8 February 2016 Boat Lagoon, Phuket
I had another lazy start to the day, catching up on some admin, checking my task lists to make sure that I’ve not missing anything. When I finally got to the boat, I had a chat with Nai about the paint and, after a lot of agonising, I’ve decided that the slight orange peel is acceptable and Nai has agreed to rub down and respray three coats of the white. I said that I was worried about the long term effects of polishing the paint, but she said that she guarantees her work and it will last over five years - I have to trust her.
Up on deck, I found that the holes for the genoa track had also been filled with epoxy by the same Numpty who filled the mast foot plate holes. Again, the position of the track is critical, so, when the teak deck has been laid, I was planning to drill through the existing holes from inside the boat - the holes that had now been filled with epoxy… I spent three hours drilling the 72 holes out again. Fortunately, I was able to drill them from above and didn’t have to pull down the head linings in the saloon.
Glenys started the tedious job of cleaning up the deck fittings. Each of the screws, nuts and fittings has to be cleaned of the old sealing compound. The sticky Butyl sealing compound is designed to adhere onto any surface and withstand sea, sun and chemicals. She found that White Spirit helped to soften the tenacious stuff, but it’s still going to be a Herculean task - her first job was cleaning the three metre long genoa tracks and the 72 bolts, nuts and washers.
In the afternoon, Nai’s team got on with repainting the white stripes. They sanded down the old paint and then covered the hull with cling film, just leaving the two white stripes exposed. A plastic curtain was attached to the tent frame, enclosing the whole boat. They then sprayed on three more coats of white Awlgrip paint.
The carpenters are beavering away on the teak deck - they are laying two rows of planks on each side of the boat every day. The actual laying of the planks is quite quick, but more than half of their time is spent in preparing the pine clamping strips, which are epoxied to the glass fibre deck. Every day, they remove the wedges from the planks stuck down the previous day; shorten the scores of pine strips by 70mm, which gives them space to fit the next two planks.
I checked the bearings and seals on the windlass and everything looks okay, so I don’t need to do any work before I put it back on deck, which is a relief.
Our automatic bilge pump has been blocking every time that it runs because there is too much sludge and debris in the bottom of the sump. While we were in the water, I tried to clean it, but it’s too deep and narrow to get proper access. For the first time in five years, I opened the sump plug, which is a one inch diameter plug on the outside of the keel. The black sludge that came out stank to high heaven.
9 February 2016 Boat Lagoon, Phuket
Nai’s team removed the cling film from the hull and the white stripe looks great now, so I’m finally happy with the painting. The topsides are gleaming in the sun - let’s hope they stay that way.
Glenys carried on with the Sisyphean task of cleaning the deck fittings, while I removed the two alternators from the engine. They’re wired up in parallel, so if one fails the other automatically takes over. This is great, but it’s hard to know if there’s a problem. We’ve had some galvanic corrosion on the propeller and I want to make sure that there’s no earth leakage problem on the alternators. I dropped them off at Octopus Electrics and while I was there, picked up our repaired wind transducer.
I then turned my attention to the PSS seal, which has been “clattering” when we sail or motor. I really hate working on this area of the boat because I have to lie on top of the engine with my head lower than the rest of me and, even lying on a 1 inch thick closed-cell pad, the engine components give me a bruised chest.
I disassembled the PSS seal (without removing it from the propeller shaft) and found that the faces on the stainless steel disk and the carbon bearing look okay, but the propeller shaft is lying very near at the bottom of the stern tube. This was very puzzling because I realigned the engine while we were hauled out in New Zealand and I made quite sure that the propeller shaft was in the middle of the stern tube.
After pondering this for a while, I’ve convinced myself that the whole boat is sagging because we’re out of the water and we’ve removed the rigging, which removes the tension from the hull. The propeller shaft has effectively drooped by 3.5mm, so I can’t trust any measurements or re-align it until the rigging is re-tensioned and the boat is in the water, which will support the hull again.
So, my plan is to clean up the PSS seal and re-install it. When we’re back in the water, I’ll have to centralise the propeller shaft in the stern tube, re-align the engine and then adjust the PPS seal. This is easier said than done, because to see whether the propeller shaft is centralised, I have to remove the PSS seal and if I do that in the water, then water will rush in through the stern tube.
