Houston, We Have a Problem

We’ve learned it’s very dangerous to think that “you’re done with your boat list.” In our last blog post we mentioned getting most of the major projects done on the boat during our one-month stay at the boatyard and that we were beginning to prepare for our 80-mile sail back to Grenada. Then all hell broke loose, so to speak.

When we launched the boat on Sept. 15th we thought we had only one project left:   getting the engine alignment checked. We found, however, that our engine mounts were shot and we’d have to replace them all. Our trusty engine mechanic Falco managed to get four mounts flown in at great expense and began the job of jacking up the engine to remove the old mounts and install the new ones. Not a simple job, but also not rocket science (we’ll get to that later).  While very slowly unscrewing a bolt Falco mentioned it was heating up because of the corrosion on the threads. I said what’s the worse that could happen on this job?  “Having a bolt break off that is threaded into the engine bed," he replied.  "Then you have to remove the engine from the boat (costing a zillion dollars) to drill out the old bolt.” I winced at the thought.

Old motor mount with sheared off top mounting bolt.

About an hour later Falco came around the corner and pointed to a bolt in his hand. “It just sheared off,” he said. I was about to have apoplexy when he added “Oh don’t worry, it’s the top bolt, not the one threaded into the engine bed.”  He then added “but, you had only three bolts holding this heavy diesel in place. One good wave and it could have slide sideways off its mounts, still running. That could tear a hole in the boat.” I was still trying to get over the potential shock of having to remove the engine to drill out the bolt when the image of the boat sinking crept into my head.  Back to work, Falco.

The inevitable surprises weren't over yet. Falco came back holding the new engine mounts. "The bolts going into your engine bed are larger than the holes in the engine mounts, we'll have to have each mount milled out at a machine shop." Oh good, another mouth to feed. Thankfully the rest of the job went smoothly and two days later we had nice new engine mounts and the engine aligned to within .002 inches, a fairly tight alignment. Project One completed.

Project Two. I forgot to mention that when we put the boat in the water and hooked up the outboard to the dingy, I couldn’t pull the starter cord.  I was smart enough to know when to stop and call the outboard mechanic.  He came fairly quickly and it sounded like it would be a fairly simply repair. Most likely salt water had gotten into the drive shaft and froze a bearing that would need to be loosened.  More on that later.

And on to Project Three. When we launched the boat and went to get some water out of the faucet, nothing happened. I discovered that the rather expensive electric motor that drives our water pump had failed. Plan One was to call my go-to guys at Dynamite Marine hoping they knew a local electric motor guy who could fix it, but alas, it was too far gone to be repaired.

Plan Two for Project Three was to find the part locally, but that was also a dead end. Plan Three was to have a local forwarding company, Marine Warehouse, order one from the States and “overnight ship” it.  The cost for the motor ($199 in the States) was $399 using this method, but the shipping was substantially cheaper (about $40) than ordering it from Fisheries Supply in Seattle and shipping it. Also, Marine Warehouse would handle the complicated Customs clearance.

An aside on Customs:  Ironically the cruiser community recently had a big meeting the Minister of Tourism and complained about the circuitous Custom’s regulations and fees.  The very next day Customs made the rules even more circuitous and difficult. Now we’d have to take a $50 cab ride to the airport to “maybe” clear our package, if “maybe” it had arrived and “maybe” if they could find it. Lots of “maybe’s.”

The lady who runs Marine Warehouse in Trinidad lives two boats down from us and every morning I ambushed her to check on my “overnight” shipment.  After a week I started to get worried. She said she’d check. After two weeks I started to get concerned. She said she’d look into it. After three weeks I got pissed. She agreed with me as we both realized FedEx had totally, inexplicably lost my motor. It was probably in Outer Mongolia as far as anyone know.

