Fri 21 May, HHN day 38: From maintenance madness to tranquil in the span of 30 min, as I extend my stay by a week. Near-miss on the mast, paint barrier coat, Aquadrive completed, and a bit of social scene in the evening.
As the time approaches to wind things down ready for my departure, I feel like I’m just on the edge of completing everything… but won’t quite make it to finish several projects. I don’t work well under frenzied conditions, so I’m not particularly enjoying the process these last days.
After discussion with HQ in Bucharest, we agree I should try to extend by a week. After a 30 minutes wait on-queue for Turkish Airlines, I do manage to change my return flight to 6-June, 2 weeks from now.
All of a sudden I feel instant relief. And after returning Steven’s rivet gun for the umpteenth time, as I past the Friday coffee truck I decide to enjoy one of their breakfast bagels and a coffee.
And for the first time ever, I actually sit in one of the marina swinging seats and enjoy the morning sun and the feast. Oana and I always say “next time we are in Herrington Harbour North Marina we must take a moment to chill with a drink in those swinging seats”. Well, after 3 years and 4 visits, I’m finally doing it – but without Oana ☹
I then swing passed Paul on his Hallberg-Rassy 49 and arrange to have an early dinner with him tonight. Wow… this is the life, I could get used to this!
Back at Cloudy Bay, the work continues though not much of it today.
Ray comes around and we manage to remove the through-mast bolt that holds the upper shrouds on the mast. It took a blow torch to loosen the Loctite. But in the process, we had a near miss. Just as I smelt it, Ray declared that smoke was coming out the top of the mast! Ooops. I forgot the cable conduit was right behind where I was pointing the blow torch. Maybe a simple heat gun would have been enough rather than a welding torch.
Once the fitting was off, we could assess the damage. Luckily, it was only the plastic of the conduit that had been burned. The coax cables inside seem untouched. Phew, that was a close one.
While there, Ray gets a call from the life-raft company (when girls ask me for my number, I always give them Ray’s!). Apparently the service on our Avon liferaft is completed and it is in perfect condition. But the plastic container is in poor shape and the technician there is reluctant to put the liferaft back into it. He will see if he can procure a new raft container in the coming week. The damage might have something to do with me occasionally standing on it! But I will never divulge that information to anyone.
Next job is to paint the last barrier coat of Interprotect on the bow thruster area, the rudder and the repaired bearing bowl.
Then move inside to complete the installation of the Aquadrive, before the CV joint returns from refurb tomorrow. All I need to do is clamp the shaft into the Aquadrive, now that I have received the damned expensive Molycote grease.
When spraying it on the components I also get some on my hands. Big mistake! It takes acetone and a lot of scrubbing to get it off. What the hell is in that stuff? Jet black, sticky and non-removable.
I have very clear instructions on how to assemble the collets which clamp on the shaft, but I’m sure they are wrong. So I try it my way, only to find the instructions are absolutely correct. And when I do follow the instructions it all fits together like clockwork. I should learn when to simply turn off my brain occasionally.
Torqueing the bolts that force the collets to clamp to the shaft is not so easy. There is a definitive pattern to torque them up, and the final torque seems very high. No wonder they were a nightmare to unscrew when I disassembled it.
Finally, it is done. Complete. Finished! About time too. When looking at photos of me taking it apart, I realise that happened back on day 4, and here we are on day 38! A whole month. Not to mention that I only touched the Aquadrive in the first place to enable me to change the PSS shaft seal. Quite the domino effect.
At 5pm I clean myself up and wait for Paul to arrive. He is in an AirBnB in a nearby town called North Beach. It’s not far, and we drive on very pretty country roads which I have never been on before. Once again I realise I don’t get out much. Whenever the boat is in the yard it’s all hands on deck and not much else. I hope Cloudy Bay appreciates my personal sacrifice.
It’s a beautiful evening and a lovely drive, and North Beach turns out to be a very pretty little coastal town, quite lively. Lots of restaurants, all full with hustle and bustle even this early in the evening. We chose Hook & Vine restaurant and as we sit down and eat at the lively bar, I feel once again how much I have missed the occasional meal out in these last 15 Covid months. Maybe life is starting to return to normal, at long last.
So, not a productive day, but a very pleasant one nonetheless.
