Vegetating

Fantastic sail up to Whangaroa Harbour from Bay of Islands the other day, averaged about 8.5 knots, hitting 10+ knots in a beam reach in 20 knots of wind. Reeeaaaaaly nice.

Now basically vegging in Whangaroa. I am informed this it what "relaxing" is. Not sure about it though, so I pulled one of the redundant winches off the forward cabin deck and plugged everything in preparation for sanding and re-caulking. Tomorrow I'll throw a coat of varnish on the main mast. Now that's a holiday!  ;-)

OK, maybe time for some shampoo. And some scissors.

Merry Xmas!

Living the dream...    ;-)

Sailing

Aaaaahh. Sailing.

Sailed from Great Barrier to Whangaruru today, averaging 8-9 knots on a beam reach. Very pleasant.

Random summer holiday type photo.

Today's sail.

Leaving Great Barrier.

And They're Off!

Finally. Absolutely no wind, motored all the way to Great Barrier Island, but at least we are finally away on holiday. Pass the rum.

Mill pond.

 
 

Rum O'Clock

A Pleasant Day

Went out with a bunch of friends today to Tiri for some swimming and booz...eating. Oh, and some very pleasant sailing. Didn't bother to take many photos though, so here's a random shot of the boat and a shot of Matt with the youngest Kamalii crew member, Eddie.

Oh fuck yes!

Finally sailing.

Need I say more?

Nom, nom, nom...

[PHOTO REMOVED ON ACCOUNT OF SEVERE OBJECTION BY SARAH]

Off to Kauwau for the weekend with friends for Sarah's 15th birthday.

Nom, nom, nom...

How's that for a capping rail, eh?

Sunday, Day of Rest

Bulwark stripped, sanded, and capping rail primed and ready for glossiness. Huuuuge thanks to Stephanie Hazard for her help today; it was a long, hot and dusty day.

Get a Life

I was busily attaching all the hardware onto the mast this morning, when a couple of guys walked past on the dock. One said, "There's that guy that's always working."

Sad.

And now I have to admit that having finished the mast, for shits and giggles, I decided to rip the port side bulwark apart to see if we can get it stripped and the last of the capping rail varnished before we head out next weekend. Bet we can.

Sad.

At long bloody last

Put the last coat on this evening.*

Tomorrow we bolt everything back up.

Next weekend we are going sailing. Don't care if it's blowing the bloody apocalypse. We. Are. Going. Sailing.

* Actually, I still need to throw another coat on the upper 2/3 of the mast. That's the regime now: one coat start of season, one coat end of season. But that I can do with the mainsail on. I'll pretend the job is done for now.

Slow Burn

So I'm sitting here feeling all crappy, and suddenly out of nowhere an image pops into my head.

I go rifling through the pile of bits classified under "Crap that is probably crap but I suspect may in fact not be crap" and pull out this randomly shaped piece of trim.

Down to the port side head, into the big locker and up around where the steering cables turn to run aft. Bingo! Only five years to work that one out.

Before

After.

Great. Now I have to paint it.

The 80/20 Rule

Being that the last 20% of the job always seems to take 80% of the total effort.

All the hardware, tracks, and bits and bobs have made stripping the old varnish off a total PITA. Probably got another 3-4 hours of work before it's ready to start varnishing. But I'm feeling sick and fed up, so will have to wait a bit. Which of course means I will have to wait even longer before I finally get to go for a sail this summer. But sometimes you've just got to stop and take a breath.

I just want to go sailing...

Making some progress on the mast. Have pretty much finished the first repair, and today we pulled off the gooseneck and cut out the rot around there. Thankfully it turned out to be even more localised than the first patch, and appears to have been a result of sealant failing where a packing block mated to the mast, letting water in and pooling.

A big thank you to Darryn Currill for his helping hand!

Rot cut out. Only surface rot (about 5 mm) for most of it, but directly alongside the adjacent stave it went deeper - about 25 mm. The glue line largely stopped the rot from spreading to the next stave, except up the very top.

Initial shaped packers filling the deeper cut-outs, gluing in place. May have overdone the glue...

We then cut back into the blocks again and fitted some nicely shaped dress pieces to create a dutchman repair. Note the strip that has paint on the face - all the timber for the repairs is coming from the old starboard upper spreader that we replaced.

Shaped and almost done. Plugging holes left behind from retaining screws. Soon be ready for final sand and varnish.

The rot at the goose-neck is a simple fix, other than having to under-cut past a stainless steel strap that holds the sail-track to the mast. I plan to fix it with two blocks inserted top and bottom.  It's mostly covered by the packing block that I am also having to fix up as one corner needs to be cut out and replaced.

Cutting out rot at gooseneck. It went up under the stainless strap, but not far, so thankfully I don't have to pull the entire track assembly off - that would be a major!

