The Walk to Wateva

Bundaberg 16/12/2016

 

A  trek alongside the Burnett  River goes  past a solitary windswept tree, which could be a fir or a she-oak,  or any other riverfront genus (I’m not much of a flora or fauna identifier - suggestions invited). 

I call it the whispering tree.  The wind sets up a constant whooshing sound through its foliage, something like the magical sound you hear when you put a conch shell to your ear – the sound of the sea.  It’s EAR-ily beautiful and I appreciate the fact that I have time to stop and listen.

Further on, there’s a bridge across the creek with a metal grated fence, which also sets up its own chorus of harmonic vibrations.

Next there are a few towering Acacia trees (perhaps) with flame red flowers in full bloom. The irridescent green and crimson parrots hide amongst the colours.

Less pleasing are the birds that divebomb me as I walk; (“Plovers”, I’ve been told), making a strident, chattering screech of warning to stay away from their hatchlings. They swoop up close to my face, then veer away at the last minute, before coming in again from the rear. I’ve been told they have barbs on their wings and could do some damage if they make contact, so my heart skips a few beats on each attack.  A suggestion is to wear sunglasses on the back of my hat, but I doubt the effectiveness of this, given that the forward facing sunglasses don’t seem to deter them.

Across the field, Mike keeps his catamaran, “Wateva” tied back to a tree.   He is the friend whose industrial sewing machine, hot knife, and other useful gadgets I occasionally get to use.

At all but high tide, he  sits high and dry near the grassy bank in his own private little hideaway.  A herd of kangaroos protect him from intruders – another potential danger to avoid – the kangaroos that is. 

 The big bucks are quite territorial and can bound faster than a speeding car.  Apparently they can lean back on their hind legs and claw you to shreds if they don’t like the look of you.  Mike says they only come out before rain so there haven’t been too many around lately. 

I can always hide behind tall Mark, the now-famous “Shagger” interviewed for the “Creek to Coast” TV coverage of the Shag Islet 2016 Rendezvous (mentioned in one of my earlier blogs.)  Mark was the one weilding the paint roller, doing a stirling job of antifouling Shanti when she was up on the hard.   I can never express enough gratitude for all the help received since I have been here in Bundaberg.

In fact, it reminds me of the willing workers who contributed their time so generously in Melbourne to help see me on my way last year. I just hope I can live up to it.  Someone asked me recently if my passion was still as strong for this venture of circumnavigating the globe and I was pleased to find the fire in the belly was still alight.

 

But now it's time for a necessary interlude, shaking out a few more of Shanti's glitches and waiting out the cyclone season here in Bundaberg before starting north again next year. 

Only one more day here before I fly  to Melbourne and then over to NZ, so last chance to tick off a couple more boat jobs.

When I was in Townsville, my electrician friend, Colin Grazules, fitted a 7 stage battery charger under the quarter berth.  This is a great way to keep the batteries fully charged while plugged into shore power at a marina, (not something I had planned on doing a lot of).  It does tend to get quite hot in that enclosed space, so I cut a hole in the fibreglass bulkhead to fit a plastic vent.

 

The other hole that I had ‘inadvertently’ cut in the ceiling still caused me grief.  The small piece of wood made to cover it should have been varnished like its mates, but I thought it would be less conspicuous if painted the same colour as the ceiling.  Wrong again.  Even the slightest mismatch of shade and it stands out like the proverbial, so I bought some paint stripper and scraped it back to bare wood again.  It seemed like a good opportunity to varnish the teak around the companionway at the same time, which was looking very weatherworn.  Be good if I had a couple more days for a couple more coats - maybe when I get back.

 

Another small job was to re-seal around the chain plates.  Keeping water out of boats seems to be a perrenial process.   

 

I had gooped these down when I re-rigged in Melbourne, but one had started to leak again.  I say “small” job because it only took me an hour to scrape the old goop off from underneath, whilst sitting out in the 35 degree heat. 

Did I mention how hot it is here?  Quite consistently so, unlike Melbourne.  Generally around low 30’s during the day and mid 20’s overnight.  Fantastic really, so long as you don’t want to do too much work outdoors.

 The local watering hole has become a bit of a regular destination, which for a non-drinker like me, is rather surprising.  But it’s airconditioned and I’ve discovered pear cider in a glass full of ice goes down well.  Mike, Mark, and a few other bods spend a few dollars there and enjoy a few laughs.

