Beginner’s Guide : Losing Contact with the Boat and Diagnosing That It Turns Out To Be Moisture in the Electrics…..!!

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I’d heard a lot about this subject as a beginner. It must happen a lot !

As you may have seen on the website yesterday, during the Marblehead Rankings Nigel B lost radio contact with his F6.

It turned out to be “damp in the electrics”. We had only one discard in the day, so it was really important for Nigel to diagnose and fix it quickly. This is what he did (very rapidly!):-

1/ Boat on to the stand, pot lid off, and quickly verify power in the boat and especially at the receiver because the receiver’s LED was glowing green. Waggle the two joy-sticks to determine what was working and what was not working.

2/ Sure enough, for Nigel the rudder was not responding, but the mainsheet was OK. Conclusion = not a complete closedown and there is power in the boat. Good news.

3/ LED was green so that tells you it’s in the rudder setup somewhere. Where to look next?

4/ Statistical guess : rudder servos don’t fail all that often, so the connection where the rudder circuit joins the Receiver is number one suspect. Pull out the connector to channel one and have a close visual inspection which revealed the wicked glint of moisture.

5/ I’d heard about a product called “Corrosion X” before, but not seen it in action. It looks like WD40, may be a bit thicker perhaps. It is supposed to do all the WD40 type things plus be the best water dispersant and repellant that money can buy,… safe on electronics especially. Anyway, out comes Nigel’s Corrosion X aerosol from the van, …squirt squirt…. deep into the connectors of the receiver… right “in” there….I must say Nigel was not afraid to be generous. Then a good blow to help the excess away. I don’t think it needed a moment to dry or anything like that.

6/ Plug the rudder circuit back into the receiver, checking the plug is the correct way around (!!), instant fix !! Waggle joysticks and “job done”!!

7/ Pot lid on – go racing !!!

Lessons :-

a) I think GH uses Corrosion X as a regular setup tool (not just a “fix”) on the electrics. Interesting.

b) someone in the car park probably has a can of Corrosion X, but I resolved to get a 250ml can from Amazon and keep it in the car….. WRONG!!

This photo above is the smallest, cheapest Corrosion X unit on Amazon. Obviously to all of us, 250ml will last a radio sailor several lifetimes. However… I made a mistake because that trigger on the can is NOT an atomiser. Squeeze the trigger and there’s only one adjustment size…. A thick rod of lubricant shoots out – honestly one squirt would make an entire Chieftain Tank very slippery !!

You actually want the smallest aerosol can that you can find online. (see Nigel’s in the top photo). Eventually I had to go to the manufacturers own (UK) website and order it there. 475ml was the smallest aerosol …so two friends can share one, each for a lifetime. Shipment from amazon is free of course, but CorrosionX use Fedex so your total price is bumped up a lot. 475ml was though near the same price as 250ml with the trigger on top, so keep a sense of humour and sense of proportion about the whole thing!!

If you know anyone with a Chieftain Tank, let them know I have something for them….

Inside the Receiver Pot of a Champion ….!!

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You may have read that the Marblehead Rankings at Datchet last weekend had a few wilder moments weather-wise. My goodness, Nigel B had his share of issue management on the Sunday !!

For Nigel, it turned out to be damp in the receiver pot. I shall shortly put a “Beginner’s Guide” article on the website about how Nigel went about diagnosing this particular type of “lost radio contact with the boat” occasion. It was really quick and only one race was lost – very impressive!

Before I do that, I thought you might like to see Nigel’s highly ordered approach to the interior of the radio pot itself.

If you take a look at the photo above, note:-

  • Both battery and receiver attached to the upper side of the pot with velcro to keep them away from washing moisture in the bilge. The receiver sockets are uppermost as far away from trouble as you’d expect to get. Can you see that both battery and receiver are about as close to the lid as possible?
  • Vapex LIFE battery I believe, which last time I looked means the XT30 connector is a special order item!
  • Relaxed approach to antenna management – ha !! Looks neat though.