Now we’re on to Plan Four. I would order the motor through my trusted sources at Fisheries Supply in Seattle and have it drop shipped from the manufacturer in Maryland to our favorite hotel in Houston. We would fly up to Houston, get the motor, have a steak dinner, stay the night and fly back the next day. At least that was the plan.  We quickly got on the phone and tried to get reservations at the Hyatt North Houston, but found it was full (it’s never full) so we booked a room at the Quality Inn. Kind of a plan.

Because none of our plans seem to go unchallenged, we were stymied when we found the marina would not allow us to leave our boat at the dock unattended for even one evening.  After some quick begging and pleading we came to a compromise with them when we arranged for some other cruisers to take responsibility for Flying Cloud while we were gone. One step closer to our elusive electric motor.

On Wednesday, Oct. 15th Meryl and I (both with terrible colds) caught the 8:00 a.m. UAL 1459 flight to Houston. Upon arrival we learned that the Quality Inn didn’t have an airport van to take us to the hotel. No problem, we decided to take a van to the Hyatt, pick up our packages, then catch a cab over to the Quality Inn.

Got to the Hyatt and they had three packages from Amazon waiting for us, but no electric motor (priority overnight shipment) from Groco. In shock, I double checked all the logs of the doorman. No package. Should have been delivered the night before, that’s why we delayed our flight by one day just to make sure.

Fortunately the front desk was able to find us a room so we quickly went upstairs and fired up the computer to check if Fisheries/Groco had finally sent us a tracking number. Yes, there it was. Checking on UPS’s website my knees almost crumbled to the floor when I read “Package refused by recipient and sent back to sender in Maryland.” Un-fricking-believable. Are UPS and FedEx in a global conspiracy to prevent us from having an electric motor?

The next two hours were spent on the phone with several very helpful UPS customer service reps who tried their best to “intercept” the package before it was shipped back, but it was too late. Since the manufacturer was on the East Coast, and it was now after their closing hours, I’d have to contact them in the morning.

On the positive side (Meryl said I have to have positive "feel good" stuff in the blog) we found that the hotel runs a van down to a nearby Walmart store at 6 pm. We took a cab to Walmart at 4 p.m., did some serious food shopping and met the 6 p.m. van for a ride back to the hotel with about 10 bags of groceries. We had to weigh every item in the produce department to make sure we were under our 70 lb. baggage limit. Mission accomplished.

The next morning we made numerous phone calls and got the manufacturer to reship the motor as soon as it arrived back in Maryland. Ugh, that meant we’d have to stay through Saturday since the package would arrive too late on Friday for us to catch the only flight to Trinidad.

As my daughter would say, “why don’t you try to make lemonade out of lemons?” so we decided do some tourist stuff during our extra two days in Houston.  Even though supposedly every rental car in Houston was taken, we managed to score a good deal through our favorite Costco Travel website. Took the hotel van to the airport, got the rental car and headed south down I-49 to I-59 South towards the Johnson Space Center, something that’s been on my bucket list forever. 

The Space Center is a vast 660-acre site where NASA astronauts are trained in nondescript beige-colored buildings and space missions are controlled from another nondescript beige-colored building. We elected to take the Tram Tour that follows a circuitous route around the site visiting the Mission Control Center (where space programs were monitored until 1992), to Building 9 where astronauts are trained, and to the new Saturn V Complex at Rocket Park that houses, wait for it . . . a Saturn V multistage rocket. We would absolutely love to take our grand kids here, they would have a great time.

Mock-up of the Space Shuttle in Building 9.

SAIL, the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory. This is an exact copy of the Space Shuttle so when problems arose engineers in Houston could go to the actual wiring runs and figure out the problem.

Flight Deck of the Space Shuttle. It's amazingly like the flight deck of a Boeing 747.

Actual Mission Control Center where the famous "Houston, we have a problem" message was received by the NASA.
One floor down is the current Orion Mission Control Center.

Astronaut Neil Armstrong on Apollo 11, the first man to step on the moon. "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind"

Air tight box where actual moon rocks are examined by scientists. You can touch an actual moon rock at the exhibit.

