Author: paulcollister

Kathy thought I should post something to let you all now everything is going ok. Firstly thanks to those who have sent their good wishes to me, I am making an effort to be more careful, but my Ego is already kicking in and it’s becoming obvious that the pontoon was the one at fault 😉

Actually, having gone over the incident a lot, it’s clear to me, that all that happened was I was walking backwards pulling the trolley, when the pontoon got narrower, I was at the edge and so fell in, I couldn’t see that far behind me, and didn’t expect the pontoon to narrow, in fact it’s the only bit of pontoon, in the many hundreds of yards of pontoon here, where there is a narrowing. Regardless I think I have learnt that making assumptions like that are ill advised, especially when walking backwards pulling a trolley.

Yesterday was relaxing, although a few bruises started to surface, however today I’m back to normal, assuming I don’t knock the top of my head, I had an unpleasant encounter with a sweet potato earlier that was protruding from the hanging basket of veg in the cabin.

Today we hired a car as I needed to get my blood pressure checked, it’s back to normal now. I found out that you can go into most chemists and they do it for free. We are going to buy one of the basic electronic testers for the boat, they are only £20 and could be useful when trying to get medical help over the SSB (long range radio), I also bought a load of bandages and bits and bobs, so all in all we are better prepared for any future trolley attacks or pontoon uprisings.

I had two great battery backup devices for the iThings, sadly they are toast now, Sorry Tim and Isaac. Note to self, “there’s really no need to take both out on a shopping trip”.

After the shopping we took a drive down to the coast at Ao Po and saw zillions of tourists disembarking the various day trip boats that had taken them to the islands, on the way there I saw this monkey crossing the road, He didn’t like me stopping at all and stared me out the whole time I was there. This was the first monkey we had seen here, but I gather there are a few around the island.

Just thought I would add this picture of some long-tail boats we saw today, the engine is quite big, probably the same size of most family car engines, and is counter-balanced by the prop and prop shaft and pivots somehow on the block you can see.  I think they must have evolved as a cheap way to add an engine to wooden sail/row boats, plus it has the advantage of being easy to manage in shallow waters, which abound round here.

Apologies for the pasty pictures, I have had to fall back to my iPhone 5s, which has a camera problem, I think I replaced it myself a few years back, and the quality of the replacement is rubbish. So much for ‘Genuine Apple Part’.

Heading back to the marina we stopped off at a local market setup in a roadside field, Kathy has a new book of Thai vegetarian recipes which needed some unknown ingredients. e.g. Galangal, which looks like ginger, but has enough of a difference to require us to seek it out. We did well, and now have a stack of unusual veg ready for the pot. I’m  looking forward to trying these out.

Tomorrow (Friday) I’m going to fit the new mainsail and make sure the battens fit and it goes up ok. will also start to get the boat tidied up, ready for our slightly delayed ‘off’ on Tuesday.

Paul Collister

The title should be spoken in a broad Liverpudlian accent.

I expect that got your attention, hot runners up for the title were:
a) Marinas – 2, Paul’s body – 0
b) Time to look for a quiet office Job
c) Just how difficult can you make ‘getting the shopping home’

We went shopping on Monday, a big shop, as we were leaving Tuesday morning, and would be away, mostly at anchor for 4 weeks. I also picked up the new mainsail and the repaired old sails, ropes, chandlery, tools etc. Quite a load and by the time we got back to the marina it was dark and we had three trolley loads of stuff to get onboard. ( I expect you have guessed the rest by now..)
The tide was out and as it’s spring tides now, the ramp down to the pontoons was very steep, in fact too steep for me to get a trolley down in the normal way, so I went down backwards, so I was pushing the trolley back up the ramp as it was trying to race down. This way I had more control.