After more pondering, I’ve come up with a cunning plan, which involves disconnecting the prop-shaft from the gearbox, then measuring the total vertical movement of the shaft with the PSS seal in place. Half of the vertical movement will mean that the prop-shaft is centralised and, because the PSS seal is in place, I can do this once we’re in the water. The only flaw in this plan is that there is no easy way to make this measurement, so I’ll have to build some jigs and set up a fixed datum - a job for another day.
10 February 2016 Boat Lagoon, Phuket
Our main sail has a plastic pulley on the clew, which is used for the outhaul and it’s in a very sad state. I spent over an hour in our aft cabin, grinding off the heads of the riveted shaft, but couldn’t get the stub of the shaft out. I gave up and need to get the sail down on to the ground where I can really hammer it off.
While I was removing the alternators yesterday, I noticed that two water pipes on the engine, which feed the hot water tank, have been rubbing on the heat exchanger and one is close to leaking. I pulled the two 12” pipes off, bought some new hose, but then struggled to get the new, stiff pipes onto the hose tangs. I gave up - another job half done.
Meanwhile, Glenys went to dentist and they discovered that she has an infected cavity in the tooth that she had crowned in New Zealand. They’re not sure if she’ll lose the tooth or whether they can do a root canal and re-crown it. She’s seeing a specialist tomorrow.
It was very hot today and tough to leave the air-conditioning, but I managed to drag myself back to the boat after lunch, while Glenys stayed in the room and started to unpick the old sprayhood getting ready to make a new one.
I tidied up the boat (which had three days of clutter) and told Nai that I want someone to put a layer of fibre-glass in the floor of the aft bilge where it has some very, very thin cracks in the polyester-filled floor. It’s constantly wet in this locker and I suspect that water is seeping from the stern tube through the cracks. Hallberg Rassy has said that the best solution is to fill the cracks and then put a layer of fibre glass over the floor.
I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to remove the bronze rudder shoe at the bottom of the skeg. I dug out the screw holes; cleaned the screw heads; and then carefully removed the 8 eight bolts. I could feel the shoe moving slightly, but the two halves wouldn’t come off. I tried levering it with a screwdriver and smacking it with a mallet, but the damn thing wouldn’t budge. This was another job that I had to leave - it’s not been my best day.
11 February 2016 Boat Lagoon, Phuket
I woke up at six o’clock with my subliminal brain telling me that the reason the rudder shoe wasn’t coming off was because there were some more bolts hidden beneath the anti-fouling paint. I sneaked out of bed, turned on my laptop and looked at some photographs of the rudder shoe when I fitted it two years ago. Sure enough, there are a couple of bolts still in there - duhhhh!
After breakfast, David, the rigger from Precision Engineering met me at the boat and we discussed a couple of jobs that need doing - a backing plate to strengthen the rod kicker fitting; bushes in the boom goose neck because it’s getting very loose and a new guard rail wire to replace the one damaged when a boat hit us before Christmas. David’s going to give me a quote.
I looked at the rudder shoe and discovered that there were actually three bolts that I hadn’t removed - no wonder the damn thing wouldn’t come off. After removing the bolts, it took five minutes of “gentle persuasion” with a screwdriver and mallet, to remove the two halves of the shoe.
I chipped the old polyester filler away from the skeg and found patches of black slime indicating that water has been getting in there. The fibreglass core seems dry enough, so the water hasn’t damaged the structure of the skeg. It looks like the polyester filler hasn’t adhered to the rudder shoe or the end of the skeg, so I’ll make sure that the surfaces are primed better this time to stop water getting in.
Nai’s team came to fibreglass the floor of the aft bilge and, when I left them at lunch-time, they had set up a tent of plastic around the bilge locker to protect the back cabin from fibre glass particles when they start grinding. I’d already cleared the cabin, but this was a very professional thing for them to do.
Glenys went to see the dental consultant, who thinks that there’s no point in trying to save the tooth. It needs to be extracted and an implant put in its place. Once the tooth is removed, Glenys will have to wait three months to allow the gum to recover and then the implant can be inserted. It’s not practical for this to be done now because we won’t be in Thailand long enough, so she’s going to leave it until we get to Malaysia. Perhaps get it done in Georgetown or Kuala Lumpur.
