15 January to 17 January 2015 UK to New Zealand
We were up early for a change – while in the UK, we've become too used to lying in until after nine o'clock.
We had an easy run to Heathrow, dropped off the hire car and caught a bus to the terminal. Everything went smoothly until we got to the check-in desk, where the clerk wouldn't let us check-in because we didn't have a scheduled flight out of New Zealand and the computer said no. To try to prevent this problem, we’d obtained a letter from the boat yard saying that we were on a yacht currently Whangarei and we had copies of our boat papers and the customs clearance form, but the airline wouldn't accept anything because we had nothing that stated a scheduled date of exit from New Zealand.
The only way out of this conundrum was to buy some single air tickets from Auckland to Singapore which cost us a whopping £1,570! The girl on the ticket counter gave us an email address to ask for refunds. She told us that she would waive the normal £35 per ticket cancellation fee. What a load of administrative nonsense.
Neither of us slept well on 12 hour flight to Singapore, so we were tired when we arrived in the early morning. Our next flight wasn't until the evening, so we cleared out through immigration and caught the underground into down town Singapore.
I’d pre-ordered some camera equipment, so our first stops were to pick up a nice, new Sony RX100ii camera and a Nauticam underwater housing to match. Altogether, it cost over £1,000 but it was duty free and at least 20% cheaper than I could get it anywhere else in the world, so I'm a happy bunny – I can’t wait to go diving to try it all out.
We had a walk around China town and stopped for lunch in a small restaurant. They had a big tank of live bull frogs on display next to their live fish tanks - to Glenys' great relief, I resisted the temptation to have sweet and sour bull frog. Instead we had pork ribs and spicy duck which was very nice.
After lunch, we were feeling exhausted, so we went back to airport to collapse. We both paid to have a shower in the Ambassador lounge. We’d not really been aware of this little area of tranquillity. They charge for their services, but 5 hours in the lounge only costs £25 per person and is well worth it with comfy seating, a shower and a complimentary buffet included. If we have another long layover in Singapore we’ll be in there like a shot.
The 10 hour flight to Auckland was much better because after a meal and a few glasses of red wine, we both passed out for 6 hours. We landed at 1000, but it took another 9 hours to get from the airport to our boat by bus and a taxi.
18 January 2015 Whangarei, New Zealand
It’s a Sunday today, so we had a long lie in. We spent most of the day unpacking and sorting out the stuff that we’d bought in the UK. It’s strange (but nice) to be back on the boat – it all seems very cramped after staying in houses for the past month.
I dug out my old To-Do Lists and started to switch my mind back to boat jobs. The bottom of the hull has been scraped free of anti-foul paint and sanded smooth, but there are still a few fiddly areas that need to be cleaned up. We’re hoping that we should be able to get the bottom painted and get the boat back in the water in the first week of February.
I sent an email off to Singapore Airlines to cancel our two single tickets and asked for a full refund.
19 January 2015 Whangarei, New Zealand
I jumped on my bike and went around town to do some errands. Our propeller hasn't been finished yet, but the guy has cleaned it up a bit and says that there has been a lot of electrolysis going on. The zinc is being slowly leached out of the bronze and there are many dark red spots all over it. He says that it’s probably been caused by poor electrical contact between the propeller shaft and the propeller, so I need to clean everything up and make sure that the propeller is locking onto the taper on the shaft rather than the key.
He says that the metal is nice and thick though and the propeller should be okay as long as we don’t get any more galvanic corrosion. I’ll need to keep an eye on it and inspect it regularly to watch for cracks.
The new window for our windscreen is in progress and our sails have been serviced, so things are starting to come together.
I called in at Whangarei Town Marina and confirmed that we’ll have a berth there for six weeks from the 3rd February. That gives us just over two weeks to get our jobs done on the hard, which should easily be achievable
On the way back I called in at the chandlers and picked up some hoses and sea-cock parts – another £150 from our credit card.
Back at the Yard, I chatted to Peter, the yard manager, about the time scales for getting us back in the water. He told me that we’d over-run a little on the labour time for scraping the hull (no surprise there…), but we should have no problem in getting the bottom finished and launching on the 3rd February.
He showed me some very fine cracks in the hull. They’re along the line where the two halves of the moulding have been joined together. The cracks are very small, but two of them are suspiciously near the aft locker that has been weeping for the past couple of years, so I told Peter to get someone to lay a couple of layers of fibre glass over the cracks to strengthen the area and seal them. It’s probably overkill because we’re having 3 layers of epoxy applied to the hull which would probably seal them, but better safe than sorry.
The plan is for us to tidy up some small fiddly areas around the bronze skin fittings and the rudder, and then the yard will be able to start spraying operations any time from the 21st. They will be putting on three coats of epoxy paint and then two coats of Jotun ablative anti-foul. The paint will need to stand for seven days to cure before we launch, so the timing is just perfect.
