Grunt!

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My project for the day...discover where in the world the bobstay bolts are hidden under the fiberglass in the anchor locker. This is the locker, looking downward.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is where I spent the day. The bobstay fitting was behind the two wooden posts in the background (they are called "Sampson Posts")

 

 

 

 

 

 

My actual "uniform" of the day. Headlamp, earplugs and facemask.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Uh huh. Six hours spent like this and I'm not halfway done...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yup, that's about all I've got to show for six hours work. One bolt is just showing and the other has been "found" but not yet excavated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Argh, Ack and Uhhh! were also heard during the day.  When it’s bad, it’s bad.  Not a fun day.  I’m beat.  Not to take all the credit for tough jobs.  Ann’s beat too-but she’s actually showing some progress on her project.  She “rounded” the bow this afternoon and is polishing the way down the starboard side.

 

The bobstay fitting removal project is turning very ugly.  For several hours I couldn’t even be sure where the second bolt was.  Turned out I was looking in the wrong direction.  I finally drilled a hole right through the bow so I could see where in the heck I was.  Good news, I found out.  Bad news, the second bolt is in the worst possible place.  Right under a bulkhead.  There’s a small “bridge” where it is, so I have some working room, but not much.  The electric saw (Fein Tool) won’t fit under there so I had to buy a Dremel tool with a burr cutter.  That’s tomorrow’s project.

More Boat Yard

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Ann's "art shot" showing the ladder down from our deck and the shadow of Charisma against the ground.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Worked all day to get the propeller and its mount nice and shiny so we can paint it with anti-fouling paint to keep the barnacles off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Third day and Ann is now a little over halfway down the port side...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our first "gotcha". This is the Bobstay fitting (no relation). It's one of the most important on the boat, holding the mast up. As you can see one of the holes has an odd crack. I have to take it off to check it for corrosion. Unfortunately, the bolts that hold it on the side of the boat are completely covered with fiberglass. Ouch!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’ll likely be here a couple weeks, so ignore this for a while if boat yard stuff is not your thing.

 

Today (Sunday) Ann spent another day polishing the hull.  I spent another day sanding and polishing the propeller.  Ho Hum-boatwork.  Actually, I did get a couple other things done.  I overhauled the anchor windlass.  It had jammed and needed some TLC.  Nothing that a hammer, a little Acetone and a new coat of grease couldn’t handle.  Another project crossed off the list.

 

The one that wasn’t on the list but has now gone to the top is the Bobstay fitting.  No, not named after me.  I don’t know the history of the term, but google tells me it dates from the 1700’s.  Anyway, the bobstay connects from the end of the bowsprit down to the waterline and basically holds the mast from falling down.  So, quite an important piece of gear.  The piece in question is the fitting that sits right at the waterline.  At least it did before we started cruising.  A couple thousand pounds of gear later, it now sits a couple inches underwater at the bow and seems to be suffering from crevice corrosion.  When I cleaned it a strange “chunk” just broke off.  No Bueno.  So, I have to remove it to see what’s going on.  No biggie, right?  Well….as someone in the Tayana Owners Web Forum noted; “This is probably going to be the worst, most miserable job you’ve ever done”.  OK, thanks for the encouragement.

 

To get to the bolts you have to drop both anchors out of the anchor locker.  OK, not too hard since I can just drop them on the dirt.  I’ve been wanting to do that anyway to check the chain and such.  Next, take out the (very dirty) plywood floor.  Did I mention that at this point I’m jammed up into the very end of the Vee-Berth in the bow of the boat and trying to squeeze my very ample body into a very small opening?  OK, got the floor out.  No sign of the bolts.

 

Onto the Tayana Owners Web site, which has all kinds of good info.  There I find that the boat manufacturer, in their infinite wisdom FIBERGLASSED OVER the bolts!  You can only find them by licking your finger, twirling it in the air and pointing to a place in the inside of the hull whereby you start drilling away hoping you’ll find them-instead of just drilling right through.  Arrrrgh.  That’s why we do this kind of stuff up on the hard.  Dry land.  Good.

