22 December 2016 Rebak Marina, Langkawi
The main reason that I’ve changed the propeller is that, after 16 years, it’s suffering from galvanic corrosion - the zinc in the bronze alloy is leeching out, slowly turning the propeller to copper, which is much more brittle. I’ve been keeping an eye on it for the past three years, but I can’t tell whether it getting worse or what’s causing it.
It’s possible that there are stray electrical currents around the hull of the boat, which are causing electrolysis, in which case the bronze seacocks may be subject to galvanic corrosion as well. This was churning through my subconscious mind last night and I woke at 04:00 worrying about it. The worst case scenario is that some (or all) of my 17 underwater seacocks are turning to brittle copper and that they’ll start to snap off leaving a big hole in the hull. If this happens in a remote part of the Indian Ocean, it will be a bit of a problem.
After breakfast, I grabbed my small angle grinder and ground the paint off all of the sea cock skin fittings. To my great relief, they are all nice, shiny yellowy bronze, apart from the front heads outlet, which is showing some red copper patches, but that’s probably due to the acidity levels in the effluent coming out of the seacock. I’m a much happier bear now.
I spent the rest of the morning helping out with the hull preparation work, mostly doing the fiddly parts around the propeller, the bow thruster and the rudder. I also spent a couple of hours brushing hydrochloric acid onto the paint stripe on our waterline to eat away the small barnacles and hard calcium deposits that we’ve acquired from staying too long in marinas.
In afternoon, I disconnected the rudder cables and checked that the rudder moves freely. There are salt deposits around the rudder shaft seal indicating slight weeping of sea water past the lip seals and the middle bearings. It’s not that bad and the rudder moves freely using a little finger, so the bearings are all okay. I reconnected the steering cables and re-tensioned them all. I’m happy that our rudder and steering is in a fit state to do an ocean crossing.
I then checked all of the 17 seacocks to make sure that they open and close freely. I had one seacock which was jammed - the generator exhaust water outlet. There’s signs of the salt crystals around the spindle of the seacock, so I cleaned it up and sprayed it inside and outside with Liquid Wrench. Ten minutes later, I was able to carefully move the handle back and forward until it was moving freely.
We retired to the bar for our evening meal - the green Thai Curry was very good, but so hot that it made me cry.
23 December 2016 Rebak Marina, Langkawi
I was up at the crack of dawn and washed down the hull with some car wash solution - the guys at Sea Spray recommended doing it to wash off the fine layer of dust. I spent the rest of the morning preparing for painting, masking off the water line and the bow thruster seals. This time, I’ve bought 15 litres of Jotun Seaforce 90, which I used in New Zealand and gave me good results.
After lunch, Glenys and I donned our gloves and started to paint the hull. I did the fiddly bits around the propeller, the rudder and the bow thruster, while Glenys used a roller to paint the smooth parts of the hull. It all went fairly well and we were finished in 2½ hours. I then spent 30 minutes cleaning up - I should have bought more trays and rollers.
In the evening, we went to a jam session at the hotel’s beach bar, which was fun.
24 December 2016 Rebak Marina, Langkawi
It was another early start, putting on the second coat of anti-foul paint. We used 12 litres for the two coats and had 3 litres left, so we went around the water line and the leading edges of the hull where we get the highest level of wear.
By lunch-time, I was a man of leisure again - all the jobs done until after Christmas. I’ve asked the yard to move the stands on the 26th, so that I can paint the patches of hull under the stand pads and then we’ll launch on the 27th - a day early - yahoo!
Glenys retired to the pool in the afternoon and I had a quiet afternoon on board, reading and catching up on our website. In the early evening, we watched “Love Actually” with a glass of port and a mince pie to get us in the Christmas mood - the best Christmas movie ever.
25 December 2016 Rebak Marina, Langkawi
Our favourite Christmas breakfast is scrambled egg on toast with smoked salmon; unfortunately, we had neither smoked salmon nor bread, so Glenys went Mexican and rustled up Huevos Rancheros on wheat tortillas - very tasty.
We had a quiet morning opening our presents and singing along to Christmas songs, then at midday, we went to “Viannica” for Christmas dinner. Graham and Hilary had also invited Roy and Irene from “Peggy West”, so it was a fun affair. Graham cooked up a duck and a chicken along with nine types of vegetables, which was impressive from a yacht’s small galley.
It was a steady-away session, drinking beer, wine and rum all day. We managed to stagger back to Alba before 23:00 - a great Christmas Day.
26 December 2016 Rebak Marina, Langkawi
After our marathon drinking session yesterday, I was feeling a little dull this morning, but forced myself into action when the boat started rocking gently as the yard guys moved the supporting stands. My first job was to scrape and sand the old antifoul from the spots that were hidden by the stands. I then painted three coats of antifoul on the patches during the rest of the morning.
I tightened the propeller nut, fixed it in place with a knock-over tab and fitted the zinc anode. The new propeller looks good. I then fitted the bow thruster propellers - I’ve been a bit too enthusiastic with the anti-foul paint in the tunnel and the propeller blades are catching slightly. I’ll just wait until we launch and the paint softens up before running the bow thrusters.
With all my chores done, the afternoon was a lazy affair, playing guitar and chilling out by the pool. We had a quiet meal by ourselves in the Hard Dock Café.
