Roccella - Repairs..

22 Oct

A separate page for the ongoing.. I was put on the hard on Tuesday. By Wednesday morning, the local Guards Costieri, commander had determined that my boat wasn't in a safe place. So the better part of yesterday, was spent with the shipwright and the property owner explaining to the Comanante, that the boat was on private property and that it was a shipyard. This occupied the people that were supposed to provide a quote, the entire morning. The matter was resolved, by placing traffic cones around the boat.. Imagine this solution in all shipyards....

I busied myself yesterday, before the rain came, by cleaning the hull and applying some wax(close to the waterline) and as high as I could reach. The rain arrived at about 18h00 and continued through the night.

Later yesterday afternoon I received an email from the insurance company informing me that they would be sending a surveyor to inspect the boat. After hearing nothing from the surveyor yesterday, I called him this am and he told me he would be sending someone either later today or tomorrow.. So I am standing by..

27 October

The surveyor, arrived on the 24th at 08h00 as he had communicated and after 1/2 an hour or so, he concluded that the damage sustained was a result of the shoddy work carried out by Chantier nautism Sillage - and he would recommend that insurance cover it. He submitted his report yesterday and my fears were confirmed - Pantaneius insurance informed me that as a result of the poor workmanship, they were not going to cover any of the repair costs.

So it is up to me to get in contact with a company that did more damage to the boat than a grounding, and after damaging the boat, they did a great hack job and to convince the insurance company, that I am not a policy holder of to do something about it.... Great!!!!!

Not entirely happy with things right now!!!

Innocuous little crack

Rear of the hull

Hull/Keel separation

After removing the "reinforcing" work by the hacks

 The entire "reinforcing job carried out by the hacks has separated from the hull - as they didn't prepare the hull properly..  Another nice touch is the drainage holes, that are approx 10mm from the level of the floor, so any water that makes it's way into the hull will be trapped till it reaches at least that height....

Foremost keel washer was bent nicely 

So the current repair job is just to remedy the situation and get me seaworthy and safe... In the meantime, I will have to spend my time dealing with people, who couldn't do a job right first time, have been paid and an insurance company that I am not a policy holder or a beneficiary....

5 Nov

I sent the surveyor responsible for the initial assessment a copy of the insurance finding(despite his understanding English - I contacted him when I bought the boat) no response.. I sent the same letter to the insurance who paid for it and no response - I am *TRULY* surprised.. Probably try another tact, heck I've got nothing to loose..

This pas weekend was pretty miserable, wind and torrential rain started at 02h30 on Sat and continued blowing from 20 up to 47kts and raining till Monday lunch.. I felt like a bloody cocktail with all the shaking the boat was doing, still its was way better than being at sea for that kind of " experience "..

The torrential rain caused damage to the infrastructure and the materials orders and were on route to be delivered have been delayed, so just waiting for them, once the arrive, its a matter of remedying the work of the previous cretins, attaching the keel waiting till the glue sets(unlike the previous cretins) and I should be off..

Fun facts I have learnt about the boat - she weights 13 tons, 5 of which are the keel. With 1/2 the keel glued on, that is still strong enough to hold the keel..  The hull at the keel attachment is 30mm thick...

The frustrating thing about this delay is I am being held up by shoddy workmanship to an improvement which is about as useful as a f#&+ing chocolate teapot.. This crap work could have resulted in damage to the hull had it not been fixed.. Fortunately it has been caught and after the proposed fix, the boat will be in better shape as parr of the old " improvements" have been done properly...

In the meantime I will patiently wait till things are done and as they say here"vidiamo"... :-)

15 Nov

Ninety percent of the work has been completed, now all that is left to do is to apply antifouling.

Superficial damage to hull

 This damage was caused by the keel been half glued on, keel bolts not being tightened properly (the surface of the hull was badly formed by the morons doing the "reinforcing").

So before the work could start, the boat was on the hard for some time and every evening the heater would be placed to blow warm dry air through the bilge and exposed sections to ensure they were properly dried.

This has been the state of the saloon since going on the hard..