Glenys spent the day pottering about cleaning the stainless steel barbeque that we never use, so that we can sell it. She also cleaned our Apex dinghy, which we want to sell as well.
I couldn't bring myself to do any actual work, so I spent the afternoon planning the jobs that we need to do to make sure that we hit our launch day.
20 January 2015 Whangarei, New Zealand
Glenys started on the labour-intensive job of scraping the hull, while I started putting in the two sea cocks that I removed in December. It’s very cramped in the corner of the engine room where they are located, so I first had to go and buy a pipe wrench and cut down the handle so that I can tighten the locking nuts.
Trying to work out how to fit the sea-cocks was a bit like one of those puzzles where you have to move something before you can remove another part. I eventually figured out the order to do each part and we did a couple of test fittings. One of the sea cocks has to be in a very precise place, so we marked the rotational position of the skin fittings on the hull, then disassembled everything before finally installing the skin fittings with sealant. I’ll have to wait until the hull has been painted before I can attach the valves. I just hope that I’ve got the skin fitting in the correct position.
Glenys beavered away all day with occasional help from me. They’re going to start spraying the day after tomorrow, so we need to get it finished tomorrow.
We were both very, very tired by evening. We've both put on a lot of weight during our holiday in the UK, so we've been trying to cut down on food to lose weight, but in retrospect, it’s not a good idea because we need lots of food to compensate for all this physical activity.
We had some good news - the airline replied saying that they had cancelled the air tickets and the money should be refunded to our credit card in the next few days.
21 January 2015 Whangarei, New Zealand
I went for an eye test in the morning and thankfully, there is nothing wrong with my eyes. I still have excellent long range vision, but my reading prescription needs to be increased a little – old age is hard on the body.
Glenys got on with scraping the hull and I joined her when I got back and we got it all finished by the end of the afternoon.
The rigger came on board for a couple of hours and did an inspection of the rig. He found a few things wrong including some cracked sheaves, a worn fair lead and the t-swages on the running back stays both have cracks, so we need to replace them. The running back stays are wire at the moment, so we’re going to replace them with Dyneema rope which will be easier to handle. There are a few other little rigging jobs and I bet that I don’t get much change from £1,000 by the time he’s finished, but it has to be done.
22 January 2015 Whangarei, New Zealand
The painter arrived first thing and I helped to mask of the topsides of the boat, which took most of the morning. They managed to spray one coat of epoxy before the heavens opened and it rained for the rest of the afternoon.
I couldn't bring myself to start any major job, so I pottered around, replaced the faulty engine starter switch and then chilled out. Glenys went into town for most of the day, seeing the optician and doing some shopping therapy after her two days of hard graft.
We've been plagued by sand flies and have both managed to get some bites on our arms and legs despite the fact that we cover ourselves with insect repellent as soon as we get up each morning. I did some research and I think that this summarises the problem:
Sandflies are actually a type of blackfly about 2-3 millimetres long and are found wherever there is flowing water and bush. They are often found at beaches, and at the edges of lakes or swamps. The New Zealand blackfly occurs in the North Island and around the coasts of the South Island. The West Coast blackfly is confined to the South Island, where it is a nuisance.
The West Coast and Fiordland are infamous for their sandflies. The terminus of the Milford Track, where trampers board the ferry to Milford Sound, is called Sandfly Point.
The first instance of the word sandfly (rather than blackfly) is in the journal of James Cook. He came across the insects at Fiordland’s Dusky Sound, possibly at a sandy beach, in May 1773. His journal reads: “The most mischievous animal here is the small black sandfly which are exceeding numerous … wherever they light they cause a swelling and such intolerable itching that it is not possible to refrain from scratching and at last ends in ulcers like the small Pox.”
Only females bite - after mating, the female searches for a meal of blood – needed to produce eggs. They attack vertebrates such as penguins and other birds, bats, seals, domestic animals and humans. They pierce the skin, creating a drop of blood that they suck up.
Sandflies cannot see at night, so they seldom bite in the dark, and generally remain outdoors. Peaks in biting often occur when light intensity increases in the morning and decreases at dusk. The morning peak comes from young sandflies that have recently emerged from pupae, and the higher evening peak is often the result of sandflies taking blood after laying eggs earlier in the day.
Foreigners appear to be the least tolerant to the insects and it is almost like the sandflies can sense their blood is sweeter or that they are most vulnerable. The little black bugs attack wherever blood vessels are close to the surface, so other vulnerable parts of the body are hands, wrists, face, ears, throat and ankles.
I'm going to be stocking up with 50% Deet when we go down to South Island.
