Odd jobs

Last couple of days we have been catching up with odd jobs, but not finishing any of them.

The priority is the bilge pumps since we don't want to go into the water without them working automatically. We cut out the hole for the pump control panel and fitted all the pumps and float switches, 3 of each. We have two bilge pumps, excluding the manual one. A small one that is the normal bilge pump and is left on auto all the time running from a float switch. The second is a much bigger one that can be either auto or manual. We tested the small one and it kept pace with the hose running into the bilges so we are pleased with that. The third pump/float switch combination is for the grey water holding tank.

I also sanded the cockpit ready for painting and Tim put Sikaflex between the deck rubbing strip and the hull. In the process he found a small part where the hull is delaminating which we will have to fix.

We have also been making the block to support the new winch to allow the chain to fall properly into the chain locker. We put all the chain in the locker too.

Ooops... nearly forgot the main news. We have a launch date! Wednesday January 13th at 9am. So we have to get all fixed by then.

Bilge pumps and polishing

Today we started the morning with me working on the bilge pumps and Tim working on polishing the topsides. Neither of us finished our task!

However... the starboard side looks pretty amazing from the polishing. We had been sold some colour restorer and polish by Harris at Ocean Marine and to be honest I was skeptical. But the results were amazing. No it doesn't look like a freshly spray painted hull, but it does not shine and the water runs off much quicker.

The bilge pumps took a lot of work and we ended up going to see Costantinos at Comar Marine for some more plumbing pipe, clips and one way valves. We installed and tested the grey water holding tank and installed both bilge pumps and tested the smaller one. The float switch for the large one still needs fixing... another day.

Sanding topsides

Tim spent most of the day sanding the topsides of the hull. We'd tried a small part of the hull - sanding and polishing and thought it would be a quick job. It wasn't. It took him most of the day just to sand it to get the gell coat to look pristine again. He then washed it down ready for polishing.

We noticed too that there was a gap between the rubbing strip and the hull. We'll fill this with Sikaflex.

Tim also finished all the preparation work for the Treadmaster. We still need to prepare the white paintwork since that has to be done before gluing the Treadmaster... but she's getting ready for launch.

Awlgrip anti-fouling

Anti-fouling is really rotten stuff, so Jacob was wearing hat, gloves, mask and protective glasses for painting the hull with me today. And it was a good job he was too... there were paint splatters on the hat, mask and eye glasses, and significant quantity on the gloves.

Because the paint dries so fast, Jacob and I were painting in shifts, so that the roller wouldn't dry out. I was doing the high bits and...

...Jacob was doing the low bits.

I must say King Malu did look smart by the time we had finished.

We also spent some time filling the ding on the port side a small problem at the port stern and some little gell coat holes at the bow all with gell coat.

Gell goat is horrid stuff to work with, at least that's what I find. It doesn't work like a filler, more like an over thick lumpy glue/paint that refuses to be smoothed and has to be filed smooth after it sets.

Hopefully tomorrow it will be hard enough to sand off and get smooth.

I also touched up the black line on the starboard side. The masking tape had not masked completely and there was a crinkly edge to it. So I hand painted the grey edge between the black and the grey.

Acid bath and exhaust

Notable happenings today were Ken's extraction of the exhaust pipe... which had holes in multiple places. Unwrapping the bandage from it showed just how big they were!

The shape of the exhaust meant Ken was somewhat concerned about how a new one could be manufactured.

Another of the activities was to give the propeller an acid bath to clean it up. We painted the propeller four times and then washed off.  We used concentrated sulfuric acid, which was what was recommended, and it seemed to do a very good job.

It doesn't look like new, but it is totally clean brass now. 

Epoxy hull guard

Today Jacob and I painted two coats of Awlgrip expoxy hull guard on King Malu. It was very tiring work. The hull guard paint is quite difficult to roller evenly.

But the final result leaves a protective coat over the entire hull below the water line and so definitely worth it.

Fixing the ding!

Very early this morning... well... very early for me that is... I went down to King Malu and painted a second grey coat on the band around the stern. Then back to the office for staff meeting.

This afternoon I came back to the boat to fix the ding on the starboard side. First of all I ground out as far back as the cracks in the gel coat went so that there could be no water penetration through the cracks. Then chamfered the edges to that the new gel coat would take. Ahh... just asked Sue how to spell chamfered and she had never heard the word. It means to grind down the edge, like a bevel so that its not a hard edge. 

