Author: paulcollister

So today I wondered how best to sort the problems. Firstly the air lock, I got out the manual for the water heater and after reading it, I realised it’s either plumbed in incorrectly, or I don’t understand the system very well. This has nothing to do with the air lock, and this wasn’t mentioned anyway. However after reading the engine manual, it does say to open a certain valve before filling with water to avoid air locks. Duh!! RTFM Paul. So I did that and it helped, but didn’t completely solve the problem. I ran the engine for an hour and the temperature stayed constant, so I think it’s ok. Anyway, I’m going to be replacing the hoses shortly so can go through the whole process again then.
Yesterday I traced all the wires for the solar and wind generators to make sure I understood how they are wired in. then last night I turned off the charger before bed, and just left on the equipment we would run on a normal night passage, mast head light, AIS, radio, fridge etc to see how much power we consumed. The charger said 25Ah over about 8 hours, which seems very reasonable. Once up I put the solar back on, and we were fully charged within a few hours, thats with my rubbish solar panels that only generate 200W in total, and then only in very bright sunshine. Typically they put out about 5 amps total. The big thing is the wind gen, this is wired into the main battery without any switch, or even a voltage regulator. It’s hard to know what it’s doing, it can generate up to 30A of charge at 14V, it’s basically a car alternator with windmill sails. It has been quite breezy the last few days.
I’m looking into the whole battery charging business thing, as this will be important when we head off, many cruisers spend an hour or two running the engine each day, this is a very bad idea as it costs a lot, is noisy, makes heat and doesn’t do the engine any good. The problem is that boat batteries are very complicated to charge, you have to work within very tight restraints to get the charged fully but without damaging them. Generally you spend most days discharging to 50% then recharging to 80%, however you need to get a full charge in every so often to stop them degrading. On top of that they should be equalised once in a while to stop sulphation. As I see it connecting 3 or 4 generators of power, via individual intelligent regulators that measure current flow and voltage, before determining what voltage to try to generate or current to supply, is asking for trouble. Also I have two banks of batteries, 4 for the house and 1 for cranking, both banks are never going to be in the same state.
Still I’m enjoying learning about these subjects. Ask me any question you like about lead cell construction 😉

So off to town to buy the bits I need, I was very pleased to buy a relay and associated cable from a garage on the edge of town, without speaking any Malay, and him not speaking English. 

From the garage I bought a litre of acrylic paint for the boat, this should be good for 6 years apparently, the blue paint I put on the side in May has faded on the side of the boat that gets most sunshine. It wasn’t a fancy paint, but I have been assured that normal acrylic paint is by far the best to go with. Very cheap too.

I also picked up 8 metres of radiator hose for the water heater, this should leave me with 3 metres spare I can take for a trip around the world before throwing it away. I picked up a strip of 12V LEDS that I plan to install in the cockpit so we have a bit more light for dinner, but yet to work out where or how to install them.

Finally, back to the mast problem, I mentioned how I’m putting 12V into the cable at the bottom of the mast but getting nowt out at the top, well I had an idea, if I swapped the positive/negative of the wires around at the base, and use the mast as a ground I could work out which wire had the break in. Sure enough, it was the positive wire, because by sending +12v up the old negative wire, and using the mast as the negative, I could light up the lamp. Of course I don’t think I can use the mast as a return, sending an Amp or more through the rigging might cause some corrosion. But I’m thinking I could drop a wire down to the spreader lights and use that as the negative return. It’s not often I have both lights on anyway. The cable that has failed is the expensive Ancor pre-tinned ‘Marine’ cable !

The rigging hasn’t shipped from Florida yet, so I expect we are here for another 5-7 days min. So on Thursday we’re going to leave our berth here and head to an anchorage called “The hole in the wall” for an overnighter, then onto Rebak Marina for the weekend, or longer, until the rigging arrives, when we will drop down to Telaga Marina where the rigger is based. Hopefully the rigging will be fitted in one day, and early next week we will be off to Thailand.

Paul C.