 

I also find that some manufacturers may have used asbestos in their fiberglass back in the day, so I’m waiting until Monday when I can buy a respirator to keep the material from clogging my lungs.

 

In any case, tomorrow I’ll be jamming a too big body in too small a space trying to drill a mystery hole into the hull to find the mystery bolts that hold the damn, possibly broken thingy in place!!  Welcome to cruising, we love this stuff.

 

Aside from that, we had a delightful evening.  Sunday nights here in the boat yard there is a potluck BBQ.  There’s a really nice gazebo-like structure over by the river with a BBQ and a bunch of picnic tables.  Everyone gets together at 6PM.  You bring a dish and some meat.  We brought ginger-garlic green beans (which were scarfed immediately) and a couple steaks.  We proceeded to have a great evening, meeting many of the other folks in the area who will also be cruising up into Fiji later this year as will we.

 

Lots of new friends.  Lots of boat work yet to do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Working In The Boat Yard

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There's a really nice little BBQ area in the yard. We bought some veggies and grass-fed beef at the farmer's market and did us a BBQ this evening

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a yummy dinner...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The yard at night. That's Charisma on the right. We're living at the top of the ladder

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boatyard mania!  Our first full day in the yard and we’re exhausted.   Ann’s polishing the hull (37 feet down one side and 37 feet back the other) and I spent the day polishing the propeller.  You say; “The whole day!?”  You betcha.  The prop and associated other metal parts that support the prop shaft were covered in barnacle residue (I chip the barnacles off on a monthly basis by diving when we’re in the water) and needed to get all the residue chipped off one-by-one.  Not a fun job.  Standing under the hull with a pick to knock off bits of barnacle and piece of sandpaper to then smooth the surface if very tedious.  I used my new cordless grinder that I got for Christmas (Thanks Mom and Dad!) for the rough work, but then had to use wet and dry sandpaper to progressively polish the prop back to a nice smooth bronze surface.  A lot of work, but looks nice.

For her part, Ann spent the day on a platform rubbing the hull with rubbing compound, then polishing it off with a wax cleaner.  After she goes down one side and back the other, she’ll have to do it all over again with the final wax coat.  Having done it myself a few times, I can sympathize.  It’s not a lot of fun, but the results are worth the effort.  Charisma is going to SHINE.  However, it will take her about four more 8 hour days at least.

OK, we’re pooped.  More tomorrow including some pics of the polished hull and beautiful propeller.  I’m sure you’re all dying to see!     😉

 

Classic Kiwi Moment

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Morning at Ray's Marine just before hauling out

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coming out of the water

 

 

 

 

 

 

All out and ready to move into the yard

 

 

 

 

 

Charisma's set on her hardstand and the anchor chain's out in ten foot increments for marking

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rudder straps already ground down and primed, ready for fairing and paint.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We hauled out today and are now living on “the hard”, about 12 feet off the ground.  It’s always a bit harrowing hauling out.  Boats look very awkward out of the water and all I can think of is 28,000 pounds hanging from just two straps under the crane.  Scary.  Anyway, we’re now all set up sitting on the ground.  The bottom has already been sanded, some of the areas where the paint was coming off have been ground down and painted with new primer, the scrapes on the bottom where we ran aground at Aitutaki have been faired and I’ve dropped the anchor and put new depth markings on the chain.  And that’s Day 1!  I’m sure things will slow down, but nice to get a fast start.

