Hardstand 2020 - Week 4 Blast it!

Another new experience - sandblasting the underside to remove all existing anti-fouling paint. There are other ways of doing it like soda blasting and using a chemical peel/paint stripper. It would be a heinous job using any method and way beyond our time-frame and capabilities. We were already over our estimated 3 weeks on the hardstand and we were still working towards a May departure date for New Caledonia with the GoEast Rally, even if that was coming into serious doubt. We entrusted Zofia to the professionals. Once the boat was transported to the shed, taped and wrapped everything was scheduled to commence at 7am the next morning. We spent the night aboard a catamaran belonging to friends and by lunch time the shed screens were lifted to reveal a very raw underside.

Close up of the bow.

The bow-thruster 'tunnel with the blades removed

 

Keel

 

 

 

 

Rudder

Having been taped and wrapped on Monday afternoon she was ready for her sandblasting to commence first thing on Tuesday. By lunchtime it was done and by mid afternoon Zofia was back in position.

Wednesday saw workmen crawling all over and under the boat. It was chaotic as they all converged to do their bit.  Our rigger was there to reinstate the mast and rig, the turnbuckles having finally arrived from Germany. The steel fabricator arrived to commence work on the bowsprit while at the same time the underside was being attended by yet another team; being draped, raw gelcoat fared then inter-protected before being spray painted. Talk about "all systems go'!

 

 

We could barely watch the mast and rig being replaced.

 

Lots of faring to smooth the surface

 

The inter-protect 'paint' forms a hard layer over the gelcoat and must still be tacky when the first anti-fouling layer is applied so that there is a chemical bond between the two. If the delay between application of the layers is too long, all the anti-foul paint will wash off when pressure sprayed at the next lift. The Bloke decided that the risk of not getting the timing right and getting a good result was too great so we opted to have the painting done professionally. Having seen it done, he believes that it was doable really, but the professionals had it all done in less than a day and doing it ourselves would have added yet more days to our time in the works area....oh, and more anxiety too.

More faring after the first layer of inter-protect.

Finally, 3 layers of Micron Extra 2.

The first layer used was red followed by 2 black coats, the idea being the red shows through when it's time to anti-foul again.

Blushing red

And in no time, 2 coats of black to finish off.

All of a sudden, Zofia was transformed and looking like a yacht again. Perhaps we'd be returned to the water ahead of a Covid forced shutdown after all.

Hardstand 2020 - Prospect of Week 4

Week 1 of our 2020 hardstand program coincided with a nationwide run on Toilet Paper as the Wuhan Pneumonia panic was setting in. By week 3 it was re-badged as Covid19 and social distancing protocols in place. The Galley Restaurant at the Boatworks was only serving takeaway food and and closed on weekends. Site meetings were being held twice weekly to consider contingencies if there were confirmed cases of the Virus among staff at the yard, contractors or boat owners. International sailors arriving to reclaim their boats were on the last flights into the country ahead of mandatory self-quarantine. International airlines were stopping flying. Actor Tom Hanks and wife were hospitalized locally, having probably contracted Covid19 before their arrival in Australia. We were in a hotspot and the question on everyone’s lips was would Queensland move to level 4 restrictions? Would The Boatworks be forced to close?

Telltale blue showing through the more recent black layers.

Mixing 3 weeks of accumulated boat yard fatigue with this intense emotional background was less than easy. Our original estimate of 3 weeks work was definitely going to extend by at least another week. Our Selden rigging turnbuckles were yet to arrive from Germany and looking less likely to do so. The Stainless Steel fabricator kept stalling too.

 
 

This painted pebble, a gift from a granddaughter, was kept in my pocket. 

Rubbing it kept me calm.

Our next and always our last DIY project, was to re-do the anti-fouling. At this point we knew our destiny was either to take our scheduled ‘splash-back’ booking on Monday and deal with renewing the anti-fouling later; have the rigging replaced in-water and have the new bowsprit constructed while in the water too, or do what? A visit from the International Paints rep (the manufacturer of our anti-fouling paint) forced our hand. 

Prepping for sandblasting.

Storing Zofia out of the water for 3 months had allowed our anti-fouling paint to dry out quite significantly and amplify a problem. We had in the previous couple of years noticed a few small areas of our anti-foul paint come off in slabs.  These then needed patching and filling to enable a smooth finish. The cracking and flaking was now substantial. The paint rep’s assessment was that at some point the preparation sanding had been inadequate, leaving some of the ablative layer intact. Subsequent paint layers were simply flaking off as the accumulated layers became heavier! Gallingly it was evident this occurred between 2 blue layers; coats applied back in WA when we used to pay to get Zofia anti-fouled. On expert advice, the recommendation was to bite the bullet and strip it all off back to the gel coat. It’s not an uncommon thing to do every 10 years or so. 