 

 

I have found the location of the starting problem, it’s the starting relay, or the connector on it.

This is not meant to reflect on the QA standards of Ireland at all 😉
I can’t work out which is faulty, the connector or the relay, as every time I unscrew it from its location to test it, the relay works fine, but once back in place it fails, I can’t get my multimeter onto the pins when it is in place, right at the rear of the engine by the gearbox. I suspect the connector more than the relay, but I will change both. Suffice it to say it’s working now, but I expect it will stop when next needed. Fortunately Car ownership 101 taught us how to start a car without the key, a basic Scouse right of passage, so I have kept a short length of wire near the starter. I’m off up the mast now, but wanted to share the following with you…

Congkak
I have seen a lot of lovely carved  wooden creations which I wondered what they were used for, now I have found out that they are for a game called Congkak.

I have included the rules below should you want to try this one at home.

 

Paul C.

The postman came late yesterday with goodies, but I missed him at the office, so collected the bits, a new water gauge and a bow light, this morning. So after a couple of poached eggs with Kathy I got stuck into the jobs.

1. Battery Charger
   Yesterday I was doing some testing to understand how much power I was getting from the wind generator and solar system. During the testing I noticed the battery charger was overheating and shutting down, further investigation showed the fan was broken on the charger. I picked one up yesterday and fitted it this morning. Job done, lets hope it lasts a while.
2. Engine Water coolant leak
   I spent some time yesterday in hardware stores looking for hose fittings to improve this connection to the engine, but there aren’t any. I will probably post on some sailing forums to see what others do. I noticed the hose was quite brittle and I’m going to replace it all next week. For now I cut back the bad hose and re-fitted it. 
   This worked, but a lot more cooling fluid poured out of the hose than I expected, I think the calorifier must hold a lot, and be located higher than the pipe. Managed to catch most of it in a 5 litre jug, but when time came to refill it, I had a litre left over, which in my mind means there is an air lock in the system now. I was expecting to have to add an extra litre. Anyway, I hoped that if I ran the engine a bit then it might work it’s way through.
   The engine wouldn’t start, turning the key, gives a click from the engine, but the starter doesn’t turn. Really disappointing and I assumed the solenoid had jammed, so a gentle tap on the solenoid was tried, no luck.
   I hot wired the solenoid and the engine started, the water level dropped, but not enough. So now I have two show stopping faults, when before I only had an intermittent drip.
3. Water levels
   The port water tank level gauge had packed in, the float didn’t float and its magnets didn’t magnetise, so Kathy replaced it for me. I have wired up the switch that used to just show the starboard tank level so that it now switches between port and starboard. I’ve never had such sophistication on a boat before, very posh. Hopefully we can top up now before the tank gets empty, that will save the pump running on an empty tank, and air spurting out the taps when we are empty.

   

   

 

 

 

 

4. Steaming light on mast

The new light finally arrived, and I popped up the mast for a fitting 😉 Well the mast is sort of oval shaped in cross section and the light has a flat back, I took the old light down and worked out a way to use its bracket for the new light. It looks like it will work well, but by now the sunlight was going so Kathy and I headed off to the pool to watch the sunset and have a cooling swim.

Tonight I have been studying the wiring diagrams for the engine, I now know far more about the Volvo MD22 (AKA Perkins M50) than I ever wanted to know. Things like, the engine ground is isolated from the boats electrical ground when starting or stopping the engine. Doesn’t say why, but might be related to galvanic corrosion caused by heavy currents.
Anyway the click I can hear when I turn the key to start, isn’t the solenoid, it’s a separate relay that switches the starter solenoid. I found that 12v leaves the control panel, and the relay is clicking with it, so it must be the wire or relay contacts from there that leads to the solenoid, as there isn’t any voltage getting to the solenoid. I’m very disappointed with the electrical side of the engine. It’s only ten years old, very low hours, yet the electrics are giving me too many problems. I think the control panel is damaged because it’s out in the cockpit, the UV caused the corners to crack so moisture gets in and has its evil way. How long should water hoses last, these are only 10 years old. The engine on Stardust is 8 years old and still looks new.

