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Kerikeri (Day of Pies)

Saturday brought our first day trip in the car. Using the free New Zealand road maps on my old Garmin 276C we keyed in a route to Kerikeri. We detoured early on to visit a hardware store where I hoped (and succeeded) to get a shaft extension for my drill so I could complete the A/C plumbing project.

The directions from the Garmin soon took us up a rough track. It may have thought it was the quickest route and perhaps it was considering the speed limit of 100km/h as attainable. But a rough track winding road on the side of a mountain was not drivable at anywhere near that speed. We got some lovely views and a dirty car.

We first stopped off at the Kerikeri Basin Recreation Reserve so that we could walk the river, see the falls and visit the stone store nearby. The whole area was incredibly picturesque. One can see why New Zealand was chosen to film the Lord of the Rings. The area felt like “The Shire”. The weather made it perfect.

The walk to see the river and falls was about an hour each way. The signs said it would be an hour and it was. Unlike the USA where we normally have to halve the posted hiking times. The first stop was an old generating station set up to encourage retired overseas civil servants to retire in the area.

Next was the Wharepuke Falls which were pretty but we didn’t linger as we wanted to press on and make it back to Kerikeri for lunch – our minds had been set on the pie shop.

The path continued on for a good distance before coming upon the more impressive Rainbow Falls which we were able to view from the bottom as well as the top.

We didn’t linger long as the pies beckoned. We made our way back to the car park but before leaving we crossed the footbridge to look around the stone buildings there which were one of the first built in the area by the European settlers.

Finally we visited the town of Kerikeri and after walking around and asking directions we found the pie shop. It was now 1pm and although the pies were pretty good, they seemed to have been in the heater for a little too long so it didn’t meet the expectations that had been set by others who had visited before us.

After lunch we visited a couple of stores before heading back by way of Paihia and a third set of falls – the Haruru Falls. Rather than show another picture of falls, the last pic on this page is of our new car. With dirty tires.

Back at the boat we rested for the remainder of the afternoon before eating dinner – more pies. We finished the day watching a movie.

This morning I completed the drilling and plumbing to provide drains for our stern A/Cs as well as an air vent on our cabin’s A/Cs water pump. Helen gave the outside of the boat another rinse and we all had showers as this was our last morning on the dock. Just before midday we threw the lines and left the berth behind anchoring a short distance away in the anchorage. It’s quite pleasant out here and less noisy so it’s a nice change of scene. We’ve had lunch and I’ll let you guess what we had.

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Thanksgiving & Car

Thursday evening we had our Thanksgiving meal in good company with many of our friends.  Turkey is pretty expensive here in New Zealand so it was good to have a great meal at a pretty good price.  Although it couldn’t really be heard above the noise Ben played a little piano prompted by the bribe of a pitcher of beer.  He also spent some time with Sandra from Larabeck (who played the fiddle up in Big Mama’s in Tonga) who taught him a few tricks on the piano as well as agreeing to spend some more time with him Friday morning.

Friday morning we removed the dodger.  We’ve engaged a local to make new cockpit seat cushions, a new table cover and to restitch our dodger which is beginning to fray in a few places.  I left this with Helen while I took the shuttle bus to Paihia to raise a bank cheque to pay for the car due into Opua that evening.

Sorting the check out and looking for (but not finding) a drill bit I needed to complete the A/C work on the boat took just a few minutes.  I then had two and a half hours to wait for the bus back.  The Jacksters, who had also ridden the bus, were planning to hike back to Opua along the ridge.  I asked if they didn’t mind my joining them and all was fine.  The walk was pleasant and invigourating with lots of hills to climb and some great views of the bay.

We were back in Opua before the bus.  As our connector for our propane on the boat failed a couple of days ago I have ordered a new one.  I checked for this but it hadn’t arrived.  We’re ok for now as I switched in the one from the BBQ.  After this I set up our insurance for the car – NZ$600 for a year fully comp for both drivers.  Including roadside service and car rental should we breakdown.  Not bad.

