by Judy Handley | Apr 2, 2009 | Sailing Logs Year 4, Thailand Refit |
Day 162, Year 4 Back in the Water . . . 888
Date: Thursday, April 2, 2009
Weather: Sunny Day with Late Afternoon Rain
Location: Boat Lagoon Marina, Phuket Island
Windbird is back in the water and securely tied to the B dock at Boat Lagoon. The day didn’t go exactly as planned but it went smoothly. We arrived at the boat just after 8 am and were told by Luck that the travel lift was arriving in just a few minutes to lift us so that we could paint the bottom parts that had been under the pads. We thought this was happening at 2 pm so we were a bit shocked but ready to go. The yard manager, Mr. Sin, is very efficient and very good, but you don’t argue with his decisions. As soon as we were in the slings, we were then told that we would be in the water at 1 pm, not 3 pm. So we all adjusted our time schedules to be ready.
At exactly 1:08 pm the action started. Mark and Luck were on the boat with Oh, Pong, Lok, and myself on the ground. I walked around to the launch area. Earlier in the day I had taken a taxi to the local market to buy good luck flowers to hang on the bow sprit, and Patti on Equus had given us good luck fire crackers to be lit just as the boat hit the water. I hung the flowers on the front of the boat and made sure there was someone in charge of the fire crackers. We had one little glitch as they were bringing the boat out hard stand area. There are concrete cones separating the road from the hardstand area. As Windbird was being brought out of the hardstand area, the lift hit one of the concrete cones and everything came to a standstill. There were lots of shouts but no damage, so the things continued on. From that point on things went smoothly. Windbird went into the water with the sound of 250 fire crackers going off. The man setting off the firecrackers came to me with a ribbon with the number 888. He said we had a very lucky number, so I will keep that ribbon and hope that he is right. Four is my lucky number so I figure 888 is 4+4+4+4+4+4+4+4. Sounds lucky to me.
Mark and Luck moved the boat across the marina to B2, our new home for the next few days. Once we were settled in, the weather decided to let loose and we had another Thailand deluge. Just before the heavens opened, we were able to put up a tarp so some work could be continued. We had hoped to have a celebration with Oh and crew but the weather and other circumstances curbed that. Pong got a call from his wife telling him that his daughter had been taken to the hospital. Oh left with Pong and we will have to wait until tomorrow to hopefully hear that Pong’s daughter is fine.
Luck and Lok stayed onboard to do some of the ‘finishing touches’ and Mark and I worked to get the inside of Windbird a little more organized. We had to call Marine Electronics, the company that installed our new transformer to come check things out. The transformer worked great on the hard, but when we plugged into the dock, we got no power. Marine Electronics responded unbelievably quickly but they are not sure what the problem might be. Mark thinks it has to do with grounding issue, but the investigation of that problem will be continued tomorrow.
Mark and I will head to Ao Chalong tomorrow to check out of Thailand and spend the weekend making sure we are ready to leave here on Tuesday morning. We have the weekend and Monday’s Chinese holiday in which to get ready, but we do think we will be fully ready to leave here on Tuesday morning. We have been in phone contact with Gerry and Donna of Scot Free II and think we will be traveling back to Malaysia in their company. Instead of leaving here and doing an overnight straight for Langkawil we will do day-hops. We will arrive in Langkawi next Friday instead of on Wednesday, but with all the fishing lines and traps between here and there, this sounds like a much safer route.
by Judy Handley | Apr 1, 2009 | Sailing Logs Year 4, Thailand Refit |
Day 161, Year 4 Disaster Strikes
Date: Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Weather: Sunny Morning; Rain Storms in the Afternoon
Location: Boat Lagoon Marina, Phuket Island
So the day was spent preparing to raise the mast. All the hardware was installed, lines were run, wiring was ready to feed into the boat. The crane arrived promptly at 2:00 and we all flew into action. The mast was connected to the crane and hoisted into position over the mast base on the cabin top. Then it all went to hell in a hand-basket. The crane jerked, the mast dropped a couple feet, it struck the deck and the nice new paint job was destroyed with massive gashed across the deck. It would take weeks to repair. We were devastated — then we realized what day it was. April Fools!!!!!
