Photos of Opua Marina area

Brenda and I went for a walk around the marina yesterday and I took some photos of the marina and its setting in the setting sun.

Now What?

Yesterday morning we had the boat ready for sailing and carefully planned our exit from the pen given that we had a gentle southerly wind from our stern. Our plan was to do a sea trial by motoring out of Opua and doing a tour of the Bay of Islands using the engine. We were going to drop anchor at one of the islands and do a 2-hour walk around it visiting historic Mauri fortifications. We would then weigh anchor and head motor back to the marina by another route.

We cast off all lines and I started to motor back and discovered that I had no steering - I could not turn the rudder. We nudged the boat back into the pen, tied her up, and started to investigate. The rudder was hard to starboard. We engaged the autopilot and instructed it to steer one degree to port and slowly it moved the rudder toward amidships. This told us that the steering mechanism was OK and that the Autohelm worked OK when in "Auto" mode. It seemed like the Autohelm was not releasing its control of the steering system when in "standby" mode.

I checked below the cockpit and confirmed that the two new batteries that had been stacked on the pre-existing batteries in no way obstructed the movement of the steering. Soon Alex, Bruce's employee, was on board. He disengaged the coupling of the linear drive (i.e. the ram by which the Autohelm turns the rudder) and voila! the steering was free and easy. Alex removed the linear drive and asked me if I wanted it fixed. (Hey, Alex, is the Pope Catholic???)

Alex took the unit to the shop while I looked at for the technical manual on the unit. When I delivered the manual to Alex he was experimenting with the unit and got the ram to move in and out by energizing the motor and the clutch. But for some reason that neither of us could explain the ram would not move in and out freely when not energized.

I got on the telephone and internet trying to get advice from John at ICS in Adelaide and Peter at Maritime Electronics in Fremantle. In the meantime Alex was dismantling the unit. This bothered me because even though Alex had done careful, and methodical mechanical work I didn't think that he would know much about Autohelm linear drives.

By the time I got back to the shop Alex had totally dismantled the unit and understood how it worked. His report was not good. There was rust in the unit which would not allow the shaft rotate freely. Bruce was speaking to someone at Raymarine about it. It was confirmed what I had learned from John in Adelaide, that the linear drive was a really, really old model. The best option was to replace it with a new one.

The good news: Raymarine had one in stock and it could be delivered today. Also, the new unit had the same footprint as the old so that fitting it would be easy.

The bad news: The unit would cost me over $3,000 NZD plus of course the labor.

I gave the OK to order the new unit.

Later I visited the workshop to retrieve my manuals and told Bruce that I had come to give him the shirt off my back as I started to remove my top. Later I saw Bruce as he was closing the shop for the day and I told him that Alex had done a great job with the Autohelm. Bruce said that Alex is a qualified marine engineer from the Ukraine. He had had a lot of experience on container ships etc.

Arnold said that we had to get out of Opua before I went broke. I mumbled something about Hotel California ("You can check out any time but you can never leave.") Perhaps Reg put it best shortly after I purchased my second boat Angie. Something along the lines of 'You can pay now or you can pay later, but you always pay.'

Later Arnold asked me if there was any part of the boat that I had not gone over. The only thing that I could think of that has not been removed, replaced, fixed, maintained, or thoroughly inspected is the rudder post fittings. Having said that, I would be surprised if Pachuca does not give me more surprises in the future.

Friends, do not even think of doing extensive cruising without a lot of money at your disposal. One approach is to buy a new boat for a few hundreds of thousands of dollars then spending tens of thousands more putting up the cockpit shelter, radar, extra sails, etc. I chose the route of purchasing a older but well found boat and then being dragged kicking and screaming into a refit program. I am still well ahead financially over the new boat option, and I've got a lot of new top-of-the-line gear. But there has been a lot of cost time and effort in doing the remedial work.

You can pay now or you can pay later, but you always pay.

Loose Ends and Sailing Preparations

The professional work on the boat essentially finished.

Bruce has some minor jobs to do with the electrics. Last week the new alternator was putting out less than 10 amps which was probably due to the fact that we had the batteries fully charged with the constant running of our small charger. We have run all weekend on batteries only in an attempt to drain the batteries enough to induce the alternator to put out something approaching its 160 amp capacity.

Arnold and I made the AC connection to Mastervolt charger. When we started it up it began to deliver of 55 amps into the batteries, as we would expect. We immediately shut it down to continue draining our batteries.

We were all very busy yesterday. Arnold spend hours tracking down the cause of very strange interactions between two failing lights (e.g. Turn one on, the other goes off). To Arnold it reeked of an earthing problem. He eventually tracked it down to a missing screw in the main panel amongst mat of spaghetti wiring causing an earthing problem.

I fitted the wood to seat the engine cover 75mm farther out, allowing room for the large alternator. Bruce was very helpful by providing the dressed timber cut to size. In the afternoon I sorted out the mess in the starboard quarter berth where all of the tools, parts, and materials are kept. We took the opportunity to retrieve the 35-lb Swarbrick anchor from storage under the quarter berth and swap it for the 45-lb Swaqrbrick that we have been using. From what I hear we can expect calm lagoons and good holding ground in French Polynesia so the 35-lb anchor makes sense because is easier to handle and presents less weight at the bow. We also moved 17 meters of chain from the anchor well to the starboard quarter berth. So up front we will be running with a 35-lb anchor with 38 meters of 10mm chain. For deep water I will attach the 70 meters of rope stored in the upper level. The 50-lb Swarbrick will be for storms and rough anchorages.