The day was almost done.  After about an hour on the boat the car had arrived.  It looked nice and a quick test drive confirmed the sale.  We’re now mobile.  Although nine years old the car has only $36,500km on the clock so we’re hoping it will be quite reliable.  The downside is that all the manuals are in Japanese.  Right now I can’t be sure we have exactly the car we thought we were getting.  There are some impressive video/audio electronics on board – again all in Japanese – including a touch screen pop out video display (probably Japanese navigation) and a mini-disk player which we’ll never be able to use.

To celebrate our new mobility we drove to Paihia for a rib meal.  The food was ok and in huge proportions.  I couldn’t finish mine.  A trip to the supermarket completed the day.

Today we’re off to Kerikeri for some sightseeing and walking.  Monday we’re planning to drive down to Whangarei to visit a few stores there and help plan what we’ll do for the next few weeks.

All work and no play (well not much)

The main project for Wednesday was to fix the steering gear.  This required three walks to the other end of the boat yard to check on the parts, collect them, and then to go back to have a little taken off each of the pins and to have an extra sleeve made up for the starboard pin.  The walk takes a little while but is always slowed down by bumping into folks.  Anyway, the job was done and I’m more than happy with the results.  The news on our car is that it is being processed and should be here Friday evening.  I now have funds in the country so tomorrow I’ll go into Paihia to have a cashier’s cheque drawn.

Today it’s been more walking up and down the boat yard to put in some improvements on the aircon/heating system.  There are two separate issues with each of the units under the aft bunks.  If we don’t shut the sea cocks when sailing, both of them collect air bubbles in the water cooling circuit very quickly creating airlocks in the pumps.  The only way around this is to take off the hose on the supply side of the pump to allow the air to work it’s way out.  One fix is to put in a tee and a valve so that air/water can be drained without undoing the pipe work.  The second issue is that each aircon condenser tray has no effective drain.  If we were ever to run the units for an extended time it would overflow.  Onto the electric motor beneath.  No good.  It also reduces the effectiveness of dehumidifying the boat as the condensed water evaporates back into the interior of the boat.

After much leg work I have installed a drain on the port side and part of the airlock fix.  I now need to drill holes and I can’t find the tool I need.

I’ll have to see if I can borrow one tonight.  At thanksgiving dinner.  Which reminds me ….

Happy Thanksgiving to all that this wish is relevant to on this day.

Steering Fixed

We now have steering. I’ll give a full account of today’s efforts in my daily blog but for now here are some before and after pictures along with some descriptive commentary.

Here is a picture of the original starboard pin, the one that didn’t break. Although the starboard pin had no requirement to be attached to an autopilot, it was identical reducing the number of distinct parts requiring fabrication. Had this been the port pin, the autopilot would be attached to the left end of the pin and held on with a washer and a cotter pin. The steering assembly fitted to the right of the fatter part (name??). A sleeve separated the steering assembly from the screw which screwed into the flange. Note how where the screw thread terminates, the pin is machined down to the inner diameter of the screw thread.

Unbroken original pin

Broken original pin

So it’s no surprise that the pin failed at the point where it was the narrowest and where it attached to the flange.
Looking at the sheared off area you can just see an almost triangular area. This is the area that held on the longest.

Larger segment of broken pin

Screw end of failed pin

Looking at the screw end of the pin the evidence of earlier cracking is more evident. The ‘polished’ areas of the failed pin evidence cracking that occurred at an earlier date that has since been ground smooth.

From this angle the diameter of the pin actually looks less than the minimum diameter of the screw thread.

Here are the old pin and the new pin along with all the additional pieces that go with them. Each pin screws into the flange and locked down with a washer and a nut (left of each pin).

The old pin then had a collar which went on the pin keeping the steering gear away from the flange. On the new pin this collar was integral to the pin and edges ground on to allow tightening.

