Pachuca Progress

Donnie and Peter from DeGroot completed their work today (Saturday) at noon. Thanks to them:
* Every thru-hull valve has been replaced with a stainless steel ballcock valve
* All associated hoses and clamps have been replaced
* The gear-shift cable has been replaced
* The stern gland has been repacked and rubber boot replaced
I estimate that 6 man-days of effort were put into this. It will be worth every cent. Donnie and Peter did first-class, A-1, highest standard work and Pachuca is now a safe boat ready to go over the horizon.

I watched, asked questions, and learned a lot. Stern glands are no longer a frightening mystery to me. The packing should last for years but when the time comes I'll know what to do. I also no how to keep the packing greased.

On another front we had an unnecessary flap about location of the AIS antenna: I wanted it on top of the mast with the other antenna in order to maximize the range. I was given advice that this could and should be done. But Greg Hansen paid me a visit and said that the two antennas would be too close together at the top of the mast. However, he came up with a brilliant solution. He'll put a switch at the navigation station by which I will be able to switch the VHF antenna between the transceiver and the AIS. This is fine because I can do without the AIS during the short times when I'm using the transceiver. However, he advised that I go ahead and put up that second antenna at the stern as a spare.

I used my time to set up a sub switch panel near the mast. The main panel is crowded to the extent that there was a toggle switch behind the door leading to the forward section for switching between steaming and deck light. With the new setup all mast lighting will be controlled by the panel near the mast, which is a natural thing to do. This will free up switch positions in the main board and will make any future electrical fixtures in the forward section very simple because I won't have to cable all the way back to the navigation station. The panel is on one of my trademark jarrah bases. I'm using two bus bars (pos & neg), connected to the main switch with a dual core 6 sq mm cable.

So next week will be devoted to the mast: steps, new lights, and re-wiring toward the end of the week. Hopefully Maritime would have refurbished the wind vane/anemometer by then. I'm hoping too that Scottie will get time to put up those three new antenna bases at the stern. I did the leg work and got the fittings he needed, and he has the specifications (e.g. 260mm high). It is so much more efficient to do the work while Pachuca is on the hard stand that I would be reluctant to put her back in the water before those stands are in place.

My main tasks will be to (1) raise the lower anchor well drain holes and (2) polish the hull.

Looking farther ahead, I did some reading on the rack and pinion steering system on Pachuca, and in the next 2 or 3 months I'll have a look at three bearings in the system. Another thing I did was to figure out how to earth the mast and chain plates to the keel. The trick was finding a path with lazy rather than sharp bends. I'll draw up specs for the four cables required (2 for the mast, one for each chain plate) and have them made up.

Attached are photos of the panel, the two new cockpit drain valves, and the mast with its new radar bracket.


I sent out the following report 4 days ago:

It was another jam-packed and productive day. I started off by finishing some painting that I had begun the day before. It was a good call because it was not until about noon when Peter and "Donnie" from DeGroot engineering showed up.

We discussed the job and I asked Peter if they could do some work on the stern gland, i.e. repack it and replace the watertight boot that fits over the the coupling. The boot is important to me. Friends of mine, Peter Austin and Stewart came very close to losing their newly-purchased Spacesailer 27 the first time that they took it out. They revved the engine more than it was used to, the boot ruptured, water started gushing in at a serious rate, and they to cut their anchor rode and head for shore while pumping like mad to keep the boat afloat. The beached the boat near the ramp of the yacht club at Rockingham and had to join the club to get their help to haul it up. The thought of having a failure like that on the high seas sends shivers up my spine.

While looking the stern gland Peter noticed that the gear-shift cable has split and the innards very rusty. He asked me if I was having trouble with it. Funny you should ask. I had difficulty shifting gears when ferrying the boat to the works jetty. The cable was on its last legs and I'm lucky that he spotted it. The stern gland work will be done and the cable will be replaced. I'll be very attentive during the operation because I've got to get familiar with managing the stern gland ( i.e. greasing and repacking).

Then Donnie spent about 3 hours working to remove the original brass cockpit drain gate valves. The work area was very cramped and we had to spend quite a bit of time moving hosing and removing the engine exhaust system. Then he had to use the oxyacetylene torch to heat the valves to crack the thread seals amidst the self steering, batteries, wiring, hosing, etc. Then he had to use great force with a stilsen from an awkward angle. The hard work along with some nifty angle grinding got the required results. We were amazed at the thickness of the hull at that point: 20mm of fiberglass.Scotty says that the new generation of boats have ultra-thin hulls, particularly at the transom - so thin (5mm in parts) that he cannot fix stainless steel framing to it. I was of some assistance to Donne by fetching and handing tools, removing debris, lending him my set of imperial allen keys, etc. My first hack work of the day was to bail out and clean the bilge in preparation for the cable and stern gland work - a really nasty job.

