Its been a while, but we
have been so busy emptying the boat and doing phase 1 of our huge upgrade that
there has been little time for chitter chatter.
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| Lock-up, almost full |
A few people have asked what
its been like transitioning from living on water to being back on land and
there are definite pro’s and con’s and a number of funny things we miss,
besides the obvious.
We are fortunate
enough to have a magnificent sea view from the veranda of our beachfront
apartment, the sound of the waves crashing on the beach deafening at times, so
whilst we don’t miss being surrounded by water, this water is different, clear,
moving, alive – decidedly different to that of a marina, I’ve even seen seals
body surfing in the waves.
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Thank heavens we don't have a cat, not
enough room to swing one! |
Then it’s the
little things like being able to walk all the way around the bed to make it,
portable furniture, not having to negotiate the long walk (often at speed
whilst resembling an injured duck) down the walk-on to the toilet, the
insistent thunk thunk thunk of lines bashing on masts during those blustery
nights when the wind is howling and the bed is rocking and rolling, a steady
supply of water without needing to fill water tanks and most amazingly I miss
my kitchen (galley), its decidedly bigger and more user-friendly.
I have discovered we are
much more aware of electricity and water consumption on the boat – when its
readily available and you’re not in charge of where it comes from complacency
tends to set in, hmmm…..
The awesome view from our
balcony not only provides us with fabulous sunsets behind Table Mountain, but
also a birds eye view of Wednesday night sailing. Wednesday night sailing seems to be an almost
world wide phenomenon at Yacht Clubs, an event for serious and social sailors
to get out on the water and do what they do best, then swop stories and banter
in the bar afterward over a well earned cold one. Every time I see them out there I am reminded
of a story we were told by a lovely British couple who sailed into Royal Cape
Yacht Club in December, flustered and breathless in a howling South Easter of
45 knots, their last stop before departing across the Atlantic. They compared their arrival to that of
another couple they met on their travels abroad who had arrived at a harbor in
South Africa, teeth gritted, jaws clenched and eyes the size of saucers as they
desperately steered their yacht into the marina at the yacht club aiming for
the safe haven of a solid mooring and a bit of a respite from the unrelenting
wind, when they were met, head on, by a fleet of local yachts all cheerily
heading out of the harbor to take part in a Club sailing event – you South
Africans are crazy was their gasping comment.
Ha ha, yes, I think we are!!
The end of February saw Chrissy
and Alan on their beautiful catamaran Sundowner Rose arrive at False Bay Yacht
Club, Simons Town. Was so exciting to
see them and hear their stories of their trip down the beautiful, rugged coast
from Durban and of course a great excuse for champagne – they arrived around
1am, tired but smiling.
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| Takes heaps of concentration |
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| Touch down |
Then, finally, the day
arrived and out of the water we popped.
To quote Eileen “its like the long anticipated birth of the baby, only this
is more like the birth of a baby elephant it has taken so damn long to happen!!”. Great excitement and trepidation all in one,
the beginning of the final preparations for our next adventure…
Its really sad to say farewell
and when yachties become friends its even more tough so perhaps “til later” and
definitely “cheers” is more appropriate than goodbye. Time came for Reece the crazy Kiwi to go and
he sure did it in style, we had a farewell dinner with Craig at Wang Thai, he
had a party in town at his “local”
and we even managed Margarita’s at the
airport.
Cheers Reece, we will certainly
meet again, looking forward to it – oh and boy is it quiet at the Club now!!
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| Getting rid of layers of anti foul paint |
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| Two days later |
A funny thing about boats is
that no matter how prepared you are, they will always test you with a curve
ball and Maxscene throws them like a seasoned baseball player!
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| Finally its clean |
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| Dusty work |
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| Primer applied to outside of hulls |
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| New anti foul applied |
The hull was stripped to original fiberglass,
one small area of suspicion ground out and repaired then primer and new
anti-foul applied, beautiful and good to know the integrity of the hull is
sound.
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| Any place becomes a workshop |
At the same time the chines were
filled in, this is to stop the incessant slapping noise of the water and to
create buoyancy and give us a bit more of that elusive speed that sailors are
always looking for. What a beautiful job was done.