Not looking forward to tomorrow, the relay I need to get too is in a most inaccessible place. I will do the mast light first before it gets too hot. Hopefully if I can sort the engine tomorrow we can get out of here on Tuesday and go for a sail and anchor overnight somewhere nearby for a change. I’m hoping the rigging will arrive in a few days time and we can depart for Thailand.

 

Paul C.

 

Popped up the mast today to replace the Navigation light with a new Nasa Marine SuperNova Tricolour/Anchor light.
I’m going to wait until sunset and go to the bar to see how bright it looks. Kathy thinks this a fine Idea.

So a few pics from above.

 

Paul C.

Powerful stuff, must put more lotion on.

I popped up the mast today to replace the spreader working lights, these are lights that we use to light up the deck at night if we need to work in the dark. I also use them to illuminate the sails to make ourselves more visible if I want other boats to see us.

I also wanted to extract the old masthead Tricolour/Anchor light. I was surprised to see how deteriorated the light was. This was quite crazed when I looked at it back in May, but now it was disintegrating, it really brings home how powerful the Uv rays from the sun are here. One of the screws that fixed it down snapped off as I was removing it, so I need to remove that tomorrow.

The spreader lights work well now, I can’t replace the steaming light, which is a white light on the front of the mast we have to have on when we are using the engine for propulsion, because when I tested the light I brought out, it wasn’t white at all but red and green. I ordered a new one today from Austrailia along with a new water tank sensor, should be here in a few days. Tomorrow I will fit the new masthead light which is an LED job from NASA  Marine.
I have also paid for the new standing rigging to be made, it’s being fabricated in Florida and flown out here as I write this, seems crazy, but these wires hold the mast up, and the quality from the USA is very high, so it”s worth it, it’s also quite a reasonable price.

I’m hoping to have the rigging replaced and to depart Langkawi for Phuket in about 2 weeks time. Kathy is working out our itinerary for the trip, so many places to see and events happening there, I can’t wait.

Paul C.

Yesterday I set to work on fixing the instrument panel I blew up on the way up to Langkawi. The fuse I blew, turns out to be a little resettable button on a box at the back of the engine. If I had known that, I could have reset it on passage. at least I know now.  So I took the panel apart after studying the circuit diagram for an hour or so. Some of the circuitry is in an epoxy potted box and the circuit is kept secret. Somehow I seem to have found the details on the internet of this unit’s internals so that was a help. Anyway the main culprit was the connector shown below,this connects the panel switches and alarm signals for oil pressure, water temperature and battery charge to the aforesaid secret box with the lights in it. Someone had previously rammed the plug and socket together, but 90 deg out of position. It’s there so you can replace the box if needed, I understand Volvo wanted about $500 for the box, which is effectively four LEDS, and a few diodes, so I was never going to buy it, even if they hadn’t stopped making it several years ago. So I hard wired around the connector. I replaced all the bulbs in the meters, and epoxied the front of the temp gauge that had fallen off. Now it works 100% and lights up in the dark. Oh I replaced the buzzer, though I hope to never hear it, it only sounds when there’s a big problem. Cleverly those diodes stop it screeching when you turn the key or stop the engine, as it does on most boats.

So I expect you’re wondering how I can top that story, well just wait till I get on to the hose clamps later, but first I had a birthday today. Kathy kindly got me some lovely chocolates and a nice new money belt, which is handy, my old one is disintegrating.

I managed to get the last of the metal strips onto the side of the boat this morning, these are thin strips that stop the fenders ropes from rubbing the varnish on the cap rails. They also look classy, Kathy polished them to a fine mirror like finish.