Then I mixed up Epidermix 372 epoxy and layered Epidermix and glass-fibre matting into the hole. I then used the remaining Epidermix to fill other little holes below the water line.

When I got back to the office Tim came round and was slightly concerned that the Epidermix might run since I had layered it into quite a deep hole. We went down to the boat again and found that it looked fine not drooping at all. Epidermix is, I think, a South African epoxy and takes 7 days to cure fully. But hopefully will be solid enough not to droop over night.

Engine working and more!

Last week Tim felt we had turned the corner on getting King Malu ready, and this morning I was not so sure.

When I arrived at the boat Tim was already there and suggested that while Ken works on the engine we replace the stern gland packing. The 'stern gland packing' is some waxy/greasy rope that goes around the drive shaft to stop the water coming in. If a boat is left out of the water for too long [as King Malu has been] then the rope becomes brittle and doesn't block the water any longer.

Access to the stern gland is through the hanging locker in the rear cabin. And I think we have found the only design failure in the boat. The design failure? Well... the hanging locker doesn't go right to the floor and stops about 30-40cm from the floor. So, to access the stern gland you have to put towels on the the wood between the floor and the locker and then bend over with your tummy on the towels and hang down into the bilge area upside down! Not a comfortable position and one that you can only maintain for a few minutes before you black out!

So I started and removed the nuts from the stern gland and then removed the stern gland. I then tried and failed to remove the packing and so Tim took over. He opened the stern cabin hatch so that if he did black out we could get in and drag him out as he was effectively blocking the door into the stern cabin!

With some effort he managed to remove the old packing and we went off in search of new packing. None of the chandlers had it, one had gland packing, but the wrong size. However, in the way of Cyprus, Andreou Brothers, a hardware store had it. They sold it by weight and the cost of 60cm of gland packing? A 1 euro outlay.

Back at the boat Ken was ready to try restarting the engine. No luck. We tried a number of times. We were using ether to try to start the engine as the glow-plug was missing. No joy. Then... ooops... the top came off the ether aerosol spray. Where did the top go? It was only a serious loss if the top had gone down the air intake into the engine. So we were desperate to find it to ensure that it hadn't. Eventually Ken and Tim took off part of the air intake and checked it was not about to go into the engine. We never did find it.

Lunch and a welcome break. All sorts of theories were put about as to what to do with the engine. The most serious of which was to remove the top and bottom of the engine, remove the pistons, regrind and refix everything - basically totally recondition the entire engine... should only cost around 5,000 euros. No, we don't want to believe that!

Back from lunch and Tim repacked the stern gland and the the sun came out and I dashed out to paint the grey topcoat at the stern. Ken checked out the engine and we decided to have another go. She ran! We let the throttle go back to idle and she ran at idle. We stoped the engine and then restarted without ether. She ran beautifully at idle.

Just as we were congratulating Ken the phone rang. It was Steph with some more ideas about the engine. Tim put him on speaker phone and then after Steph had suggested all his ideas, Tim interrupted to tell him the good news. Absolute silence from the other end of the line. Eventually Steph found his voice and asked how it happened. With a totally straight face [or straight voice] Tim said 'Ken laid hands on the engine, Richard prayed it it came to life'. Steph found difficulty in believing this and Tim admitted that it was true that the engine was working but left the truth of anything else ambiguous.

Final task was to check out the running rigging [that's the ropes for the non-sailors reading this blog]. Some of the ropes were fine, some needed replacing. Surprisingly it was the old [possibly original] ropes that were fine and the newer braid-on-twisted that needed replacing. There is one rope that is possibly OK, but could do with replacing. Its the genoa halyard, which is a 6mm wire connected to a 12mm braid rope. Not a nice rope to replace. I think Dan may be able to do wire to rope splices so we will wait till he comes in April and ask him then.

Then check out the list of purchases. Measure the size of the cooker to replace that, check horseshoe, check the blocks/rope needed for the mainsheet... and a few other items.

Tim and I were feeling on a high, what with the engine running, most of the ropes not needing replacing and enough dry/sun to be able to get a coat of paint on the stern grey band, this had been a good day.

Weather report?

I had taken three days off which looked like the first two would be fine and the third one would fine for the morning. This morning I got up and at 8am checked weather.com and was thrilled to see the forecast to show fine all day. So I went down to the boat. Tim was already there doing some fine sanding on the deck. The weather looked great.