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| Making template for closing chines |
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| Closed chines - beautiful job |
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The engines are carried out on a sling
suspended from a bar |
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Everything padded to prevent damage
while removing engines |
The engines (both old and
new) had to be stripped to bare minimum to get them through the doorways of the
cabins, I am sure there is a logical reason for these doorways being built so
narrow, thank heavens Andrew knows what he is doing, worst jigsaw puzzle I have
ever seen.
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| Stripping old engine |
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| Stripping new engine |
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| Old engine bed in grotty bay |
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| Pieces of old engines |
Then upon examination of the
engine beds it was discovered they had, after 18 years, absorbed a fair amount
of diesel and would best be replaced – after a bit of a scramble Andrew managed
to find a mold at Yanmar – suppliers of the motors – and he was able to build
two new ones, minor delay!!
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| Fibre glassing new engine beds in place |
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| New engine bed new hole |
Also, the
motors needed to be moved backward as the new ones were slightly longer and
would no longer fit in the space allocated, this required fibre glassing the old
hole for the sail-drive closed and cutting a new one in the correct position. New controls fitted, new sail drives in
place, through hull fittings made for water maker, engines onboard and ready to
re-splash.
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Making that bay look
like new again |
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| Engine bay painted |
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| New engine bed, beneath is the old hole |
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| Moved switch panel down |
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| Refitted water intake |
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| Servicing through hull fittings |
The Easter Weekend meant
Kevin finally had a few well deserved days off work, in South Africa, so we
made the best possible use of them. A
visit to the market, braai’s on the balcony, sleep-ins and – yep you guessed
it, work on MaXScene. We cut out the
panel above the chart table to enable dropping and hinging of the electrical
panel to allow better access to the wiring behind.
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| Through hull fittings back in place |
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| Cut holes for new instruments |
We will close the top with a piece of wood
which will house the auxiliary chart plotter and weather station. We also removed all the eyebrows from the
port lights, they are to be replaced with new more durable fiberglass versions,
but also to facilitate replacement of the 5 outstanding port lights.
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| Instruments and wheel installed |
We also serviced the through hull fittings
and cut the holes for the new instruments.
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| Right, its in |
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| So where does this bit go? |
The new engines were brought in, amid some grumbling from Andrew who
was more keen on cutting us some new hatches in the roof of the rear cabins and
dropping them in there, but he managed to make a miracle happen and in they
went.
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| Beautiful |
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| New Sail drive |
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| New propellor |
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| Over |
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| Behind |
Being a catamaran on the
hard at RCYC is quite an experience, due to the shortage of space big things
happen in little areas. We were directly
in the path of mono hulls that were being hauled out, some over the top of our
cockpit and some a close shave behind, hair raising I tell you!!!
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| Cape Doctor |
We also had a first hand view of the Cape
Doctor – the South Easter blows over Table Mountain, pouring clouds over – when
we see this we know “its gonna blow”.
Its called the Cape Doctor as apparently this strong chilly wind blows
germs and anything else in the air away.
We bade a fond farewell to
our little tender boat too. It was heavy
and we have a feeling it was retaining water in the foam in the hull, making it
even heavier and impossible for two of us to drag around, much less pick
up. We found a company that manufacture
smaller, lighter tenders and would take ours as a trade-in, so we waved her on
her merry way and await the new svelte version which we will receive once we
are done renovating.
Fortunately its not all work
and no play, we celebrated Valentines day in style with our first braai on our
balcony with Eileen and Reece, a fun day with good food, lots of good wine and
laughter. There was also time for a
Barnyard show with Tjaart and Natalya, such great entertainment. Then drinks and catch up at Quay 4 with Liesl
and Andrew who were here on a short visit to Gordons Bay. Didn’t feel like the years its been since we
last had a drink together, good times.
The Crichtons are back in
town after a whirlwind trip up to Richards Bay and back, so great to have them
just over the mountain, always heaps of fun.
I even managed a 4 hour
photography course with Cape Photographic Company, heck of a nice chap and
learned so much.