So onto the hose clamps, I decided to fix the manual bilge pump which wasn’t working, This will be my last contact with the boat before it sinks, should I ever end up in a sinking situation 😉 It’s a pump for pumping water out the bilge, assuming the two electric pumps can’t work. I took it out, serviced it, tested it and couldn’t really find a problem, so put it all back together. On tightening the hose clamps, it has two, they both snapped, this had me thinking, My surveyors and insurance company always insists on double clamping the hoses so that if one breaks, the other will still hold the hose on to the device, yet they both generally are identical when fitted, often from the same production run, live identical lives, and should fail at exactly the same time, all things being equal. I bet they have a different strategy on the International Space Station!
Anyway, both electric pumps and the hand pump work now. The second pump, marked “Emergency Bilge Pump” can’t half shift water, like gallons per second. I was very impressed. I cleaned the bilge some more and ticked that one off the list now. We had some fun when I turned up the tap on the hose pipe Kathy was squirting into the bilge with and the hose jumped out of her hand and started a snake like dance around the galley 😉

While I was in the engine area I had another go at fixing the oil leak, I had tightened up the scavenger pump fitting where I could see it had been weeping oil the other day, but it was still weeping. I think it was a lot better, but it was hard to say as we hadn’t used the engine much on the trip up here, so that may be a factor. So I took the fitting out this time to inspect it. It comes with a soft washer, I remember having an air leak on the fuel system of the old baba , which was a Volvo, and it was down to a slightly worn brass washer somewhere in the fuel line. I wonder if this washer might be causing the leak. I will order a new one. For now I cleaned the surfaces and re-assembled, making sure to get the fitting up tight, and the pipe that goes onto it, snugged up tight too. We shall just have to see if this works or not.
I also had a made a note to look for a water leak, back in May I had to top up the fresh water, not by a lot, maybe half a cup, but it shouldn’t need topping up at all, there’s no way out for the water.  However the water level has been fine since, so I had a look around and found a small leak where the hot fresh water leaves the engine block to go off to heat the domestic water via a heat exchanger. It’s just on the pipe with the hose clamp in the picture. There is the tell tale sign of corrosion building up on the clip. This is going to be a sod to change, the reason it’s leaking is because it’s not fitted on snug, and it cant because of the angle the hose approaches, so whoever fitted it must have struggled, and given up before getting it to fit properly, then tightened up on the clamp and hoped for the best. The worst bit is that it slowly drips hot water onto fittings below which are showing signs of corroding. It’s either bad design by Volvo, or more likely, there is another fitting that should be used to get the pipe to connect properly. As it’s used for an optional external domestic water heater, this hose will have been fitted by the engine installer, not Volvo.
I won’t be happy until this is sorted, because when this pipe fails the engine will lose it’s cooling water and fail. worse than this it will be a sod to fix if under way.
We had a very similar situation on Lady Stardust in Martinique with Max and the boys nearly 10 years ago, a leaking pipe was dripping onto the throttle cable for some years and had caused it to corrode, just as we were trying to get into a port in a very heavy headwind, the throttle cable seized up at the point where it had corroded, I couldn’t work out what was wrong as I couldn’t see the spot on the cable, and had assumed the fuel pump the throttle was connected too was seized and we ended up needing help to get into the port. A very expensive affair, all caused by a slow and persistent drip drip over time.
So given that I had fitted the steel strips, fixed two pumps, an oil leak and found the water leak, it was time to go for my birthday dinner with Kathy at my favourite Langkawi restaurant “Wonderland”
I had Sea Bass grilled and served with a black bean sauce, It was very tasty, we also had a sauce called ABC, which along with the black bean sauce and the rice, they had made vegetarian so Kathy could enjoy it too.

Wonderland was  Kathy’s first encounter with Malaysian restaurants and she was a bit shocked when we first went the back in July, but now after she has eaten at several different places, she appreciates what a class joint it really is 😉 they even sell beer!

I picked up a parcel here that Isaac had sent out, it included lots of things that need to go on the mast, LED lights etc, so that’s tomorrows fun.

Paul C.

So Tuesday morning had me up early to get down to the post office for 8, to get a ‘money order’ to pay the marina. All post offices in Malaysia open at 8, or so I was told by the marina manager. So off I popped at 7:45 sprinting along the coast walk to the post office POS in the mall. It was nice seeing lots of Chinese out doing their Tai Chi routines before work. Arriving at the mall I was disappointed to see it all shut up, the security guard told me the mall and post office don’t open till 10. so after a bit of research with my trusty friend Mr Google, I worked out the University USM had a post office and that might be open now. I asked the guard for his opinion and he replied, of course it will be open, all post offices open at 8! so into a taxi and off I went.

