Unloading Pachuca

I managed to spend some productive time with Pachuca this week.

Bruce is having a difficult time in stripping the lower part of the hull of years of antifouling to expose the original gel coat.  One problem was the layer of hard antifouling that had been used in the USA (because the self ablating soft antifouling was simply not available without a special order).  Below that he found an even tougher layer of "Coppercoat" that had been laid down in the early 2000's, before I purchased the boat.  Coppercoat was extremely effective material, heavily impregnated with copper and very weighty.  Unfortunately it has been a devil to remove.  Bruce has changed tactics, employing a high quality sander in conjunction with the chemical removers.  The result has been good, with none of the pitting of the gelcoat that would have resulted from soda blasting.  But it has required at least on week of effort more than had been planned.

Most of hull and all of keel have been stripped

On a brighter note, the degree of osmosis has been much much less than expected - down to the trivial level, in my opinion.  Bruce can tell the conditions under which a hull's fibreglass was laid by the degree of osmosis.  He stated that Pachuca's hull must have been fibreglassed in very good conditions of temperature and humidity. 

We had a meeting with Greg Hansen to discuss the setup of the boat's radar dome.  I was very well prepared with printouts from my blog that explained in detail (with photos): (a) The reason why the radome was moved 500 mm down from its original position on the mast (Edgar the rigger thought that the initial position brought it too close to the forestay), (b) That the cable failed within a year and was replaced under warranty in Hawaii, (c) That the second cable failed again and was repaired in Argentina, (d) That the Argentina repair failed and the cable was replaced when I was back in Fremantle in 2013.  The failures were caused by the fact that the cable passed from the radome up the mast 500mm then did a sharp bend though the opening in the mast then down the conduit.  That sharp bend through the mast was the source of the problems and I wanted to take advantage of the fact that the mast was down in order to restore the radome to its original position so that the cable could past horizontally into the mast and do a 90 degree turn into the conduit instead of the current 180 degree turn.

Greg looked at the setup and noted that the cable was very loose where it entered the mast, allowing it to move back and forth in rough conditions, and we did see chafing in the cable.  Moving the radome would bring on the risk of problems with the forestay and Greg recommended that a second stainless steel  protective ring be welded onto the radome guard.  However, his preferred option was leave the radome in place, elongate the entry hole and make the cable loop above the hole so that it could make its entry aligned more or less with the conduit.  Below the entry the cable would be strapped down to the mast with stainless steel saddles, eliminating all movement.

After considering my choices I telephoned Greg three days later and asked him to leave the radome in place and take the measures that he had outlined. 

Garage prepared for Pachuca material.  
Note Monitor wind steering raised to rafters.

I was back at the boat at 7AM the next morning and Bruce and I spent 3 hours unloading the boat.  Most of the material went into my trailer that was fitted with the plyboard sides known in the trade as "hungry boards".  We also crammed what we could into the X-Trail.

Bruce and I then went over the accounts.  I had burned through $10,000 in three weeks almost to the day and I agreed to transfer another $10k into his trust account.  I'll have keep my financial guns loaded because once the lower hull is completed the sides and deck of the boat will be repainted, as will the mast.  I'm a synergy man and I figure that given that the mast is off, everything is in the shed, and the trades people are in position and focused then we may as well do the lot.

Unloading trailer full of Pachuca stores

Welcome to boating and the follies of a CUOF.  But the expenditure is not all that outrageous.  I commented to Bruce that somebody was going to get a fine boat someday but I had no regrets because I wanted to do the right thing by the boat that had taken me safely around the world.  Bruce replied that there are other sailors who think like me, although too few of them.