetic and systems work.  The mainsail has been bent onto the boom, tracks lubricated and sheets rove. Tomorrow we'll hoist and furl the staysail, and she'll be a sail boat again.  Ley has been busy stocking the freezer and pantry, while supporting me with the polishing, hull cleaning and the systems work. She's also been repairing damaged covers with the sewing machine we carry.


 We've hoisted the dinghy on deck for a thorough clean and minor patch job.  Still need to service the outboard engines, one more job. 

On the systems side, we always voyage with dual Autopilots fitted, with a changeover switch to select the "in service" pilot system.  This year the oldest Autohelm unit died (23 years is fair service), so it has been replaced with a new Raymarine ACU400 with the fancy new EV1 sensor core.  This of course meant running new cables from A to B and from C to D and so on and so on for several days, removing ceiling panels and drilling and painting yet more holes in steel frames - lots of fun for all. 

We've also completed installation of an AIS Man Overboard alarm system (more on that in the future), updated the voltage regulator for the engine alternator and many other jobs.  However the autopilot system was really the big one, as it meant introducing new data networks to the boat and finding ways for the older systems to share information with the new ones.  So we now (stupidly) have six (count them) different marine data networks on board, plus extensive ethernet and wifi systems. We'll talk more about that in a future post.

Sarah, Shaun, Sam & Harrison

Today we went to sea for the first time in six months, testing systems and tuning the new autopilot.  More importantly it was also to be our last picnic sail in Singapore, so we left the dock with family on board - Shaun, Sarah, Harrison and baby Sam, plus my brother Peter Langford who was in town this week attending a conference.  It hasn't rained for weeks, so of course the heavens opened just before our scheduled departure time.  We waited for the system to move through and then motored out of the marina - what a joy to be afloat and moving again. A great day, swimming, fishing and enjoying good food.  Four year old Harrison said the boat was "cool".

Singapore has changed regulations recently, visiting yachts now need to have a locally licensed captain on board - just to go for a day sail.  You can do an online license test, apparently a days swatting will get most people a pass. All private boats must also now lodge a voyage plan before every departure (only $20 at the marina office) and you must have AIS running as well.  Private boating is tightly managed here.  So today we had to hire a licensed captain to be on board for our daysail  ...  could not get a cruising permit without that.