Not long later with the bill paid, and the air-con dispatched to a locker we set off for Langkawi. I think Kathy was pleased to leave, judging by her massive smile and the fact she was dancing and skipping along the pontoon singing , “were leaving, were off,hurrah, hurrah”, I might have exaggerated a little, but Batu Uban is a bit basic / back end of nowhere, but I liked it. I will also miss the interesting group of sailors there too. Touch from ‘MV Memory’ snapped this picture of us leaving, Kathy at the helm, and me bringing fenders in. That’s the Malaysian mainland coast ahead, but we have to turn 90 deg to starboard here as the water is only 3ft deep ahead, and we have to go around Palau Jerajak to get out.

Shortly after our departure at 10:00 AM we are  around the island and passing under the old bridge to the mainland, this is my third time under the bridge and I felt very confident we would fit this time 😉
We were fortunate to have a dry day, with the wind at a nice steady 10 knots from the North West, which allowed us to sail 90% of the time, making 5 knots to the north. I had all the sails up and she handled well. I messed around with the Dutchman, but will need much stronger winds to see how well it works really, but the setup I have seems ok for now, and will control the boom making it safe.
The waters were very quiet, no fishing boats to worry us, just one small course change to miss these fish sticks you can see behind Kathy.

We had a choice of three islands to rest at overnight, the passage is just a little to long to do in one day if you want to stay in light, and sailing at night this close inshore is hazardous in the dark because of all the unlit fishing boats that appear, or rather don’t appear until too late. The previous two trips along this route we stayed at Palau Sonsong, but this time Palau Bidan took Kathy’s fancy so we dropped anchor there. The Spade didn’t set again, but in a way I was happy because it was very calm, we were not in a rush and I fancied the practice, mostly I wanted to play with the windlass and watch my fluorescent cable ties going up and down. Kathy also needs practice and we are still working out how to communicate effectively from me at the bow to Kathy at the wheel. We agreed that me shouting “More” would be more effective if I added a noun like “More Revs”.  Of course more Revs means more engine noise by Kathy so “Less Revs” doesn’t get heard so well. Some couple use hand signals, others have walkie talkies, some end up divorcing!
However we very effectively recovered the anchor and re-set it quickly. I’m very pleased with how the cleaned up clutch works, I can easily control the speed of chain descent, and also set the clutch so it slips when the anchor is fully up, something it didn’t do before, possibly explaining why the anchor platform had been so mangled. Once set we could put the boat fully astern and I could see the chain taught and rigid, the boat stationary, and a lot of water being churned up by the prop. That’s a nice feeling when you have to sleep soon and you’re quite close to a rocky shore. We anchored just beyond the palm trees on the right hand end of the beach below. I think Kathy will post better pictures as she was fascinated by the people living on the island. It’s a place you can go to be part of an ecology project, living in a tent with no amenities.
At some point I checked the Navtext to see if there were any weather warnings and the first line said “Typhoon” when I scrolled down it said Force 17, which seems a lot, I thought it only went to 12!. Anyway, this was for much further north and of no concern to us. The weather here is very predictable, other than for powerful squalls that pass through, it’s generally very safe.

We left P.Bidan early, 08:20, on Wednesday as it’s quite a way to Langkawi still, some 9 hours and we wanted to be there before dark. I also wanted to sail as much as possible. The sea was very calm and the wind was light and from the NE which is all wrong, it’s meant to be from the other way, which would have been lovely, but from the NE meant we had to sail close hauled, which isn’t that fast, but the boat performed very well. We managed 5 knots in about 8-10 knots of wind, I would be very happy to sail around the world under these conditions. We sailed between the two islands at Pulau Payar, a renowned scuba resort where the water is very clear and there is an abundance of fish of many varieties. They say if you can’t catch a fish in these waters you may as well give up, however I think my problem with the two lines I had out was that all the fish were over by the scuba divers. Perhaps next time I will be lucky.

