7 March 2016 Boat Lagoon, Phuket
The major item on my To-do List is to get the rigging work finished. I spent most of the morning measuring, drilling and tapping the ten holes in the new backing plates to fit the rod kicker bracket. By lunchtime, I still had to grind away some of metal on the backing plates.
After lunch, I wasted an hour walking around the four chandlers in the boat yard looking for Monel pop-rivets and longer pan-head bolts for the rod kicker. I found the pop-rivets, but couldn’t find any long bolts, which are critical for the rod kicker bracket.
Back at the boat, the painters had finished sanding down the cockpit coaming and have constructed a very fancy tent made from cling-film, which covers everything apart from the stripe that they want to paint. They were obviously preparing to spray the top-coat paint, so I decided not to do any grinding of the rod kicker plates because of the chance of dust.
Instead, I inspected my work on the in-mast furling, which had been bothering me for a couple of days. I released the tension and found that both sets of rivets that I’d fitted were slightly loose, so I decided to remove the whole assembly and refit. It took an hour to get it out, having to remove the furling gear again and then drill out four rivets on the luff extrusion through the small 15mm sail slot.
The pop-rivets on the male adjustment screw fitting then had to be drilled out, which went okay, but during the struggle some of the holes in an aluminium extrusion were slightly enlarged. This part of the assembly looked inherently weak to me and it was this extrusion that was badly damaged a week ago, so I decided to strengthen the joint by applying some 3M 5200 adhesive when I replaced the pop-rivets. The joint looked good after I’d finished and I left the adhesive to set overnight.
The 5200 adhesive that I used can only be bought in large 300ml cartridges (£11 each) and when opened will only last a week or so before going off. I only needed a thimbleful of the stuff, and being a tight northerner, I was reluctant to waste a whole tube, so I asked Nai if any of her guys had any tubes already open. Ten minutes later, she turned up with a brand-new tube of 5200 and said that her guys would use the rest. What a nice lady.
8 March 2016 Boat Lagoon, Phuket
It was Glenys’ birthday, but as usual I hadn’t bought her anything - we have an agreement not to buy unwanted presents. I normally get her a cake or something, but I’m so focussed on the boat that I forgot - I think that I’ve lost a few Brownie points.
Over at the boat, Nai’s team were starting to rub down the antifouling paint and two painters were spraying the blue stripe around the cockpit. By ten o’clock, there were five guys rolling on the antifouling paint and by four o’clock they’d finished putting on two coats.
I refitted the in-mast furling and didn’t tighten it too much this time - it all looks good and I’ll recheck the tension before we put the main sail back on after we’re in the water. I also fitted the rod-kicker bracket. The bolts now have very substantial backing plates and the fitting has been bedded onto the mast with Sikaflex 291. I’m confident that it won’t be coming loose again.
My next job was to figure out what is happening with the windlass. I cleaned and re-fitted the gypsy components, so that I had them all sliding freely on the main shaft and found that the chain stripper is still hitting the top edge of the gypsy. The shaft is moving vertically by about 10mm and after a lot of head scratching, I think that one of two circlips inside the bearing assembly is damaged.
This is not good news. I’ll have to completely remove the windlass from the deck and then strip it down to find the problem. There are two lip seals, which will almost certainly be damaged when I remove them, so before I do anything, I have to get some spare parts. I wandered off to one of the chandlers, which advertises bearings and to my amazement, they said that they could have the two seals and the bearing delivered tomorrow. I wait in hope.
In the evening, Glenys and I went out for a birthday celebration. A couple of cocktails and a bottle of wine regained some of my lost Brownie points.
9 March 2016 Boat Lagoon, Phuket
When I arrived at the boat, there were two of Nai’s guys removing the cling-film tent. They then hosed down the deck and started polishing the coach roof and cockpit coaming. By the end of the day, it was all looking very shiny.
I checked all of the work that I’ve done on the mast, which looked good, so I pop-riveted the foot of the mast back on and we’re finally ready to put the mast back on the boat. I then pottered about refitting the bow-thruster propellers and generally tidying up the saloon which was looking like a bomb had hit it after the last three days of frenzied activity.
Miraculously, the bearing and seal arrived for the windlass, so I started working on it after lunch. I removed the shaft keys, a round wire circlip and the top lip seal, which revealed a rusty bearing with no circlip to hold the shaft in position. I wiggled the shaft and it fell straight down and crashed into the floor of the cupboard below. The windlass shaft had been supported by the lip seal - not very good.
I removed a big circlip holding the bearing into the windlass base and then tried to remove the bearing from above. I didn’t want to remove the motor which is very heavy or pull the windlass base out of the deck, so I made a little puller that would hopefully pull the bearing out. It was too flimsy and bent, so I moseyed off to a stainless steel shop and they kindly cut me a small piece of 4mm thick stainless steel, free of charge.
After manufacturing a new, stronger puller and a using a lot of persuasion with a crow bar, the bearing finally popped out - YES! By removing the key from the lower end of the shaft, I was then able to pull the shaft up out of the windlass. I then spent an hour or so filing and sanding the shaft and base, so that the bearing fitted smoothly and the grooves for the circlips were clean.
