Blog 31 August 2024

Airport sitting...
I departed Raiatea on time and with no particular issues. I had to drive back to the boat and ensure that the messenger lines that we use to replace our expensive mast halyards had survived the mast removal and replacement. It's an example of the total trust that I have in Conni's competence. Dealing with halyards is a "Conni job". I don't know how she does it and don't ever check that it's done correctly: it's Conni! They were fine but I ran some more tape on them anyway. I suppose that we'd have had to remove the mast again if they had been gone, so it was "mission critical" as they say.

I had (note verb tense) a flight last night from Papeete (Faa'a International Airport to LAX), but Air Tahiti Nui cancelled it: unscheduled maintenance, they said. I can hardly argue with that: Better on the ground than in the air someplace over the South Pacific! Still, they offered no help for any of the 200+ stranded customers. I texted Conni and she found a place nearby that was absolutely delightful. Great room, wonderful host, and reasonably priced. We were both concerned that I'd have another night on the damned airport floor. Been there, done that.

The short drive there was still US$20 each way, but cheaper than a taxi. We had a hotel for a layover here once and paid US$75 for a 3-minute ride! Ingrid, my host, brought me a Hinano beer, and a sliced papaya out of her yard as a greeting. How nice is that?

I was on the phone for several hours, trying to get a flight back to LAX, and from there back to Anchorage. I finally got an Air Tahiti Nui person who got me a flight tonight to LAX and a non-stop from there, to Anchorage. I've got to negotiate with Tahiti Nui about the room and transport costs, but it won't break us. For some reason, ATN couldn't provide a seat, but after a nice conversation with an Alaska Airlines peron, I've got something livable for that 5-hour flight.

Perhaps Air Tahiti Nui does things that way here, but I found them totally clueless about customer service. In my experience, they should have had a person here, ensuring passengers that they'd have a flight as soon as possible and that they'd help with missed connecting flights. Nope. Counters closed, and there were no staffers in sight.

I arrived at the airport here at 10AM and will depart tonight at 8:30, arrive in LAX at 7:10AM, the fly out at 9:30PM or something. Damn! If I can stow the gear someplace, I'll go to a museum or something. Long waits at airports are getting stale.

You're up to date.

I worked most of the first weekend, scraping, sanding, and varnishing the various teak components on deck. By Monday, the yard guy working below had completed most of what he had been assigned and it did look great. Tuesday, he returned and put on a single last coat of white epoxy paint here and there and did a good job of cleaning things that he had dirtied with dust and returning things that he had moved to work. I'm VERY pleased with the results. The new mast step should be "bomber" since it's a solid block of epoxy covered in fiberglass. Over that are two coats of epoxy white paint (I'm aware of only two, but there could be more). The paint will enhance the waterproofness as well as add dramatically to the appearance of the boat. I feel confident in the strength and waterproofness of the mast step fabrication. By the way, they used micro-balloons in the epoxy. If you're interested in some great technology, follow this link on micro-balloons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_microsphere.

On deck, I used a can of Cetol varnish, our preferred brand, but unavailable here. I bought a can of a French brand "Le Tonkinois Marine Nº1 Linseed Oil Varnish". According to their site, it's the official varnish of the French Navy. There's a joke in there somewhere but it does flow smoothly and looks very good. Longevity in FP is an unknown, but the yard owner, Dominique, says it's the best that he has. At any rate, I put a final coat, the fourth, on the cap rails, using this stuff. By the way, the infamous Gulf of Tonkin (in the product name) incident piqued my interest and it's the same area around North Vietnam. By this writing, I had put on 5 coats of varnish, including 2 of the Le Tonkinois, which I like a lot so far.

The bottom of the mast has been stripped of old, blistered paint, had an acid wash (dilute hydrochloric, usually) applied to remove aluminum oxide, and then painted with epoxy paint. When that cures, it can be painted. The epoxy grips the aluminum and the paint grips the epoxy. We've had the bottom 10-12 feet of the mast treated in this way so when the mast is done, the yard can begin the mast replacement process. I imagine that the new rigging will be attached to the mast while it's down, the mast lifted into place, then the rigging attached to the boat attachment points. I'm not a rigger but it seems the logical process to me.

Since I leave this Friday afternoon, I've begun to pack and consider what I can possibly accomplish in the remaining time. I spoke to the Carenage financial lady, Vai, and she'll create a bill for me to pay on Thursday. If we owe more, we'll transfer funds from home.

