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Yes, if that’s not magic, I don’t know what is. I haven’t connected the boat to shore power yet, so I’m charging the batteries from the solar panels, and I’ve have had the fridge on 24/7, and it’s now icing up inside the ice box, and that’s on its lowest setting. Just brilliant. I have read how refrigeration works, but I still can’t get my head around it. As a little boy, I had the job to lie on the floor and look under my nan’s gas fridge to see if the pilot light was still burning, still think that’s weird.

Had a long hard day on the boat today, I took the main and two headsails down and stowed them away, they were only going to continue rotting. The mainsail was in a stack-pak cover, which although the cover was starting to rot, the sail looked like new, in fact it’s not that old. The two headsails are not that good, baggy, very dirty and the sacrificial strips are toast. But sails get old, so I’m happy to buy new ones, and I’m in one of the best parts of the world to source new sails.  The largest sail loft in the world is just up the coast in Phuket.

Getting down the headsails was a little hairy; as a rule you shouldn’t have any sail up when on the hard in a cradle, just in case a blow of wind comes along, it might topple the boat. It’s worse with a furled up headsail, as you have to let the whole sail out, then drop it quickly. I went with the staysail first as this is the smaller, and it jammed, took a few tugs and eventually it came down. I took more time with the genoa, which is pretty big, and would easily pull the boat over. It took an hour before I had the rhythm of the wind gusts and subsequent calms sorted, then I went for it, I think I got the sail down in less than 3 seconds. I then looked over to see the face of the crane operator, he understood exactly the risk I took, and was grinning at me.

The grinding continues, what a job, I do feel for the guy doing it, he sits there all day with a 6″ grinder, you can see the fan that blows air on him. I expect he will finish all of one side this week.

I have seen some of the work the yard has done on other boats here and it’s of a good quality.

Erik came over today to recover his dinghy, he had brought it with us on the trip down, just in case. He decided it best to motor it back to his boat, about 5NM, however his outboard was playing up, I gave him water and fizzy drinks, and some rope for his anchor. After a first failed attempt, he set off and made it faster than wanderlust did on the trip down.

Today was very exciting, the owners of the boat next to me started to kick off with the yard workers, they were very aggressive, at one point he threw his tea pot at his cabin, before screaming at a yard worker who was antifouling another boat, he then stormed off in a big huff. No sooner had he left the yard, than 4 workers came down, put his fishing boat in slings and launched him, it looked like they were getting shut, or he had said get me out, because the work wasn’t finished on his boat, the rudder was half way through being welded, as his boat was released from the slings, with no one on board, two more big blue fishing boats came screaming over, and the fire brigade arrived. The angry skipper appeared out of nowhere, ran along the quay, jumped onto his boat and reversed out. screaming at everyone and being pursued by an office worker with a clipboard, presumably the bill!
I could sort of piece it together, except were did the fire brigade fit in? Looking out to the two other big fishing boats, I noticed one was squirting a big fountain of water over the side, just like the fire boats do when the QE2 visits liverpool, strange I thought, but then when she was pushed into the slings by the other fishing boat, I could tell she was sinking and that was an emergency pump, provided by the fire brigade doing the fountain display. She was then hauled up and the water was squirting out through planks on the port bow.

Later when they moved the boat to go in the space just vacated by Mr Angry, I suspect the weight of water inside must have sprung a plank, as it started pouring out on the starboard side, took over 30 mins to drain out, must have been a bit scary out at sea at the time. The words ‘bucket’ and ‘rust’ spring to mind when looking at these boats,

The boat’s prop was also badly fouled, I wondered if this could have been related

Tomorrow is my last day working on the boat, Thursday & Friday are going to be spent in Langkawi looking for marinas and chandleries for my next visit here. Saturday will be spent summer-ising the boat, I need to find a way to keep it from going mouldy in the humid heat that’s here.

Finally a trip to the supermarket presented me with another reminder that Chinese New Year is nearly here, Plus I have learnt to recognise the Chinese equivalent of Jingle bells, being played ceaselessly in the shops, and it’s just as annoying.

Still dinner of chicken fried rice in the local restaurant came to 90p and was very nice. I went over the top and for another pound had two glasses of fresh orange. What’s not to like !!

 

 

 

Today I will mostly be inside a locker (fast show reference, in case you missed it). Yes today was the time to remove the rotted wood from the hanging locker and work out what went wrong.

