Admiral 40 Oceans Dream - Hot hot hot
30/10/2009, At Anchor in Chaguaramas Bay

What's the beeping noise - yes it was that all too familiar noise of the alarm alerting us to the fact that there was water in one of the bilges. We had heard this many times on our voyage up from Cape Town but did not want to hear it now. After much investigation we found where the water was coming from and it was not good news. It appeared that there was water getting into the keel and then up into the hulls. This meant that we would have to lift out of the water to further investigate.

There followed a few hours of total misery that this could happen to us so soon after launching and we recounted the events of 17 Dec as we set sail from Cape Town only to return a few hours later with a leaking fuel tank.

The guys at Peakes Yacht Services could not believe there eyes as we returned in the dinghy and asked if we could be lifted back out. This is a very busy time for the yard as boats are being prepared from storage to be put back in the water. The earliest that they could lift us was Friday and so we spent a few hours 'at sea' before finding ourselves back on the hard.


Oceans Dream being lifed for the second time!

It was not only frustrating but also anxious hours of wondering where the leak was and would we be able to easily identify it. Fortunately having been back on terra-firma for a few hours we have been able to identify where the water was entering the keel.

We will update you in our next blog on the extent of the leak. We have of course contacted Admiral but have heard nothing yet.

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Admiral 40 Oceans Dream - Tropical Wave gives Heavy Thunderstorms
28/10/2009, At Anchor in Chaguaramas Bay

Having been lifted from the water on 16 Feb 2009 after our trans Atlantic voyage from Cape Town to fix the long list of problems we had encountered, the day eventually arrived for Oceans Dream to be put back in the water where she truly belongs. The 28 October was scheduled for a pickup in the travelift at 1130 and a launch at 1300 giving us some time to put some antifoul paint on the small patches of the hull where she had been resting.

The day arrived and we felt confident that we had everything ready - all we needed now was some fine weather so that we could get the antifoul on and not be overly challenged leaving the slip which has seen many a scrape when the wind and tide pick up. For us the tide was slack but we could not predict the wind or the rain. Having been successfully placed in the slings of the travel lift we were moved to the slip and then the heavens opened. Like a monsoon it poured for 45 minutes accompanied by strong gusting winds which saw Oceans Dream rocking in the travel lift. This did not bode well.

The storm ended shortly before the travel lift operators came back from their lunch and we were blessed with a lull in the weather. We said our farewells to the many workers who had helped us get ready for this big day as Oceans Dream was gently lowered back into the water and before too long we were motoring out to pick up a buoy in the anchorage.



It was really great to be back on the water and once we had got ourselves securely moored we celebrated with a cup of tea around our new cockpit table as the conversation turned to our cruising plans to take us through the remainder of the year and on into 2010.

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Admiral 40 Oceans Dream / 34 deg C, and Thunder Storms
24/10/2009, Peakes Yacht Services

Fantastic news ... Oceans Dream will be 'splashing' on Wednesday of this week - just 11 months after her original launch and 9 months after our arrival in Trinidad. We are soooo looking forward to getting back in the water, Wednesday just can't come soon enough! The local friends we've made are surprised to hear that we're soon to be vacating our slot in the yard, many were certain we were going to stay for good!

We've spent the last week servicing the engines, cleaning off 9 months worth of Trini dust, painting her bottom, polishing the hulls for what will hopefully be a much longer stint in the water than last time. Our plans are to spend some time in the local waters checking out all the systems and sails before heading North to Grenada for a long-awaited change of scenery and to catch up with fellow cruisers who have headed off prior to us. We then plan to make our way slowly westwards through the outlying Venezuelan Islands, the Dutch Antilles, and then onto Cartegena in Columbia for Christmas (but we've already learnt not to set anything in stone ... we'll see how things go).

We hired a on Friday car for a trip to the wholesalers to provision for the coming weeks (loo rolls, toothpaste, tea-bags, soap, the list goes on...) as it's easier to load up on land than have to carry shopping out to the boat in the dinghy. The hiring of the car was eventful enough in itself. After travelling for about 35 minutes, the thing cut out on us - we were stranded ... no tools, just three emergency numbers to call in the event should 'anything' happen. Fantastic, no need to worry, we'd be outta here soonish. The calls were made to all three numbers, and all three ansaphones responded in the same way "Exclusive Cars - please leave a message". Hmmmm, our original optimism was pretty much quashed there and then! Try again in another half an hour. This time, we had luck and a mechanic was sent out to sort the car arriving an hour later. "Sticky starter" we were told, all well and good but how was he going to fix it? We needed a car to get us to the shops to load full to the brim. After lots of "umming" and "erring", it just so happened the Boss of Exclusive Cars was passing by on the highway, pulled up on the hard shoulder and told the mechanic to give us his car so as not to hold us up any further. Very sensible, and so off we went on our shopping expedition. Soon we discovered the lack of air-con (a MUST here in Trini, comes as standard usually!) and, following our trip to the wholesalers with the car fully laden "oh no, the boot's jammed, all those perishables...". We have come to the conclusion that any decent scrapyard in the UK would reject the car on the basis of it being worthless! Here endith our lesson on hiring a car in Trini!

That's it for now, the next blog will include an instalment on Oceans Dreams warranty work ... and the 50 or so defects listed on the Surveyors report.
With very best wishes from a Very Happy Crew.