So April’s Fools aside, we actually we had a terrific day. In an unbelievable four and a half days we got the mast and boom ready to be raised. At exactly 2 pm the crane arrived and at exactly the same time, the afternoon rains arrived. So in driving rain, Oh and his crew, along with Mark and I, got the mast stepped. We had a few problems and things didn’t go as smoothly as we had hoped, but the job is done and we are now ready to splash. If things continue to go as planned, we will be in the water by late tomorrow afternoon, so tomorrow night’s log might be from a Windbird back in the water.
by Judy Handley | Mar 31, 2009 | Sailing Logs Year 4, Thailand Refit |
Day 160, Year 4 The Unveiling of A New Windbird
Date: Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Weather: Sunny Day-Very Hot; Late Evening Deluge
Location: Boat Lagoon Marina, Phuket Island
The tent was removed from over Windbird totally revealing her new beauty to the world. She looks beautiful but without the tent overhead it is REALLY hot both on and inside the boat. At 4:30 this afternoon it was 100 degrees F inside the boat and the deck was so hot that you had to wear shoes to walk on it. I was the gopher today. I had to make four trips from the boat to East Marine Chandlery in the morning to find the right rivets for attaching cleats to the mast. I went the first time and brought back what Mark wanted, but immediately Luck saw what I had returned with and he came over to say that the size was too big for the cleats. He was right, so then I continued with my runs to find just the right size. I must have walked three miles back and forth, back and forth, but I finally found the right size. The rest of my day was spent the same way-running to and from the apartment and up to the inside of the boat and back down again getting the things Mark needed to get the rigging done. At the end of the day, he just about has the job done. It is a huge job to get done so quickly, but so far Mark is doing a great job along with the help from Oh’s crew. We are now set to get the rigging checked in the morning, the mast stepped in the afternoon, and the boat put in the water the next day. So our ambitious plan is still looking good. We will just have to see how things come along-one step at a time.
by Judy Handley | Mar 30, 2009 | Sailing Logs Year 4, Thailand Refit |
Day 159, Year 4 Where is the . . .
Date: Monday, March 30, 2009
Weather: Sunny Day; Late Afternoon Deluge
Location: Boat Lagoon Marina, Phuket Island
We are now working furiously carrying things from the apartment to Windbird, carrying them up the ladder to the deck for safe storage, and then carrying the things we need immediately for installation on the mast back down the ladder. There are tools in the boat, in the cockpit, on the deck, and down below. There is a labeled ZipLoc bag with the bolts or screws for each piece to be installed, but once these little bags travel up and down the ladder, they somehow get temporarily ‘lost’-so we spent much of the day looking for the right bag for the job. But at the end of the day, we had made great progress. Mark worked by himself all day putting things on the mast while Oh’s crew primed and painted the bottom of the boat. I worked on the cabin top removing caulk from the ports that were installed yesterday, screwing down the Dorade boxes, straightening the inside of the boat to get ready to move back onboard, and walking, walking, walking. I walked about a mile down the highway to go to a local business that might be able to work on our air conditioning unit that is not working after four years of no use. I then walked back, crossed the highway, and went to the Post Office to mail a form to the IRS to ask for a delay in filing our taxes, walked back to Boat Lagoon to the store to buy water, beer, and coke, went to the hotel to extend our stay, and finally went to the Boat Lagoon Marina office to buy a new internet card and discuss our ‘real’ splash date. We are still booked for going in the water on Thursday, but I wanted to explore alternatives. We have to go in on Thursday or Friday afternoon, or wait until Tuesday morning. Saturday is totally booked, no one works on Sunday, and Monday is a public holiday. We stay tuned . . . by the end of the day tomorrow we should have a better idea of what is really possible. It is just so hard to make commitments without knowing just how long things are going to take.
We had the rigger, David Samuelson, come to Windbird today to take a quick look at where we are and to get his feedback on a few things. The tent over our boat will be removed tomorrow and we will then be REALLY hot, but this needs to happen so that the mast can be put back on deck on Wednesday or Thursday. The intricacies of planning are challenging-this must be done before that, and this must be done before that–but we are making progress. It is exciting to think that we might be back in the water in just a few days, so send us your most positive thoughts that this might really happen.
