Autumn boat maintenance summary

Sunday 28 Nov, re-launch 2021, HHN: As we sit on C-Dock, at long-last ready to depart Herrington Harbour North Marina, it’s a good time to reflect on what we have done since arriving back to the boat end of September, and overall since it was hauled-out 18 months ago, giving us what we call a “Covid induced” refit.

I had 2 previous maintenance visits to the boat: 9 weeks in autumn’20 and another 8 1/2 weeks in spring’21. For this current re-launch session, the broad game-plan was to simply add the new rigging and raise the mast, change a few thru-hulls, paint/polish, install the new sails, then provision and off we go. Simple, eh? We estimated 4-5 weeks. But as usual, Cloudy Bay threw a bunch of unplanned work at us and stretched it to 8 weeks.

Stretched time aside, absolutely nothing could spoil the satisfaction of the various planned maintenance projects all coming together to completion. So, what were the highlights? A few stand out for us.

Installing 5 new thru-hulls meant we have now completed all 14 thru-hull sets, replacing all the original below-water brass fittings with new bronze seacocks and fittings from Groco. These will last our ownership and probably several more decades and owners afterwards. Although this work has no visual impact, it’s one of those Captain can sleep easier now projects.

18 months ago, we had found a cracked swage on the backstay. At 12 years old, it was clearly time to re-rig. This led us to our major project of renewing and refurbishing everything from the deck upwards. This further broke down into 5 parts: new rigging, rebuild of all hydraulic furling elements, sorting out corrosion (particularly on the spreaders), mast head overhaul, and … the cherry on top … new sails and sheets. Even with great discounts, countless hours of price searches, and all my time for free, this was still an eye-watering ~$60,000 project, with roughly a 50/50 split between sails and the rest.

The new standing rigging, visually no different than before, came together over 1 year. I removed all the old rigging, the local rigger made up the new and we installed it on the mast. Our sincere thanks go to Stephen and his team at East Coast Marine Rigging. We couldn’t have done this without them, and we can’t recommend them highly enough. Not only thorough and professional, but also amazing on the softer customer touches which seem rare in the yacht businesses here.

The hydraulics were all removed and taken apart on my first visit. Then rebuilt with new hoses, seals and bearings on my next visit. All parts relatively cheaply sourced from standard industry suppliers, at 1/10th the price of Selden! This visit was installing the systems back into the rig: outhaul piston into the boom, mailsail furler assembly into the mast, and cutter and genoa furling assembled onto the fore and cutter stays. Pretty straight forward operation, but time consuming with a big emphasis on getting it right. Because this is a high-stakes system if you get it wrong!

Attaching the spreaders back onto the mast was very pleasurable. These 6 pieces had been completely ripped apart, cleaned and re-riveted back together. They are transformed from a corrosion disaster zone to looking like new again. All for the price of 250 rivets, some HDPE plastic sheet, Lanocote and Durlac paste, and a lot of time and patience. With some reluctance, it had been one of those: “Glen, just do it” kind of jobs! But sometimes, the greater the effort the greater the satisfaction. 😊

And I love the new looking mast head. I almost want to have the drone permanently flying over it with its camera projected onto the saloon TV screen! The whole thing got a total rebuild: lights, antennas, wind instrument, Windex, sheaves. And a new G10 plate on top to stop rain and bird poop cascading down into the mast and mainsail.

But what put the biggest grin on this old Captain’s face were the new Elvstrom EPEX sails, and especially the FatFurl mainsail. Once raised, with Ray’s help, they looked fantastic. The membrane Technoa construction, the colour, the professional finish, the batten system: all top notch from our Danish friends. We simply cannot wait to try them out and get the drone in the air to witness the event.

Another highlight, that is not visual but gave me pleasure to complete, is the re-built drive-train from Volvo gear box to the tip of the propeller. Most of the work was done last visit: rebuild of CV & Aquadrive, new PSS shaft seal, new Cutlass bearing and refurbished Gori Propeller. This visit was simply applying the PropSpeed paint, a silicon-based paint that those conniving little marine beasties cannot get a grip onto! The previous PropSpeed lasted 2 full seasons and was still in reasonable condition.

Another non-visual, but damned important, is the new rudder seals and adding an anode for galvanic protection. This was all done last visit. Changing the seals was easy. Dropping the monster rudder (120mm solid Stainless-steel shaft!) then extracting the bearing was quite the operation. Then repairing extensive galvanic corrosion to the aluminum JP3 bearing housing took a lot of thought and time. It could have been due to stray current from the propeller, or could have been aluminum placed too close to stainless with a saltwater gap, or could have been due to the close proximity of copper based antifouling. Who knows where the truth lies to this invisible destruction? So, a protective anode was installed and attached to both the rudder shaft and bearing in an effort to arrest future corrosion.

