Mastless in Mooloolaba

Boat maintenance continues at Lawrie's Boat Services in Mooloolaba.  On Thursday morning we warped the boat into the slip and the travel-lift crane was used to lift the mast out of the boat.  We had done almost all the preparatory work so it was a quick job.  Before we knew it the mast was heading off into the yard and the boat was looking "strange".

Mast "in slings"

Mastless in Mooloolaba

The rest of Thursday was spent inspecting, planning work on and cleaning the mast.  We decided to sand back all four spreaders so they all look similar after the work, and started work on that.  We decided to replace the masthead VHF antenna since it is a very short stubby type, to replace all light globes with LED versions, and to rewire the mast entirely.  We also decided to remove the wind sensor since it has never functioned well.  It reports random direction and about half the real wind strength.  We'll try fitting it to the pushpit where we can play with it more easily.

Old masthead fittings

On Friday we spent most of the day sanding the spreaders back to bare aluminium, making templates of the new plates required, and lining up for the local stainless steel fabricators to do the required work on Monday.  Below is a picture showing the s/s pins which have been digging into the aluminium mast.

The offending pins "eating" the mast

On Friday morning previous owner Rex visited us and gave us the plaque from (then) Zen's participation in the 2007 Brisbane to Gladstone Race.  Thanks Rex!  It was fun pointing out the work we've done on the boat over the last year and discussing the boat's eventful history.

On Friday the replacement high pressure oil line for the engine arrived, plus the new wetbox/waterlock/muffler and exhaust hose.  We walked along to the local Whitworths shop (chandlers) and spent way to much money on boat stuff - principally LED globes, new LED deck light and hose for the new water bladders.

Today we continued sanding back the spreaders (nearly done at last!), installed new LED globes in the masthead lights and rewired the mast.  The new tricolour LED globe required some "remodelling" of the existing  mounts to accommodate the new globe.  It fits with about 1mm clearance - phew!  The new light will hugely reduce our power consumption at night since it uses 3.5W and the old used 25W.  The wiring was completed without a hitch, including fitting mousing lines to pull through future cables if necessary.

This afternoon we took the bus into Mooloolaba and collected our mail from the yacht club marina, then had a pleasant sundowner with Gary and Nat, owners of a very nice new Hanse 44 "Mocean".  Their boat is being commissioned near Zen Again at Lawrie's.  After that we enjoyed a huge Waygu rump steak for dinner aboard Zen Again.

Hope all's well where you are!

More from Mooloolaba

We're now alongside the work jetty at Lawrie's Boat Services.  Zen Again returned to the water on Monday afternoon as scheduled.  The shipwrights did a nice job fixing the delamination in the head compartment.

Topsides polished, antifoul "activated"

Tuesday was spent having the engine serviced, stanchions straightened and working on the GPS/VHF interface.  The engine service didn't go entirely to plan, with a high-pressure oil line breaking.  On inspection it was found to be very rusty.  We're waiting for a replacement to arrive (ETA Thursday).  Otherwise all is OK with the engine.  We're also waiting for a replacement exhaust system (wet box and hose) to arrive.  We had planned to replace the exhaust here.  The stanchions have been bent since we bought the boat and it was good to have them sorted.

Ready for launch

The GPS/VHF interface problem was one which had been frustrating us for months.  We were able to send GPS data to the VHF so it could transmit our position when required.  But we had never managed to get AIS data from the VHF to the GPS chartplotter.  AIS is the Automated Identification System which allows us to display large ships on our chartplotter, together with their name, size, type, course, speed etc.  Very helpful in identifying collision risks.  A call to Garmin technical support in Sydney resulted in an email detailing how to connect the two units.  Pity the manuals don't explain it, but their phone support was excellent.

Launching

Today we started installing additional fresh water tanks (150 litres in two bladders) in the forepeak, rearranged the circuit breakers to better suit the equipment we now have installed, started installing a bilge pump controller box, and had the rig inspected.  The first three went very well, the last went well but revealed two issues to be fixed.

The rig problems are damage to one of the upper spreaders and two s/s pins wearing the side of the mast below the lower spreaders.  So tomorrow morning we're having the mast taken out to have these problems fixed.  The mast can be lifted out with the boat in the water so we'll stay at the work jetty.  It's a shame issues were found, but better to find and fix than to be blissfully unaware until the mast decides to fall down!  We expected to stay in Mooloolaba for a while, but we expect it's now going to be 2-3 weeks in all.

Alongside work jetty at Lawrie's Boat Services

We spent much of this afternoon preparing for the mast lift.  We removed the boom and vang, the storm jib and furling jib, and pulled through all the halyards and coiled them on the mast.  Then we loosened all the shroud lock nuts and straightened out all the split pins.  All so the lift can be as quick (and therefore cheap) as possible.  This evening we disconnected most of the electrical cables which enter the mast.

I guess all those rum and cokes while anchored off tropical beaches have to be earned!!!

Mooloolaba Continued

We're now on the hard at Lawrie's Boat Services, a five minute motor up the canal from the yacht club marina.  Zen Again was lifted out of the water on Wednesday morning and since then we've been flat out.

In the slings

Within a few minutes of lifting out we were (once again) confident we don't have a major keel problem.  Absolutely no cracks or any other signs of stress around the keel.  The job became one of working out how water is getting in, and to stop it moving around inside the boat.

The first job however was to give the Coppershield antifoul a light rub to "re-activate" it.  That took the two of us the rest of the day.  In the evening we reran the electrical cables from the depth and speed transducers so that they no longer pass through the main bulkhead down in the bilge.  That took several hours and we ended up with about 30cm excess cable - phew!  Likewise we removed the fresh water pipe which runs from the main water tank to the head compartment sink.

On Thursday we filled the holes previously used by the electrical cables and water pipe to isolate the head area from the main saloon at bilge level.  Overnight we left several buckets of water in the head bilge to see where it went.  During the day Nicki went shopping at the nearby mall for provisions, and we're now fully stocked again with non-perishables.  We have renamed the "pedestal" the "larder" to better describe its purpose.  ;)

On Friday morning we discovered how water is getting from the head compartment to the main cabin, and set the local shipwrights to work to fix the problem.  Basically there is some delamination of fibreglass which was part of the repair done about 10 years ago.  The delaminating fibreglass is being cut out and replaced.  We'll end up with much improved access to the hull in the head compartment - which alone is worth the cost of the work.  Inaccessible hull areas on boats are always a worry and occasionally dangerous.  Very few such areas left on this boat!

While the shipwrights worked inside the boat we polished the topsides and the stainless steel on the bow and transom, both of which are hard to do with the boat in the water.  Zen Again looks significantly shinier after this (hard) work.

On the other problem of how water is getting into the head compartment in the first place, we're confident it isn't through the keel or the skin fittings.  We believe it's probably been siphoning up through the sink drain / head sump foot pump hoses.  We haven't been closing the sea cock for that drain, perhaps foolishly.  :(  Thanks to previous owner Rex for his thoughts on the problem.

We expect to put the boat back in the water on Monday afternoon.  If the fibreglassing is completed then tidying up can be done alongside the work jetty here at the boat yard.  On Tuesday we will have the engine serviced and hopefully the rig inspected.

We're living aboard the boat while she's out of the water.  Peculiar climbing up and down ladders into one's supposedly floating home!  ;)