Happy day!  Charisma has new clothes.  Sails actually, but same, same. (Sails are from Doyle Sails, Aukland, New Zealand.  I have used Doyle in San Francisco and have found them to be of high quality and responsive.  The new sails have lot of nice “offshore” features and I’m feeling good about them.  Will be great to do a shakedown and see how they do)

Starting at the bowsprit. The new yankee jib. We also have a big 130% jib, but this is our new working sail.

Next one back; the staysail (stays'l). Looks similar, but a close look will note that this one is on a boom in the mid-foredeck whereas the previous pic shows the jib on the end of the bowsprit.

And bringing up the rear, the new mainsail. All three are nice looking and we can't wait to get out on the water and try them out.

And…Ann is making some new “anchoring sails”, better known as the bimini and hatch covers.

The sewing machine is getting a workout. Here's the bimini being assembled in the main cabin. Where do we sit you ask? Don't ask.

More projects-I think I finally fixed a leak (knock on wood) that has been vexing us for a year now.  I thought it was the traveller, but turns out it seems to have been the aft handrail.

Yep, another "not fun" project. Taking out the overhead to get to the handrail bolt that needed tightening.

I loosened the bolts on each side of the cabin holding the handrail down, pried them up 1/4 inch or so, squeezed 3M 4600 underneath and tightened the whole thing back down.  Two nights with rain squalls and no leaks so far!

And lastly (for now)-Ann noticed a suspicious leak in the head porthole.  This one looked different.  It was coming in from under the flange that seals the porthole instead of the “more standard” leak through the porthole itself.  This project was low on the list until a lot of other stuff got fixed, but guess what?  A lot of other stuff is done, so today I went after this one.  Good thing.  Ann called it.  A leak that went up under the flange and was rotting the balsa core underneath.  I have taken out the entire porthole (not fun, took three hours) and removed a bunch of balsa core under the upper side of the opening.  I removed about two inches of wet wood and am going to let it dry out then squeeze some epoxy with filler up into the void before putting the whole thing back together.

Another ugly project, but you have to watch leaks as they only get worse over time...Yes, I am holding the porthole that was once embedded in the cabin where there is now just a hole...(click on the picture to see more detail)

…Well, we’re a month and a half from leaving, but the projects are winding down and I was sitting in the cockpit this evening looking south and seeing the Southern Cross.  It was definitely calling out to us.

Lots of smallish projects are now getting done.

-Engine fuel injectors were overhauled and installed today

-Dinghy motor picked up and is being “tuned”

-Ann is sewing some hatch covers.  Hopefully they will work so when it rains we can leave the hatches open for ventilation.

-Ann is refining the bimini to give us shade while in the cockpit.  Several other cruisers have noticed the refinements and are getting jealous.  We’ll have to add some pictures in the future, but suffice to say, it’s made from “shade-cloth” so it’s somewhat see through and we can leave it on while sailing, but it blocks the sun while we’re in the cockpit.

-We had two symetrical leaks-one in the galley and one in the quarterberth that have been driving us crazy.  Every time it rains, water pours through magic leaks in the ceiling.  I’ve been thinking they were from the traveller and have been avoiding what would be a big job to pull that off and fix it.  But today I finally just started taking apart the overhead and tracked them down (I hope) to the aft end of the handrail.  Both sides were loose.  I’m hoping that by lossening the bolts, pulling the handrail up 1/4 inch and injecting 3M 4600 underneath and tightening the bolts back down, I’ve fixed the leak.  I don’t want to pull the whole rail as that is a HUGE project.  We’ll see with the next rainfall whether it worked.

-Lots of other smallish stuff that we’re checking off the list.  We’re so close to finished now that we’ll likely head out on a “Land Tour” later this week.  We’ll probably take 10 days to do a loop of the North Island-heading south from here and looping around and back up the west coast.  Stay tuned on that.

Okay, maybe not something new, Bob geeking out and all, but he has no time to blog so Ann has stepped up.  (And he is making me dinner. :-). )

As Bob shared last night, he was very close to finishing the install on the new navigation instruments just as we needed to get ready to go celebrate our friend’s birthday. Today Bob COMPLETED the project! (And you thought that cheering was for the new Pope, Francis I).  What a job! And when I asked Bob if he made sure to cross it off of the list he informed me that it was another job that was not on the project list.  Sigh.  But oh joy!  It is done and Bob is now playing with all of the new capabilities.  At 6 pm an alarm went off.  Testing.  At sunset the system beeped.  A moment ago Bob showed me how he could set a scrolling function at various time intervals – 10 sec, 20 sec, etc.  Like I said, Bob is geeking out!  Hooray!

Getting the new "stack" ready to install at the helm.