Basically the chain plate, and also the stanchion base next to it has been allowing water to get through the deck and it has been running down the backing plate for the chain plate (chain plates are what the wires holding the mast up are tied to) and rotting the plywood that encases it all. This is more cosmetic than structural, but unfortunately, a lot of cosmetic damage has been done, including about 3 sq inches of teak & holly sole in the companionway in front of the locker. I removed all of the rotted wood, and will replace it at some point, but that’s not a priority now, I mainly wanted to access the chain plates and assess the damage.

I thought you might be amused at the sketch I did yesterday for the thru hulls, not sure why I wrote port on it?

I took a snap of the shanty town the construction site wrokers live in, just up the hill here. Apparently they come from Bangladesh, and before they build the shopping mall, the build their little village out of corrugated iron and shipping containers.

The area all around the ship yard is basically jungle/rain forest, it really feels like I’m in a Tarzan movie when I’m waiting for the taxi up here at night. You hear the strangest sounds coming from the trees.

Below you can see the grinding is moving along, the white-ish circles are blisters that have been repaired before, mostly quite successfully,

A closer look at one of the popped blisters shows it has penetrated a few layers of the matt fibreglass, which is the layer under the gelcoat, this still isn’t of much concern as it’s not structural, and relatively isolated, but it will need grinding out, then rebuilding with new layers of fiberglass

There is an isolated blister on the bow, which when popped, shows dry, fresh fiberglass. This points to a lay up problem, when the boat was build, the builders didn’t get the polyester resin into the glass properly, this is right in the bow and would have been a difficult area to work in. Interestingly, Lady Stardust had a similar problem in almost exactly the same place.

Had a great nights sleep, and today I planned to clean up inside the boat, and check all of the thru hulls /seacocks, as these can only be changed with the boat out of the water. Looking out the window revealed a very dark sky, great, a little less heat today.

My friendly taxi driver Zainol, turned up at 12, and through pouring rain we headed to the yard, to get there, we have to drive through a huge building site for two new tower blocks like those in the picture above, which are linked together by a huge shopping mall, the size of Liverpool one.

The boatyard, like most, has an array of abandoned boats, many wooden fishing boats like those below.

One boat,the ‘MARIA SORG MUTINEER’ caught my attention, as it looked in a very bad way, but was rigged for an ocean passage I thought, what was the story, how had it got here, and why no further. I had a quick google and found references in the Mensa English Group to the Czech owner who was considered mad by some, having sailed it from Europe to Malaysia, then flew to America and sailed to Europe on another boat

So to start I made  drawings of the hull from the outside, both sides, marking on it every place where  a hose exited. I gave each one a letter, I almost ran out letters! There are 20 holes in my boat, Lady Stardust has about 10. Then inside, and I lifted every board in the sole (floor) to find where they were and what they did, several hours later I was pleased to say, all bar one were accounted for, and none needed any work, a few were stiff and needed freeing up, but that’s normal. There’s  lot of plumbing in this boat, the air con, water generator and pressurised water and manual foot pumps, along with the shower, and deck wash are responsible.

The water supply to the Air Con was turned off, so I’m hoping this is the reason it wasn’t working when Erik tested it.

While I was in the area, I spotted bad corrosion where the mast wiring joins the boats electrics, A bit of vaseline would have helped there (as the Actress said …)

Back on deck, i did some tidying up. One of the great things about having a bigger boat, is theres space for some proper guards, There are guard rails around the mast, which give you something to hang onto, and a lot of protection when working at the mast in a rough sea. Also the guards over the dorade cowl vents are great at stopping the sheets (ropes) from snagging. On Stardust, I’m forever ripping the cowls off their base when caught out by heavy gusts.

When I arrived, I had a new neighbour, water was pouring out through his hull, so I think his planking needs a bit of attention.

And finally, I gave the galley another clean, it really is quite a big space, however I couldn’t find a way to get the stains off the worktops, I think they will be formica, or similar , any tips would be appreciated. Will try again tomorrow.

I’m adding a final picture in at a higher resolution to see how it comes across

All the best, Paul C

Well the grinding of the hull started today, and stopped almost as quickly judging by the amount of work done.

The rudder has been ground down to the gelcoat, even though the rudder had no blisters. the bit of the hull that has been done does show a few blisters, but they don’t seem to have gone into the matting below the gelcoat, which is promising.

