Journal Entries

March 2005

2 March - March is here already! My boat is coming along slowly as there have been a couple of delays. The new coat of antifoul was sprayed yesterday and the new colour and faired bottom looks great. She will even sail a little faster now. Peter will buff the rest of the hull today and do a couple of minor repairs to some chips and scratches.

You can see what a nice job was done, even the prop has a good coating.

and a shot from the rear.

Peter finished the new doors for the anchor lockers and the bathroom. They are an exact match to the existing doors throughout the boat and I'm looking forward to seeing them fitted.

Here is another photo of the anchor locker doors being finished

The sign writer will come today to arrange the new name and home port. I expect another couple of weeks and that will be a month in total. I am missing living onboard and I feel completely unsettled at the moment. I'm trying to focus on my work and it's probably a good thing because I have so much to get through at the moment.

5 March - I haven't had much opportunity to get back out to the slipway to work on my boat. The guys at the slipway have been making progress on the rigging and work on the deck, while Peter is gradually getting to the bathroom.

9 March - I finally managed to get a day away from work to go out to the boat today. The engine comes back on Friday so I really needed to spend some time cleaning the engine bay. I spent a few hours detailing it and removing all the grease and oil build up from the past 30 years. I hope never to have to remove the engine again so this is probably the last chance I have to clean the engine bay thoroughly. The photo below is a view from above with the cockpit floor removed after I cleaned it.

The mast and boom were sprayed today. They have been stripped, acid etched then primed with a two pack epoxy and finally coated with magnolia polyurethane paint. The rig looks like new now and certainly needed the attention.

Below is the mast tabernacle base which was also treated to the same attention.

The deck joints had previously been resealed, but due to a problem with the product used, I have had to repeat the whole procedure. All of the sikaflex was scraped out from along the teak decking, then the surface thoroughly cleaned and prepared. The edges were masked off and a new batch of sika applied. Below is a photo of the procedure.

On goes the sikaflex

now it's being pushed into the joint and finally the tape is removed for the finished product.

The top sides of the cabin have also had a paint treatment. The old faded blue colour just didn't look right and you can see the new colour "magnolia" matches the rest of the new colour scheme.

After cleaning the engine bay I spent most of the rest of the day working on the butterfly hatch. I have spent hours on this thing removing all of the varnish and polishing the stainless steel rods which protect the new glass.

It's going to be beautiful once I get a coat of cetol on it.

The new doors were fitted to the anchor locker today. What a difference this makes. It just needs a coat of varnish now to match the rest of the interior.

I started this morning at around 6.30am and at 7.30pm I was still working on various items. The last job for the night was fitting the new name sticker to the side. There was nothing ceremonious about the renaming and it was a little disappointing. I was working in the dark, filthy dirty from cleaning the engine bay, tired and hungry, but after the new name was applied to the boat I was satisfied that I was getting closer to having her back in the water and out sailing, doing what she is meant to do.

12 March - The motor and mast finally went back in yesterday and today was launch day. The motor took approximately 10 minutes to drop in. This is why I love a westsail. I was anxious to see what she would look like back in the water and I wasn't disappointed. The photo below shows the new colours which I am so happy with. A huge improvement on the old colours.

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The mast and cabin top now match the new painted sides. The colour is magnolia.

The rigging did eventually get replaced and upgraded in size. Bill the rigger really knows his stuff and the rigging which was on the boat was incorrect. Bill calculated the breaking strain of all the rigging and discovered that the breaking strain of the side stays was twice that of the turnbuckles. As a result all of the turnbuckles and saddles have been upgraded and replaced with much heavier items. The photo below shows the new side stays and Ronstan turnbuckles.

Below is a photo of the old saddles and turnbuckles (left) and the new upgraded ones (right). You can see how much heavier duty the new ones are.

20 March - We have run out of time to finish all that needed to be done and Peter and I talked about a few issues that needed to be sorted out.

Below shows the bathroom before and (almost) after. The timber needs to be oiled and there are a few items which Peter will finish off which are currently a bit rough.

We decided that I would bring the boat back a few weeks after Easter as he was currently preparing for the Brisbane to Gladstone race. I was happy to get a home back and today I would bring her back to Brisbane River.

I have many items which need to be finished. One is to re attach all of the mast wiring. I had marked all the wires when they came out, but the marks have rubbed off. Fortunately it's not a difficult job and I'll do it at night when I can see the mast lights easily.

I didn't get to bed until 2am this morning and I needed to be at the boat no later than 6am to get the high tide in the creek as it is very shallow at some points.

Todd (the mechanic), who overhauled the motor was keen to go for a sail and he came along for the ride today. Everyone who sails on a Westsail is surprised at how comfortable they are. Todd was certainly surprised at the performance having heard critics of the design and the nick name wetsnails. Below is a photo about an hour out of the creek and in Moreton Bay. We are sailing at around 4.5knots in a nice gentle breeze.

