3-Ring Circus

All the rain has been driving us nuts, so decided to bite the bullet and set up the awning, which is similar in size and appearance to your average circus big top. Turned out to not actually be all that difficult to get up (still a few hours work for a couple of people, though). At least now the decks are good and dry and we can get back into sanding and varnishing again (oh goody....).

Update

Winter has hit, rain and dark, which has hampered progress a bit. Varnishing has certainly stalled. We have been working on inside jobs mostly, namely:

• Power conversion. Now all done, with an isolating transformer installed and all house outlets converted to NZ 230V. Installed master RCD's, rearranged much of the AC switchboard, converted to an MEN ground (instead of the previous floating ground), and set up all house circuits on double-pole breakers. I have managed to do the conversion so that for shore power you can plug into either an NZ supply or a USA 230V supply with no problems, and have an option of going through the transformer or direct connection. I set it up with the option of going direct because standard dock supply in NZ is only 16 amps, and that really isn't enough to properly run all the ship's systems, but did not see the point in splashing for a transformer that could handle more than 16 amps since it will not get used down here. If the boat ends up in North America then we can plug straight in to a 50 amp connection, and the isolation transformer I have used still allows you to add more units in parallel to increase capacity. Now just waiting on the inspection to get the electrical warrant of fitness.
• Engine room. My father Rob has really put in some effort here. We have serviced the gensets, done all the fuel filters, dumped the forward tank that had contaminated fuel in it, etc. We also spent an afternoon setting up the fuel injection properly on the main engine; the injector lift values were all over the map, mostly over-fueling. She now absolutely purrs, and revs notably better too.
• Am in the process of replacing the accumulator tank for the fresh water system; the old one has died. Managed to locate the current version of the exact same unit, which has made life easier.
• Finally installed the battery monitor system; now we can actually see what is happening with the DC system.
• Trying to stamp out the last of the deck leaks. Only a few left, but a couple are proving hard to nail down. We will prevail...

Going to look at setting up covers over the boat so we can continue scraping and sanding the old varnish work, even with the crappy weather at the moment.

Here's a few random pics:

We joked that we would be finding storage lockers in Kamalii for years to come. Just found one! It's underneath the nav station chair. Had to remove the chair to get to it. Seems someone started painting it out and then forgot about it.

Switch-mode isolation transformer installed, with room for second unit to increase capacity.

Removing one of the shore power sockets for rewiring. 2" thick solid teak...