With permission of Jim Mather of S\V Blue Sky we will be pulling some of their adventures from their website and posting them here over the next few months. Keep a sharp eye out for new installments. Enjoy the first one.
Richards Bay, South Africa, October 2009
Whales, dolphins and did I say WHALES! Way too many to count. They were breaching, tail & fin slaping, tombstoning or just crusing.
One crusing boat inbound from Mauritius was struck by one and that’s them pictured being towed in by Sea Rescue.
The photo on the right shows an anchor that was not secured and look at the damage.
The photo below is our first home in Richards Bay. This is the small craft harbor at Tuzi Gazi, where Customs, Immigration and Quarantine cleared us into South Africa.
This is the Sea Rescue base at Richards Bay. They have been very busy this season, to date they have towed in at least seven cruisers. Sea Rescue is made up of volunteers with first class equipment. They do not charge a yacht that gets towed in, but as a courtesy it is nice to give a donation if you are. One yacht offered them $5.00, the captain was very clever and replied “If that is all you can afford, I think you need it more than I.”
The photos below from top to bottom are: Bright yellow weaver birds nesting at Zululand Yacht Club, Phoebe & Drake making their own pizza at Dros Restraunt in the childrens play area. Jim receiving the Zululand Yacht Club Burgee from Commodor, Kirsten and Jim reciprocating with a Port Royal Yacht Club Burgee and Latitudes & Attitudes Burgee.
Pulled from Jasons website http://www.jasonrose.com please visit there to see more about s/v Bodhran and Jason
I love left handed drill bits!!!!!!!!
Engine pulled and rotated to get to the sheared off bolts. Amazingly that’s clean black paint and not oil covering the side. My instrument panel leaks whenever I take of wave in the cockpit so the top of the engine looks like crap, but amazingly the sides and bottom are nice and clean:
Well it’s engine pulling time again on Bodhran. This time without Greg’s help things didn’t go quite as smoothly, but she came out eventually and once again the block is free of pesky sheared off bolts. Two things made this endeavor relatively painless. First I happened across a great used tool store here in Whangarei called Downtown Tools. I spent over an hour just browsing a getting the lay of the store and eventually came away with a 2000lb come-along for NZ$35. Between this and my boom vang rigged via a strap over the boom I was able to alternately apply pressure to the two lift points on the engine to allow it to come off at the angle I needed not to screw up the motor mounts. Of course it turns out that one of the motor mounts was completely stripped anyway. Not to worry, I found a replacement and 2 spares at the used marine store next to the marina. The second amazingly slick event today was the deployment of my new left handed drill bits. The first time I had a motor mount block shear off in the engine was in the Marquesas. Drilling out the hardened steel bolt wasn’t too big of a deal and with the help of an easy out, Greg and I extract the bolt end no […]
We found her in Olympia last year. I drove up in July to take a look. “She sure deserves to be brought back” the broker said, glancing at the floor. I looked her over carefully with all the experience that a three-year owner of a 20 foot day sailor could bring to bear. We could tell she had been neglected, the big port lights were taped over with clear packing tape and there was evidence of water leakage from those areas. The headliner was kind of dingy. It looked like she hadn’t been out in awhile. I told the broker I would think about it and drove back to Portland.
“She sure is going to need a lot of work” said Jean, shaking her head as she thought of the old boat. “But I need a project” I said, “and besides we can get her cheap”.
The surveyor pretty much spent the day on her. He tapped and prodded, poked and pulled. He came with us on the test sail, a short 45 minute motor sail part way out Budd Inlet and back. The motor ran okay or it sure seemed to anyway. The hour meter didn’t work. As we stood in the parking lot after a long day of inspection the surveyor said “Any price reduction you get now will seem very small when considered against the cost of the restoration”. I didn’t know just how right he would be.
“She has bronze port lights, and beautiful teak throughout. That full canvas enclosure sure is nice and how about the single side band, the radar, the life raft and the dingy.” I made them an offer and they took it. The boat was mine.
In August we hold her home, snuggled on the back of a semi truck she […]
One day when I first got Windsong I opened up the door to the v-berth and it basically fell apart at the seams. The wood was intact, but had separated at all of the joints where it is glued together. It consists of a frame, two thin veneer plywood pieces, and slats. I decided to take the door home to begin its reconstruction and restoration. The door would then be my test piece for my interior woodwork restoration process.
Windsong has a ton of wood in the cabin, mostly teak trim or veneer with teak & holly sole. The varnish and what appears to be stain on the wood has dulled and needs to be redone on most pieces. Some of the bulkheads are plywood with varnish but I would like to convert most of them to white or off-white by either painting or applying formica to the surfaces. I have begun taking wooden trim and other pieces off the boat to take home so that I can do the woodwork during the week.
As you can see here, the trim is dull and dirty, and needs re-working. I plan on taking it all off so that I can paint or re-surface the vertical surfaces with something white. The galley counter tops, nav table, and other areas with formica surfaces will also be redone.
In the v-berth on both sides and in the starboard side of the cabin there are long wooden slats decorating the sides. These will also be taken off to be refinished and so I can clean and paint the surfaces behind them, also hiding the chainplates.
You can see here the large bulkhead which I want to be white, along with most other vertical surfaces.
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