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Monthly Archives: January 2015

LED Navigation Lights

New LED Navigation Lights on N47, Sea Eagle.

New LED Navigation Lights on N47, Sea Eagle.

During a recent daybreak departure, I noticed that my masthead light was burned out. I took this opportunity to continue my project to replace all the halogen and incandescent bulbs in the boat with LED’s. I’d been wanting to do the anchor light for a LONG time, since it consumes lots of battery power during our long winter nights in the Pacific Northwest.

I have had very good luck with LED replacement bulbs from Marine Beam. They make excellent constant current replacement bulbs that are a very pleasing color and have performed flawlessly on the boat for the last two years. Their “Idiots Guide to Marine LED’s” is also a good read. I ordered some new Navigation bulbs and as usual, they priority shipped them the same day.

The bulbs arrived on a sunny, but very cold day, so I took the opportunity to climb the stack while it was dry and replace the navigation bulbs.

Bright LED anchor light on top of the mast.

Bright LED anchor light on top of the mast.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that even though I’d carried a bag full of tools up with me, not a single tool was required and the bulbs were very easy to replace. MUCH better than my previous boats. They had Nav lights that were very difficult to replace.

At sunset, I turned on the new lights and was very pleased with how bright the Anchor and Masthead lights were. I’ll sleep easier at night when the Anchor Light is on, knowing it is easily seen and very easy on the batteries. I think the only Halogen bulbs left on the boat now are the Spreader Lights, Docking Lights, Search Light, Microwave and Oven. Good Progress!

Wollochet Bay

Ice layer as Sea Eagle leaves the dock for the Thea Foss Waterway.

Ice layer as Sea Eagle leaves the dock for the Thea Foss Waterway.

For New Year’s Eve, we headed south through the Tacoma Narrows to Wollochet Bay. The Tacoma Yacht Club has an outstation near the Estuary there and I had never visited that part of Puget Sound. The air temperature was 25° F when we backed out of the slip at first light, breaking through a thin layer of ice as Sea Eagle made her way out to the Thea Foss Waterway.

We caught the tail end of the flood tide, which pushed the boat along at 8.5 knots while burning a miserly 3.1 GPH of fuel. There were no boats out on the water, but plenty of Dahl’s Porpoises to keep us company. The entrance to Wollochet Bay looked like it had been carpet bombed with crap pots, so I’m guessing that it had to be the last day of crab season (as well as the last day of 2014).

Nordhavn 47, Sea Eagle anchored in Wollochet Bay.

Nordhavn 47, Sea Eagle anchored in Wollochet Bay.

Given the moderately high tide, I navigated Sea Eagle north through the narrow waters of Upper Wollochet Bay to the Tacoma Yacht club outstation. It was VERY shallow (with a -2′ tide predicted) and the turning basin was a little small (aka not enough privacy) to consider anchoring. I elected to head back out into the deeper bay and anchored up near the NW shore for out New Year’s celebration.

Later, one of the homeowner’s right next to where we anchored came out in their dinghy and told us they had been looking for a Nordhavn 47 for years, and were stunned when we anchored right in front of their house. So stunned in fact that they had looked at each other and were both wondering if the other hadn’t gone out and bought a new boat. They thought I was pulling right up to their dock! I guess I should have put a bow on the front of the boat! 😉

Dozens of Harbor Seals were looking for lunch near the Wollochet Bay Estuary Park

Dozens of Harbor Seals were looking for lunch near the Wollochet Bay Estuary Park