Journal Entry – January 29, 2007 – Bottom’s Up

Since our last post life on Starship has continued to be chaotic. We ended up hauling the boat out of the water on Tuesday of last week, definitely much sooner than we expected our next haul out to be since we had only been back in the water for a little over a month. Unfortunately, the newly installed centerboard (drop down keel) was sticking and not raising and lowering properly. The contractor who was responsible for the repair decided the best way to deal with the issue was to put Starship back in the sling to grind down the sticky spot caused by the anti foul paint. Well, that would have been simple enough, but another issue had raised its head in the meantime. When we put Starship back in the water several of the sea cocks began to weep. A sea cock is a through hull valve, a shut off on a plumbing or drain pipe between the vessel's interior and the sea. The boat was not going to sink, but this problem made it difficult to operate the sea cocks properly. . We decided we would change all of them the next time we hauled the boat out, presumably in Australia. Well, one month later she is getting lifted, so we decided to go for it and replace all ten bronze sea cocks with plastic ones. It took some major psyching ourselves to undertake another project and financial commitment after an almost 12 month refit that we thought we were at the end of. We were supposed to be “on the hard” from Tuesday until Thursday, but best laid plans of mice and men seem to always come into play when you are working on a boat. The centerboard grinding went quickly and smoothly (no pun intended) and they were off and running on removing the sea cocks on Tuesday. On Wednesday the new ones arrived only to be the wrong ones, this changed the splash day to Friday, they need 24 hours for the Sikoflex to dry.

In the meantime, we had decided to also undertake the other project we were going to do the next time we hauled out. We had purchased new instruments, but had only installed the wind instrument. The decision was made by several people that we did not need the speed and depth instruments at this time, since we could get this information from the GPS and Fish Finder. It meant putting two more holes in the bottom of the boat to install the paddle wheel and transducer. With all of that said, we decided to wait on the instruments to only realize after the fact that we would not be able to keep a distance log without keeping our display screen on all of the time. This was not going to be feasible at a power usage of 3.5 amps per hour. Long story short we now have all of our Raymarine instruments installed and we should hopefully always know how fast we are going, how far we have gone, how deep the water is and if there is a whale under the boat, in some cases we have three different ways to find out this information. If we ever run aground it will be very embarrassing.

Ok, that is not the end of the our saga on the hard. On Friday after the mud that had attached itself to Starship’s newly painted bottom dried we were able to see that some of the new paint had already peeled off. Yikes! We did not go back into the water until Saturday afternoon, 24 hours later after about a foot of the bottom under the waterline was sanded, primed and repainted. You can imagine our surprise to find paint already gone after only being in the water for a little over a month and the boat had not even been moving. It appears when the bottom was prepared for painting they did not take off enough of the old paint for the new paint to stick to old waterline. Scott helped sand this time and besides changing the color of his skin to black from the paint dust, breathing in way too much dust, not feeling well for the rest of the day, he believes the new paint should stay on for the expected year. He will never sand the bottom again without the proper protection, he paid a price for his eagerness to jump in and help.

We spent the rest of Saturday cleaning the layer of dirt that quickly accumulated on the boat in the yard to make her feel inhabitable again. It always feels great when you are back in the water, the dirt mostly washed off, you have running water and the use of the heads again. Unfortunately, all is not perfect with the new sea cocks, several of them are weeping from one of the connection points. Hopefully an issue that can be resolved by speaking to the manufacture, and not one that makes me weep. Today is a holiday (Provincial Anniversary Day – a holiday to celebrate the founding days or landing days of the first colonists of the various colonial provinces), so the contractor won’t be back until tomorrow.

It isn’t all work and no play. Last Friday we went to the movies and saw Blood Diamond. It was one of the most intense movies I have seen in a long time. I had no prior knowledge of the issue of child soldiers in Africa or the history of the diamond industry. I almost had to leave the theater and during many scenes was wishing I had chosen Happy Feet, the animated movie about the penguins. In the end, I think Blood Diamond is a well done and well acted movie, but definitely powerful. After the movie we went to Bogart’s for dinner. We ordered their “famous” pizza, carefully choosing one without egg, beets or pineapple. A few minutes later the waiter came back and very sheepishly said “I have a bit of a strange request”, we of course were expecting a change needed to our order. He continued, “that table over there is a Hen Party and the guest of honor has a list of challenges to complete this evening”. We look over and realize the “Hen Party” is a bachelorette party and the bride to be is heading our way, just as the waiter finishes telling Scott she needs to kiss a man wearing white socks and as luck would have it he met the criteria. Scott agreed and after also getting my blessing she mustered her courage and planted a big kiss on his cheek and in the end mine as well. We realized that finding a man wearing white socks is a worthy challenge, since most people in New Zealand wear jandals, their word for sandals.

Will we ever go sailing? Yes! We have now transitioned into the very exciting preparations for our maiden voyage on Starship. If all goes well the next few days we will be heading out for a twelve day sail to Great Barrier Island (40 miles from Whangarei) with friends on three other boats. Everyone that is going has not been sailing for a year or more and there is much excitement as we all make our homes ready to be at sea. We are very excited to find out for ourselves what Starship is capable of and to shake down all of the work we have had done over the past year. We both certainly need to shake down ourselves as well. It has been thirteen months since we have been at sea. Stay tuned for news away from the dock.