 Next week it will be the Sandy yachtie, now that I’ve learned how to drink.  I look forward to seeing some familiar faces.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She floats!

Bundaberg; 4/12/2016

It turned out to be exactly two weeks up on the hardstand, with the usual mad panic and time-compression over the last few days.  Each morning I'd write another list of at least a dozen jobs then prioritize them like some crazed project manager. 

Small things can so easily get overlooked, or get done wrongly, and throw the train off the rails.

Assumptions abound (I'm sure you've all heard the saying about making an ass of u & me), like the stainless steel rudder stock being a stock standard size - bu-boom; wrong!  The boat was built in South Africa where 31.9mm (not 32mm) means the new rudder bearings don't quite fit.  So it's take the whole lot back to the local engineering shop for adjustment.

And then there's the order of things to get in order. No matter how many times I checked with the shipwright that the rudder going back on was just going to be a "dry fit", to be removed again later, giving me time to antifoul the subsequently inaccessible bits, that was not the way it went.

Quite understandably really.  The major effort of digging holes in the ground, stacking blocks of wood, aligning, manhandling, jacking and forcibly encouraging the rudder back into place was not something to be repeated.  So homeless barnacles can once again make their home on the back edge of the skeg.

Then there was the epoxy filling and fairing, then painting with "Interprotect", a two pack epoxy paint, each of which needed curing time before the next stage in the process, so jobs like the priming and antifouling had to stand patiently in line.  It was often very frustrating to hold things up for the sake of a half meter of bog going off.  I entertained myself in the meantime by cutting and polishing the hull, a job which I would have liked to have done back in Melbourne but never quite had the time.

It seemed like a good idea to raise the waterline again.  This had already been done in Melbourne, but was higher at the back than the front of the boat, and patches of thick black weed were continually creeping up the topsides.  With a bit of guesswork, we added an extra 50mm at the bow. which was graduated gently back.

I was delighted to find she now floats along a perfectly even line from bow to stern.

Being back in the water is fantastic!  Even if the undredged marina has me settling into the mud on the bottom at low tide twice a day; an eerie feeling as she creaks in her bones in the middle of the night.

I had briefly contemplated leaving Shanti out on the hardstand for a few weeks while I am away but changed my mind about that.  It would have meant continuing to live aboard in that noisy, dirty environment, which was not at all appealing.  It took hundreds of litres of water to hose and scrub her clean once back in the marina, a very satisfying job.

There are still about another dozen or so jobs to be done before I leave.  It took the best part of the last three days and many trips to the Laundromat to clear all the fibreglass dust out of the boat.  It's nasty stuff that gets through the tiniest cracks and causes awful itching on the skin. Luckily the shipwright lent me his vacuum cleaner so I could get most of it off the squabs and anything that couldn't be washed. The cockpit locker especially was thick with it, and every single item had to be taken out onto the dock and hosed off.      

 

This morning I painted a second coat of Interprotect on the new fibreglass rudder post.  I'm happy to report not a drop of water to be found in the lazarette.  No more leaks - yay!!  Well worth the hard hit to the credit cards.

 

While I still had a little paint left, I put some on the old, crazed sink in the head (bathroom).  Both will need topcoating tomorrow.

 

I was mistaken about the leak over the stove that I had previously thought was coming through the deck organizers, requiring a hole cutting in the ceiling. Bu-boom, wrong again!  Another job to cover the unnecessary hole .....  Turns out it was the vent above the stove after all; the closest and most obvious place in hindsight.  This morning I gooped that down, so hopefully no more leaks from there.

 

 

While on the hardstand, the wind blew the companionway door over, breaking the Perspex in half, so I had to get a new one made. This one is thicker, tinted and made in two sections, so I can have the bottom half in while sailing, adding some protection from any big ugly breakers that may decide to join me in the cockpit. 

 

I also got the idea for a canvas cover with a couple of battens in. This affords a more convenient protection from rain or following seas, making it easier to more quickly enter or exit the cabin.  A friend here has an industrial sewing machine which he kindly let me use yesterday.  I recycled the canvas from my old bimini, which had just enough material for a pair of sailor's pants.

 

 

In exactly two weeks from today, I fly to Melbourne, so had better get on with finishing off my list of jobs (who am I kidding?)

