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June to August 2007
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Well, June has been quite eventful so far. I discovered that one of my diesel tanks has a slow leak and it looks like I will have to take the tank out. Quite a job but it is better that this happened now rather than later on, on the ocean!!!
So far two of Craig's final results are out - 82% and 84% respectively. Very well done Craig - I hope the remaining two results are also in your favor!
On the 10th June we had the last yacht race for this season. Unfortunately there was hardly any wind but 6 boats went out in any case and motored around in front of the club. At about 2pm a nice breeze came up and four boats decided to sail around the island. I was with Ken aboard his yacht "Sabatier" and we were the second boat back into port. Afterwards we all gathered at the club for a beer to end the season. It's just a pity that our Rear Commodore Sailing, Tertius, was ill and could not attend.
The 11th June was my mothers birthday. She would have been 77 this year. I still miss her after 22 years. Joyce passed away on the 24th July 1985 in Kei Mouth.
Just before going to bed at about 10pm on Thursday the 21st June I decided to see if Craig's final marks had been posted on the Tecnikon's internet site yet - and they were! We knew that he already had 82% and 84% for two of his subjects but the remaining two subjects were the most difficult subjects according to Craig. Basic Concepts of Orthopaedics and his practical exam marks were giving Craig a hard time. Well, I am happy to report that for his practical exam Craig "only" got 78%, his lowest mark out of the four subjects - but for Basic Concepts he got 89% - his highest mark and most difficult subject. Craig was convinced that he was going to fail Basic Concepts! Although it was fairly late in the evening I had to phone Craig and find out if he had already seen his results, and he had not, so I gave him his results and he sounded REALLY glad, and relieved too. This means that Craig achieved distinctions in all four of his subjects with an average of 83.25% !!!! Very well done Craig, I am so proud of your results - never underestimate your abilities. Also well done to Ann who was the one who put up with all the up's and down's over the years - I think you deserves a gold medal!!!
So, Craig, the world awaits you. What happens from now on, what you decide to do with your life, is entirely up to you and you alone. There is no magic formula, only the results of your actions. Do a simple acid test whenever you have a decision to make - "Is this a good thing or a bad thing?" or "Is this going to benefit me and those I care about?". If you ask yourself these questions and make the right choices, you will never go wrong. There is no shortcut to success, it takes hard work, dedication, and a firm resolve to do your best whatever you decide to do. Every now and again, read "Desiderata" and listen to the "Wear Sunscreen song". Read successful people's autobiographies and invest 10% of EVERYTHING you earn and you will retire with comfort and happiness!!!!
On Monday 25th June at 3pm Mossel Bay was nearly blown away! We had sudden winds of over 70 knots (130kmh) which blew trees over, ripped roofs off houses, schools, hotels and the NSRI building. The wind came up so suddenly and with such force that when I got out of Zephyr with a cup of coffee I had just made myself, the coffee was blown out of the cup! Everybody that was able to, rushed down to the marina to look after their boat. It was absolute chaos.
The wind was almost dead West and it blew spray off the bay and over quay 4 so hard that it seemed to be raining in the harbor, although there were no clouds in the sky. Zephyr was leaning to starboard so much that her toe rail was hooking underneath the walkway and being bent outwards. My fender barge-board snapped off it's lines and my fenders were at risk of bursting. I quickly tied a line to Yacht Zap next to me in an effort to pull Zephyr off the walkway. This did help a lot but no sooner had I done this when a 22mm nylon spring line snapped like a piece of string. Luckily I had a backup spring line in place otherwise Zephyr would have been slammed backwards into the main walkway. During all this commotion we heard a mayday being sent out from a French yacht that was 7 nautical miles off the lighthouse. They had lost their sails and had problems starting their engine. They were reporting winds of 90 knots (167 kmh). Unfortunately the NSRI were not able to launch any of their rescue craft because their roof had also blown off and was blocking their slipway. Two fishing boats quickly volunteered to go out and see if they could help the strickend yacht. The NSRI used a 4x4 bakkie to push part of the roof away and were able to launch one of their rescue craft some 30 minutes later. It took the NSRI over an hour to tow the yacht into port. The 4 people aboard were shaken up but in good health. One story I find amusing (but not funny) is that almost all the chickens that are free to roam in the local squatter camp and location were blown away in the wind! Most of them have still not been found.
Last week I smelled diesel fumes inside Zephyr and on checking, I discovered that the bilges were full of diesel fuel.
It transpired that my bottom tank had sprung a leak and 30 liters of diesel had leaked out of the tank. I managed to pump the remaining 60 liters into the top tank and set about mopping the bilges clean. I then had to remove the bottom tank (with GREAT difficulty) and weld two plates over the areas that had corroded due to moisture being trapped between the tank and the hull of the boat. On Saturday 30th, I took the tank to Tertius's home and we pressurized the tank to look for leaks. We did find a small leak which Tertius welded closed for me. After cleaning the tank properly, we installed it the next day, only just managing to get it in place again. This time the tank is sitting on spacers which will allow moisture to evaporate. I also renewed all the pipe work, re-painted the whole lazarette and made a wooden platform for storage crates to stand on.
I have also installed the steering wheel clutch which I bought on e-Bay (thanks for posting it to me Caroline!!). I had a Monitor clutch already installed but this looked very flimsy to me and was difficult to engage when sailing. I saw what the Aries clutch looked like and how it worked but was shocked to find out that they sell for US$750.00 from the manufacturer. For nearly a year I have been trying to find a used one to buy and luckily for me one came up on e-Bay and I won the bidding at US$180.00 - still quite pricy but well worth it.