23 January 2015 Whangarei, New Zealand
It was a nice day, so the painters were able to spray on two more coats of epoxy and one coat of anti-foul paint.
There’s not a lot that I can do at the moment because most of the major jobs require me to have access to the sea-cocks and the propeller shaft, which are off limits until the painting has been done. So I spent the afternoon wiring in our new Raymarine C95 chart plotter and removing the old radar cabling.
Once I had the chart plotter booted up, I found that it came with a Navionics chart that is the “Rest of the World Silver”. I had a quick look at the charts for New Zealand and they are of a comparable quality to the charts on our iPad, but with fewer soundings, so I’m not sure whether to invest another £300 in Gold charts which have more information.
24 January 2015 Whangarei, New Zealand
The final coat of anti-foul paint was sprayed on this morning and I then removed the plastic sheeting protecting our topsides. I also removed all of the masking tape from places that we didn't want painting like the propeller shaft and the bow-thruster shafts.
The bottom of the hull looks fabulous with a lovely smooth finish, so I'm hoping that we’ll be sailing faster in the future. Unfortunately, when they masked off the waterline, they put the masking tape too high and we've lost a one inch wide white line that is supposed to be just above the anti-foul paint. It looks really odd, so I want my white line back – I’ll have to discuss it with Peter after the weekend.
The quality of the finish of the anti-foul paint makes our topsides look very scruffy. Glenys is going to be polishing the topsides next week, but I think that we’ll need to re-paint the blue sections when we next haul out.
I had a very lazy afternoon, messing about on my laptop, editing some photos and catching up on my blog. Glenys was a little more dynamic and did a load of washing, filled the water tanks and cleaned the dinghy which we’d left uncovered and had spots of paint from spraying the hull.
25 January 2015 Whangarei, New Zealand
We had a rest from work and went for a hike mostly to do some exercise and try to get rid of some of the excess weight that we've brought back from the UK. It was a two mile bike ride to the start of the trail into the Coronation Scenic Reserve, which is to the west of Whangarei. The trail goes steeply up to a ridge and then follows the top of the ridge for a couple of miles. It’s a pleasant walk through sub-tropical forest.
At the other end of the ridge, the path goes steeply down some stairs to a car park, so we turned around and retraced our steps to our bikes – a satisfying four hours of exercise.
In the evening, there was a barbecue and a fun jam session with Dennis from “Pamela” and Hugh & Brenda from “Scotia”.
26 January 2015 Whangarei, New Zealand
I started more jobs, refitting the two sea-cocks, fitting a new inlet pipe to the engine water strainer and re-aligning the engine. Fitting the sea-cocks was tense because I was unsure if I’d aligned the skin fittings properly and I was using some strong Loctite thread sealant which goes off quickly, so I’d only have one attempt. Thankfully, it all went smoothly.
The engine alignment took me most of the afternoon. First I had to raise the engine to align the propeller shaft in the stern tube; then I had to undo the gearbox coupling and measure the gap between the faces. The engine was tilted too far down, so I had to adjust the angle of the engine – this then changed the position of the propeller shaft in the stern tube… It took me a frustrating couple of hours to get both things aligned.
Glenys painted the bow thruster propellers and cleaned the dinghy again. Unfortunately, the Hypalon tubes are covered in light dots of white epoxy paint because we didn't cover it when the hull was being sprayed. We’d normally, just leave it because it would wear off in use, but we want to sell the dinghy, so Glenys is going to have to have another go at removing the overspray.
27 January 2015 Whangarei, New Zealand
I ruined Peter’s day by telling him that the painters have painted over the white stripe on our topsides. There’s no way that the paint can be removed, so the only option is to put another one-inch white line just above the anti-foul paint, which will effectively raise the waterline by one inch, which is probably a good thing with the amount of stuff that we have on board.
To paint the white line will take over a week which means that we won’t be able to launch on the 3rd February and it might take a lot longer because there’s a lot of rain due. After a bit of deliberation, we've decided that the best solution is to apply a strip of white vinyl. The yard is obviously going to be paying for this correction to their cock-up.
It might sound a bit dodgy having a bit of plastic tape put along the water line, but the modern technology is so good that some boats now have their whole topsides coated with vinyl rather than paint. We’re planning to have our topsides renovated next year when we’re in Thailand, so I’ll be keeping a close eye on this vinyl stripe and maybe we’ll have all of our blue stripes done in vinyl.
I spent most of the morning re-caulking the gap between the lead keel and the fibreglass keel base. This line had been masked off while the epoxy paint and the antifoul had been sprayed on. I dug out all the old, loose filler; masked either side of the gap and then knifed on the sealant. We’ll let the sealant cure for a couple of days then paint on some anti-foul paint.