 

Life on the hard

Bundaberg; 23/11/2016

For those of you who were wondering if I had sailed to the edge of the world and fallen off ...

The number one priority was to haul out and fix the leaks as soon as possible, so Bundaberg it was. Also there are a few good newfound friends here with good contacts for the job.

Being slipped here is nothing like Melbourne.

For starters, you remain aboard whilst being lifted sky-high in the travelift slings; rather a shaky experience.

Secondly, you don't get handed the high pressure water blaster to do your own washdown; it's an extra $108.80 for a 32' boat. You can't do a wet and dry sand in the slings so must dry sand later.

It's another $100 to set up the cradle.  There are additional environmental levies, despite the lack of too many rules or OH&S regulations.

There's no safety induction process; no fleuro orange "Visy" vest to wear or enclosed footwear necessary; thongs are just fine.

You can live aboard, do your own work and make as much mess and noise as you want. In fact, the daily jack-hammering, grinding or sandblasting of nearby steel fishing boats is quite brain juddering. Ear muffs are the latest fashion accessory. It's been a week so far and looks like being at least one more.



The view from my back door.

 

 

A pleasant luxury is the airline style stairs available for hire at $50 pw, rather than having to climb up and down a sheer vertical ladder a hundred times a day. Makes going to the loo in the middle of the night less challenging.

 

But that's the easy part. 

 

The task of trying to locate the source of the leak has been a far greater challenge, involving many great minds, much exploratory grinding in confined spaces, great muscle power and ultimately, throwing a few bucketloads of money at it.

 

It was soon obvious that the rudder needed to be removed, a simple enough sounding job, rather like one of those "just do that ......" type injunctions, where the word "just" implies no more than ten minutes of sweat.

 

 

 

The rudder is hung on the back of a triangular shape of fibreglass, called a "skeg".  At the bottom of the skeg is a bronze shoe, or "pintel", which has a bearing which encircles the rudder post (albeit with a rather misshapen and sloppy grip).

 

Before the rudder can be dropped the pintel has to be removed. Theoretically by just undoing a couple of bolts, only it's not that simple.  It's not just bolted, but glued on with fibreglass resin.

 

After a great many thumpings, bashings, hammerings, prisings, cussings, willing helper, Mark, goes off to just borrow a crow bar to forcibly encourage the parting of the ways, ushered in with a great shquwking/tearing/breaking sound as the resin reluctantly lets go.

 

 

 

The local shipwright, Colin, declares this to be a bodgy 5 pm Friday afternoon shortcut that should never have been put together in such a way and was basically an accident waiting to happen. It's nothing to do with the leak, but it's potentially a show-stopper that needed to be fixed.  Always good to find out these things in advance before losing a rudder mid-ocean.

 

The fix for this is to just grind back a section of the skeg, just make up a plug out of solid fibreglass (not just resin) with a protruding tongue to attach the pintel to and just fibreglass it all back together.

 

 

Back to the leak ....

 

Once the rudder was off, the stainless steel tube that the rudder stock went through could be cut in half and removed.  Then the surrounding area inside the boat ground back.

 

 



 

The hole in the centre is where the stainless steel pipe was.  The other hole is where the cockpit drain through-hull fitting goes (also leaking).

 

It soon became apparent that the fibreglass had never bonded properly to the stainless steel and was allowing small amounts of water to leak in.

 

A preferable material for the new tube is fibreglass.  The tube has bearings top and bottom (new ones will need to be made) which hold the rudder stock snugly in place.

 

It's great to have made all these discoveries and to be getting them fixed now.  Just as well I've been living off lettuce and lentils for the past few months' cruising. :-)

 

While out of the water, it's always a good idea to just paint the bottom with fresh antifoul, so that's next.

 

Shanti will stay here in Bundaberg while I fly back down to Melbourne for a month over the Christmas/ NY period, then over to NZ for my father's 99th birthday.

 

Looking forward to catching up with old friends again soon.

 

6 months in a leaky boat

11/10/2016  Airlie

 Back in Airlie beach, reprovisioning, refuelling, re-watering in readiness for a suitable weather window to begin the return journey south.  Looking out over the anchorage, it’s apparent that the itinerant cruising fleet is thinning out as more boats leave.