Photos showing tight confines of an early space capsule. One astronaut quipped that "you don't actually get in it, it's more like you put it on."

Lunar Rover that was developed by Boeing.

Curiosity is a car-sized rover that is currently exploring the Gale Crater on Mars.

Huge Saturn V rocket at Rocket Park.

Saturn V multi-stage rocket at Rocket Park.

Cheezy photo of us before the Tram Tour. They superimpose various space photos over your image, but it's still kind of cool.

We also spent time viewing various exhibits at the Space Center Plaza, including some great videos of a rocket launch, a Space Shuttle, a Space Station mock-up, the Lunar Rover, and the Mar’s Rover, named Curiosity. All in all it was a great visit, although I felt they could have done a much better job in building a better timeline of space exploration and explaining the milestone events along the way. The best info was from the old-guy docents (who used to work for NASA) and could tell you vignettes about various events.

The next day, with both our colds now in full bloom, we elected to spend a quiet day in the hotel watching TV (I love the Alaska Gold Rush series) and resting. We hovered by the doorman’s station as the 2:26 p.m. UPS truck pulled up and grabbed our elusive electric motor off the pile, then retreated to the hotel room like we’d just scored a huge drug deal.

On Saturday we went to a local IHOP, which although it was in a very sketchy neighborhood, had great service and good food. Then out to the airport early to wait for our 1:00 pm departure to Trinidad.  We had a smooth flight to Trinidad and soon we were in the MiniCab driving towards “boat customs” in Chaguramus to clear our purchases. Luckily nothing aroused their attention and we got the valuable motor safely back to the boat. Very anxious to get the motor installed, have water flowing once again, and prepare to leave Trinidad.

Goin' to the Birds - Part II

In the 1930’s, British aristocrats and influential French Creole families would take tours of the Caroni Swamp to watch the Scarlet Ibis. By 1948 there was a growing concern for the protection of the Scarlet Ibis. Signatures and petitions were gathered for Conservation consideration and due to overwhelming support, the Caroni Bird Sanctuary was created to help protect the Scarlet Ibis. In 1962, when Trinidad and Tobago became an Independent Nation, the Scarlet Ibis was selected as the National Bird of Trinidad.

As we continued on our way toward the Caroni Swamp, I couldn’t help imagining what it would be like.  We had heard some stories and wondered if we might see lazy caimans idling in the water or large snakes hanging from branches on the banks, taking in the sun?  Or possibly, we might find mosquitoes swarming around biting us and somehow giving us Chikungunya (a nasty illness like Dengue Fever)?  I guess we would all find out for ourselves in just a matter of time.

We met our guide and boarded the motorized long boat and were soon heading up narrow passages turning left then right, passing along beautiful forests of mangrove trees with overhanging canopies.  We ducked low branches as we floated by and occasionally looked up and saw a scarlet ibis' flying overhead thinking wow we got to actually see the bird!

Rich lush mangrove swamp with narrow passages.

Easy to get lost in all these swamp tributaries.

Our group riding the long boat with a perfect temperature on the water and thankfully no mosquitoes, snakes, or caimans.

In the middle of the sanctuary are several islets, onto which the ibis arrive by the thousands just before sunset.  And arrive they did.  For the next hour or so we sat mesmerized watching the richly colored feathers of the ibis turn the mangrove foliage a brilliant scarlet.

The red haze on the trees represents 1000s of Scarlet Ibis' which have arrived at the rockery.

As we sat watching the spectacle the bearded British gentleman in the back offered us rum punches to sip, and Jesse James, our tour guide, had prepared his wonderful pineapple and garlic-cilantro dish to share.  We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful setting as we watched all the birds flying in.

The white egrets also roost in the same area, but for some reason they retreat back into the trees so they are not visible.

Like nature decorating a Christmas tree with poinsettias. Gorgeous!