 Before work could commence, the boat had to be moved as they don't have a travel lift here (yet) the boat had to be moved in stages..

Where it was taken out the water (was a hazard according to harbourmaster)

Pick her up and drop her closer to the the workshop... 

 This has been home for the last 3 weeks... Which is nice... This was done before the storm - that storm was the worst in the area in the last 60 years - it was not fun being on the hard, the wind blew pretty much non stop from 02h30 Sat till 06h00 Monday, it blew up to 47kts... The rain was also pretty much incessant..

 Since they are setting up the workshop here, they didn't have resin - so they ordered a bucket of the stuff - due to the storm, it was delayed by 3 days.... Eventually it arrived and they started work. This was the messiest part, as they had to grind away fibreglass...

Note the hole int he bilge(was repaired with sealant)

 Once that was out of the way it was time to replace the piece that was removed and level off all the area surrounding the keel bolts so they are level and can be tightened properly. Also part of the  fix is to place steel plates across the bolts to ensure a better hold.

Apply a longeron and level off the two hills around the keel bolts..

 After about 4 leters of resin and numerous layers of fibreglass the keel liner was replaced and the areas around the keel bolts were reasonably level. This was allowed to set for a day.

Part of the frustration here has been the number of priority jobs that have pitched up, resulting in the guys doing other work instead of finishing this job. One example it a boat had to be put on the hard for winter... So they were instructed to stop working on my boat and put the other boat on the hard WTF! There is a staging area here where impounded vessels (vessels carrying illegal immigrants, or paper work not being in order) are stored. The harbourmaster, instructed them to urgently move a boat (that had been impounded for 2+ years whose paperwork had been cleared) from the impounding area to the general repair area..  The boat was going nowhere... Still it was deemed a priority.....

 With fibreglass applied, the areas around the keel bolts were leveled which will allow us to put steel plates...

 All fibreglass work done and just have to sand the  work to apply gelcoat...

The sections that were leveled

Sanded and ready for gelcoat..

 On the 11 of Nov, the restaurant here closed for holidays, so I had 1/2m of pizza, which was nice...

 On Thursday, after the "priority" jobs were done, we glued the keel and the hull - FINALLY. Now all we are waiting on is the steel plates. One set of steel merchants agreed to provide the plates, after sitting on the drawings for 2 days, he decided he wasn't able to make them (despite providing assurances to the contrary, when asked if he could), so had on Friday, another local workshop came by, he didn't have 10mm plate, but proposed doubling up 6mm and welding the seems and he would deliver them on Saturday AM..

 Port and starboard side looking at the keel

The 37ft Bendytoy was one of the priority jobs.

 We tightened the keel, with the original washers, so we could fit the keel. On Saturday morning, the steel merchant arrived with the plates! So I started removing the washers on the keel, to allow the glue to set and to inspect the holes.. Pretty satisfied with the seal, the 7.5 tubes of glue were did their jobs, all the bolts are perfectly sealed

Only this one is not 100% - will apply glue and fix..

 The original work had these small washers, I will be putting this steel plate instead and the washers on top - this way we can tightened the keel to hull properly.

Perfect seal

 This is what the final repair will look like those stainless steel plates will allow us to firmly atatch the keel to the hull..

Over the last few days, been cleaning the cabins and doing odd repairs to gelcoat on boat and teak deck... The plan is to finally fit the plates tomorrow and tighten them up properly, go into the water on Tuesday, first crew mwmbwe, Evelyn arrives on Wed. We will provision on Wed and hopefully continue the trip on Thursday.....

17 Nov

Yesterday, we fitted the backing plates and glued them in place.. It is done and we are going in the water, in the afternoon. This is how it should have been done first time round! Some bolts need a second nut to lock in place - they only placed two nuts on the immediately visible bolts (cheap bastards! 

Rear most bolts (rear bolt needs a locking nut)

Second set of bolts(one set needs locking nuts)

Rear set of bolts (rear most need locking nuts)

Front bolt

 I need to buy two washers, an extra nut and new ground wire... The keel SECURELY attached to the hull and antifouled..