The decision for me is beginning to take shape, as they tend to do. Shanti has developed a couple of nasty little leaks.  One is finding its exit through the vent above the stove, making cooking impossible during rain.  As with all leaks, it’s never easy to know exactly where the point of ingress is, other than to say it begins somewhere above deck and makes its way through the internal head lining (ceiling).  It could be coming in through the deck organiser (a group of turning blocks which ropes run through). 

 

 

Unfortunately there is no access panel to get at the nuts or backing plate or whatever is on the other side of the bolts.  One will need to be cut into the moulded fibreglass ceiling, just forward of the light fitting.

 

(Note the picture of "The Africa of Emanuel Bowen 1747" - a daily reminder to me of my dreams).

 

The other leak is more serious, in that it has the potential to sink the boat.  Again, it isn’t clear exactly where the seawater is entering the hull, but it is leaking into the stern locker at a rate of around 2-3 litres a day.  I first became aware of this problem while on anchor during a choppy northerly blow at Airlie. Shanti was not the only boat hobby-horsing violently, at times almost dipping her bow under the cresting waves.  The shallow anchorage is renowned for this, making it a very uncomfortable place to be.  The pumping action must have increased the flow of water at the stern, spreading it to other areas below the engine and floorboards.  The engine battery was half under water, which could have been a total disaster had it shorted.

I had been denied entry into the Abell Point Marina, due to not having salvage cover on my insurance with Norhern Reef/Edward William, so had to take out another policy with an acceptable company (You-i) and then almost beg admission into the calm sanctuary.  Once inside, I bailed out, mopped up and laid paper towels to find the leaks.  I discovered one of the through hull fittings from the cockpit drain holes was leaking.  Also there was a fine crack in the fibreglass just in front of the rudder post, through which I could see water seeping in.  As a temporary measure, I  taped the rudder post and pumped in a couple of tubes of mastic sealant, but that only slowed things down a little.

 

Shanti will need to be hauled out for at least a week to make good these repairs.  The recommended place to do this is “Boatworks” on the Gold Coast.  So that is where I’m headed.

It’s a very good thing that I’m not discovering these problems half way across the Indian Ocean.

 Meanwhile my old dinghy finally gave up the struggle to hold body and floor together.  It has served for a few laughs, with me rowing and Misha bailing the short distances it was capable of. 

 

I was delighted to find a second hand, aluminium bottomed 2.4m replacement here at Airlie, personally delivered to me.  What a joy to be able to carry jerry cans of fuel, water, shopping etc and stay more or less dry.  I still haven’t figured out exactly how I’m going to stow it, but the tubes deflate and are removable so it should be OK lashed on the foredeck.

 

And my brand new inflatable kayak got to see the water at last.  As my eldest daughter Pandora says: watercraft – too many is never enough!

 

Fam fun

Airlie 27/9/2016

The party’s over – we had a blast.

Ten glorious days of perfect weather cruising the Whitsundays with daughter Misha.  We went to all the best spots at the best times. We swam, we sang, we danced, we drank, we ate, we laughed a lot, shared some memorable happy hours with Ray and Di on "All that Jazz".

Highlights were climbing to the top of Whitsunday Peak from Cid Harbour, a 5 km trek that took 3 hours and tested our fitness.  The views from the top were well worth it.

 

 

 

 

 

Another highlight was the unexpected surprise discovery at Tongue Bay: a magnificent white sandy cay - dotted with about a million sightseers who fortunately didn't stay too long.

Me, Di, Misha

 

 

Misha certainly got the lion's share of it all.  She had a one day overlap with youngest daughter Shoni and family before sailing back to catch her flight out of Hamilton Island. Ray and Di very generously took us all out for a sail on their (much bigger) yacht to snorkel at Langford reef.  After that it was shorter visits with the others who were staying on the land in a caravan park. (Will post some more photos of that as they come in.)  Needless to say a wonderful time was had by all.  And now it's back to sailing. Yay!!

 

 

 

Ruminations on summer 16.

Bauer Bay, South Molle Island, Whitsundays, 12/9/2016

 

“When you live like a turtle with your home on your back there are many options.” (John McK)

Option 1:  Sail Shanti across the Tasman to NZ for the summer months

Option 2:  Sail back down south to ?? (not too far, in readiness to begin sailing north again next year)

Option 3: Park Shanti somewhere safe and fly back down south.