Goin' to the Birds - Part 1

After arriving back in Trinidad to complete a long list of boat tasks we were excited after 18 days of almost non-stop work to be splashing back into the water.  With sighs of relief and lifted spirits we were happy to be floating once again, to have our own head and shower, great functioning air conditioning, and to be almost on our way to waters where we can swim and relax and enjoy being on the water. So close yet so far away... Unfortunately we ran into three additional problems, a non functioning outboard, a broken water pump motor, and broken engine mounts. We won't escape from Trinidad quite yet.

When some new friends, Patty and Bill on Annalee started putting a tour together we decided to do ourselves a favor and head to the hills to see the birds up at Asa Wright Nature Centre and cruise up the Caroni Swamp to see the Scarlet Ibis return to their nesting area before dusk.  We were badly in need of a diversion and it turned out to be a delightful day well spent in nature recharging our spirits.

The Asa Wright Nature Centre comprises nearly 1,500 acres of mainly forested land in the Arima and Aripo Valleys of the Northern Range of Trinidad. The estate was once a cocoa/coffee/citrus plantation that has been partly reclaimed by secondary forest and is surrounded by an impressive tropical rainforest today.  You can also arrange overnight stays in cabana's situated around the centre and enjoy the cooler and more peaceful setting.

We arrived in time for a lovely lunch and a chance to wander around the grounds and down to the waterfalls before a special tour of the building and the estate began.

Entrance to the Asa Wright Conservatory Terrace

A lovely lunch with our infamous tour guide Jesse James (left in blue hat).

One of Patty and Bill's finer moments.

Pretty waterfalls nearby.

Meryl in earth camouflage and Walter in tree camouflage.

Cocoa tree with cocoa pod growing right out of the tree trunk on the right.

Nicolaia.

A type of orchid.

Viewing terrace to watch the birds feed and enjoy the mountain and rainforest views

Walter checking out the hummingbirds.

Sweet little hummingbird stopping by for a snack.

Interesting tour of the Centre and grounds.

You can follow special trails to find the White Bearded Manakin and observe their unique courtship displays.

The male White Bearded Manakin's have special forest areas called leks where they can be observed.

White Trumpet Flower.

The interesting monkey ladder vine.

Part II Post to follow.

Why Are You Guys Still Here?

Our home for the last several weeks.

The title says it all:  Why are we still at the dock at Peakes?  I could go into all sorts of existentialistic reasons,  but essentially we are still waiting for the water pump motor to arrive . . . and something else broke.

Well not really, but after having the cutlass bearing go out after just three years I felt it would be wise to have the engine alignment checked. If the engine isn't in perfect alignment with the propellor shaft, the shaft will vibrate. If the shaft vibrates, the cutlass bearing will wear. See, so simple.

To realign the engine you essentially undo the coupling between the engine and the transmission, then see how the shaft lines up with the engine. If it doesn't you loosen the nuts on the four engine motor mounts and gently adjust the attitude of the engine with the propeller shaft.  Unfortunately in our case, the motor mounts had no more adjustment left in them. The rubber that makes up the mounts was compressed as far as it could be, meaning  no adjustability and no vibration dampening as it was rock hard with age.  The good news was I was due to repaint the mounts since they were so rusty and I had been putting off it because it's a dirty, messy, and difficult job. So there.

Our trusty mechanic Falco has managed to find some motor mounts at about double the price in the U.S. (at one point I was going to have Meryl fly to Houston to pick up four new mounts) and will replace them this Tuesday. It involves putting a jack under the engine, and under the assumption that he can loosen the old bolts, then jacking up the engine, replacing the mounts, then aligning them to the shaft. Not fun given the very limited space in the engine room. But what's another $1,500 at this point?

We've escaped from boat captivity and venture out into the real world at West Mall.

With most of our boat jobs completed, we decided to take our first day off in three weeks and head to the mall.  After hiking out to the main highway in a pouring down rain, we flagged down a MaxiTaxi and for $.90 each rode about 25 minutes to the very modern West Mall.