After having new rigging and a faired hull, she certainly felt faster. Maybe it was the new antifoul colour....red is always faster.

Unfortunately the wind died down about 2 hours after we left and we were forced to motor most of the way. This was probably a good thing as it gave me an opportunity to really run the motor. We arrived back at the marina at around 2.30pm. Todd checked over all the connections and found only 1 which was a little loose. It was such a nice change to see a clean engine pan at the end of a days running. Below is El Viajero back home after a 5 week absence.

Colin my dock neighbor has caught a serious case of the Westsail bug. He recently sold his catamaran to buy a Westsail 32. He has found one in Scarborough and signed a contract. There are a few issues with the boat which need to be sorted out but if that is done, he may be the new owner as soon as next week. Below is a picture of Colin and his new westsail 32 "Soya" taken at Scarborough.

"Soya" has many modifications performed by the current owner who has lived aboard for the past 22 years. It will be interesting to compare the 2 boats and I'm sure I will get some great ideas from it.

25 March - Todd rang me last night and asked me if I wanted to go out for a sail to watch the start of the Brisbane to Gladstone yacht race. He had a friend with a yacht which was kept at the marina in cabbage tree creek. I jumped at the opportunity despite wanting to finish off loads of work on my boat. We decided to meet at the yacht club at around 8am.

It was a beautiful morning and I took my motorbike for the 20 minute ride to Sandgate. I found a little cafe at the mouth of the creek and sat down for a relaxing breakfast. The atmosphere of this area was great. The photo below is of the cafe I had breakfast at.

Directly opposite the cafe was this amazing old fig tree on the banks of the creek. There are always fishing trawlers coming in and out of the creek and this is the same creek where I had the work carried out on my boat. It is a real little fishing village.

After breakfast I went down to the yacht club marina where all the boats were getting ready for the big race. Most of the boats were just heading out onto the bay as spectators, as we were, but there were also many competitors preparing their yachts.

Below is a picture of the yacht I was going sailing on. She is the yacht in the centre of the photo and is a John Pugh designed, steel hull, multi chine sloop and is owned by Luke Habermann.

There were all sorts of yachts competing in the race. Below is a beautiful old gaff rigged ketch. This yacht would have to be 70-80 feet in length. Check out the figure head under her bow sprit.

Here is another photo of some competitors' yachts readying for the race. I took this photo as we were leaving the marina and heading out onto the bay.

The bay was pretty congested around the starting area. There must have been a hundred boats all on anchor waiting to watch the start of the race. Fortunately the bay was very calm and allowed even small craft out to the start line.

Here is a closer shot of the start area and the spectators. The yacht in the middle of the photo is the race favourite "AAPT".

and another photo of the race favourite.

We sat on anchor until the race started then set the sails and followed the competitors toward the first marker. Below is a photo of our motley crew.

Below is a photo of Luke, the owner of the yacht. In six weeks he will be heading North for a 7 month cruising adventure.

There was a nice breeze out on the bay and we were moving along at around 5 knots.

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It was a change for me being crew and I felt a little lost at times. Here I am (below) sitting around doing.... well not much really.

After a couple of hours sailing we circled back toward the creek entrance. The photo below shows the channel markers in the background and we have dropped the sails and are motoring in.

Below is a photo of the marina upon our return.

It was a good day sailing and this was the first time I have watched a race start. Perhaps one day I might even enter the race, although I much prefer to have a leisurely cruise.

26 March - I was sitting on the dock today and out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of something large coming up the river. It was a private motor yacht. This boat was incredible and the big ball on the top which I suspect houses much of the hi tech satellite communications gear must have been 15 feet in diameter. It was enormous.

It's not often something like this comes this far up the river and it dwarfed everything near it. The boat was immaculate. Everything was polished and it looked brand new. Below is a photo of one of the city ferries passing it. Did I mention this boat was enormous!

And below is another photo taken from the dock with the story bridge in the background. I don't think there would have been much room for it to clear the bridge. I wonder if they looked at my little "El Viajero" and felt a bit envious. Yeah Right!

27 March - I spent today polishing the cabin top. It took me most of the day and was hard work by hand. The result was worth it though as the polish made the gel coat look like new. I also replaced all the old plumbing for the fresh water supply, as I was not happy with the thought of 30 year old pipes providing me with my water. I installed a new filter and the result was fantastic. The old plumbing was so complex and unnecessary and the new setup has made things much cleaner and actually provided more storage space.

28 March - It's 8pm and I'm in the office. I spent most of today working on the boat. I oiled the timber in the bedroom and put another coat on the butterfly hatch. I hope to spend some time finishing off the timber work this week after work.