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Woke to find a note that the water was being shut off in the marina because of a leak, but they had already shut it off by then. Im not sure why they did it this way, I think it had been leaking for ages, so a little bit more notice so we could all fill our water tanks would have helped. Still I have enough in the tanks for what I need, just can’t take showers on the pontoon, or hose the deck down, will have to resort to heaving buckets of sea water up.

So on testing my repair from yesterday, I found it was still leaking water, not a lot, but any is too much. I realise now that I just didn’t do the repair very well, I was running low on sealant, and spread it to thin, I did apply a generous amount of optimism, but that didn’t seem to be water resistant, I need to strip it all down again, much harder because the sealant I used will make it very difficult to disassemble. The problem stems from the piece of wood that sits on the cap rail isn’t flat, and it has to deal with the curve of the coaming, so it needs a lot of sealant, far too much actually and it might be best to file and sand down the wood until it is a snugger fit. All of this is a big job, so I very reluctantly did a bit of a bodge repair, I need to wait until the morning to fully tighten up the parts and re-test, I’m hopeful this will work for a while, but it’s staying on my todo list.

I bought 20 litres of fuel for our trip at the weekend (22p / litre), just to have some emergency fuel on board, I have half a tank which should be enough, but we will refuel from a fuel barge on the way anyway.

I re-sprayed the Icom HF SSB case as it was very rusty from the leak dripping onto the case for the last year or more. It  looks quite smart now, but then it is black and kept in a dark corner with the lights low. Under these conditions, my paint jobs are just about acceptable. So the chart table area is looking great now.  We have MF/HF SSB, VHF Radio,  Radar and NAvTex, soon to be joined by iPad chart plotter and AIS Transponder which I have ordered direct from the Chinese manufacturer.

It the start of Ramadan here, which means lots of big bangs going off all night, not really sure how that works, but it’s keeping me alert.

Tim arrives tomorrow, so I have to get the boat back into a presentable form, and buy some supplies.

I took a walk and got some nice pics in the setting sun.

Paul C.

 

At least I hope so. I was able to re-bed the second leaking prism in next to no time. Easier now I understood the way they are fitted, but also it was overcast most of the day, and consequently a lot cooler.
Next onto the final leak in the quarter berth, squirting the hose around the deck soon produced a dribble onto the shelf inside. So down with the headlinings (Ceiling panels) and it didn’t take long to find it was coming in from the double block behind the Genoa winch

What was sad, was that somebody had spent time trying to stop the leak, they had identified that it was the bolts on the block that were letting water in, and had covered the heads of the bolts with sealant, and when that didn’t work, they had put gunk on the inside of the boat on the end of the bolts, all this did was cause the water to build up inside the deck area and cause crevice corrosion on the leaking bolt. I had an idea that the problem might actually be the seal between the wooden backing base and the deck, so by gently pouring water along the cap rail/deck I was able to see it dribbling into the quarter berth. So off with the block, then off with the backing block, lots of clean up and then reverse, but doing it properly this time.

The wooden base pad is back on, and tomorrow I will refit the double block (pulleys) then hopefully that’s the leaks sorted for a while.
That was about it for the day, I have a couple of days to finish off this job, and clean up the boat before Tim arrives. I’m expecting to spend a few days exploring Penang with Tim before we head off to Langkawi, that will be the first test of the boat since I bought her. I’m looking forward to it, however getting out of the marina will probably be the hardest part.

Paul C

 

Sunday, so a little lie in, then onto the leaks, I decided to do the port one first, as this was easy, and I could learn what not to do one this one before I tackle the important one, which had leaked all over the SSB, fortunately only damaging the case. So I first poured water over the prism on the deck to make sure I could see the leak, and sure enough water was dripping below, I had already covered the sofa ready for the work. Sometimes where the water drips out in the boat is nowhere near where it enters, so this was a good result. I removed the fittings below and above then found the prism was very easy to prise out with a sharp blade. The prisms are like free light bulbs, they take the sunlight and retransmit it around the inside of the boat, simple, but very effective.

The hole / recess in the deck was full of sealing compound of some kind, but it hadn’t set very well, and it hadn’t adhered to the glass, or to the fiberglass very well, hence the leak. there’s a ragged lip that the glass sits on, it’s not a very satisfactory arrangement at all, but if the sealant adheres, it should be watertight.

So I cleaned it all up, and de-greased the surfaces and the glass with acetone, filled it all with sikaflex 291, and re-bedded the glass.

