Endless Bloody Varnish

Haven't posted for a while, but it's not that nothing has been happening. Been very busy, in as much as the weather will let us. The brightwork continues to march along; today finished the front of the cabin, though still have a bit to do to on some of the lockers.

Front of cabin under way (about 5 coats at this point)

We have been doing some work in the engine room. Have added pulley covers for the front pulleys and over the alternators, so it's a bit safer now when the engine is running. As any petrolhead knows, the raw power output of any engine is directly related to the amount of chrome, and we have added a fair bit of bling, with shiny new air intakes, polished rocker covers with nice new domehead bolts, stainless galore, and a new fuel line (the old one was shot) done of course in chrome braid. All that chrome must be worth at least 50hp  ;-).

Bling!

Have been doing various jobs inside. We now have a fully functioning stereo system, with speakers in the upper and lower salon. I even managed to retain the retro speaker grills upstairs,

'60's low-fi chic.

We got around to putting down a final coat of polyurethane on the upper salon floor, fixing the balls-up from when the last tin we used previously was mis-labelled as gloss when it was in fact matt. I also moved the salon table out 100mm (no small job!). The previous owner had widened the settees to allow them to be used as berths, but had not moved the table so you could not even fit your feet in behind it.

Boring shot, but we were excited - now we can actually comfortably use the table!

I will post some shots soon of the finished brightwork. We are going to start on the paintwork on the port side shortly, so that should really start to pull everything together.

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... 

Power to the People

Finally got around to converting the house power circuits to 240V on the weekend. Now I just have to replace all the outlets, RCD's, fit an isolating transformer......then get a WoEF, and THEN we can finally hook up to shore supply instead of running the bloody gensets to keep the beer cold.

The Grand Reveal

OK, not quite the grand reveal - there is still another coat to go on, but I couldn't resist posting, it just looks soooooo sexy.

So here is a taste of the new brightwork.

That's just the port side, still so much more to do...

The Mothership Connection

Had a nice Easter weekend at Kawau with friends, great sail up though not much wind after that. Kids all had a ball, but parents had it rough with a virus sending us all to the railing throughout Saturday night, very nasty. We were absent one crew member; you were missed, and good luck for the future.

On her first outing since the work on the mainsail we had no battens popping their sockets, so fingers crossed that is now solved. Nice to have a working leach line too!

Here's some shots of her rafted up with Andy's boat and Roger Ward's Young 88 - the mother hen tending her brood.

Promise I'll post some pics of the new brightwork soon, just want to get some more coats on, and the weather is not playing ball.

Raining Varnish

Busily beavering away on the brightwork at the moment. I am hoping to have the whole upper port side done by the end of this week (which would be good since we are heading away on Kamalii for Easter). I will hold off posting pics until then.

Over the last fortnight we have given the main engine fuel system a full go-over, which it desperately needed. Also set the valve lash, and now just need to set the injectors, but already she is running so much smoother.

On Sunday we emptied out the forward fuel tank, the one that had fuel in it when we bought the boat and which probably dated from the late 1990's... Yep, it was mostly water and sludge, with trace amounts of diesel. We've purged it all out, run large amounts of meths through the tank, and have now put some clean diesel back in the tank along with a heap of biocide, which we will let slosh around over Easter before we drain it again.

Starting in on converting the house power outlets from 115V to 230V. Conceptually straight-forward, but once I've finished the conversion we will need to install an isolating transformer before we can hook up to shore power, and they are not cheap. Just keep telling myself, one thing at a a time...

How Do You Eat An Elephant?

...one bite at a time.

Chipping away at the jobs. More removal of old varnish (this lot was remarkably hard to get off). A big thanks to my Dad who has been putting in lots of hard work sanding and scraping.

Test fitting the new locker top in the cockpit, before painting.

The Smell of Sawdust

We have started on the scary job - the topside brightwork. Here's some shots of the first section after we sanded it back. Looks good, smelt even better! I actually have a few coats of Uroxsys on now, and it looks like sex on a stick, but will wait until we have all coats on before I post some pics.

Breaking Radio Silence

So, I have not posted anything for some time. This is basically because I have been too bloody busy.

In any case here's a round-up of what has happened over the last couple of months:

• Kamalii has been CLEANED. Amazing when you get a clean-Nazi like Sharon on the case how things transform. What we thought was tired old varnish was just covered in a layer of gunge, paint that we thought was stuffed now sparkles and gleams. Of course, having a family of five + guest on board means keeping it clean is another story...
• We have cleaned, sanded and polyurethand the cabin sole. Looks fantastic, except the tin of urethane used on the last few coats of the upper saloon turned out to be mis-labelled and was matt instead of gloss, so still need to sand and redo that.
• The engine room has been given much love by my Dad, Rob. It too now gleams. Fuel filters etc have been done, and we will now be giving the engine a full service - tappets, injectors, etc.  
• We fixed the mystery 24V to 12V leak and source of stray current - as suspected it was the bilge pump float switch in the engine room. Zinc fizzing has ceased.
• Much plumbing work has been done (seems that never ends); replaced the engine room bilge pump which failed on the way down, fitted a new through-hull and re-plumbed the aft bilge pump, fixed leaking valves on the water tank take-offs, etc.
• Finished the nav station; now nicely varnished with full nav computer display mounted etc.
• Washed all the squabs - it took WEEKS to wring all the water out! Won't do that again, and currently looking at replacing a lot of the foam.
• Got the mainsail all fixed up, with the batten pockets and closures done properly, and new reefing cringles fitted. The work done by Doyles in Newport Beach was an abortion - I got screwed on that job.
• Have re-coated the mizzen and booms with Uroxsys. A great product but a shit to use. Simon provided his climbing services for the mizzen mast, now we just have to build up some courage to tackle the main mast.
• We have started the big job - sanding and scraping back the old topside paint and varnish.

Jonathan has been staying with us on board, which has been great. He looks close to landing a nice gig on a boat travelling from Germany to the Caribbean, so fingers crossed for him, but it will be a sad day when he heads off.

I will endeavour to post more often now and put some pictures up of the work as it progresses.