Sailing Again...

Winter draws to a close. Sort of.

We headed out for the long Labour weekend, the traditional start of the sailing season in NZ, and traditionally crap weather. And it didn't disappoint. A mixture of no wind, a little bit of good wind, and a dose of way too much wind. But at least we were sailing!

So we had one great day.

Crew hard at work in a howling millpond.

The autopilot works! Finally free from the helm when short-handed.

Motor-sailing under jib only.

Sarah earns her keep, sorting out a fouled halyard.

Happy to be (motor) sailing again!

25 knots on the nose.

Becs pays tribute to Neptune...   Gusting to 35 knots.

Forward Cabin

We have finished painting out the front of the forward cabin, and now need to paint the aft end walls. The paint never really looked too bad, but once painted you can really see the difference.

Fresh paint on the left hand side of the photo, old paint on the right.

A Major Improvement to Kamalii

What you see to the left is probably the single most important improvement I have made to Kamalii.

Prior to this upgrade, Kamalii suffered from a pretty serious problem. After a full days sailing it was typical to finally lay to anchor, get everything packed away, and then settle in for drinkies, only for the horror to strike.

Lacking a proper latch on the icebox in the fridge, under sail the door would fly open on the icebox and all our ice trays would get dumped all through the fridge, slowly melting in the process. This meant that on many occasions we were left without any ice for sundowners.

"Holy shit!", I hear you say, "I hope James kept his Coastguard membership up to date! What a mayday situation!"

Now, all is bliss. While we defrosted the fridge I fit a proper bolt to the door (which you can see centre of the picture), so now our ice cubes are safely secured within their frozen domicile, even under the harshest of sailing conditions. It's great when you knock off the really important jobs. Life is good.

Interior Decoration

We've started painting out the V-berth. The shot below is after sanding up and prepping for the first coat. After this we plan to move onto the starboard guest cabin.

And the caulking continues...

Have now finished the cockpit. The foredeck is next, but I think that can wait for some time - summer is nearly here and I bloody well want to go sailing!

The caulking at the lower edge of the picture is after having removed the tape, with no sanding. Couldn't do that with Sikaflex; this Simson product is way easier to use.