27 December 2016 Rebak Marina, Langkawi
Glenys was up early and caught a flight back to Penang where she will get the final check-up for her eyes.
The travel lift arrived just after nine o’clock, hoisted Alba up and the yard guys removed the stands. I then had an hour to sand and paint the two small patches where the keel had been standing on wooden blocks. I managed to get three coats of antifoul on, so as long as I don’t go aground (again…), we should be good for two years.
We were back in the water and into a marina berth by eleven o’clock. It’s nice to be afloat again. I had a lazy afternoon, pottering about and then joined “Peggy West” on “Viannica” for evening drinky-poos and nibbles.
28 December 2016 Rebak Marina, Langkawi
At last night’s drinking session, I bemoaned that I have zinc loss on my old propeller and don’t know what is causing it. Fortunately, Graeme from “Viannica” is an ex-navy engine and electronics guru; and Roy from “Peggy West” has a galvanic probe (silver half-cell) which attaches to a multi-meter. I borrowed the galvanic probe and Graeme came over to have a look at my readings.
We dropped the Galvanic Probe into the water and attached it to the positive terminal on my multi-meter. I connected the negative lead directly to a negative terminal on the ship’s batteries. With everything switched off and the mains disconnected, I had 200mV - all my skin fittings are bronze, so anything between 500mV and 700 mV is acceptable. (The low reading probably indicates that I don’t have enough zincs on the boat, but there’s nowhere else to put them.)
We then switched on various equipment - fridges, instruments, chart plotter, radar, water pump, but they all seemed okay at around 200-220mV. I plugged in the mains power, which also made very little difference, even when the air-conditioner was running. Then, I switched on the power to my laptop and saw the voltage rise to 620mV. It’s within acceptable limits, but there’s obviously some kind of earth leakage from the 12V computer power supply.
Graeme said that he thought we were okay and had a look at the old propeller, commenting that he’d seen worse and suspected that we were getting zinc loss in the propeller simply because the propeller was 16 years old. I will try to get a galvanic probe and investigate the computer supply circuit when I’ve got a bit more time.
Glenys returned in the early evening and said that everything is okay with her eyes. The optician gave her a prescription for glasses which is +0.75 & +1.5, which is much, much better that the minus 14 prescription she had before the operation.
We invited “Peggy West” and “Viannica” over for cocktails and then we all retired to the Hard Dock Café for an evening meal.
29 December 2016 Rebak Marina, Langkawi
After paying a huge bill, we checked out of the marina and motored into deeper water, where we hove-to for an hour to run (and test) the water-maker. We then sailed into Telaga marina, filled up with diesel, booked a hire car for tomorrow and finally anchored at 14:00.
We chilled out for the rest of the afternoon. “Sea Monkey” and “Conrad” turned up in the evening, so they came over to say hello and stayed for a beer.
30 December 2016 Rebak Marina, Langkawi
It was a shop-till-you-drop day. We picked up the hire car and drove to Matsirat, where unfortunately, the big supermarket was closed - don’t try to do anything on a Friday in a Muslim country…
Actually, the day didn’t turn out too bad - many of the shops were closed, but the wet market and the supermarket at the Cinema Mall were open, so we were able to stock up on the things that we wanted.
We’ve been prevaricating when we should leave Langkawi, mostly because we were keen to buy some cheap wine and we’ve already used our December duty-free allowance. Fortunately, “Sea Monkey” told us about a small shop in Kuah, where booze could be bought without any questions asked. The lady had been cleaned out by a rush of cruisers going to buy alcohol, but we were able to buy her last ten bottles of wine and three cases of beer.
With a bit of alcohol on-board, we decided that we could leave Langkawi without having to wait a few days more for our January allowance. We cleared out at the Ferry Terminal which was easy - apart from the fact that Friday lunch time is extended until 15:00 because the men have to go to the mosque to pray. However, we were finished by 16:00 and after a quick run back to the marina, we were back on the boat by 17:00. With full tanks of water and fuel, beer in the fridge and restocked with food, we leave Malaysia tomorrow.
31 December 2016 Rebak Marina to Ko Lipe, Thailand
Until we get to Phuket and buy a SIM card, we won’t be able to access the Internet, so we didn’t get away until 10:00 because I was messing about doing final emails and getting a GRIB file to act as the forecast for the next week.
We motored for half an hour, then the wind picked up and we sailed all the way to within ½ mile of the anchorage. For most of the passage we had 15 knots of wind and were going along at 7 knots most of the time - it’s nice to have a clean bottom.
By mid-afternoon, we were anchored off Ko Adang at 06°31.87N 099°16.91E in 16 metres of water close to the reef. I went snorkelling for an hour which was brilliant, but after a three month lay-off, I’ve forgotten how to use my underwater camera. I took 80 photographs and 78 were complete rubbish, although I was rather pleased with a macro shot of some coral.
It started raining in the evening, but we had a nice, quiet New Year’s Eve, drinking wine and reminiscing, looking at the photographs of this year. Despite the fact that we’ve only sailed 2,350 miles, we’ve managed to pack in a trip to Myanmar; replaced the teak deck; flew to the UK; spent two months in the remote Anambas Islands; and did some land travel in Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia.
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