One of the things we did today was call a friend we have met who has a machine shop in town and ask if we could use his drill press to resize the holes that the new nav instruments need to fit into.  Antony (no “h”) said; “By all means!  If I’m not there just let yourself in”.  So off we went and when we showed up and he wasn’t there, we let ourselves into his shop and started setting up the drill press.  Then one of his friends showed up and we all introduced ourselves.  Fortunately Ann was there to do the socializing while I was working on setting up the “jig” I made to drill the 3 and 3/8 inch hole for the new instrument.  I started cutting, but the drill press wasn’t quite up to the very hard, thick plastic I had to drill through.  So, I’m cutting away, very slowly to keep the tool from binding (which it was doing anyway), when another of Antony’s friends named Pete showed up.  He was more aggressive about suggesting the drill press wasn’t strong enough and was bound and determined to “help”.  So there I am; two of Antony’s friends and now Antony has shown up, the drill press is jamming and everyone has an opinion (these guys are all amateur custom car builders, so no lack of builder’s opinions-and all in Kiwi accents).  Finally the Pete grabs the jig, and my bag of parts and says; “Come on mate, we’ll get a proper drill press”.  Off we go with a quick wave to Antony who apparently is accustomed to his friend “taking over”.  We charge across the street and into a gas station where Pete walked in the front door, quickly said; “Do ya mind if we use the drill press”, then headed toward the shop while the owner of the shop called; “OK” after him.  We’re just following Pete at this point and wondering where the heck this is all going and what’s going to happen, but Pete has the part the needs to be drilled and he’s on a mission.  He gets in the shop and makes a bee-line to the press, sets up the hole cutter and my part of the jig I made and proceeds to start to cut.  It’s working, so I’m fine just watching.  Anyway, long story a little shorter, Pete cuts all four of the holes, I sweep the floor and we’re done.

As the headline suggests, this was a classic Kiwi moment. Everyone here is so helpful and also very headstrong (lead, follow or get out of the way).  But all in all a lot of fun!

Here We Go

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One of the new i70 Instruments and the hole I'm going to need to enlarge to make it fit

 

 

 

 

Here's where the other three are going to go. More holes to enlarge and new cables to pull

 

 

 

 

A few of the cables in the nav station that are going to need to be rerouted

 

 

 

 

 

Ann getting an early start on the boatwork is polishing the stainless. A punishing, thankless job. Thanks anyway!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today officially started “Boat Work Week”.  Well actually it will be two weeks if we’re lucky, three if not.  More than that I don’t want to think about.

Anyway, we motored down to Ray Roberts Marine and Boatyard.  I think it’s actually called Riverside Marine, but “Ray’s” sounds better.  Just getting here took a little drama.  Two days ago I realized I had no clue as to where the key to the engine was.  I had a couple hazy memories that I might have hidden it in case of robbers while we were gone (note to self: Don’t do this again)!  Then after searching high and low through all the boat, I thought; “Well, maybe I gave it to Sharon, the marina manager”.  Problem was, that was yesterday which was a holiday in NZ so we couldn’t call Sharon and see if she had it.  No worries we thought, I probably did leave it with her and we’ll just get it in the morning.  Come morning, Ann went over to the Marina office while I met with Roger the Doyle Sails rep who wanted a couple last measurements before cutting the fabric for the new sails.  We got the measurements but No Bueno on the key.  Oh crap!  Our time to go down to the boatyard was past since the tide had changed.  Rats!  So we decided to double down on looking in drawers, under boards, etc, etc.  Each of us went back to drawers we had searched yesterday and dumped everything out on the floor and voila-The Key!  Turns out it was exactly where it should have been, but I outsmarted myself by taping a piece of grey duct tape over it with the words; “No H2O” on it to remind myself that I had closed the raw water through-hull intake while we were gone.  This was to avoid a potential catastrophic leak while we weren’t aboard.  But the grey tape made the key impossible to see in the dark drawer.

 

Oh well.  We’ve both decided that next year we will write notes about where we store everything and hide them so no burglars will find out where our good stuff is.  That way we’ll be able to find everything…once we find the notes.

