Dampier Day 3

Hi everyone,
We've been busy since arriving in Hampton Harbour.  Happily the boom bracket problem has now been fixed.

On Wednesday we cleaned up the boat and went ashore to clean ourselves too.  Hampton Harbour Boat and Sailing Club offers free temporary membership for short-stay cruisers and has clean showers, laundry, beer and good food.  We had a very good dinner in the club with Graham and Anne from Kakadu.

Zen Again anchored at Hampton Harbour

On Thursday Nicki and I removed the boom from the boat and took it ashore with Graham's assistance.  Bill and Janey from Jezebel gave us a lift in to Karratha with the boom on their wagon's roof rack.  We went to KAW Engineering in the light industrial area and got some helpful advice but they weren't able to help us until next week.  We decided we'd use Graham's tools to drill and tap the old (stripped) holes out to take 10mm bolts.  Additionally we'd put a single 10mm bolt all the way through the boom and bracket to stop it detaching if the new tapped holes strip out.

From KAW we went to Atom, a sort of mega-Bunnings for tradies, where I bought the bolts needed for the boom repair and also a spare V-Belt for the engine.  On Thursday evening an old friend Mark came down to HHBSC for a few drinks.  He offered us the use of his car over the weekend which we very happily accepted.  Twas good to catch up.

This morning I topped-up the main diesel tanks with 60 litres from our jerries.  At 0900 we went ashore and Graham and I drilled and tapped the boom and bracket.  The bracket appears to be very solidly attached now, but given recent experience I'm still not convinced about the tapped holes.  The thru-bolt is worthwhile insurance just in case.  We returned the boom to the boat and re-rigged it.  Then we replaced the No 2 jib with the No 3 jib in preparation for tackling the west coast.

Dampier lookout

With all today's jobs done we went for a walk up to the Dampier lookout, then the others visited the Dampier Seafarer's Centre while I collected Mark's car for us to use over the next two days.

Over the weekend we plan to do a little local touring using Mark's car.  Then early next week we hope to head west.