 
 

In the sandblasting shed; wrapped and ready.

In the face of all this delay and escalating anxiety, and not to mention cost, can one get lucky? Well, yes. We still had the Monday ‘splash-back’ booking, meaning that the boat lifter and team were allocated for our use. The yard was busy and had we not had the booking, a further delay would have been probable. The dedicated sandblasting shed was not booked out either. The ‘sandblasting’ specialist was available too. Furthermore, we would be saving ourselves $2,000 while spending $7,000. Sound crazy? Hysterical even? Our rigging and mast was already down. At any other time it would cost $1,000 for the crane plus $1,000 for the riggers to remove everything in order for Zofia to be put in the sandblasting shed. Trying to remain upbeat, we persuaded ourselves it was an excellent opportunity after all and prayed hard we’d get everything done before the boatyard got shut down. Tick-tock, tick-tock. 

 

The Bloke without a boat to work on.

Hardstand 2020 - Week 2 Upgrading On Multiple Fronts

Tearing the boat to bits and half starting what seemed like every job on our long list, happened very quickly. Putting it back together again took forever.

Preparing the Signex

The Bloke had ordered a new sheet of Signex to replace the existing mount for the solar panels. The first sheet delivered was the wrong size, so back it went. The replacement arrived ahead of the weekend which was handy because it was possible to raid a nearby shed and borrow a large unused workbench on which to cut it.  When the Jigsaw cutter wasn’t up to the task, a nearby yatchie left us his circular saw to use in exchange for some beer. The beer economy thrives on the hardstand. 

Our luggage from Perth included all sorts of internet purchases intended for our visit to the hardstand and included a router. The Bloke claims that his long-dead manual arts teacher could posthumously now give him a distinction instead of the original sorry assessment of a fail! The router has earned it’s place in Bloke heaven. 

The solar panels not yet in position but their mounting platform looking neat.

While The Bloke had been flat out with his projects I pursued a Queensland Gas Certificate (to satisfy both insurance and registration requirements); a replacement anchor and chain, plus commenced polishing the topsides. 

65m of tired Chinese 6 1/2 year old, twice re-galvanised, 10mm chain was replaced with 80m of 10mm PWB Australian Certified chain.  Supply issues caused at least a 2 1/2 week wait and the on-site chandlery - Marine Trade Supplies, gave us their best price without haggling; we're already one of their best customers!  Happily, they even took the old stuff away - the value might have been $40  as scrap but would require us to transport it. Some outsourcing just makes sense. 

 

The new chain was laid out in 5m lengths, sprayed and tagged at intervals with cable ties. This helps with knowing how much chain we deploy when anchoring. We elected to have an extra 15m to accommodate some of the deeper anchorages in New Caledonia. We had managed with 65m before but 80m would be better.

Our 16kg Delta anchor has done a decent job on the whole. It’s only been iffy in ribbon weed (along the SW coast of Western Australia and in South Australia) and it does take a while to re-set in a radical 180 degree wind shift. There is plenty of the latter during storm season in Queensland. I was determined to upgrade our ground tackle and after much research over the last couple of years, I liked the Sarca Excel. As a bonus it’s Australian made. The only question was size. The #5 is 22kg while the #6 is 30kg. Is there such a thing as a ‘too heavy’ anchor? We compromised. The #5 would be 6kg heavier than our existing anchor (around 30% heavier) and with the 15m of additional chain and a proposed new bowsprit it was as much extra weight as was reasonable to add to the trim of the boat!

 

Going into Week 3, progress had been made but life living in what feels like a battle zone isn’t at all easy. At least we were not alone and despite the need to observe social distancing the camaraderie of similarly effected boaties was appreciated.

 

Hardstand 2020 Week 2 - Dropping the Mast

We’ve never had to completely re-rig before. Sure, we’d added an inner forestay and replaced the lower outer stays with a heavier gauge but never re-rigged as such or taken the mast down. The crane was booked for 8am and ‘Cookie’ from S&H Spars was there ahead of time with his off-sider to disconnect the boom. To be honest,  we could barely watch and made a retreat to The Galley for our, by now, daily morning coffee and breakfast roll!

Disconnecting the boom

Now to unite the crane boom with the mast

Now just a stump - all gone!

We felt a bit like an amputee with our mast on trestles alongside the boat. Unlikely for this to ever happen again during our ownership of Zofia, it presented the perfect opportunity to rewire the mast. 