The first trolley came down, and at the bottom we took it off to the boat where Kathy and I unloaded, Kathy started stowing the food and kit while I took the trolley back to the car for the second load, it was hard work pushing the empty trolley up the ramp, they are big substantial steel things.That went fine and it was as I reached the bottom on the way back with the full trolley that I tried to do a 3 point turn, and was going a bit fast, I hadn’t remembered or noticed that the pontoon narrows at that point, just behind me so I stepped back into nothingness, yet again!! This time I wasn’t so lucky.
As I hit the water, I realised straight away what I had done, I have form in this area 😉 , what surprised me though was the trolley decided to join me and tipped upside down, smashed me on the head and then pushed me underwater. I tried to swim up for air, but my head hit something hard, and I couldn’t go up, I quickly realised what had happened, the trolley was on my head, and I was inside the trolley cage/frame, so I pushed away and down, swam back a bit and resurfaced, only to find myself still under the trolley. Not so good I thought.
Actually, the next bit was my favourite part, because this scenario is one of the nightmares I used to have about being trapped underwater, and here I was, yet I didn’t feel the slightest bit of panic, I thought, the trolley’s not that big, it’s going to be simple to find the end and get out, which is what I did, another push down and sideways and I surfaced. I must say, that gulp of air I took was lovely. A quick pat on my pocket showed me that I need a new iPhone, and looking around me bags of shopping were floating away. The upturned trolley was floating, it had a buoyancy box underneath it, and lots of bags of shopping were trapped inside. It was dark, so I couldn’t see everything, but I spotted the repaired rolled up Genoa just below the surface next to me, but sinking fast. I grabbed it with one hand and held onto the pontoon with the other. At this point I wasn’t too bothered as it was just material stuff at risk, but I wasn’t going to let it get away easy, being the stingy person I am. I called out for help a few times, hoping the security guard at the pontoon gate would hear me, but no response.
There was a RIB close by, so I swam over to that dragging the genoa through the water, there was enough slack on his painter (tying up rope) for me to pull the end into the water and tie it to the genoa, this is where the ability to do a decent knot with one hand comes in useful, although in retrospect, staying on the pontoon would probably be a better skill I should work on.
I swam back to the trolley, and rested a few seconds, then I got my iPhone out of my pocket and threw it onto the pontoon, not sure why, but it seemed the most respectful thing to do, perhaps, just maybe there was a chance… Really I knew it was over, still it had had a good run. Next my money belt, which had a very soggy passport and a few Baht in it, these dry well, based on past experience 🙂 I then started getting bags ashore that were trying to escape. Finally I thought I need help with the rest so I climbed out and ran back to the boat shouting at Kathy to come quickly. I didn’t tell her why, as I ran right back to the scene, I was worried some passers by would stumble across the submerged trolley and shopping and think perhaps the owner was in the water. As it turns out, just as I turned the corner back towards the ramp, I spotted a family staring into the water. By fluke, it was Jack, Jackie and their son, on their way to dinner. We had made friends with Jack during our time here and he had been very helpful with information about the area. I explained it was my mess and asked for help getting the trolley and sail out, but Jack insisted on inspecting my head, I told him I was OK, but unlike him, I hadn’t noticed all the blood I was covered in. Jack found a hose and washed my head for me, pronouncing that I had a big gash and stitches would be needed. Bugger I thought, it didn’t feel that bad at all. Kathy then arrived, and I think was very shocked at the turn of events. I unpacked some kitchen roll from one of the recovered shopping bags, packaging is so good these days, and made a compress on my head, then I jumped back into the water and pushed the trolley up as Jack & co pulled from the pontoon, next I passed up a few remaining floating bags and we all worked to get the Genoa ashore.
Kathy took care of the trolley while Jack ferried me out to an anchored boat in his dinghy, just a few minutes away, where his friend, who is a nurse lives. Sadly she wasn’t there. Once back ashore, I sent Jack & co on their way and went back to the boat to get cleaned up.
Kathy helped me tie a bandage over the wound, I put some dry clothes on, then we drove down to the local hospital to get the wound looked at.
The Bangkok Hospital, Thalong branch is just great, they had me fixed up without any delay, 7 stitches were needed, along with a tetanus jab and a course of antibiotics. they made me stay for an hour while they monitored my blood pressure, which was a bit high for their liking, but came down over the hour. They charged about £50 for all of that, including a weeks supply of medicine.
We drove back to the boat, finished unloading the car, the ramp was a more gentle slope by now, and decided to have an early night and put the shopping away in the morning.