I know that in the UK, this would be bullet proof, but I’m a bit worried that the Sikaflex might struggle to set with the high temperatures here. I will test it with the hose pipe in the morning, and if it works, at least it’s better than it was. It looks awful when you look closely, but when I checked the existing prisms around the boat, they are much worse. I think I can do a better job on the next one.

The last job of the day was to sand down the case of the SSB Radio, the leaking prism had caused rust to appear all over it, I hacked the rust off with a file in places, eventually I got a fairly smooth shiny case back. Tomorrow I plan to prime and spray the case black.  It’s only the case that saw any damage, the inside of the SSB looks like new, so it was worth a go to spruce its appearance up.
Then off to the Mall to buy some food for dinner, (Salmon, weird mushrooms, pepper, garlic, onion and spuds) and some tools, masking tape and black paint.

I took the cycle path and noticed it was very busy with people down the beach, chilling or fishing, but mostly taking selfies. I am seriously concerned about the number of pictures being taken around the world 24/7, where can we keep them all, who is going to sort them, It’s a disaster waiting to happen.

Low water I guess. Was going to make a joke about Tsunamis, but this area was hit by the 2004 one, not badly, but I think lots of people where affected one way or another

More leak fixing tomorrow, a bit of painting, then I need to start tidying up and getting ready for Tim’s arrival. By the weekend we should be heading out to sea to do what this boat was designed for, can’t wait to try diving off the bow sprit while anchored in a quiet remote spot.

PS, theres a mosquito flying around the cabin, he looks a bit dazed, but I bet that wont stop him having his dinner 🙁

Paul C

It was overcast and quite cool when I stuck my head outside this morning about 9AM, so I thought, lets get that outboard sorted. I drained out the old fuel and put a pint of fresh stuff in. Then I decided to make a lifting strap and re-jig the block and tackle I was using to lower the engine down to the dinghy. I got it all wrong and ended up standing in the dinghy doing a juggling act with an outboard engine, while trying to hold onto the boat with my sometimes free hand. Fortunately no one else was around so dignity was maintained. I have sorted this now, and it’s a more impressive operation. Anyway, after a bit of flushing the old fuel through, the engine was running and I went for a little spin. All worked out well, but I feel the carb needs cleaning as it runs a little uneven, it feels like it might only be firing on three 😉

Next I retired below to work on the chart table electronics, and first off to fix the radar. Ron, had commented that he thought it was a high resistance, I was sure it was a fault on the earth side, as I think the earth was finding a route home via the LEDS elsewhere. Anyway, it was a high resistance on the earth wire in the switch panel, so ‘one all’ I think.
I actually love this kind of fault finding, as it is terrible logical, but can be quite complicated. Experience helps as well. So below is the Electrics switch panel, it looks mad, but is actually very well structured. Sadly, as new gear has been added the previous owners have connected to the switches, not to the connection blocks at the rear, I’m sorting this out as I go along.

The main mistake somebody has made is on the negative common rail, as you can see below, in order to make several connections where there had been one before, they have made a post with a bolt through the busbar, a nut at the bottom clamps the post in place, then the connections are bolted down on top.

This seems like a good idea, but I spotted the problem straight away, the top nut was tight, but the bottom nut was no longer as tight as needed so all the earths (3 in total, 1 for the radar, and one of the others going to the nav lights) were joined together between the nuts, but making an intermittent connection to the bus bar, which was the true negative. So when this was not connecting the radar would try to find a negative path using the nav lights, so went up the mast, back down to the positive, where it stopped at the open switch, but had a route to the bus bar via the indicator lights on the panel. All was explained and removing one of the nuts was all that was needed to solve the problem. Radar now works fine.

I also moved the radar cables to a better spot at the back of the panel and tidied up a bit, I found this connection, not needed and rubbish anyway. I hate bad wiring.

So I relocated the Navtex, which as I type I can see receiving ‘notice to mariners’ messages in the background. I love my Furuno Navtex, was gutted when the one on the baba failed. You can leave it on overnight and wake up to a complete weather forecast and any other navigational information that might be relevant in your area. Forget all that shipping forecast nonsense. Finally I wired up the Icom HF SSB radio, the mainstay of weather forecasting for offshore passages when we are beyond the range of cell phones, that’s working very well, but it’s a marine model, and I only have experience on Ham versions, so there’s some learning to do, but it sounds very lively, and I don’t hear any QRM (electrical noise) from the boat. I’m hoping to have a chat with Neil G4OAR at some point in the next few weeks, but with time differences and propagation vagaries, this might be difficult. We might have to use morse code, now that would be fun.

