Category Archives: Repairs

Time for island fun again.

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Its been a long 5 months, we haven’t seen the boat since January.  Lots of work travel, its time to travel for fun and go on vacation. Lazily putz around the caribbean under the guise of moving the shack out of the hurricane zone.

2 days and counting, till we get to enjoy the warmth and sea again.

We commissioned some maintanence and some repairs while we were way.  The yard at Rodney Bay marina takes great care of us when we are away, always attentive to email questions and status updates.

One of the things we had done, was the tiny plastic rub strakes on the bows were kind of always breaking, the previous owner had some nice stainless ones made for the outer sides that were never installed.  The rub strakes prevent the fiberglass from wearing and chaffing the rope when it rubs at anchor or at the dock, the dock lines did have the nice stainless ones installed but never the bow, and with last Christmas’ trip and the heavy winds some of the fiberglass was rubbed pretty raw, so there is a “china man” in Rodney bay that does some amazing stainless work, I think his name is Lawrence, but he shaped and formed the stainless to fit the curves of inner bow and added the outside protectors for us.  That will make the strain on the bridle and the constant rubbing we had on the last trip be minimized as well as protect the fiberglass.  This project had been on the list since we bought the boat in Turkey.

stainless rub strakes

stainless rub strakes

Had the water maker rebuilt, almost replacing the entire system – so it should be good as new. it will take about 12 hrs running the water to fill the fresh water tanks, we hold 700 liters or about 185 gallons of fresh water in our tanks. The water maker makes water at 16 gallons per hour, so every 20 mins is like filling up one of those water jugs they deliver to the office. Definitely easier than carting those 5 gallon jugs around we did last year.

The Mastervolt inverter/charger that gave up the ghost and let out all the good smoke was replaced so that we’ll have 110v electricity on board and we can blend some frozen drinks on this trip.

A good wash and wax by the nice folks at the ship yard, they did an excellent job last year and we are hoping this year is no exception.

Of course we are bringing spare parts in the luggage as usual.  At least with all my travel this year the airlines let me bring 2 bags, and don’t you know they are busting at the seams.

A couple of Dennis Rodman fenders for those who remember on Lake Austin.

A backup water pressure pump to keep the fresh water flowing out of the tank.

A new WiFi Antenna to pickup the available WiFi from the boat, we have to be able to play words with friends, right?

And some fun toys to play with fun 12v lights and a BlueTooth GPS to keep us from getting lost and that will connect to the Apple iPad see if it works for navigation.


All in all ready for some tinkering on the boat, some cold beverages, some sailing and lots of relaxation – 2 days and counting.

Successful morning

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Bailed out the port side of the boat. I mentioned a leak on the port side earlier that spilled almost all of our port fresh water into the bilge. One of the bilge pumps wasn’t taking care of pumping it overboard so what should have been a flick of a switch turned into a debugging session. I think the diaphragm in that pump needs to be replaced so I just hooked it up to another of 3 pumps on the port side and we were able to pump all that nice dirty fresh water overboard.

Now to fix the leak. First to find it as well. Turned on the pressure and I could hear a spray it was coming from beneath the new toilet. Grrrrrr. Wouldn’t you know it it’s coming from behind the wall. I could feel the split in the hose but there would be no way to adjust the hose clamps. I removed the head and disconnected the hose from the head and pulled it all the way out. Cut off a section of hose and it’s all back in business. Of course those projects ate about two hours in paradise but we are on the move again. Motoring over to Union Island to clear into the Grenadines

Still dragging fishing lines but so far we will just have to have a fish dinner on shore

Trinidad work day

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Wozers, what a busy day. Up at the crack of dawn after getting to the Hotel @ 2am.. so about 4 hrs of sleep.

So we didn’t do everything by the book, but so far so good. When you come Trinidad on a one way ticket you need to show your boat papers to clear in to the country at the airport, then report immediately to customs and immigration again at the marina. Well it was 2 am so we decided to drop our luggage at the boat on the way, another no no since you need to show up at customs with your luggage. We ended up having the hotel call the customs office since they didn’t ask when we knocked, so we woke him up and I sorta implied that we had no bags, so he said just come back tomorrow. So straight to the room and finish off the 6 pack we picked up on the way across town.

We were to splash at 6:30 am, got pretty close probably around 7ish it still floats and didn’t take on any water so thats all good. The sail guy was supposed to have the sails on the boat, they did not so we motored over to the marina and grabbed a ball and then back to the hotel before 10am to get our breakfast that came with our hotel room that we used for all of 4 hours. And a trip to immigration and again to customs that now said we needed some paperwork about when the boat was put back into the water.

We finally got in contact with the sail guy they delivered the sails and battens to the boat, damn they is heavy. We cut the battens to length with the jigsaw and Wayne put them all in, I put on the sailbag and lazy jacks, Christine unpacked and put made the boat liveable. It took the better part of the afternoon go get the boat fully dressed with all her canvas. I think we have most of the lines in the correct places.

The engine work that was done by the Phillipe’s crew at Catamaran Village was top notch, everything works and looks good. The new toilets are awesome. The only missing thing they didn’t hook the port side head up to the fresh water, so they were on the boat doing that while we were tackling the sails. In the process of using the heat gun to shrink wrap the fresh water connections, our inverter blew up, smoke and sparks filled the salon. Ugh, that means no blender drinks unless we can get that fixed.

With all those tasks, we also squeezed in a small provision run, and definitely some cold beverages. After several beverages and a shower we went exploring to find some dinner. We finally found a pizza joint, Joes Pizza, it was good or we were just happy, back to the boat and everyone passed out.

What a days work, it was a little to late to clear customs so we’ll be here another day and see what they say or want to do about blowing up the inverter.