The first option is certainly attractive – possibly too attractive (I might never leave!) 

The Bay of Islands is one of my favourite places, having cruised there before on “Soulmate”. 

However, the Tasman sea is a treacherous patch of water, notorious for its gales.  In a way I feel that this would be a good test to see if Shanti and I are ocean-ready.

Also there is my ageing father in Auckland, whom it would be good to be near.  He will be turning 99 next January.

As far as having a good cruising ground to sail in for the summer months, NZ could not be beaten.  I can’t think of anywhere else down the east coast of Australia comparable.

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Option 2 is to sail south to some safe port where I can leave Shanti to fly back to Melbourne for Christmas and then across to NZ in January for my father’s birthday.

This option was my first thought when it became obvious that I wasn’t going to make it to Darwin this year.

In October/November, when the northerlies blow, most cruisers will head back down the coast to get out of the cyclone belt.  Most will go back to their home base or where they came from.  I certainly won’t be sailing all the way back down to Melbourne, perhaps to Bundaberg, Brisbane or Southport.

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A third option is to leave Shanti somewhere relatively inexpensive and safe.  I was in Bowen recently, where someone told me they kept their yacht there between two piles for a year at only $10 a week.  However, cheap as it may be, it is still a cyclone prone area.

This option has least appeal to me as I don’t want to leave Shanti alone for too long.  One of the benefits of not pushing north this year was to give me more time to get to know the boat better, to iron out all the glitches, to do more of a “shake-down” cruise. 

To park and run defeats this purpose.

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I am still in the “information-gathering/ rumination” stage, with no great rush to make a decision.

My daughter Michelle flies into Hamilton Island tomorrow to sail around the Whitsunday Islands with me for the next 10 days. Youngest daughter, Shoni & Pierre & Felix are camping in Airlie for a week.  It will be wonderful to see them all again.

 

Meanwhile I see that Webb Chiles has arrived in Durbin. I quote him here on “fear”:

“Mostly we are afraid of the unknown.  I do not claim to have courage.  Courage is doing something you are afraid to do.  What I do have is nerve, which is the willingness, after making the best plans and preparations possible within the limits of your resources, to go ahead with an endeavour whose outcome is uncertain and may be fatal.”

His advice to others is to “sail enough so that the confidence in your own ability and your boat’s to cope with extreme conditions grows and becomes near certainty.”

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Webb Chiles had no self-steering windvane on his Moore 24 and relied on a sheet-to-tiller rig for over 90% of his Indian Ocean crossing.

I have watched a few UTube clips on this system and been interested to try it out.

This afternoon I sailed from Airlie beach to South Molle Island and made a new discovery:  Shanti sails herself beautifully to weather with only a headsail.

It was blowing around 15 knots from ESE; my heading was as high as I could point into it, doing around 5.5 knots under headsail alone.  I haven’t done much windward sailing so far, with practically all of the passage north having the wind dead behind or off the aft quarter.

Normally I would attach the tiller pilot arm if I needed to leave the helm for a moment, to go below to check the course or whatever.  Today I let it go and was amazed to see the tiller just gently moving back and forth by itself. The course fluctuated only slightly, keeping the wind angle between around 40 – 50 degrees off the bow.  Shanti felt perfectly balanced.  I was absolutely thrilled!

These are the things I need to play around with more.

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Shaggers

28/8/2016 - 2/9/2016. 

Rendezvous 2016
Shag Islet Cruising Yacht Club, Shag Islet, Gloucester Passage. 

Everyone who joins this virtual yacht club is automatically a Vice Commodore of some original location, in my case, my childhood home of Bucklands Beach – though I’m not sure that the prestigious BBYC that hosted the Louis Vuitton Americas Cup series would acknowledge me as their new 2IC.

Notwithstanding, the SICYC exists primarily to increase awareness of Prostate Cancer.  Having personally known of at least 5 friends and family members with this disease, it seemed like a worthwhile cause to support.  Also a good place to stop a while and have some fun.

Ray & Di Newton were here on “All That Jazz”, as were Jeff & Leigh Benson, with son and friends on their new cat “Tru Blu”.

 

For a largely volunteer run club, it was remarkably well organised, with live music and dancing, food & drinks, crab racing, kite-flying & BBQ on Shag Islet, plus many other fund raising activities; all generously supported by the hundreds of cruisers who come from everywhere to join in this annual event. 