Not long after we left the engine temperature gauge stopped working, this is a pain as we had been running the engine on and off and I like to keep an eye on the temp. If it overheats, and they often do on boats as they are cooled by seawater, and that system can get blocked, or the pump stops working, then when the engine overheats it can do serious damage.
The gauge didn’t work when I bought the boat, but after cleaning all the connections to the panel, it started, so I assumed it was a bad connection and I needed to find the exact one. What better time than now, so off I went with my multimeter. Sadly after a little probing my meter probe slipped and shorted the supply out. I could have predicted that would happen. The panel went crazy, showing revs of 4000RPM, no oil pressure, and no battery charging. Bother.
I brought up the laptop and checked the circuit diagram and it looked like I have probably blown the fuse, but where is the fuse. I have no idea, probably behind the engine, or under the very hot exhaust system. Anyway it will have to wait. After a little bit of fretting I thought that I could run a new supply to the panel from the cigar lighter in the cockpit. This was duly setup and Voila, meters reading again, except for the temp. So now we decided to keep a close watch on the water coming out the exhaust for the rest of the passage and the rest can wait.

I think I have posted a picture of this boat before, the Lili Marleen, but we sailed very close this time and she looked wonderful in the sunlight with the blue sky behind. She seems to be parked up here like several other big ships.
This boat, the one I scoffed at for being registered in Grimsby, was how she looked when I sailed past with Tim on board a few weeks back,
However on the way in the Kuah, the main port of Langkawi we spotted this ship, on the rocks along the coast, on closer inspection I’m pretty sure it’s the same ship. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence, but she was directly downwind from where I remember her being moored. I suspect she broke her mooring, probably at night. I will try to find out the story, I hope she can be salvaged, the coast there is rocks, then a stretch of beach, then more rocks, she missed the beach and is firmly on the rocks!
So into the marina at 17:00, I managed to get a clear view of the pontoon finger as we came in, and put the boat alongside so Kathy could step ashore and cleat the bow, walk back to me and take the stern line. Job done, and the smoothest berthing yet. We’re getting there.

A quick tidy up, then off to the bar for drinks and a nice dinner for Kathy, well it is her birthday, and the postman didn’t seem to be able to find us on Palau Bidan.

 

Paul C.

Yesterday started with me having a go at the windlass, this is the electric motor that pulls up the anchor, seeing as we will need it soon. It wasn’t letting the anchor go down easily because the clutch was sticking, like trying to start a car in gear.

Anyway I managed to get the clutch cone out to find it was very grimy as was its matching surface. I put the picture here as you can see how well it cleaned up. Now it works really well and I’m right chuffed. A full service of the windlass is still  required, but that requires me to drill out the allen keys holding the chain control in place.
Once that was done we headed off to straights quay, Kathy had a wine on the waterfront before we moved on to the shopping mall at Gurney plaza.
After the plaza we headed over the road for a bit to eat. On the way we could see a huge area of land reclamation going on.
Kathy was excited to find a new vegetarian stall on Gurney drive, however it was really the same one with a new sign.
Today is a national holiday, I had planned to settle up at the marina ready for an early start Tuesday, but due to the holiday I now have to get up very early tomorrow to go into town to sort out a postal order to pay the marina people. Still we might get away before 11 and be at anchor at pilau Songsong or nearby by 17:00.
So we took advantage of the tide, and moved the boat from the berth to the outside of the marina in preparation. Before we tied up though we went for a sail down towards Batu Maung. It was a lovely day with 5-10 knots of winds on the nose. We tacked up the strait making 3.5 knots in about 7 – 10 knots of wind. And this was just the main and staysail, we could have done more if I unfurled the big genoa, but I wanted to do a lot of crash gybing and that would have been awkward as you can’t tack the genoa without going up f’ward to manhandle the sail across. So I had the Dutchman working as a kicking strap as we tacked up and it worked well. On the way back it was pulled tight and we did some crash gybes and it worked well, often too well, but that made it no worse than a preventer. The biggest problem in a crash gybe is the main sheets, they still get tangled around everything, even with the boom going slowly across. More fine tuning is needed, but all in all I’m very pleased.

