Monday 1-Nov, re-launch 2021, HHN day 33: Hull polishing started? Nope, just faffing! News from Empirbus. Making our Sailrite order. Brummel splices at ECMR. Applying PropSpeed. Finishing the mirror beautification project.
For all my hopes for a full day hull polishing, the time disappears somewhere and I never get started. So just what the hell did we do? Well, quite a lot it turns out.
In the morning we receive an email from Christian in Empirbus. He has fixed all our CLC units now, even the 2 that needed new mother boards. And what is more, because he has no new motherboards in stock, he is giving us (for free) 2 that he uses for testing. So, the expected bill of Euro 1,600 from last week is now cut in half. And on top of that, he has kindly uploaded Cloudy Bay’s configuration onto all 7 units, so they are now simple plug-n-play if we have a problem. Meaning we can now recover from any 1 up to all 7 CLC-units failuring. Great news to start our day.
Given we will be launching soon now, we suddenly realise we need to get our order for materials into Sailrite, if we are to have any hope of delivery before we go. Sailrite is where we purchased our sewing machine from 2 years ago and their web-shop also covers for anything and everything related to boat canvas and sail sewing. We have quite a few projects lined up for the winter – mainly canvas work. I’ve been putting off this order because it means making a lot of measurements for required materials, grommets, poppers, velcro etc, whilst also making an inventory of what we still have on board.
We thought this would all be a quick job, but it ends up taking us all morning before finally placing the order for 18 items at $600 cost.
This should have been an evening, or after-dark job, but it ate most the day. And it wasn’t helped when I went looking for the hydraulic hose covers to find the bottom of the cockpit locker full of water. That mess alone took over an hour to clean up. A simple but frustrating problem that was caused by me.
First job of the afternoon was to run over to East Coast Marine Rigging where I have an appointment with Stephen. He is going to put Brummel splices into the dyneema lines that had been our old running back stays. I want to shorten them and now use them as gybe preventers. Last time Stephen showed me a Brummel splice 2 years ago, I was sure I had remembered it. But later, when sailing off, I tried to repeat the technique and got totally confused. This time I pay much stronger attention. Stephen makes the first one with me watching, then I do the second one. And just to make sure his teaching has hit home, he makes me do another in a spare piece of dyneema. I think I got it this time! Stephen is brilliant. What other rigging manager, with a busy workload, would spend time to do this with a client? He is a real gem.
Back at Cloudy Bay, with some determination, I start preparing everything to paint the propeller and shaft with PropSpeed paint. After watching our video of previous application of such paint, PropSpeed USA sent me this paint, on the understanding that I will film the application and post it on You Tube. Hence this time around I need to do it properly! Now, I’m the sort of guy who lives by “if all else fails, read the instructions”! But in this case, I do actually read them because I remember from last time, application of this stuff is VERY technique sensitive. Miss or cut short one step and the paint system is useless.
Yesterday I wet sanded everything, using a little dishwasher liquid, to get any grease and grime off. Today I use the PropSpeed kit. First, wipe down with a “prop-clean” alcohol wipe. Then the same process but this time with a “prop-prep” wipe, which smells like it must be an acid. Then application of the crucial etching primer. This gives the yellow colour PropSpeed is associated with. And it has to be applied in a certain time frame. Like just a few minutes!
Then, lastly, the “clearcoat” is applied, which is what the PropSpeed is all about, the previous steps are all to ensure this coat adheres correctly. This silicon based clear coat stops crustations getting a grip on the propeller. And if they do, it is very simple to just wipe them off. Or more likely they just fall off the next time the propeller spins.
Just as I finish, Ray comes by. He has bought back 2 nicely varnished G&T seats (aft deck pushpit seats), 1 newly made and varnished outboard bracket, and 3 varnished steps for our bow ladder. All in teak. Can’t wait to see them all back in place. Cloudy is going to look so nice … again … at last 😊
In the evening we complete the bathroom mirror project by adding the teak trims that we have been varnishing these last few evenings. Once done we stand back and admire. We liked the way HR have recently added teak trim to the bathroom mirrors, but we don’t like the way they now encase the mirrors into white doors. We prefer our continuous mirror with no frames. So now we have the best of both – and almost certainly unique in an HR! Let’s see if anyone copies it. Magnus, beware, we will be after royalties!