Skimping on materials?

I had a productive weekend varnishing etc - I reckon I have a few more days worth and that's the topsides all done. Then I can start on putting some fresh coats on the masts...

I pulled the trim off around the hatch up forward in preparation for finishing the painting in the forward cabin. This has exposed the raw edge of the teak decking. Only 1 3/4" thick up here, looks like the builders were skimping.  :-)

The joint mid-image is the plank seam. You can see some oakum caulking sticking out.

It's Spring. That means....varnish!

Finally starting to get some decent breaks with the weather on the weekends, so have hooked back into the varnishing. Basically I just need to finish off the cockpit and a few trim pieces, and then it's just the capping rail to do, which I will probably leave bare for this season as there is no point in doing it until we are ready to paint the bulwarks, and I can't see that getting done this season when there is sailing to be done!

Three coats in on the fascia trim around the seating area. Once that's done just have to do the faces under the seats. Doesn't the freshly re-caulked deck look nice.

We plan on repainting all the white when we do the main cabin top, which we plan on being this summer's big project.

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.

One Down, A Rather Large Number To Go...

Locker completed. Plan on painting out the V-berth area next.

Daylight Saving has arrived. Soon we'll be able to get into the rest of those outside jobs, and then (hard to believe) we might actually do some sailing again!

Bilge Troll

Found our resident bilge troll hidden in a locker, redecorating.

I love you, honey. x.

Spent yesterday stripping, painting and reinstalling the raw water take-off on the engine for the transmission cooler, as it had developed a weep. And of course have been doing some of the never-ending deck caulking work, as weather permits. I do hope we will have it all done for summer... (he says unconvincingly).

Interior Painting

The interior of Kamalii is pretty good, but there is painting and varnishing to be done etc. Sharon has made a start, ripping (slowly) into one of the large forward cabin lockers.

Sand, fill, fair, repeat...

As an added bonus, getting the panel off you can see in the picture means I got to fix up the switch for the gas solenoid control panel - Off is now actually Off (A minor triviality that has been bugging me since Day 1).