 

On to business!  Now that we’ve found the key and were able to start the engine, we have now relocated to Ray’s.   We’re spending a nice, calm evening on their dock and then will haul out tomorrow.  I always get stressed hauling out.  Boats aren’t meant to be out of the water sitting on the ground.  We’ll be living aboard and will have to climb seven feet up a ladder to get to the deck and in the boat.  We have four pages of projects to complete. The biggies are:  bottom paint, varnish the brightwork, wax and polish the hull (makes it easier to clean as we travel) and install the new electronics (Crappy B&G instruments gave up the ghost.  They were only four years old and the line has been discountinued. No replacements available and they are not repairable-we’re switching to Raymarine which at least is easier to find replacements for). These days software compatibility is the issue and I’ve purchased a converter to allow my old network to talk to the new one (hopefully).  For you techies, we’re going to try and get the older NMEA 0183 standard network to talk to the new NMEA 2000 SeaTalkNG net.  Good luck to me.  More on this as the next couple weeks progress.  In the mean time, I’m drilling new holes for the different size instruments and pulling new wire, since the old cables are not compatible with the new instruments.  Grrrrr.

 

OK, time for a glass of wine and some sunset.  More pictures later of tomorrow’s haul out.

 

P.S.  On a more positive note:  We got a knock on the hull and a “Ahoy Charisma” this afternoon.  Turned out Jim Fair from Berkeley Yacht Club is docked right next to us.  He and his wife left Berkeley a year before we did and we’ve heard they were down here.  Funny what a small world.  We’ve agreed we are going to get together in the next couple days to swap lies about our trips.  Yay!

Tsunami Alert!

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That got our attention!  We’re back on Charisma after a wonderful holiday back in the States with Family and Friends.  Today, we were sitting on the boat in the Town Basin at Whangarie and a friend came over and knocked on the hull:  “Ahoy Charisma!”  We shouted back and climbed the companionway ladder to say hi and saw Tom from “Tanga” who said that there was a huge earthquake in/around Vanuatu (an 8.0 as of this writing although it will likely get downgraded over time) and there’s a tsunami alert for most of the South Pacific.  Wow, talk about getting our attention.  After a bit of chat, we went back down below straight to the internet and found….mixed results.  NOAA cancelled the alert, but the local Civil Defense authorities didn’t.  Anyway, long story short, as we’re sitting here an hour after it was supposed to hit New Zealand, we’re still floating without a care.

Got us back into the swing of cruising though.  So, with this blog, hopefully we’ll kick back into the habit of charting out what we’re doing and where we’re going.
Tomorrow, we go out “on the hard”.  Not our favorite thing.  Basically we’re getting hauled out in a local boatyard to get the bottom painted with antifouling paint.  You have to do this at least once every other year or so to keep the crud from growing on the bottom of the boat.  That’s the main reason we’re hauling, but we spent much of this afternoon planning the other projects we’re going to work on while we’re in the boat yard.  Everything from pulling all the anchor chain out onto the ground for inspection, to varnishing all the woodwork (a much bigger task than it sounds-this alone will be a week or more of solid work), to sewing some new covers for worn out cushions a version-2 of our bimini, etc.  Not the least project (which is on Ann’s list) is cleaning and waxing the hull!

 

So, at least two weeks of work where we’ll be living on Charisma in the boat yard.  Not the most fun thing since to leave the boat, you basically climb down a six foot ladder, but hey, this is an adventure.  We’re going to make it fun.  Ann already did some planning and announced that we will be eating meals in the lovely park next door to the marina.  Trees, views onto the river, grass and picnic tables.  I announced that we’ll be eating pizza in town at least two nights a week.  Beer, pizza, Rugby on the TV.  So, we’ll have some entertainment.  Stay tuned.  I’m still going to write up what went right during the last year and what we could do better; a perspective of our sailing experience over the last year.  I just have to get back into the writing groove and get inspired a little.  Is anybody reading this, and/or interesting in that?  Please let me know.

Getting Ready to Head Home For The Holidays

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Our New Zealand ride

The view from one of the hikes we've done. This is near Cape Bream. Across the bay to the right is Marsden Cove.