Two days later
My head is a bit sore now, as you might expect, but I don’t seem to have any other injuries, (self esteem took the biggest hit), most of the shopping survived, I lost about £100 worth of chandlery, and £50 of groceries, we will replace these when I go back to have the stitches removed next week.
I’m going to have to re-assess my risk taking stance, Marinas are dangerous places, I was very fortunate that this happened at slack water when there was no tide, 2 hours earlier or later I would have been swept under the pontoon, or out into the bay. I’m worried that it might be an age thing, Kathy and I think it more likely that I have too much of a ‘Gung Ho’ attitude to risk, it’s a tough one, I am much more careful/risk averse  at sea. Falling off a pontoon, is not something that really rated as such a dangerous thing in my mind before, as kids we loved jumping off them, so perhaps I didn’t take enough care, however this incident has shown me how wrong I was.

I’m taking it easy this week, and hoping we can pick up where we left off next Tuesday, just a week delayed.

On a more positive front, I have started buying fruit & veg I don’t recognise, for example this thing here revealed no clues in its name as to what it might be, until I cut it open and found it to be a sweet grapefruit.
I bought a load of Passion fruits as well, as they taste great in drinks but I have never tried eating one before.

And finally, recent events in America have persuaded me that I won’t be taking the boat there this year. The final decider was that one of Mr Trump’s executive orders removes all my privacy rights as a foreigner, and allows any US official to have the same powers as border guards to investigate/interrogate/detain? me. I hope things change and we are able to visit one day, as nearly all the Americans I know are wonderful good people, and I’d love to meet up with them at some point.

Paul Collister

The weekend is here and we are going to test the new dinghy out today with a little motor around the bay.
I was up early for another coat of varnish, but as it was still dark I setup the webcam to catch the sunrise, I’m not sure this is the best I can do, but it was an interesting experiment. The GoPro is set to take a pic every 5 seconds.

On Thursday I put the two new headsails back on the furlers, I noticed the yankee was sticking as it turned, not a lot, but it indicated a problem, and experience has shown me that a small niggling ‘indication of a problem’ generally turns into a major headache at just the wrong time. Anyway, investigate I did, I climbed the mast and found the top part of the furling gear to be chafing on the halyard, so much so, that maybe a quarter of the halyard was damaged. Dropping the sail, trimming the halyard and then fitting a ‘pendant’ I think it’s called, a short line at the Tack/bottom of the sail, meant I could hoist the sail 6 inches higher, this made the halyard leave the top furling bearing at a better angle, wouldn’t chafe or snag and I was able to grease the bearing while it was down.  With the sail back up, the furler was working much better. I have to say that I don’t think I would like to have to manhandle anything bigger than these sails, I’m getting too old.
The staysail inner stay was too loose, I couldn’t get to the turnbuckle as it’s inside the furling case and this wouldn’t come apart, I spent an age drilling out the screw that had corroded, but to no avail, it was seized on solid. I guessed the rigger must have had ‘a cunning plan’ when he changed the stay, as I couldn’t see that he had had it off either. Anyway after a lot of flapping, I was back up the mast to remove a halyard guide, that allowed me to slide the whole kit up the stay in order to reach the turnbuckle below. (Twice up the mast in fact, the second time with Allen keys instead of screwdrivers! Duh). This worked, and now I feel much happier that I have the correct tension in the mast stays and halyards. The mast also has a slight but pleasant curve to it.
More tidying up and little chores like replacing the blown panel light bulbs on the electric supply panel with new led lights, not really needed but a very nice feeling that they all work like new now. Also I have managed to get a bread starter going, the trick seemed to be water related, or just luck, but I suspected the water here tap or bottled is heavily treated, so I used some rain water I collected, and Voila, instant starter. So today is also bread baking day so we can have nice toast with our ‘Jamie Oliver style’ poached eggs tomorrow. Wish me luck on that one!.

Above is our favourite local restaurant, Papa Mama, just around the corner, you can see the marina in the background across the water.