So at 01:30 AM, it’s definitely bedtime. Tomorrow I have to start fixing the leaks, I have 2 deck prisms to rebed, and something in the quarter berth area, which will requir me to take down all the headliners, oh what joy.

PS The baba in Spain, Lady Stardust, has had an offer made on it which I have accepted, much less than she is worth, but that’s boats for you.

Sorry to be so technical today, will try and get more pictures of the otters for tomorrow 😉

Paul C.

I started the day working on the chart table area, I devised a way to mount the radar so it hangs down, and looks very cool, without doing too much damage to the boat. As I was cutting up some wood for this, Dave, my neighbour with the Halberg Rassey called around and offered to run me to the Gas shop, and the Gas station (see what I did there 🙂 ), for some petrol for the outboard.
So off we went, I got a huge bottle of propane/butane mix for 30RM which is about £5 and will probably last me a year. Petrol is 1.7RM / Litre, which is about 30p a Litre, but then they do make it here. Saying that, where does north sea oil come from!.

What you might not realise is that gas bottles rarely cross borders, each country around the world tends to have it’s own system with it’s own connectors, making everything incompatible. Now Sister Midnight is really an American boat, designed by and for Americans, and comes with two fancy american style 5 gallon bottles, which are almost impossible to refill outside of the Americas.
So this is where my favourite part of the day happened, Dave taught me how to drain one bottle into another with a bit of hose and some gas fittings,

I always wanted to understand how to do this, and having accomplished it, I now feel much more like a real yachtie, capable of taking on the world! Especially with two full bottles of gas in the gas locker. In this case I used a Malaysian standard to American,  but this technique will work anywhere in theory.

I also have 10 litres of fresh petrol to test out on the outboard tomorrow.

Once the sun set I returned to the chart table, mounted the radar and tried to fire it up, sadly, when I turned it on, the leds on the switch panel for the mast lights all came on very dimly, and the radar made clicking sounds. Not good, I suspect the power supply is messed up, I wonder if the radar takes it’s power from the connector block the lights are on. Oh well, all will become clear tomorrow.

Cheers, Paul C

Woke up to a very quiet boat, seemed very tranquil, couldn’t understand until I tried to boil a kettle for morning coffee and discovered there was no power, hence the AirCon being so quiet. I stuck my head out the hatch and could see the electricians at work on the quay. So another hot day in store, got the stove going, made a coffee and sat on the foredeck with my bananas enjoying the sun.
Decided to work inside for as long as I could, so set about completing the wind instrument wiring and tidying up the other bits and bobs in the wiring and Quarter berth area. The wind instrument works well, but needs aligning, and I can only do that when the wind is on the nose, so that will have to wait. I do like the NASA unit, but miss the extra features of the ST50, like switching between True and Apparent wind, also it’s ability to store the maximum gust. but the thing with the NASA Marine device is, it’s shoving all the data out over the data bus (NMEA) so that goes into my iKonnect gateway, and my apps can see it all, they can then do really fancy stuff with it, and I can see graphs of wind history, speed, direction, gust amplitude etc. Of course somebody needs to write these apps, but that will happen, if not I will have a go myself.

Next a bit of stainless drilling around the pedestal (steering wheel) area, so it will support beer/drinks cans reliably. Everything in the cockpit has to be bolted down and very storng, as when you are being thrown around, you might grab anything and need to know it wont snap off.

Finally for my last job I got the inflatable out, and started inflating. It’s a very fancy dinghy, it has an inflatable floor on top of an inflatable keel, so it may even plane!

Unfortunately, it doesn’t have any rowlocks, rowlocks are pronounced with a silent w, if I remember correctly, such that they rhyme with that famous sex pistols record. never mind the rowlocks. I found one of them in a locker on the boat, I expect they fell off in the heat here, glueing things is very difficult I’m learning. So I need to source a second rowlock, and get some PVC glue. I’m assuming it’s PVC?

I then put the outboard onto the dinghy to see if that would get me out to the fishing grounds, or even to the opposite pontoon, but it wasn’t to be. The engine started after just a few pulls on the starter cord, but the idle speed was way to high. After letting it run for a bit, and doing some revving, it’s idle speed reduced, but then, it dropped so much, it kept stalling, whatever I did, it always stalled when I put it into gear.
The main thing is it was running, I’m expecting most of the problems are due to the fact that the petrol is stale, it’s been in the engine for a long time, possibly years, so I will put some fresh juice in and see where that gets me.