I dropped the shaft into the windlass, inserted the lower key and then pulled the shaft up, so that I could fit the bearing to the shaft, held in position with a new 25mm circlip. I then loosened off the electric motor assembly below deck, so that there was some lateral movement and then carefully tapped the bearing (and shaft) into place in the windlass base.
After that it was just a case of greasing the bearing, inserting a big circlip to hold the bearing into the base plate, replacing the round wire circlip and I had a smoothly running windlass. Sorted!
10 March 2016 Boat Lagoon, Phuket
We’re planning to put the mast back in tomorrow, so I couldn’t really start any major project, so I pottered about for the day. I tidied up the chaos left after my work on the windlass; organised the wiring to the windlass and then tidied up the front cabin. I’m planning to start varnishing the chart table and drinks fridge tomorrow, so I cleared the area and moved my main tool boxes into the front cabin. The aft cabin is still acting as a store room.
The two guys from Nai’s team finished their polishing and cleaning up, so there’s finally space for Glenys to work on the boat. She spent the day helping to clean the deck fittings that go around the cockpit and getting the old duct tape off the frame of the windscreen.
After fitting the various fixtures to the cockpit coaming, we lifted the bimini frame into place and put the bimini up. Nai’s team will be removing the scaffolding and the tent over our boat, so after tomorrow, we’ll be subjected to the full blast of the Thai sun.
11 March 2016 Boat Lagoon, Phuket
Glenys has a day off and took a taxi to go shopping at the Central Festival Mall. When I arrived at the boat, eight of Nai’s guys were swarming all over Alba removing the tent scaffolding. I’ve probably said this before, but the UK Health and Safety would have a heart attack if they saw men balancing 30 foot up on top of a scaffolding frame whilst hammering scaffolding tubes out. I pottered about doing a few little jobs, trying to ignore the hammering and crashing of scaffolding poles as they dropped on to the concrete.
The crane arrived on time at half past ten and the guys swarmed over the mast. Toe was in charge of the proceedings assisted by Lec and the lift went well. I waited on deck until the mast was almost in place and made sure that the mast foot went in correctly without trapping any of the cables, which come out of the mast base. It was then a frenzy with guys pulling the top of the mast in all directions trying to fit the nine shrouds and stays into the various chain-plates, but fifteen minutes later, we had it safely installed and the crane strop was removed.
Nai’s team then helped me lift the boom into place and lifted the spinnaker pole on deck. Like a small army, they moved on to other jobs leaving me to inspect everything. I had to remove and replace the inner forestay because they’d put it on 180 degrees out and they’d also turned one end of a turnbuckle on a shroud, so that the screws were uneven, so I had to remove that and sort it out.
By lunch-time, I’d checked that the rigging was just hand-tight and all the cotter pins were secured with split pins. The mast is curving off to starboard, but it’s good enough to launch. I’ll be trimming the rigging after we’ve been in the water for a couple of days and the hull has settled into position.
After lunch, the yard foreman came over and said that they were ready to re-position the boat. Nai’s team have scraped the bottom of the keel back to the lead and then antifouled it, but there are three, 12 inch wide sections that haven’t been done because the boat is standing on three wooden blocks, so I’ve arranged to have the boat lifted and moved forward by 12 inches. It all went well and a little money changed hands - in the UK we call it a “guvvy job”.
In the latter part of the afternoon, I half-heartedly started to sand down the chart table and drinks fridge, but didn’t get very far.
12 March 2016 Boat Lagoon, Phuket
In the morning, Glenys and I did the first fitting for the new sprayhood that she’s been making. It fitted well, so she went back to the room and sewed on another part, returning for a second fitting. The main body is well tensioned, but she needs to do some fiddling with the bottom edges which are a little loose - she’s going to sort that out and cut out the window, ready for tomorrow.
We dropped the anchor and chain onto the ground and swapped the chain end-for-end to spread the wear. It’s starting to go a little rusty in the middle section, so we’ll probably have to get it galvanised sometime this year - another job back on the list. While I had the chain out, I cleaned out the anchor locker, which had 4 inches of teak shavings and sawdust. Glenys meanwhile, replaced the coloured plastic markers on the chain every ten metres.
I spent most of the afternoon in sanding hell. I finished the chart table and the drinks fridge and then tackled the wood surrounding the middle hatch. I wanted to remove all the old varnish which has started to crack, but after two hours of sanding with my hands above my head, I’ve only managed to do half of it, so I gave up. I put the first coat of varnish on the chart table and the drinks fridge.
13 March 2016 Boat Lagoon, Phuket
We had a quiet Sunday. Glenys spent the day reading and playing the ukulele, while I went back to tackling the upgrade of our Joomla website. I’ve given up trying to upgrade the old system and have installed a new blank system and started to rebuild it all. I found a utility to migrate all of the articles from the old system to the new, but now I have to rebuild all the menus, sort out a new template and get it all working.
By the end of the day, I was making some progress and finally have a working system, which still needs some tweaking, but by the end of next week, I hope to be going live. It’s a bit of a chore, but a nice intellectual challenge and a pleasant break from the physical work of boat maintenance.