I was actually very impressed, not Bellevue Square but not bad.  We found a computer store and replaced a dead mouse and a pharmacy where we asked everyone about mineral oil (it's used as a laxative down here so I'm sure people thought there was some urgency to our request). After several drug stores we found they call it Liquid Paraffin B.P.  We needed it to coat Meryl's cutting board which I recently refinished. So now you can understand the sense of urgency.

We went to the Food Court (with the omnipresent KFC and McDonalds) and had a good local lunch, found a clothing store to get Meryl an early birthday present, and a supermarket to finish out our provisioning.

The supermarkets, when you can find them, are interesting. Very similar to those in the U.S. but stocked with foods from around the world.  Some of the good deals were the incredibly tasty KerryGold butter from Ireland, Anchor cheddar cheese from New Zealand, Danish cookies, and my favorite, Cadbury King Size chocolate bars (but Meryl wouldn't let me buy one).  They had a great selection of spices, but on the other hand, U.S. goods such as Woolite and Resolve were almost twice the price as in the U.S.

Since a tropical wave was passing over the island, we hustled out of the grocery store and back to the highway where, amazingly, the same MaxiTaxi pulled up just as we got there.  For an extra dollar he drove us all the way back through Peakes Boatyard to the guest dock, 100 ft from our boat. Given the pouring rain that was a real plus.

Getting on the boat was another issue, however, since waves from the storm were crashing into the dock and the bow of our boat was raising and falling with each passing wave. To get on the boat we had to wait until the bow went way down, then we made a jump for the anchor hanging off the front and tried to pull ourselves up to the bow pulpit as the boat raised in the air. It was like jumping on to a bucking bronco. Getting the heavy grocery bags on was another matter, but somehow everything made it to the foredeck in one piece. Once the groceries were stored I had to jump in the swimming pool (the dingy was full of water almost to the top) and bail it out.

As you might image, it felt good to finally get back into the boat and realize no mater how much it rained, we'd still float on top of it all. Of course I was still stewing over the Cadbury's bar. A chunk of chocolate would have tasted really good about then.

The Boatyard -- Refitting Flying Cloud

My wife will hate this post. I think she thinks (how many men have uttered that phrase?) that we should focus on just the positives and the travel brochure aspects of cruising. I’m more of a “tell it like it is” type of guy. I read a lot of cruising blogs and the ones I appreciated the most talk about both the positive and negative aspects of this crazy lifestyle. This post is about the negative.

As I mentioned earlier, I abhorred the idea of returning to Trinidad to work on the boat for two or three weeks. Trinidad is somewhat of a necessary evil. It’s one of the easiest places to get work done. Many times you’ll call a repair guy and he’ll be on your boat within an hour. Try that in Seattle sometime. There are good chanderlies (albeit at high prices) and most anything you need repaired can be fixed down here. The downsides are the heat, the torrential afternoon rains, and the likelihood of any simple repair becoming complex and expensive. In addition, when you haul out you lose boat systems that depend on water:  1) air conditioning, 2) sinks and showers draining, 3) heads working, etc. Try living in your house for two weeks with no heat/AC, sinks, showers, or bathrooms. Not fun.

This Excel ToDo List goes on and on and on.

Back to the projects. Like any respective anal-retentive I’d been keeping an Excel spreadsheet of everything that needed to be fixed once we got to Trinidad. The list showed exponential growth as projects beget projects. That’s even before we started taking covers off things and exploring.

Sailing to Trinidad I essentially had six projects in mind:  1) new bottom paint, 2) new anchor chain, 3) a whisker pole, 4) fitting a used Code Zero gennaker, 5) replacing the cutlass bearing, and 6) commissioning a survey of the condition of the boat for insurance purposes.  Not too intimidating at first glance.

Life in the boat yard. You could walk from deck to deck, the boat were that tightly packed.

Our savior, after three days of sweltering in the boat sauna, was this portable air conditioner that they rent out at the yard.