In other projects, I'm progressing the conversion of the old crew head to a sail locker. Have re-routed all the wiring, removed the washbasin, and turned the space left behind into an access hatch for the locker under. I cut out the lid from one of the locker doors that I removed. I've made a new headliner panel, and this week hopefully will make up the hull liner for above the bench and generally get things to a point where it is usable; painting etc will have to wait until after Christmas, as we are running out of time!

Matching 50's vintage formica.

Message In a Bottle

From the old crew head:

I'm fine, David. How are you?

Demolition Man

Been meaning to turn the old crew head into a proper sail locker forever. Bugger it - let's do it!

Starting to pull things apart.

Demolition near complete.

The plan is to convert the sink space into another storage bin, line the hull, and extend the headliner so it's just one big space. It's  added a lot of open space - good for another two or three sails.  :-)

I started today on repairing one of the two patches of rot I found on the main mast. The good news is it's not that bad. I have it all cut out, and replacement blocks gluing in place. I'll post some pics when it's all done.

The Work Never Ends

Continuing right along... First up, finishing the master stateroom.

Port side master stateroom bulkhead. Chopped up when they ran the exhaust through. Now you see it...

...now you don't.

I managed to raise the main exhaust by 30 mm, as it was sitting fairly loose in the hangers. That will make all the difference in creating the clearance for rebuilding the storage shelf in the new bulkhead. The plan is to make up the new unit this week in the evenings at work, and with a small amount of luck I'll be able to install next weekend.

I've also (finally!) installed a salt water deck wash. The current deck outlets are fresh water; very extravagant.

Pump installed in locker in the sail locker.

I have made use of the disused through-hull in the sail locker (formerly the crew's head) that used to be the toilet discharge. I've hooked up a washdown pump and connected it to the existing plumbing that was formerly a fresh water line. Works great.

And We're Back

Hauled yesterday at 4pm, and went back in the drink at 8am this morning, after a pretty late night, followed by very early morning painting on antifoul. Not a drop in sight. Yay.

The timber around the area has degraded further, and really the planking needs to be replaced in that spot. Should have been done in California, but I can also see why it was skipped, as it's a highly localised patch, the plank is sound except in one small spot. We've patched her up, but on our next haul-out we will schedule a boat builder to pull and replace the plank - not something I feel quite up to doing myself as of yet!

Kamalii asleep in a hammock.

F***ing Boats

We're coming out of the water again.

Kamalii is close-seam construction, where there is no caulking between the seams, though the two layers of planking are bedded in rubber, so in a way she is a glued-and-screwed boat. There is a small length of seam on the starboard side mid-ships, original planking, that is a bit open, and coming down from the USA leaked off and on - mostly on. When we hauled last time I caulked it using traditional cotton caulking etc and that fixed it.

Fast forward to last week and when we went back in the water she started streaming again, and unfortunately has not taken up properly. I suspect that the high-pressure water blast may have damaged the caulking and we just didn't notice. Buggeration.

We are going to lift out last thing on Tuesday afternoon. It will only take me 30-40 minutes to re-caulk the seam, but then I'll need to pay the seam with rubber and anti-foul, so we are sitting in the slings overnight and go back in first thing in the morning.

F***ing boats.

S**t off a shovel

We dropped her in at 7:45am this morning. And she still floats - bonus!

I dropped her into gear without taking the engine off idle, and we were quickly doing 5 knots down the fairway. Wow! The insidiousness of slow decay goes unnoticed, so over time as the bottom fouls you don't appreciate how much the performance drops off. A clean bum and she goes like the proverbial fertiliser off a gardening implement.

I like the black boot-top better. We docked stern-to for a change, getting a bit of a mediterranean feel for summer.

The only bummer: the small drip in the center-board lifting tube that we "fixed" is now a slightly larger drip. Groan. We have a cunning plan, and if that does not work then it will be a chat with the marina about lifting us a metre out of the water for half an hour so we can disassemble it all and try again.

Big hugs to Sharon, she worked her backside off the last few days.

Ready for Immersion

8:45pm and I just pulled the last of the masking tape off the waterline. We are back in the drink at 7:45am tomorrow. This will be followed by frantic checking of all the seacocks I dismantled. Have faith, James.

No pics to show the finished product, it was too late, will have to wait till tomorrow.

Third floor - chandlery, varnish supplies, and rum.

Taping out the boot-top to roll up the anti-foul. Decided to go for black-on-black.

8:45pm and all done. Notice how white it looks just above the boot-top. We sanded it back and rolled on some new paint. We are going to freshen up the rest of the topsides while in the water. Old school.

I would like to give a huge thank-you to Simon Jenkin and my mum Lesley for their help with the painting. Simon gave up most of his Labour Weekend to help out. Total champ.