Donnie will be back at 7AM tomorrow to finish the job. He will replace a valve in the head and possibly the engine seawater intake valve.

Then Edgar visited me. The aluminium folding steps that we had agreed on would not be available for 2 or more weeks. The folding steps made of composite material were available. But they had been available for only two weeks and had not proven themselves. The last thing I need if for a plastic step to give way while I'm 50 ft up the mast. The traditional non-folding steps were available. He says that they are powder coated white and look very nice. I could not take a chance on prolonging the hardstanding so I elected to go for the traditional steps as I had originally intended. The have disadvantages: measures must be taken to prevent halyards from snarling up on them, and they howl like hell in a blow. However, they have advantages: they are stronger, completely enclose the foot in a stirrup, enhance the boat's radar signature, and are $5.00 cheaper which is not trivial over 37 steps.

Then he gave me the really bad news. The second-hand headsail roller furler that he had in mind was too short and in any event would not be able to carry my sails. The options were (1) he would try to repair the existing one or (2) I purchase a new one for about $3,000. The forestay has the hardest life of all of the standing rigging, given that it constantly whips back and force when carrying a sail. I told him that to try to repair the existing furler was not fair to either him or me. So a new furler it is.

I left a message with Debbie that the screws through the main hatch turtle holding the track for the new spray dodger were too long - I was encountering resistance and a grinding noise whenever I slid the main hatch. A few hours later she visited, went away, then returned with shorter screws. Problem fixed. She says that she has finished the new dodger and is working on the cockpit canvas.

I touched base with Steve Hartley. He will visit tomorrow and make a template for the trysail track. Locating the track will be tricky because now that the radar cable has been fitted there is conduit on both sides of the mast.

Then Scotty surfaced. He had the worst case of gastro enteritis ever over the weekend. He literally thought that he would die. Picked it up at the nursing home, visiting his mother who had gastro enteritis and was not expected to live. (She lived.) He said that the plan of putting the AIS VHF antenna at the stern sucks: it should be at the top of the mast for greater range. It could mean the difference between a ship detecting me at something like 15 miles and more like 30. He said that two VHF antennas can coexist at the top of the mast. Tomorrow I will phone Peter Turner with the news. I doubt that there is enough room in the existing conduit to accommodate another VHF cable. The radar conduit has plenty of room. I'll suggest that they add another section of conduit from the radar dome to the top of the mast.

During the day I had time to purchase and install a 15mm galvanised swivel on the plow working anchor.

At 5.30 PM when things went quiet I had a beer in the cockpit of the boat overlooking the fishing boat harbour in the setting sun. Felt like a million dollars.

Pachuca Progress

Pachuca was dismasted and hauled out of the water on schedule last Tuesday the 10th. Fortunately the wind was gentler than predicted so we were able to maneuver the boat with little trouble. Reg Kelly arrived at around 8AM. We then walked over to the works jetty to make sure that there was an opening and plan the arrival. While we were there Edgar the rigger came up and confirmed that the gap between two boats would be OK, and the crane would be able to reach OK. Brenda and I then ferried the boat to the works jetty and the work began.

The entire process is bewildering to me, so I simply did everything that Edgar told me to do. We removed the mainsail and stack pack, all of the halyards, and eventually disconnected the standing rigging (once the crane was supporting the mast). We had trouble disconnecting the mast electrics. Fortunately Peter Turner from Maritime Electronics dropped by to deliver a GPS receiver to me and provided a valuable 30 minutes of assistance with the electrics. Unfortunately the main wiring had a knot somewhere so eventually I said to just cut the wires and we'll rewire the mast.

By noon Pachuca was in her cradle and the mast (with head sail attached) was horizontal on supports. Brenda, Reg, and I then had lunch at the club. (swordfish for Brenda and myself, chicken laksa for Reg.) Later that afternoon I started my work.

I've set up a new 12-switch panel on the forward bulkhead of the main cabin, set in a purpose-made jarrah frame. The upper 6 switches are fuse-protected and will control all of the mast lights. I removed the fuses of the lower 6 switches and I will use them as connectors for the B&G instrumentation (e.g. wind vane, anemometer). The idea is that if we think that there is any danger of lightning I will switch off all connections to the mast. Yes, the power surge may jump the switch but on the other hand enough may be diverted down to the keel to avoid damage. I suppose if we are entering some serious lightning danger I can get a screw driver and disconnect all of the wires.

The mast-wiring exercise is very good for me. We will have a much open, convenient, and expandable system that I will understand.

As I said earlier, the mast head light was about 1/3 full of rain water and the deck/steaming light was too corroded to recover. I have ordered a high-tech German-made LED mast light that I saw with my own eyes is brighter, very miserly on electricity, and LED's guaranteed for 50,000 hours. The bad news is that it will cost me over $600. The deck/steaming light will be another $164. For good measure I plan to set up two flood lights at the cross trees to really illuminate the boat if required, and to provide some redundancy.