The weather was overcast, sprinkling showers and threatening rain, but fortunately held off for most of the activities.

 

 

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Perhaps the trickiest bit to organise was the “hands across the water” with dozens of dinghies joined up to form an aerial view of the ribbon “P” logo, but even that went off with better precision than many a band practice or staff meeting. 

 

For the first time, Ch 7 provided media coverage, which will help further early detection of the disease that claims more lives each year than breast cancer does in women.

I joined up to become a “virgin shagger”, got my blue Vice Commodore  T-shirt, met some great people, lost a bucket, my Prada sunnies and a few other things, which indicates how good a time I was having.  Here I am enjoying a plastic of wine with Leigh.

 

 

On Monday a mass exodus left me sitting on my lonesome without a dinghy, so I decided to follow newfound friends across to Bowen and continue the party for another day or two. 

Then it will be back to meet up with older friends and family in Whitsundays.

 

 

Leaving Townsville

Tuesday 23/8/2016

The last blog post finished on a note of defeat on trying to find a mouse hole to run the wires for the new solar panel. A few friends wrote words of encouragement as to the miracles that might ensue given further persistence (thanks for the vote of confidence.)

However, sometimes mountains remain intractably immovable.  After my personal conclusions to that effect, expert electrician Colin, confirmed there was in fact no way through the preferred route, short of dismantling the entire boat. 

Hence, a rather unobtrusive external plastic conduit and hole through the deck were the only sensible recourse, so today we spent the morning on this last job.  Yay! Another potential 3 - 5 amps of solar power per sunny hour.

Tonight we bade farewell to Maria Semple who is flying back down to cold old Melbourne, after having enjoyed the past week cruising the Coral Sea aboard Shanti.

Colin and Cam sailed in company with us on "First Contact" out to Herald Island, an RAAF practice bombardment site where potential unexploded bombs preclude walking above high water mark. From there we sailed to Horseshoe Bay on Magnetic Island where long walks into the interior can be enjoyed to one's heart's content.  We took the Fort's walk, about 7 km each way, saw two koala bears, a few butterflies, some magnificent soaring eagles, and hoards of tourists.

The view to the Forts, looking back toward Horseshoe Bay - by far the most popular anchorage on the island with a count of over 40 boats anchored.






Yesterday's sail back to the Yacht Club was one of those perfect days that are supposed to occur ten percent of the time.  Well, so they say... whoever "they" are ...  though one in ten still seems high to me.  However, the sun was shining, the skies blue, the whales slapping and breaching, with a gentle 8 knot breeze on the beam.  Who could ask for more?


It was an added bonus to get some rare shots of Shanti sailing.

Thanks Colin, for everything. 

Shanti is now much better prepared for safe, reliable, comfortable cruising.

Tomorrow morning I depart Townsville, taking advantage of the northerlies to head south.  My plan is to sail through the night as far as I can until the southerlies resume, possibly sometime around midday Thursday.

I shall miss Townsville and the good friends here.

Life is for learning

14/8/2016

 

A boat is a microcosm of stand alone systems  – mechanical, electrical, mathematical, navigational, meteorological, aeronautical, and many other mysterious wonders ending  with the suffix  “–cal”  - the running of which involves the mastering of an array of diverse skills before even thinking about the actual sailing. 

Therein lies its unique challenge and interest, quite unlike anything else.  It can be frustrating and rewarding, elating and deflating, a micro roller-coaster of highs and lows, and above all else, lessons in patience.  But life is for learning and where else are so many lessons piled up each day, after finishing school?

Get this wonder of wonders:

My fridge lid is now hinged instead of having to lift it out completely at great risk to life and limb.  No more wrestling it out and stowing it temporarily on a sliding, shifting, rolling, bucking surface nearby and hoping it doesn't become airborne at the next wave. 

Yesterday I fitted one of those spring hatch supports, that bends down when closed and sproings up into a solid rod when open. I love it.

(Note how the front edge of the lid had to be cut back to allow it to close).

Next job, solar panel:

 

 

 This picture shows the old solar panel connectors, which were never soldered properly, with the tang on the far left just flapping in the breeze.  Luckily an easy fix with a tiny screw and so now I have 3 x 100W panels including the new one sent up from Melbourne as a good customer service freebie.

New challenge: where to put it?