The old pin had an integral section further down which on the new pin was replaced with a removable collar.

Finally, the old pin used a washer and a cotter pin to hold on the autopilot piston. On the new pin we have a washer and a locking nut.

Old and new pin disassembled

When loosely assembled the differences and similarities become more apparent. The specific improvements on the new pin are :-

  1. Larger diameter screw.
  2. Pin is turned down to the larger diameter of the screw thread, not the smaller.
  3. Enlarged segment positioned to sit against the flange to reduce stress at base of screw.
  4. In the unlikely event the pin shears in the same place, the autopilot and steering assembly will remained joined

Old and new pin partially assembled

The sockets in the flanges needed to be enlarged to match the larger screw threads on the pins.

To accommodate the wider ‘neck’ of the screw, the thread at one end of the socket had to be removed.

Rebored flange thread


Partially assembled port flange and pin

Here is one of the new pins screwed into the starboard flange. The top nut has yet to be tightened.
So here is the port pin fully assembled. Top to bottom are the nut, the flange (to the rudder post), the steering assembly going off to the right and the autopilot piston going off to the left.

Port assembly


Starboard Assembly

The starboard pin has no autopilot. An additional sleeve (bottom) was required to hold up the steering assembly.

So how do these solutions compare? The chances of the new pin shearing in the same place are somewhat remote as it has a larger diameter screw, the screw terminates with a fatter ‘neck’ and the enlarged piece separating the flange from the steering assembly is integral to the pin, not a movable collar. If the new screw does break, the autopilot and steering assembly will remain linked making a jury rig significantly simpler than before.

Replacing the cotter pin with a nut at the bottom became necessary as this hold all the pieces on. I remain a little concerned about how well this nut will stay on but the way this was engineered, the nut locks on tight so it shouldn’t move. I will inspect from time to time.

The new pin may now be over-engineered with respect to failure prevention but that suits us. A simpler, but perhaps biggest bang for the buck, improvement would have been to keep the original design and simply implement enhancement 2 – the larger ‘neck’ accompanied by grinding out part of the thread in the flange. The extra 2-3mm diameter on the pin would probably increase its strength by 50%.

Because the largest metal diameter on the old and new pins are identical, the is no additional source material required bar the construction of the additional sleeve on the starboard pin. Our new design there brings significant improvement in strength for a minimal addition in cost of source materials and labour. Were the simpler improvement mentioned above implemented only a fractional increase in labour costs be required (for grinding out a few millimeters of thread in the flange) be required to gain a reasonable improvement in strength and more importantly, improved vessel safety.

Paihia and Back Again

Around 9:30am we set off to hike the coastal path from Opua to Paihia. We had certainly heard some good recommendations about the hike from others and the weather looked great so off we went.

After a short walk along the road, the hike took us along a boardwalk which had been put in place because the original path had crumbled. From there on the path was quite varied. A lot of it was a path cut into the size of the steep hillsides at the water’s edge. To keep our hearts going the path climbed and fell several times, often through thick wooded areas.

At one point we took a 5 minute diversion (not too popular with Helen) to climb up to a lookout point. This was a little disappointing as we practically had to stand on each other’s shoulders to see over the bushes/trees that had grown up around the spot. Towards the end of the hike it was more walking over beaches and rocks giving us a lot of variation in terrain.

Along the way we were offered excellent views of the area. See the slide show below for more pictures of this great hike.

Our main objective in Paihia was to set up a bank account. The first bank I tried didn’t have anyone in who was authorized to set up an account so we went to ANZ and were successful there.

After this we went for Fish n Chips on the water front followed by a beer. Having exhausted all our options, but not ourselves, we turned around and hiked all the way back. At 4-5 miles each way we got some decent exercise and a good warm up for some of the more serious hiking we have ahead of us.

The evening we spent in as we were quite worn out. I didn’t bother chasing our rudder pins, charger or car. I’ll leave all that for today.