Who noticed that we had a "Blue Moon" this month (June 2007)? This is when we have a full moon twice in the same month. The last one was in July 2004 (2 years and 11 months ago) and the next one will be in December 2009 (in 5 years and 5 months time). I am not sure of the significance of this event except that it does not occur very often but there it was anyway....... Happy Blue Moon everybody !?!?
The next job I tackled was to make a box above the chart table to take the VHF radio, CD player, AIS Radar detector and one day when I get one, a SSB HF radio.
I built it out of marine ply painted white.
Because I moved the CD player from the main board to the radio box, I also tidied all the wiring in the main board nicely. This made it much neater and easier to get to and work on as the CD player (a normal car CD/DVD/Radio) is big and has many wires which got in the way of the boat's wiring.
In between making the radio box (while waiting for glue or paint to dry) I also made a backing cover between the port side mast support uprights. On either side there are saloon cupboard doors and this gap looked ugly and exposed part of the inside of the cupboard (called lockers on a yacht). This was no easy task and took a lot longer than I anticipated but it worked out nicely in the end, especially once the wood was varnished.
On the 1st August 2007 we had our Sailing AGM. As Tertius was stepping down as Rear Commodore Sailing, we voted Rob Holden in to replace Tertius. This worked out well as Rob and his wife Alfie are very keen sailors (not to say Tertius wasn't - he was) but we had other plans for Tertius.
The Rear Commodore Moorings, a nasty man who caused a lot of unhappiness, and who also lost interest in the upkeep and management on the moorings needed to go. Plain and simple, he was not doing his job, he was aggressive, and the worst of all - he hated "yotties" and was hell bent to get as many yachts off the moorings and replace them with motor boats (to this end, there was already a vote of no-confidence against him). He, Fritz Stammer, was also the one that tried to force the "live-aboards" to pay extra fees over and above our monthly rentals. I don't have a problem paying for the extra water and electricity I use but just the way he went about introducing these live-aboard fees went against my grain and we dug our heels in and refused to pay.
Anyway, the next evening, on the 2nd August 2007, the mooring owners had their AGM and Stammer stepped down and was replaced by..... yes that's right, Tertius Cloete, a fellow "yottie" who has his head screwed on correctly. Tertius is fair and does not favor yachts over motor boats and visa versa. Tertius was not keen to take the job but there was a lot of behind the scenes lobbying and discussions with Tertius - he had no chance to refuse. Tertius got back at me (in a nice way) by appointing me a committee member on the mooring section as special tasks person. I don't mind helping out, it's for the good of the moorings in particular and the club in general.
On the 10th August 2007, Schalk came over to ask me if I can help fix the island ferry, Seven Seas, that was badly damaged in the storm of 25th June 2007. He also asked a chap that was here from Knysna, Tertius du Plessis, who was re-doing the deck of one of the yachts if he was also interested (all of a sudden there are a plethora of Tertius's in Mossel Bay - the chap at the local hardware store is also Tertius).
The owner of Seven Seas, Gearhardt van Vuuren, was getting desperate because the local marine surveyor, Dave Manley, wanted to condemn the ferry as being unseaworthy. So the three of us went and had a look and discussed what needed to be done. The repairs did not seem to be too bad or complicated to do but the problem was where were we going to do the work? The ferry had to come out of the water but the local slipway was broken. We had only two choices - build a cradle to take the 25 ton catamaran out of the water by crane or put her on the small beach in the harbor next to the NSRI. The cradle option meant about two weeks work to build the cradle alone but then work could carry on at any time and can be used again in the future. This was also the expensive option - about R75,000 for the cradle, R25,000 for the crane and R28,000 for lifting slings, not to mention the loss of income for Seven Seas. To park Seven Seas on the beach costs R750 per day but meant we could only work for 3 or 4 hours at a time at low tide. As we estimated 5 to 7 days to do the work this seemed the better option and this is the way we went.
On the 16th August Seven Seas was driven onto the beach and work began. Schalk started working on the damaged prop shaft brackets (called P-brackets) and Tertius and I started fixing the damaged port side hull. We had one large area that needed replacing and one smaller area. There were also 22 small areas that needed to be fixed and a new wooden rubbing strake made. We no sooner fixed the first two areas when we found another biggish area that we had to do as well.
Then Schalk hurt his back lifting his arc-welder and had to go to Cape Town to have it sorted out. He ended up helping his son in Cape Town move premises as his back was not better yet. So, this meant I had to carry on with the P-brackets as well. During the repair process, Dave Manly came to see what we were doing and I am happy to say that he is very satisfied with our work, and the owner was also very happy.
The main repairs took us 18 days to complete and on the 30th August the ferry passed her hull inspection (Gearhardt, the owner proceeded to start celebrations which lasted well into the night!!)
One day while we were hard at work on Seven Seas, we saw black smoke coming from the direction of the yacht club. I phoned Wilhelm who was in the area and he told us that it was in fact the Santos Express Hotel and Restaurant that was on fire. The fire brigade arrived and after quite a long time, extinguished the flames. Luckily the hotel part was saved and nobody was hurt. This is quite a unique setup as the hotel and restaurant is in fact a whole train parked on a siding right on the sea front at Santos Beach. I hope they replace the burnt carriages and keep the business running as it was such a nice place to go and have a meal.
Not long now and Caroline, Wes, and his family will be in South Africa. Ann has done a lot of preparations from painting her house out to arranging various activities and trips for them all. Caroline and Wes will also be visiting Mossel Bay for three days and I am looking forward to showing them around.
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