Hard to believe that the first month of 2012 is almost gone already! However it has been a very productive month and a great start to the new year aboard the good ship Learnativity.
As you may recall from the previous updates this month, it was a bit of a rough start with the new rust problems that “surfaced” on the bottom of the hull and added significantly to the already large size projects of redoing all the exterior paint. But I’m delighted to report that as of this week we now have all the rusted steel cut out and replaced with all new 6mm steel plate. Additionally as I described in the previous post I decided to do my “turn a bug into a feature” routine and so while we were at it with the steel and the welding we added in a second layer of 6mm steel along the entire forward bow section and along the entire aft section of the hull from part way along the aft of the keel all the way back to the rudder.
You can see this quite clearly in some of the photos now that we have filled in all the welds with epoxy filler to blend them smoothly into the hull shape. I’m not at all sure that I’ll do it but this extra layer of steel makes Learnativity particularly well suited to doing extreme latitude sailing adventures one day, which is sailing close to the two poles of the earth where the ability to withstand being frozen in place or coming into contact with ice is a very real possibility. However even here in the tropics where the only ice is in your glass, I’ll be smiling even more than usual (if that’s even possible) knowing that I now have a hull that is twice as thick and better than new to keep me safely sailing for many many more nautical smiles.
This past week we were only able to work for the last half of the week as we had huge rains that started last Saturday (21st) and didn’t let up until Tuesday night. Even though it is the rainy season here in Fiji, we received an unusual amount of rain and the main/only road to the towns in both directions from here at Vuda Point marina were washed out and closed for several days. Living aboard LTY we kept fairly dry with only one intrusion when some of the bamboo poles we used to hold up all the tarps broke under the weight of water that formed large pools in some parts of the tarps. When it rains heavy like that I need to be up once or twice in the night to empty these out and try to stretch the tarps tight enough that they don’t sag and allow the rain water to pool. Always amazing to be reminded just how heavy water is! In order to do a proper repaint job of the deck areas I’ve had to remove literally EVERY single thing that isn’t welded in place and LTY is more like a big piece of Swiss cheese with all the holes left from bolts, hatches, fittings and the like but I do my best to go around every night after we finish working and tape these all up if it looks like we are going to get any rain. It’s working well so far and sure makes me appreciate how nice it is going to be to have all these fittings, windows and hatches all back in place and have a watertight boat once again and even more so than ever.
And those rainy days came with great synchronicity with my birthday (23rd) as they enforced a bit of a break from boat work so I took two days off (I’m on this side of the dateline so I get TWO days for my birthday!) to stay inside and catch up on some reading, writing and online ordering.
The paint crew and I focused on preparing the topsides (the vertical sides of the hull from the waterline up to the deck) this week as we had found some patches where the original paint was not well adhered to the original primer. We took advantage of this latest run of dry hot weather and brought in the sandblaster unit and stripped all these areas back down to bare steel and then primed with epoxy. For some reason these areas were all on the port side with one large section about 2 square meters/yards just aft of the bow and then a few other smaller patches further back and we were able to sand blast and prime all these by the end of the day on Friday and even got on the first coat of filler. So the topsides are now looking like the same patchwork quilt of colours as the deck as we make our way around and around this large surface sanding, filling and priming. Over the course of the next few weeks we will start spraying the entire surface of the topsides and deck with a high build epoxy primer/filler rather than just the spot spraying we’ve been doing and then the big job of sanding all these surfaces begins as we work to get these surfaces more and more smooth. It is a long laborious process and looks to many like a real mess of all the different colours of primer and filler showing through but we use different colours on purpose so it is easier to see the high and low spots and know where we need to do more sanding and filling. In the eyes of a painter this is all quite beautiful for as we know good paint jobs are all based on how well you do the preparation and end up with a perfectly flat and smooth surface to apply the final colour coats to. To my eyes then, Learnativity is already a VERY beautiful boat!
During the rainy times I’m busy getting the hundreds of parts and pieces all ready to be put back on once we have finished all the final painting. This week that involved cleaning, rebuilding and polishing all the running rigging which is the blocks and pulleys that all the lines (ropes to you) run through. I have a LOT of these as I re rigged the whole boat after I bought her in 2006 for long distance blue water and single handed sailing and part of this involved installing lots of blocks and pulleys to run all the lines back into the cockpit. It works great as I can control the entire boat under both motor and sail from inside the well protected cockpit and never have to go out on deck. However it does mean that I have a LOT of blocks and pulleys on the deck and these all need to be serviced and maintained. So the rainy days were perfect for me to spend up in that same cockpit with tubs of soapy water and lots of metal polishing paste as I got all the not so stainless stainless steel cleaned up and then rebuilt all the bearings in the pulleys. Next rainy days I’ll get to rebuilding all the winches. And along the way of course I come up with parts that are broken or need replacing as well as lots of stainless fasteners, nuts and bolts I need to acquire and add to my shopping list of things I need to try to find here or else order and have shipped over.
And so the first month back here in Fiji has zoomed by amazingly quickly with each day filled with boat projects, cooking, cleaning and life in general. Along the way I continue to enjoy this amazing location and Ruby and I take walks along the beach and around the marina most mornings and evenings and still manage to see the sun rise and set whenever the clouds allow us to see the sun. Weather wise we have more cyclones potentially forming and this time one off to the west of Fiji whereas all the others to date were looking to form off to the East of Tonga. Fortunately none of these cyclones have actually formed and what I’m referring to is that conditions are such that these are forecast to possibly be forming based on current conditions and historical weather data. Obviously I keep a close eye on these conditions and even if a cyclone does start to form we would have several days to watch it more closely and see what path it is most likely to take, how close it is and might get to us and do our best to prepare for it if it hits. For now it has just meant that we get some of these big rain storms and higher winds at times so here’s hoping it stays that way for the rest of the cyclone season which is typically until about May sometime. Right now it looks like next week we will get hit with some more large rain and wind storms that today are forecast to happen starting about Tuesday but we’ll just have to wait and see as the weather changes quickly and significantly here in this tropical paradise.
Today is Sunday and its another dry hot day so I took advantage of this and no work crews to hire my buddy Abdul to drive me into Nadi (pronounced NaNdi) one of the neighbouring towns to do some grocery shopping. Nandi is about 15km south of where I’m at in Vuda Point marina and Lautoka, the 2nd or 3rd largest town in Fiji is about the same distance north. The main international airport is just a bit north of Nadi so this is a very central location and yet the marina here is very isolated and the only thing at the end of its side road so its very quiet and peaceful here. With the fridge and shelves well stocked I looked after a few small boat jobs and I then took the rest of the day off to treat Ruby to a long walk (run for her) on the beach and then stopped in at the pool to cool off and do some writing and reading so that’s where we are sitting now to type out this update for you. The pool is part of the First Landing resort which isn’t part of the marina per se but is only 100m from where Learnativity is sitting in the yard and they usually let me come here to swim and relax. This is only the 2nd time I’ve made it over to the pool and (note to self) I should really try to make it more of a regular habit to take advantage of such a great situation and location.
Hope your first month of 2012 has gone equally as well and you have the year off to a great start. I’ll be back next weekend with another update for you on the latest progress. Thanks for tuning in and for all your comments, Emails and calls.
Wayne & Ruby the Wonderdog
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