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Admiral 40, Oceans Dream / Hot, Hot, Very Hot!
10/10/2009, Peakes Yacht Services

OK, so we were entertaining ourselves with a game of 'themed' Scrabble whilst having a sundowner on the trampoline last night ... can you guess the theme based on the photo?! Another form of entertainment since returning from the UK is the good old British sitcom. We came back laden down with DVDs galore ... including such classics as Fawlty Towers, The Vicar of Dibley, Cold Feet (32 episodes) etc and for the more serious viewing, we have David Attenborough join us occasionally! At the moment, we've got really hooked on Michael Palin doing his Phileas Fogg bit in Around the World in 80 Days. What is it with his white trainers though? Bit of an 80's fashion faux-pas for sure!

Whilst in Trini, we continue to keep in touch with loved-ones by Skype. On occasions the link can be somewhat intermittent however we've learnt the earlier we call the UK, the better the signal seems to be - a good time seems to be when it's 07:00 with us (5 hours behind GMT). However, based on a few recommendations from fellow cruisers, we have recently invested in a 'Wirie'. This is basically a wifi antenna which should allow us to 'see' and access signals we've not been able to previously. It was ordered about 10 days ago and we know it's arrived in Trinidad. Sometime over the next few days we shall begin the process of tracking it down ... is it at Customs? Chaguaramas Post Office? Carenage Post Office? Who knows!

For those of you who keep an eye on oceansdream.co.uk, we update with photos every now and then but in reality, we've not been that 'snap-happy' of late. We've seen much of what there is to see here in Trinidad but as soon as we set off again, we'll be updating the route and other relevant pages.

Some of you have asked what happens to our mail and despite being on the other side of the Pond, we continue to receive post in the UK (although we did manage to get it down to a minimum) and our 'Personal Assistant' (Adrian's daughter - Harriet) does us the honour of scanning anything that might look important and emails it across for us to deal with as necessary.

A question was also raised about prescription medications and the quantities GPs in the UK will supply when travelling. With an NHS prescription they're not too keen to give more than a three month supply of medication. However, it seems every GP is different as some are known to provide a prescription for twelve months! We topped up our 'supplies' in South Africa, they were cheaper to buy there than privately in the UK.

Prior to leaving Oceans Dream for the summer, we spent a few days polishing the hulls (in fact, ALL fibreglass) with some wax and a damp cloth and leaving it to dry. This created a protective layer so that any dirt/dust/filth heading in the direction of Oceans Dream, would sit on top of the wax. Now back on board what is, a pretty mucky boat, we're keen to polish the wax off but have decided to leave it until the last minute before we 'splash'.

So, what news on the 'to-do' list? Well, a line has gone through each of the following: grind back screws, sort new leak in skylight, fit table centre pull, make frame for Flexiteek (going on floor in heads), measure and cut keel shoes. Those are the jobs the guys completed. We've cracked on with fitting a new cleat, meeting a guy about a dinghy cover (subsequently ordered), fitting non-return valve on water pipes, spray-painting the anchor chain at 5/10m intervals, fitting 'wings' to dinghy outboard motor, meeting guy about sorting engine & exhaust, sizing up emergency steering pipe with silicone, cleaning saildrive boots (in preparation for new ones), investigating cost of anti-foul with local suppliers, cleaning, shopping, and of course ... socialising with other cruisers!


Warranty Work - Chapter 2 ~ KEELS

When we arrived in Trinidad we realised that we would have to lift Oceans Dream to fix the leak in the port hull. We decided that we would commission a survey in order to ensure we didn't miss any other faults that were beyond our 'amateur' eyes.

We arranged to be lifted at Peake Yacht Service in Chaguaramas and engaged the services of Billy Wray an American surveyor based in Trinidad. Billy joined us on our trip from the anchorage to the travel lift dock to assess Oceans Dream's handling. You may recall that we had had issues with her wanting to turn to port all the time. We made our way into the travel lift dock with only a few inches to spare either side of the concrete walls. The diver went down to locate the slings and soon Oceans Dream was being lifted and moved to a place on the hard.

The recognised way to support a catamaran on the hard is to rest her on wooden planks underneath the keels, with anti-tipping stands fore and aft. Admiral had not given us any instructions to the contrary. In a few minutes Oceans Dream was sitting on her keels and the slings were being removed. Fortunately one of the travel lift operators noticed that there was some deforming of the hull just behind the keel and he quickly called for her to be put back in the slings.

This picture illustrates the extent of the 'dishing' of the hull.


... And with the resulting cracks internally. The webs had been glued in not tabbed and glassed as is the norm.


We sort guidance from Admiral Yachts on how to support her out of the water and enquired why she could not sit on her keels like all the other cats in the yard. After many reminders and some weeks later we received the chocking information we had requested.

We have written before on this subject but suffice it to say that the catamaran's designer stated that his design ensured that she was strong enough to rest on her keels. Admiral Yachts considered that this was not a desirable feature and as it wasn't referred to in the spec they were going to do nothing about it! Admiral Yachts did tell us that they were waiting a response from the designer but when we asked the designer about this he told us that he had had no requests for information.

Despite numerous attempts to get Admiral Yachts to accept that this characteristic was part of the design, according to the designer, and so there was a significant shortfall in the capability of the catamaran as built by Admiral Yachts - but we failed! In the end we have had to fund the strengthening work ourselves and are greatly appreciative of the support given to us by the designer in achieving this.

This picture illustrates the keelson and strengthened ribs that were inserted to transfer the forces from the end of the keel to the rear bulkhead.


Our final words on this issue are these:

If you want to be able to beach your catamaran or hold her on a drying mooring then we could not recommend you buy an Admiral 40.

Having gotten over this setback our surveyor went about his work and gave us his report some 10 days later - there were more that 50 defects, many described as being serious and requiring attention before going back to sea and a host of examples of poor quality workmanship.

Enough said - next time we will outline these faults.

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