BBQ & Boat Work

Yesterday evening’s BBQ was a lot of fun. As expected we met a lot of the friends we’ve made sailing across the Pacific. Some we’ve not seen in quite a while. We all had our stories to tell. Our recent experience with the rudder attracted much interest.

Interestingly, on the way to the BBQ we bumped into and started chatting to a chap with a hefty video camera. It turned out he was looking into the story about a boat called Wild Goose which had lost a man overboard on the way here from Rarotonga. Ben had spoken to them at midday on our second day out. Although there was not a lot of content to his story, Ben ended up being interviewed for national TV. As unfortunate as this story is I don’t think it will factor much in the shade of the problems at Pike River here in NZ.

Today we started on our boat projects – at least those we are ready to kick off here. Not before a visit to the bakery early in the morning where I picked up freshly baked blueberry muffins and apple turnovers for breakfast. Heaven.

The first fix was something not even on my list of things to do. When we connected the boat to the shore water we ended up with a lot of water inside the starboard transom. This is the reverse of a problem we had from the beginning where water ended up there when we made water. Turned out there was a cracked plastic fitting which needed to be removed. Of course, it was not in a simple place to access so it took some time to fix. That being done we now have unlimited water aboard.

While Helen cleaned the outside of the boat I did a few more bits and pieces travelling back and forth to the chandleries and the stores nearby to research items and pick up parts. I have collected most of the parts needed to create a switch at my nav station which will disable the fridge, freezer and the wind gen. All these items need to be disabled when I use the sideband radio which is a pain and sometimes dangerous in rough seas – the current wind gen disabling requires me to get on the back step and lean into the starboard transom – not nice in high seas.

I also bought the parts to permanently plumb in the waste from the washing machine. Until now we have to remember to put the pipe in the sink and sometimes, with much mess, we forget. Not a problem any more. Job done.

I’m now in contact with the people who make dinghy wheels. They’re based in Whangarei so we’ll probably sort that out when we go there in a few weeks. I’ve also got some info on new outboards. We want a more powerful one so that we can plane with more than just the two of us in. I’ve also been sizing up the challenge of connecting the cooling circuit on the generator to the hot water tanks heat exchange coils as this would give us hot water as a byproduct when motoring. The project has some benefits but it’s complicated to do. The jury is out on this one. Finally, I’ve done a little research on some of the things to do inland when we get the time. There’s a lot of choice and narrowing it down won’t be easy. At this moment I’m downloading the latest software for our chartplotter. It hung up a few times on the way down which was annoying. I know it’s a software issue as it was related to turning the heading line on of all things. Hopefully this will resolve things.

Ben has been researching jobs in the US. Yesterday we found a clunky piano in the yacht club here. It had a few problems which Ben addressed today and has been getting his fix in on the ivories.

This evening we have the final bash of the weeks festivities here (of which we came in at the end). It’s a prize giving / pork roast. Should be more fun.