In the afternoon, I did a few more fiddly jobs in the engine room and then went up the mast and removed the old radar and cable. Glenys meanwhile got hold of some scaffolding and started the mind-numbing job of cleaning and polishing the topsides.
28 January 2015 Whangarei, New Zealand
I went to the dentist in the morning and everything looks okay apart from one filling needed on a lower molar. There are a few small cracks on the top edges of two molars and the dentist was trying to sell me two crowns, which at £600 each is a lot of money. I'm going to leave them until we get to Thailand next year, where the dental care is good and inexpensive – I might have a full mouth service when we get there …
Back at the boat yard, I refitted the bow thruster propellers, which was fairly simple and then tried to refit the main propeller. I cleaned everything up and fitted the key, but the nut is hitting a shoulder on the propeller shaft and I can’t tighten it up on the tapered bore properly. I need to get a stainless steel spacer to be able to do the job correctly - a job for tomorrow. I'm a bit hacked off that we've had electrolysis damage and it depresses me every time that I look at all the red spots where the zinc has leached out of the propeller - at least it'll be underwater soon and covered with growth.
I did a few more small jobs including greasing the phosphor bronze shoe holding the bottom of the rudder and wire brushed the underwater SSB earth plate.
Glenys continued on with the topsides, interspersed with organising our trip down to South Island in a couple of weeks’ time. Originally, our plan was to hire a car with a rough idea of what we wanted to see and then find accommodation when we get to each place. However, when Glenys went to book accommodation for our first few nights, she found that much of the accommodation is booked up because it’s the height of summer, so it looks like we ought to pre-book everything. This means that we have to be more organised about when and where we’ll be on each night.
29 January 2015 Whangarei, New Zealand
I wasted most of the morning trying to sort out a new dinghy. We want to buy an AB 9.5AL, which we think is the perfect dinghy for us. At 9.5 feet long, it’s the biggest that we can fit on our foredeck, it has an aluminium hull, which is light and strong and best of all it has big tubes and a high bow, so we’ll not get soaked when going up-wind.
I've been trying to buy one ever since we got back to New Zealand nearly two weeks ago, but it appears that there aren't any in the country. There’s an AB 10AL at the main distributor in Auckland, and we found out that “Moxie” has one, so we went over to have a look, but it’s actually 10.5 feet long and there’s no way that it would fit on our foredeck, even if we deflated it.
So, I'm now getting quotes from the USA and Australia. It’s going to cost about £250 to have it shipped, but I want one – very frustrating.
I then did some work and refitted the PSS Seal. This cunning device fits around the propeller shaft and keeps water out of the boat. It relies on a rubber bellow holding a carbon disk, which bears against a stainless steel rotor locked onto the propeller shaft. It’s a bit scary fitting it because if the rubber bellows fail then we’d have lots and lots of water pouring into the boat – I hope that I've done it right because there’s no way of testing it until we’re put back in the water.
30 January 2015 Whangarei, New Zealand
There’s an AB 9.5AL dinghy available in Australia at a reasonable price and the shipping is not too bad, so I told the guy that he had a sale. We need to work out the finer points of shipping it because I don’t want it to arrive while we’re on our road trip. I guess that it’s better to have it arrive after we get back here.
I spent the morning lifting the generator and replacing the nice shiny exhaust. It all went well apart from having to re-tap out one of the threads in a flexible mount. I then spent the rest of the day tidying up the hoses and wiring around the generator and replacing the contents of the cockpit locker which I’d had to empty to lift the generator. The dive compressor is back fixed in position and the cockpit is a little clearer now. We’re starting to look ship shape for the launch in four days’ time.
Glenys continued with polishing the topsides in between running for cover as showers went through.
The white vinyl stripe was put on this afternoon. They didn't do a particularly good job and it slightly overlapped the anti-foul paint in many places. I was worried that this edge sticking up would be caught by the water as we sail along and gradually peel off, so I made them go around with a razor blade and make sure that the edges were all stuck firmly to the gel coat topsides. It's now got a slightly wavy line at the bottom, but looks okay.
31 January 2015 Whangarei, New Zealand
Glenys went into town to run some errands, while I continued to tidy up. We’ve had nearly two weeks or working on the boat and the saloon looked like a workshop with spare parts and tools scattered everywhere.
In the afternoon, Glenys carried on with the topsides while I fitted the propeller. I've bought two stainless steel washers which are 3mm thick to act as a spacer, but the outside diameter was too large and stuck out past the propeller hub, so I spent 30 minutes grinding one down. I then filed in a slot to match the key-way and put it all together with the aid of a big adjustable spanner. To hold the nut in place, I've knocked over some tabs on the flats of the nut and hopefully that’s enough to keep it on the shaft.