by Judy Handley | Mar 29, 2009 | Sailing Logs Year 4, Thailand Refit |
Day 158, Year 4 Doing Everything Twice
Date: Sunday, March 29, 2009
Weather: Partly Sunny; Threatening Rain All Day
Location: Boat Lagoon Marina, Phuket Island
It was Sunday here and no one works but us yachties. We were working on our own today and things just didn’t go as planned. It seemed like everything we did had to be undone and done again. Mark thought the binnacle in the cockpit would be done first thing in the morning, but it was not even totally done at the end of the day. The binnacle is the column through which the wiring for the GPS, the cables for shifting gears, and the controls for the fuel throttle come from the engine room to the cockpit. The steering wheel and compass are also attached to the binnacle. So it is a very important piece and the installation is tricky. Mark has installed this more than once, but today we just had one problem after another that caused him to put the thing together and then have to take it apart and try again. The biggest problem was an accidental short in the wiring that caused overheating and actually melted the insulation cover of the wiring that we caught just in time to prevent a fire. Mark had sent me below to pull another wire from the cockpit to the engine room, and when I got there I could see smoke and then red hot wires. Thank goodness we caught that problem before it did more damage.
While all of this was happening, I was taping off and applying plastic to the walls and ceiling in the aft cabin and aft head to that I could spray the inside of our bronze ports with lacquer. After this was completed, I installed the port windows. But again, this job had to be done twice. My old directionality issue arose and had me installing port lights on the starboard side. Once I realized they really just didn’t fit, I had Mark come examine the situation. At first he was stumped but then he realized what I had done.
The end result is that we are not nearly as far along as we thought we would be by the end of today. So we will see how tomorrow goes and then re-assess our ambitious launch date.
On a totally different note, we talked to our grandson Sam on Skype this evening. After an hour’s video conversation, he finally said “whoosh, whoosh.” This is his sound for the movement of Windbird through the water, so I think he does actually make a connection between our video images and the grandparents who live on a sailboat. He is loving the coming of spring to Cape Cod and insists on his mom and dad stopping to smell the crocus blooms outside the front door. Even a two year-old knows that we need to take time to smell the roses.
by Judy Handley | Mar 28, 2009 | Sailing Logs Year 4, Thailand Refit |
Day 157, Year 4 Awesome Day of Progress
Date: Saturday, March 28, 2009
Weather: Huge Storm During the Night; Beautiful Day
Location: Boat Lagoon Marina, Phuket Island
What an awesome day of progress we made today.
–the mainsail and storm trysail track were reinstalled on the mast
–one winch base and the gooseneck were attached
–all of the stainless outlets for lines that run through the mast were attached
–the binnacle was seated
–the mast step was installed
–a new VHF antenna wire was run though the mast
–the new stainless bow protector was installed
–the bronze ports were painted with AwlGrip Clear
–all ceiling panels were installed
Whew! There are probably more things that happened, but it was truly hard to keep up with the progress. The bottom line is that we got a lot accomplished today. Our Visa is up on April 3, so I went to the office to book a splash date. April 3 will not work for us according to the tide chart they gave me in the office, so I booked for this Thursday, April 2. We will get ‘picked up’ by the lift at 2pm and splash by 3 pm. This is VERY optimistic, but we do feel like things are coming together quickly. We have talked with David Samuelson, the rigger, about penciling us in this week, but he only laughed saying it was not possible. He doesn’t work on Saturday, so on Monday we will tell him it really might be possible and ask him to check the rigging on Tuesday and step the mast on Wednesday. I told the office that our splash date was very optimistic and they said to come back on Tuesday and let them know if we think everything is still on track. Not sure if we will leave on Thursday or hang out illegally until Tuesday, April 7, for the next favorable tide. So we will be working furiously tomorrow and Monday to get everything done.
Luck, the young man that heads our work crew, is absolutely fabulous. He works quickly but carefully, as do the other two young men who work under him, and they all do everything with even more care and efficiency than we can do. It is because of Luck and his direction of the crew that we really might get out of here by the end of this week. Unbelievable, but maybe possible.
We heard from Robyn and Eric of Scorpido today. They made it to the Chagos in the middle of the Indian Ocean and are finding the islands to be a true paradise. We heard form Idunne and Runae of Blue Marlin a couple of days ago and they are anchored in the middle of the Red Sea waiting out a 35 knot north wind. But while waiting, they had been snorkeling and said the clarity of the water the fish life were truly unbelievable. Every day we debate whether we will leave this part of the world and go around South Africa or go through the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. At some point I’m sure something will tip the scale and help us make our decision, but for now, we still don’t have a direction. The only direction we have at this point is to just get Windbird ready to leave the Boat Lagoon, hopefully before the end of this week.