I didn’t get up till late today, on account of abdominal pains all night, I was on the verge of calling a doctor, but figured it would pass at some point, which it did. I think I strained a muscle, which I find much easier to do as I get older. I found a hypermarket over the road from the hotel, so stocked up on all the usual supplies needed for boat work, cleaners, sponges, lots of kitchen rolls, and treated the boat to some new tea towels and a bathroom towel. I also bought some batteries so the ships clock could start ticking again, in fact she has two clocks, one near the nav station, set to UTC (GMT for you non pc folks).

The picture below is from the stern of the boat, those objects out there are buildings, possibly houses on a group of floating fish farms, they’re a hive of activity. I presume, like most things around here, they were damaged in the 2004 tsunami. I think the concrete poles in the foreground probably supported jetties back then to.

I had a good day on the boat, I found carpet to cover all the cabin soles, and sheets and blankets I threw over the cushions. The previous owner didn’t compromise on quality, and I’m constantly being surprised and pleased with new finds. Today I found that the air con doubles as a cabin heater, that the Radar works fine, and is a fancy one, that Penang’s Capital FM One, really rocks through the cabin hi fi system, that one of the two Epirbs is still working (in test mode), that I have flippers and a diving belt & spear gun (sorry Kathy), and there are spares for just about everything on board. I think the PO was very similar to me in his outlook, I also think he was an engineer, given the amount of tools and spares and liquids/ greases/ solvents etc on board.

I managed to empty out the V-Berth, and remove the wooden panels under the storage under the bed. This is where the Bow Thruster is going, I wanted it clear so I can show the yard on Monday.

I gave the cooker a scrub, not too vigorously, but enough to see it’s going to come up looking like new. It’s a serious 3 burner stove, and you should see the gas locker, space for two gigantic gas bottles, enough to cover several oceans.  Yesterday I fired up the SSB, it seems to work, but will need to have a QSO with Neil G4OAR to confirm.
Despite having no mains power yet, the wind generator and the solar panels are keeping the fridge nice and chilled 24/7

Rather late today a motor yacht turned up to be hauled out, she only just fitted into the slip

It was getting dark by the time they had her in the slings

Then it was home for me and a chance to try out the local cafe round the corner from the hotel, suggested by the driver, he recommended the thing on the right saying it was a refreshing drink, but when I ordered it, there was much merriment amongst the staff, perhaps they saved me some embarrassment by not including the fizzling sparklers. Still it all tasted great, if not a bit hot.

The guys & gals on the Baba group are doing a grand job of advising me on some of the specific baba issues I have, like what power bow thruster I need. This internet thing can be jolly handy sometimes.

Today I had my last free breakfast at the Neo+ hotel, before moving out to a cheaper hotel down by the boat.

From now on I’ll be getting breakfast in the street. I had a meeting with the boatyard managers today to discuss how we are going to proceed with the hull blisters. We have agreed to grind/sand down the hull to the gelcoat, so we can see the extent of the blistering. Once they have done this, it is likely they will grind down all of the blisters taking out the fiberglass below the gelcoat, this will then be rebuilt with fresh fiberglass and epoxy filler. We may then go for an epoxy coat over the whole hull, or some form of barrier protection. I’m not convinced either is a great solution, but I’m trying to get a surveyor down to give his opinion, once we remove all the paint/primer on the hull. The whole process may take a couple of months, depending on the extent of the osmosis, as the hull has to fully dry before the repairs start. I’m hoping they will complete the grinding before I leave so I get a feel for the scope of the work.

I was able to spend most of the afternoon/evening on the boat today, getting to know her better, and to rummage through the lockers and stowage areas. I found these pretty Japanese things, presumably left by Toshio the previous owner.

I asked my good friend, and alleged Japanese speaker Dominic, what they meant, with his usual classy wit he responded with the translation; “ha ha you have bought a shite boat that will never get you out of the harbour”, whatever happened to real humour. They actually are some kind of blessing to the boat.

Did I mention the boat has mast steps, so I can walk to the top now. That will be fun.

I’m getting a bow thruster fitted along with the hull work, it’s the perfect time and place to do this. I will also get the standing rigging replaced, that’s the 9 long wires that hold the mast up. After that it should get a good survey and be insurable for the passage around the world.

It’s really difficult working on the boat in this scorching humid heat, I think I got burnt today, also, no sooner does the sun set and it improves a little, then mosquitos appear. Some of them carry dengue fever, which is a killer, so that adds a little excitement to it all.