We cleaned up the deck and then I started doing the second top coat for the grey band, grey stripe and the stern. It was much better with Tim there as he moved the trestles we had borrowed from another boat and I kept painting.

At 11:00 it became overcast. About 11:30 it started to spit with rain. Oh no... but then it stopped and I finished the painting. While I was doing that Tim looked at the 'ding' on the starboard side that the previous owner had claimed was superficial. It is superficial, but not as superficial as he had claimed. We will have to dig out the bad, refill with glass-fibre and epoxy and then overfill with gel-coat.

Tim covered the hole with plastic sheet and then taped it all round to stop water getting into the hull.

Tim went back to the office and I cleaned up and went home for an early lunch. It rained. I looked at the weather forecast again... it now showed showers all day. Bad news.

I went back to the boat after lunch. It seemed that the polyurethane paint had set sufficiently that I could remove the blue masking tape. She looked great.

I then remembered that I had intended hand painting the stern grey stripe so returned home to get an artist brush for that.

Just as I was starting that, Tim came down and admired the new paintwork. She really is getting to look great. He suggested getting a signwriter to re-do the name and port information as if we use adhesive lettering it would not fully cover the old and not look as good as signwriting over the old.

I was not liking the hand painting the grey stripe at the stern. I had tried using masking tape but could not get it to follow the line. Tim got the masking tape and with added pressure persuaded the tape to follow the line. I painted the grey stripe [undercoat]. Great team - almost every time something I cannot do Tim does and vice versa.

Next is to lightly sand and polish the hull and then paint the anti-fouling. All we need is four days of no rain.

Painting

Last weekend Tim and I felt we had turned a corner with King Malu, no longer taking apart, but putting back together. That doesn't mean there isn't more to take apart or that there isn't a lot to do, but that we had changed mode so to speak.

Today I spent painting. Yesterday I did the undercoat on the grey band and the stern and today I put the first topcoat on.

This was my first time with multi-part epoxy and multi-part polyurethane paints. I must say the epoxy undercoat did feel a little like painting with glue at times.

It was quite tricky to ensure that the polyurethane top coat covered evenly and didn't run. I think I did manage it though as there are no runs on the band. When Tim arrived and saw it he thought again about painting the entire hull. Not this year!

It says you can re-coat without sanding, but to get a better result then sand with very fine sandpaper. I think we might try that - sanding with 1000 grit sandpaper.

We also spent a little time cleaning up the deck ready for undercoating that. We didn't get that finished... but did quite a lot. When I say 'we' I mean Jacob and me. Jacob came down for the whole day and was a tremendous help.

Later in the afternoon he went to see one of our near neighbours arriving. They have been lifting out boats continually every day for the last few days. Aren't you glad boat lifts only stay within the marina. Imagine meeting this traveling at 4 mph on a busy street.

The sound of power washing after lift out echoes across the marina. When it stops the silence is refreshing... till us or someone else starts grinding away with a power orbital sander or similar!

I'm really looking forward to seeing King Malu in the boat lift on her way back to the water. Hopefully before Christmas.

Every spot on the hard looks like it will be taken with a boat. Many are being repaired or maintained for the new season, but a fair number have 'For Sale' signs up.

The sailing boat next to us is up for sale and we see people coming to view on a few occasions. The reason for sale is that the cabin is too low for the current owner who has to stoop to get around the cabin. It's a fair sized yacht - similar to King Malu - but obviously with a lower deck. Fortunately King Malu has a high deck which means Tim, who is taller than me, can stand and walk everywhere without bending... even though he has to remember to duck through the cabin doorways or he would crack his head.

Water, water everywhere...

I'm generally the owl and Tim generally the lark. So for him to find me at the boat by 7am this morning was a shock to the system. He and Mark arrived a few minutes after me... having bet each other that I would not be there before them. Had they actually bet, Mark would have been the richer.

Why so early? Well, the weather this weekend has been terrible. Rain, rain, thunder, lightening, rain and more rain... the forecast for today was that the best of the weather would be before 11am. And the forecast was correct.

The good news is that all the grinding off the old ant-fouling is complete. Tim has had his last hot red shower. Yes, you did read that right, not a red hot shower, but a hot red shower... the old Jotun anti-fouling was red and got everywhere. Even wearing a mask and goggles it in most places. Now that is complete.