This is one of the land reclamation ships building the land for the new World City complex

Tomorrow we will be on our way north. possibly limited internet, but AIS should be good.

Paul C.

The last oxalic acid I bought was from eBay and I didn’t think much of it, however this acid, Penang Style really kicks, and no, I’m not snorting it. I tried some on the teak and on the fiberglass that was stained, and boy does it work wonders, the boat is starting to look really classy now.
I took some of the rubber sole and glued a strip under the bow sprit to protect the galvanised coating on the new anchor, it looks the part and should work well. I think I can just haul the anchor in really tight now and it will be snug, just need to put something on the whisker stay that looks better than the bubble wrap I’m currently using.
I had a problem when I bought the boat that the swim ladder was sitting on the deck with no obvious attachment points. Well I found these when I was painting the sides and later , after I bought new brackets, I found the original ones that connect the ladder to the boat. Now to refit them was a substantial job that took over 2 hours, Toshi, the previous owner had filled the inaccessible void where the nuts go with spray expanding foam which I had to hack out, but couldn’t really hack, because lots of cables were also in the void, also the void is not visible without mirrors, so mighty difficult, and very tedious. All the time I’m wondering why did he take it off, he’s an intelligent man, I can tell that, so when he took it off he knew he wasn’t ever going to put it back there, so I felt all the time that once I had finally got it fitted, I would realise that I too had to take it off. It’s all fitted now, and with a bit more cobbling I made little round feet for the ladder so it won’t scratch the boat. About a day later I realised why it’s not a good idea to have it where it is, it’s at the widest part of the boat, and sticks out a lot, and although it’s raised a couple of feet above the pontoon, sometimes the boat suffers big waves here and the boat can rise or fall several feet, and theres a chance the ladder could come down hard on the pontoon, probably ripping itself out of the side of the boat leaving a nasty gash. I’m going to move it, just as soon as I work out where, I will wait until the new lifebuoy, danbuoy and lifesling are fitted to find a place at the stern of the boat.

Kathy has been hard at work with her toothbrush cleaning the deck, (I’m a stickler for detail 😉 ). Most of the mess is from my varnishing actually, but thanks to her hard work the foredeck is looking very smart now.

I set about cleaning up the coachroof, the window air-con unit was removed along with the wood and blankets used to keep it in place and airtight. I also removed the liferaft so I had a clear deck. The Dutchman was then connected up and tested, its purpose is to prevent an accidental gybe. For the non sailors, sometimes when we are sailing downwind, that is, with the wind behind us, the boom and mainsail might be all the way out on one side, if the boat changes course accidentally, or the wind shifts unexpectedly, then the boom can suddenly decide it wants to fly to the other side, and when I say fly, I mean it, you hardly see it move it happens so quickly. If you are standing up in the cockpit or on the side deck and it hits you, then it’s often curtains for you. We always rig up a special rope called a ‘preventer’ to prevent this happening, but it’s a messy operation and a little dangerous in itself. The dutchman brake promises to tame the boom, so it can swing across, but at a leisurely pace. I’m looking forward to testing this out next week.
Another improvement we made was to remove all the tatty lines that we use to tie the overhead canopy down with and replace them with custom sized elasticated lines with hooks on the end, this way we can get the canopy up and down in under a minute, and it looks smarter.

Today I started with the aim to find the oil leak, we used too much oil on our trip back from Langkawi, this was worrying me as if the engine is consuming lots of oil it’s a sign of serious problems, however a look in the drip tray under the engine revealed about a pint of fresh oil, Erik had already suggested a leak from the sump drain.

