Camel Two

Test fitted the new lettering for the transom and bow of the boat. Looks nice. You can really see now why Kamalii has always been hailed by those who don't know her as "Camal Two"

Some Minor Repairs

Fixing up the soft spots that the surveyor found. Frustratingly we have found a leak around the port side mounting block for the mizzen running back stay which has allowed water down and rotted out a patch in the top most plank under the bulwarks right at the aft end of the boat. As Rick did not notice it when the transom was completely rebuilt I am hoping it is very localised. This will be at least a few days work to fix and we don't have time before we splash, so the transom is staying unvarnished and we will do the repairs at the slip. I then get to varnish the transom from the dinghy, a crappy job but one I got practice at in Newport Beach.

Dutchman repair on small soft spot. Thanks to boat builder John Beggs for helping out at short notice. 

Larger repair required here.

A Fetching Backside

Sanding everything off the stern. That wood looks like it was laid up last month.

Black Magic

From Smurfmobile to Black Magic - maybe we should use some of that Primocon to paint a silver fern on the bow?

Take Us To Your Leader

Having wet sanded all the existing antifoul to within an inch of its life we today applied a full coat of Primocon as a tie-coat. The fetching silver gives her a certain Star Trek aspect.

Thanks to James' mum for her help with the painting today.

From Smurf to Cave Troll

Took the opportunity to haul all of the packing out of the stuffing box (9 rings of packing!) and re-pack it all. Dad used his natural talents (removable leg) to fit down into the aft bilge an spent several hours all up getting everything repacked. Here's hoping it's all good...

Smurfs

All the little smurfs have been busy working away and progress has been good. We have had the surveyor through who has given her the big thumbs-up, and the painters are making good time.

Full staircase access - a big step up from the dodgy ladder we had in California!

Wet sanding - foul work. The waterline is fully stripped in preparation for the new boot-top.

Dad joins the blue-rinse set.

Poppa Smurf

The plan was to give the hull above the waterline a scrape back to primer, then coat over with a one-pot primer to seal it until we are ready (able to afford) to paint the topsides. Turns out getting it back to bare wood is not much work. Should make the big repaint that much easier and faster.

And out she goes again...

Hauled out today to do the antifoul and boot-top, expect to be out for about 2 weeks. Had a heart-in-mouth moment when one of the hoist straps broke - put the boat back in the water and went a fitted more straps. We have to get a survey done for insurance, and the surveyor started today. Found a few small soft spots in some of the old planking that was not replaced, but nothing problematic and easily fixed.

James went around today and shaved off all the excess rubber that has squeezed out between the planking layers, and tomorrow we start wet-sanding the antifoul. We have a bit of shaping and filling work to do on the stem wood now the new laminate has swollen and taken its shape, and we will do a bit of filling and fairing in all the little divets in the old wood that were not worth worrying about last time.

Dale Pennington and his team from Touch of Gloss are stripping the waterline and putting on a new boot-top; the budget would not stretch to painting the hull this year but we figured we could at least get some work started. We made a snap decision today to also scrape the topsides back and roll on a coat of single-pot white primer. This will seal the wood where the paint has come right off and protect it until we are ready for the full repaint, plus it should look a lot better than it currently does (at least from a distance!).

We have a full staircase scaffold set up so the kids can safely get up and down - a huge leap forward from the dodgy aluminium ladder we used in Newport Beach!

I had forgotten just how much boat there is under the water....

Aft-most forward strap broken and hanging together by a few threads.

It's a Family Affair

Will the varnishing never end? (No, it won't, just deal with it...)

Sharon stripping the old varnish off the back of the cockpit.

Varnished winch bases. It's the little things...

Isi helps out with the sanding.

Warm Beer

Aaaargh! The fridge stopped working! Warm beer! Nooooooooooooooo!!!

Now, I pride myself in being able to fix most systems on a boat, but as far as I am concerned refrigeration is a black art. Got the man down, who soon diagnosed a combination of low gas levels and incorrect settings on the pressure switch (which was causing the fridge and freezer to shut down and refuse to run again when we ran them with the auxiliary water cooling system). All fixed up now, with the added bonus that we can now run the water cooling system, which will be needed in the height of summer.

He also gave me some good advice on how to get the beer fridge in the lower salon working properly, something we have not bothered with until now. You can never have enough cold beer...