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| Off her keels, finish off anti foul |
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| And there she goes... |
A scary feeling returning to the water knowing there are new holes in the boat, are they water tight? Will everything be ok? Then, as we were so pushed for time (we had overstayed our time on the hard by 2 weeks) the drive was on to be watertight, not fully functional, so while the sail drives and motors were in place and sealed, the motors were not connected so there was the additional issue of not being self propelled. Add to that wind gusting to 25knots and we had to be pushed around to a temporary mooring close to the yard with the clubs boat.
Not the most ideal situation.
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| On her temporary mooring til we return |
Be that as it may, all has gone well, no leaks, no insurmountable issues and the job done by Andrew and his crew so far has been fabulous, we are really happy with how beautiful our MaXScene looks.
So now we leave Cape Town
for 2 weeks, off to Pretoria for Kylie’s 18th birthday, Samantha
& Marius’ wedding and to catch up with/say farewell to family and friends –
the end of the year is drawing closer and before we know it we will be heading
across the oceans….
I have discovered we are
much more aware of electricity and water consumption on the boat – when its
readily available and you’re not in charge of where it comes from complacency
tends to set in, hmmm…..
The awesome view from our
balcony not only provides us with fabulous sunsets behind Table Mountain, but
also a birds eye view of Wednesday night sailing. Wednesday night sailing seems to be an almost
world wide phenomenon at Yacht Clubs, an event for serious and social sailors
to get out on the water and do what they do best, then swop stories and banter
in the bar afterward over a well earned cold one. Every time I see them out there I am reminded
of a story we were told by a lovely British couple who sailed into Royal Cape
Yacht Club in December, flustered and breathless in a howling South Easter of
45 knots, their last stop before departing across the Atlantic. They compared their arrival to that of
another couple they met on their travels abroad who had arrived at a harbor in
South Africa, teeth gritted, jaws clenched and eyes the size of saucers as they
desperately steered their yacht into the marina at the yacht club aiming for
the safe haven of a solid mooring and a bit of a respite from the unrelenting
wind, when they were met, head on, by a fleet of local yachts all cheerily
heading out of the harbor to take part in a Club sailing event – you South
Africans are crazy was their gasping comment.
Ha ha, yes, I think we are!!
The end of February saw Chrissy
and Alan on their beautiful catamaran Sundowner Rose arrive at False Bay Yacht
Club, Simons Town. Was so exciting to
see them and hear their stories of their trip down the beautiful, rugged coast
from Durban and of course a great excuse for champagne – they arrived around
1am, tired but smiling.
Its really sad to say farewell
and when yachties become friends its even more tough so perhaps “til later” and
definitely “cheers” is more appropriate than goodbye. Time came for Reece the crazy Kiwi to go and
he sure did it in style, we had a farewell dinner with Craig at Wang Thai, he
had a party in town at his “local” 
and we even managed Margarita’s at the
airport. 
We bade a fond farewell to
our little tender boat too. It was heavy
and we have a feeling it was retaining water in the foam in the hull, making it
even heavier and impossible for two of us to drag around, much less pick
up. We found a company that manufacture
smaller, lighter tenders and would take ours as a trade-in, so we waved her on
her merry way and await the new svelte version which we will receive once we
are done renovating.
Fortunately its not all work
and no play, we celebrated Valentines day in style with our first braai on our
balcony with Eileen and Reece, a fun day with good food, lots of good wine and
laughter. There was also time for a
Barnyard show with Tjaart and Natalya, such great entertainment. Then drinks and catch up at Quay 4 with Liesl
and Andrew who were here on a short visit to Gordons Bay. Didn’t feel like the years its been since we
last had a drink together, good times.
A scary feeling returning to the water knowing there are new holes in the boat, are they water tight? Will everything be ok? Then, as we were so pushed for time (we had overstayed our time on the hard by 2 weeks) the drive was on to be watertight, not fully functional, so while the sail drives and motors were in place and sealed, the motors were not connected so there was the additional issue of not being self propelled. Add to that wind gusting to 25knots and we had to be pushed around to a temporary mooring close to the yard with the clubs boat. 
Not the most ideal situation. 
