Boat Work Begins

After neglecting Pachuca for over two months that she's been on the hard stand I am finally able to turn my attention to her.  I expect to work on her for about 7 days and have her back in her pen at the end of this month. 

Yesterday morning I packed the car with all of the tools that I thought might useful for the maintenance and drove to Brenda's house for the duration of the boat work.  Brenda's house is a 5 minute drive from the Fremantle Sailing Club and provides an ideal base of operations.  And I must say that I enjoy the company of Brenda, Stephen, and Shelley the Dog. 

I arrived at the boat at about 1 PM today with the goal of removing the old marine stove.  I was able to accomplish this in about an hour and devoted the next few hours to thoroughly cleaning out the stove space then cleaning out the bilge.  With the stove removed I will be able to paint the recess for the first time, and I'll want to do a good job because it will be the only chance that I get.

The brand of the stove had always been a mystery to me because no documentation was provided when I purchased the boat.  However, the mystery was solved when I was able to read the plaque at the back which informed me that it was an SMEV Series 7000 made in Italy in December 1995.  It had been distributed by Camec Pty Ltd of Clayton, Victoria. 

I expect to see Paul Jr at 7.30 tomorrow morning.  He will help me lift the new stove up the steep ladder into Pachuca's cabin, then I'll give him a tour of the boat.  After that we'll discuss the fitting of the new stove.  Paul's skills are primarily in carpentry rather than metal work, but he might be able to suggest some solutions.

Before Removal

Badly Corroded Burners

Removed

Member of IACH

I have been privileged to be accepted as a member of the International Association of Cape Horners (http://www.capehorners.org/).  The basic requirements for ful membership are:

1. Rounded Cape Horn under Sail
2. Have "doubled the Horn" (ie Lat 50S to Lat 50S non-stop)
3. As part of a non-stop voyage of at least 3000 nautical miles.

There are about 350 names in the membership list, and my membership number is 769.  Looking through that list I saw that most of the members reside in UK and made their rounding of the Horn as part of one of the great ocean races (e.g. Whitbread, Global Challenge, BT Challenge).  The names of luminaries such as Sir Chay Blyth and Sir Robin Knox-Johnston jumped out of the list, but I could not find the name of the incomparable Jon Sanders. 

I will receive the IACH journal twice a year ("The journal is a wonderful source of seafaring and yachting material, all supplied by members.") and have been invited to submit any stories and anecdotes that might be of interest to others.

New Stove, Visit to Boat

Keel Bolts

On Friday I picked up the new marine stove from Yacht Grot.  It is a "Force 10" "European Sandard" size 2-burner stove, model no. 63256 (http://www.force10.com/gas_gimballed_2burner.html).  A 4-burner stove would not fit into the space in Pachuca's galley and a 3-burner model that we initially selected is not available in Australia. 

The two-burner model is actually OK because we were never able to use more than 2 burners at a time on the 4-burner stove currently on Pachuca because there was simply not the space for more than two pots or pans.

Trevor charged me an even $2,000 and I suspect that he shaved the price for the returning circumnavigator.  I notice that another boat shop is charging $2,249 plus $12 delivery.  This may seem expensive by USA standards but this is Australia in 2014.  I've just seen one USA price of $1650 with heaven knows how much tax will be piled on.

The stove is near the boat at Brenda and Stephen's house and I hope to install it during the 2 weeks that I will devote to Pachuca at the end of August.

I visited the boat yesterday exposed the bilge so that I could photograph the keel bolts which I would like to tighten up.  I'll engage a professional rather than going to the expense of purchasing the required tools.  To my surprise the bilge had about 100 mm of water in it.  This was interesting because the water was accumulated while the boat was on the hard stand.  I tasted the bilge water (sailors do this sort of thing) and confirmed that it was fresh water.  This means that the water that I have been shipping when driving the boat hard has probably been entering from the deck and not via thru-hull fittings and hoses.  If this is the case I am baffled because I am able to see most of the inside of the hull and have not noticed water passing through to the bilge.  I will do some experimentation with a water hose before I put the boat back into the water.

Rescued Sextant

I discovered my Astra II sextant at the bottom of a small compartment in the V berth area where it had ridden in a damp environment just above the forward end of the bilge since at least Argentina and possibly La Paz.  The Freiberger  and Ebco stextants had ridden in the electrical closet immediately behind the navigation station, but there was simply not enough room in that compartment for all three sextants.

Anyway, I brought the Astra II home and didn't mess around.  I put both the sextant and its box under a tap of tepid water and washed them thoroughly with a paint brush.  I then let them dry in the sun.  It appears that the sextant - and particularly the lenses and filters - is OK, and the box survived OK too.  Today I will treat the sextant with WD-40 and clean the lenses and filters with Windex.