Saturday 5 September 2015

Preparation

4 Sep - I will keep updating this page as things happen..  After returning from Marmaris, where I got a datasim, which I was told would work in an hour (and it did, unlike Greece), I contacted Moby Marine - Elvstrom Sailmaker rep and advised them I had arrived and they could pick up the sail.  They arrived roughly an hour later, i told them I would be doing an Atlantic crossing. He took a look at the sail and recommended I service it, as he immediately spotted some perished stitching some patches, similarly the genoa. The tape at foot and the leech of the sail needed reparing, they took both sails off and took them away. I also told him that the boat points really well on a starboard tack, but to port she is a bit of a pig - they would take a look at the sail and modify as needed since they were doing the leech of the sail. I am awaiting a quotation for the servicing and repair of the sails.

I also went to the Raymarine rep and told them what I needed, they immediately came to the boat took a look, I went back to they office and showed me all the bits I needed and provided prices, an hour later I had the quotation, for 1 Radar,  a 9" and 7" chart plotter, new Tridata (my current one is giving up the ghost) an new wind indicator, charts for the Med, Carribean and North America + cables and installation. I checked prices and am impressed. I am just checking a bit more, but will most likely get them to install the gear - I could do it but the installation price is pretty low and they would also take a look at my autohelm software.

I also got someone to take a look at the Davits - my though was to have an arch over the back - that got kyboshed, immediately as they can't weld while the boat was in the water. So we discussed further options, I was supposed to go to the office to work though some more suggestions, but a string of phone calls delayed me.  They are scheduled to come back to day so we can solve this issue..

I will remove the autohelm drive to get a bearing replaced and properly service it to day and do some teak work.

Outstanding items are :
 - Satellite coms for the trip, so I can get weather and in an emergency communicate to the world
 - Eprib for the boat
 - Decent first aid kit
 - purge line for desalinator
 - Wind generator
 - clean + polish boat - WIP.
 - sheet bags for the cockpit
 - clean BBQ


*** Update
On Saturday, I took off Otto Von Helms drive and then headed off to Marmaris to try to watch some rugby... I was partly successful, in that by the time I found the pub, the England game was pretty much over... Then the pub switched over to Galic football - WTF.. So I had to go find another venue to watch the Wales Italy  game... I managed to find a restaurant showing he game almost at the other end of the Marmaris..  Along the way I walked past this,,,
A place for Pilot's to drink - *AWESOME*, I wonder if  you get a discount if you in uniform?
Between the two hills, lies the marina


On Sunday I spent the better part of the day in bed as I didn' get much sleep and I had developed a rather nifty bark...   After some sleep, I got up and started to work on the new dodger, the old dodger had chaffed through at some points that I had reinforced earlier in the year... Long story short, after 4 days work, some cursing I was done with the new dodger..  I managed to get some new plastic for the windows from he local sail shop - who was extremely  helpful, his prices were also very good.
Early in the process - more intact grey than white
Finishing off the starboard front panel
Port front panel
Almost there...
And we are done!!!
 I also changed the way the solar panel was mounted - this way when it rains, there should be no rain below the dodger..
 While I was at it I changed the sun awning - the original one is still ok, but I wanted something that I could remove in a hurry - also visible is the new tridata intrument, the original one was acting up.

Next on the todo list was Otto - that cost me 180EUR, for three new bearings - one of them was a phospor bronze bush, that had to be custom made. I thought it was pretty cheap..

Otto Von helm's drive unit

The end of his shaft had to be dressed - someone had employed percussive maintenance which had spalled he end of the shaft 
The shaft above, fits into the bronze bush below, which was badly worn. This is the electric clutch of he drive unit.
New bronze bush
The other side of the above shaft.
Another new bearing
After assembling the drive I mounted it, it engaged quietly, it used to engage with a clunk - ever since I have owned the boat.

