Projects / Maintenance

Friday 30 Oct, HHN, boat winterizing day 30:
Sluggish this morning after my cinema session late into last evening. Inside jobs today. In fact, inside jobs as much as possible now that the temperatures have fallen.

First off, is to finalise the last 2 hydraulic motor assemblies. So, it’s another greasy-hands morning, and hopefully the last for a while. Like everything, once I’ve got to do it the 3rd time it’s like child’s play. And soon all 3 are in the “trophy corner” as I’ve come to call it – the corner of the aft deck where all serviced parts are now proudly standing to attention, awaiting rebuild into whatever part of the rig they came out of.
Then, I have a big clean up, because we have visitors this afternoon. And in the cleanup process I decide to remove the helm (wheel) to get more space to come in and out the cockpit. Not sure why I didn’t do that before. But in uncovering the helm I discover the pedestal is very dirty underneath so yes, of course, it must be cleaned. Can’t be having a grimy pedestal now can we?

After a bit more pottering and everything cleaned up it’s already mid-afternoon. I want to get started on the generator job but really don’t want to get all dirty again before visitors. So, I chose to dismantle the Inmarsat dome antenna. I would like to sell it because we have never bought any airtime for it (just too expensive), but the paint on the alloy base has started to bubble up and will need to be stripped and resprayed to look presentable.
We last did this in 2017 and hoped it would last many years. But it seems the guy who painted it in Almerimar, Spain, did not do a good job on the primer. So, I spend the next hour removing the dome, and taking out all the PCBs (printed circuit boards) that are mounted on the base. I’m at least happy to find everything inside the dome is still clean and no signs of corrosion on any component. And it’s quite nice to do refined work for a change, after so many days of big metal parts and dollops of grease.

4pm I clean myself up, have my usual good-night call with Oana and bang on schedule at 5pm the visitors arrive. Jay, Dale and their daughter. They have just purchased a Hallberg Rassy 53 and have been chatting back and forth to me about this and that, so it’s nice to finally meet them. They come on board for a tour. Not the grandest, given we are in workshop mode, but they get the idea. They do a lot of racing on smaller yachts in the bay, and like us, their new HR will be the biggest boat they have owned. They were apparently sold on HR when they saw on YouTube the speed and comfort that Cloudy Bay gives us when at sea. They aim to retire in 2 years and set off to destinations as yet undecided, but likely an Atlantic circuit first, cruising northern Europe.
We proceed to the Dockside restaurant for dinner and continue our conversations. They are quite keen to hear how we got on in the first few months of ownership, tips on maneuvering the boat in marinas, tips on in-mast furling etc. It was also interesting to hear they had chartered in Bahamas just after we had left in spring this year. In fact, they were there when Covid panic broke out. They rented a Beneteau yacht which was just one year old, and they declared it was already falling apart! Another good reason to buy a solidly built yacht if ocean passages are on your agenda. When the chips are down, you only want to be worried if the crew can hack it, not the boat. You have to be confident in your boat.

During the evening I research part numbers for the hydraulics. Selden have finally sent me list and descriptions of all the parts contained in each system. No diagrams though! But other than time, it doesn’t take much effort to work out which parts are which and by 11pm I have a part number next to each item I need, in my spreadsheet. I’ll get my wish list to them by Monday for prices and availability. My list is 72 items. It’s not going to be cheap. Brace, brace!