We’re winding down this season.  Doing some boat work, getting things set for us to leave for the States for six weeks.  Then we’ll be back for another year of cruising, probably up into the Fijiian Archipeligo.

In the mean time, we’ve been touring in the car we bought and doing some hiking.  We’ll do a lot more of both in February when we’re back and the weather’s better.  Right now it’s late Spring down here and it’s been a bit rainy/cloudy.

Today we closed with Doyle sails on new sails for Charisma.  She’ll be right happy to have new clothes.  The old sails were 25 years old, way past due as the sailcloth and stitching deteriorate in the sun and we can no longer trust our lives to sails of that age on the open ocean.  If we were still in SF Bay, no worries-but out here you have to have some confidence that the sails can routinely withstand 40 knots of wind or more.  We already had a mainsail seam blow out and were lucky we didn’t need it to finish that leg.

So, we’re doing due diligence on cleaning up Charisma-checking that the bilge pump is working well, turning off the propane, closing the through hulls,  turning off the big electrical draws (like the fridge) and in general making ready to leave.  We have two more days, then Sunday we’re heading to Aukland for a couple days before flying out on the 12th.  Looking forward to seeing everyone back home.

We’ll be posting from time to time including a “what worked and what didn’t” for those who will be following in our footsteps.  Then in February we’ll get cranking back up again.

So, have a great holiday and new year and thanks very much to those of you who have been following our blog and commenting.  We’re having fun and we hope you have been too!

Woohoo We’re in Whangerie!

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Gets your heart going to see a bridge that isn't on the charts. This one is being built across the river. We had to go through a very skinny pass between the unfinished sections.

Made it! At the guest dock at Whangarei Town Basin

We got a pile mooring for the first week, then we're moving to a dock.

Not a bad view from our mooring.

Yay! We’re finally here. Gnarly time getting here. 30 knot winds, made just getting out of our slip in Marsden an adventure. Also we’re waaay upriver now. The last bit to get here the water depth went as low as 9 feet and that was at high tide. They are also building a new bridge that will eventually be a drawbridge, but for now it was a very narrow slot between two half bridges that we had to thread through. But we’re here!

Tomorrow, we move from our nice “guest berth” in from of the marina office, down about 150 yards to a “piling mooring”. In other words we will be tied between two pilings in a line with other boats along the bank of the river. The only way off the boat will be by dinghy. The good news is the dinghy dock is only about 30 yards away and our car is parked just up from that. But it will be a new adventure.

In Marsden Cove

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Left Tutukaka this morning for a little bay just inside Cape Breem (can’t remember it’s name), but after two tries in 20 plus knots of wind we couldn’t get the anchor to set. First failure ever! So we went another 3 miles to Marsden Cove and are snug in a slip for the night (with showers!).

Nice day, sailed all the way, about 25 miles, in 20 knots on the nose. Really nice sailing. Still pinching ourselves that we’re sailing down the coast of New Zealnd.

We might stay another day, but then we have about 7 miles up river to Whangerie where we’ll stay a while.

Tutukaka

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Moonrise as seen from Charisma

We’re sitting here looking at a beautiful, almost full moon, rise over the cliff on the other side of this little cove. The horizontal orange streaks of sunset are fading into the blue-soon to be indigo-of night. So peaceful.

Aretha is singing in the background and we just finished a grilled steak and sautéed mushroom dinner. Not bad.

I’m now seeing the glistening, glittering, silver stripe of moonlight reflecting off the water behind us.

The Gannets are diving all around us and Ann is searching the water for sight of a blue penguin. No sighting yet, but we’ll let you know. She has seen a Kiwi, so she’s one up on me so far (not including card games in which she is two up).

Tomorrow-a little cove just out side of Marsden, then up river to Whangerie on Thursday. That’s where we’ll stay until April. In the mean time, home for the holidays, then back to NZ for some boat work and then land cruising.