On Thursday, the Raymarine people came round to install the new kit. It took three of them from 9-5. I decided to install the radar on the side of the mast so no sheets of sails get wrapped around it (I was initially going to mount it on the front, with a guard, but I changed my  mind). They ran into a bit of a snag - they couldn't feed the radar cable all the way down - the mas is closed about 1m above the deck and has a pipe with a hole - i took then about 1/2 an hour o discover this.  The new charploter is a bit smaller than the old one, so they had to make a faceplate. The old me they would be back on Monday 9am o finish off the job (install the 7" display in the cockpit as it was sill stuck at customs). Monday came, and they showed up a 9, without the display - it was still stuck in customs.
New Radar

On Sunday, I decided to do some teak repair work, some seams were not it a good state, so I spent the early part of the day fixing some of the teak.
Seams were in a sorry state..

Foredeck seams
Port section
Starboard section
 The repairs were pretty symmetrical - which makes one wonder, if that is where someone took a break and didn't prepare again...

I also polished all the stainless steel on he boat as it was starting to rust..  Today I spend the day removing old wires from the old equipment and ensuring all the equipment still works..

BBQ has been cleaned an polished, boat is now almost seaworthy, I just need to install it again to be ready to sail.

Boat has also been cleaned..

Over all I am quite impressed with this marina - they  have a pretty good chandlery (probably the best I have come across in my travels) - it is open 7 days a week, from 08h30-19h00, the prices are pretty good as well. All the workshops are open 6 days a week and pretty much keep the same hours. The mini market here is also open 7 days a week and closes at 9 in the evening.
Looking at the stores and restaurant

Restaurant has live music on Fridays 
Panorama shot of the marina

I'm off to England tomorrow to he boat show, I will look for an EPIRB, satellite coms, storm drogue, first aid kit and ditch bag.

I made a sheet bag - but it looked rather woeful.. Will have to come up with another solution..

Also figured out why the boat points horrendously to port - the instrument is not calibrated correctly - today the wind was blowing pretty much from the bow (every other boat's indicators were also pointing in he same direction), I was showing a wind of 40 degrees to port - which is where I was going into irons....

I now have two crew members, Tim and Evan who will be ready in early Oct.

I decided to scrub the decks just before setting off, and they don't look half bad..

----------- Update 6 Oct

I went to England on the 17 Oct, to have a Lim Cello Party with Mike and Michelle and to go to the Southampton boat show and to see Derek. Unfortunately Mike wasn't feeling to well so the Cello party was out of the question. It was good to catch up with them.

The Southampton boat show was not overly impressive, there were lots of boats to see but not a lot of boat systems , as aa result I didn't buy anything - I was mainly hunting for a wind generator. I didn't end up getting that.

I came back to Marmaris, on the 23rd, the whole of that week was a series of holidays. Long story short, on the Monday, I got the remainder of my chartplotters,


the following day I got my sails back. They looked like new...

The rest of the time was spent cleaning the boat and looking for things to fix, new snubber and charcoal filter for drinking water


Charcoal filter


The new crew started arriving on the 30, 4, and 5. They have lent a hand  and she is ready.

The last outstanding item was the watermaker - I discovered, through paying(obviously) that a utter moron had assembled the water maker last and an even bigger joker installed it originally. The watermaker was plumbed incorrectly (inlet was configured as outlet and vice versa). The original joker that installed the thing pit hopelessly inadequate cables - you could only run the thing for 15minutes before the cables were ready to melt.. That got fixed. So now we have fresh water and we can produce it for periods longer than 15minutes.

Cable on left was what was originally installed, to carry 40Amps... The one on the right the current one..


On Sunday, we took the day off and went to Bodrum.

Today we spent the day provisioning and tomorrow we are off to Rhodes, then Malta..



2 comments:

  1. You may want to take a look to see if your mast is leaning to starboard a little bit. The mast may be straight, but leaning. You should be able to easily correct it by re tensioning the rig.....it may help balance out ur tacks.

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  2. Identified the problem - the wind guage was off, roughly 40 degrees, I zeroed it today...

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