 

Hi-res pic of the marina lit by the setting sun

Paul Collister.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m cooling on the idea of going up to Japan this year, there are several reasons, the main reason is that I like it so much here, and if we are to make it in time, we would have to skip all of the gulf of Thailand, Borneo and quite a few other enticing areas. however the prospect of tensions between the USA and China are becoming more real, especially over the disputed islands in the South China Sea. The BBC have some information on the disputes here if you are unaware. Trump has stated he will act against China over their claims to territory which is in International waters, which a recent international court decision has found. At the least I expect there to be increased military presence from both sides in the region. We would have to pass through this area on our way north, and the chances of being intercepted, questioned, and possibly detained are too high for my liking. So perhaps it might become clearer over time. I expect Mr Trump will be very busy with all his other schemes, so this may come to nothing anyway. But with our route to the west hampered by the Red Sea pirates, we might have to stay here in the tropics for some time, of course there is always Austrailia and new Zealand to the SW to escape to, if we have to. Life can be tough at times eh 😉

Bowsprit Update
Nada, it’s all done, one last picture and I won’t mention it again, promise.

I will continue to apply varnish every morning I can get up early enough, 5 coats so far, but it’s all back together now. Need to put the sails on, I have a problem with the staysail stay being too slack, I can’t adjust the turnbuckle to tighten it, as the case that covers it is seized on and the grub screw that holds it in place is knackered. Not sure how the rigger managed it. But I need to drill out the grub screw. I filled a few tiny holes in the foredeck, where the PO had changed the windlass foot-switch and left the screw holes from the previous bigger switch open. I also did a great job sealing the windlass to the sprit and now we are 100% watertight on the bow. I took the opportunity to add the 60m of nylon rope to the main anchor rode, and gave the chain locker a good scrubbing and repaired the dividing wall in there.
Our sail repairs wont be ready until Saturday, and I think the harbour master is closed at weekends, so it looks like we will checkout of Phuket on Monday.
Tomorrow our new dinghy arrives,  after a lot of umming and ahhing, we settled on a 2.6m Aluminium base hypalon dinghy. We tried lifting a few of the 2.9m fiberglass bottomed dinghies, and it was a strain, that was without the 30kg a 5hp outboard would add. This dinghy is very light in comparison, so light that our existing 2.5hp motor should push it along, not very fast admittedly, but enough for a couple of old codgers like us. I can always pick up the bigger outboard in Langkawi if needed.
The deciding factor was that I put my back out trying to lift these dinghies, not badly, but I had to accept that most of the time we plan to be hauling the dinghy up exotic beaches in remote places 😉 so weight is a big factor, also as we don’t have dinghy davits ( a crane system for lifting the boat out of the sea onto the mothership) I will be manhandling the boat onto the foredeck most of the time. We shall see how it works out, the biggest problem by far was opening my wallet for this one. The dinghy cost more than my first yacht did to buy. I had no idea, it’s not just here, they are expensive in the UK and America, I was used to paying £500 back home, for something similar in PVC with a soft bottom, but you can multiply that by 5 for Aluminium and Hypalon.  I’m also paying a lot to have custom covers that go on top of the tubes to provide extra UV protection.

This is the kind of dinghy (above) without the covers.

So the list of jobs is dwindling fast. yesterday we stripped all the cushion covers off (12) and sent them away for cleaning, that means I can’t do any more messy jobs without being extra careful (ha, fat chance of that). The new mainsail is waiting collection, the engine has been spun up and is working well, I’m going to give it a major service when I get to Malaysia in April.

Paul Collister.

I gather there is a deep low in the Andaman Sea between us and India causing very unseasonal rainfall. More flooding is happening across southern Thailand, and the local forecast is for rain every day (80%+ chance most days) for another week. Then we are into February and an improvement is forecast, I will believe it when it happens. Saying that, it’s very pleasant regardless, the temperatures are lower, and today we have had a very refreshing breeze making work on the boat more pleasant. However the bowsprit varnish has slipped a day as it rained for most of yesterday.
Still all is going to plan. I’m going to order the dinghy tomorrow, more rope, and some tools I need, then aim to leave next weekend.

The bowsprit replacement is going well, I have the forestay and the staysail stay fitted now, the windlass is on and bolted down, but not wired up, I will do this at the same time as I wire up the pulpit lights.