Talking of visuals, renewing all the mirrors in the bathrooms may sound trivial, but the old, degraded ones have been nagging us ever since we took ownership. The extra-mile that we went, by epoxy sealing the mirror edges to the cupboard doors, should mean these should also stand the test of time.
And the cherry-on-top are the newly added varnished teak trims around the mirrors. This emulates the new HR designs and gives the rather “white” clinical bathrooms some colour and class. Happy Commodore, happy life 😊

But the big visual was the hull and top side polishing. More on the application below, but in summary the 9 days of pure elbow grease (hard work) resulted in a stunning finish with all gelcoat gleaming like new. And with the UndrDog ceramic coating, we are hoping it will retain this shine for the whole season.

Then onto leaks. Definitely NOT a highlight! What boat doesn’t have leaks, I ask? Leaks from below, leaks from above, and leaks from within!
The new thru-hulls and shaft seal now guarantee no leaks from below the waterline, not that we had any before.
Leaks from within were from freshwater system, with a lot of time and frustration spent on replumbing the hot water tank system and all other water fittings in the engine room during my last visit (the HW tank came out and back in again no less than 3 times!). This visit I replaced pressure switches on the pumps and reestablished the right pressure in the bladder which resides inside the infamous HR red-pressure sphere.
Leaks from above have been many.
First the dorade vents. These were all removed, resealed and rebuilt. Including Ray stripping that horrible yellowed and crack lacquer of the dorade housing and respraying with white awgrip.
Second were our 3 large Lewmar size 70 deck hatches all of which had new seals just 3 years ago, but still leaked :(. Saloon and aft cabin hatches I managed to seal with a thin strip of marine silicon sealing over the Perspex-rubber-metal rim around the hatch top. But the forehatch had been such a pain for years that we went the whole-hog and replaced with a new one. If that one leaks now, I’ll be pouring concrete over it, Chernobyl style!

So, what were the unexpected items this trip? These started directly on our arrival, finding the entire Empirbus system had failed due to a nearby lightning strike. This took several days to sort out, by swapping-in spare units. The damaged ones have since been repaired back in Sweden.
Then lots of unplanned replacing old with new: a leaking raw water pump on the generator; the leaky bow deck hatch (already mentioned); the anchor windlass, both above and below deck assemblies; and the main shroud bottle screws when one “popped” a thread and seized solid as we re-rigged. And the loss of the new turnbuckles by FedEx didn’t help either! Additionally, many other small fixes that once spotted, Captain-Glen just cannot ignore until they are working correctly again.

Of the planned work, several things ate our time much more than anticipated.
First, was cleaning the mast which had stubborn aluminium oxide stains all down it. We really didn’t want the mast appearance to let down the new rigging and sails! I struggled for days trying to polish it off until I tried 2000 grade wet and dry. The combined water and slight abrasion removed the staining in no time. It did leave the anodizing clear-coat slightly dull, but the sheen was totally revitalized by applying a protective ceramic coating, leaving it and the boom glistening like new.

The other big-time gobbler was getting the top sides and coach roof up to the shine we desired. Although arduous, the light compound buffing was relatively quick. Especially with our friend from ElSalvador, Nacho, helping! But the ceramic coat preparation and application took a lot of time. At first I applied cheap 9H advertised as car ceramic coating on Ebay. But I wasn’t happy with it and didn’t believe it would be lasting long enough. So, with the advice of RedSky Detailing, we switched to using Marine Ceramic from UndrDog. Quite a bit more expensive but it gave the superb water-repelling coating we had been looking for. Though it also meant applying ceramic all over again, on top of the cheapie Ebay stuff.
The end result: It is the best shine we have had since it was professionally coated with CeramicPro 3 years ago. But that was an extremely ouchy-expensive exercise – not to be repeated!

And in making this summary, we have to mention our good and skillful friend, Ray. His own Cloudy Bay jobs list was also not a short one. He organized the mirror replacements (and also replacements of the replacements, when Captain-G broken a couple!). Stripped and varnish the G&T seats; rebuilt our outboard bracket; helped construct the new anchor chain shoot, and striped and painted the yellowing dorade vents. And many other smaller jobs, or just a helping hand and solid advice when needed. Thank you, Ray.

In my spreadsheet to end all spreadsheets, the planned jobs list that was all red is now all shaded green. And the summary of upgrades completed during this 18 month “Covid induced” refit stretches to 175-line items. Even the simplest of which could be expanded to many time-consuming sub-tasks. Of course, there are still items on the to-do list, but we need those in hand to stop the captain from getting bored. Bored Captain is not a good idea!

We will now sail away for the next part of our cruising adventure with Cloudy Bay in top condition and with better systems than ever before. In fact, finally, there are no big-ticket items left on our “need and desire list”. The money spending and maintenance time are over (for a while!).
Screw-you Covid, but also thank you for this re-fit opportunity 😊
Now, let the sailing and exploring adventure re-start!