Read 'em and weep! Each one can display 9 different screens of custom data. Why you ask? Why the hell not!

Personally I was tired of jobs that were partial jobs not allowing for the joy of completion, so last night I made up my own job list for today. (See, Greg – my son – I too am working!). I had five things on my list and I completed four of them!  Oops, one was done poorly – putting the third coat of cetol on boards that we lash the fuel and water cans to during passage.  Sounds easy right?  Remember how I mentioned how I hate to paint?  Well, in my haste to move onto the second job of the day I painted too fast and there are bubbles on one board.  This means that someone needs to sand it and repaint it – slowly, to reduce bubbles.  (I am not yet volunteering to be that someone!)

But I did get two good coats of Carnuba wax on the Charisma name. I had been waiting for it to dry well since we had it repainted while on the hard.  Now both sides shine!  My other chores were interior cleaning chores and not as visible but still allowed me to cross off a job. Yea!

I also got to cross off the “polish stainless” project!  Phew! My fingers are tired!

…with the electronics project.  Today was spent cleaning up the installation in the nav station and then pulling new cables through the aft end of the cabin and up into the binnacle (by the wheel) for the other three units.  All was going exceptionally well until…wait for it…the hole in the stainless steel base plate from the binnacle where the instruments mount, down through the cockpit floor was too small and the cable wouldn’t pull through.  The only option was to completely take apart the “cage” around the binnacle that the cable needed to go through in order to get routed under the deck and drill it out.

All the crap is out of the lazarette so I can cram myself in there. You can see the steel protector cage for the binnacle laying on its side and the cable on the floor of the cockpit.

There's no going back once you cut the end off the cable! But it's the only way to thread it through some of the tight holes.

Not recommended in the installation guide (which was written by the lawyers)

I won’t bore everyone with the blow by blow description except to say it was a typical boat project and didn’t want to come apart.  Two hours later, some penetrating oil, some banging, swearing and lots of pushing, pulling and tugging and it finally came loose.  Once that was done it was fairly easy to pull the cable down through and under the deck.

Then, while sitting inside of a 3 foot, by 2 1/2 foot by 3 1/2 foot box (i.e. the lazarette under the cockpit), I finished the wiring part of the job.  Strip the ends of 10 tiny wires (somewhere around #20 or smaller), tin the ends of each of the tiny wires (with electrical solder), crimp them onto ring connectors and then attach them to a “bus bar” and the cabling part of the project is done.

I couldn’t quite finish because we were going out to a birthday dinner for one of our dockmates (Happy Birthday Charmaine) and I ran out of time, so the final install is tomorrow.  But, I did temporarily attach an instrument to test it and it works!!

So, over $2000 of new electronics that I bought on a hope and a dream that I could get it connected (without having to spend $100/hour for a tech to tell me the nightmare scenario- that it wasn’t meant to work with my old system) is actually working.  The bonus is that it works much better than the crappy B&G system (professionally recommended by and installed at Svendsen’s in Alameda, CA) ever did, even when it was brand new just four years ago.

I think I’m going to sleep well tonight.

P.S.-For a break for those of you who are tired of hearing about boat work-here’s something a little different (click to enlarge photo)…

We only buy our eggs from happy chickens...;-)

So…no varnishing today.  Instead I worked on the electronics.  The old (crappy) B&G system that gave up the ghost is being replaced by a new Raymarine set of i70 instruments.  I spent way too much time trying to find some relevant tech data on the B&G wiring codes (which was the “green” and what does the “red” do?) and finally just dug in.  Well, the good news is that I have now connected the old NMEA 0183 system to the new Raymarine NMEA 2000 SeaTalkNG system.  Used an Actisense converter based on Raymarine information and it works!  I’m now trying to get the GPS data working but that’s for another day.  Happy it’s progressing though.

...and the blue wire connects to the...oh hell, I don't know what it goes to...

And now some news from Ann…

Made it to the top (again)

Looking down on Whangarei

God bless, Bob!  Sometimes I feel guilty hiking but someone has to see the countryside. Actually there is a fabulous hike up the Pariheke Reserve which is right across the road from the marina that rewards you with a great view of Whangarei and the river itself.  Hard hike.  The local firefighters are using it to train for a fundraising event in May where they trudge up the sky tower in Aukland.  We just hope to make it to the top smiling!  Fortunately for me, Lisa (pictured above) and Anne from Blue Rodeo like to hike!  I can’t wait to take Bob up to see the view.  Soon.

After our hike today the girls and I spent the day wandering through dress shops in Whangarei looking for a “lovely frock” for the wedding.  Styles here are very odd.  No success today but I haven’t given up!

I do all of this to keep out of Bob’s way…  kind of!  Truthfully I can’t wait for him to come play too!