We have decks made of teak strips. To keep them in place, screws are driven through the teak and into the fiberglass deck below. The screws are covered in teak plugs that cover and waterproof the screws. The plugs (bungs) work loose! Damn! I've replaced about 14 on this trip. It's hard work in the sun, on my hands and knees, and working on a multi-step task. It's been a chore.

Thursday afternoon

Yeah, skipped some days since I've been so bushed when I return. Here are the highlights.

I depart FP tomorrow and by tomorrow night will be flying toward Los Angeles. I'll arrive in the morning, clear customs, then have the usual long wait. By Saturday night, my lovely Conni will fetch me at the Anchorage airport, a world away.

We have a mast! Hurray! It's months late in being installed, but my trip would have been somewhat wasted if I had departed and it still not done.

By early week, the mast step had been completed, as I've documented. The entire channel was painted with a gleaming white epoxy, so is solid, waterproof, and beautiful. As the worker chipped away at the rotten wood that caused the entire project, he found a core of epoxy under the mast plate. In all likelihood, the mast would have been stable, but the mess was unsightly, so the work was needed.

The base of the mast itself got spray-painted with white epoxy on Wednesday. Tuputu, the yard boss, sprayed it and it looked great.

The new rigging was delivered on Tuesday, too. Mathieu, the new rigger for the island, is an old friend from Marina Taina on Tahiti, so he's a known quantity. He speaks impeccable English and is a great rigger and generous guy. We met him while we were in Marina Taina in Papeete to replace our engine back in 2019. He gave of his expertise and time generously and showed Conni how to tune our rig and waterproof the mast. He was instrumental in solving that perennial problem and when we offered to pay, he refused to accept it.

Mathieu installed the fore and backstays on Wednesday and the shrouds (stays for keeping the mast stable port to starboard) today.

I went into the Carenage office this morning to pay our bill (gulp) but it wasn't ready. The previous rigger was going to charge for airfare to and from Papeete for he and a helper, and an overnight stay in a hotel. It would have added a thousand dollars to the job. Fortunately, Mathieu lives on his boat here on Raiatea, now. We expect a break in that part of the bill, at least.

After visiting the office, I did a few remaining chores around the boat, went back to the room for lunch and consult with Conni, then returned by 1PM. The boom truck arrived by 1:30 and the mast was in place by 2:30. The new cables are by a Korean company named KOS, and it's some of the best stainless steel that can be purchased these days. Mathieu recommends and uses it.

Tomorrow, I'm outta here. I am so ready to be gone, too. I know that sounds odd, but I seem to stay tired and dehydrated. I'm eating at O'Ray Roulotte tonight, but here in the bungalow, it's usually been pasta, boulonaise from a jar, and Spam. It's not terrible, but it does get boring after a few nights. Yes, I make a huge salad with local lettuce and tomatoes, and have baguette and roquefort cheese with my G&T. Still, it's not home.

When I was preparing to depart Anchorage, I texted a good friend and he laughed: "“Sorry, I Have to go to FP to do a little maintenance.. “ haha." His take was that I was whining because I have to go to French Polynesia for any reason! He's right, it's not as if I'm in Selma, Alabama, but work is work, after all.

Every piece of wood on the exterior of the boat has been hand-scraped, sanded, and varnished. Most of the cap rails had their third coat today, and the accent pieces only their first. It's work done on my hands and knees, bending over to work on the wood. Exhausting.

Yesterday, Friday, the local weather report indicated that it would rain but clear by 5PM. Rather than sit in the bungalow, I packed some water and the phone for photos and took on a round-island tour.

It was a reviving experience, just being someplace else than the yard or the room. It's been a few trips here since we've driven all the way around, but that's what I did. It takes about 2 hours, since it's a small island. It reminded me of just how beautiful this place is and why we stayed here all of these years. I'll post some photos later tonight or tomorrow.

When I made it all the way around, I was at the Carenage just at 4:45, so I dropped by boat to complete some varnishing. The weather report was correct and we had no rain, giving the varnish a chance to cure. Since it was past closing, there wasn't a lot of yard dust in the air, another benefit of starting a bit later.

Afterward, I dropped by the Bottle Store in Uturoa and enjoyed a draft beer at the only bar-like establishment on the island. The same friendly female owner served and it was a fine introduction to my evening.