When Zofia was first commissioned, the first of a series of what we term as ‘axe-murderers’  , practiced their sloppy arts. A so-called ‘Marine Electrician’ ran cable up the mast but not specialised tinned cable, just regular 3 strand house cable.  It must have been what he had in his van that day. We discovered this almost immediately after handover because some of the mast lights didn’t work and if they did, the switches on the Schreiber control panel were wrong.  The Bloke has been quite handy in the electronics department since a student, and his trouble-shooting with the multi-meter revealed that by the time the electrician had finished wiring the top of the mast, they’d forgotten which colour wire they’d used for the masthead light, deck light and motoring light. In fact they hadn’t even installed the deck light although that panel switch was connected to what turned out to be the masthead light. The mix-up of cabling was resolved easily but the legacy was the ticking bomb of un-tinned wire. Eventually it would corrode. 

Mousing the new wires through the mast was no fun and a few naughty bad words were scooped from the F@&k Box. 

Here at last was our best opportunity to remedy the wiring. Additionally, I really wanted a tri-colour masthead light for our off-shore passaging. I’d bought one a couple of years ago for this very moment. It was taking up space in the bilge, just waiting. Inspired, The Bloke also replaced the deck/motoring light array to a new LED version. To top it off, a new VHF aerial was fitted seeing as ours had been troubled by birds; had lost it’s coating and become rather deformed. Australian Cockatoos are to blame.

Tasks completed between rain showers.

The peeling  powder-coated paint on the radar dome support was also sanded back and replaced with a lick of two-pack. The Bloke had really embraced the rejuvenation option.

We had specified with the rigger that we wanted Selden turnbuckles. Last time he had used Ronstan ones on the outer stays and they didn’t match the rest of the rig. This selection generated some delay as they were to come from Germany. While whispers intensified about the implications of increasing Covid19 restrictions, we began to wonder if this were not a huge mistake. The longer we were stranded on the hardstand the more chance we’d get trapped by a shut-down. Would our Selden parts arrive at all?!  

In the finish we were a bit like a frog in a pot of water. We became accustomed to the threat of a shutdown and just got on with things. Which is not to say that Cookie didn’t receive multiple neurotic phone calls requesting an update; especially when boats were being re-rigged around us and returning to the water!

Eventually we received the happy news that the riggers were returning to prepare the mast.

Creating a new halyard outlet

The Bloke had arranged for a few alterations. New exit points were made for the Code Zero and inner headsail. This would make for a more conventional looking cutter rig as well as prevent chafing between the furled genoa and Code Zero. Sadly we completely forgot about the radar reflector and chafe tubes. Never mind!

We rapidly looked like a yacht again. The boom wasn’t put back on until after we’d returned to the water. The only mast step wiring The Bloke was unsuccessful reconnecting was the 18-wire radar cable, so it was delegated to a professional. Much to our surprise, this big job came in under budget which was a pleasant surprise seeing as we were, by this time, feeling like we were supporting the whole SE Queensland economy!

Hardstand 2020 Week 1 ... continued

It rained for 7 of the first 10 days of our hardstand time. This was a significant disruption. Additionally it meant that The Bloke’s methodical habits as a serial operative were shattered. Instead of completing a task and moving onto the next, multiple projects were started, resulting in what seemed like every part of the boat in some kind of deconstruction. We were living in total chaos.

Some masking and caulking removal around our side windows was begun. Then we had to cover the area over with black sheet plastic to stem the rain ingress. The windows had become leaky which was why we were undertaking the project in the first place.

If it was raining, The Bloke made a start on disconnecting the mast wiring. The rigger and crane were booked and there was a deadline for this job because the mast was coming down to facilitate re-rigging. New rigging is pretty much mandated by the insurance companies after 10 years and in any instance we’d well and truly eclipsed the other metric of 15,000nm.  The re-rigging constituted our biggest project with the biggest budget allocation.

The Bloke soldering new connectors at the base of the mast.

Well that fat cable was for the Radar which until then was a continuous length.

Having made a mess of the decks and the salon, further half started chaos came in the form of removing the solar panels. Mr Fastidious felt it was appropriate to replace the signex (mounting material) for the solar panels. It needed to be wider and represented an opportunity to replace and rewire the downward facing LED strip. The old flexible solar panels were never removed when we upgraded to solid solar panels. Now we could be rid of them and lighten off. A one-day hire was arranged for a scissor-lift which was spread over an afternoon and a weekend. There was no other way to access this area.

Going up

Down came the old flexible panels. The mounting board had become deformed by their heat. 

Luckily by the end of the rainy period, the daily temperatures had declined helping to make our physical exertion more bearable. The Bloke’s toe was healing well and daily dressings no longer required. If you don’t begin, you’ll never finish. We dreamed in exhausted and aching sleep of the trip to New Caledonia.