Yesterday I saw Greg Hansen of Maritime Electronics at the hardstand area. It is lucky that I did. He plans to install not a passive (i.e. listen only) Raymarine AIS but an active (i.e. I transmit Pachuca's details to the ships around) Simrad AIS. That means that I do need three more stainless steel antenna stands, not one. One stand will be for the Raymarine chart plotter. The other two will be for a VHF antenna and yet another GPS receiver dedicated to the Simrad AIS. We will be sailing out with four external GPS receivers and one internal one, not to mention any hand-held GPS's that we'll have on board. Anyway, the information on the antenna stands was important because hopefully Scotty will be putting them on this week (though the AIS itself will come later).

Next week will be a busy one. I'll phone DeGroot engineering to prod them on regarding the thru-hull valves.

Taskers will come to do a template for the storm trysail track. They will probably fit it later in the week. Once that is done work on the try ail itself will begin. While they're at it Taskers will take one of the spinnaker poles away to convert it to split in half for storage below. It will act as a spare spinnaker pole and, God forbid, a jury-rig mast. The other spinnaker pole will stay on deck. Why are there two spinnaker poles? Pachuca is an ocean racer and two poles were required for fast jibes since the inner forestay prevented end-for-ending the pole.

Edgar will work with Peter Turner of Maritime Electronics to put in a second conduit in the mast and set up the wiring for the radar. The mast support will also be installed just above the lower cross trees. A new VHF antenna will be placed at the top of the mast, where it belongs.

A couple of days ago I removed the B&G anemometer and wind vane and took it into Maritime. Bearings for the unit were ordered 2 weeks ago and will be installed. The tail of the wind vane is a bit corroded at the leading edge. Greg says that you can't get a replacement and in any case they used to cost about $300. He told me how to repair it using aluminium and epoxy.

I spoke with Debbie on Thursday. She's started on the canvas work.

Once things clear up I will drill new drain holes for the lower part of the anchor well. This will include plugging up the old ones (which were too low) and moving the cover plates.

At the Cruising section AGM and dinner Jim Putt highly recommended mast steps. Reg and I put mast steps on Angie, and it would take a full day of hard work. I've got to decide on either going with the mast steps or relying on botsun's chair and mountain climbing gear to allow me to climb up a halyard. (Edgar can climb up to the mast in probably 15 seconds. I would settle for 15 minutes.)

I've accepted the fact that there is too much work to do to expect in only one week. I've decided to leave the boat laid up for as long as it takes.

Enclosed are some photos of the haul-out.

Progress Notes

In the middle of last week I decided to postpone the haul-out of Pachuca because the wind prediction the day was so bad. A wind prediction 5 days not exactly 100% reliable but I could not take a chance on having a gust of wind slam me into a jetty or, worse, another boat. It turned out to be a good call. The wind howled all day well over 35 knots, with gusts in the high 40's. There was one gust of 57 knots recorded at Rottnest Island.

So for the three days I worked on lighting. I replaced the double-tube fluorescent lights over the cabin, galley, and navigation station with new ones. The old ones worked OK but looked faded and worn out. I also replaced the small dome light in the head with a fluorescent unit. I then installed the recovered dome light in the clothes locker where a light was badly needed.

While at Yacht Grot I asked Trevor about a strobe light for the top of my mast. He thinks that a better solution is to replace my masthead tricolour with a German-made unit that has a dedicated LED for each colour, and one on top for the anchor light. The LED's give out much more light, consume much less power, and are guaranteed for 50,000 hours (i.e. about 6 years of continuous operation). The bad news is that the unit costs over $600. I told him that I'll have to get used to that price. $600 sounds like a lot of money, but I must balance that against day after day of greater visibility, less power, and good assurance that I won't have a light blow out at the wrong time, not to mention having to go up the mast in a boatswain's chair. Chances are 50-50 that I'll do it.

The haul-out is scheduled for Thursday 12 July.

Yesterday on the way out I touched base with Martin at DeGroot Marine Services. We went over the entire list of through-hull valves and agreed that we will swap out any that look questionable.

Hmm. I've just found the following on the net:

Raymarine: AIS for leisure boats

Raymarine has launched its AIS250 receiver, a compact unit designed to integrate with Raymarine’s SeaTalk network, bringing the ability to see AIS transponder information on chartplotter and radar screens.

The AIS250 is a switched dual channel, multiplexed system, which means a single receiver uses complex software to monitor AIS Class A and Class B transmissions over both standard VHF frequencies. For ease of fitting, the AIS250 uses a splitter circuit to utilize the existing VHF antenna and cabling, and links to the existing VHF radio on board.

Raymarine’s E and C Series multifunction displays have been upgraded to show AIS symbols and information directly on to both the chartplotter and radar screens.

It appears that I may not need a second VHF antenna after all.