From there to the Roulotte O'Ray, one of my favorite roulettes and close by the bungalow. Steak frite, a somewhat gristle-y steak with a mountain of fries. Sure beats pasta!

Today, Saturday, I worked all day and got the entire cap rail varnished, and the brow, a teak accent strip around the cabin top and the handrails, all stripped and varnished. At this point, every piece of wood on the boat has at least one coat and the cap rails have three coats. Even if I don't get any more done, it's not bad.

As for the main event, getting the mast step replaced and the mast installed with rigging, well, that's a bit more problematic. The yard guy did a spectacular job on the mast step. There's an aluminum plate that with a "male" of the mast base. The mast fits on that that and is locked in place. Interestingly, the guy found that only that about 70% of the plate was underlain with a block of epoxy and only the forward 30% or so was the disintegrated wood that we thought underlaid all of it. The guy removed that bad wood and filled in with epoxy, then 20mm of fiberglass. To complete the repair, he painted the entire area with white epoxy paint. It looks great, is prodigious strong, and completely waterproof. It's just what we wanted. It should be cured by Monday. The new rigging cable arrived on Friday and is on the boat. We asked that the part of the mast below deck and a few above deck be re-painted for appearance. All that remains is to attach the rigging, get a crane in to lift the mast into place, then attach the new rigging to the boat. Of course, the rigger will have to seal the mast boot, the vinyl sleeve that attaches one end to the boat and the other to the mast. He'll have to seal the chain plates, the stainless steel attachment points for the rigging and that protrude through the deck. Those are mission critical tasks but ones that can be accomplished easily.

While certainly possible, it's not certain! I depart Raiatea this coming Friday at 3:40PM, arrive in Papeete, the fly to LA, through customs, then to Seattle and Anchorage. Yikes, an entire day and half of flying! I'm sure that I'll look and feel my best on arrival. And Conni will be there to welcome me home.

Hello, World! I'm back in Raiatea for two weeks, but without Conni. Here's the story, if you didn't hear it.

Last year, we learned that our insurer would not insure our rig (mast and such) unless we replaced all of the rigging, the stainless steel cable that supports the mast. We arranged last year to have this work done, but the yard simply didn't do it. No re-rig, no insurance, no sailing...it's that simple.

This will be a maintenance trip and an attempt to herd the yard towards completing the work that they said they'd do. The mast is down, so the project has started, but not much more.

I've posted three pages on work and sights, but this is my first blog. The heat has been unusually hard on me this year.

Today is 22 August and I've been at it for almost a week. The weather has been abysmal, with wind and rain or just wind, all of which makes working outside very difficult. What's to show?

I've gotten two coats of good varnish on most of the cap rail, nothing on other wood. The yard worker below working on removing and replacing the mast step, and he's a young man who work well alone but is hardly a model of cleanliness. I've just stopped varnishing anything that he might touch since he invariably does touch it with some kind of white fiberglass dust on his hands and feet. These large white blotches are disheartening when I've taken time to sand and varnish. "Ne touchez pas le bois verni! C'est encore humide!" Don't touch the varnished wood! It's still wet!

I removed the dodger but why it was in place since it's the last thing stow is a major question. I have no idea. The vinyl window were filthy with yard grit so had to be well cleaned. This is usually a "Conni job", so I had to request detailed directions. It's given me an appreciation for her efforts.

I used the angle grinder that I brought and removed the flush water inlet fixture from the forward head. It required removing the old one by cutting it into pieces, then installing the new one that I brought. Fortunately, the toilet was completely empty and dry so the grossness factor was almost zero. It's a task that I only identified last season and even then realized that I had waited way too long.

Using the angle grinder again, I cut through some stainless steel hose clamps that needed to be replaced on our stuffing box, the mechanism that allows the propeller shaft to exit the boat but allows only drops of water into the boat. I've never seen a hose clamp corrode, but these were and only one required this serious treatment. They're all replaced now.

With the dodger down, I re-erected the aft boat cover section. It's small and I awaited a lull in the wind, so it's up.

The old VHF radio, an ICOM M402, failed to operate correctly. Without access to any diagnostic devices, I had to assume that anything in the transmission path was suspect, so I bought a new ICOM M330 and masthead antenna. I was able to install the new radio with little problem, although I had other research the connections between the GPS and radio and enter the Mobile Maritime Service Identity. It's been many years since I paid any attention to that number but it's how we and the boat are identified to emergency service systems. For whatever reasons, I had to enter the numbers the first time that the radio was on and in entering it, had only one opportunity. Why so serious?