First, we had the boatyard (at $375 labor) clean, sand, and apply new bottom paint. The Ameron ABC3 paint worked well for us last year and sells for about $800 for 4 gallons. It’s a hot, messy job and best left to the yard workers at that price. We also commissioned our old Rastafarian friend, Mellow, to clean and polish the sides of the boat. At $250, still a deal given the heat. As long as we were polishing the hull, we hired Mellow’s fellow Rasti, Corwin, to repair the numerous dings and scratches in the fiberglass all over the boat. Still a good deal.

Think of untangling a 200 lb slinky.

Brand new 10mm Maggi chain in our now clean anchor locker.

My first job was to get the old, rusty anchor chain out of the anchor locker and onto the ground. I then crawled into the locker (remember no AC at this point) and used oxalic acid to dissolve the rust stains coating the inside of the anchor locker. This was not fun and breathing was a challenge.
We then had the new 10mm 220 ft. Maggi chain from Italy delivered in a pick-up truck. It was on a spool, but ironically was mis-wrapped so the worker had to kick the spool apart and try to untangle around 200 lbs of chain. It took a while to hoist it aboard using the anchor windlass (we also had to replace the windlass chain wheel as the cogs were badly worn causing the chain to skip). Because the chain is purchased duty-free, he had a female Customs Officer watch the installation. She was not a happy camper.

I then tried to attach the anchor to the chain using new high tensile Crosby shackles I’d laboriously searched out in Seattle. Turns out a ⅜” shackle won’t fit a 10mm chain even though 10mm is slightly bigger. After several trips to the various chandleries I found out there were no 10mm shackles in Trinidad. Ended up using a rotating anchor connector left over from my C36. Should work fine.

One problem I noticed was the motor on the anchor windlass was rusting fairly bad. That meant dismounting the very heavy motor from inside the locker, wire brushing (I had just bought a Makita industrial die grinder fitted with a brass wire brush, so that worked great) the rust off, and painting it with zinc primer and industrial enamel. Can’t have this puppy ever fail.

While in the anchor locker I fitted two three-foot pieces of teak with line holders mounted so we can store various lengths of smaller line in the otherwise unused forward locker space. That worked great, except my idea of combining quick dry epoxy with the slow drying 5200 mounting adhesive didn’t work as well as planned and the boards, with all the wet 5200 goop, started sliding down the sides of the locker.  I had to hand hold them until the epoxy took hold, then clean the 5200 off the walls. You don’t want to ever do this, especially in a hot compartment. A lesson learned.

Jonas, our stoic Swedish rigger, getting ready to remove the over sized main halyard.

Jonas' assistant rigs the control lines for the new whisker pole that will mount on the front of the mast.

I finally got the rigger on the boat to talk about mounting the whisker pole and the Code Zero gennaker. The whisker pole was fairly straight forward, although we did have to machine a Selden end fitting to fit into a Forespar sliding car on the mast. Metric meets imperial. When will the US ever shift to the much easier metric system?

The new reinforcement plate for the Code Zero gennaker eye strap. The cracks found by the surveyor were at the base of the two vertical stantions.

I had originally assumed we’d mount the base for the Code Zero sail by through-bolting a fitting on the deck between the forestay and the anchor windlass.  After looking at the rig, the rigger said it would be problematic to fly the gennaker in that position since it would get caught with other halyards at the top. He suggested moving it to the forward-most point of the boat on the bow pulpit step. That was great except the load was up to two tons, which meant we’d have to weld a ¼” stainless reinforcing plate to the pulpit and through bolt the stem piece. Ugh. That meant I'd have to make a pattern and find a welder who is authorized to work in the yard.

