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.
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