I've got the boatyard blues...
16 August 2012 | Seahorse Marine
Typhoon Kai Tak
Most of the identified work aboard DD462-11 is done, or could be done in just a quick spurt of effort, but we are still here; due apparently to local government bureaucracy.
There's another typhoon enroute, should be landing within 100km of us early tomorrow morning. Current forecast (hko.gov.hk) is for a less powerful depression than that which came to visit last month, but then again, that one was forecast to be nothing more than a TS, until suddenly it was Cat4. Last night we experienced a major lightening storm -- booming! crashing! flashing! and echoing throughout this basin for an hour or so. This morning it was heavy rainfall as the leading bands of the system passed through.
Given the mess and damage experienced at Seahorse last time, it's not a surprise to see preparations being made all over the boatyard. At the larger shipyard next door, the tug is carrying out kedging anchors to keep their vessels from being blown/floated ashore. Down towards ZhuHai there's still a 300-400' coastal freighter lying on it's side at the edge of the Pearl River, casualty of last month's typhoon.
And now kedging anchors are going out on the 3 Diesel Ducks at the Seahorse finishing dock.
And on the river here, once again there's been a steady parade of South China Sea fish boats, headed upstream to wait out the weather.
It appears we may actually head home before David's boat makes it out of the yard. Arrangements are being made for delivery to Hong Kong in David's absence, to be cared for by our very good friend James Lai in Aberdeen Typhoon Shelter. Not exactly what was planned but... that's why the motto aboard DavidEllis is / has been / will always be "sempergumbi". The plus side is that David has had the opportunity to get some significant additions, modifications made to his Diesel Duck and I have also had an opportunity to check out some new gear, which will make it's way to DE.
Tech Alert! For those who prefer the soap opera to the mechanics, this is your notice to skip ahead. I will be bringing home a trio of Philips waterproof lights which will mount up the mast. 3 x 400 watts, 2 are high pressure sodium vapor HPSV, the 3rd metal halide. Some may remember that I purchased 3 used 400 watt HPSV lights in Alaska last year. They were a good price and they work. I checked out the price of replacement bulbs (very modest) and noted the same units on some of the AK and CA fishboats but they are very large and heavy and I am concerned about putting that much weight up the mast, along with a mounting structure to secure them. I had been thinking about some HPSV lights I saw at the workboat show in Seattle last November. These could have a remote ballast (which is where the weight is), so would be smaller and lighter up the mast, but they were very pricey. I paid about one quarter for the Philips lights here. In addition I'm adding a couple 100watt LEDs facing forward from the pilothouse roof for docking lights, and replacing the halogen deck lights (pointing down from the spreaders) with LEDs. The spreader lights will continue to work off the batteries via inverter (and the docking lights could also for a short time) but the 400watt lights up the mast will require running the generator.
And speaking of light... wandering the electronics bazaar in the Jida district of ZhuHai with Dennis, there was a booth where the guy has made a very cool modification to the LED strip lights I've been seeing at boatshows the past year (we mounted one 5 meter strip under the cockpit bimini frame). This guy is putting the relatively fragile LED strips in 1/2" wide aluminum channels, and if waterproofing is desired, sealing the whole thing up with clear epoxy. After consultation with Dot, I have gone completely nuts and ordered up 50 pieces, which will go all over the boat, replacing the warm white rope lights under the valances (the current units are incandescent light and pull a lot of amps). Ill be replacing the incandescent bulbs in the engine room with 1 meter LED strips and adding .5 meter light strips above the port side of the engine, the fuel management board and .25 meter strips into all of the bilge spaces. Additional .5m and .25m strips will go into electrical panel lockers and other cabinets. Since we will be replacing all the original ceiling LEDs (which have faded, failed or cracked) with white only (rather than the original bi-color lights), there will be .25m red LED strips strategically located in salon, aft cabin, engine room and pilot house. This will be an easy project for later this winter.
As I stand here covered in fresh mosquito bites from this morning amongst the scabbed mosquito bites from the past week, I'm reminded to mention one other find at Jida -- magnetic tape, 1/2" wide by 1/8" thick. This will allow Dorothy to build bug screens for the pilothouse doors (which can be rolled up and stowed). We've been looking for something like this since the boat was completed. There are companies which make screens exactly like this, but because of the irregular shape of the PH doors, did not want to make them up from our measurements, and were too far away (New Zealand) to have a rep come to the boat for measurements. In May aboard Jubilee on the US East Coast, I saw that Dean had a custom made screen for his PH door that snapped on, and it looked and worked great, but I was still reluctant to screw snaps into the teak coming of the door. This find -- the mag tape -- will do the job without affecting the teak at all.
There's more going on in the tech side, but that's enough for the moment.
Continuing this the morning of 18 August, we managed to avoid the worst of the latest typhoon, it veered to the west of us, down near Hainan Island last night/this morning. We did get a blow, and a tidal surge that covered the patio areas of the Seahorse offices. But not as high as last month's typhoon, which put several feet of water into the offices and shops. At the moment, 1100hrs local, the water is still high -- a foot of water over the ramp between shore and the dock, and a fair chop on the water as well with a 25kt wind.
Time to work on the wiring diagrams for changes to DE's electrical system, which will include 2! Victron inverter/chargers wired as "split phase" so we get both 110 VAC and 220 VAC without the use of a kick-up transformer. More detail for the nerds later.