Now here’s a bit of good luck (sort of). When the surveyor was inspecting the boat (with a magnifying glass) he noticed two hairline cracks in the bow pulpit, ironically inches away from where my welder would be mounting the plate. For a little bit extra he welded the cracks, saving someone from imminent death when the bow pulpit failed and they fell in the water in the middle of the night in the middle of the Pacific Ocean (that would be me). The other issue was the plastic electrical wire for the forward running lights ran through the stainless tubing that was soon to be red hot from the welder. Normally you’d just attach some line and pull it back out of the way, but most line would melt at those temperatures. I thought about this for several days and came up with a good solution. I found some braided steel fishing leader (it has to be flexible to make it around all the corners) and crimped it to the wire and then had Meryl pull it back into the boat where it would be safe from the heat. The braided wire should survive the heat OK.

Actually the most difficult part of the project was removing the teak step that I had just put 8 coats of varnish on. I first had to tear out the teak bungs hiding the screws. Doing that without damaging the edges of the hole is difficult at best. The ten screws simply didn’t want to come out and I didn’t want to ruin the expensive piece of teak (which was heavily bedded to the tubing). After much trial and error I hit upon a removal method, as inelegant as it was. I ended up re-tapping the holes and buying new mounting screws, so the re installation wasn’t too back. Unfortunately the stainless steel backing plate I had custom made in Seattle (which I assumed would be mounted under the deck) needed to be recut to fit under the new stainless plate. All in all the welder (Mitchell at West Coast Welders) did a great job and the attachment point is now rock solid.

With the mounting plate installed, I had a sail maker come on board to measure the luff length of the gennaker so he could modify the sail (it was designed for a 50 ft sailboat). That will take about a week to complete.

A single strand is all that is holding this genoa halyard together.

When the rigger went up the mast to take measurements, he noticed the genoa halyard (which we never take down since it’s roller furling) was literally holding on by a single strand of the 24 strands that make up the line. Amazing it hadn’t failed (resulting in the sail blowing out) yet. Looking at the staysail he noticed the same thing, but not quite as bad. It turns out all the halyards were oversized, and as such, were rubbing on the sides of the exit sheaves. We couldn’t re splice them since the line was too old, and anything we did would result in the same wear pattern. In addition, especially on the main halyard, it was the wrong type of line. The surveyor (who used to be a rigger) noticed it when I hoisted him up and he was bouncing up on down on the springy line.

Luckily the rigger had some spools of a German made Dynema line called Liros that he gave us for a fairly good price (translated to outrageously expensive compared to the States) so we opted to replace them now with the much stronger and smaller diameter (12mm) Dynema. The splice on a Dynema line is very small, meaning it shouldn’t rub on the exit sheaves. Love those surprises when you’re fixing one thing and two others pop up. The option of loosing both sails in a heavy blow out in the middle of the ocean made the decision fairly easy.

The most beautiful stainless polisher in the world.

During most of this work Meryl was diligently polishing all the stainless steel on the boat, a huge task. She’d try to work a couple of hours in the morning before it got too hot, then a couple of hours right before sunset when it cooled off a little.

This brigantine was rigged with several square-cut sails.

How this couple maintains this huge wooden boat is beyond me. I got tired just watching them.

As an aside, a 65 ft. brigantine was brought into the yard right next to us for a week. It was a huge, very complex boat with a young Dutch couple and their 5-year-old son.  They worked 14 hours a day sanding and scraping the bottom, then painting the bottom and hull sides. I’d never seen anyone work so hard. Half the time she was in a bikini top covered with red bottom paint dust from hair to toes. Don’t know how they maintain and handle that big a boat. The kid was very cute and helped out at times and the rest of the time played in the large mud puddles. The only bad thing was their young dog fell off the deck 25 ft down to the dirt and landed on his head. Amazingly he seems OK. Oh, the robustness of youth.

