Progress in Yap
19 June 2012
David

The weekend was spent preparing the boat for the dusty work of grinding the hull. This included removing lots of electronics and cushions and covering everything else with sheets and taping them down. My hotel rooms looks like a second hand boat equipment shop. Everything got removed or covered. Even the engine is wrapped in a sheet. Monday and yesterday we removed all the repair work I had done in Faraulep and started grinding to make way for new fiberglass. It really is terrible dusty work. There is fine dust everywhere. We might finish grinding today and start to lay the first layers of fiber glass. Arthor - the local boat builder/repair man, is a real character and with lots of energy and ideas. He is determined to make the boat stronger than it was before. We all, (we includes yachties Richard from Seattle and David from Townsville) all believe the boat had a design flaw in the area of the skeg. It should not have broken and allowed water to come in the way it did. Instead the rudder post or something else should have taken the force of the hit and bent. They all agree I was lucky not to have lost the boat through sinking. Luck played some part. Lucky I had the spare bilge, the bilge alarm and the tube of marine bond. Lucky that we were able to get off the reef before too long to start making the boat lighter by throwing things into the dinghy and start applying the bond.
On the weekend there was a festival from which the above photo is from. I can't help comment that the girls do not look very happy.
David