I had a shower on the pontoon, by now the workmen had been on the electrics to the marina for 7 hours, and they boat was very hot, but just before I headed off for a walk, they finished the work. I decided to walk down to where there is a bit of a beach, I wouldn’t sunbathe there, as it’s rather polluted with rubbish flowing ashore.
The tree stump below actually seemed to be rooted in the sand, it seemed to be staring at me!

Further down the beach there are cafes and restaurants, the cafes where shutting and burning there rubbish on the beach, quite atmospheric, but rather smelly close up

Back to the cooler boat and lots of internet research for bits and bobs.

 

Firstly, after chatting with the locals here in the marina, I thought I ought to downgrade my ‘mugging attempt’ to a ‘failed bag snatch’ which obviously is not such a big deal. Apparently, it’s not uncommon for this to happen at night in dark places away from the public.

So up early and up the mast to sort out the lights and install a new wind sensor. My first trip was a little uncomfortable, it’s a very long way to the top, and the shrouds (wires) get in the way at one point, also you have to use the spreaders as steps, and there not really in the right place.

However, due to incompetence on my part, I kept forgetting something to take up, and had to make several trips. By the end of the morning I was zipping up and down like a pro.
The starboard spreader light is blown, I have spares in Barcelona! and the steaming light was also blown, but there was no power getting there either, so I need special bulbs before I can get any further. That can wait.
I did fit the new wireless solar powered wind speed and direction indicator. It sends the data home using wifi, which cuts down on a cable.

That doesn’t mean you still don’t have cables at the bottom, and I had to take down the instrument panel thats above the companionway, and fit the new display and route the cable back to the chart table were the wireless receiver will sit. This was a nightmare and took all afternoon, I had to take down the head-linings in the main cabin, something I haven’t done before. I now know what not to do, so after repairing the lighting cables I snapped, and crawling around the floor looking for screws and their cups, I got the cable routed through to the quarter berth where I will need to extend it for the final leg back to the chart table. Nothing’s easy on boat electrics.

So having put the boat back together, I headed down to the Mall to see if there was any chance of getting some bulbs from the hardware store, which there wasn’t. There’s a lovely looking Malaysian food court on the way I must try out sometime.

I didn’t get anywhere with the dinghy today, so will try that tomorrow, and tidy the boat and head out on Friday for a little run.

Paul C.

Up early to get down to the Queensbay Mall and buy some power tools and food.

I took a new direction on the walk there and found a lovely spot where I saw some otters, at least I think that’s what they where, they ran from behind a tree and jumped into the sea when they heard me. I took a picture of the coast here and zoomed in so you can see the poor things trying to escape from me. I have that affect on all animals, in fact not just animals ….

At the Mall lots of kids were queuing with there parents to go into the Lego thing, I take an interest due to being the winner of a major lego competition back in 1965, (aged 7) where I won the biggest lego set you could imagine, I believe I won the prize because I named the competition lego town “OGEL town”, pretty clever eh!

So taxi back to the boat, I can tell you, you don’t need to visit no gym when your carry 5 litre jugs of water and a stack of other heavy goods up and down pontoons.

After a spot of lunch I started hacking at the mast lighting cables under the floor of the living room, or under the main cabin sole, for the more nautical of you.

As you can see from the pictures, these connecters were beyond redemption, as where all the cables going into them, most snapped off with a little flexing.Fortunately there was enough slack in the cables to cut them back to useable ends. Now they are all connected up and looking good. All I had to do was wait for sunset, which wouldn’t be long and I could see what was working.

You probably know this, but being just a few degrees north of the equator the sun sets and rises at pretty much the same time every day, it sets at 7:28 PM and rises at 07:04 AM, 24 minutes longer than 12 hours for the day, I suppose in the middle of winter the day is 11:36 minutes long.

Anyway at 19:30 I popped out to see which lights I had working, and which switches they belonged on. I was very pleased to see I now have an anchor light on the top of the mast, with a tricolour below it. I also have a Spreader/Deck light on the port side, but the Starboard side is dead, along with the steaming light. I bet the steaming light is just a bad connection, as it was showing a low resistance when I measured it, but once I applied power it went open circuit. So it’s just the steaming light that needs fixing, this is a legal requirement, but I will look at the spreader as well when I go up the mast tomorrow. All in all not a bad days work.