Saying that, I love being surrounded by nautical stuff, either boatyards, or harbours. At dusk, the fishing boat go racing out from a little port 100 meters north of me, and with the lights of the new bridge twinkling behind me, it’s very atmospheric.

And as is usual here, just after sunset, a lightning storm kicks off.

Tomorrow the boat is being moved to be closer to the grinding station, and I’m hoping I can get some mains power and start up the aircon. I will also be able to  work inside then, however I don’t expect to get much done if they are grinding the hull.

 

While I wait for some legal and financial stuff to clear relating to the boat, I popped over to the Straits Quay Marina complex, as it is recommended by many. It looks to me like its main purpose is to provide a focus for a huge property/mall development. Exactly the kind of thing I hate. But to be fair, it was exactly what a visiting yachtie might want, a safe marina, good washrooms, laundry services etc. Plus plenty of eateries in a very flashy mall. No riff raff here thank you. John the manager seems like a very helpful person, and we may well move Wanderlust here later in the year, as it will be a lot more convenient than Batu Uban

Looking back towards Georgetown, shows how much high rise development there is here

And outside the marina development, the building continues as if 2008 never happened here.

My biggest shock was checking out the Tesco, I had expected an express small version in the mall, not a mega super hyper plus store, this was at least, if not bigger, than any I had seen in the UK.

The thing I’m loving about this trip is how Malaysia is reminding me of how fast Asia is/has moved. Things like Tesco seem so British to me, but possibly one day soon, their UK operation might just be a small outpost for them. And this is just what I get from a relatively small Asian country. Goodness know what it must be like in Shanghai. When I get home I must checkout if the OU are still running the course on cities, Im beginning to realise just how victorian ours are.

On a final note for the day, here are some spices you can buy at the shop next to the marina office

Tomorrow I move hotel to be nearer the boat, I’m going to a more remote part of the island,  but will be spending long days on the boat now getting to understand how she is configured, and also preparing her for storage and the work that will be done on her

I will write a bit more about Penang before I leave in ten days from now. I haven’t done the touristy thing yet, I’ve been too focussed on making this deal happen. I believe Penang has a lot of great features I haven’t experienced yet, apparently there’s a cable car up a hill with great views, beaches, street markets etc. I’ve been walking down back streets looking for Tarporlin suppliers, debating with taxi drivers how to get to remote jeties they don’t think exist etc etc, I quite prefer it this way actually, I feel like I get a better idea of the place.
My first impressions of Penang are, on the down side, it’s too hot, humid, often very smelly. It’s very dangerous on the streets if you don’t keep a close eye on the traffic, the pavements are full of obstacles, so walking in the road is safer, assuming you can hear the scooters that come at you from every direction, and jump out of the way quick enough. Motorists have no time for pedestrians;  however the people here seem to be very happy, and they often just stop to chat with you, ask where you are from and offer any help needed. I feel very safe here. I have been told if I stagger back to my hotel, drunk at 2 am (no jokes from people who knew me when I was a drinker), I might get mugged, and I would expect that in any big city. The place is a food lovers paradise, they say the Penganese (if that’s a word) are the fattest people in Asia, but that’s not true, so far I would give that award to the visiting Germans, especially the guy sitting next to me at breakfast this morning, I felt guilty getting three little sausages, but eight, really!. He filled his large plate from the buffet table, then also ordered a cooked breakfast, reminds me of  how Americans used to be, and has me wondering if global economic power is directly related to the size of the breakfast your citizens eat.

Penang seems to have a happy mix of many cultures, Malay, Chinese, Indian, Indonesian, Thai and more, and everyone seems to get on, there are religious festivals and holidays on every other weekend apparently.
However, as you might expect, there are underlying tensions. My taxi driver the other day was very proudly telling me how everyone respected each other here, and everyone gets on great, yet within a few minutes he had everyone stereotyped into the hard workers, the lazy ones, the professionals, the stuck up and the prejudiced. It could have been a comedy sketch, if it wasn’t for the fact that it does seem to play out in the countries social policies.

Right now we are fast approaching Chinese New Year, and the town is literally turning red, this being the Chinese colour for luck. Lanterns are going up everywhere.