Now back to the bottom of the boat. Before they do the bottom painted (usually a couple of days before you go into the water) you have to clean all the underwater metal (propeller, shaft, strut, and thru hull covers). This is a messy job but made easier using the electric die grinder with the brass wire brush. Before we had just painted the bare metal with bottom paint, but I noticed it seemed to come off faster than the bottom paint on the fiberglass. I contact my buddy, Steve d’Antonio, the expert of all experts in boating repair, and he recommended an acid etcher followed an epoxy-based primer.  Meryl had to walk about two miles up the road to get the acid etcher ($45 for a quart) while I went the other way to another paint store to buy the Ameron epoxy primer ($125 quart). It’s nasty stuff but the application went fairly well and will ensure the bottom paint stays stuck to the underwater metal. The only negative was I carefully removed the small pins from the drop down doors of the through hulls and carefully lined them up on the wooden support of the keel for exact replacement. Naturally when the yard workers came their high pressure hose knocked these (and their cotter rings) in the mud surrounding the boat (remember the torrential rains every day?). Amazing I found all of them, but have no clue which goes where. Next time I bag and label them and store them on the boat.

New cutlass bearing and PropSped coated prop.

A couple of days before we launched we had to re coat the propeller shaft with a product called PropSpeed. We did this three years ago and it did a fairly good job of keeping marine growth off the shaft and prop. When it fails stuff grows fairly quickly on the prop, and it’s a pain to keep diving and scrubbing it clean. PropSpeed is getting hard to find, especially down here.  We scored the second to last can (a pint at $200) and carefully read the installation instructions and planned the application. You need to sand the shaft and prop right before you apply the PropSpeed, otherwise the shaft will start oxidizing fairly quickly.  It had been raining fairly lightly but seemed like it was stopping so I mixed up the two-part acid etch and began coating the shaft. Naturally a full out deluge hit and soon everything was coated with water. I was pissed and felt stupid for going ahead, but you never know when it will rain down here.  Luckily the acid etch had a 8-hour pot life (I thought we’d have to find another can at $200 and was aware it may be out of stock, thereby delaying the launch of the boat. Another problem is that once the bottom is painted, you need to launch within a few days. Once it stopped raining I managed to wire brush the gunk off the shaft and as I painted the new acid etch on (it dries very fast in this heat), Meryl followed with the Clear Coat, which had jelled a little but was still OK. We dodged a big bullet on that one.

This diesel powered tug moves boats back and forth to the Travellift.

I'm praying the straps hold for just a few more minutes.

I won’t bore you with the myriad of other small fixes and repairs, but we were ecstatic to finally be back in the water on Sept. 15th. The dock master, Ragnor, to whom we’d donated our 240 ft of old chain, moved some boats and got us a great location on the inside of Peakes dock with electricity and water. Peakes gives you five free days after your haul out, so it’s a good deal for us. Naturally the AC on the boat didn’t work initially, but we finally got the air bubbles out of the feed line and now it’s working like a champ, along with the pressure water, showers, and heads.

Meryl is getting very adept at sail and canvas repairs with her Sailrite industrial machine. Here she's sewing through several layers of Sunbrella and leather protective strips.

We spent the next few days just getting all the tools and junk put away and cleaning the boat. Naturally, while cleaning our moldy white bimini, I managed to put a six-inch rip in a section that was especially threadbare. Off came the bimini and out came the sewing machine. Luckily the guy who had recovered our seat cushions was delivering them that day and brought Meryl a piece of white Sunbrella, so she’s repairing the rip and reinforcing some other sections of wear. It’s unbelievable the damage that the combination of sun and salt water does to everything on a boat. Our surveyor commented that your boat is trying to commit suicide every day, and it’s your job to keep her alive.

To add insult to injury, our domestic water pump (that supplies water pressure to the sink and showers) decided to die the next day. It’s a very expensive pump (a Paragon Jr. at about $1400) and one I worry about on a daily basis. We had Mark at Dynamite Services come right over and remove it. At the shop they found the motor was toast, so we'll try to order one from the States and have it air shipped. The motor is $200 and the air shipping is another $250 and will take a week at the shortest. Then we have to get it through Customs. Looks like we'll be here longer than we thought. Luckily we’re hooked up to domestic water at the dock so everything still works on the boat.

Another day, another dollar, the exotic life of a cruiser.