I’m planning on having a play with the dinghy and outboard motor tomorrow, if possible I’m going to go out, anchor off the harbour at sunset and try to catch some dinner.

Paul C.

 

So it was omelette night last night on account of having no other choice, also I wanted to see if I could  salvage anything from the post mugged eggs that broke, These were the individually wrapped eggs that where quite pricey. I bought them because eggs, like chickens here are very cheap, and everywhere, I saw loads of people in the supermarket buying several hundred eggs at a time. Most of the eggs come in a minimum of 12 but often 48 or bigger packs, they don’t seem to do organic or free range that I can tell, but they do have vitamin enhanced, which sounds dodgey. So when I saw these more expensive individual wrapped eggs in packs of 4, I assumed they were going to be special, that was until last night when I went to crack one open and got the shock of my life

I should have realised the clue is in the name, it’s a century egg, named so because it’s a raw egg that’s been pickled/preserved for 100 years, however they seem to have got the process down to a few weeks through the use of modern technology. It was like a badly coloured hard boiled egg that smelt awful, no use for an omelette, but actually quite tasty.

Today I was up early and marched miles to a bus stop to head off to the chandlers, spent loads, and was quite pleased to get nearly everything I needed. Walking back to the bus station, I passed the entrance to the town marina, so popped in to see what it looked like, I had heard most of the pontoons were damaged or missing and it had long been closed. I took the picture below and can confirm the pontoons don’t look great.

So back to work, need to get the nav lights working, last night when I opened the port red bow light it started to crumble in my hand, I could see badly corroded connections inside so left it and bought a new lamp housing today, I fitted it, and had to re-jig the wiring as it’s been installed rather badly at some point. Anyway it still didn’t work, which didn’t surprise me, a dive into the chain locker found a lot of corrosion on the connecters that supply the power

So I cleaned these up, the Ancor (brand name, nothing to do with anchors) high spec cable was rusted through, and cracking. I thought that wasn’t meant to happen with pre tinned wire, still a bit of scrubbing and we were up and running. One day I will redo all of this as Im not happy with the cable and its routing.

I do have a problem that the starboard light can be seen all over the show, I suspect the problem is they have used the wrong bulb, I’m going to acquire the right bulbs before I tackle this.

 

So tomorrow I’m off to the Mall to pay a silly amount of money for some power tools for the boat, then the lights on the mast are next. I have also run out of food and drink, there are no shops within 30 mins walk of the boat.

Paul C

I’ve been in Batu Uban for two weeks now, I was sure it was only one, but then I did think everything seems to be taking me twice as long as I expected. so realising that Tim will be out in a week and a half, I was galvanised into working out priorities. So today ended up being very productive.
First I connected up the boats aircon, and was sort of happy to find it’s not pumping cool water, which could be easy to fix, as opposed to a coolant issue, and all the associated CFC issues. Knowing that the pump has to come out is enough for this to go on the back burner. A by product of this work was a 110V supply I can use for the legacy kit, including the microwave, that I tested, very pleased that it makes the classic ding sound when done.
Next I realised by changing the pipework a little I could fix the head, which didn’t take long at all.
I worked out the best way to ascend the mast, a job for this coming week, once I get a portable drill, to fix the new solar powered wireless wind anemometer. I’m going to use a safety harness connected to the main halyard with a prusik knot, there are steps on the mast, but I want something in case I slip. In anticipation of this job, I checked the boats navigation lights once the sun dropped behind the hills, I have a starboard light on the bow and a stern light that work. No port, steaming or anchor. The tricolour doesn’t work, and something marked flash didn’t cause any flashing anywhere, also the deck lights are dead, which are handy to illuminate the mainsail to make other boats aware of your presence. This is going to take at least half a day to fix.

I need to get the dinghy and outboard sorted next week, but all in all the jobs are going well, hoping to go out for a spin by Thursday. Trying to calculate the tides here is proving difficult. right now we are an hour or three after high water, depending on the tide table you use, I think high water was about 2 hours ago, yet the current hasn’t turned yet. It seems the current is least between high and low water, which is the opposite to what I was expecting. I think something odd is happening because I am in the channel between the mainland and the island of Penang with another island next to us. This matters mostly because I will  struggle to get out of the marina when the current is flowing fast, or at low water, due to the silting here.

It was very grey and overcast today, a lovely change as that made it a lot cooler.

Looking out to the rain forest island you could see the rain coming in

Paul C