After lunch, I stayed in our nice, cool room and did some admin - upgrading our website to a new version of Joomla. It’s two years out of date, so the process wasn’t as smooth as it could have been and it took me over four hours of frustration. I had to download various bits of software and read up on every the technical problems that I encountered - thank goodness for the internet. Anyway, I’ve upgraded a local copy and now need to publish it to our live server, when I have time.
Glenys has booked in to a clinic to have a general health check-up and they want her there at eight o’clock tomorrow, so we have to leave here at quarter past seven tomorrow. We’d booked a motorbike to be picked up at five o’clock this evening, but when I got there, the guy (called Ron) told me that there was a problem. He acts as an agent, and the supplier of the motor-bike (the lady at the Indian café) had let him down. He tried a few other people, but no luck.
Eventually, Ron came up with a cunning plan - he’d lend us his personal motor-bike. The plan was that he’d go to his house five kilometres away, pick up a second helmet and bring the bike back to Boat Lagoon. He’d ring me when he arrived back at seven o’clock and, after giving me the keys, he’d ride his push bike back home. Hmmm.
At quarter to seven, Ron rang me and, not surprising, there was a change of plan. He’d meet us at 07:30 in the morning at the carpark. This meant we’d be a little late arriving at the clinic, but there was nothing I could do, so I agreed.
12 February 2016 Boat Lagoon, Phuket
At 07:15, just as we were leaving the apartment, I noticed that there was a message on our phone. Our motorbike man, Ron, had to go to a meeting at his office at 07:00, so he was asking if we could pick up the bike at 06:50? Our mobile phone now decided to play-up and was blocking out-going calls, so we couldn’t call him. There was nothing we could do, so we walked to the car park and waited. Ron hadn’t turned up by 07:40 and hadn’t replied to several texts. We’d run out of time, so Glenys decided to get a taxi, while I wandered off to the boat.
Five minutes later, I received a text from Ron telling us that the motorbike was in the carpark and the key was with the gate security waiting for us. I ran back to the carpark and met Glenys rushing back because there were no taxis around. We found the bike, jumped on it and endured 40 minutes of chaotic, rush-hour traffic to arrive at the clinic twenty minutes late and very stressed up.
I’m convinced that the oriental mind works in a different way to our western minds. Ron was obviously going out of his way to keep us happy (all for a paltry £6) and had delivered the bike and the key. But why didn’t he tell us what he had done before our meeting time of 07:30?
While Glenys was having her tests, I shot off on the motor bike to do some errands. I found a fabulous tool shop called Bangkok Tools on Yaowarat Road, which has power tools, hand tools, paint and even stainless steel bolts - a veritable treasure trove.
Back at Ao Chalong, Glenys had passed all her tests with flying colours, so she’s happy. We had lunch in a local eating place, did a few more errands and then retreated back to the room to recover.
I went to the boat and the guys have finished fibre-glassing the bilge locker in the aft cabin, so I need to paint it and then we’ll be able to varnish some of the woodwork in the aft cabin, which is well overdue.
13 February 2016 Boat Lagoon, Phuket
I went for a run this morning and, while doing some exercises, I felt a pain between my shoulder blades. I suspect that I’ve pulled a muscle while lying over the engine, battling the PPS seal and the twisting exercise that I was doing has been the final straw. I’ll have to take it easy.
Glenys continued to clean the big bag of deck fittings, which includes about 100 bolts, washers and nuts that need to be de-gunked. She looked so despondent, that I decided to give her a hand, so we spent all day on the job. Glenys concentrated on using white spirit to clean the fittings, while I wore out two wire brushes, cleaning up the threads on 100 bolts. By the end of the day, we’d broken the back of the job and Glenys can finish of the last bits.
We now have three guys working full time on the teak deck and it’s starting to look good. They’ve almost finished the main side decks and are starting to do some of the fiddly surrounds around the chain plates.
14 February 2016 Boat Lagoon, Phuket
Being a Sunday, we had a day off. Glenys downloaded some music and played her ukulele. I had a go at publishing the upgraded version of my website, but for some reason it wouldn’t work on our live web server. By the end of the day, I’d restored and reinstalled the website three times and still couldn’t get it working.
I haven’t upgraded the Joomla software for two years and it looks like there have been some fundamental changes, so my customised template doesn’t work anymore - this controls the layout, fonts and colours. It’s going to be a long, tedious job to re-write it all again, so I’m a little depressed having wasted a whole day and achieved nothing.