Further investigation found a loose connection, this should have been an easy fix, but again, only having two arms, both of which are less than 5 foot long was a big handicap. Also there was less than a spanner length of gap for the spanner to go in. After an hour of cursing I was able to get it tight with some mole grips at the oddest of angles. I cleaned the sump tray so that when we get to Langkawi next week I can see if it worked.

Next onto the bilge pump. All this bending has loosened me up so I slipped into the innards of the stern and tried to work out why the hand operated bilge pump didn’t work, In cleaning the drip tray, I used the hose to fill the bilge with soapy water. I removed all the oil first with nappies and kitchen roll, so I could try to reduce the pollution, but I couldn’t do much about the fairy liquid. I couldn’t see any problems, so I removed the pump and brought it on deck to check. It seems ok on visual inspection, so perhaps the pipe is blocked. Toshi has been creative in his plumbing here so I may need to investigate further, but this is something I really don’t want to go to sea without. We have a great electric pump, but these often clog with debris in an emergency, and rely on power, which often isn’t there when you have a flooding boat.

Finally I must say the boat is starting to look smart, Kathy keeps it very tidy inside, and now the outside is clean and presentable, and all the crap on the deck has been lost, she looks like a slick, classy boat. The biggest handicap to presentation, is that near the equator you really do need the air-con, which looks well ugly, and lots of canvas strung above the boat to keep the temperature tolerable. I don’t plan to travel anywhere that needs jumpers or heating of any kind, but I think another 15 deg North or South might be better.

The plan has been revised, Monday we are waiting for the delivery of some safety gear, then Tuesday we head back north to Langkawi Yacht Club, arriving Wednesday afternoon/evening for Kathy to have her Birthday drink in the posh bar there. That’s assuming nothing else crops up.

 

Paul Collister

Todays main activity was popping into town and getting some hard to find chemicals. I bought:

2 litres of Acetone, for cleaning surfaces before applying epoxy glue
1 litre of MEK, not sure what that is for, but heard it’s very useful to have. I think it’s a solvent for epoxy, which means it can dissolve my boat, hmmm.
1 litre of Isopropyl, or something like that, another good cleaner, I think its like alcohol. Chemistry isn’t my strong point
1kg of Oxalic Acid crystals, these dissolve in warm water to make an excellent cleaner for most things, but it works very well in cleaning teak.

The total price for this was £10, can’t complain. I bought this from a shop run by a rather famous local man called Mr Ong, the chemical man. He is 91 and is thinking of retiring soon. I had a brief chat with him in the shop. It’s amazing what you can buy here.  Later I bought some sheets of hard rubber/plastic, used for cutting soles for shoes from a shoe repair and leather supplier. This will fit under the bowsprit nicely and protect the sprit and the galvanising on the anchor, again, just £2.

I bought some plastic sheeting in a shop and asked for a discount as it was a bit shabby, the guy dragged his abacus over and used it to knock 10% off, very impressive how fast he used it.

I use Uber to get around, they are very good, cheap and most of the drivers are ethnic Chinese so their English is generally better than the ethnic Malaysians. As was usual I had to explain everything about the boat and our plans, and as usual, the drivers are amazed we are sailing around the world, after lots of questions this driver asked me if I was a proper sailor man, I replied yes, I suppose so, to which he launched into singing “I’m popeye the sailor man, I live in ….”. When he extracted from me that I was doing this trip with my girlfriend, he started exclaiming over and over, “So Romantic, So romantic”. I would have said, stop here, drop me off here, yes, this motorway flyover is just fine. However it’s difficult to change your destination on Uber, even harder not to give your driver 5 stars after the trip, just in case you get him on the way home.

Later back at the boat I pulled the aircon off the deck and cleaned up, we will get this deck looking fit for purpose soon.

Tonight we went for dinner at Supertanker, a giant Chinese / Thai foodcourt. Erik drove us there and I think Kathy enjoyed it. I love the place, great food, dirt cheap and a lovely busy but friendly atmosphere. I had a tasty chocolate and banana pancake for pudding from a vendor who is famous for his wares.

General chores tomorrow, specifically the sails and control lines and the water tank guages.

Paul C