You can tell it’s high season now, lots of people are arriving daily and heading off on their charter boats, the bar area is full of new groups of smartly dressed, excited and happy looking people arriving every few hours from the airport. They don’t have to worry about rotting bowsprits, or leaking heads.
Talking of which, I decided to fix the drip on the head that has got worse over the last few weeks. I only needed to show it my array of screwdrivers and pliers and that seemed to be enough to cure it, I can’t get it to drip at all now. If only the rest of the boat was so easy. In a similar manner, the SSB radio, which we will use a lot when offshore in the Pacific has been playing up; basically it doesn’t turn on when you press the ‘on’ button, even though it makes a reassuring click. I took it all apart to investigate, and without the case on, it started working. Once re-assembled it was good for a day then the problem came back. I took it apart again and it started working again, I kept it in bits for a week and it worked every time. It’s now re-assembled and continues to work just fine. I don’t think I have seen the end of this problem, but at least I can now get into learning how to use it. It’s channelised for marine frequencies, and the PO has all the channels programmed I might need, like Herb’s net, so I need to find out what the others all do. I haven’t spoke to anyone on it yet, so that’s something to try out soon.

We have a deck wash system on this boat, it’s basically like a garden hose, I can select the source of the water to be either fresh water from the tanks, or sea water from an inlet in the hull. The main use is for cleaning the anchor chain as we pull it up out of a muddy bottom, when it’s muddy it can be very messy, and all the mud will end up in the chain locker, then onto the bilge then the pump & filters that drain the bilge, so best not to take it onboard. Anyway, the pump burnt out, I threw it overboard, just before I realised the parts could be replaced quite cheaply, dam. I wondered about the ‘green-ness’ of throwing it overboard, but we were off an island, and I figured it would be like the ships they sink to create a coral feature to attract growths and subsequent feeding fish, also it was only iron, so it will decay in time. Anyway, to get to the point, I replaced the pump with a more powerful one yesterday, wow, that works really well, it came with a smart springy coiled hose and I can assure you, no more mud is coming onto this boat!

Some bowsprit pictures below. Tomorrow I will put the 4th coat of varnish on, then the platform and pulpit, and maybe put the spade anchor back in place.

Above  you can see the bracket that the staysail attaches to, without going into detail, this was leaking on the old sprit, and may do again, the design is crap, the sail is constantly trying to pull upwards and break the seal around the bolts. Also the bolts are right in the front of the anchor chain locker, which is too small for me to get in. Kathy managed to squirm in most of the way, but strained some muscles resulting in her ending up in some pain later. I fabricated a long spanner from two small spanner for the re-assembly as shown below, it worked remarkably well. I need a decent socket set, will get one in Malaysia when we get there.

So nothing exciting to report, Kathy has more interesting stuff on the way, including a couple of otters that tried to eat her legs.

 

Paul Collister

Wednesday, and up early to get some varnish on the new sprit. Below you can see just what a difference a primer and one coat makes, I want to get at least 5 more coats on before we leave.

Soon after this I headed over to another carpenter who has his shop down the road from here, he was cutting a few strips of teak for me that I can use to fix up the cockpit seating area. It’s a small repair, but I thought I would get the teak onboard now while it’s easy to find. The price was about half of what I would pay in the UK, I had expected a better saving, more importantly, I had hoped to work in a ‘doesn’t grow on trees’ kind of joke at this point but had to give up, as it kept turning out too crass.

We had a hire car today, so we headed off on a long provisioning trip, but first we took a coast road we hadn’t been down before and it was very pleasing, lots of foliage on the road and trees that had almost blown down, but some amazing views.

