After nearly two years in beautiful Oahu Hawaii, (with mixed emotions and some sadness), it's time to head north to catch the easterly trade winds that will deliver us to the Pacific Northwest, as we originally planned. We'll be leaving Hawaii sometime the end of May / beginning of June, weather permitting.
While in Fiji, we had Long Windid hauled out to have her bottom painted and the running gear inspected. It was then that Dan first noticed the strut, which is normally a brass color, had started to turn pink. This meant electrolysis was attacking and weakening the strut. Dan searched the interior of the boat for the cause of the attack and found a bonding wire had broken loose. He re-attached the wire to the strut which protruded thru the bottom of the boat, thinking that would fix the problem. Fast forward two years... in preparation for our Pacific Northwest passage, we pulled the boat to paint her bottom and have some below the waterline work done. Dan was sickened to find the strut had become even more deteriorated - to a point that dead pieces of metal had broken off the strut's leading edge. It was obvious we had to replace it. We couldn't take the chance of wrapping a rope or fishing net around the propeller and snapping off the strut. Puncturing a hole in the bottom of Long Windid in the middle of the Pacific, since I don't swim that would be catastrophic. It took 12 weeks to have the strut fabricated and shipped to Oahu from England. Since the busy yard had an opening to accommodate us, we once again had Long Windid hauled out for the replacement to be installed. Normally, Dan would have had the work done when I was on the mainland. But since I wanted to oversee the major project, I decided to stay on board in what turned out to be a "major construction site". This meant climbing up and down an extension ladder 4-5 times a day for five long hot days. I was living with paint residue, metal and fiberglass grindings, dirt, grim and the smell of resin and solvents strong enough to turn your stomach. We had to sleep on the floor in the salon, since our stateroom was the construction site. However, from our second-floor loft, 12 feet in the air, I could see my lagoon calling for me.
YES" ...I stayed on board. All part of the adventure!
What caused the failure of our original strut??? It wasn't something as simple as the bonding wire Dan found broken. It turned out the bonding strap, a 1 ½ wide braided wire that connects all of the bonding wires to thru hulls and under water gear throughout the boat. The strap had completely corroded beneath the exhaust and fuel hoses. It's not until you have to tear everything out of the boat in order to get to the strut box, that this could have ever be found.