July 2010
Bay of Islands Fishing Report
1st July - Today was spent cleaning up the last of the canopy, I'm not sure where the day went but we were reasonably busy. Kim the engineer and Bones, his offsider pulled the shaft for our 4yr survey. Beautiful weather, warm and sunny, unfortunately rain is forecast for the weekend so we've got to make the most of it while the sun is here.
2nd July -Wally turned up to start on the wiring and I'm really looking forward to this part of the modifications. For years the philosophy has been "don't interfere with the existing wiring, just add another wire in case something else stops working". As a result, we have so much redundant wiring that when we have a problem, we can't even trace it. We have to check every fuse to find out which one has blown as nobody knows what each fuse is for. All in all, each year the problem and confusion got worse. This year I can finally afford (I think) to rip it all out and start again.
As the season gets warmer and dryer, the timber on the wheelhouse roof contracts enough so that when it does rain, water drips down and gets the Skipper wet. He's a big woosie but just to keep him happy I've started to fibreglass the roof to fill in the joints and keep him dry. I've never done this before so tomorrow will tell me wether the half roof I did today works or not.
As the season gets warmer and dryer, the timber on the wheelhouse roof contracts enough so that when it does rain, water drips down and gets the Skipper wet. He's a big woosie but just to keep him happy I've started to fibreglass the roof to fill in the joints and keep him dry. I've never done this before so tomorrow will tell me wether the half roof I did today works or not.
3rd July - It was a perfect day with tons of sunshine and zero wind. The water looked so calm that I wished I was out fishing rather than fibreglassing the wheelhouse roof. Anyway I've completed 95% of the roof and it should be pretty watertight now. It's supposed to be pretty wet over the next couple of days so it'll be a good test of how well I did in my first attempt at using fibreglass.
5th July - The weather was really bad yesterday but it was a good test of my fibreglassed cabin top (which came out leak free.) Today was the day that the Surveyor was turning up for the big 4 year survey. I was real nervous as it was my first and if anything went wrong (rotten hull, cracked shaft, etc) then I was going to be in for massive costs to repair it. Thankfully, we got through everything except anything electrical. When Wally finishes the rewiring, they'll check the last few items and we'll be home sweet. I can sleep tonight.
12th July - Things are progressing slowly but surely. Three quarters of the hull has been scraped back to bare timber, the canopy is due by the end of the week and the final wiring will be completed next Monday. In the meantime, it's sand, sand and sand some more.
It's Maintenance Time
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18th July - Ever since I took over the Arline we've had water in the bilge that we've always believed has been coming in via the stern gland (around the prop shaft.) Today, while scraping back the hull, we found the true source. Half a dozen screws, some hemp packing and all finished off with some new gunk that is flexible ... and resin friendly and we should be leak free. Time will tell.
20th July - I spent quite a bit of time working on the hull again today. Some of the anti-foul is inaccessible to the grinder and sander. Flames and a scraper don't work so I've admitted defeat - some really strong paint stripper is on order.
We did make some progress today, when I arrived at 9am this morning I was very surprised to find that the canopy was in the process of being installed. This is that time when you find that although wooded boats look symmetrical, they aren't. The locations of four struts have to be chosen on site, then measured, created, installed, modified and reinstalled. Hopefully this will be completed tomorrow and then the canvas guy can take over.
We did make some progress today, when I arrived at 9am this morning I was very surprised to find that the canopy was in the process of being installed. This is that time when you find that although wooded boats look symmetrical, they aren't. The locations of four struts have to be chosen on site, then measured, created, installed, modified and reinstalled. Hopefully this will be completed tomorrow and then the canvas guy can take over.
21st July - A couple of modifications to the wiring and it should be operational this morning. Thanks to Wally and Bruce for a fantastically tidy job. Wally is a man of many talents, as well as being a meticulous electrician, he is very handy around timber. So far he's built the new control panel, plus he's currently building a box to house the speakers for the stereo. Once he's done that, he's going to build two new exterior doors to be replace the old manky ones we've had to put up with for the past four years.
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.jpg "The canopy arrives and is in the process of being installed")
.jpg "We're going to have a ton of headroom now")
We're going to have a lot of headroom now. You would now have to be over 7ft tall before you were in danger of banging your head. The new configuration will also allow more light, plus with a lot less weight the centre of gravity of the boat will be lowered extensively making it more stable.
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