Kamalii History

I have recently been in touch with David Silverman, an architectural historian based in Los Angeles. David recently worked on a history of the David O. Selznick house in Beverly Hills where Larry Doheny lived for 11 years, including when Kamalii was being built. As a result David did some investigation into Larry and Kamalii, and eventually made contact with me.

David has just sent me a carton containing all of Kamalii’s log books for approximately the first 10 years of her life, as well as some pieces of memorabilia such as medallions from the ‘59, ‘61 and ‘63 Transpacific races and a decanter given to Larry by the crew of the ‘71 Transpacific race. This has all come courtesy of the Doheny family.

This is amazing. I can’t express enough gratitude to David and the Doheny family for sending these items to be reunited with Kamalii. It’s fantastic to have this history, and even though I have only had a chance for a quick flick through the logs I have already been able to connect entries in the log books with stories told to me by past Kamalii alumni.

These babies will be staying with Kamalii from here on.

Medallions from the ‘59 to ‘63 races. The Transpacific ran every 2nd year.

Decanter inscribed with the names of the ‘71 crew.

A clipping of a newspaper article from 1955 about  the entry of  Sea Belle in the ‘55 Transpacific, a
35’ ketch, the smallest boat in the fleet.

Note last entry on page. No further information given. Perhaps they ran out of rum?

Kamalii: New and Improved

Kamalii went back in the water on Friday. Doesn't she look all shiny and nice! The paint job has really transformed her, although I'm now much more nervous when docking her in the slip! There's a few finish-off jobs to do which hopefully we will get done this week.

Progress

Primer coats going on. Antifouling done (boot top will be done last). She's starting to look a million bucks!

Time for a makeover

Kamalii is back on the hard, this time to have the topsides painted. So excited, it's going to really transform her. That said, it has been nice not having to stress about damaging the paintwork.

The haul-out went well, though was a bit challenging having to reverse all the way down the fairway to the travel-lift in a very stiff crosswind. We had the marina's two tenders bow and stern pushing Kamalii sideways to fight the wind. Who needs bow-thrusters.

The Propellor Coat product (an alternative to PropSpeed) we applied last time has worked flawlessly, and the antifouling has held up really well - could probably have gone another season. Maybe.

Anyway, plan is to try and get the antifouling done this weekend, and then the painters will be into it for several weeks,

Bendy Bits

I have been beavering away on various small jobs, including making up some interior trim (almost all done on that front). I had to laminate up some 90 degree bends to go around the exhaust cover trim in the port stateroom - quite pleased with how they came out.

Kamalii is booked in for haul-out and painting on the 20th August. Woohoo.

So what have we been up to?

Jobs have continued on the boat through winter, but I have been a bit too pre-occupied to remember to post anything. Currently I (with the able assistance of Isi) am finishing off the teak trim in the galley and port stateroom and doing some tidy-up jobs.

The big news is we are going to paint the hull. Watch this space....

Farcebook

For those of you who have been following this blog via Facebook, unfortunately due to some technical issue that occurred when I tried to change the user account that managed the Facebook page I have been locked out and cannot regain control.

Fuck em. FB is a plague on humanity anyway.

Mizzen Finished

All done. Really not that difficult, just need to have the weather co-operating.

Finishing the mizzen

Cockpit painting is done except for some final assembly. Now I am on to the last part of the mizzen. A few hours up top scraping away and my arms are knackered. Unfortunately the weather has not held up, so will have to wait until next weekend to start varnishing - hopefully.

Topless. Hopefully the weather will play ball and I can get her varnished next weekend.

All alone for Easter.

85%

One more top coat to go. Looking good.

Half Way

Primed and two coats of undercoat. Half way there.

Rush rush rush

I have not posted in a little while, but that does not mean we have not been busy.

We have finished the painting in the lower saloon, which included new under-deck liners on the starboard side, and has made a big difference. Now some touch-up varnishing to do. We have also almost finished prep work for painting the cockpit.

Rushing to try and get things done now, as I'm off overseas for two weeks next week, and the good weather has to end soon...and I still have to do the top half of the mizzen mast!

Not So Summery

It was not the greatest weather yesterday, but a fun time was had by all and we managed some nice sailing.

Reassembly

I have the cockpit seats back together. Some time soon we will sand out the whole cockpit and paint it all.

Sharon did a great job painting the lower saloon while I was away, one last section to do, and of course lots of this:

Good Bad News

Today I moved on to the next section of the cockpit seats, with the intention of removing the gasoline tanks. However, I found that the ply used is completely different from the last section I had to replace and is in fact in very sound condition - almost like new. That's great, it means I don't have to replace it all. But I did want to get rid of those gasoline tanks, and that's the bad news. The tanks are huge, and when they were installed they must have completely disassembled the seats to put them in place. There is simply no way of removing them without either taking the seats apart completely, or getting in there with a disk grinder and cutting them up.

I have elected to leave them be. I'll reassemble everything, then we can paint the cockpit out.

No way I'm just popping that out of there. Note the old edge of the seat and the newer extended edge,

We Return To Regularly Scheduled Programming

Having made the new locker lid on the port side of the cockpit I found the ply around it was pretty tired. Previously the cockpit seats had been enlarged (made deeper and slightly longer) and the ply used on on top was pretty crap and has not lasted. Seems to be a theme here: the inside woodwork modifications were mostly very well done, but the exterior work was not. Fortunately it's not hard to correct.

So, I decided to replace all the top wood. I am doing it in sections, and today did the port side, next I will do the port and starboard quarters and in doing so will also remove the outboard motor fuel tanks that were installed and revert the space to storage. The fuel tank installations were never finished and the tanks have never been used. Personally I prefer not to sit on top 200 liters of gasoline.

Finding and extracting fasteners.

Top ply removed.

 

The hose is connected to the fuel tank, but goes nowhere.

Test fitting everything.

Once I have fitted all the replacement wood I will pull it all apart again, epoxy saturate, etc, etc, and then we will paint out the whole cockpit area.

A Short Interlude

I've been away on a work trip to Bali (seriously) and Europe for a couple of weeks. It was terrible. So glad to be back.

Another day at the grindstone

Another not-enough-wind-and-too-much-sunshine type day. Yes, if you are a sailor there is such a thing. But a great day out.