10/11/2009, Newcastle
At 4.30pm Tuesday 10th November we launched the all new and revamped Diomedea into the muddy water of the Hunter river. Amazingly, the engine started first go and the new steering system actually worked. Her new paint shimmered in the Spring sunshine as a classic nor'easter carressed her decks. Did we break a bottle of champagne over her bow? No, but we opened two bottles of Jansz to celebrate the moment with the shipwrights of Noakes. It has been five months of work now and still a few weeks to go. Hopefully the mast will go in later this week. I had a panicked check of the mast electrics in the fading evening light and found that all is working. Phew! As we were about to leave the yard at 9pm, I noticed that Diomedea was "floating" a bit high at the bow. We were bow into the work berth. Yes, aground. Already. So much for the new antifouling. See the pix here
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27/10/2009
FYI the font is "Radiostars". The stern has a few more details but can't get a photo of it right now. SEE THE PIX HERE
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14/10/2009
Diomedea came out of the shed with most of her paint work complete. The topsides are Spindle Blue with an Aristo Blue boot stripe. Coachhouse and deck are in Chevy White. The anti fouling clearly clashes so we will swap it to black.
The deck fittings are going back on. The new hatches are in and look terrific.
Overall Diomedea is looking terrific.
SEE THE PIX
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09/08/2009, The Shed
Charles was extremely helpful on Saturday as we plotted the pipe runs for the new hydraulic system. The helm pump is now mounted inside the helm pedestal in the cockpit as you see in the photo. 5/8" fully annealed copper pipes run down through the cockpit floor to a "lockvalve" and the new hydraulic autopilot. These have to be mounted to solid surfaces so we had to design brackets for them. We found some discarded bracket-like stuff of 3mm steel in the scrap bin in the yard. So, with some drilling, grinding and welding - hey, presto. From the valve there is a short run down to the original bypass valve which is needed in case the emergency tiller is required. The original flex then goes to the slave cylinder. However, the helm pump position needs to be slightly modified to give us access to the elbow attachments for the copper pipes....
Thank you Charles, you are fantastic as always.
On Sunday, Andrea, fully recovered from the trauma of her previous day's speaking engagement, spent time playing compass adjuster/diagnostician, before proceeding to remove anodes from rudder, keel and prop shaft. What did I do? I found a new rust issue in the base of the targa arch so freed that up ready for a further dose of welding. Ho hum.
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02/08/2009, The Shed
I found some alarming fractures in the welds of the spreader bases on the mast. After some discussion these have been cut out, rewelded and web plates built in. See the pix.
The masthead tricolour light has been a battery sucking 25W globe and proved to be a major drain during passage making. It has now been replaced with an LED Lopolight. Unfortunately, I could not mount it directly onto the masthead as suggested in the instructions. The plate on the top of the masthead slopes downwards and forwards at a 10 degree angle. Also other stuff was obscuring a low placement. I thus had a custom made 150mm 4mm alloy stub mast and then put this on an angled bracket to (hopefully) give a level projection of light. A small junction box was mounted next to the stub mast.
Thank you Anthony for your outstanding effort on this one. You are a genius.
The transom is now being painted. Andrea and I put some new insulation into the aft cabin after cutting out the ceiling to give us good access. New portlights have been added from the cockpit into the after cabin to improve ventilation and light.
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The new stern section has been welded in, leaving an open "step through" from the swim deck and giving us two new deck lockers. A new emergency steering system is being created. New SS handrails replace the old mild steel ones. See the pix in the gallery.
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