 

We looked at more dinghies, and after lifting a few, whilst imagining dragging said beast up the beach at Bora Bora or Fiji… (add other exotic destinations here ..), decided the one we had chosen would be way to heavy. In fact I tried to lift a 3m rib to look underneath and now I have a very sore back. A big dinghy is great for provisioning, but in reality a smaller one is more practical for most of our needs. So I’m now looking at aluminium floored 2.5m dinghies. I was also humbled by a local fisherman I watched with his home made canoe, he probably spent less on this than I spend on a diet coke each night at the bar, it’s about 6ft long. It even has a storage compartment for his fish. I have ordered a new yacht from him 😉

Off to Rolly Tasker next to hurry up my sail repairs, I spent 20 minutes there helping them find my sails, which were still not repaired. Hopefully they will be fixed by next week when the mainsail should be ready. I picked up 60 metres of 16mm 3 strand nylon rope to use to extend my anchor rode. I can now easily anchor in 20m of water.
Off to Yanui Beach for a swim, then dinner at a beach bar before heading to the supermarket and home.

It was 1AM before we wheeled the last of our goods back to the boat.

Thursday morning and another early get up to put a coat of varnish on and get the rigging attached to the bowsprit. This took forever, the boat must have stretched as the forestay wouldn’t reach by just releasing the tension on the backstay. All sorted in the end and at last I can sleep knowing the mast is fully supported now.

It’s raining now, more flooding is reported for southern Thailand, Varnishing has come to a halt, inside jobs for me today.
Kathy’s posts have been delayed due to her getting a virus on her new windows laptop, I have been on  virus free mac for so many years now I had forgotten how horrible these things are. Still a system restore seems to have fixed it, for now, and she will finish her post shortly I hope.

Paul Collister.

Yes, I got a phone call at 7:30 this morning to say the bowsprit was on its way to me. A week earlier than I expected, I was quite worried that it might have been rushed, but on the contrary, it turned up looking wonderful. None of the holes for the windlass had been drilled as they wanted to make sure they had it right here, which was good I suppose.

So at 8 AM the guys arrived with the sprit on a trolley.The first fitting required a sliver of teak removing from the mortice/tenon joint but looked good. 

It only took about 4 hours to finish the job, most of the work was in drilling the holes for the windlass mounts which pass through the bowsprit to pass through the existing holes in the deck.

 

The cross supports, I have no idea what if any their nautical name is, were replaced, just to match the colour of the new teak. I believe the teak was grown in Thailand, and was fashioned into a sprit by one of the two guys installing it.

You can see below the lamination, 7 pieces of teak were used, I think the original might have had 5 teak and 4 of cedar or similar in between.

The reason I had to do this work was because of the rot and termite damage to the old sprit. I now feel 100% confident in the new sprit, with it off, I was able to check the samson post, that’s the vertical pole of wood behind the sprit that is firmly secured to the deck and hull, and everything else around the area, and all is great.
The teak is in perfect condition without a single blemish, so I think it’s going to look fantastic when it’s varnished. I’m going to take my time building up the layers, I have already sanded it to a very smooth finish, and when the rain came down earlier, I could see it looking a lovely colour. So be warned, there may be more bowsprit pictures on the way.

Tomorrow we have a car and will be out getting more bits, picking up the repaired sails from Rolly Taskers and doing the weekly shop, but I will be up early sanding then getting the primer coat on the sprit, before it can even think about going grey.

Tonight we had a torrential downpour while we sat in the deck bar, but just before then, the light was amazing, I have attached another hi res picture, click to see it in its full glory.

Paul Collister

 

I bought a thing called the speedy stitcher, I expect “other stitchers are available” (BBC joke), as it has become apparent that here in the tropics stitching is going to be a big part of keeping the boat shipshape.The sun is brutal on canvas, and it seems that it’s the stitching that is failing first, so lots of canvas in good nick is falling apart as the stitching dissolves in the UV light. This handy little device is brilliant, I managed to repair the mainsail cover and it actually looks the part now. I had considered getting a new one made, but that would cost about £500, I think my repairs should be good for a few years. Anyway this device allows you to sew lock stitches, just like a real sewing machine, just a lot slower. I recommend it as an essential item for any offshore sailor. I included a link below, which seems to have embedded itself as a video.

