Firehose and tangs

An order came in this week from Bud Taplan in California. He was a Westsail supervisor when my boat was being built back in 1974 and he sent me a CD with hundreds of Westsail documents and pictures. Also I needed some Teflon washers to stop the rudder from banging up and down while at anchor and brass nuts for the pintels on my rudder while the tangs from my boomkin were rusted significantly.

All of it arrived in less than 3 days courtesy of the US postal service. Nice! I also ordered some Bebi lights from Fiji for my tricolor and Anchor light. Spoke to Kasa on the phone in Suva about them and they should be here in a couple of weeks. I also bought 68 Dremel metal cutting disks from Home Depot today for cutting my bronze thru-hulls. Brought them home and tried cutting some steel and was disappointed with the results. I need to go back to the drawing board and perhaps look at a much bigger disk. Lastly I was gifted some old fire hose during the week.

This will be cut up and placed around the ropes on deck for chafe protection.

Another Westsail

I went this past weekend to view another Westsail. It was interesting looking at the differences. For instance it has these polycarbonate doors on the companionway that look really neat.

And now I know what a real dynaplate should look like. Mine are corroded away. These little babies for your SSB are $600 a pop!

Take a look closely at this next photo of the chainplate in the top left side. You can just see a crack in it. Now I know what to look for on mine.

Why you need a good camera

Imagine my horror when I was going through the 200 odd photos I had taken of the boat and came across this one of the top of the mast.

Look closely at the clevis pin holding the back-stay in place. Notice that there is a cotter pin or split ring missing from the pin. That means that the mast is being held up by a prayer. The topping lift is helping but the main sheet is quite loose and wouldn't be enough to hold the mast. Because the bowsprit is broken and there is no fore-stay attached to the bow, I tied the main halyard to the stanchions. I am running out of options because the spinnaker sheet is missing too. I will need to tighten down the main sheet and swap the main halyard to the boomkin.

Meet some Kiwis

Just before I left the marina to come home, I ran into some Kiwis. They were a family of 5, with Mum, Dad and 3 daughters, taking 2 boats back to NZ. They said I was the first Kiwi they had met in a year of cruising. They were busy outfitting their boats to head off to the coconut milk run.

Sailor's exchange

Took a drive, Friday afternoon to a second hand marine store 20 minutes away in St Augustine called Sailor's Exchange. Talk about a HUGE, fantastic place to buy sailing stuff. They had loads of stainless steel there for a fraction of the price of new pipe. I bought a Rule 1500 gpm bilge pump there for $15. They had it marked for $20 but when I went to pay for it, the guy only charged me $15. I will definitely be going back.

Let the journey begin

Well she is mine! I bought Endurance, a Westsail 32 and plan to rename her Onapua.

After two days of filthy, mold ridden grime, this is not the cleanest you will have ever seen me but that smile you can see is from ear to ear!
I drove down to Florida, Friday morning, signed the papers and paid the marina for storage a whopping $128 per month. Threw away a bunch of rubbish and stripped the sails from her. Worked on getting the automatic bilge pump working. It had a bunch of water in her bilge so I wired up the bilge pump to come on when the float switch kicked in. After doing it I was a bit hesitant about leaving it on because of fire but went ahead with it anyway. I also changed the lock on the companionway. I looked around for one that didn't rust and found this one for just $8.

What's in a Name?

Onapua Bay is a good sized bay with many coves in the Marlborough Sounds in The top of the south island of New Zealand. It was once called Anapua Bay, being located on the Eastern side of Tory Channel and has several named coves; Missionary Bay, Opua Bay, and Tawa Bay. The name comes from Maori and means "foam of the sea" or a less desirable translation runs as "stinking wind". It is sheltered from the wind and reasonably protected overall with several good spots. For an anchorage, the southern Arm has 2 coves giving good all round shelter. The water is deep from about 15 metres offshore.

Projected Refit Costs

I decided to nut out some figures of what this little venture is going to cost me and holy smokes! Now I know why they say that a boat will cost you everything. As an example, here is one of the through hulls from the cockpit scupper. Somehow I have to free up the sea cock because it is frozen, replace the hose and put 2 stainless steel bands on to secure it.

Anyway here goes. In all likelihood, costs will double my from projected ones, but I will try and stick to them if at all possible. The big costs may be ones that I haven't even thought about.

Electrical $5000

New Rigging $5000

*Liferaft $2500
Monitor WindVane $2500

Plumbing $2000

SSB $2000

Repairs to Gelcoat, caprail and Rudder $2000

*Outboard Motor $2000

Anchor Chain $1000

*Satellite Phone $1000

Self Tailing Winches $1000

New Rub Rail $1000

Yard fees for Storage and Crane $1000

*Charts $1000

*Honda Portable Generator $1000

Computer $1000

Led Lighting $1000

Drifter Sail $1000

*Spare Auto Pilot $1000

*Para Anchor $1000

AIS $500

EPIRB $500

Total $36,000

* those items that can be purchased later

What is it?

When you look at a boat, it can be so confusing. Not only is the terminology so different, for example port instead of left, bow instead of front, head instead of toilet, but there are so many physical objects and terminology that are different. Take for instance this.....

 

It is on the starboard aft side of the hull and it baffled me for a couple of days. Then it came to me today that it was a strainer for the raw water intake. It stops seaweed and debris from clogging up the hoses. I think that the engine cooling system is self contained so it is probably for the kitchen sink. Another object that still defies description is on the port side.