Nigel has two great additional tips:-

1/ Fit a breather pipe so that plunging a “warm” hull into cold water doesn’t suck in water through some weeny hole as it cools. GH says it can also help the hull to stop pumping the air pressure through waves. Try flexing the sides of a modern Marblehead and you’ll see what he means. The general idea of both members is that this is a great way of keeping the hull dry inside. By the way, I noted at the weekend that around half the fleet had breather pipes fitted. Many had a special little Sails-etc breather post (very smart looking sort of shark fin thing !), but on Henning Faas (spectacular) new Niou Niou it was a simple pipe buried in the deck patch. This approach is also favoured by PH and k7yachts here at Datchet.

2/ The standard pot comes with a thin plastic shim which sadly does not prevent water ingress. NB says that Tony Edwards had recommended getting a sheet of 2mm foam off amazon and putting that inside the pot lid as a seal. Highly recommended as a near to perfect closure. You can see it in the photo above.

3/ I must say too that it can be a good idea to keep a little vaseline in the tool box to smear around the pot lid thread for water proofing.

Race Report – UK Marblehead Rankings 1&2….!!

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A strong fleet of two dozen competitors from far and wide, including Germany, lined up at Datchet for a terrific weekend’s racing.  “Ranking 1” was held on Saturday and “Ranking 2” was run on Sunday.  Each day was scored as a separate event. 

The weather ran the whole spectrum that Datchet can provide.  Saturday had gentle breezes, 5-10mph, and the fleet raced on A-Rigs in the main. On the Sunday, we had 12-20mph with 40mph gusts . The competitors used every rig that they had brought  with them and Sunday was a complete blast of a day. 

(Radio Sailors having Fun!!)

(Radio Sailors having a whale of a time!)

(Darin, on Observer duty!)

On Saturday, our 2024 National Champion, Darin Ballington, sailed a superb and consistent day. In a 14 heat, 7 race programme, Darin scored a superb three wins of seven and discarded a 6th.  Just seven points behind was Graham Bantock  with 18 points and two wins. Graham had a constant tussle with Craig Richards of the home Club who scored one win and discarded an 11th.  It was a very technical and challenging day with many star performances in the fleet, but special mention should go to the two entrants from Germany, Henning Faas and Nigel Winkley.  Henning and Nigel both put in strong top ten performances and  gave advance warning of their potential on the windier second day.

(Setting Sun with Windsor Castle in the Distance)

A special prize for the most helpful and team-spirited competitor went to Tracey Ballington.   

If the Wind Gods were taking the day off on Saturday, then just to remind us all who’s Boss, they returned with a vengeance on Sunday.  Before Skipper exhaustion set in, the Fleet managed twelve heats, six races. The fleet started at B Rigs, and progressively went to ever more conservative rigs as the wind stepped up … and up.  By the final race, the boats were flying.

Henning Faas from Germany in his Niou Niou design Marblehead had a superb day – recording straight 4ths in the first four races leaving him very strongly placed by early afternoon.  However, there was a battle royal in progress.  Darin Ballington, with his Grunge design, continued his fantastic form of Saturday and took race 5 with a superb win. The star of the day and winner of Ranking 2, (by some margin) was 2023 Champion, Craig Richards sailing his F6.  Despite the weather blowing the fleet across the lake, Craig recorded 4 wins in 6 races, discarding a 3rd.    

Tracey Ballington had the race of her life on Sunday recording a very popular B fleet win at speed and handsomely beating Darin Ballington into second place. It must be said, there were huge cheers at the finish!!

(Tracey Ballington at the Prizegiving on Saturday – Race Committee Special Prize)

The Race Committee’s special prize for Sunday was awarded to Lewis Wyeth of Gosport. Despite having to withdraw from racing, Lewis piled in to help the race team in the very testing conditions.  It was pretty cold out on that RIB !

A skippers conference was called around 3.30pm under rapidly darkening skies and the event closed at six races.   At both prizegivings, special thanks were given to the whole race team for their efforts to make the two days successful.

RESULTS

Ranking 1:

  1. Darin Ballington             11pts
  2. Graham Bantock           18 pts
  3. Craig Richards                 19 pts

Ranking 2:

  1. Craig Richards                 6 pts
  2. Darin Ballington             20 pts
  3. Henning Faas                   22 pts

Full Results for the event can be downloaded here

Marblehead Rankings 1 & 2 Full Results ….Downloadable and Printable Copies

Darin Ballington, Ranking 1 winner

Graham Bantock, Runner Up, Ranking 1

Craig Richards, Ranking 2 winner