We also completed the grinding off of the old Treadmaster glue. There is a little work to do sanding round the edges, but that is all gone. We vacuumed and cleaned off what we could but lets hope the rain washes it away, since the glue becomes a solid cement like substance when it gets wet, dries and is hardened by the sun.

I also managed to sand down the grey band along both sides of the hull ready for painting. The intention had been to do the first two coats Monday and Tuesday, and third coat Friday. But the rain is set for Monday and Friday so I hope to do them Tuesday through Thursday. But... we found an extra task to add the the list and the order will have to be changed both because of the rain. How come? Well, having removed the grab handles and toast racks we had put gaffer tape over the holes. But this didn't stop the water coming through!

Not only there, but there were drips from somewhere else on the cabin roof. This is our first time with rain and King Malu. We removed more of the ceiling panels and discovered a rotting panel under the main hatch. Putting a screwdriver through this rooting marine ply panel was like opening a tap! Ahhh... the boat has settled slightly for'ard over eight years and so any water from the cockpit seating runs into the runners for the main hatch. Because it has settled for'ard the water then runs into the space above the main hatch and sits there as a pond on this marine ply board. Over eight years the wood has rotted.

Today before we left we put up a plastic tent over the boom to try to reduce the amount of water running into this space and thence into the saloon.

So apart from all the grinding, what else has happened this week? We had two deliveries of supplies. One from Limassol and one from the UK. I had a meeting this week in Limassol so collected all the paints from Ocean Marine and brought them back to Larnaka.

The second from the UK came from MailSpeedMarine.com and they certainly lived up to their name, for speed that is. They have an amazing deal on at the moment for a 2.7 metre inflatable dinghy as a tender for yachts. It's only 299 GBP. They said they could arrange delivery to Cyprus included within that price. To both Tim's and my amazement that was delivery overnight by UPS. They have won a customer, with service like that we will buy from them again.

The engine... well that was not so good news sadly. Ken came down on Saturday morning with new injector valves and spent a couple of hours fitting them and sorting everything out for a test run. This happened about mid day. The engine turned over, coughed, spluttered and died. Quite a few times. There was fuel leaking from the injector pump, but that probably didn't cause it to not run, so Ken has gone away to think.

However, with all the grinding off finished, we feel we have turned the corner. From dismantling and grinding to rebuilding and painting. A step forward.

Travel and Express?

I was sent some of the special rollers, some extra paint and instructions for the Awlgrip paint by Ocean Marine in Limassol. Rather than using Akis Express they used Travel and Express. My first time in 12 years with Travel and Express for parcels... Harris from Ocean Marine apparently sends the parcel off at 2pm so I am sitting waiting for a call. None comes all afternoon. Eventually at 5:15 I call Harris.

Harris says, 'I definitely sent it at 2pm, Travel and Express don't call you just go down there, it will be waiting... I don't know exactly where they are but they are near the marina...'

I remember seeing Travel and Express when going to get parts from Andreou Brothers. So off I go as fast as allowed... get to Travel and Express and they say, 'No this is not Travel and Express parcel office, that is the other one... you need to go to the end of the road, turn left, at the lights straight on... 800 metres it is there in front of you... quick you have five minutes they shut at 5:30'

As I come out of that Travel and Express office the heavens open and I am soaked!

I run to the car.

I follow their instructions and cannot find it. Retrace my steps, try again. No luck. Go to Akis Express wondering if the two are linked somehow. No, they are not. Get new instructions: 'Turn left at the lights, down the road then left and right and it is on the corner...' I am parked wrong side of the road at 5:30pm... navigate out through the traffic, follow their instructions. No joy.

Try again, wondering which left after the right they meant as the second left does go down to the marina and would be close to the Marina as Harris said. At the end of that road there is another taxi company. No, they are not Travel and Express they are Akropolis Taxis. Stop and ask them. 'Turn left, go to the first lights, straight on, at the bakery turn left, it is on the corner...' I follow these instructions, but they take me to the first Travel and Express office which had redirected me to the second.

OK, let's try again with their instructions: 'You need to go to the end of the road, turn left, at the lights straight on... 800 metres it is there in front of you...' I turn left at the end of the road, and get to the lights. At the lights I spot a Travel and Express transit van. As soon as the lights change I chase it... and find, yes, the Travel and Express parcel office.

The cashier is closed, but a helpful man gives me the parcel and takes the money [because I have the right change] and tapes it to the signed receipt.  Now we have the rollers and brushes and instructions for the painting tomorrow!