Journal Entries

January 2010

15 January - It's been over 6 months since my last ship's log update. Thanks to all of the people who have emailed me checking if I'm ok. It's nice to know that people out there are checking up on me.

As from this month I will be resuming my regular updates and there are some really big things happening, so stay tuned!

Unfortunately last July I sustained a bad shoulder injury which really threw my life into disarray. It was causing me so much grief that day to day life was a real battle. I couldn't sleep properly, I couldn't work at the pace I needed to and generally living onboard a boat with a 30kg dog was becoming seriously uncomfortable. Without dwelling on it too much I finally seem to have some resolution since an MRI scan identified a labral tear. I'm not 100% but it's 500% better than it was a few months ago.

So what have I been up to for the past 6 months. Plenty.

Since I was having real difficulty with my shoulder lifting Cutty on and off the boat I decided the only option was to move to a marina. Unfortunately the only one I could get into was a long way from the city. The positive (I'm always trying to find the positives these days) was that it was right on the bay and the water was like crystal compared to the Brisbane river.

Here we are at the marina. Cutty can jump on and off without me having to lift her.

Of course being so far away from the city now meant having to face bumper to bumper peak hour traffic or public transport. How do people do this every day?

Here is another shot of the Marina. It's very convenient being able to step on and off the boat and not have to fill and lift heavy jerry cans for water. The cost of this convenience however is $190 per week compared to $50 I was paying for a river mooring.

The boat was overdue for antifouling so despite struggling with my shoulder I took the boat to the slipway. The photo below is at the end of the slipping as you can see the new antifoul has been applied. You will also note the black boot stripe I had put on. There was a little pitting around the water line so I figured a quick boot line would seal it up until I had time to look at fixing it properly. I'm really happy with the way the black stripe looks.

Another shot from the boat shed.

While I was up on the slip I figured I would get a few jobs done that had been bothering me for a while. I always disliked the big cluster of digital instruments at the cockpit. Half of them didn't work (I hate electronics) and the others were fairly pointless (eg: wind direction/speed indicator). So out they came and went onto ebay for sale. Now, how to fill the holes.

The plywood under the fibreglass on the Westsails is so thick. I'm no engineer and I'm extremely conservative, but seriously these boats are built like tanks. This is the thickness of the plug needed to fill the holes. Remember on top of that is also a very thick layer of fibreglass.

Plugs epoxied into place ready for some glass and then finally gelcoat.

the final patch. The colour matching didn't come out that well but this will eventually be painted and it will be like there was never anything there. The only remaining instrument is the depth meter. That's always a handy thing to know.

While I was up on the slipway I wanted to do some work to the interior. I was still going to the office and living with sawdust, paint, varnish and epoxy doesn't work well. So below was my accommodation for the week or so I was on the slipway. i got this roof top tent a while back and it is superb. It's a top quality Eezi-Awn which are made in South Africa. It's seriously heavy duty and is a very comfortable bed.

Here is my office. Cutty comes to the office with me and is happy to find a place on the floor to sleep. She always gets a positive reception from people and I think they find it quite a novelty that a dog comes to work at a big law firm.

This was another project I wanted to do. My bed had been annoying me for a long time. You may recall I changed it a few years ago, but it didn't work out too well. I finally came up with the perfect solution. Now I have a full size double bed that is really comfortable to get in and out of and allows access to all the draws underneath. I just need to get some varnish onto that bare timber.

Viajero is almost ready to go back into the water. Check out the beautiful antifoul and smooth hull. Once again, not a single blister or sign of osmosis. Incredible for a 35 year old boat

Just before I was leaving a couple of black swans and their chicks were paddling up the creek. I wonder how rare these are?

Back at the marina and I have decided to strip all the timber and apply varnish. I swore years ago never to use varnish as I didn't have the time to maintain it. Things are a little different now and I'm making a commitment to keep the varnish work in bristol condition. There is nothing like boat with beautiful varnish work.

I also finally got my wind generator mounted. I think it's been over a year since I bought it. Once mounted I couldn't believe how efficient it was. I'm not 100% happy with the way it's mounted as I think it's vulnerable in a really bad sea, but for the time being it's up and working.

I'm so impressed with the KISS wind generator. It's virtually silent compared to the air-x and air-breeze. I had the good fortune to be near another boat who had also just installed an air-breeze wind generator and we compared notes. He was quite upset that he didn't get the kiss. We would stand on the dock next to Viajero and we could hear his wind generator whistling away. There was no noise from the KISS despite it making about 10amps at the time. [about a month after installing the generator it has started to make a grinding noise. I have written to KISS but not had any response. Great wind generator, lousy customer service].

I also sanded the boomkin back and gave it a good coat of white enamel. The old paint had started to age and there was a bit of water ingress. Fortunately no rot in the timber and with the new paint job it should stay that way.

A few years ago I bought a book by Ferenc Mate. If you don't know him, he had a Westsail called "Warm Rain". He and his wife wrote many books on yachts, including "The Finely Fitted Yacht". If you have a Westsail, definitely buy this book. It is full of great little projects and tips. One such project was the fitting of eyebrows to the cabin sides. This serves two purposes. One to stop water (if you route the underside of the timber to stop drips) from running down into the portlights and secondly a purely aesthetic function to give the appearance of a lower (and sleeker) cabin top. I love the traditional look they give to yachts and their original function was apparently to secure the canvas tops of the cabin. I have seen old timber yachts with them and they always look beautiful. I have also seen some yachts that don't have them, like a Hans Christian and thought it would make such a difference to the lines if it did.

First step was to find some nice long pieces of teak and router a small groove to the underside to make a drip channel.

then line up the timber to sit along the cabin side. I drilled screw holes into the cabin sides and teak strips 300mm apart.

I had to hand cut each plug hole by twisting the drill since using a drill splintered the timber too badly. My fingers were pretty cut up after doing so many holes.

Once the screws are in place and the plug holes cut then the sickaflex can be applied to stick the teak to the cabin sides and stop any water getting in behind.

then each hole needs to be plugged. Fortunately I bought a plug cutter a few years ago. If you have teak decks, you need a plug cutter.

Now for the corners. Ferenc Mate suggests giving the corners a miss and to just run the eyebrows along the side. He writes that his attempts resulted in what looked like little pieces of wood that resembled shriveled bananas. I was up for a challenge and thought that continuing the eyebrows around the side made a nice feature so below was the result. I used a small dremel drill and hand chisel to make the corners which turned out pretty well.

The first one took me about 6 hours, the second only 3. The aft 2 I knocked up in about 2 hours each. It's a fiddly job but well worth it... and no shriveled bananas!!!

Cutty is finding it all a little pointless really.

A final sand down and a couple of coats of varnish and the finished product looks pretty good

And the project almost finished and out for a test run. What a difference varnish makes to the timber and overall look of a yacht. The eyebrows really make such a difference to the look of the boat and the entire cabin top looks much lower and more traditional.

If you are a Westsail owner and would like to fit eyebrows to your boat, I'll be writing up a detailed project article in the "Articles" section. It's a pretty simple and quick project that can make a big difference to the lines of the boat.

Next month I have a pretty big adventure going on which isn't completely Westsail oriented. February is going to be very exciting and I'm looking forward to posting lots of photos.

Happy new year to everyone and thanks again for your emails.