 

The replacement solar panel is now mounted on top of the dodger, (canvas canopy where cabin meets cockpit for “dodging” oncoming waves) making it effectively almost a hard-top, much more robust with the extra bracing. It took me nearly all day to mount it. (Colin had been roped in to another job so left me to my own devices). 

First was a trip to the local Chandlery for fittings, then to Bunnings to buy a couple of one metre lengths of rectangular aluminium tube for the supports between the front and rear stainless steel bows (thanks to Cam and his car). It's great being here with friends with wheels.

Then a bit of contemplation, measuring, drawing, more contemplation...

As with any first-time attempt at anything, mistakes are made (not enough contemplation). The solar panel and aluminium supports were positioned and marked in black texta,  lifted off, turned turtle on the deck for drilling –and,  you guessed it – now upside down with front and rear reversed.  Oops. Luckily this was discovered before too many holes were put in the wrong places. 

Another silly error was to awkwardly mark the undersides with only half an inch clearance above the canvas, when all I had to do was open the zip and peel it back for full access. The tolerances were small and potentially compounding, so a mm out could misalign everything.  Again, with more good luck  than good management, they lined up pretty well precisely.

It was necessary to drill holes in the front bow to bolt the supports to.  This is never easy;  for starters, the bow being curved and polished makes the drill slip off, for seconds, stainless is a very hard metal to drill. Friends Tom & vivienne off the yacht “Imajica” lent me a spring loaded centre punch to get started.  I bought a special Tungsten drill bit and used a few drops of their cutting oil to stop the bit getting too hot and melting, but it seemed like it was going to take the rest of the month to make more than a slight pinprick.  In the end, one of the local yardsmen came with the right drill and zapped it like it was a block of cheese. (A bad tradesman blames his tools and mine are just toys).

Out with the rusty (that's rusty, not trusty) hacksaw next to shorten the bolts and cut the aluminium tubes to the right length.  One thing I have learnt is to always do a “dry fit” before assembling, especially where goop is involved.  My new favourite goop is Selleys "3 in 1 Ezi-Press”, which comes in a small cartridge with a cap and lever to pump it.  It keeps well  in the fantastically wonderful brilliant new fridge for ages without going off and seems to stick anything to anything like the proverbial.

 

 

 I realize the boom will shade the panel some of the time, but this one is going to be wired to the engine cranking battery, so not so critical.  Colin has fitted a two-way VSR (Voltage Sensitive Relay) so power will go between both battery banks when one is full.

 The next challenge:

Time to run the cable from the panel to the battery. How could this job take the best part of another day?

This is how: 

1. Locate the preferred (waterproof) site for the cable to enter the interior of the boat, in this case, on the cabin top under the protection of the dodger, an area directly above the galley
2. pull everything out of the cockpit locker to make room to climb into the black hole
3. climb in and examine all possible avenues of ingress for the cabling to run where required
4. find there is only one very tight gap into the ceiling cavity through which an old cable goes to the light above the stove
5. poke usual long skinny poky thing in the gap, only to hit the right angle turn where hull meets deck
6. increase the already existant chaos down below hunting for other less/more flexible long skinny poky things
7. try them all, to no avail (if you’ve read this far, you’ve got the general idea, and are probably as much of a lost cause as I in all things nautical/practical/methodological.....)
8. realize the only solution is to use the existing light cable as a mouse, pulling it through with another string attached, then pulling it back into its original hole, being very mindful of potential to lose the only light above the stove
9. dismantle the light above the stove to access its wiring
10. the other end of the cable is in a scarcely reachable nook behind the new fridge compressor in the cockpit locker
11. (it’s hot enough in there before adding the heat of the compressor)
12. confirm, the cable has been gooped with what looks like a slurry of ancient cement.
13. climb back into the cockpit locker (for perhaps the hundredth time) with various tools of attack - hammer, screwdrivers, scraper, etc
14. not enough room to get two hands into the nook, so bash and scrape for an hour or so with one hand, taking care not to damage the existing cable to the only light above the stove
15. get it free enough to use wire coathanger to hook it by its upper half inch where it disappears into the impossible gap
16. tug gently, then not so gently, enough to realize it has been further cemented inside the ceiling when the boat was being built, before they put the “lid” on and rendered it all forevermore inaccessible
17. concede defeat (for today).