The antenna was not my first concern, but the 20+ year old radio. I brought the antenna just in case. In this case, the antenna was the problem! In every transmitting radio antenna there's a cylindrical component called a loading coil. It effectively lowers the resonant frequency so that a small antenna will work. In any case, and don't worry if you don't give a shit about it, it's important. Personally, and no one I've spoken to about it has either, I've never seen a bad antenna. Usually they last 20-30 years with no problem, but this one had leaked water somehow. That water, definitely salt, had caused a lot of corrosion and had the coil had swollen enough to crack the load coil housing. Jeez, it's surprising that it worked at all! With the antenna on old drums, it was a simple matter to remove the old waterproofing that I had installed, remove the old antenna, and reinstall and waterproof the new one. I know what you're thinking. "Bud, you did a terrible job of waterproofing!" Not so. The waterproofing was between the PL259 coax fitting and the bottom of the load cell, so the leak came from above someplace.

There have been other and smaller tasks, but those are the major ones. I've been here a week and have one week to go. The heat has been hard on me this year and as hard as I've tried to keep hydrated, I've not been completely successful.

As I have noted before, last season, Conni and I met with Dominic, the Carenage owner. His comment was, "it's a small job". Hmmm...

Two weeks ago, I called the Carnage and spoke with Dominic. He told me that the mast had, AT LAST, been removed from the boat. We paid for that work and we hope that the mast step project will also be in progress.

We decided that there are still enough maintenance jobs to do, so I'm departing Anchorage this week, to return in only 2 weeks. I'll post from FP as is usually the case, but the photos will never had Lovely Conni in them. Damn!

This will be a first for either of us since I'll be flying from Anchorage to Seattle then via Air Tahiti from Seattle to Papeete on Tahiti. It's a LONG flight but only one since I don't have to stop in Los Angeles. I'm sure that I'll look and feel my very best.

So, that's where we stand. When I start moving, I'll send more.

For those of you who follow us, frequently or not, we've been incommunicado for longer than usual. Here's the situation.

In previous years, we've had larger or smaller projects that have been challenging: replacing the engine, installing new electronics, replacing the refrigerator. This year, we had two, major but inter-related tasks.

At the base of the mast is the "mast step", a laminated wooden block about a 10-inch cube. Through bad fortune and some carelessness, that block got saturated with sea water that came through the "mast boot", a piece of plastic that was supposed to prevent that very problem. We did try to remedy the problem, but just didn't know the method. That block must be removed, a new piece fabricated, and re-installed.

Of course, the mast must be removed to accomplish that task, and now we're ready for the second task: replacing all of the standing rigging. This is the stainless steel cabling that supports the mast: 3 on each side and fore and aft pieces.

The sequence of steps is this:

Remove the mast and carefully set it out of harm's way. Our new radar is mounted on it!

Remove and fabricate a new mast step.

Remove the rigging and have it shipped to Papeete on Tahiti where it will be used as a template for new rigging. The new rigging must be shipped back to our yard and a professional rigger must install it.

Re-install the mast and connect the new rigging. Tune the rigging in the yard.

The problem has been that the yard has not responded to our 2 months of requests to provide and estimate and schedule. FINALLY, on 27 June, they provided an estimate for both jobs.

Be aware that our insurance company required the new rigging (every 7 years in the tropics) and we'd be fools to sail the boat with no insurance, so without a clear idea on when or even if the rigging job would occur, we couldn't fly to French Polynesia: no sailing, no reason to go.

The job is expensive, to be sure, but simply has to be done. The delay has been costly, as well. A local rigger agreed to do the job, but he departed for France for holiday before the yard could get itself together, so we must pay for a rigger and helper from Papeete to fly round trip and to provide overnight housing. In addition, we had some cheap tickets that we had to cancel, so it's been a frustrating and expensive exercise.

The Carenage is the best yard in the country and we have made abiding friendships with everyone from yard worker to management. Dominque, manager and owner, is our friend. It's been a tough situation for us.

So, when we have a firm work date, we'll fly to French Polynesia and get as much done as possible, with, perhaps, some sailing as well. We'll see...