With all these religions, there comes a wealth of temples/shrines & mosques. I’m hoping to get some time next week to visit the oldest, but will probably wait until Kathy comes out with me in the summer to explore them fully

And finally I couldn’t resist snapping this picture

 

Yes, everything is agreed, and I have transferred the payments for the boat, these should clear within a few days and I will have the ownership documents for Wanderlust.

Yesterday, I couldn’t update the blog as Penang didn’t seem to have internet access, also I was exhausted. Buying a boat is a lot more work than you might think.

The boat is in the boatyard, racking up costs while it sits there doing nothing, at the same time I’m paying for a marina berth, so as not to lose it. I have a lot of work to schedule for the boat, including a survey for insurance. The main jobs I have identified that I want doing before a re-launch are:

1. Solve the blister problem, not with a quick fix either (up to 3 months for the boat to dry out first)
2. Fit a bow thruster, seems logical now the hull is being worked on
3. Replace all of the standing rigging (possibly using Norseman/STA-LOK, so I don’t need to go through this again.)
4. Fit davits for the dinghy
5. Repair the damaged cap rail and polish up the entry scratches we made on the way here

I need to find the place to do the work, the current yard we hauled in is by way the most convenient, but will it be the best price and highest quality of workmanship.  I need to organise some oversight of the work as I won’t be here, and I can’t easily pop over if there’s a problem. This is where the internet is invaluable, for seeking out advice and others experiences. On the plus side, labour costs are about half of what I would expect to pay if I was in Europe or America.

I didn’t visit the boat yesterday, instead I researched boatyards and surveyors all day, then spent an hour trying to find a shop that sold a pencil sharpener, there are whole shopping malls here dedicated to the God of Android (see pic below), it’s unbelievable, phones and tablets, accessories, cables, cases, chargers, attachments. Also the mall under the big landmark tower here, Komtar, has two floors just selling PC components. It all looks quite ancient to me having become an apple evangelist some years ago.

Later I had a great dinner with Erik the agent in little India in Georgetown.

Yesterday started well, we left the outside berth at the marina and motored out into the main channel between Penang and the small island of Pulua Jerajak.

The island is a tropical rainforest, I think it’s ancient and unspoilt, bar a small resort at the southern end.

The waters here are very shallow and we had to keep a close eye on the depth sounder and the navionics chart to keep in 5 metres. At the end of the little island the water shallowed again, and we had to head out to the other side of the island then down to the centre arches of the bridge.

Erik was sure we would fit under the bridge, which was nice.
I took this little video below of the trip under the bridge.

From the bridge we proceeded to the the travel lift slip, now this is where it gets challenging. Erik was in charge, but very nervous, and for good reason, with the boat so fouled she was very unresponsive to the throttle and rudder, and reverse wasn’t that effective at stopping us quickly. To make matters worse, the entrance to the lift was narrow and had a few knots of current going at right angles to it. also the waters around the sides were full of concrete piles and shallow mud. As we tried to enter the stern was being pushed down, and going fast wasn’t an option as we couldn’t stop quickly, going astern did seem to swing the stern to port exacerbating the problem, also some wind picked up from the opposite way, making it even worse. 

Erik got the bow in, but only just and the tide took the stern down river, I was doing my best to fend off , but the concrete piles were arriving thick and fast. The end result is we ground (hate that noise) to a stop on one of the piles, then we motored away to lick our wounds. We then waited an hour for slack water,  but it didn’t seem to come, waiting a bit longer made a slight improvement, but Erik was keen for me to have a go, so I did, I got a little further in before the tide dragged us around, but we managed to get lines ashore and with the help of a lot of fenders were able to get in without any further damage. The damage we sustained was slight, the topsides were scratched, a little filler and polish should sort that out!

I met up with the agent this morning, and we spoke to the boatyard where we hauled yesterday to get a ballpark figure for fixing the blisters. I took the worst case scenario, added on the cost of my flights back to check on the work, which will take a few months, then added a large contingency percentage and came up with a huge amount I wanted off the price. The agent baulked, the seller offered a compromise, I walked away, they called me back and agreed. So once we have a few formalities sorted, I will own Wanderlust. This is a great result, as I will have a very sound hull, and hopefully a little extra to cover some of the other jobs. I’m hoping to complete the deal by Friday, leaving a week before I head home.

So now I can post the details of my trip up to the yard yesterday in a new post.

Below are the blisters that caused so much concern. Bloody scientists with their lack of understanding of the long term effects of styrenes, saline solutions and osmosis eh!