The sun has stayed out and it’s blazing hot here everyday. I have decided to buy a new dinghy/RIB this week, it’s very expensive, but they don’t seem that much worse than in the UK, we are getting a 2.9m fiberglass bottom dinghy made out of a tough material called Hypalon, it’s much better with the UV than a normal PVC dinghy that would be fine in Europe. We will also need to buy a new Outboard motor for it as our 2.5hp one won’t cut it. I’m also going to buy a kayak just as soon as I can find one for a decent price. So once I have paid for the Bowsprit, Mainsail, Dinghy, liferaft & OB plus the Kayak the cheque book will be closed, if not permanently broken.
The plan now is still to head off from Phuket at the end of this month, February will be spent exploring Phang Na bay, the Hongs in particular, March will see us head down to Singapore. I still haven’t worked out what to do there yet, but I’m leaning towards another year in this region, perhaps exploring Vietnam, Cambodia and  Borneo during the SW monsoon season (May – Oct), then popping back here for the NW Monsoon in September and checking out Indonesia and more of Malaysia/Thailand.

Another mega yacht turned up yesterday, MV Titania, a massive big charter motor boat, available to hire at a mere €600,000 / week!

Here’s a hi res picture of the posh end of the marina now, to give it some perspective, there is a yacht in the foreground with a couple of people on it, much the same size as sister midnight. Click on the image (and wait) for a hi res image to download, click again to zoom in (assuming your browser works like mine).

I bet those super-yachts probably have their own sewing machine.

Paul Collister

 

Well I was impressed when we pulled up alongside one of Roman Abramovitch’s motor yachts in Dublin City marina some years ago, but today I noticed a mega yacht had arrived in the marina, on the outside pontoon across from us. I looked up on the AIS and found M5 at the correct bearing from us so had a look and discovered It’s called M5, previously known as Mirabella 5.It’s the biggest sloop in the world, and number 6 in the biggest yacht list overall.  We saw her from a distance once in the med where she famously went aground after dragging her anchor. She seems to get around a bit.

Despite being the largest single masted yacht ever made, she only has room for twelve guests, only 6 more than we can handle, however I expect they might have a little more room, and probably a butler or two each.

She was also responsible for saving a crew in the ARC which I think was in 2006 the same year as us, details here and quite an interesting read

Will pop over tomorrow to see if they have any spare sikaflex as I just ran out, I’m sure they will help out 😉

More details here

Paul Collister

 

 

Wednesday saw the weather change for the better, we have had 2 straight days of sunshine now, it was 36 in the cabin this morning, I put the awnings up and the temp dropped a few degrees. We are taking it easy at the moment, Kathy has started typing up her blog. She has a Laptop running a strange operating system, it has a wavy flag and lots of confusing icons, I accidentally found a way to make it look like an old fashioned windows computer, but it keeps changing back to a weird thing where it has lots of blocky square icons over the screen, none of which seem to be much use. Also whenever you get a program open like the photo-manager, none of the buttons do what you would expect, plus it spends a lot of time throwing up boxes reminding you to update this and that, can’t see how it will ever catch on 😉

The bow sprit was collected on Monday and work is under way to replicate it, Tuesday we headed off for a drive to replenish stores, and also to drop off the mainsail with the sailmakers so that can be replicated too. We popped into Cholomark, a local company that makes RIBs (Rigid bottomed Inflatable Dinghies), our current dinghy is just a bit too small and flimsy. I’m expecting that once we get out into the pacific islands, we will need to be ferrying food, water and fuel to and from the shore to our boat via dinghy, so it’s worth getting something decent.

Sadly that means a few thousand pounds flying out the door, plus I think our 2.5hp motor will be too small, so another whack for a 5-8hp replacement.

Today was spent doing small jobs around the boat, not a lot is going to happen now until the bowsprit returns, as we can’t take the boat out without it. So on Monday I baked some bread, which worked out quite well, will do a bit more over the weekend.

On a closing note, you can always hear a snack, crackle and pop sound when in the boat, it’s coming from the hull outside under the water, and can be quite loud at night. I’m not precisely sure what causes it, but I’m sure it’s related to the marine growth on the hull. It’s either the growth growing or the fish nibbling on it, or both. There’s no shortage of nibbling fish here as the video clip below shows.

I am having trouble getting video clips to upload, so I have done this in a roundabout way, hopefully it still works.

 

Paul Collister