And we were moved to the water... Because they don't have a ravel lift, moving he boat around is an undertaking....

Francesco and Adriano steadying the ship while Giuseppe drove the crane 

It was REALLY great to be in the water again - a BIG thanks to Francesco, Adriano and Giuseppe, for their good work. If anyone needs work done in he south of Italy, Nautica Sposari, is he place to go - really great people and good workmanship.

I started up the engine and it sounded a bit loud and it looked as though not much water was going through - so I checked the impeller and it was still brand new (since I only fitted it 56 hours ago) - I chalked it down to my not being used o the boat.. By the time everything was done, it was 20h00 - I went to bed early as I had to go to Brindisi in the morning to pick up Evelyn (met her and Stefan earlier in the year) and do some sightseeing.. One thousand km later and a few unscheduled detours, we were back  on the boat. 

It was decided that the plan to leave on Thursday was rather aggressive.. So Thursday was spent going over the boat with Evelyn. Just as well we did as I was tightening the lazybag and the whole line came down - so Evelyn agreed to be hauled up the mast to feed the new line.. I had a niggling feeling that I should replace the other line, but I ignored it... 

After getting some supplies an some cleaning we had dinner with Maggie and Bronco and their two pooches. Maggie and Bronco are a Canadian couple that are travelling the world on their boat Hobo - they are from Toronto as well, they kept checking up on me while I was at Roccella. I wish them fair winds, following seas and all the good health. Next day we were off..

Roccella Ionica

14 Oct

After a peaceful night's sleep, with the exception of the bilge alarm, we had breakfast, cleaned the boat, as she was caked in salt and then the crew went into town for some RnR and I stayed behind to fix the bilge pump and the vent in the fore cabin as it leaked slightly.

Safely at dock in Roccella - not quite summer!

 After disassembling the bilge pump, the reason for it not working was pretty obvious...  So off to town to get a new impeller..

One pooched impeller

After fitting the pump and verifying it worked, I spent a bit of time investigating the source of the water as by this point the assumption that it had come from the wave breaking over the boat was not valid.. What I noticed was water weeping in from a section in the hull, far from any through fitting, which was *NOT GOOD*. I contacted the insurance company and was informed that they would be sending someone to take a look.. The someone arrived and confirmed that it was not good, until they had the boat on the hard, they could not truly how bad it was but it did not look promising...

The crack in between the bolts - the source of the water

Lifting her out of the water was not an option as the wind was blowing pretty well.. Today was also not an option as the weather was not overly pretty and just as well we are on a boat because there was enough rain to consider rounding up the animals..

In short the sailing adventure to exit the Med is on hold for now till we ascertain the extent of the damage... I will keep updating as more info becomes available.. I have informed the crew and they are looking for another boat...

Update - I have just been told that Roccella will not be able to get me out of the water till next Thurs, so I am awaiting instructions on where to go....

17 Oct

The bilge pump has stopped functioning - so after checking it and seeing nothing was wrong, the next culprit - the one-way valve... It turns out that that is also broken, so that has also been repaired..

18 Oct

The last of the crew, Gunnar has left. The other two crew, Tim and Evan left the day before. A big thanks to them for the help in getting us this far. I am waiting for Tuesday, when I am told I will get lifted out the water and I will have a better understanding of the challenge I am facing..

20 Oct

We were lifted out the water and after some preliminary inspection, it seems there is good news as  there seems to be no obvious damage. The source of the leak is the joint between the keel and the hull. The rear part of the joint, was "repaired" by me in Cogolin Marina - the original was a rubber a sticky mess and had already separated from the joint.. 

It might not be an insurance job as this might fall under bad repair from previous bunch or regular wear and tear. The keel bolts are all tightly fastened - except where there are two nuts - the top one doesn't seem to be too tight...

On the hard again..

Apparent source of leak

All the top nuts were just hand tightened

After lunch we have had another look, turns out the repair after the anchor drag was not of the best quality.. The pictures below show the gap between the keel and the hull. The locals are discussing the options and will come back with possible solutions..

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