Bruce showed up at 9 AM and we fired up the engine and saw the alternator deliver more than 160 amps of current to the batteries that we had depleted over the weekend. So far so good. But then the engine slowed down and stopped as though it was starved of fuel. It was. The port tank was shut off. We opened the tap and Bruce showed me how to bleed the system. I then checked the starboard tank and found that the tap was open - so how could the engine have been starved of fuel? Bruce did a check and discovered that the fuel filter was dripping fuel. In fact all 70 liters of fuel in the starboard tank were now in the bilge. He took care of getting the fuel out and putting detergent in the bilge. I spent about two hours getting the bilge cleaner than it has ever been. He has delivered 40 liters of fresh fuel and will bring the rest tomorrow morning.

In the early afternoon Ian finished the repair work on our cockpit spray dodger so all of the canvas work has now been completed.

We expect to do a one-day sea trial tomorrow. We leave in the morning and motor into the Bay of Islands and drop an anchor somewhere. Later in the afternoon we will weigh anchor and motor back to the pen. That is not much of a sea trial but we are short of time. If the sea trial gives good results we will try depart for Tahiti on Saturday which I think is the 20th.

Quiz Night Whizzes

Brenda, Arnold and I went for dinner at the cruising club last night and discovered that it was a Quiz Night. We decided to pay our $3.00 each and join it. We needed a genuine Kiwi to make up our group of four and fortune delivered Jill the genuine article.

We started off well by being the only table to correctly respond with "John Denver" to the first of nine or ten successive clues with diminishing points; so we started off the quiz with ten points. We sagged in "sports" and "faces" questions. However we had chosen "science" and "acronyms" as our strong suite and did well in those categories with their associated double points.

I am pleased to report that our table won by 5 points. We each walked out with a fine polo shirt with the Opua Cruising Club logo, and I walked out with a generously large wine glass also with the club logo, for my "John Denver" response.

Anchor Well

Arnold and I put a lot of work into the investigation of leaks from the anchor well into the sail lockers. We first removed all chains and rope then removed part of the upper level giving us full access to the lower level. The enclosed photo shows the bottom of the anchor well as we found it. That dark wedge below the plastic access hatch, just above the bottom of the well, and slightly to the right, is the end of the wood wedge that we drove in from inside in those huge seas in the Australian Bight. That wedge saved our cruise if not our bacon, and I will probably keep it as a souvenir.

Arnold tried to drive the wedge back through and it crumbled. Fortunately I was able to get a good hold of it from the inside and pulled it out.

That wedge went through a double bulkhead. The wedge sealed the inner section but not the outer (i.e. anchor well side) due to its taper. Also, the 12G screw that we used to plug the other hole sealed only the inner section. My theory was that this allowed water to pass into the thin cavity between the two bulkheads and work its way into the sail lockers.

Using and electric fan heater and blow drier we managed to dry the area off well enough to enable us to plug the holes with International 2-part general purpose epoxy filler. Then I did some patch-up work along the edges of the bulkhead where I had done the fiber glassing.

The next day we filled up the anchor well with water almost to the level of the level of the inspection hatch. The good news is that the port side locker which had given us so much grief in the Bight remained bone dry! However, we got some seepage on into the starboard locker. I was prepared to fiberglass the entire bottom of the anchor well but the we had rain threatening us and no matter how much I tried the area with the blow drier I kept getting seepage of water from the bulkhead back onto the bottom of the anchor well. It is a pity because the area was all set up for the fiber glass job.

Nevertheless I am satisfied with what we did. We have properly plugged up the two holes through the bulkhead, cut down on the leakage into the boat, and now I know exactly what has to be done - wherever we can find hot, dry weather and a day or two of free time.

Removing the upper level was difficult since I had used a lot of Sikaflex in an attempt to fix the section (in case of roll over) and direct water entering from the top to the upper drains. However, I replaced the upper section with no sealer so that we can easily get back into the area for the fiber glassing repairs. The panel fits so snugly that I will probably leave it like that forever, relying on the anchor well hatch (lashed with ropes) to keep the rodes in during a roll over.

From there it is one short step to ask why I still need the plastic inspection hatch between the V-berth area and the anchor well. It is a pain because it leaks and we must seal it with silicone sealant. I plan to one day remove that inspection hatch and permanently re-seal the bulkhead. If I get a jammed chain in the lower level I will access it by temporarily removing the upper level.

The other photo that sneaked into this entry is of us having lunch with friends in Wellington.

Regulators

The house batteries are regulated by a "Next Step 2" alternator regulator produced by Ample Technology of Seattle, USA. It is dedicated solely to regulation of the output from the 160-amp alternator to the four "house" batteries.

The "starting" bank charged by the 50-amp alternator using its internal regulator. Once the "starting" bank is charged a relay is used to divert charging to the electric anchor winch.

So we now have two fairly independent electrical systems: separate pulleys, belts, alternators, regulators, and switches.

The photo shows the external regulator above the two large bus bars installed by Bruce & Co. ... Yes, I know, the wiring looks messy. The only way to really clean it up is by a complete rewiring.

Charger

The photo is of our "Mastervolt Mass 12/60" regulator. It will supply a whopping 60 amps of current to our house batteries using "any" input voltage. It also has a battery temperature sensor to guard against overheating of the gel batteries.

Tommo has hard wired it to our DC system. Today Arnold and I will hard wire the AC side to take power from the boat's AC system. When in Australia and NZ we will supply the boat with 240V AC power and the charger will automatically do its work. When in the USA we will use a plug converter so that we can supply the boat with 110V AC power. The charger will use this voltage to do its work and we should be able to then use the boat's GPO's (i.e. wall plugs) to charge our laptops and other 12V equipment.

The unit is less that 12 months old and came off of a boat where two of these units are being replaced by one much bigger one. Bob told us that $750 at about half of its purchase price was a fair amount to pay. After that price was agreed with the vendor Bob checked up and saw that these units are now selling for over $2500. ... We've gotta win a few.